My brain and me - Forever arguing

I have Alexa in the bedroom. She has lots of exciting skills installed including many nature sounds. I particularly like the tropical beach skill which I use to help me drift off to sleep. I try to think I’m on a desert island alone relaxed and with everything I need. Except my brain won’t let me

Me: OK so I wake up in my hammock
Brain: Hold on. When did you get a hammock?
Me: I just did OK and it’s strung under some woven leaves as a canopy 
Brain: Pffttt there’s no way you’d know how to weave leaves. 
Me: Shut up. So I wake up and go down to the waters edge to have a swim/wash
Brain: What about going to the loo? You gonna pee in the sea?
Me: I might. Or I will have dug a latrine
Brain: You know how to dig a latrine? How are you gonna not fall in
Me: there will be a seat of some kind. This is supposed to be relaxing....
Anyway I’m going for a swim
Brain: I wouldn’t. You know what kind of creatures hang out in tropical seas. Poisonous ones that’s what. 
Me: Not in my sea. This is a dream or fantasy, brain. So quit it
Brain: Fine. 
Me: So off I go for my swim
Brain: By the way what are you wearing?
Me: I don't know. Um a crop top and pants
Brain: You're letting the twins hang out? That's brave
Me: I'm all alone. OK I have a no-bra bra-top on
Brain: And pants. On a desert island. So your pant moustache will be flourishing. No topiary kit on a desert island...
Me: OK FINE I'm wearing cut off leggings in a cycling short stylee.
Brain: OK off you go.
Me: OK after my swim I shall go and look for fruit for breakfast
Brain: I have some questions
Me: <sigh> WHAT
Brain: Well firstly, how do you know what fruit is edible. Secondly how do you plan to get up any trees to get it. and THIRDLY...
Me: Well?
Brain: Thirdly, you wont have your medication with you so that lovely Bile Salt Malabsorption will kick in fairly sharpish meaning you'll be needing that latrine on a fairly regular basis. ESPECIALLY if you eat a lot of fruit.
Me: Well the island is full of fruit I recognise and I am able to climb up because the trunks are like palm trees with sort of steps and I will have to cope OK?
Brain: OK I'll be quiet
Me: Good I'm trying to relax here you know. OK So I have gathered a breakfast of breadfruit, papaya and mango
Brain: Um...
Me: What now?
Brain: You know you have no idea what breadfruit looks or tastes like?
Me: I'm using my imagination.
Brain: I shouldn't - That way madness lies...
Me: So then I go and rinse off under the waterfall
Brain: Oh hang on now!
Me: What now?
Brain: How big is this island?
Me: I don't know... small - It takes 2/3 days to walk all the way round.
Brain: OK that isn't going to work you know - Where is the fresh water coming from?
Me: I don't know, under the ground?
Brain: No there wouldn't be enough to power a waterfall and maintain the flow. Either the island has to be bigger or.... Well it just has to be bigger.
Me: Fine it's bigger
Brain: Then how do you know you're all alone?
Me: BECAUSE ITS MY DREAM. 
Brain: OK well if you're going to be silly about it....

By which point I have to get up, google breadfruit, how to build a shelter and a latrine so that I can return to my daydream landscape fully equipped. Unfortunately this has also given my brain time to think...

Brain: Hey um is Saga on this island?
Me: I don't think so - How would Saga get there?
Brain: I don't know, it's your dream. It's just that she'd like to have a whole island to run about on and you need someone to talk to.
Me: Apparently I have you.
Brain: Yeah and look how well that's working out. Seriously I think Saga should be there.
Me: OK fine. Saga is there.
Brain: Great. What's she gonna eat?
Me: What?
Brain: Saga, what's she gonna eat? She can't eat nothing but fruit!
Me: Oh.... Um... Oh shellfish - I will become adept at catching shell fish in the shallow waters nearby.
Brain: That actually makes sense. OK off you go to sleep. I hope there aren't any predators on the island. G'night
Me: <Yawn> G'nighWHAT?????

Perhaps I'd be better off with a thunderstorm...

The No Watch List

I went to see Mary Poppins Returns this week. It was, as you'd expect magical and practically perfect in every way. And as an aside I am now in love with Lin-Manuel Miranda. I get very excited when I go to the cinema. I always have a cherry ice blast and I like to get in my seat in plenty of time for the trailers. And it stated beforehand that all the trailers would be suitable for the audience. And Mary Poppins Returns is a U, Universally Suitable for Everyone. Now this is important because what happened next was a travesty. I was subjected to the live action Dumbo trailer. I closed my eyes and I covered my ears but it didn't help. That poor little baby elephant still had his mother cruelly taken away. I wanted to run home, scoop up my Saga and cuddle her all night. It took quite a few sucks on the old slushie to get over that I can tell you. That was certainly not Suitable for Everyone.
Dumbo is on my No Watch List. The USA has a  "No Fly List" - A watch list of people the government has designated as "known or suspected terrorists". And I have the "No Watch List". Films or TV shows (or books) that I will not even entertain watching due to their content. Some, I have been traumatised by already.

I had managed to avoid the Dumbo trailer for months now - Ignoring it on the trailer channel and fast forwarding it whenever it showed up. I have also carefully ignored seeing the cartoon again. The only bit I'll watch is the crows doing When I see an Elephant Fly. Note: I am aware of the racist connotations of that scene and yes I know that Walt Disney was pro Nazi. So was Henry Ford. It is what is is.

So how do you get on my No Watch List? Well usually cruelty or "bad things" being done to animals is a given, especially baby animals. So whilst <SPOILERS> Marley and Me is utterly devastating, that dog had a fantastic life . Whereas The Fox and the Hound is a no flipping go from the start - Never seen it. Not going to thank you very much. 

Inanimate objects having feelings is a dodgy area for me too. So I struggle with Wall E and the Pixar shorts <wipes a tear>. Or animals that are lost or lonely - Homeward Bound is a difficult watch. 

I do struggle with films when people are horrible to other people (or animals) the beating scene in Casino made me cover my eyes and I won’t watch home invasion horror. Quite happy for the protagonist to be tortured by a ghostly demon but if it’s the next door neighbour then I’m out. 

In 1978 a new cartoon film came out for children. My aunt took me to see it. I was 7 1/2. I spent most of the film with my head under my cardigan. It was a dark pink cardigan that my mother had knitted me with flower buttons. My aunt kept pulling it down saying "You cant see the film". That was kind of the point. To this day I will never understand the thinking behind Watership Down. Last Christmas they announced a TV version. It was a no from me. No no no. I have read and seen excerpts of Plague Dogs, Richard Adams next book. And you can keep it. 

I watch films/TV to be entertained, not be be emotionally wrangled - I can do that myself. And I know my Watership Down vents on Facebook have resonated with a number of chums. It would seem it’s on many people's No Watch List. What's on yours?

Who’s your daddy? Film families

I was watching A Muppet Christmas Carol (because it’s the number one Christmas film and it's awesome) and I had a troubling thought. 

Bob and Emily Cratchit have 4 children in this version. 2 boys and twin girls.

Now Bob is played by Kermit the Frog and Emily by Miss Piggy so you may wonder what their offspring might look like. Well it would seem that the girls are piggies like their mother and the boys frogs (like daddy). 
Now you might say (and you be right) "Ahh but Lillekat, Miss Piggy and Kermit are only playing the Cratchits and the children are also being acted - after all isn't Tiny Tim being played by Robin, Kermit's nephew?" And I would bow to your Muppet knowledge and be quiet for a minute before going "Ah yes, dear reader, but what about Gumball?"

Gumball is a cat. And so is his mother. But his father and his sister are both rabbits. Their adopted brother is a goldfish but lets stay within the realms of possibility here! So in the world of Gumball, offspring look like either of the parents but not both.

And then there's Dr Who. In the episode Gridlock, a humanoid and a cat person had a litter of what were blatantly kittens. And not human baby sized kittens, kitten sized kittens which must have been the easiest labour ever! Would they develop in to full cats? or cat people or something else? We may never know.

Some shows look at the possibility of cross breeds. In Adventure Time, a dog and a rainbow unicorn create rainbow puppies. And Nergal Jnr in Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is a combination of his father Nergal, Humanoid Abomination from the centre of the Earth, and Billy's Aunt Sis.

And look at the Shrek franchise. Donkey and Dragon's offspring are definite cross breeds. Little fire breathing donkeys with wings. Cute and neither a dragon nor a donkey.

There is a whole tv trope dedicated to inter species love, notably in animation, from human and alien love/ marriage in Futurama to penguin and dolphin unrequited love for Kowalski (Penguins of Madagascar, like I needed to tell you) And of course there's the whole woman/kangaroo thing in Tank Girl....

But most of these couples are, due to age constraints, non sexual and on screen at least, innocent.

But am I the only one who shouts at the screen

Won't someone think of the children?