Lockdown Diary - Sunday 2nd August 2020

Today is son #3's 18th birthday, so I'll probably not write that much, as it will be a day of doing and being.

We're all off out for lunch at the local Italian restaurant to celebrate his birthday. Given the current state of pubs - certainly the two I've seen locally - It may be a while before I get to buy him his first legal drink in a pub.

At various points during the day, I've managed to do a bit of reading - the usual Sunday paper, 'Machines Like Me' - but not a lot. A couple of boring chores done too, including two wash loads. My what fun!

Son #3 chose the evening's food and a non-standard lemon drizzle cake for his birthday.  We didn't manage to watch a film on Saturday night, and so film night shifted to tonight.

The choice of film didn't seem entirely in keeping with the birthday mood, it being the Spike Lee film 'BlacKkKlansman', but it was son #3's choice, so I was happy to go along with it.

Well, that was quite something.  At the start of 'BlacKkKLansman' I hadn't taken in the fact that it was based on a true story, though heavily fictionalised for the film, so the humour, often dark, and set against some really uncomfortable scenes of racism, was all the more powerful. The film closes with real life news footage of the incidents that happened in Charlottesville in 2017 and a reminder of how complicit Trump has been in the resurgence of racial hatred in the USA.  If you haven't seen this film, you really should. It's on Netflix for starters.

After the film, I can really only choose music that appeared in it, anything else would feel wrong. I was going to go with 'Oh, Happy Day' by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, but I reckon you'd all thing I'd gone crazy and found religion, or some such. Instead, I've chosen 'Ball of Confusion' by The Temptations from the album 'Psychedelic Soul'  


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