Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Hold onto your tits guys, but until this viewing, I'd only seen Rosemary's Baby once before - and that was twenty-eight years ago. I persuaded my dad to let me watch it when it was shown on BBC2 when I was a kid. I thought it was part of Moviedrome, but a quick glance on BBC Genome tells me that it was actually part of Moving Pictures, which dates it to a Saturday in 1991. I would have been eleven years old. Not exactly the right age for the film. 

All I can actually remember from that viewing though is Elisha Cook (wonderful as ever) showing them around the apartment, Ralph Bellamy and that scene. Not surprising that a '40s cinema obsessed kid would recall those two performers, whilst the conception is bound to stick in anyone's head. But everything else I know of Rosemary's Baby has come from popular culture I think, which makes me wonder now if I even stuck around until the end as a boy. 

Why has it taken me this long to properly view it though? Well, as I say, it's a film that is so entrenched in popular culture, you don't really feel like you need to see it. It will hold no surprises after all. But the fact that I love the cast and the director does make it odd that I've waited almost thirty years to watch it again/properly. I've no excuses. I've had the DVD for years. But, this being Halloween and, on Letterboxd, Hooptober (something I don't really engage with), I thought I'd make the effort.

What I said there about it being a film that holds no surprises is absolutely correct. Not just in terms of it being so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness and referenced elsewhere, but because Polanski lays all his cards on the table almost immediately. With that in mind, I can see why some people find Rosemary's Baby something of a disappointment when they finally come to it. The fact that it lacks in mystery or ambiguity puts me in mind of an episode of Columbo, where we, the audience, were always privy to the murderer and their crimes. Just like with Peter Falk's detective, we are invited to watch as Mia Farrow pieces together the jigsaw and confirms her suspicions and her worst fears. 

However, to dismiss Rosemary's Baby as lacking in suspense because of this is to do it a great disservice. Suspense is deeply atmospheric, and you cannot deny that Polanski's film is that, with some of the most unsettling vibes and trippy dream sequences imaginable. Granted there's the familiar coldness that one always finds in Polanski's films, the sense of a filmmaker who refuses to afford his audiences a happy ending, but to dismiss Rosemary's Baby as a cold film would be similarly unfair. As with all Polanski films, there's a delicious irony, offbeat comedy and mordant wit to the proceedings. I love for example Rosemary's dialogue; "Shut up. You're in Dubrovnik, I can't hear you" cracks me up, as does the rote, trip-off-the-tongue way she routinely affords a summary of her husband's career to strangers; "He was in Luther and Nobody Loves an Albatross and he does a lot of television". I also love that the phrase "It's alive!" so unanimous with Universal's Frankenstein series of the 1940s, is ironically, playfully employed here in a very new kind of horror with a similar striking effect, and so subtly that audiences may not necessarily pick up on it. Eleven year old me certainly wouldn't have done, that's for sure. 

I love Polanski's casting too. He doesn't go for the obvious, populating his coven with the likes of Bette Davis, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price. Instead he opts for the far more believable, seemingly innocuous and avuncular Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer. Perhaps best of all, there is Patsy Kelly; pure comic relief found in the most intense and evil of threats. You could compare the coven to the famous description of Eichmann on trial, 'the banality of evil'. But there's a banality to the daily New York life, the dreams and aspirations of its residents that Polanski plays with here. For example, John Cassavetes is memorably bought so cheaply, with the dream of making it big in showbusiness (hadn't he heard of Scientology?)  but look too at Rosemary's materialistic dreamscapes of the Kennedy yacht and you'll see Polanski poking fun at venal suburban ambition. 

Lastly, perhaps the greatest irony of all can be found in how the story puts the reality of witchcraft on its head. History tells us that those suspected of witchcraft were often the unfortunates of society, cast out on the fringes because of a variety of misfortune, mental illness, poverty or something that the wider society simply could not tolerate. As a result, they became persecuted by the Church, the local townsfolk and witchfinders to maintain some kind of security for the wider community. In Rosemary's Baby however, it is the titular healthy-minded, good-looking character who is targeted and persecuted for the coven's sake.

Happy Halloween readers.

Election

So we're set to go to the polls on December 12th and it is imperative that we use this opportunity to bring a Labour government to the victory.

Boris Johnson is trying to say that this election is about everything other than his Brexit plan, but it's not working. He wanted to say it was an election about law and order, but his '20,000 more police officers on the beat' claims have been skewered by the clear reality that it was the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government who systematically reduced police numbers by 21,000. Even with these 20,000 promised, there will still be a shortage. And that's not counting natural wastage to, like retirements and resignations. Simply put, the Tories are trying and failing to put right the wrongs they have already made, and in a very half arsed fashion. This was beautifully brought into the harsh glare of the spotlight this morning by Susanna Reid's grilling of health secretary Matt Hancock on Good Morning Britain.

So today, Boris Johnson attended PMQ's and seemed to want to make his election all about the NHS instead. But there's another flaw here; his government have just been caught out engaging in secret, under-the-table trade talks with Trump that will carve up our NHS. Watching the shameless Johnson stand there and attempt to berate Jeremy Corbyn about the NHS, a Labour leader who was personally integral in getting a cystic fibrosis drug onto the NHS last week because a young boy crippled with the condition had written to him, after his pleas to the Tory government went unheard, was nothing short of disgraceful. My only worry of course is that people will be gullible enough to still vote Conservative. But I ask you, who is our NHS better served by? A leader who listens to those who use it and feel neglected and proactively does something positive to change that person's life, or a leader who wants to sell it off wholesale to private US pharma companies? Boris Johnson knows that a handcuffs deal with the US will actually raise the NHS drug budget, crippling the service into further debt that it will be inevitable to privatise the whole thing. He knows this, because that's exactly what he wants - and end to a free NHS as we know it.

I'll be saying this a lot between now and December. Make sure you have a vote, and use it wisely - vote Labour.

Out On Blue Six: Yazz and the Plastic Population

BBC4's recent Top of the Pops repeats from 1988 have been all about one song; The Only Way is Up by Yazz and the Plastic Population. 

Last night's repeat saw the track spend its 5th (and if memory serves final) week at number one. What a tune. And wasn't Yazz wonderful?

Yazz had previously made her debut earlier in 1988 (and earlier this year) with dance duo Coldcut and their hit, Doctorin' the House

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A Good Woman is Hard to Find (2019)

Out at cinemas today, Abner Pastoll's part kitchen sink drama/part revenge thriller A Good Woman is Hard to Find is well worth seeking out.

"...A Good Woman is Hard to Find gets bloody, but it retains an authentic air that is largely achieved through Sarah Bolger's remarkable and grounded performance in the lead role. Screenwriter Ronan Blaney places the character of Sarah on an incredible journey which Bolger's deeply real performance sells at every wildly varying stage. Without wanting to give too much of the plot away, her arc takes her from ground down and victimised, panicky and demeaned, to grimly determined and empowered, but it also takes in some comedy too, as evinced by a genuinely funny moment near the start of the film involving a dildo - which goes on to prove integral when Sarah digs deep into her reserves of courage. It's a great calling card of a role, and marks Bolger out as one to watch..."

Read my full review at The Geek Show

The Day Shall Come (2019)

Moses Al Shabaz is a dreamer. An impoverished preacher, he believes in community and has recruited former drug dealers onto the path of righteousness with his collective farm and has a series of madcap revolutionary and religious ideals. But the farm is in danger and his family faces eviction. When a stranger offers cash to help him, he has no idea that his sponsor works for the FBI, who plan to turn Moses into a credible terrorist threat...instead of a man who thinks God speaks to him through animals.

It ought to come as no surprise that, of all his '90s anti-establishment comic contemporaries, Chris Morris has lost none of his bite or his caustic eye for what the powers that be claim to be doing in our name. Unlike his former collaborators who have become the twitterati, firing missives that may criticise the government but ultimately respect the neocon status quo and wish for it to persist, he is still deeply anti-establishment.

Morris knows that the best way to tackle the absurdity of life and get audiences to consider the injustice of the many true-life stories this film is based is to do it through comedy. Like the very best satire, there's a thread of pathos that runs through this to the point where the tears of laughter become genuine tears as you realise the repercussions of so-called intelligence services who have gone from chasing shadows to chasing their own tails.

As this is co-written by Jesse Armstrong, it's perhaps inevitable that comparisons can be found in some of the witty interplay between the various representatives of America's homeland security with the sparky dialogue of The Thick of It and Veep (shows which Armstrong worked on) but there's a sobering darkness at the heart of Morris' work that was lacking in those series from Armando Iannucci, whose politicos retained a likeability despite their many great flaws and terrible actions. Morris reminds us that the dick measuring contests conducted here have terrible consequences for innocents, and innocents in the very truest sense of the word. 

In terms of performances, The Day Shall Come belongs to three actors; Marchánt Davis, Danielle Brooks and Anna Kendrick. Davis in particular is a real find. As Moses Al Shabaz he embodies a sense of nobility and naivety that is really charming and deeply affecting. I wish that Brooks, who plays his loving yet long suffering wife Venus, had a little more screen time than she has, because her chemistry with Davis is a joy, but she really shines when she does appear on screen. Lastly, Anna Kendrick is undoubtedly the biggest name in the picture, but there's never a sense of someone slumming it or lending her star power to a little vehicle in her performance as the only FBI agent with anything approaching a conscience, as it is both committed and on the same wave length as everyone else. But in all honesty, no one puts a foot wrong here, it's a very harmonious production.

Out On Blue Six: Buggles

Forty years ago today, this song was number one - Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles

And forty years ago today, I arrived in the world. Yup, I turn 40 today.

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Out On Blue Six: Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott

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Joker (2019)

It's impossible to deny that Joker is anything other than a divisive movie. I've read the five and four star reviews and I've read the one star reviews on Letterboxd. I could see merit in all of them. I had my own preconceptions of the movie, after all.

I worried that the film was doing the usual harmful Hollywood stereotype of depicting someone with mental health problems as being a danger to others, when in reality, such people are more likely to be a danger to themselves.

I worried that, with Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy being widely reported influences and the use of the vintage 1970s/'80s Warner Bros logo that we'd essentially be watching the cinematic equivalent of one of those filters that hipsters add to their instagram photos to make the shot they took yesterday actually look  like it was taken in 1983. I worried that I'd spend the running time just wishing I was actually watching Taxi Driver or The King of Comedy.

I worried too about the writer/director Todd Phillips, a man whose back catalogue I do not care for and who, as m'colleague on Letterboxd Graham Williamson says in his review has acted "like a royal dong on the press tour"; especially rich given the magpie like nature of what he clearly believes to be his tour de force.

I even found myself worrying, during the film, that Phillips really is insensitive and that America really did have no appreciation of irony if they think laying notorious sex offender Gary Glitter's track 'Rock & Roll Part 2' over a character who, it has just been revealed, was a victim of sexual abuse as a child is a good idea Though let's face it, it is a stonkingly good track, I do worry about the royalties and kudos that that disgusting man is now likely to receive as a result.

But there were things I saw in some reviews that I had no worries about. I didn't see why it was problematic to depict a backstory for the Joker. After all, hadn't we already seen one in Tim Burton's similarly revisionist take back in 1989? I fail to comprehend why it is only acceptable to delve into the origins of Bruce Wayne, ostensibly a good guy, but nonetheless a man whose personal tragedy has meant that he has become, as many would say, a dangerous vigilante. Don't people who act in a manner we find shocking deserve some examination, especially if their behaviour equally stems from some deep trauma? Just a few short days ago there was a knife attack in Manchester, for which the culprit, initially widely believed to be a terrorist is actually currently being detained under the Mental Health Act. Watching Joker in the wake of such events made this argument resonate all the more. Surely we can attempt to understand even if we cannot ever find it possible to condone?

I also didn't buy into the argument that Joker somehow excuses criminality and violence, that it was some kind of rallying cry. Frankly I think people who push that idea as a criticism is essentially doing the work of the privileged elite who benefit from the rotten capitalist system. These people can afford to be unaffected and untouched by economic crisis not just because of their wealth, but because their power is implicit on such people keeping them in their lofty positions. Each critic who expresses concern that this somehow condones or sympathises with violence against the state is simply protecting the pampered establishment and serving as their apologists. Frankly it's a bit rich to complain about a film that points the finger at the haves for the disenfranchised have-nots when its the former who are responsible for the latter. If those in power were really concerned, if they really meant it, they'd be banning the guns that are responsible for the violence and investing more in social care.

Before I headed out to see Joker today I read a comment on a political blog I follow regarding the Queen's speech at this morning's state opening of parliament. The man, called Trev, remarked that he only saw a bit of the speech on TV because not only did he find its content unbearable but that he had to go and walk a mile and half to his nearest library to print out evidence of his recent jobsearch activities ahead of signing on tomorrow. He explained that he has to walk because he can't afford the bus fare and that he fully expects that the person he'll be interviewed by tomorrow won't even look at his evidence. "I could have spent that last £2 on food or bog roll" he lamented, adding "Listening to Liz II saying unconvincingly “My Government will do this….and that” bears no relevance to my life whatsoever". This is the hard reality of daily life for many as a result of the choice of austerity measures that governments undertook as a result of the economic crisis their friends, relatives and social or educational contemporaries were responsible for. It reminded me of something Graham Williamson (again) said in his review; "there is a definite value to having them made in the context of a mass-appeal blockbuster rather than a Ken Loach film for once". As someone who watches a hell of a lot of Ken Loach and thinks that he's one of the finest filmmakers around, I completely agree with this. No matter how incredible Loach is, a socio-realist film like I, Daniel Blake, from which Trev's comment could easily have been a scene from, will only ever reach a certain kind of audience. A blockbuster like this reaches a far wider and arguably more diverse audience and that means that a similar message (however simplified or superficially explored) will go further. I'm encouraged that some of the people leaving a showing of Joker will actually be considering the unfairness of budgetary cuts in social care and the very real consequences of such a decision on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society. Joker may be set in the fictional city of Gotham in the 1980s, but it is very much a film for our times with real world concerns.

I've written a lot here and yet so far I haven't even mentioned the main reason why I feel that Joker is worthy of your consideration; Joaquin Phoenix. His nuanced performance here is absolutely incredible and deserves all the plaudits and awards that will inevitably come his way. When his Arthur Fleck is performing, there's an effeminacy to his mannerisms and a constant dazed smirk that put me in mind a little of Gene Wilder but, as the film progresses and he becomes more and more beaten down by the injustice of his very existence, he becomes harder, sharper The smile fixes and the mask sets. He becomes what society will view as a  threat rather than the oddball they had previously summarily dismissed. What's perhaps alarming to audiences is, his character embraces and enjoys the transition. He feels it is who he ought to be, and it's all there in that dance. 

With such an outstanding performance it is perhaps inevitable that the rest of the cast take something of a back seat. However, Zazie Beetz gives a great account of herself as Fleck's single-parent neighbour and the object of his surreptitious affection, appearing like a real flower in the dustbin of the garbage-stricken Gotham, though the flaws of the screenplay means that her character has no journey. Meanwhile Robert De Niro delivers a commendable cameo that, whilst far away from the powers he held in the heyday that Phillips' film so clearly idolises, isn't the kind of autopilot performance we've become accustomed to in recent years. As chat show host Murray Franklin, he oozes from every panstuck pore the faux clubbable bonhomie of a man who talks and wisecracks for a living and looked, to my eyes at least, remarkably like Ronald Reagan. 

Ultimately Joker is a downbeat film whose emotional tone is unvarying and negative but it is touched with brilliance. It's an angry film at a time when anger is understandable, but it's a film that asks us not to be angry, but instead to be empathetic. I've a feeling it's going to stay with me for some time. I needn't have worried.

Angel Heart (1987)

"...It’s a lonely place for someone like me over on Letterboxd just now. Whilst the bulk of the community celebrate the Halloween season with the Hooptober Horror Film Challenge I, never much of a joiner-inner, continue to watch whatever takes my fancy. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a good scary movie, I just couldn’t think of anything worse than watching nothing but them for four weeks. However, m’colleagues here at The Geek Show have offered me a concessionary branch-line in the shape of this review for Alan Parker’s 1987 film, Angel Heart..."

See my full review at The Geek Show

RIP Stephen Moore

Deeply saddened to hear of the death of Stephen Moore at the age of 81.

Moore, who died on 4th October, was best known for providing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the original radio and television adaptations of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and for playing the father of two teenage television legends; Adrian Mole and Harry Enfield's Kevin the Teenager. Other credits included the films The Boat That Rocked, Brassed Off, Clockwise and A Bridge Too Far and regular roles in TV series such as Rock Follies, The Queen's Nose, and The Peter Principle. A renowned stage actor, he appeared as Hector in the 2006-'07 revival of Alan Bennett's The History Boys and in Howard Brenton's controversial 1980 play The Romans in Britain as Major Chichester, a performance I would have dearly loved to have seen because, whenever I read the text, I can picture him so clearly in the role of the British intelligence officer 'gone native' in Northern Ireland. He was perhaps at his best playing lugubrious and morose characters, often with a degree of insubordination that hinted at a more active past that had now given way to fatigue and boredom. 

RIP

Out On Blue Six: Liam Gallagher

A real magpie of a song from Liam's latest solo album, Why Me? Why Not

As a wine taster might say, "Hmm I'm getting John Lennon. I'm getting the Stones and Let's Spend the Night Together. I'm getting Sunshine Superman. I'm getting Marc Bolan, 'bang a gong' indeed. I'm getting Elton John"

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The Keeper (2018)

St Helens, England, 1944

I can't tell you how much of a rush that opening caption from The Keeper gave me. You see, it's not often that a film is set in my hometown. Not just my hometown, but on the very streets immediately beyond my front doorstep and within my local pub. And OK, they didn't film it here, they filmed it in rural Northern Ireland, which doesn't really look anything like here but yeah, let me have my moment.

Bert Trautmann is a legend here in St Helens. Arriving in the town as a German POW, his prowess as a goalkeeper soon caught the attention of St Helens AFC's manager Jack Friar, whilst his good looks captured the heart of Friar's daughter Margaret. Of course, being a former soldier in the Wehrmacht (and one awarded the Iron Cross to boot), Trautmann's reception in the town was initially a hostile one in the immediate aftermath of the war, and this struggle to be accepted was further magnified when he signed for Manchester City, one of the biggest clubs in England, in 1949. But Trautmann's gentlemanly conduct, his desire to move on and make the best of things, and his outstanding performances on the pitch soon won even his fiercest critics over. As a player with Man City, he will forever be remembered as 'the man who played on' when, during the 1956 FA Cup Final, he broke his neck but refused to leave the pitch until victory was secured.

It is very weird watching a film set in your hometown though, seeing locations on screen purporting to be places you know, and seeing household familiar actors portray people whose children, grandchildren and relations you also actually know to talk to. As I say, the location filming doesn't really look much like what St Helens looked like during this period (nowhere near industrial looking enough really) and the exterior location of the Junction Inn (my nearest pub) is particularly unrecognisable, I mean it's called the Junction because it's directly opposite the train station so to not factor that in was a bit remiss, but they've clearly worked from photos of the now demolished 'town ground', as us St Heleners affectionately called the team's ground, as the stands as depicted brought back memories. I often have an issue about accents and getting them right (and wrong) in films and it's fair to say that no one on the screen here really convinced me as coming from St Helens, with the possible exception of Barbara Young as Grandma Sarah. John Henshaw, who plays Jack Friar, is performing in his usual Manchester Ancoats accents, whilst Freya Mavor (playing Margaret) and the rest of the cast are doing a generic northern accent that often sounded more Yorkshire to my ears than Lancastrian. To be fair, St Helens is a strange accent these days, with no two people ever really sounding the same; some sound proper Lancastrian, whilst others sound scouse, but the former was definitely the way to go for the actors here. Did any of this detract from me appreciation of the film? No, not really. I'm just glad that they got some good details in - such as the team singing 'When the Saints Go Marching In', a St Helens anthem used for both football and rugby league - and have bothered to tell the story in the first place. It's been a long time coming; the actor Warren Clarke, a staunch Man City fan*, had long harboured a desire to make a film of Trautmann's extraordinary life and it's a shame that he didn't live to see this. 

I can't fault the performances either; David Kross is very good and believable as Trautmann, both on and off the pitch, and he possesses good chemistry with Mavor, an actress who is fast becoming a crush for me. John Henshaw is always good value, that goes without saying, but I did feel that the likes of Gary Lewis, Dervla Kirwan, Dave Johns and Julian Sands were a little wasted in their supporting roles. As a film, I wouldn't say The Keeper did anything spectacular and may hold little interest for anyone outside of the north west or those who do not follow football, but it was a very enjoyable watch that didn't seek to simply gloss over Trautmann's war record and the discomfort he felt about having to perform such a duty. I may be reading a little too much into it here, and I have to be a little careful about what I say, but in some respects The Keeper feels a little timely now as a Brexit movie. St Helens, to my eternal disappointment, was a leave voting town (as indeed were so many towns scarcely troubled by immigration and who had previously benefitted greatly from EU funding) so there's something of a contemporary resonance in seeing characters purporting to be from here (and later from Manchester) telling a German immigrant to go home and treating him with vitriol. Now obviously with the war, these people had a much greater and more genuine reason for hating a foreign migrant than any xenophobe has towards a wholly innocent one in today's climate, but I felt that the parallel was still there nonetheless and that the harmonious message of forgive and forget that the film has is one that is needed now more than ever. Then again, with the news as it is, maybe everything I view feels like it's shot through with Brexit nowadays.

*One other famous Man City fan also makes a contribution to the movie; Noel Gallagher's song, 'The Dying of the Light', plays over the closing credits.

Out On Blue Six: Cream, RIP Ginger Baker

It's a sad farewell to the Albert Steptoe of rock, as Ginger Baker has died at the age of 80.

RIP

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Out On Blue Six: Eddie & the Hot Rods, RIP Barrie Masters

RIP Barrie Masters, frontman and founding member of Canvey Island pub rockers Eddie & the Hot Rods.

The band were lauded as one of the pioneers of the nascent punk scene, with no less a figure than The Clash's Joe Strummer citing them as the first punk band he ever saw and John Peel pointing to them as the first example of there being a 'change in the air'. But being grouped with DIY bands like The Sex Pistols didn't go down too well originally with Masters who believed the band was more to do with hard graft and accomplishments than fashion. Indeed, The Sex Pistols played their debut gig as support for Eddie & the Hot Rods in London in 1976 and incurred Masters' wrath by smashing up the band's equipment; "I gave John Lydon a little slap and told him, you don't do that to another band's gear" Masters later recalled. They were perhaps best known for the 1977 hit, Do Anything You Wanna Do, an anthem for disillusioned teenagers whose message did little to separate them from the punk milieu they found themselves unintentionally part of. But I'm with Masters; Many's the time down the years that I have bored friends and acquaintances with how much I love this song and how, to me at least, it represents the closest in spirit a British outfit ever got the similar dissatisfied blue collar desire for wanderlust that Bruce Springsteen employed across the pond. It's a beautiful track that immediately energises you, and I cannot think of a better tribute to Masters than playing it, so here goes... 

Masters eventually came to terms with the tag 'punk' after playing in the US where he found Blondie were also being heralded as a punk group. The band folded in 1981 but reformed three years later and last performed a live retirement gig together in April this year at the suitably titled 'Done Everything We Wanna Do' night in London. 

RIP

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Wordless Wednesday: Untitled Film Still #35

We Need To Talk About Jess

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have little time for Jess Phillips (see here), but I have to say that I am appalled that she and her office were targeted by a right wing idiot last week.

However, despite this sympathy, I have to say that my opinion on Phillips has not changed. In fact I really despair of her. Whilst she rightly calls out Boris Johnson's dangerous rhetoric, she equally condemns those of us on the left who call him a dictator. What is a persistent attempt to flout the law and stymie democracy if not the actions of a dictator? I suspect Ms Phillips would advise caution in calling Hitler a dictator where she around in '30s Germany. Worse, she is taking a moral highground that she does not have the right to occupy. Let's not forget that Jess Phillips once proudly boasted that she'd stab Jeremy Corbyn in the front. At a time when knife crime is on the rise in this country with many needless, tragic deaths, this was a stupid and most toxic statement to make and she should be ashamed of herself.

What also irks me about Phillips is how she seems to deliberately work against the party she claims to represent at every turn, as this tweet about her recent front page splash in the right wing press highlights. Labour cannot hope to convince enough voters to place them as the next government of this country if their own representatives show such little confidence. It's a dangerous and deliberate mixed message designed to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Number 10. That the Sunday Times was so eager to publish it speaks volumes.

Jess Phillips is not a parliamentarian. She is a would-be celebrity. She cultivates, from her valuable position, this persona of being a working class, no-nonsense feminist woman who hasn't the time for the old boys network of politics and a lot of middle-class celebrities love her for it. Of course they would, they've found a pet working class Brummie and strong woman. However, Ms Phillips recent claim that she understands little of parliamentary process (made during a greatly impassioned speech in the house in protest of the 21 Tory MP's deselected in Johnson's purge; why can she only get so worked up about the misfortune of her opponents?) is, at best, a further example of her cultivating this 'I'm just an ordinary woman me, bab' and, at worst, a display of extreme ignorance and incompetence. If Jess Phillips really is naive about her role, then she should step aside and allow someone who actually cares enough about the job to study and understand parliament to take her place. Dennis Skinner is a prime example of a working class MP who never lost the common touch, but who studied hard at Hansard and gave 100% commitment to the process because he knew he was there to represent his constituency and, as such, he became one of the great parliamentarians of the age. The two can go together.

Of course, Jess Phillips would, if she were to read this, simply dismiss it as 'abuse', just as she does with anyone who dares to disagree with her opinion or stance. This is a particular problem evident in her style, anyone who dares to disagree with her is simply an abusive troll and of course her fans within the middle class circles of the media she aspires to rally round in support.

Plus Size Bond Girls: October

I think this Goldeneye-inspired photoshoot is my favourite from this calendar, so it's quite fitting that it's for my birthday month