An Early Birthday Present

I’ll have my 75th birthday next month. Anne’s given me an early present. TVs were reduced at a sale so she upgraded our old 18 inch for a new 37 inch digital. It was installed yesterday. I spent some time luxuriating before the big screen with its clearer definition. Question time in parliament is now available to me. The ads are more sexy and the rugby promos offer even better viewing.

In the evening I watched an old (1936) Charlie Chaplin movie Modern Times. The little tramp struggles to survive in the industrialised world. It’s a movie of its times, the great depression, strikes and unemployment. The comedy and the pathos of the tramp’s attempts to get a better life merge into the love interest with Paulette Goddard, an orphaned waif which forms the central part of that dream – it contrasts with the hovel they find to inhabit

The film ends with the tramp and the waif walking off into the sunset - a very Chaplin type ending.