The Plague and the Pits.

I don’t know what to write about today because I’m sick and tired of hearing about – and writing about – that bloody coronavirus.

But it did encourage me to find out a bit about other notable plagues, especially the Great Black Death of 1346-1353 (I think) and further outbreaks of bubonic plague which happened over the centuries in Europe and Asia. They were nasty, and I mean really nasty. If you got the plague in your household in those days, you had a red cross painted on your front door and you were denied the right to leave the house except to bring out the dead bodies for removal to the plague pits. I doubt there were any arguments about the availability of respirators.

Apart from that, I have little to say. I suppose I could mention that I found Dancer in the Dark (which I watched last night thinking it was going to be merely strange) probably the most harrowing film I’ve ever seen. It was so harrowing that I nearly switched it off twenty minutes before the end. Being so harrowing, I assumed that it must have been directed by one of those consistently-glum-but-highly-aware Swedish people, but no. He was Danish, and he did an excellent job.

What I haven’t yet worked out is whether it was intended to be anti-American or not. There was certainly a subtle sub-plot which intimated that America is a particularly insensitive and barbaric place to live if you don’t happen to be rich. 

(Please don’t take offence, Americans. I only watched the film, I didn’t write it.)