Just watched "It's A Wonderful Afterlife" on Amazon Prime.
It's a British Fantasy, Horror, Murder Mystery, Comedy Film, set in the West London suburb of Southall.
I've not seen this film since it first came out in 2010.
The cast list is impressive - Shabana Azmi, Goldy Notay,
Sendhil Ramamurthy, Sally Hawkins, Zoë Wanamaker,
Sanjeev Bhaskar, Mark Addy, and Don Warrington.
It is light hearted, and ghoulishly funny.
I will personally rate this film a score of 10/10.
There’s a market stall in East London which sits at the far end of the market, a little way from the other stalls, caught by the wind that passes down a side street and flaps the tarpaulin that just about shelters the stall from the rain.
There’s not much there, just a few handbags laid out on a plastic sheet. The old man behind the stall sits and stares down at the plastic and will not meet your eye. But the bags look quite like some very expensive ones, and the price handwritten in pencil on little white cards is very cheap, so every now and then someone will buy one. It might even be you, and you’ll be pleased about the bargain that you have found, and wonder how the old man makes a living.
What you don’t realise is that if you cut the bag to pieces and peeled off the lining from the outside you’d see that the side of the lining that you don’t see is covered with words and symbols of power, and every day you carry the bag close to you those words and symbols feed on you. You will grow paler and weaker and fade, and that is how the old man makes a living, because he sells what the bag steals from you to those who want to live on and on and on.
Way back in 2010 my profile photo appeared in the first issue of Marvel's Secret Avengers comic book.
I was so stoked of becoming an Avenger.
The Uvalde Police Dept. S.W.A.T.
A Bunch of Fucking Cowards!
Acting tough in this photoshoot, but come the day when they need to save children and stop a shooter, they run and hide.
You might just scroll past it the first few times, but eventually it will catch your eye, on Instagram or on Facebook or on Twitter. An advert which piques your curiosity for the weird and the eerie, an advert which tells you that a haunted house in your area is open for exclusive private viewing to those brave and bold enough to explore it.
There will only be a dozen people who see that advert. Of those, eight will click on it and read the details. Of those, four will go and visit the house. Of those, none will come back.
Don’t think it’s only influencers and political campaigners who have worked out the power of social media. Spiders spin their webs and they catch their flies, and after an awkward and dispiriting time spent hanging upside down wrapped up in silk, the flies get eaten.
Scroll on. Clickety-click.
This afternoon, we watched this awesome live action Disney fantasy musical film as Candy picked it because it's her birthday.
I have never seen the original animated film of this nor have I seen the majority of Disney films either but it was fantastic!
I really loved it and I am looking forward to watching the animated classic next.
I shall actually rate this movie a score of 10/10.
If you’re walking through a back street in Shoreditch and see a hooded figure spraying graffiti on a back wall of an empty shop, pause for a moment. If they’re tagging their name, or creating a vivid picture, or a cutting piece of satire then I’d just walk on.
If they’re creating a strange spiral shape, like a maze, do everything you can to stop them as quickly as you can. Do not let them spray that last line.
If you do stop them for just thirty seconds, the lines will fade away as if they were never there, and the hooded figure will curse you and run.
If you don’t stop them, then the portal will open and we’re in a lot of trouble. Not that you’ll know anything about it, as you’ll be the first to be eaten.
“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails."
Yesterday I watched "Barely Lethal", an action comedy film on Amazon Prime.
It was not bad but I can see why it bombed at the box office.
But it did have a very good cast list.
I will rate this movie a score of 6/10.
The history of Witchwalking is as old as movement itself.
Like many other examples of occult knowledge, it is a legacy that often conceals itself within the various cultures and people who have engaged in its practice.
It is a tradition that sometimes emerges under different names and guises depending upon the societal climate and religious views of those in power. In many cases Witchwalking has remained hidden, becoming a ritual safest practiced at night or alone and far from the authorities wary of its power and benefits.
You may know Witchwalking as travelling the path of Songlines or Dreamwalking. You may know it as a North American initiation rite demanding the neophyte undertake an arduous journey through dangerous terrain.
Or, you may be aware of this practice as a marathon shamanic-type dance assisted by drumming and entheogens.
Witchwalking even survives within early Christian writings, thinly disguised as a meditative desert walk of 40 days and nights, as well as today in the stations of the cross. Another contemporary incarnation within Christian spirituality is the Camino pilgrimage.
The Latin phrase 'solvitur ambulando' means 'it is solved by walking’.
When we look with a keener eye we will find that Witchwalking is embedded into all of the world’s esoteric practices and rituals in one form or other.
Witchwalking continues to evolve even in today’s contemporary societies in the form of forest walks, ritual hikes to sacred places and even within the techniques of esoteric modern dance and musical therapy.
There are many reasons why someone is called to this path, be it for healing ourselves or others, or to gain insight from the deeper aspects of our minds. For more serious practitioners it is a way to contact ancestors and spirits of the land and to return from these trance states with advice and new knowledge.
But there is also a necessity at the roots of this practice. In many of the archaic, matriarchal cultures, from Catal Huyuk to the Hathor cult of ancient Egypt, there are embedded midwifery skills within the Witchwalking practices. The Moura Encantada, the female shape-shifters of Southern Europe, for example, were said to travel between megalithic sites, creating new life and spinning the sun. These motifs of ‘spinning’ and 'new life’ epitomise the coded and almost forgotten wise-women who assisted with childbirth and who were believed to draw souls from the spiritual realm and into new bodies. These were the same women who were almost erased from history by the later patriarchal religions and persecuted through inquisitions and demonization.
The writer, Ali Isaac, has drawn attention to specific mentions of walking ceremonies and processional paths within ancient Irish history and mythology.
Interesting, and possibly connected to Ali's Tara research, I have written about rites and ceremony related to pregnancy and birth before in this article for Ancient Origins.
Another Witchwalking connection is ‘Well-Wyrding,’ which is a practice where women would visit a holy well or sacred spring on certain nights and divine prophecy based upon the movement and sound of the water.
This type of pagan spirit-contact at holy wells was so widespread in Europe that there was even a law in 1178 created to ban women from going out alone in order to receive these prophecies.
An ancient link between holy wells and wisdom occurs in the Irish Dindsenchas which describes one in particular, Connla's Well, as being 'The Well of Knowledge' or 'The Well of Wisdom' because of the hazel trees which grew over it and dropped hazel nuts into the water.
In Ireland, holy wells are still very much associated with cures and healing.
Specifically related to 'witchwalking', Holy wells also continue to draw visitors who practice the tradition of patterns and rounds, which is a type of meditative walk.
The esoteric practice of shape shifting is also intimately connected with Witchwalking in non-European cultures and is at the root of totem power and witches familiars.
Today, these techniques and spells, the wisdom and methods of spiritual contact are quickly being retraced and recovered. Cross-cultural comparisons are revealing that no matter how it is named or known, Witchwalking has always been a part of spiritual and ritual expression. Witchwalking in its many forms is once again revealing itself as an instructional and, ultimately, primal response to life.
Indeed, movement, change and discovery are the alchemical ingredients that lead us all down the pathways of questions.
Witchwalking takes us towards the inner parts of ourselves which has always known the answers we seek, if we are courageous enough to go and find them.
There’s a pleasant village in rural Lancashire that you might find yourself in. It’s hard to say why, but there is a feeling of light and calm in this village, and you find yourself wanting to spend time there. This feeling only grows as you encounter some of the people who live there: they are friendly and kind, and you walk away from each of them thinking what a decent person that was. They each shine with goodness and a kind of purity that leaves you feeling humbled.
Walk down a back lane and through a kissing gate and then down the muddy path to the riverside, and you will see a very old woman from the village on the bank, plunging her hands into the water over and over.
You have happened to arrive on washing day, and the woman is washing out the sins of the village. You have met the villagers when they are as clean as the day they were born.
Do not drink the water. It is black and thick and bitter and tastes of murder and lust and betrayal and spite and revenge.
There's a pool, in the middle of a small copse of trees in Worcestershire, that is locals call the Silent Pool. The water is always very still, and very dark. No insects skate across its surface, and no birds sing in the trees around it.
Local legend has it that the pool is haunted by the ghosts of two children that drowned in it, back in mediaeval times.
With it being so still, you’d think you could look into it and see your reflection, but if you find yourself there, you won’t see yourself. Just dark, unmoving blackness that makes you feel dizzy, as if you might fall in. If you look in it for more than a few seconds, you will, and then you’ll fall and fall and fall and fall until a long time later and many millions of miles away you reach the bottom, and meet what haunts the pool, which is not two children, but something which has been down there for longer than there have been children.
This is me, drinking my very first Slushy, it was Blue Raspberry flavoured.
It was very tasty!
Alice Nutter, accused of witchcraft by a 9 year old girl.
Unlike many accused of witchcraft, Alice was a member of a wealthy family who owned land in Pendle.
She was accused of being present at a witch meeting on Good Friday in 1612 and of later causing the death of Henry Milton. Her principal accuser was a nine-year-old girl. Nutter protested her innocence although others pleaded guilty.
Nutter's trial began at Lancaster Castle on 18 August where the accused were denied access to lawyers or the right to call witnesses. She was subsequently hanged at Gallows Hill in Lancaster on 20 August 1612. The others hanged were Anne Whittle ("Old Chattox"), Ann Redfearn, Elizabeth Device ("Squinting Lizzie"), Alison Device, James Device, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock, John Bulcock and Isobel Robey.
There's a strangeness about them. If you looked at them for a while, you wouldn't be able to say what, but then again you probably would not look at them for a while, and would look away and at something else but would not be able to say why, and would tell yourself it was because something else had caught your eye.
They pass as human and they walk amongst us, and you will have passed them, or hoped they did not sit next to you on the bus or the train, and if you walk by one on the street when it's dark the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up and you will have to fight the urge to run. Anyone watching would wonder why you seem to shiver and walk faster, because all they'd see is you and a small man who offers no threat reading a bus timetable, or a woman sat on a bench, looking as if she is waiting for a friend.
In the Pennines, maybe in Yorkshire, maybe in Lancashire (it's disputed, as all these things are), there's a short tunnel where a railway carrying coal from a mine long gone used to run. The hill is not high but it is steep, and when you peer into the tunnel you can see the light at the other end, so it makes a tempting short cut.
But don't take it. Scale the hill, even if your legs ache and your lungs burn. There's a beautiful view from the top. Well, a middling view.
If you go through the tunnel, it is a very long walk, and to get to the light that you see at the other end is a longer walk than most people's lives run for, and certainly a longer walk than yours will do, because of the thing that will come out of the walls one hour in.
This afternoon, we watched the awesome and classic 1999 film The Mummy on Amazon Prime.
We have not watched this in donkey years, and we loved it.
I needed cheering up and needed a feel good movie to cheer myself up.
I remember watching this at the cinema when it first came out and it's one of my favourite action fantasy films.
I will always rate this film a score of 10/10.
There's a small field that never gets farmed because it is littered with stones, and is owned by no one. The farmers who work the land around it know that if you take a stone away from it, something will put two back overnight. You might think to stay up all night to see what it is. I wouldn't. Six of the stones in the field had that idea.
Today’s folktale is based in Elsdon, in Northumberland (England) and will be familiar to Harry Potter fans. It’s the tale of the Hobthrush, also known as a house sprite, a household fairy, in Scotland a brownie (brùnaidh), and a whole host of other names. They’re said to exist all over the British Isles and beyond.
This particular Hobthrush lived in Elsdon in a farm near Elsdon Castle (which was built by Robert de Umfraville in 1076 and is the site for many folktales). In the farm lived an elderly farmer and his wife who were, it being spring, extraordinarily busy with their duties. One day the farmer’s wife woke up feeling overwhelmed at the tasks ahead, and was thrilled to discover all the household jobs were done. The floor was swept clean, the windows were gleaming, the fire was lit, and the dishes were done. She knew at once it was the Hobthrush, and she and her husband were very grateful. They also knew that like all the “little folk” the Hobthrush would not want to be seen, so they were sure not to try and spy on him, so they simply left him some milk and an oatcake as thanks.
One night, however, the farmer’s wife returned home late and she did catch a glimpse of the Hobthrush busily working hard. She noticed his clothes were torn and raggy, so, as thanks, she made him a new outfit with the best fabrics she could find. The next night she laid the new clothes out, but the next morning she woke up to find all the tasks still weren’t done. Then she saw the Hobthrush in his new outfit was singing as he ran from the farm,
This brownie will clean no more dirt!
He ran out of the house never to be seen again, and once again the farmer’s wife was left with all the cleaning.
New cap, new shirt,
In Belgian and Dutch folklore, the Bokkenrijders (or Buckriders) are spirits that ride on the backs of flying goats. These goats were said to be provided by demons, and some believe that the Bokkenrijders themselves are demons.
In the 18th century, several groups of bandits and thieves co-opted the name of the Bokkenrijders, raiding farms and small communities. Because of the lore surrounding the spirits, and their ties to the Devil, several men were excecuted in witch-hunt style prosecutions.
This is a strange tale from Netherwitton in Northumberland, England, which is less than a mile away from Devil’s Causeway. There lived a couple who were deeply unhappy because they had never had a child. One day two strangers appeared at the door of their cottage, a man and woman as handsome as though they were royalty, though poorly dressed, and they had with them a little boy. They asked if they might leave the boy with them, saying they had very far to travel. The childless couple quickly agreed, and before this mysterious pair left they said the young boy’s eyes must be anointed every night, but they must never use the ointment themselves. For a long time they lived very happily together, but the cottager was ultimately unable to suppress his curiosity and one night he used the ointment on his eyes himself.
Nothing happened. Nothing for many days, at least, until the day of the fair at Longhorsley, when the cottager noticed in the distance the strangers stealing from a stall. He pointed them out to his wife who couldn’t see them, so he went to confront them, and it was then he discovered their true identity: they were the King and Queen of ‘the Bad Fairies’. The King of the Bad Fairies blew on the cottager’s eye and he lost his sight: he never saw the two fairies again, and the boy that had been left in his and his wife’s care vanished that very day.
Exactly!
Some people can be backstabbers, liars, and thieves.
They even treat people like dirt at times and that's not right.
Demons I can handle.
I need to get away so I can be happy again.
Well to celebrate the anniversary, I watched the semi-classic on Disney+
Why did I say semi-classic? Because you can only watch the 1997 Special Edition version, the one where George Lucas fucked it all up and added too many characters to fill the screen up with.
It's still a masterpiece of cinema, but it's also very tainted by Lucas Overload.
I will rate the original version a 10/10, but this '97 version a 8/10.
Check out the extras on Disney+ as it has the original meeting between Luke and Biggs.
I cannot remember the last time I was actually Happy.
Today is the 45th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie.
In May 25th 1977, I was only 2 years old when i watched this film.
I remember not knowing what was going on, except for the loud bangs and booms and all the pretty lights!
And let's not forget all the robot characters that filled the screen like C3-PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader, and the Stormtroopers. (I thought they were all Robots)
We watched this at the old cinema in Bletchley, It was my Dad's idea to watch this and bring the family with him.
This afternoon, I watched this comedy drama film on Netflix.
I'm not a fan of Kevin James but I thought I will give it a chance.
It was alright but not perfect.
It's based on a true story.
I shall rate this film a score of 5/10.
Last night, I watched this awesome South Korean historical action romp "The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure." on Netflix.
This is 100% far better than the last 3 Pirates movies starring Johnny Depp combined.
It's very funny, filled with lots of action and swordplay.
I will rate this movie a score of 10/10.
This afternoon we watched this crapfest of a movie on Disney+
It was recommended by a friend of mine, but Nah, it was rubbish.
Baring in mind, I have never ever seen the original series, I only know little bits of the cartoon series but with this brand new 2022 movie, you really did not need to know anything that went on before.
It was a mixed bag of meta-commentary different styles of animation, and rubbish voice acting work.
I have never been a huge fan when they mix up live action with animation, except for the Sonic the Hedgehog, and Looney Toons: Back In Action movies.
The whole movie stank of rotten cheese and we gave up half way through and it actually made me go to the loo for a doo doo!
I will rate this turd a score of 1/10.
Avoid at all cost!
Last night, I watched this sci-fi time travel film on Netflix.
It is heavily influenced by the Black Lives Movement from a few years ago.
It is a very intelligent story with some good acting and the moral of the film is, don't mess with time travel.
I shall rate this film a score of 7/10.
McDermott's Castle, Abandoned Fairytale Irish Castle In The Middle Of A Lake, County Roscommon, Ireland
Last night, I watched this awesome movie on Amazon Prime.
It's a great fantasy horror comedy movie but not as good as the first movie.
It's very odd, wild, and weird with added furry sex and a talking willy.
I am hoping that they will make a third WolfCop movie and that they will wrap up the Alien Invasion takeover storyline.
I will rate this film a score of 7/10.
This afternoon, we watched this animated fantasy family Pixar movie on Disney.
It was incredibly sweet and exciting movie.
I shall rate this flick a score of 9/10.
Last night, I watched this sci-fi dystopian action film on Netflix.
I liked the cast list, but oh my days! it was so bloody boring and rubbish.
The storyline, acting, and special effects were just crap and there was no chemistry between the two leads.
I shall rate this film a score of 1/10.
Loki concocted a great scheme to test the mettle of the dwarfs, convincing two competing families of dwarfs to build three magic items for the gods, including Thor's hammer Mjolnir, Odin's spear Gungnir, Frey's foldable boat and golden boar, and more.
