You might call it a Sunday when the old met the new. The old in this case was the rare sight of a top FA Cup game on BBC – Manchester United against Liverpool. Just like the old days. The new was Ian Wright looking like an over-ripe banana in what I suppose was meant to be an over-size down vest, Alan Shearer doing his Peaky Blinders look, a series we intend to start with next now we’re finished with Tin Star and Whitechapel. Gary Lineker looking more like an escapee from the Spanish Inquisition every day (as above). What was also new of course was that the stadium they were stood in was empty. Good game though.
We watched it while eating a Greek takeaway, a first in itself, but even more so because it was our first ever Deliveroo meal. That’s lockdown for you. Deliverood by a man on a scooter. You wonder how they keep the food warm, well spoiler alert, they didn’t. It was cold and the food wasn’t that great either even had it been warm which it was after we’d micro-waved it. Thank God for the modern microwave. So before microwave, dull and cold, that’s at least one negative too many. After microwave, just dull.
After the football we researched by watching the possibility of future watching of Fargo being the new, second of our relaxation programmes (the first being Penny Dreadful). With three series of Fargo there will be plenty to go at if we like it. This will sit alongside our one documentary programme. Last one of these, the ever-good value, Sky Arts and David Hockney. All in the TV part of our daily routines I mentioned in a recent blog.
I don’t know, without looking it up, when the first Fargo film was released but it must have been a long time ago in the days when going to the cinema was a significant part of our week. Definitely in the ‘old’ category.
I’m glad we saw it way back when, because I wasn’t as shocked as was Mrs Summerhouse, who’d forgotten, that Bilbo (Martin Freeman) hit his wife on the head with a hammer, so killing her. And all because the washing machine didn’t work, Bilbo hadn’t repaired it properly and his wife said something caustic.
Nor that the policeman, who’d come for a chat, got killed a bit later. But not by Bilbo. In this case by Bad Santa (Billy Bob Thornton). Having seen the film (not the Santa one, although we did watch that recently) I knew that being a hobbit and Santa in previous films did not mean they weren’t deadly.
Anyway we saw enough, bloody though it was, to reckon that Fargo will be our go-to entertainment series for the foreseeable lockdown future. When the virus goes (please God or whoever) that it does, and the better weather becomes as traditionally sunny as the British summer typically is, we will, no doubt, watch less TV. The other two properties don’t even have a TV. But, until then, well…
So having written about the virtues of steady routines in these lockdown days it’s worth reminding readers that there is a place for a bit of newness even it is only in the form of a cold, rather dull Greek takeaway delivered by Deliveroo. Always pushing at the envelope, that’s us.
Of course it’s up to you to decide what the balance of your routine to novelty will be in your retirement lockdown. And what the actual nature of those routines and the new parts, will be. Obviously we lean toward the steady and predictable with just a dash of the new and unexpected in the form of a dull Greek takeaway.