Saturday 27 July 2024

Pomp and circumstance ignored. The melding of real and digital worlds.

 We didn’t watch yesterday’s opening ceremony to the Paris Olympic Games. I’ve seen the odd photo but that’s all. I hear it was all rather kitsch.


Someone has suggested that this is the best bit of opening ceremony ever:



You have to hand it to Her Late Majesty, she had a sense of fun. Maybe its all the income from the crown estate that makes it all possible. If so, then should we expect examples of His Present Majesty’s sense of fun? I hear the crown estate contributes quite a lot to his upkeep so surely he can afford some fun. 


Anyway, we didn’t watch yesterday’s offering. I’m not a great fan of Lady Gaga or Céline Dion, so I don’t feel that I have missed out. I read that Zinedine Zidane also participated: does he also sing? Or did he give a demonstration of old football skills? 


In the film Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain there is a scene which shows how Mme Poulain, mother of the aforementioned Amélie, likes to empty her capacious handbag, clean it pir and then put all the contents back neatly in place. Well, I seem to have been in Mme Poulain mode over the last couple of days. It began yesterday when I cleared everything moveable out of the bathroom, scrubbed all the surfaces and then put everything back neatly in place.


Later I went to get something oqut of the freezer and found that it was rapidly turning into a sort of frost mountain. Like quite a lot of equipment in our house, it is getting old and cranky and from time to time, if drawers have not been absolutely, utterly and completely closed on just the right fashion, it goes into overdrive and sort of freezes itself up. The only remedy is to switch it off (that of itself being an awkward operation as the plug and an-off switch are not easily accessible), put all the contents in freezer bags and let the collected frost and ice melt. Which is what I did, and I put everything back, more neatly, in its rightful place. 


Having completed the operation this morning, I trotted off to the supermarket. Planning to put stuff away, I looked in the fridge to check the available space. Chaos! So once more I took everything out, washed and dried the shelves, replaced them and put all the contents and the newly acquired bits and pieces from shopping neatly in their place. 


I am now resisting the temptation to continue taking things out of cupboards and off shelves (in almost every room of the house) in order to dust and polish. It needs doing but I am resisting womanfully. There are other things to do - more creative things.


Our smaller grandchildrnen like to create “worlds” on Minecraft on their tablets. Aged 4 and 7, they are quite adept at manoeuvring the digital worlds. Theyvplaybother similar games where each of them has a “world” on their own tablet but can “visit” each other’s places digitally. I am astounded!


During term time, the seven year goes to an after school club on some afternoon, when both parents are working a little too late to collect her directly at the end of the school day. Quite often she returns home with a “creation” she has made, a complex mix of model buildings made of paper and stuck on a sheet of card. She has several of these now and she has also created tiny paper figures to inhabit these “world”. And so she has introduced her small brother to the game of worlds, where paper characters can move between worlds and interact with on another. The games they play on their tablets have transferred into a 3D reality! 


Amazing! Life copies art - or if not art, then at least the digital world.


Similarly, when I was out and about I overheard some teenage boys talking about games they play on the computer. One of them asked if the others had seen ‘that film’ - a film based on one of the popular games! Cinematic art imitates gaming art! The name of both the game and the film were completely unkown to me. It’s a generational thing! 


Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

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