… What do you want from me?
Why don’t you run from me?
What are you wondering?
What do you know?
Why aren’t you scared of me?
Why do you care for me?
When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
( Billie Eilish )
My phone rang at 9pm on Sunday night. It was our John.
“Did you watch it ?”
Yes.
“Were you expecting that ending ?”
No.
From the other end of the sofa my Soulmate then added “He cried for the last 10 minutes!”
“Did you ??” John asked.
Didn’t you ?
“No !”
You have no soul.
I’d just watched the final appearance of the wonderful Jodie Whittaker as Dr.Who , #13. I’ve cried at the handover of every Dr.Who since Tom Baker. I’ve found all of the most recent hand overs very emotional, Tenant to Smith, Smith to Capaldi, Capaldi to Whitaker, and Sunday’s. I won’t say what /who happens , in case you haven’t seen it.
I get very attached to my Doctors. When I was a kid Saturday evenings were a bath, usually me and at least one of my brothers, fresh pyjamas, steak and chips, with brown sauce, and Dr.Who. I LOVED Saturday evenings.
When my Soulmate and I had little chisellers of our own, we’d have our Saturday night tea together in time to watch the ‘new’ Dr.Who. This lasted until the evils of drink, and raging hormones proved too much of a distraction for Jake, then Robyn, and finally Elliott, and I ended up watching them on my own. Maybe that’s part of my emotional attachment, remembering myself as a kid watching them, and subsequently watching them with my kids.
That would explain that wonderful sadness on Sunday night.
On Saturday night I’d watched ‘The Sound of 007’ on Amazon Prime. And I cried at the end of that too ! It’s a great programme , detailing the history of Bond songs, with interviews with the artists that performed them and the composers that wrote them. One of the more entertaining parts was when they discussed artists that didn’t get selected, despite songs having been submitted, such as Blondie, Ace of Bass, St.Etienne, Alice Cooper, Pulp, and most spectacularly, Radiohead ! Radiohead were asked to do the song for ‘Spectre’, and , it turned out, were huge fans, and quickly submitted a song called Man Of War, which was accepted by the producers. BUT although it hadn’t been formally released, it had appeared on a live album, so the producers then rejected it, as it couldn’t qualify for an Oscar nomination if it had been played before. The producers turned to Sam Smyth , who recorded ‘Writing’s On The Wall’ for the film. Before the film was released Radiohead came back with a new song, ‘Spectre’, which the producers thought was brilliant, but the title sequence work had already begun, and it was too late to change.
Sam Smyth won the Oscar for Best Music (Original Song), but Radiohead are still Radiohead.
At the end of the programme they focussed on how they combined the traditional legacy theme instrumentals with Billie Eilish’s ‘No Time To Die’ for the last few scenes of Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond.
I cried a river.
In James’ final exchange with Madeleine ,she asks :
“Have you left yet ?”
“No, I’m not going to make it.”
“What…?”
“No.”
“But you promised….We should have had more time. I wish we had more time” Madeleine says, crying. I was crying with her.
“You have all the time in the world.” James says….. not helping the situation at all. KLEENEX !
Now that I think about it the ending of Dr.Who was similar, the Doctor, discovering she is about to regenerate, says “No,no, that’s not right, I want more time. I need more time…” KLEENEX
Later she and her companion Yaz know it’s nearly over.
“I don’t want it to end.” Yaz says.
“A wise person once said to me that goodbyes only hurt because what came before was so special. Oh, and it’s been so special. Nobody else got to be us, no one else got to live our days. Nobody. And my heart is so full of love for you.” KLEENEX !
This may be the first doctor that’s trying to kill me!
And then on Wednesday I got a note from the Universe. I get one everyday. It’s something that I was introduced to by my great friend Joan Moore’s sometimes partner Richard. You can sign up for one too at TUT.com. Anyway, my message from the Universe on Wednesday began “You needn’t worry. There’s time. You have all the time in the world.”
KLEENEX !
I started to wonder if, subconsciously, I was fretting about my longevity, or lack there of, due to recent unfortunate events, and if the Universe was in fact trying to tell me something, or was I just more aware of the fragility of life, and time.
When I mentioned this to my Soulmate she reminded me of the time she took me to a Sunday matinee screening of the original Jungle Book in the Diamond Cinema in Monaghan in 1992, we were 25 years old and the only ‘adult’s in the cinema who weren’t accompanying children. At the point in the movie when Mowgli thinks that Baloo is dead, a kid in the row in front of me turned around to see what the snuffling sound was, and then quickly got the rest of the row to turn and look at “that man crying !”.
OK.
Or the time I went to see Titanic, under duress, in the Liffey Valley cinema, and I, like any decent human being , cried when little Leo let go.
“Near, far, wherever you are….”
OK.
And then the time , a few months later when we got the DVD of the same film, and I cried at the exact same point, and my Soulmate looked at me and said “Jesus Christ of Almighty !”.
OK.
And then my Soulmate suggested that even our kids know that I cry at most movies.
“Name one time I cried in front of the kids ?”
“Highlander !”
Yes, well, a stone would melt when Heather passed away, and Queen’s ‘Who wants to live forever’ is playing in the background.
“Blackadder Goes 4th, last episode.”
You have me there.
“Toy Story 2, when Jessie sings ‘When She Loved Me’ ?”
Fine ! I get it. It’s not longevity, fragility…it’s just …
“You’re a big softy !”
Quite.
Toodles,
Paul
