NIMROD

It's Hard to Hate Someone You Understand.

He said that he understood... 

But I could see in his eyes that he didn’t —

He was lying to me....!

Our vibrations were getting nasty, but why?

Was there no communication in This Car..?

Had we deteriorated to the level of Dumb Beasts...?

In the Ancient Days, Mankind built a Tower so high that it threatened to touch Heaven —

And God cursed us with

Foreign Language.

Misunderstanding 

and the 

Inability to Communicate

No-One (I Think) is in My Tree 

Living is Easy (with Eyes-Closed)

Misunderstanding All You See

"...it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. 

He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. 

He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. 

He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach. And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.

Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. 

It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. 

When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. 

The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion ..."

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :
And this includes the China holdings? 

Laura :

Yes, sir.

As soon as you sign, you'll be the richest man in the world.

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

You're thinking, 

"How is this possible? 

He was the coffee boy.

He worked for me." 

Laura :

Sir, I wasn't — 

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

I can read your mind, Laura.

Laura :

Yes, sir.

Sorry, sir.

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

God blessed me with a gift, do you understand? 

I am his chosen vessel.

In the ancient days, mankind built a tower so high that it threatened to touch Heaven and God cursed us with foreign language.

Misunderstanding and the inability to communicate, but I know what's in the heart of every man, woman and child on this Earth.

Gone is the confusion, the division.

I am The Great Uniter.

Laura :

You're a saint, sir.

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

The money is a tool, you see.

Nothing more.

Power.

Because without power, who would listen? 

Laura :

Sir, your sister.

Amy, The Beloved :

Excuse me.

I've been waiting.

Papers to sign.

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

Always papers.

Amy, The Beloved :

Is that Laura? 

Why do you keep her around? 
She's ancient.

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

She resents me.

I like that.

Amy, The Beloved :

I need a new house.


LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

No, you •want• a new house.

Amy, The Beloved :

Harvey's screwing his masseuse.

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

So? You're screwing her, too.

Amy, The Beloved :

I •hate• it when you do that.

Huh? 

[WHIMPERS.]

Stop! 

LEGION, 
(w. The Shadow King still in His Head) :

No more houses.

Amy, The Beloved :

Okay.

[SHUDDERS.]

[INDISTINCT MUTTERING.]

It's always blue!

No one knows what it's like 

To be the bad man 

To be the sad man 

Behind blue eyes 

No one knows what it's like 

To be hated 

To be fated 

To telling only lies 

But my dreams 

They aren't as empty 

As my conscience 

Seems to be 

I have hours 

Only lonely 

My love is vengeance 

That's never free 

THE KING :

[IN FARSI.] : 

No one comprehends this pain 

Feels this feeling 

Like me 

And I blame you 

No one controls themselves like this 

His anger 

His pain 

My pain and fear 

Cannot be revealed 

BOTH: 

But my dreams 

They aren't as empty 

As my conscience 

Seems to be 

I have hours 

Only lonely 

My love is vengeance 

That's never free 

My love is vengeance.

That's never free.

When my fist clenches, crack it open 

Before I use it and lose my cool When I smile 

Tell me some bad news 

Before I laugh and act like a fool 

KING FAROUK

[ IN FARSI] : 

If I am evil 

[TONE RESONATES.]

- [DAVID GROANS.]

Purify me If I shiver 

LEGION :

When I shiver 

[ECHOING.]

Please give me a blanket 

Keep me warm, let me wear your coat 

[LAUGHS.]

No one knows what it's like 

To be the bad man 

To be the sad man, man, man, man, man

Mate —

GUINAN :

Now, perhaps when you're ready, 

it might be possible to establish a relationship with them. 

But for now, for right now, you're just raw material to them. 

Since, they are aware of your existence —

PICARD :

....They Will Be Coming.

GUINAN :

You can bet on it.

“Through Max I met his mate Stan, a giant, charismatic and adorable man who I instinctively liken to Omar, one of the four Caliphs to succeed The Prophet. 

A bountiful and warm soul with a great strength, yet to be refined. I asked Stan: ‘Is there any way I have helped you that I might be able to use in a book about mentoring to illustrate how the principles work?’ 

He said: ‘Mate. The other day when that bloke knocked me for that money, you said that I should not look at the people of The World as resources there to serve me but at myself as someone who can help others. To accept that everything won’t go my way all the time and when I am disappointed to talk through those feelings before acting on them. 

In a situation like that in The Past I would’ve acted differently, aggressively, and tried to solve the problem through intimidation, which would’ve led to complications because this bloke is part of That World. 

Instead I went round there and politely explained my side of the situation and offered to help find a mutually beneficial solution. 

This is because you have taught me that I am valuable and I do not need to resort to bad behaviour to get what I want, that I am enough and do not need money to prove that I am a Man. 

I no longer unthinkingly get into conflict with my wife because I am stressed about work-related things, without recognizing it. 

The other day she asked me to do the washing up because I’d AGREED to and I just DID it. 

In the past there would’ve been an argument, especially if I was fearful around work. 

This is because you have shown me how to behave towards my wife and given me safe outlets for my feelings.’ 

Hearing this made me feel  Valuable and Useful.

The Gratitude of Others, is a good way to build Self-Esteem. 

If you Regularly Help Others, the tendency to think of yourself as Worthless or Not Good Enough diminishes.”

Excerpt From

Mentors

by Russell Brand

BLAME

BILL MOYERS :

Let me ask you some questions about 

these common features in these stories, 

the significance of 

The Forbidden Fruit.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL :

Well, there’s a standard folktale motif called 

“The One Forbidden Thing.” 

Remember, in Bluebeard, 

“Don’t open that closet.” 

You know, and then one always does it. 

And in the Old Testament story, God gives the one forbidden thing, and he knows very well, now I’m interpreting God -- 

He knows very well that Man’s going to eat 

The Forbidden Fruit. 

But it’s by doing that 

that Man becomes 

The Initiator of His Own Life.

 

Life really begins with that.

BILL MOYERS: 

I also find in some of these early stories, 
the human tendency to 
Find someone to BLAME.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

Let me read Genesis 1, 
then I’ll ask you to read one 

from the Bassari legend.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

All right.

BILL MOYERS: 

Genesis 1: 

“And God said, 

‘Have you eaten from The Tree 
which I commanded you that you should not eat?’ 

Then the man said, 

‘The Woman whom you gave to be with me, 
She gave me of The Tree and I ate.’ 

And the Lord God said to The Woman, 

What is this you’ve done?’ 

And The Woman said, 

‘The Serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ 

Now, I mean, you talk about buck-passing, 

it starts very early.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL :

That’s right.

BILL MOYERS: 

And then there’s the Bassari legend.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It’s been tough on serpents, too. 

“One day Snake said, 

‘We too should eat these fruits. 
Why must we go hungry?’ 

Antelope said, 
‘But we don’t know anything about this fruit.’ 

Then Man and His Wife took some of the fruit and ate it. 

Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked,
 ‘Who ate the fruit?’ 

They answered, 
‘We did.’ 

Unumbotte asked, 
‘Who told you that you could eat that fruit?’ 

They replied, 
‘Snake did.’ 

It’s the same story.

BILL MOYERS: 
Poor Snake.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 
It’s the same story.

BILL MOYERS: 
What do you make of this, 

that in all of these stories 

the principal actors are 

Pointing to Someone Else 

as The Initiator of The Fall?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 
Yeah, but it turns out to be Snake.

 
And Snake in both of these stories is :

The Symbol of Life --

Throwing off 

The Past 

and 

Continuing to Live.

BILL MOYERS: 
Why?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 
The Power of Life, 

because The Snake sheds its Skin, 
just as The Moon sheds its Shadow. 

The Snake in most cultures is POSITIVE. 
Even the most poisonous thing, in India, the cobra, is a sacred animal. 

And The Serpent, Naga, The Serpent King, 

Nagaraga, is the next thing to the Buddha, because --

The Serpent represents The Power of Life, 

in The Field of Time to throw off Death, 

and The Buddha represents The Power of Life 

in The Field of Eternity, to be Eternally Alive.

Now, I saw a fantastic thing of a Burmese priestess, a snake priestess, who had to bring rain to her people by calling a king cobra from his den and kissing him three times on the nose. There was the cobra, the giver of life, the giver of rain, which is of life, as the divine positive, not negative, figure.

BILL MOYERS: 

The Christian stories turn it around, 

because The Serpent was The Seducer.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, what that amounts to is 

A Refusal to Affirm Life. 

Life is Evil in this view. 

Every natural impulse is sinful 

unless you’ve been baptized or circumcised, 

in this tradition that we’ve inherited. 

For Heaven’s sakes!

BILL MOYERS: By having been The Tempter, 

Women have paid a great price, because in mythology, some of this mythology, they are the ones who led to the downfall.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Of course they did. I mean, they represent life. Man doesn’t enter life except by woman, and so it is woman who brings us into the world of polarities and pair of opposites and suffering and all. But I think it’s a really childish attitude, to say “no” to life with all its pain, you know, to say this is something that should not have been.

Schopenhauer, in one of his marvelous chapters, I think it’s in The World as Will and Idea, says: “Life is something that should not have been. It is in its very essence and character, a terrible thing to consider, this business of living by killing and eating.” I mean, it’s in sin in terms of all ethical judgments all the time.

BILL MOYERS: As Zorba says, you know, “Trouble? Life is trouble. Only death is no trouble.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s it. And when people say to me, you know, do you have optimism about the world, you know, how terrible it is, I said, yes, just say, “It’s great!” Just the way it is.

BILL MOYERS: But doesn’t that lead to a rather passive attitude in the face of evil, in the face of wrong?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: You participate in it. Whatever you do is evil for somebody.

BILL MOYERS: But explain that for the audience.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, when I was in India, there was a man whose name was Sri Krishnamenon and his mystical name was Atmananda and he was in Trivandrum, and I went to Trivandrum, and I had the wonderful privilege of sitting face to face with him as I’m sitting here with you. And the first question, first thing he said to me is, “Do you have a question?” Because the teacher there always answers questions, he doesn’t tell you what anything, he answers. And I said, “Yes, I have a question.” I said, “Since in Hindu thinking all the universe is divine, is a manifestation of divinity itself, how can we say ‘no’ to anything in the world, how can we say ‘no’ to brutality, to stupidity, to vulgarity, to thoughtlessness?” And he said, “For you and me, we must say yes.”

Well, I had learned from my friends who were students of his, that that happened to have been the first question he asked his guru, and we had a wonderful talk for about an hour there on this theme, of the affirmation of the world. And it confirmed me in a feeling that I have had, that who are we to judge? And it seems to me that this is one of the great teachings of Jesus.

BILL MOYERS: Well, I see now what you mean in one respect; in some classic Christian doctrine the world is to be despised, life is to be redeemed in the hereafter, it is heaven where our rewards come, and if you affirm that which you deplore, as you say, you’re affirming the world, which is our eternity of the moment.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s what I would say. Eternity isn’t some later time; eternity isn’t a long time; eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking in time cuts out.

BILL MOYERS: This is it.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: This is it.

BILL MOYERS: This is my …

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere, and the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.

There’s a wonderful formula that the Buddhists have for the Boddhisattva. The Bodhisattva, the one whose being, satra, is illumination, bodhi, who realizes his identity with eternity, and at the same time his participation in time. And the attitude is not to withdraw from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but to realize that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder, and come back and participate in it. “All life is sorrowful,” is the first Buddhist saying, and it is. It wouldn’t be life if there were not temporality involved, which is sorrow, loss, loss, loss.

BILL MOYERS: That’s a pessimistic note.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I mean, you got to say yes to it and say it’s great this way. I mean, this is the way God intended it.

BILL MOYERS: You don’t really believe that?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, this is the way it is, and I don’t believe anybody intended it, but this is the way it is. And Joyce’s wonderful line, you know, “History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake.” And the way to awake from it is not to be afraid and to recognize, as I did in my conversation with that Hindu guru or teacher that I told you of, that all of this as it is, is as it has to be, and it is a manifestation of the eternal presence in the world. The end of things always is painful; pain is part of there being a world at all.

BILL MOYERS: But if one accepted that isn’t the ultimate conclusion, to say, well, ‘I won’t try to reform any laws or fight any battles.’

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I didn’t say that.

BILL MOYERS: Isn’t that the logical conclusion one could draw, though, the philosophy of nihilism?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that’s not the necessary thing to draw. You could say I will participate in this row, and I will join the army, and I will go to war.

BILL MOYERS: I’ll do the best I can on earth.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I will participate in the game. It’s a wonderful, wonderful opera, except that it hurts. And that wonderful Irish saying, you know, “Is this a private fight, or can anybody get into it?” This is the way life is, and the hero is the one who can participate in it decently, in the way of nature, not in the way of personal rancor, revenge or anything of the kind.

Let me tell you one story here, of a samurai warrior, a Japanese warrior, who had the duty to avenge the murder of his overlord. And he actually, after some time, found and cornered the man who had murdered his overlord. And he was about to deal with him with his samurai sword, when this man in the corner, in the passion of terror, spat in his face. And the samurai sheathed the sword and walked away. Why did he do that?

BILL MOYERS: Why?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Because he was made angry, and if he had killed that man then, it would have a personal act, of another kind of act, that’s not what he had come to do.

I Wish to Do More Violence

Wesley is Dead. 

I'm Experiencing Grief for Him. 

I Can't Seem to Control it —

I Wish to Do More Violence.

Forgive Our Seeming Violence This—

— Is The Only Way to Prepare For Download

You are Playing a  Game Disguised as Everything 

Remember?

We’d Like You to REJOIN The Ultimate Conspiracy.

“The loving voice and its powerful words seemed not to be mine and offered me a stark choice there in the living room: 

I could die now of this disease 

or 

Stay and “serve the light.” 

I might as well have been recruited into the Green Lantern Corps, in what was for me a very genuine “cosmic” moment. I did as most of us would and elected to live. Like Captain Marvel, I wanted to go back to Earth armed with Eon’s knowledge. I felt I’d lived my own Arkham Asylum dark night of the soul, and without the understanding that I was on a well-trod and signposted “magical” path, I’m not sure if I could have handled my illness or recovery process quite as well.

I’d reached that point in the story where I’d survived the crisis and still had a chance to be reborn with a new costume and better powers, but it was touch and go; every passing second was the ticking clock to the ultimate life-and-death cliff-hanger.

How the fuck would I get out of this one?”

Excerpt From

Supergods

Grant Morrison

ANGEL

Looks like we're getting kicked out of The Garden, Eve.

EVE

Where's Lindsey? 

(Angel turns to go, but she grabs his arm)

Where is he?

ANGEL

He's not coming for you.

EVE

You —

ANGEL

Time to Go. 

(walks away)

EVE

(shakes her head helplessly, watching him leave)

Go where?

Cut to:

42 EXT. ALLEY BEHIND THE HYPERION - NIGHT

Angel runs down the alley behind the Hyperion, carrying his sword, running through the pouring rain (in a scene reminiscent of the last image in the opening credits). 

When he gets to the chain-link fence at the end of the alley, he looks around for the others, but doesn't see anyone. 

The sky thunders above him as the heavy rain continues.

SPIKE (O.S.)

Boo. 

(walks out from The Shadows)

ANGEL

Anyone else?

SPIKE

Not so far. 

You feel The Heat?

ANGEL

It's coming.

SPIKE

Finally got ourselves a decent brawl.

GUNN

(running down the street toward them, carrying his homemade battle-axe)

Damn! How did I know the fang boys would pull through? 

(his steps become progressively less sure, weaker)

You're lucky we're on the same side, dogs, 'cause I was on fire tonight. 

(weakly)

My Game was Tight. 

(almost collapses, but Angel and Spike catch him, helping him to a box on which he can sit down)

SPIKE

(looking at Gunn's wounds)

You're supposed to wear the red stuff on the inside, Charlie boy.

GUNN

(looks down at his wounds)

Any word on Wes?

ILLYRIA

(jumps down from the chain-link fence to stand behind Angel)

Wesley is Dead. 

(Angel looks heartbroken; Gunn cries; Spike hangs his head)

I'm feeling grief for him. 

(a crowd clamors in the background)

I Can't seem to control it. 

I wish to do more violence.

SPIKE

(the noisy crowd is getting closer)

Well, wishes just happen to be horses today.

ANGEL

Among other things.

Angel looks at the approaching crowd. 

It's hundreds, if not thousands, of demons of all sorts, shapes and sizes. 

A huge winged dragon flies angrily toward them overhead.

GUNN

OK. You take the 30,000 on the left...

ILLYRIA

You're fading. 

You'll last 10 minutes at best.

GUNN

(stands)

Then let's make 'em memorable.

Angel steps forward and Spike, Gunn and Illyria follow. 

Spike is standing off to Angel's right side. 

Angel is flanked a step behind by Gunn on the right and Illyria on the left. 

They stare at the horde of demons approaching them in the alley.

SPIKE

In terms of a plan?

ANGEL

We Fight.

SPIKE

Bit more specific.

ANGEL

(steps forward)

Well, personally — I kind of want to Slay The Dragon. 

(the demon horde attacks)

Let's Go to Worl. 

(swings his sword)

Fade to black.

Legion | Oliver's Stories

You know, They Say you can't convince someone they're wrong simply by giving them The Facts.

But a Good Story will do it every time.

So I'm gonna tell you a Story.

When you first watch Oliver telling stories, you don't even know who he is, let alone the symbolic meaning of the stories. We revisit these stories after watching the entire season and try to decipher their meanings.

00:24 | The Poor Woodcutter & His Wife 02:48 | Prologue & Frizzy Top's Adventures 06:28 | Empathy-Fear Thematic Pairings 09:18 | Noah Hawley on X-Men and Ambiguous Morality For more premium TV analysis, go to: https://www.whisperandtrouble.com/

Men Also Bleed

“If it bleeds, We can Kill it.”

 

Laurence Fishburne suggested that his character remove his sunglasses for the fight with the agent on board the tractor-trailer, to remind the audience of Morpheus' fight with Agent Smith in The Matrix (1999) (during which he wears no sunglasses), and to better express his character's vulnerability.

Rodney :

What are you doing, 

winding him up? 

Del-Boy :

Yeah, yeah, I'm winding him up aren't I.

I'm winding him up! 

Rodney :

Del, he only wants to stay for a couple of nights, and get himself sorted out!

Del-Boy :

He's a Trotter Rodney.

Rodney :

We're Trotters! 

Del-Boy :

Yes I know, but we 

take after Mum in Nature.

He's from Dad's Side of The Family! 

You know what they're like.

You offer 'em a cup of tea and they think you've adopted 'em.

Look at that time when 

Dad came round here 

he wanted to stay 'one' night! 

Took us nigh on a fortnight 

to get rid of him! 

Rodney :

Uncle Albert might not be like that! 

Del-Boy :

Oh leave it out Rodney! 

You've heard him yourself when he was telling us about that time he came round the Cape of Good Hope, he was three months on the same wave! 

Rodney :

I don't believe you Del, 

I do not believe that you of all people, could! 

Del-Boy :

Where do you think you're going? 

Rodney :

I'm going down the caff, I'm gonna get some grub 

and some better company! 

....I'm gonna put some clothes on first! 

You've changed Del! 

Del-Boy :

Yeah, well it's about time you did, 

come on, we've got to 

go down the market later on.

Rodney :

No, I mean your personality has changed! 

I've seen a side of you I never knew existed! 

Del-Boy :

You don't understand Rodney! 

Rodney :

You're right about that Del! 

I mean, look at you last night, you was laughing you was drinking, I mean, why didn't you just put yer Boney M record on Del, we could have had a good old knees up! 

It was Grandad's—

How could you get over it so easily? 

Del-Boy :

Get over it? 

What a plonker you •really• are Rodney!

Get over it...!!

I ain't even started yet!!! 

Ain't even started bruv! 

And d'you know why? 

Because I don't know how to!!! 

That's why I've survived all 

my life with a smile and a prayer! 

I'm Del Boy ain't I! 

Good old Del Boy - he's got more bounce than Zebedee! 

'Ere you are pal, what you drinking? 

Go on! Hello darling, 

you have one for luck!!' 

That's me, that's Del Boy innit? 

Nothing ever upsets Del Boy.

I've always played the tough guy! 

I didn't want to, but I had to —

And I've played it for so long now, 

I don't know how to be anything else! 

I don't even know how to—

Oh it don't matter! 

Bloody families! 

I've finished with 'em! 

What Do They Do to You, eh? 

They hold you back, drag you down...... 

and then they break yer bloody heart... 

I'm sorry.

Del-Boy :

Listen to me, Raquel —

Raquel :

No.

You listen to me.

You've got to make contact with reality.

Everything with you is image.

I saw you in the pub.

We're broke and you threw money around like Elton John.

And instead of finding work, you sit in this flat pretending to be Quentin Tarantino.

When we're in the Capri, you have the windows up, even in a heatwave, to make it look like you've got air conditioning! 

Del-Boy :

I know I'm not perfect....

Raquel :

That is the understatement of the year! 

Unless a miracle happens, in ten days' time, my son and I are going to be living in some bed and breakfast in Sodoffsville! 

Del-Boy :

If it's a miracle you want, then I'm your man.

I'm chairman of Miracles R Us.

Raquel :

You're a Man, Del! 

You'll never understand.

Just remember, only women bleed.

Del-Boy :

Cor blimey! Only women bleed! Gordon Bennett! 

I am not a Control Freak.

It's just that I have had no choice.

Do you realise that when I was 16, my old man walked out 

and left me and Rodney with our daft old granddad? 

He tried his best, but he wasn't up to it.

So I had to take over and I've been doing it ever since 

and I can't get out of the habit.

Raquel :

I'm gonna have a lie-down.

All right? 

Del-Boy :

Yeah.

Fine.

Raquel and I have had a quiet little chat.

Rodney :

Yeah, I heard.

You got somewhere to stay after the auction? 

Del-Boy :

Trigger said I could doss down at his place.

There's not much room, what with all those "X-File" videos and chopsticks.

Oh, dear.

Women.

Do you know what Raquel said? 

Only women bleed.

Blimey! She ought to be outside the Nag's Head 

on a Saturday night.

They reckon they suffer.

They don't know what it's like to be a bloke.

They worry about their PMT.

Us men worry about —

Rodney :

Our MOT? 

Del-Boy :

Yes.

Do they listen to us? 

Rodney :

No, they don't.

Del-Boy :

No, they don't.

She'll never meet another bloke like me, will she? 

Rodney :

No, she won't.

Del-Boy :

That's it, Rodney.

Once the flat is auctioned we'll go our separate ways.

I won't see her again.

Rodney :

Del, don't say that.

Del-Boy :

No.

That's it.

She won't be able to get round me.

When my mind is made up, 

my mind is made up! 

Raquel :

Del? 

Del-Boy :

Yes.

Raquel :

I just said I'm going for a lie-down.

Del-Boy :

She's — She's all right really.

She's lovely, isn't she, eh? 

Rodney :

Yeah.

She's lovely.

GET PAST IT

Cordelia:

Buffy. You're really campaigning for bitch-of-the-year, aren't you?

 

Buffy:

As defending champion, you nervous?

 

Cordelia:

Whatever is causing the Joan Collins 'tude, deal with it. 

 

Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever, but get over it. 

 

'Cause pretty soon you're not even gonna have the loser friends you've got now.

 

“Gary tells me one day about his sister, how her son, his nephew, died at eighteen from overdosing on a bad batch of MDMA. ‘Would you talk to her?’ he asks.

 

I see him every day over the course of the production and it is, all in all, a fairly typical experience. 

 

I return to my trailer, content to be wrapping a film without having caused any unnecessary aggravation. Aside from the ice creams. 

 

Gary taps on the door. 

When I open it he already has his sister on the line.

 

I take the phone and close the door and the always slightly absurd ambience of the on-set trailer, in spite of my daft costume, immediately becomes calm and sacred. 

 

Kerry tells me that she is in Brent Cross shopping centre. 

 

‘Excuse me,’ she says, and moves somewhere quiet. 

I sit down and picture her there. 

I breathe and prepare for her story. 

She is tentative and tearful for a few syllables, but propelled by tremulous certainty. 

 

‘James was a beautiful boy. 

More than my son he was my friend. 

So clever and sensitive. 

Not a druggy kid. 

He didn’t do drugs a lot, I know he didn’t. 

I didn’t want him to go out that night. 

I wanted him to stay in. 

I wish I’d stopped him. I couldn’t sleep, I kept looking at my phone. 

I had a bad feeling. 

 

At one fifty-eight I got a text, “I’m all right, Mum”, at two fifty-eight I got another one from his phone saying “James is dead.”’ 

 

At this point the frequency, the intensity, the sharpness of tone changes, the grief is piercing and I try to fall backwards into purpose. 

 

‘My boy died on the street, Russell, on a pavement with three hundred people watching. Outside a club. He was dead by the time he got to the hospital.’ 

 

I try to breathe and reach beyond my own lack of experience, my own inability to know something so profound and painful and source something useful. 

 

‘I’m getting grief counselling and they say I have to let go because the grief is going into my body and making me ill but I don’t want to let go because I deserve it.’ 

 

Then the terrible sound of a mother’s pain.

 

I am not qualified to handle a mother’s grief. 

I have no training in counselling or experience of this poignant and unanswerable despair. 

In this moment, though, I am on the phone to a grieving mother and the practical and rational limitations simply cannot be allowed to prevent me giving her the comfort and love her situation demands. 

 

William Blake did a series of engravings based on the Book of Job, rendering in immaculate tableaux Job’s trials and suffering. It is as if Blake through his art and the Bible through the means of prose refer to the same subliminal truth, as if this story, the Book of Job, contains essential truths that we can only behold fleetingly and through the lens of image or language. 

 

In one tableau, Yaweh, or God, from on high shows Job ‘the behemoth and the leviathan that I made, as I made thee’. These creatures as rendered by Blake are dreadful and uncanny. The dumb, muscular, skinless beast, all sinew and mouth. The deep-dwelling sea serpent ever present but invisible in its awful depths. 

 

When regarding these silently screaming images the horror of God’s power is awesome, more terrifying though is the suggestion of ambivalence and that implicitly God The Creator is Not Only Good. 

 

In these images Job and Yaweh look the same, as if both the man made of flesh and the divine father are enshrined within a single form. 

 

These hypnotic tableaux induce a visionary state where we confront that God is within us and our own moral choices determine God’s values. That the capacity for Darkness and unconsciousness is as much part of the individual’s psychological make-up as the inclination to love and kindness. 

 

That we HAVE to be Good, because if WE are not Good, then God is not Good, that God’s Grace is realized through us and if we do not realize it then it does not exist.

 

Like a terrible quantum equation where our intentions create all that is manifest. Do not be lost in the leviathan deep. Do not be trapped in the dumb carnality of form, transcend; transcend that God may imbue The World with His Grace through you. 

 

Knowing my own limitations I do not answer from myself. 

Knowing the hopelessness of such pitiless despair I do not attempt to placate with platitudes. 

I offer Love. 

 

I offer this stranger, this woman that I am confronted with, The Best of Me, such as it is, in the hope that within me, within her, within us all, is the capacity to heal and be healed. 

 

There is no code in language, no silver bullet that can undo this pain but beyond language, beyond form, beyond death there is, there must be, connection. 

 

We cannot allow the universe to be unconsciousness and carnality, because we have the choice, because the possibility, the potentiality for love exists in all of us. Its existence as potential is also its demand for realization.

 

Aside from the love, comfort and forgiveness that anyone would offer a grieving mother I suggest that Kerry meets two of the mentors in this book, Manya and Meredith – healers, mothers, strong women who will be able to hold her pain for her until she is able to.”

 

Excerpt From

“Mentors,” by Russell Brand,