Today we head over the Lichfield for the Half Marathon. It’s
just me running with L and the boys supporting. The race starts at King Edward
VI School, which is the same place that we did the 10k from. They recommend you
park there and then they will bus you back from the finish which is on grass
land near the town centre.
We do things the other way around and park in a car park
very close to the finish. Then we walk to the start, where I warm up with both dogs
and even do the aerobic warm up with MD.
Conditions are warm but the course is largely flat with a
bit of an incline in the last few miles.
My race goes pretty well and I was on for a pretty good time
until we reached what is known as Fine Lane Level Crossing. Apparently in the entire seven year history of the race, a train has never gone over this railway
crossing during the race but it does today. Apparently a farmer’s fence not far
from Lichfield got damaged and several cows wondered on to the main line,
causing subsequent trains to be diverted on to this line.
I am held up for six minutes which turns my potential
finishing time of around 1:42 into 1:48:41. There was one solitary marshal at the
crossing attempting to take everyone’s numbers who got held up but there were far
too many runners to take note of and I’ve no idea how they’d work out how long
everyone was held up anyway. Many people claim they didn’t even see a marshal to give their
number to.
Later, when the results go up, I see that my time hasn’t been adjusted but
there isn’t really much point making an issue of it, they will really have no idea how long
people were detained and everyone will have self-timed anyway. L says she would
have loved a six-minute rest break mid-race.
Today it’s the last rites of the football season, thankfully
for Derby it’s now finally all over.
In the evening, we go to Broadway for some food, a couple of
pints of Supreme and Lady MacBeth, which is our second sex film of the week.
‘Lady Macbeth’ is an adaptation of Nikolai Leskov’s 1865
novel which was itself inspired by Shakespeare’s own Macbeth. It has also been
adapted by Shostakovich in 1934 as an opera and by Andrzej Wajda in 1962 as a
film. However, nobody has before moved the setting from a bleak Russian
landscape to an equally bleak one in the North East of England.
Katherine (Florence Pugh) has been sold by her father as
part of a package deal with some land to wealthy mine owner Boris (Christopher
Fairbank), who marries her off to his middle-aged son Alexander (Paul Hilton).
It is an arranged marriage that goes awry right from the off.
Alexander, who seems less than enamoured with Katherine, totally fails to
understand the concept of the wedding night, preferring to tell his new bride
to strip and face the wall while he jerks off rather than consummate the
marriage in the traditional way.
It is clear that Boris is in charge and he insists that Katherine
is an obedient wife who will remain indoors at all times and isn’t allowed to
lift a finger around the house as this is purely the job of the servants. So, she
becomes bored very quickly and feels very much a prisoner in the secluded manor
house.
When both Boris and Alexander are called away on business, Katherine
sets about drinking the wine cellar dry but also takes the opportunity to get
out more. At which point she stumbles across the stable hands stringing up the
maid (Naomi Ackie) naked in the barn. Despite this, Katherine seems quite taken
with one particular stable hand called Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis) who appears to
be the instigator the maid’s assault.
Clearly expecting this to have serious consequences for him,
I guess he figures he might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, so later
he forces himself into Katherine’s bedroom and then onto her. She resists his advances
for all of thirty seconds before submitting enthusiastically and suddenly the marital
bed is finally seeing some action but, oh dear, suggesting that women like to
be overpowered by forceful men isn’t very PC.
So now Katherine has something to be less gloomy about, not only
is she Lady of the Manor by default while her menfolk are away she has sex on
tap as well. Until Boris returns.
Not willing to give up her newfound status, a murderous
dodgy batch of mushrooms does for Boris but then Alexander returns. He says he
knows all about her whoring ways and Katherine doesn’t deny it. In fact, she wheels
out Sebastian to give her husband a demonstration first hand. After which things
don't end well for Alexander either.
Peace at last or perhaps not. Out of the blue a woman
appears with a child she claims is Alexander's, so he did know what to do after
all. Oddly Katherine lets them both move in but soon gets fed up of her new
lodgers and, if the film wasn't already un-PC enough, she suffocates the child
to death.
So, this is no when Katherine met Sebastian romance, and by
now he’s starting to realise it and tries to come clean but Katherine will have
none of that.
It’s a fascinating film which causes you to rapidly shift allegiances.
At first, it's impossible not to sympathize with Katherine, saddled in a life
with two horrible older men. Until it becomes clear that Katherine is just as
heartless once she gains a position of power, to the extent that she betrays the
very servants she once had sympathy for.
Excellent stuff and Florence Pugh makes a magnificent psychopath.
Afterwards we walk up to Daughter’s local, The Doctors Orders
and meet her there. We have a couple more drinks before getting a
bus back into town and then another one home.
(Sunday 7th May)
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