This track, and its artist, criss-crosses reference points in my life. Let’s start with Lilly Allen’s husband, David Harbour. He’s Sherrif Hopper on ‘Stranger Things’ among other things I have seen him in. He’s a good actor and I saw him in ‘Black Widow’ playing Red Guardian, a Russian super soldier proving Abraham Erskine’s point about integrity and the content of a man’s character. Alexi (that’s his name) goes from deep cover spy to a prisoner. He of course has the requisite Russian tattoos and cue the line Lucas North Says in Sooks about tattos being a part of the culture. While the camera shows his back getting a Red Guardian tattoo while recounting a story about fighting Captain American, a little dicey since Steve was still on ice during that time, the camera cuts to his other ink. Among the designs are some stars that awfully familiar and his arms having a bands that also looks familiar.
In short, two of Lucas North’s trademark body ink designs.
I had a look at IMDB and nobody in make up worked on Spooks aka MI-5. Somebody must have searched ‘Russian tattoo art’ in Google images, didn’t want to copy Eastern Promises and went with a little known British show instead. I am guessing but it’s plausible.
The other criss-cross happens with Lilly Allen herself as the daugher of Gordon Allen aka The Sherrif on BBC’s Robin Hood. Seeing the big reveal on Guylty Pleasures for the 50th Birthday auction made me remember the dynamic between Gisbourne and the sherrif. (Also, who didn’t say ‘La de f**cing dah’ when Allen clearly said that line as if the eff word was in it.)
While I mentioned those two relations, Lilly Allen is a good song writer and has collaborated with other artists, notably P!nk. This track is my favourite and finds itself on playlist feature The Chick’s ‘Not Ready to Make Nice.’ Sometimes you need a good anthem for moments of bullshit.
Like now.
The mandatory mask and vaccine mandates announced brought out the worse in some members of humanity, at least in my corner of it. Let’s see we had the usual Nazi Germany comparisons by people who would most likely ignore their neighbours getting shipping to concentration camps or placed in ghettos. (It’s amazing people think they would do things differently. Ha! No! Think again.) The latest comes from a Member of the Legislative Assembly comparing the ‘unfairness’ of these orders to residential schools.
The offical video for this song is weird, but I want to dedicate this Music Monday song to those who cannot tell the difference between inconvenience and fundamental human rights.
Unpaused Life 
The video isn’t able to play on my phone.😢
Stranger Things S4 hopefully will be out this fall! What do you think happened to Hopper?
I like Lilly Allen she marches to her own beat! 👍❤️
Glad music Monday back
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D’oh! I will fix it tomorrow.
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Ahhh thanks 🤗❤️
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I associate her with my early days of Armitage fandom — he referred to her album in a 2006 “message,” having heard a preview of it. So I bought the album, but I’ve kind of lost track of her.
Interestingly, although this is not well known, the Nazis were anti-vaxxers for quite a while — they thought it was Jewish medicine and part of a conspiracy to weaken the Volk. (They changed their minds when they encountered typhus on the Eastern Front and actually pulled a bunch of Jewish scientists out of a concentration camp to work on a vaccine.)
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/lice-doctor-lviv-nazi-germany-109255/
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That, in turn, resulted in the crowning irony of the typhus vaccine story, which occurred when the Nazi doctors who had created such suffering throughout the concentration camp system learned, just before their deaths, that they had been duped.
Surprise motherf***ers!!
Scary to see the same strain running through today’s protests.
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Yeah, it is really strange that people fixate on the same things over and over again. (But, for example, some of the things that people talk about today with regard to world conspiracy / Jewish world conspiracy go back to the 12th century — the whole blood libel / Jews steal babies to eat them thing, for example).
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I took a Intro to Catholic studies course at university, an evening course. I knew the church did some dumb, dumb, DUMB things. However, it blew my mind they made the Jewish community in Rome attend a required mass after they were done their sabbath. This course was taught by a Jesuit and one guy discovered this class will not be an advanced Sunday school class.
I read about the blood libel and that special brand of crazy. Yikes!
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World historically seen, government + religion is usually an unholy alliance. Religion has enough power via its permeation of culture and society that it doesn’t need the state standing behind it. To me that problem explains a lot of the horrible moments of the Roman Catholic Church (admittedly not all). Who was going to stand in their way? The blood libel really gets me just because it’s survived the Enlightenment. There are Pizzagate parallels and I just always think — really? You really think people are harvesting blood from children? That most of our government is involved in it? Occam’s Razor, people, Occam’s Razor.
(and yeah, speaking from the viewpoint of having taught this material, there’s always at least one who doesn’t get that the point isn’t having their faith affirmed. Jesuits are great in that regard — they are simultaneously devout and capable of looking the truth in the face.)
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That’s a good point about the pizzagate parallels. I met a lot of Jesuits and generally are authentic men. My Catholic Studies prof died last year. He was a good man and he believed in me more than I believed in myself. I wish I got to tell him that.
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Ooh, that’s a great song! I often sing the chorus in my mind in certain situations.The situations you mention do fit with the song perfectly.
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That’s one of my favourite songs and is the only Lily Allen song on my playlist. (Written about George W. Bush, but appropriate in many situations.) Harbour was really funny in Black Widow!
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He was hilarious! I hope we see more of Alexi and Melina. I wished we got Melina and Clint to meet because I still remember the end of the Bourne Legacy.
Melina: Natasha, who’s your friend? Is he single. Because I would like to get lost with him.
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That would be fun! Saw Shang-Chi on Friday night. It is great!
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