{"id":8140,"date":"2024-01-08T09:18:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T09:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/?p=8140"},"modified":"2024-01-08T09:18:06","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T09:18:06","slug":"the-late-indeed-very-late-review-of-2023-part-1-books-and-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/the-late-indeed-very-late-review-of-2023-part-1-books-and-films\/","title":{"rendered":"The late, indeed very late review of 2023! Part 1 – books and films"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello again!<\/p>\n

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Well that was a bit of a disaster, and I am referring to the year 2023! \u00a0It began with ill-health (‘flu and Covid) and ended with ill-health (bronchitis). I’ve been out of action since the 15th December. We cancelled everything before Christmas, Christmas itself, and everything afterwards, with Mr F getting the cough shortly after me. And by ‘everything’ I mean cancelling all the lovely friends and family we were going to see and\/or entertain.<\/p>\n

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And neither are we in my favourite place, Dungeness, on the writing retreat as, while I am just about at turning point with this dratted virus, Mr F is still really poorly. I’ve been told by the doc that this is ‘the’ virus of the season and half of Lewes has this bug, and what’s more the cough goes on for weeks. \u00a0But I began writing this blog post on the 5th of January and I do feel as if some energy is returning as I feel as though I could write for a solid hour, when before all I could manage was a short email.<\/p>\n

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This whole experience of succumbing to viruses in the winter is not unusual but I do feel like I could do without any more. \u00a0Btw, before you ask, I take a strong multi-vitamin 3 times a week, extra Vitamin D every day, plus Zinc and Magnesium, and a pro-biotic. I eat many organic vegetables throughout the week (up to 25-30 different ones as I try to follow the advice from the Zoe programme) and we eat meat or fish every other day. \u00a0I now feel like punching ill-health and indeed ageing in the face, which is a better attitude to have than the exhausted flopping around that I have been doing for the last 3 weeks. \u00a0Soon I aim to be back to my daily walks, my 1-2-1 with my Personal Trainer and Pilates class and doing the exercises with weights in between.<\/p>\n

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And here’s another health hack I want you all to listen to – and heed. At the end of November I went for my annual Mole Clinic skin check, which some might think excessive, \u00a0but I never have as I have pale Scottish skin and burnt myself to a crisp as a teenager in the vain hope of going ‘brown’. Err, people with Scotish DNA don’t go brown! Well, readers, they found an abnormal mole and I’m having that out this week. It will go to the lab and I shall know the results shortly after and of course, I’ll let you know what’s what. But listen. I am very clued up about these skin cancers, and this mole? I would never ever<\/em> have bothered anyone about as it’s so small and innocuous. But it wasn’t nothing, it’s something. So, if you have pale skin, freckles and moles, I’m telling you, get yourself checked.<\/p>\n

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So, enough of my travails, I shall now ponder books, films, clothes, makeup, and, and, I am going to do this, politics, because, this is not just a fashion blog and as this is a review of 2023 some things have to be said. \u00a0And note I’ve broken the review into two parts as I think it would be too long to put out into one blog \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Let’s start with the book(s) of the year. I didn’t read as many this year as I usually do, mostly due to the various illnesses I’ve had, not that I’ve kept a count. But this year if I have any resolutions at all (actually I don’t) it is that I shall write down every book I read with a short comment attached. I began this with December’s books.<\/p>\n

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So, are there any books<\/strong> that stand out in my memory? Yes, for me the book of my year was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.<\/strong> Oh My Word, what a book. This is Kingsolver’s best, I think. It’s set in the Appalachians and could, if you hadn’t read Dickens’ David Copperfield, appear to be a rather florid take on the poverty of the area and the opioid crisis. And yet it is the David Copperfield story set in the States. It’s a genius read and as I turned the pages I kept realising, ‘oh yes, of course, that’s ….’ and that’s….. as the Copperfield characters turned up in their American guise. Loved every moment of this book, and what’s more I savoured it as I read it as I am guilty of speed-reading through books that bore me.<\/p>\n

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I read the Kingsolver book at the beginning of the year and ended it with one other book of the year. A Christmas present from Mr F, it is The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis<\/strong>. I’d asked for it as I know there is film coming out adapted from the book, and partly, I thought, I should read it. For me it was another genius read, as the subject is horrible and yet, it is so subtle. The book is set in Auschwitz but it does not describe the horrors of the camp instead it shows you the very essence of that phrase penned by Hannah Arendt, the banality of evil. It is about the administrators, the people who ran the place, their wives, and the lovers of these people. Read and despair, read and remember where populism, dictatorship, tyranny and hate gets you. I read every word and thought – yes, what an amazing book. I shall never forget it.<\/p>\n

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And on to films<\/strong>. Unlike books I faithfully write down every film I watch and amazingly I have now filled one entire little moleskin book with reviews that go from 2014. \u00a0So, a new year a new book. But what of 2023? We watched 58 films (57 films in 2022) and not all were 5* films by any means. But there are some standouts which I won’t review myself but you can read if you click through: starting with The Quiet Gir<\/a>l – lovely but so sad. Till<\/a>, and yes, that’s Emmet Till but the film is about his mother’s fight for justice. Did anyone see that? We are showing it at our local community cinema as the subject is still relevant today and worth showing. If anyone wanted to ask me my favourite film it would be Cocaine Bear<\/a> – don’t judge just watch it and tell me if you don’t laugh. Then there’s Ridley Scott’s \u00a0Napoleon<\/a>, an attempt at greatness that failed and I’m not talking about Napoleon himself, and finally Maestro<\/a>, which I thought excellent and will get some Oscars I’m sure.<\/p>\n

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But of course, I can’t pass by the Barbiheimer phenomenon. I watched Barbie earlier this year and adored it. What a film. Please, if you haven’t watched it don’t be put off by the idea that it’s all about the doll. Because, it is and it isn’t. Instead it is about the awakening of Barbie to not only her life in doll world but when she gets to the real world – look, it’s a film – she is simply amazed at the status of women, a status that doesn’t come up to her standard of women achieving all sorts of high end work and careers. Yup, it’s feminist, very feminist and wow, what a film. Really really fab, please give it a chance if you haven’t watched it. Oh and by and by, I totally adored all the references to other films in Barbie, starting with the shot of the dolls being thrown in the air – that’s the film 2001. Looking through reviews there are anything from 10-25 references – here’s a link<\/a> for some of them.<\/p>\n

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I didn’t watch Oppenheimer with Barbie – phew, no thanks to that! But I recently watched the film on Amazon and it’s ok, and adequately well told, but there’s a documentary on Oppenheimer that is in my view better. And for those of you who have watched Barbie, I’d sum up the film as being too long and having too many men on horses, so Oppenheimer is not one of my films of the year.<\/p>\n

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Actually my film of the year is a documentary. It is Name Me Lawand<\/a> and is about a boy who with his family crossed the Channel in a small boat (yes one of those) to get to the UK for treatment for his deafness. So far, so dreary and not for me? Oh my word, see the film if you can, as it is beautiful. First of all, it is filmed in a magical realism way, difficult to explain but it is as though you are experiencing his world. And what does he experience when he gets to the UK? Actually, mostly kindness, generosity and above all the gift of speech as he was not only deaf but dumb from lack of any education or support. It is not only lovely to watch in a cinematic way, it is lovely to watch beautiful kind people working together to give the gift of speech to one small boy. You will cry and also feel so very uplifted. A wonderful film that I will never forget. We are showing it at our local community cinema and I am so proud to bring it to a wider audience.<\/p>\n

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I’m bringing this part of the review to an end with one of my best buys of the year.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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What, not a coat, again<\/em>, you say! \u00a0The thing is this cost only \u00a33 and is all wool and almost vintage as its label is Richards, which is brand that is no longer. \u00a0I wear it and wear it – it’s a keeper and so necessary in our nation’s climate.<\/p>\n

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That’s all for now, thank you for reading to the end and bearing with my moans at the beginning of this piece. I shall return shortly with a blog on more good buys, makeup, a bit more on health and wellness and yup some politics. But until then wishing you all a Happy New Year, and good health for the coming year.<\/p>\n

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With love, Penny, the Frugalfashionshopper<\/em><\/p>\n\"instagram\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a><\/span>
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Hello again!   Well that was a bit of a disaster, and I am referring to the year 2023! \u00a0It began with ill-health (‘flu and Covid) and ended with ill-health (bronchitis). I’ve been out of action since the 15th December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[132,161,127,1],"tags":[136,49,6,134,75,101],"class_list":["post-8140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fashion","category-films-books","category-health-wellbeing","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-charity-shop","tag-coats","tag-films","tag-frugal-fashion-shopper","tag-skin-cancer"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8140"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8152,"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140\/revisions\/8152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalfashionshopper.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}