Specimen Days

Let me start by making it quite clear I utterly reject current gender fluidity and all the other associated nonsense on the grounds that it is in the best Emperor’s New Clothes tradition just utter stupidity. Of course everyone who wants to be trendy will be standing up cheering for rights that don’t exist before joining the flat earth society. Having got that off my chest I have absolutely no problem with those who have genuine gender dysphoria. I am so glad when I was ten or eleven no one had waltzed into my class asking if I wanted to be a girl. If they had I would have raised my arm in an instant. What a disaster my life would have been. I was clever, that made me stand out as a prime target for bullying. It carried on even to my first year at University. I was pushed out of primary school early graduated at 20 from University. No I didn’t fit in, I was different. I hated sport in particular football, again marked out as different and therefore a target. I knew nothing...

Sky are showing the film The Nativity Story as part of the Christmas line up. It tells the Christmas Story as authentically as possible although it does begin with slaughter of all children under two something that happened some time after the birth of Jesus. It is quite brutal so if you are looking to have a warm cosy experience this is not the film for you. The poverty and subjugation to Herod and Roman rule is there to be seen. “Betrothed to much-older Joseph (Oscar Isaac), Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes) must remain a maiden for one year, but she subsequently receives a visit from the angel Gabriel, who tells her of her destiny. When Joseph and now-heavily pregnant Mary journey to Bethlehem for the Roman census, they face a threat from King Herod, whose obsession with an ancient prophecy endangers soon-to-be-born Jesus.” The film was released on the 1st of December 2006 and premiered at the Vatican on the 27th of November 2006. It received mixed reviews on its release. I w...