Poppyland

My wife has not had to work today, so for the most part she has been home. At the present I am able to make a short post late into my afternoon because she went out with her two adult sons to have a meal somewhere ─ I have not submitted myself to the unsafe and ineffective inoculation, so I am unable to gain entry to any restaurants here in the Horgan / Henry land, and thus am unable to be a part of any 'family' outing like this.

I expect that the meal relates to my wife's February 22nd birthday.

She had to work a full day yesterday at the Thai restaurant where she has part-time employment. When she arrived home after mid-evening, my younger brother and I were watching T.V. through streaming apps that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box.

One show that we watched was a 1985 T.V. movie titled "Poppyland" which is actually an episode ─ the second ─ of a BBC T.V. series known as Screen Two. Unfortunately, the only source for the movie that I found was this extremely poor-quality version at YouTube.

Thanks to the charms of young actress Phoebe Nicholls in the role of Louie Jermy, I rather enjoyed this rather disconnected ramble that was more like a stage play. Phoebe looked younger, but she would have just been into her latter 20s at this point.

It was no mystery to me why Louie Jermy seemed to be so captivating to the male literati and stage actors of her time.

I was familiar with the poet Algernon Swinburne because back in the late 1960s or very early 1970s, my old friend Philip David P. went through a phase of infatuation with the authour's writings. But other than that familiarity with the name of Swinburne and the sort of writings he was known for, none of the other characters in the movie were known to me ─ not even main character Clement Scott.

I must say that actor John McEnery certainly portrayed a memorable Swinburne! I have no idea how accurate the portrayal was, however.

I correctly presumed that the various named writers and actors mentioned in the "Poppyland" story were likely all genuine and not fictional names, but I suspect that any unrequited romantic relationship that was depicted between stage critic Clement Scott (played by Alan Howard) and young Louie Jermy was fabricated.

"Poppyland" was apparently a real village ─ Sidestrand. Louie Jermy also existed and lived there. Anyone interested can find our something about her, Clement Scott, and Sidestrand at Encyclopedia.com: Jermy, Louie (1864–1934).

It seems a little odd to me that Louie Jermy never merited a mention in a StageBeauty.net article titled The Fall of Clement Scott (there is an option there by which one can listen to instead of read the article).

There is even a website devoted to the Jermy family lineage that includes information about her ─ see the webpage at Jermy.org titled Louie Jermy - "Maid of the Mill", Poppyland (1864 - 1934). 

My brother found the movie to be rather boring.

As I type these words shortly after 5 p.m., I can hear it raining fairly hard outside. The day betimes came near to breaking into some sunshine. Overnight temperatures remained well above freezing.

I really need to get myself out during the week for some walking, yet it is already Wednesday and I keep failing. I will never re-adapt to the activity if I do not soon make a resumption of it.

The final thing I want to mention is the unexpected small windfall of beer that befell my brother and I early last evening before he was yet home from wherever it was that he was 'socializing'. It seems that my youngest stepson's friend, known to me only as R.J., made an appearance in the hope that he could drop off some cans of two kinds of beer ─ an India pale ale (IPA) and a pilsener.

It befell that the lad R.J. works at a brewery, and seldom is able to use his allotment of free product!

So my brother and I found ourselves with nigh a dozen cans of beer apiece, and with the promise of more in the future. I don't know if that will hold true, but I do hope it does.

There had been more beer bestowed than my brother and I actually received, for my eldest stepson availed himself of some of the larder before I divvied up what remained.

Okay, that's it for today.