Thursday, December 11, 2025
Down Cemetery Road — Apple TV Series
Down Cemetery Road — Official Trailer | Apple TV
Apple TV
This might be a thriller, but it's a bit of a mess, but that is probably why it's so entertaining. We've got a bunch of curious characters, a bunch of villains, and a bunch of incompetence. It's all tied to the Ministry of Defense trying to erase the evidence of a chemical warfare experiment gone horribly wrong, all told in a fairly light-hearted fashion.
Our girl, Sarah, is played by Ruth Wilson, famous (to us, anyway) for playing the psychopath Alice in the series Luther with Idris Elba.
Headliner Emma Thompson plays Zoë Boehm, a private investigator. She and Sarah are the driving forces in this show, i.e. the troublemakers that C wants to shut up.
Adeel Akhtar plays Hamza Malik, or maybe Malik Hamza. In the cast he is listed as Hamza, but in the show he is always referred to as Malik, except for one case when his full name is used, but I can't remember which way it goes. Whatever. We've seen him in other shows, usually as a peripheral character, often as a policeman. In any case, this time he plays a fumbling, fawning toady, totally out of his depth, who has inexplicably been put in charge of the clean up operation. His spectacular incompetence makes me wonder how he got put in charge of anything. I dunno, maybe only incompetent people are willing to work at such jobs because that is the only kind of job they can get. All you have to do is be willing to do whatever you are told.
The title comes from the poem Toads Revisited by Philip Larkin. Kind of a grim little piece.
Cast:
8 episodes 50 minutes each.
Elephant Hunting Returns
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| A pair of male elephants in the Okavango Delta, Botswana [Mike Hutchings/Reuters] |
Botswana government has increased its annual trophy-hunting quota for elephants:
Botswana, a largely dry nation which is home to 2.3 million people, has more than 130,000 elephants, nearly one-third of all elephants in Africa. The African continent is home to some 415,000 elephants of the world’s 460,000 elephants. The rest of the world’s elephants are in Asia.In 2019, the government lifted a five-year moratorium on elephant hunting to keep the elephant population in check and help generate revenue from trophy hunters for rural communities.A preliminary government draft indicates that the quota for trophy hunting for 2026 has been raised to 430 elephants, up from 410 in 2025.
The move reflects Botswana’s general approach to the conservation of elephant herds.
In 2014, the country imposed a complete ban on trophy hunting but reversed that decision five years later, saying elephant numbers had risen too high and were threatening farmers’ livelihoods.
Now, the government allocates annual hunting quotas for more than a dozen species, including elephants, rhinos, and hippopotamuses.
Other African nations, including Namibia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, also have trophy-hunting quotas to manage their elephant and other wildlife populations.
Strange Days
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| Memorial bust honoring Ivan Kokovin (L) and Michael Gloss in Donetsk, Russia, December 9, 2025. © Donetsk Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin / Telegram |
This is just the strangest thing I have seen in a while.
Memorial to slain son of senior CIA official unveiled in Russia
Michael Gloss volunteered to fight in the Ukraine conflict and was killed liberating Donbass
A memorial bust honoring Michael Gloss, the son of CIA Deputy Director Juliane Gallina who died while fighting for Russia, was unveiled this week in Donetsk.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Dream
I was making some repairs to an old, ramshackle, beach front store. I had to get a ladder and nail down half a dozen shingles on the roof of this single story building. When I came down an acquaintance drove up and complained about the way I parked. If I had pulled up behind the car ahead of me, he could have pulled in behind me, but as it was he was going to have to parallel park. Isn't that the way it always is? The situation was complicated by a section of yellow curb. A casual glance gave the impression that there was room behind my car, but if you step across the road, you can see that the restricted area was supposed to be a little longer, but the paint had been flaking off and was no longer clearly visible. Wouldn't make any difference to the meter maid, if one even showed up at this remote location. Anyway, he pulled a U-turn and parked in motel parking lot across the street.
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