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ClareR (6037 KP) rated Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and The NHS in Books

Apr 6, 2021  
Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and The NHS
Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and The NHS
Michael Rosen | 2021 | Biography
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is the story of Michael Rosen’s experience with Covid-19. How he became ill, then very ill, was hospitalised, put on a ventilator for 48 days, and his hard work back to good health - with complications included.
I can remember being really worried when Michael Rosen said he was feeling unwell last year, and even more so when it was reported that he had been taken in to hospital. There was that long period where I could only imagine how distressed his family must have been feeling.
This book documents it all. There are the diary entries from the carers whilst Michael Rosen was in an induced coma: the nurses, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists - all those from right across the NHS who helped him, turned him, talked to him, kept him clean and made sure that he heard from his family. They clearly did an amazing job, and this showed the sheer volume of people who cared for him.
It’s a really moving book. I read much of this with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. And of course there were the funny bits, as there always is with Michael Rosen.
I’m just so glad he made it. This book is going on the Keeper Shelf, because this will be a book that we will all look back on in years to come, when memories of Covid-19 start to dim.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated My Octopus Teacher (2020) in Movies

Oct 4, 2020 (Updated Oct 4, 2020)  
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
2020 | Documentary
5
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Netflix sea-life doc that sets out to be moving and inspiring and just ended up making me shout at my laptop a lot. A bloke going through some sort of mid-life crisis does the usual thing and gets involved with a younger female: the twist is that she's an invertebrate. Never mind 'My Octopus Teacher', based on what he says - 'I was overwhelmed by my feelings for her,' etc - 'My Darling Octopus' might have been a better title. Same old story: Man meets octopus, they swim around together for a bit, octopus loses arm in shark attack, he nurses her back to health, she has several hundred thousand children behind his back, etc.

Quite apart from the weirdness of the subject matter - what did the bloke's wife think of all this? what, for the matter, did the octopus think was going on? - there's something very dodgy about the way the film is presented. The story is presented as something that's already happened, so are we watching reconstructions of the events? Is it all a staged or confected narrative? Has someone told the octopus actually appearing in the film it's basically in the role of Kim Novak at the end of Vertigo? Stunning photography and images of sealife, naturally, but rather than informing the viewer about octopuses - which are fascinating creatures - it just unloads a lot of sentimental, anthropomorphised cobblers on them. Best watched with the sound turned down and appropriate sea-life noises playing.