Breaking the Silence
It’s been four days since I last posted anything to the blog. I’m still sick. I have to make a decision in the morning about either calling the doctor to try and get an appointment, or calling work. I can’t remember having more than a day off from work for years. I’m already stressing about the mayhem I’m going to walk back into – which is perhaps an indicator in itself about the circumstances that lead to me getting so sick in the first place (aside from all manner of bugs doing the rounds at the moment).
Of course I haven’t been able to completely rest – the last two days running I’ve ended up walking into town to buy groceries to avoid getting my head bitten off by my other half. When I have been able to, I’ve sat quietly in the lounge and watched movies.
Yesterday morning I watched “Eat, Pray, Love” – the Julia Roberts movie based on the real-life memoirs of Elizabeth Gilbert. Although the movie was wonderful, and thought provoking, and caused all manner of introspective self analysis, I couldn’t help thinking throughout “how the hell is she paying for all of this?” (in the movie she ends her unhappy marriage, and travels the world for a year to “find herself”). I’m sure the book explains the mystery, so perhaps it will join the mile long list of books I would like to read one day.
This morning I watched a documentary on Netflix about David Prowse – the man that played Darth Vader in the first three Star Wars movies. I knew there had been a falling out between Lucasfilm, and Prowse, but didn’t know what it was all about. Apparently Prowse had been accused of leaking plot information about “The Empire Strikes Back” to the press during production. It took the documentary maker no time at all to find the journalist that published the original story, who confirmed that the call had come from somebody on the set, and that they had called David Prowse to verify what the anonymous tip had told them. Of course they then verified that he confirmed nothing to them.
Here’s the thing though – David Prowse*did give his opinion to the press in 1977 that it would be great if future movies were ever made if it turned out Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, and would be wonderful if there was a do-or-die fight between them. This wasyears* before Empire went into production.
There’s one problem with his daydream, that nobody connected the dots about. George Lucas wrote all of Star Wars before any shooting happened. That’s why the first story we saw in 1977 was “Episode IV”.I find it hard to believe the cast never saw more than their own lines during the filming of the first movie – if they saw the original narrative, they would naturally have known the entire story arc – and a bit-part actor trying to impress a journalist would very probably have said too much.
Anyway. I’m nerding out. It’s all conjecture.
I need to sleep. Apparently rest is the best method of fighting whatever it is I’ve got. I suspect it’s bronchitis, but a call to the Doctor tomorrow will probably shed more light on that. Of course this all relies on me being able to get an appointment, among the legion of old people clogging up the waiting room with ailments they really shouldn’t be bothering a doctor with.