Biobank Rules OK

I have (almost) never used this site to post a boast, but this time, I make an exception. The story began over ten years ago when I received a letter from an outfit named Biobank, requesting I become part of an ongoing health and wellness research programme. Being ever the curious type, I jumped on board the hay-wagon and found me in a West London building, lining up with other volunteers to undergo a raft of medical checks and fill in questionnaires. The day culminated with us handing over DNA swabs, police drama style. And that was the beginning. Alas, I haven’t been singled out as descended from fruit bats/aliens/Atilla the Hun since then. But I have filled in many more questionnaires and participated in other tests. Today, an article by Ian Sample of the Guardian has cited Biobank’s research as contributing to over 6,000 academic papers, exploring the cause and possible cures of degenerative diseases such as diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's. Egad! It’s so-ooo exciting to know that one’s double helixes are fulminating out there, somewhere in cyber-space, alongside those of the other 499,999 participants, showering benefits on all mankind. Told you so, Ma and Pa, that the genetic aberration you created would come in useful for something, did I not? With that, I’ll open a bottle and anticipate the Season of Excess. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/30/genetic-data-on-500000-volunteers-in-uk-to-be-released-for-scientific-study

I’ll ever be Donnie’s girl

I have just watched Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) for the umpteenth time and oh, what a piece of cinematic poetry it is, the tale of a disaffected youth whose emotional confusion is a metaphor of the time-shifting, surreal elements of the wider narrative. The incomparable Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie, and real-life sister Maggie plays elder screen sister, Elizabeth. She is the perfect study of an uber-intelligent small-town young woman, anxious to move into the wider world. Her cameo is spot-on; in the movie, as in the narrative, she has far too little to do. Otherwise, the narrative is alive with character cameos worthy of a Dickens’ novel, parodying US small-town/high school life: the unconventional but sincere English teacher Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore), and the odious sports’ teacher Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant), whose contribution to culture involves dressing up young girls (Donnie’s younger sister included) in glitter costumes and coaching them to bump and grind like adult women. And Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayzee) is the best-selling, self-help author who is unmasked as a paedophile before the end of the narrative. And deliciously spooky Roberta Sparrow, whose book on time travel is the thread that holds the plot together. And the ghostly hare-like character that haunts Donnie. And many more.
The actual plot is too convoluted to lay out here but it is punctuated by Donnie’s sleepwalking episodes, and visits to psychotherapist Dr Thurman (Katharine Ross), and underlined by his supreme act of unselfishness at the end, relinquishing his life so that love interest Gretchen Ross (Jenna Malone) may live. All that and much more, and as if that were not enough, the movie soundtrack is worthy of a pitch of its own, and includes Tears for Fears’ classics Mad World and Head Over Heels. If you haven’t “done” Donnie yet, please do.