When I was about six, I woke up on Christmas morning to find a Minnie The Minx costume. Not like your 100% polyester supermarket ones now, this was hand knitted. By Mrs. Claus herself no less. (Someone wasn’t getting the credit she deserves).
Off I went to mass and everywhere else, in my black knitted mini, my black and red jumper, and a black headband with the word ‘minx’ knitted into it; just in case it wasn’t completely clear who I was in the Beano and Dandy mad eighties.
I was an avid Beano fan and so was my Dad before me. While I made dinner the other evening the boys were happily flicking around their profile on Netflix. Suddenly, a familiar call rang out from the living room. No, not “mammy he’s hitting me”, but “Oi Gnasher, come back!”. I rushed in, to find yet another reboot of Dennis The Menace gracing the small screen, and my two little boys glued to it. I sat down to watch for a few minutes, delighted that they’d found it. Walter is no softy in this 2013 edition, but the sight of Dennis with his old-school catapult was enough to make me smile. It makes a change from the formulaic sweetness of Dora The Explorer and Go! Diego Go!, two of their other current favourites. And frankly, I prefer anything over Horrid Henry, the primary parental menace of our times. (I’ve banned him in our house.)
Next up on the viewing list for me and the husband is the latest Netflix Original Series Sense8 – it’s from the creative minds of The Wachowskis (the lads behind The Matrix trilogy) so it’s bound to be a bit nuts, fun and visually ground breaking. I do love the odd bit of fantasy and sci-fi so this looks like just the ticket when all the shows on regular telly are finishing up for the summer.
Sense8 is centered around eight characters that live in different cities around the world who experience a violent vision, and soon find themselves mentally connected by this experience. They are suddenly able to see and talk to each other as though they were in the same place, and have access to each other’s deepest secrets. Not only must these eight adapt to this new ability and to each other, they must figure out what happened and why and what it means for the future of humanity, while being hunted by an organization out to capture, kill or vivisect them.
As soon as I get a bit of time to myself, I’m planning on diving into another one that ticks the fantasy box, but this time it’s a fairy tale world in Once Upon A Time. I’ve had too many recommendations of it now to ignore it any longer. It’s seems like lots of parents are enjoying this show with their older kids, but I can’t be hanging around waiting for mine to grow up so I’m going ahead and watching it solo.
None of it might get a look in at all though – The big one for me this June is Orange Is The New Black back for a third season from June 12th. Yippee!