Driven by fine performances from Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall, Lance Hammer’s comeback is unbearable in its tragic candour and essential in its moral questioning

This inexpressibly painful and sad story – featuring angry, complex, brilliant late-career performances from Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall – is about dementia, the endgame of care and the decisions that need to be made when the spouse-carer is as vulnerable as the patient (and whose right it is to take those decisions). It is about the nature of intimacy between the two; and about the moment this becomes a problem for the grownup children with a conflicting sense of their own responsibilities.

Queen at Sea is directed by indie US film-maker Lance Hammer, absent since his 2008 Sundance winner, Ballast. This is an almighty comeback, a lacerating movie bearing comparison with Michael Haneke’s Amour or Gaspar Noé’s Vortex. It concludes with a heartbreakingly ironic and enigmatic final sequence refusing the traditional final cadence; a diptych of love, contrasting the pleasures and expectations of intimacy across the generations.

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What made the Manchester United co-owner’s anti-immigrant screed so revolting was his brazen willingness to say it all out loud. Remind you of anyone?

Did British petrochemicals billionaire and Manchester United’s controlling minority owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, really mean it when he proclaimed to Sky News that “the UK is being colonized by immigrants”?

Is Ratcliffe simply a gutter racist or actually making a cynical political play that may redound to his benefit down the line when Britain faces down yet another period of political upheaval as the country’s old factions continue to fracture? There’s reasonable debate to be had there.

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Voor gemeenten die hun Beeld van de Uitvoering (BvdU) over 2025 nog niet hebben ingediend, wordt in herinnering geroepen dat het formulier vóór 1 maart 2026 door het ministerie moet zijn ontvangen. De gevraagde financiële informatie betreft de voorlopige realisatiecijfers over 2025 en vergt geen controleverklaring van de accountant.

tintinetmilou has added a photo to the pool:

Kawagoe

Nobody wants to wait days, or even weeks, for a package. But somehow, this situation is even more disconcerting: Your Amazon package just came way too fast.

What a deeply unsettling occurrence.

Despite the fact that you placed the order last night at two in the morning, somehow, by the time you woke up, the package was already on your porch. Although you needed your shampoo soon—you probably have one, maybe two showers left with your current bottle—you didn’t need it this soon. For it to have arrived this quickly is, frankly, concerning. Someone worked through the night to make sure you had shampoo at your front door by the break of dawn. Yes, you—you, who definitely could have just gone to the store for it, but instead had everyone running around like this was a rapid-fire organ delivery for a lifesaving transplant.

Yikes. These are not the things you want to think about, and these are not the type of things you’d have to think about had your shampoo just arrived in a normal-to-fast timeframe of 24 to 48 hours.

But instead, the swift arrival of your package prompts so many questions. Where did the shampoo come from? Did it come the next block over, or was it overnighted on a plane in a deeply un-environmentally-conscious way? How much were the people delivering it paid? Are they being treated fairly? Where do they live? Where do they work? WHERE DID THE SHAMPOO COME FROM? Is it from a store? Is it from a warehouse? Literally how does Amazon even work?! You just wanted shampoo a dollar cheaper than it is at the drugstore! You didn’t mean for anyone to die for it!!!! Was that so much to ask?!

Woof. This is rough. Here’s hoping it never, ever happens again, because the implications are way too complicated to reckon with.

Soms glijd je in sociale situaties weg als een schaduw. Je voelt je klein, nutteloos, alsof je aanwezigheid niets toevoegt. Dit gevoel van onzichtbaarheid knaagt aan je zelfvertrouwen en duwt je naar de zijlijn.

Het ontstaat vaak door een laag zelfbeeld, versterkt in vergaderingen of feestjes waar je niet durft te spreken. Psychologe Julie Smith, bekend van TikTok en haar bestseller Waarom heeft niemand mij dit eerder verteld?, biedt een verrassende remedie. Stel je een standaard kaartspel voor: 52 kaarten, niets bijzonders.

Smiths metafoor relativeert negatieve gedachten. Individuele eigenschappen lijken gewoon – een voorkeur voor koffie, een mislukking – maar jouw mix is radicaal uniek. Het stopt de innerlijke criticus die fluistert: "Je bent inwisselbaar."

In Nederland lopen jongeren met laag zelfrespect hoger risico op depressie en angst, blijkt uit onderzoek van de RUG. Ongeveer 17% van jongvolwassenen voelt weinig vertrouwen in zichzelf of de toekomst. Deze regel helpt perspectief te verschuiven, zonder affirmaties of spiegels.

Probeer het: bij twijfel, denk aan die kaarten. Het gewone produceert het buitengewone. Zo word je zichtbaar – voor anderen en vooral voor jezelf.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: