Once I'm done cooking and washing up, the relatives leave and I hide in the den curled up with a hot cuppa tea a blanket and some shows.
No snow, no shoveling
No travel, no shopping, no cooking, no cleaning for a few days.
Give me some ideas, what's worth watching, or what's in your plans ?
Old or new, I'll try and find it.
no horror for me.
Scrooge (released in USA as
A Christmas Carol), the 1951 British adaptation of Charles Dickens's
A Christmas Carol, staring Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge: recommended because South African screen writer Noel Langley (who wrote the screenplay for
The Wizard of Oz) improved Dickens.
Dickens understood that financiers like Scrooge and Marley concentrated capital by stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, but he knew very little about what they actually did or how they ran their business. How could a two man partnership be rich and powerful? How could they run their business with one clerk? He did not understand finance capital the way he understood probate court, parental schools etc., and he concentrated on the Christmas story. Langley gave Scrooge and Marley a business which made sense of the details: he made them vulture investors.
Vulture investors buy the senior debt of bankrupt companies. Busted debentures no longer paying interest can be bought very cheap. They go to bankruptcy court to meet the other owners of senior debt. "Good morning, gentlemen, we are Scrooge & Marley. Perhaps you've heard of us? Please review our plan for reorganization and consider joining us." Their plan is to loot whatever is left to get those busted junk bonds paying interest again. They don't analyze financial markets. Their business is based on how well they do in court. That's why they only need one clerk, and if one of them has been admitted to the bar, they don't even need to hire a lawyer.
Scrooge left his lovable employer Fezziwig to work for corporate raider Jorkin, where he met Jacob Marley. Jorkin got Fezziwig's business with a hostile takeover, looted it, and stupidly got himself arrested before leaving for some nice place with no extradition treaty.
Photo is Scrooge and Marley smiling in bankruptcy court. This is their first deal which they financed with their savings. Jorkin cheerfully admits he has no standing in court, being under indictment. Their plan for reorganization does in fact give them the company. The other owners of the senior debt will choose between 20% of something and 100% of nothing.
You can watch this on Plex.tv "free with commercials."
