M&M: Bastille Day

Bastille Day is a movie from the year 2016. Bastille Day is referring to July, 14^th, the national holiday in France. On July, 14^th 1789 the Bastille was stormed. The movie is set in contemporary Paris a few days before this national holiday. Michael Mason (played by Richard Madden) picks pockets and is unwillingly involved in a bomb attack, when he steals a woman's bag, in which she hid a bomb. Mason checks the bag quickly and decides that there's nothing interesting in it for him and leaves it. As he walks away, the bomb explodes. The CIA hears of the incident and starts looking for Mason, who they believe to be a terrorist after identifying him through cameras around the buildings where the explosion took place. Sean Briar (played by Idris Elba) is ordered to look for Mason. Briar is from the CIA, but not necessarily a guy playing by the rules himself. Initially both men naturally don't trust each other, but then Briar is willing to work with Mason to find the woman, who had the bag first so they can find out more about the reason for the bomb attack.

Richard Madden is initially shown picking pockets. According to the trivia section on imdb.com for this movie, he actually trained to do this for real.

The movie was released in cinemas on July, 13^th 2016 and on July, 14^th the terrorist attacks in Paris and Nizza followed. StudioCanal removed all digital advertisements of this movie in Paris and let theatres decide for themselves, if they wanted to keep the movie in their program or not.

The story of the movie, as described above, may at first read like a simple movie at most described as “action movie“. Yes, it is a movie with lots of action, starting with the pursuit when Briar finds Mason, who runs up to the rooftop and on to other rooftops of Paris. To me however the movie is more than just an action movie. When I saw it the first time, it was on tv at around 10 at night and I was fairly tired already. I wanted to just have a quick look into it, to see what this movie was like, that had the French national holiday as a title. That night I didn't just have a quick look into it, I watched the whole movie to the end, because the story was captivating enough for me to make me curious what the reasons for the attack were and how the story would end for both Briar and Mason. I liked the characters. It's not just about the attack. With Mason we have someone innocent, picking pockets, who suddenly has to prove his innocence when everyone else is looking for him, thinking he wanted to execute the attack. The fact that I'm somewhat interested in magic may have helped making Mason more sympathetic for me.

As I watched the movie, I did however ask myself one question repeatedly: The CIA is not a French organisation, Briar is not a Frenchmen, neither is Mason, but the movie is set in Paris, the capital of France, around the French national holiday. Couldn't they have made the movie “fully” French, instead of just using the date of the French national holiday and making the story take place in Paris? That's not at all critisising the acting abilities of Richard Madden, Idris Elba or anyone else in this movie. I'm just thinking that as much as the frame work of the movie is French, why not use French actors for the main characters and some French organisation instead of the CIA? That's a bit sad all in all, nevertheless I liked the characters of Mason and Briar enough to be interested in a “Bastille Day 2” kind of sequel with the two. The movie does have a good and reasonable ending, but especially the future for Mason after all the events of the movie are questionable and I'd have liked to see how things went on for him specifically. I'm not aware that any sequel is even planned though and I doubt that a sequel with those characters will ever come.

Thinner - the easy part: the body

Dear reader,

so now the post some have been waiting for for a long time and for which the last posts have been sort of to prepare for. Some thoughts on how I lost weight a couple of years ago.

Some time around 2002 I wanted to lose weight. At first I thought of going to the fitness center. But then I saw the well well-conditioned men in front of my minds eye and me, the short, untrained girl among all of them? Hardly. But I wasn't happy with my belly. I wanted definitely to have a thinner belly and that was the beginning of all.

1. The absolute and definite thought of change.

Some dream of changing "the world". This big planet as a whole. It's too big a project, I'm telling you. Just as bad as a blank "I want to be thin." So something else is important, too

2. The thought of only changing one definied part.

But more on thoughts and the mind in my next post. The way I see it, that's in fact the even more important and more powerful part of the whole thing.

So I wanted to lose weight without going to the fitness center. I decided on push-ups and something that seems generally to be called crunches. I started with 10 push-ups as you know them. Then do the crunches to relax the arms. That's lying on your back, legs bent, feet on the ground. Now for example lift the left leg a bit so that the left knee and the right ellbow can touch and vice versa. So it's touching crossed knees and ellbows. Just as a variation to the "normal" lifting your head. Do 10 of those each side. (I always did left ellbow right knee, then right ellbow left knee and again left ellbow right knee.) Then to relax the belly I did so called "woman push-ups". That means you're on your knees, feet bent in the air (and crossed at the ankles is the most comfortable, I think). These are easier and even untrained I can do at least 15 of them easily. Then again go on your back and do the "normal" crunches": legs bent, feet on the ground and lift your head and shoulders just up.

For the arms what I did "back then" when we still had birds and bird grit, I once filled up two small plastic bottles with the grit and used them as dumbbells. I don't do that anymore these days. It's easy to do exercises with that when you're just sitting in front of the tv. Apropos of nothing.

About the legs: a really easy exercise can be done sitting, too. Put both feet on the ground. Then lift one. Just a tiny bit and tense up the leg. Imagine you have weights on your ankle, which pull down the leg. Do 10 to 15 of those, just as you please and then switch to the other leg. That's something that can be done again apropos of nothing, like at work or when you're having a coffee with a friend or when you're at the bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive. But it's important to do all the exercises I mentioned here on a regular basis! Going through them once takes no time at all. So doing them once a day or at least every second day should be really easy.


There's always a lot of talk about doing lots of sports and being active. You don't necessarily have to do that as such. I didn't do that, apart from the exercises I mentioned here, which I don't do on a regular basis anymore these days. It starts with little things such as going the stairs instead of taking the escalator or elevator. With that alone you're already more active. Or just stand up and walk around while on the phone. Especially these days where practically all phones (mobile phones anyway) are wireless, that's no problem anymore.

Recently I found juggling for myself again, after I started it for a bit in 2011 and taught myself quite fast to juggle with 2 balls and then stopped doing it until a couple of months ago. My next long term goal would be to juggle 4 balls. Also I found so called contact juggling to do. That's juggling, but not throwing the ball, instead it's always in contact (hence the name) with the body. There are all sorts of quite impressive contact juggling videos on youtube both tutorials and simply to watch and enjoy. Some of them are very meditating and relaxing to watch. As is doing it. ;-)

A lot of people often suggest to go jogging. Jogging isn't my thing. Never interested me really. Althought there's this thing of combining jogging and juggling, which is called "joggling". There's even sort of marathons where you are allowed to drop a ball only so many times and you're running and juggling with others. Find your own sports to do. I am fascinated with juggling. Sitting on the bed or on the sofa it's easy to do apropos of nothing. It's good for coordination, a nice arm exercise and it's proved that activities that involve using both hands also help to (re)connect both of the brain hemispheres better (again). Which is also, by the way, why it helps with depression and increases the creativity! Which is not to say that I want you all to start learning to juggle now. Everybody should find their own activity they enjoy to be active. I for one like juggling at this moment with great fun and it's easy to carry 2 balls in your bag. That's my thing at the moment.

That's it for now. Being thinner the first, the easy part: the body. Next time will be the harder part: the brain and the mind!

Until next blog,
sarah