That was the week that was: Minding the gap and Twitter lies

Richard Lutz charts another seven days in this crazy old goofy world.

What is it about a person with only one front tooth? One of mine fell out and, for tedious dental reasons, I had to go through this week with that gap in my face. People look at you strange. Shop assistants take a step backwards, bus drivers point to the back of the vehicle, old folks avoid eye contact, the young, bless ’em, simply stare.

You tend to try to keep your mouth shut – one less hassle to deal with. But try asking for a pint with your mouth clapped shut or try dealing with a civil engineer (as I had to this week) and see what happens when you notice eyeballs glued to that single front tooth and the empty void next to it. I get a stopgap replacement very soon and it can’t come fast enough.

Despite the uni-tooth issue, I have had to contend with the closure of Lovefilm. This is a postal DVD service with a back catalogue of 80,000 titles. 80,000, that’s right. It’s owned by Amazonm, who predictably say demand is plummeting so the company is shutting shop this autumn.

Lovefilm, despite its antiquity in the face of streaming, was/is a real winner. You’d see an allusion to, let’s say, actor Robert Ryan and add a fistful of his noir movies to your list. Or wonder exactly what Luis Bunuel directed and grab a bunch of his surreal films.

Of course, streaming is faster and more current. But so much of its stock is bargain basement junk outside of the current box set or two. It’s simply inadequate. Lovefilm, with its postal deliveries, shuts on Halloween night. I’m already firing up the final requests and getting all those Preston Sturgis classics, Ealing comedies and back series of Northern Exposure on my hungry list.

Finally, whether you hate the guy or simply despise him, you gotta admit that Trump hogs and dominates the headlines. It’s a parallel media-universe these days. There is world news such as the Sierra Leone disaster or the Brexit debate, the latest terror obscenity or relevant local issues. Then there is the early morning tweet from Trumpland which upends the agenda. And whatever uninformed drivel he vomits out of his Twitter feed, there is going to be a massive row over it.

So, for instance, in Britain, you wait til about 11am for the deranged early morning DC rants to drop so the daily news agenda can really start. Today, it was a weird message from the boy pointing to a lie that an American general dipped bullets in pigs’ blood before shooting captured Moslem rebels in The Philippines a century ago. Even with an outright lie..an altfact in fact..it creates a news broohaha.

I try to get my teeth into this latest bizarre debate. But for obvious reasons, I monumentally fail. My dentist awaits.