Accent on Action

Another evening disrupted by that bloody washing machine.  I'm getting so tired of this fucking shit.  All I was trying to was to put the towels I had to use to clear up the flooding it caused in my kitchen on Tuesday through the wash and the bloody thing pulled the same stunt again. Trouble was, this time all the towels I needed to mop up the inevitable flood when I pulled out the filter were in the machine.  This time, rather than a mountain of what looked like fluff and gunge causing the blockage, what looked like silt and grit came pouring out as it drained.  I wouldn't mind, but last time I unblocked it, it subsequently quite happily ran the load it had disrupted through a quick wash cycle, without incident.  But this time - another flood.  Using it is becoming like playing Russian roulette.  I know, I know, I should just buy a new washing machine.  But right now, with the lockdown and all that, it can be such a faff getting such things delivered.  I've been hoping that I could nurse this one through until things start to ease, but it is making it very difficult for me to do so.

Anyway, the end result has been another evening disrupted, spent mopping up water from my flooded kitchen floor rather than posting anything here.  I'm really not in the mood to try and write anything meaningful after all the crap that washing machine has caused me tonight.  But I will mention, briefly, something that has recently struck me - the prevalence of British martial arts practitioners in low-budget US action films of the direct-to-DVD variety.  I just caught most of one - in between cleaning up the kitchen - featuring Gary Daniels.  He's turned up here before - he starred in Fist of the North Star, which I talked about a while ago.  This was an earlier entry in his filmography, where he played the villain's chief henchman.  It is always slightly disconcerting to suddenly hear an English accent in what is otherwise a US production, (a real Brit accent, that is, not one of those crap sub-Dick Van Dyke fake accents you sometimes here - like in the preceding film, which had an international cast with dubbing so bad that it was a constant case of trying to guess what accent characters were meant to be speaking with).  I had such an experience last week, when I stumbled into a 2017 action flick called The Debt Collector part way through.  

The whole thing seemed so obviously American - the brightly lit California locations, the cars, etc, then the leading man opened his mouth and I was started to hear him speaking with an English accent and spouting British slang.  This time around, the lead was Scott Adkins, late of Sutton Coldfield, who, apparently, stars in a lot of these films, (it isn't a genre I usually watch, so I'm generally not familiar with the regular participants).  I subsequently managed to see the film all the way through - apart from being pleasantly surprised that it was actually pretty good, I also learned that not only did it have a British lead, but his co-star what sounded like a New York accent was actually played by an Australian and their boss was played by a Czech actor, the director is from Winchester, just down the road from me.  Despite a surprisingly down beat ending, (in comparison to much of what had preceded it), it turned out to popular enough to spawn a sequel last year, known variously as The Debt Collector 2, The Debt Collectors and Payback.  Adkins - who, on the basis of this film, is a somewhat better actor than most of these martial arts guys, demonstrating a genuine charisma and screen presence beyond his obvious fighting skills - is the latest in a long line of British martial arts experts who have carved a niche for themselves in these sorts of film.  I suppose its either that or the US pro wrestling scene if you want to make any money from such skills.  Whatever the reason for their success, it is nice to know that we can still export something.