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pynkhues · 5 years ago

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I’m sure you’ve already gotten a bunch of asks since Manny’s Crime King interview! I’m just like confused about him saying he’s enamored by her world but honestly like how is his different (besides his obvious commitment to the game) he lives in a nice loft, takes his kid to baseball, drives a fancy car, and plays tennis at the club. It’s not like he’s living the life of a thug. I guess I’m not getting the exact contrast of their worlds.

(Rest of my ask) I’m probably missing some obvious point here which is why I’m asking you lol helllppp

I do think Rio’s enamoured with Beth’s world, yes! I think that really boils down to the fact that while on paper Beth and Rio aren’t living dissimilar lives in terms of their roles as parents, and while they obviously now share parts of the criminal world, I do think the show is actually pretty specific in how it represents those worlds, particularly in terms of the masculine / feminine, and how a part of the curiosity around each other is in viewing one another as a key that both compliments their own world, while also unlocking the other’s one for them.

The gendering of spaces in storytelling – but particularly films and TV is, hilariously, a topic that I’m incredibly passionate about and have both written it a lot in my original work, and written about it a lot for magazines, journals and media sites (I’m actually writing an essay at the moment for a literary journal about LGBTQI cinema and how lesbian romances are highly domesticised [i.e. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Handmaiden, The Favourite, The Kids are Alright] while gay romances are usually very pointedly about keeping away from domestic spaces, moving and traveling [i.e. Brokeback Mountain, The Talented Mr Ripley, Moonlight, Midnight Cowboy, even Call Me By Your Name is heavily focused on being Americans abroad aka away from home] but that all feels like a different story, haha).

Luckily for me, Good Girls is actually about as obsessed with the gendering of spaces as I am. It’s a major, major throughline throughout the show for many of the characters, but particularly Beth and Rio, and their intrigue with the other’s spaces – her interest in his powerful, highly masculine one, and his with her deceptively innocent, strongly feminine one – is really central to their intrigue with each other more broadly.

So to talk about this, we probably need a little bit of context.

(Under a cut because this is literally 4,000 words)

Gendering Spaces in Cinema

It’s probably not a surprise to anyone here, but places and spaces in stories are about as gendered – if not more gendered – as they are in daily life. In particular, cinema’s visual and textual language has historically been very clear:

The inside is female. The outside is male.

This concept has really been around since the beginning of cinema but became very popularised through Westerns in the late 1920s onwards, and really underlined by war films particularly during propaganda cinema in WWII. Men are outside, battling the elements and other men, claiming land, building outwards, while women are at home – either literally or figuratively (if they’re actually out at war, like in the utterly fabulous So Proudly We Hail!, they’re at the ‘home base’ as nurses) – building inwards. Men protect the home while women create it.

Westerns feature these images very potently and very literally. Almost every single western dating back to the 1910s will have some combination of these two shots:

a) Woman at home, looking out into the wild:

b) Man leaving home, stepping out into the wild:

(These two stills are from John Ford’s The Searchers which is generally regarded as one of the greatest Westerns of all time. It’s………very racist and misogynistic, as many were and still are, but in terms of technicality and visual language, it’s a very well-made film, albeit not one I enjoyed).

The purpose at the time, of course, was steeped in historic sexism and invested in maintaining that culture, particularly westerns and war films which are heavily devoted to ‘macho’ narratives. Women were passive, men were active, but these images really set the stage for how the ideas of ‘space’ continues to exist in cinema. A fact that’s bolstered by broader social discourses that still exist today – schools, grocery stores, laundromats are inherently ‘female’ spaces because they are seen as an extension of the home, while police stations, car dealerships, warehouses, are inherently ‘male’ spaces because they’re about work, protecting and providing for a home, and being pointedly outside of that domestic space aka ‘the wild’. It’s not an accident that the girls are robbing grocery stores and day spas, but I’ll get back to that, haha.

These ideas of gendered spaces underpin everything we watch, no matter the genre.

Sure, these ideas can be subverted to varying degrees of effectiveness (often it’s steeped in my least favourite trope – the ‘not like other girls’ heroine), but you can’t subvert a trope without actually acknowledging it exists. Sometimes these subversions are done brilliantly too – like in Legally Blonde which was not just about Elle existing in a space that was quintessentially coded as male, but embracing her femininity and womanhood within that space; and often brutally too in films like Winter’s Bone, Room and The Nightingale which all brutalise women in ‘male spaces’ while simultaneously weaponizing female spaces against them – usually the home. The lead character of Winter’s Bone is going to lose her house unless her absent father shows up in court, the lead character of Room creates a home that is simultaneously a sanctuary and a mockery of a sanctuary to try and protect her son from reality and survive, the lead character of The Nightingale has her home invaded, her husband and baby murdered, and is horrifically raped within that home.

Hometown Horror: a divergence

This is a slight aside to where I’m going with this overall, but please indulge me, haha. I’m a big fan of horrors and thrillers, which explore this in a really stark way. In that, the invasion of a home or a domestic space – whether by ghost, demon or serial killer, is, generally speaking, synonymous with the invasion of a woman’s body and the violation of her as a person.

Films that focus on a female survivor or a ‘final girl’ are very generally focused on the invasion of her home as much as it’s focused on the invasion of her body. Think The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, Scream, The Babadook, Hereditary, The Conjuring, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Panic Room. The violation of a woman’s home is the invasion of her, because cinema relies on over 100 years of movies telling us that a house and the woman who lives in it are symbolically the same thing.

Horror films that focus on men are very rarely centred in the home. It’s men travelling, or men visiting a woman’s home, or men who’ve been taken. Think of the first Saw movie which takes place in a mysterious basement, Hostel which is at a hostel, Dawn of the Dead at a shopping mall, An American Werewolf in London while two men are on holiday, The Evil Dead is in a cabin, Get Out is at his girlfriend’s family home.

There are exceptions, of course! Family home invasion films like The Purge, Funny Games and The Strangers are rooted in the violation of that home, but still. You’ll generally find that it manifests differently narratively speaking for men and women. Rear Window too takes place entirely in a man’s apartment – but it’s interesting to note that most of the ‘horror’ comes from him spying on somebody else’s home – notably a woman’s, The Descent too is very much about women and is set during cave diving. Still! These are all exceptions, not the rule.

Good Girls and Gendered Spaces

Every single space in Good Girls is gendered. It’s actually one of the things I seriously love about the show because it’s thoughtfully done, and it is deliberate. We know it is, because they tell us explicitly in the writing multiple times. I mean – hell, think of Ruby telling us (well, telling Rio, haha) way back at the end of 1.04 when they’re selling him on the idea of washing cash through Cloud 9 – “Nobody thinks twice about a woman buying her husband a TV or new tires for the minivan.” A store like that is gendered, and Ruby’s reinforcing it by saying it’s a place women go to build a home. It hasn’t been weaponized yet - - but our girls know how to weaponize it. They’re playing on the fact that people think women’s spaces are effectively impotent, and they’re telling Rio – and us as an audience – that they’re going to exploit it.

This is an idea the show revisits frequently. Women’s spaces are – both in life and in storytelling – spaces that are viewed as passive because they are representative of women, and what the show is – I believe – very invested in, is showing how those spaces are fundamentally active. If you want a house to represent a woman – well, okay. Then you get to see what’s under the rug, y’know?

I’m going to come back to the home thread – because I really do think it’s very important, and I think the way the show depicts people in those spaces (and invading those spaces) is significant – but it’s not just homes that are looked at in this way. The show is very specific about having feminine spaces and masculine spaces, with only a few in between (and usually those in-between spaces are very specifically for Stan and Ruby, showing just how in-sync they are with each other and how much they operate within a shared space). Beyond the women’s homes, there are the kids’ schools, Fine & Frugal (very important here to note that Annie emasculates Boomer in what is an associated female space and that he retaliates by attempting to rape her in her own home aka not only another female space, but a space that is symbolically Annie, something he repeats later with Mary Pat – a violation on essentially every character, narrative and symbolic level, again), the waxing salon, Nancy’s day spa, Jane’s dance recital (and actually the physical object of the dubby – being a highly feminine object lost in a very masculine space), and already what we know of s3, with Ruby being at a nail salon and Beth being at a paper / card store.

The show also has very masculinized places – I’d argue Boland Motors is one of the biggest ones – very much about ‘boys and their toys’, which is why Beth pointedly feminising it when she takes over is so significant and symbolically indicative of Beth’s claiming of that space; but also spaces like the police station, the drug dealer’s house in 2.07, the hotel suite Boomer briefly occupies, even to an extent the church. When the girls are in these spaces, there’s a distinct feeling of encroaching on territory that isn’t theirs, or being in spaces that they don’t belong in. This is often done as a two-hander too – the police station and the church Ruby doesn’t belong in anymore, not necessarily as a woman, but as a criminal.

Nothing though, from a technical standpoint, is more masculine than the spaces that are shown to be Rio’s. From the warehouse spaces to the bar to his loft to his car, Rio’s ‘places’ are distinctly masculine and generally placed in direct contrast with Beth’s femininity. But I’ll come back to that point too.

Home, Identity and Invasion

Almost every female character on this show has a very defined domestic space, from Beth, Ruby and Annie, to Mary Pat, Marion and Nancy. These spaces are representative of not just who they are, but who they are as women, and really comes to routinely represent the interior lives of these characters. This is probably the clearest in 2.09 when Beth is uncharacteristically messy following Dean taking their kids, and in 2.06, when Beth and Dean switch roles, and Dean is incapable of maintaining that domestic space because it’s not his. But let’s not start there.

Let’s start with Annie.

Annie’s apartment is fun, feminine (but not overly so), youthful, sweet, and generally a bit of organized chaos. It’s often underequipped – there are several mentions of the pantry being understocked – but it’ll always do in a pinch. More than anything though, Annie’s apartment comes to life when her son is in it. She’s happiest when he’s there, and when he’s not, her loneliness drives her to pulling people into the space with her, whether that’s the electronics guy, Greg, or Noah.

This is particularly significant when Annie’s forming bonds with people. The show has symbolically relied very heavily on Annie’s moments of vulnerability and connection being grounded in her apartment or an extension of it – usually her car. There was her reconnecting with Greg over YouTube videos in s1, there was Nancy and her talking about pregnancy in 2.02, and there was Noah settling in across season 2. These are all substantial moments in terms of Annie’s interior life that are represented through her home – she lets them all in. Which is why it’s significant what people do when they are in. Particularly the show marrying Noah getting to know Annie while simultaneously rifling through her belongings, trying to know specific things about her.

This is only reiterated by Noah’s scenes with Sadie later in the season – always at home, reiterating just how much Noah’s invaded Annie’s life, how much he’s inside her, how much he’s using everything and everyone who’s important to her, and how much he’s a threat to all of that too.

Ruby and Stan are a little different. Ruby’s house is the only one that’s genuinely shared with somebody, and the show represents this across the board – Ruby and Stan wear similar colours, the house feels like theirs, and the parts of their worlds that are separate are still frequently pretty defined by each other (even when Ruby’s acting away form Stan, the show makes it clear that Stan’s at the forefront of her mind, and vice versa). This indicates their partnership, but the house really still is symbolically tied to Ruby. This is particularly represented by the effect of having Turner in the house, but, more than that, it’s underlined symbolically by Turner arresting Stan at home. If the home symbolically carries the meaning of the woman, Turner arresting Stan there is starkly about Turner taking Stan away from Ruby. That image would not hold the same weight if he was arrested at, say, the park or the police station, because the locations don’t hold the same meaning.

It’s also why there’s significance in Stan and Turner’s showdown narratively speaking happening at the police station. It needs to, because symbolically it should occupy a masculine-coded space, because that showdown isn’t just about who they are as people, but who they are as men.

Beth and Beth’s house is very, very different to Annie and Ruby’s, and holds a more substantial narrative and symbolic function. From the very first episode, the potential of losing her house is key to her arc, and key to her identity as a character.

Beth is a lot of things, but a recurring image with her as a character is that she is invested in projecting a dated idea of ‘perfect womanhood’, and, within that, actually pretty perfectly creates parts of it for herself. For Beth – as somebody who was a housewife for roughly twenty years – her house really is her in every sense of the word. Every threat to that house, every disruption, every wrinkle, every intrusion, every theft, every invitation is personal. Dean might have at least two rooms in the Boland House, but that space is Beth’s on almost every symbolic level. When people pop into it, it’s a direct invasion of her.

This is something that the show has revisited time and time again, particularly when it comes to Beth’s bedroom. When people want to be close to Beth, that’s where they go. Annie slept there across season one when she was vulnerable and lonely, despite Beth telling her to go home, Jane broke into Beth’s closet there when she felt she was being neglected, Dean’s constantly trying to sidle into it (and – pointedly – only really in it when they’re fighting and Beth is revealing something / letting him in on something – that they’re out of money, that she has Rio’s money, that she knows about his affairs). When Beth has been at her most vulnerable, she lets Ruby and Annie into it. That said, the only character who’s been explicitly invited into it has been Rio – significantly both in fantasy, and in the show’s reality.

It’s not just about inviting people in though – when she kicks somebody out of it, the act is loaded.

She’s not just pushing somebody out of a space, she’s pushing them out of her.

It’s not just her bedroom of course (although I do think that’s the most significant space on perhaps the whole show). Rio and Turner between them have regularly invaded Beth’s living room, dining room, her kitchen, her yard. These are often distinctly tied with her doing something domestic and / or distinctly feminine. She’s bringing groceries home, she’s baking, she’s trying on jewellery, she’s mothering her children. Symbolically, this is often when Rio and Turner both are at their most masculine and their most threatening, which just serves to underline the invasion of Beth’s space.

It’s not just the girls though, as I said above. Female domestic spaces on this show are significantly coded as belonging to women, even if they share those spaces. Think about Nancy and Greg’s house – which is Nancy’s space, not Greg’s, and throughout season 1, Annie was pitted as the outsider to that. She’s a smear of hair oil on Nancy’s perfect couch. It’s made all the starker when Nancy kicks Greg out, and when Annie helps Nancy give birth in that house – a distinctly female, intimate act, that not only operates as a significant feminization of that space, but also about Annie fighting for Nancy to let her in again.

These spaces all keep secrets for the women they belong to too – Mary Pat’s husband’s dead body, Boomer’s very much alive one – because, again, symbolically, they are these women.

Rio’s loft is a really interesting one to look at in this context, because not only is it hyper masculine, but the show underlines that it does not hold the same significance that the girls’ places have for them. Beth does not learn Rio by being inside him – something made stark through their game of twenty questions. In fact, being in Rio’s loft, in his space, only serves to point out how much Beth doesn’t know him. Not only that, but Beth’s inability to lose her house (which is really central to her arc) is paralleled exactly with how easily Rio can separate from his.

The domestic space is not male.

Rio exists outside of it.

Beth x Rio and the Feminine x Masculine

Rio and Beth are basically at polar opposites of the masculine / feminine spectrum, and it’s something that this show often casts in a really stark light through dialogue, visual language, character coding and symbolism.

Beth epitomizes the old archetype of femininity and the female world in a way that I don’t think Annie and Ruby do (although I do think Ruby does in some respects). This is coded into almost every part of her character – from her long history of domestic servitude and marital submission (letting Dean control their finances, not working, keeping the house, etc.) to her fertility (four children!) to the way she dresses in floral, bakes, to certain traits, namely her nurturing tendencies, overt empathy and guilt (not being able to kill Boomer). Even in terms of the casting – Christina is somebody who has a very distinctly feminine body.

On the other hand, Rio, in many ways, epitomizes the old idea of masculinity and the masculine world. He’s coded that way almost as much as Beth is coded as feminine – he’s physically strong (beating up Dean, holding Beth up while they were having sex), assertive, dominant, capable and collected. That’s not even touching on the fact that the golden gun is incredibly phallic, haha.

The show loves to place Beth’s femininity in direct contrast with Rio’s masculinity in a way that it doesn’t do with the other girls or – in fact perhaps more notably – with Beth and Dean (if anything, Dean’s frequently emasculated around Beth, but that feels like a whole other thing, haha), and it does this frequently, and often even in the same shot.

Most notably, think of her pearls on the warehouse door handle:

Their cars parked side-by-side:

Her necklace, his gun:

Her light, his darkness:

Her floral, his solid colours:

Interestingly though, these things are very rarely in competition or combative (although occasionally they are – Rio trying to use her femaleness and his maleness / their sexuality to literally bend her over a table in 2.06 being the clearest example of that). Generally speaking, the show’s visual language though shows us how these things compliment each other. They occupy different gendered spaces, so they can ‘crime’ in different ways – Beth using the big box stores, the secret shoppers, robbing the day spa, are all things that are highly feminised, and give Rio by proxy access to a world he ordinarily wouldn’t (albeit it’s not always a world he’s interested in – like it wasn’t with the botox), and the reverse of that is that Rio gives Beth access to spaces that are highly masculinised and that she ordinarily wouldn’t have access to (again, not always a world she’s interested in either). It’s why when they’re working together, and acknowledging they have different departments, they actually become something really whole, comprehensive and effective.

It’s the exploration of this that I find really intriguing generally, and particularly a thread that I think is reiterated where Beth’s usually at her worst and her most ineffective when she’s trying to emulate Rio’s masculinity. We saw that at the end of 1.10 and the start of 2.01, and I think we saw it at the tail end of season 2 too. When Beth’s succeeding, she’s typically doing something that revels in the strength and power and the underestimation of femininity and female spaces, and turns places that are typically viewed as passive into active ones.

The Secret Shoppers (which worked briefly! And fell apart because she couldn’t handle Mary Pat. Notably almost every scene with them was inside Beth’s house):

The day spa heist:

The Boland Motors takeover / reclamation that focused on feminising the place:

Pretending to be somebody’s mum to get into the kids’ space (which would’ve worked if Beth and Ruby hadn’t started fighting):

Breaking into Rio’s loft:

Again, this is something that seems to be being teased out already in s3 with the paper store and the nail salon, and I’m sure we’ll see it coming up again and again beyond that.

But yes! Your question, haha. I think Rio is enamoured with the strong, feminine space and the untapped female world that Beth exists in, and the ways that she is actively capable of utilising her femininity and her womanness in a way that is completely impossible for him. She can manipulate these spaces – either those already female, or those she makes female aka Boland Motors – in ways that he can’t, and in a way that, at the end of the day, lines his pocket, in the same way that giving her access to his powerful, masculine world lines hers. It’s market development, y’know? But it’s also something that could be a true and successful partnership if they could stop, y’know, playing games and trying to kill each other, haha.

I think it’s worth noting here too that the show has shown us explicitly that Beth absolutely gets off on Rio being highly masculine, and while I think Rio absolutely gets off on Beth being a boss bitch too, it’s also important to note how he responds to her when she’s displaying vulnerability in a way often defined as very feminine – namely crying – and how that display of femininity not only affects him, but often makes him want to touch her (and more and more, follow through on touching her).

Basically I think they’re as obsessed with the contrast between the two of them as we are, haha.

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blogs-from-europe · 5 years ago

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Paris

We did not intend to come to Paris. We had planned ot head to Venice, but the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy was kicking off and it seemed stupid to charge into the middle of it. Instead, we re-routed to Paris with no real plans for what we were going to do for the next month.

We took the Eurostar high speed train from London to Paris: there was wifi, cushy chairs, and some catered snacks we purchased from Marks & Spencers. The dining in London was meh, but their store-bought snacks blow Australia out of the water. Down with the Coles / Woolworths duopoly!

We arrived into Paris around 9pm and walked from the train station to our hotel. This may displease some of the parents reading this missive, but Matt and I did not check Smart Traveller before booking to go to Paris. It turns out that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade considers France quite dangerous! The whole country has been slapped with an "Exercise a high degree of caution” warning, and this isn’t because of the coronavirus, this is down to the amount of violent crime tourists are likely to encounter (armed robberies on trains, car theft, etc.) and the riots. Oh and the likelihood of terrorist attacks. We certainly noticed in France that the cops were heavily armed: we saw a police officer cradling a machine gun during a friendly exchange with a citizen to give directions.

On our Sunday night walk from the train station to our hotel, the streets were mostly empty. We passed a number of sex shops, massage parlours with red lights, groups of men standing around apparently doing nothing, sex workers, and suspicious men selling cigarettes on street corners. We were on high alert for pick-pockets and the violent crimes which Smart Traveller had warned us about: with our enormous backpacks we were effectively wearing neon signs saying ‘We are tourists! Please rob us!’. Despite our fears we made it to the hotel safely. The hotel was a last-minute booking as part of our rescheduling to avoid Italy so we didn’t have many options when booking online: I think it would be safe to say that our hotel was one of the worst in Paris. We were given tokens to access the shared shower down the hallway from our room: for our three night stay we were given four tokens, effectively rationing our showers for the stay. (Again, parents reading this may be troubled to learn that we only ended up using three of the four tokens – the person who only showered once has a name beginning with ‘M’ and ending with ‘atthew’.)

Another charming feature of the hotel was the low ceilings, roughly only two meters in height:

For our first day in Paris, it rained all day.

To stay out of the rain, we picked a couple of indoor activities: a visit to the Musee de Cluny (famous for its Lady and Unicorn tapestries and various other medieval art) and a visit to the Pantheon. After paying to get in, we realised that the Lady and Unicorn tapestries section of the museum was closed. Disappointingly, a promising section of the museum called ‘Treasures’ was also closed – I must confess, Matt and I did inadvertently go into the Treasures section and stole a fleeting glance at a magnificent tapestry before a strict Frenchman told us (in French so this may not be an exact translation) “Can’t you see this section of the museum is closed? No treasures for you! Get the hell out!”. Utimately we only got to see some old rocks and a bath. Overall rating for Musee de Cluny is 1/5. Matt observed that it should really be called the “Musee de Close-y”.

Next we trudged uphill through heavy rain to the Pantheon. Matt had expressed his indifference towards visiting churches, but I thought Foucault’s pendulum (housed in the church) might be of interest to him. Turns out, the Pantheon has many great qualities: it’s an amazing sandstone church built in the 1700s. During the Enlightenment, the church became a sort of secular shrine to the great figures of France including writers, politicians, scientists, etc. In addition to looking through the church (which included a huge dome, Foucault’s pendulum and some cool paintings of Joan of Arc) we got to explore the crypt which was much more pleasant and well-lit than you might expect a crypt to be.

Contrary to popular opinion, we did not find the waiters of Paris to be particularly snooty (maybe this is because we are residents of Fitzroy, which is home to many snooty waiters – mostly with fluoro hair and ripped jeans) but we did notice that they would greet us assuming we were French with a ‘Bonjour!’ or ‘Bonsoir!’ and when we would respond in attempted French they lose a little of their joie de vivre and would immediately switch to English. This was obviously intended as a kindness and did make things easier for ordering and finding a table, but meant we were robbed of the chance to practice our French. This also suggests that our pronunciation of ‘Bonjour’ is so poor that we cannot even pass for particularly uncultured or stupid Frenchmen.

To get around we tried renting electric scooters and bikes via Uber, with mixed results: there was terror, joy, and some frustration with Uber’s capricious parking rules.

For the super-interested, here are some other things we got up to in Paris:

Montmarte: We rode our electric bikes to Montmatre, an area famous for Sacre Coeur, an old church with a fantastic view, and the Moulin Rouge. The ride was mostly uphill, but on the electric bicycle was quite easy.

Wine tasting: We also did a wine tasting via Airbnb. Key takeaway: Chardonnay in France is not aged in oak barrels, meaning it doesn’t have that strong oaky taste (which I often find to be kind of cloying). Matt and I never really liked the taste of Australian chardonnay, so this was probably because of the barrel flavour. We also learned about tannins (broken down grape skins which appear in red wines) and about how rose is made (red grapes, but the skin is taken out sooner!)

Catacombs: There are old mines under Paris, which were the source of the sandstone used to build many of the city’s great buildings. These were later filled with bones after the central cemeteries were filled. We both regretted visiting the catacombs as it was very somber and confronting: millions of bones, hundreds of years old, piled on top of each other in a network of disused mines. Who enjoys this stuff?? We both felt sad and flat after the Catacombs, but then stopped for a hot chocolate and apple pastry which improved the mood. Afterwards we agreed to not visit any more mass graves.

Champs Elysées: We walked past the Louvre and gardens, Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe – a lovely area. We stopped for crepes and paid 1.5 euro (~$2.50 in Australian dollars) to use a public bathroom.

We also spent some time watching street hustlers. In the photo below, just below the Eiffel Tower you’ll see a ring of people in black.

We watched them for half an hour or so. They stand together all day pretending to play a three-shell game, betting 100 euro a pop. The idea with the game is that the dealer hides a ball under one cup, then quickly shuffles all three cups to ‘hide’ the ball - the person who paid to play can then pick the cup which they think holds the ball. If they are right, they get 200 euro; if they are wrong they lose the lot. We inferred the people dressed in black are working with the dealer, spending all day pretending to play. They win some, they lose some, they clap and say “bravo!”. The idea is to make it look like riotous good fun for people passing by so that they might be tempted to play. They’re essentially just shuffing money around within their group. A key part of the scam is that after each shuffle one of the group picks a cup which, if you’ve been paying attention to the shuffle, clearly does not hold the ball - the incorrect guess is jeered at by the group and then someone else guesses correctly to much cheering. This makes the game look easy, and probably fools observers into thinking they’re especially good at the shell game because they can find the ball every time. I can only assume that when someone is playing the game for real, the shuffle is much faster and tricker to follow.

After watching for a while, we saw a middle-aged tourist approach the group, watch from the side for a while, and then scurry away to pull cash out of his money belt. His friend tried to talk him out of it. He played anyway. We watched him lose. His friend walked off in disgust. He lost again. He walked off to find his friend. The shell game people packed up after that. I assume they also pick your pockets when they can.

There were a few more tourist-scams going around, but we didn’t have any trouble. We don’t know why these three golden retreivers were standing sentinel outside the subway...

... but we can only assume it was a part of some kind of elaborate hoax.

Matt and I are now in Chamonix, a ski town in the French alps. He is practicing the ukulele and I am writing this. We’re staying in an Airbnb - our hosts are have at least three cats (two of whom have deigned to let me pat them) and we were warned that if we hear a noise like someone tapping on the window during the night it is just the local deer inadvertently banging their horns on the window while they try to eat whatever bits of grass near the house aren’t under snow.

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whitestonetherapy · 5 years ago

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Reasons to be fearful... (22.7.19)

A few years ago I turned down an opportunity to join Deutsche bank. It was at a time when the German Investment bank was engaged in a bit of 'restructuring' having refused bailout money following the financial crash. I never had another offer from them but I didn't wind up too far away... If I were to stand outside my consulting room in London and throw a tennis ball I could just about reach their office.

Deutsche bank is back in the news in recent weeks. There's been plenty more restructuring lately with huge job cuts and, I hear, more to follow if real problems are to be avoided. Having already raised huge amounts of capital from investors in recent years, the only way of avoiding serious difficulty is by cutting costs. Perhaps it won't hurt to be polishing off your CV if you work there....

There is a risk of contagion if Deutsche gets in real trouble, and the IMF has called it the "most important net contributor to systemic risks in the global banking system". The risk of a new domino-effect banking crisis is quite high and is slipping under the radar with geopolitical focus on Brexit, Iran, and other things.

This is partly because it's hard to summarise what has gone wrong in the global banking system in ways that are easy to follow. Simple explanations inevitably underplay complexities, but even many bankers would struggle to offer a basic explanation of what has really happened to the banking sector over the last three decades.

Outside the banks, while people know there was a 'crash' in 2008, and then a bailout, it all feels quite hazy as to why this happened - a general sense that bankers are at fault for something. We run the risk of being doomed to repeat our previous mistakes unless we learn from them. So should we be worried again?

There are two fundamental and contradictory long-term forces at work. Firstly, a stagnation in the world economy over the last decade or so; low growth, declining trade, falling productivity etc. Secondly, the development of financial bubbles...reflected with stock and bond markets at record highs. This conflict that grew to explosive proportions in 2008, and some fear it is happening again.

But why this divergence? Since the 1980's there has been a huge rise in financial assets that are packaged up and bought and sold - a leveraging of money that allows banks to take larger gambles and 'sell on' financial products to clients as 'investments'. Banks worked out this was an excellent way of making huge piles of money. Returns are high but so is risk - because it is all leveraged ['leveraged' = paying a small(er) amount of interest to use borrowed capital for an investment, expecting the profits made to be greater than the interest you pay].

This happened in the US in 2007/8 where retail banks sold mortgages to investment banks (giving retail banks access to more cash to loan out), and investment banks then sold these mortgages packed up as financial assets out to investors. A house of cards undone by lots of people defaulting on mortgage repayments.

The central point is that financial assets have, ultimately, a claim on the wealth produced in the real economy. For many decades, financial assets were about the same size as the global GDP. The relationship was 1-1. But the rise of leveraging money and selling structured derivative products (financial assets) has led to a startling gap opening up in the last 30 years. In fact, the monetary worth of the financial assets stood at 360% of global GDP when the financial crisis of 2008 occurred. So that's 360-1.

Wow. Well, this ratio has actually increased due to the monetary and fiscal policies that are designed to hold the whole edifice up. If the markets stumble and a key institution such as Deutsche bank hit difficulties, the leveraged financial assets for which they are a broker (selling out) or counterparty (buying in) could result in defaults, and a domino rally of defaults across investment and retail banks.

The 2008 crisis saw the collapse of structured finance teams in investment banks, and the overnight end of the worst excesses of 'casino' banking. International lending is down 60% since 2008, and market activity has trended from equities into bonds - for which yields have been depressed (and so profit margins small) because of monetary and fiscal policies followed by governments to reduce risks. This, along with heaps of regulation, has made for tough conditions for Deutsche and other banks. The old 'investment banking' model is dead. Making money is really tough, and Banks are finding this hard.

Deutsche has struggled to adapt. From what I can see they are now taking urgent steps to ring-fence their riskiest assets to try and insulate the rest of the bank from potential losses on these. This means they won't have to hold such a vast reserve of money (capital funding requirements that all banks have to adhere to), and so the laying off of staff can be at least contained. Hopefully this will reduce the risk of contagion if market conditions deteriorate....But I really think it is a shift away from investment banking and move back to corporate banking that is the direction of travel. With all eyes diverted by Brexit, a fresh financial crisis is worth watching out for.

www.whitestonetherapy.com

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webuydiamond · 7 months ago

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singledarkshade · 5 years ago

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Sapphire And Steel

Part Five Gideon let out a sigh of happiness as they walked into their house. The only one they used that they owned. If anyone investigated the owner of the house, it would not lead anywhere near them. They’d stolen a few things in a short period of time, not to mention the teasing of their detective meant it was a good idea to lay low for a while.

She loved this house, despite the fact she hadn’t been too sure about buying a permanent residence, Gideon was pleased Miranda had persuaded her to. It wasn’t a big one, especially compared to some of the others nearby but it suited their needs.

Miranda slid her arms around Gideon’s waist and murmured in her ear, “Happy to be home?”

“Completely,” Gideon leaned against her.

“We need some supplies,” Miranda told her, “Otherwise we’ll be eating half a chocolate bar for dinner.”

Laughing Gideon told her, “I will get everything set up so we can keep an eye on our detective.”

Miranda smiled, “Good. We want to and make sure he doesn’t forget us.”

While her girlfriend headed out to the shops, Gideon headed to the room where they kept their safe, she carefully placed their new jewellery inside along with the cash they’d made selling the items they didn’t want to keep. Closing the safe, Gideon headed to what Miranda called her cave where all her computer equipment was set up.

Another reason it had been a good idea to get a permanent base.

Gideon settled into her seat and booted up her systems, smiling when the screen lit up. She connected to the surveillance they had set up in their detective’s house. A smile touched her lips as she watched him sitting in his living room, drinking what she assumed was a mug of tea and reading a book. Assured everything was still running as it should, Gideon headed to change and go for a swim.

Arriving back from the shops, Miranda wasn’t surprised to see Gideon was swimming laps. It was something she always enjoyed, and the pool was the biggest selling point for them to get this place. Humming to herself she put away the groceries before starting lunch. Of the two of them, Miranda was the one who could cook. They would have a light lunch and then they both would have to spend some time in the gym. Their chosen profession came with the requirement to remain agile. They were not planning on giving up their life anytime soon meaning they had to ensure that they were able to do so.

“Wonderful, lunch is ready,” Gideon grinned happily as she appeared dressed drying her hair with a towel, “By the way, Detective Hunter still has no idea we’re watching him. It’s a pity he has a roommate, we might get a little more of a show since we didn’t put cameras in his bathroom or bedroom.”

Miranda chuckled rolling her eyes, “Eat.”

Gideon grinned, it was so nice to be home.

*********************************************

Rip leaned back watching the world go by as Joe West drove. He’d been partnered with Joe for the next few months, mostly on his request to get his focus away from the Sapphire and Steel case for a while.

He liked Joe from the moment they met. The older man was a veteran detective who had raised his daughter single-handed and, despite his many years on the force, hadn’t wanted to be anything other than a detective.

“Are you still obsessing on those two?” Joe asked, cutting into his thoughts.

Rip shook his head, “Just enjoying the quiet. It’s been three weeks since their last contact and I’m relieved but also wondering when they’re going to pop up again.”

“I can understand that,” Joe chuckled, “Perkins was permanently frustrated by them too.”

“The most aggravating thing is that they always seem to be a step ahead of me, no matter what,” Rip sighed, “This may sound arrogant but it’s not often I come up against people smarter than I am. But these two women…”

Joe chuckled.

“I am going to forget them for just now,” Rip told him, “And…”

He was cut off as the radio sprang to life and the dispatcher told them about a robbery in progress. Joe hit the siren and swung the car around, heading for the address they’d been given.

Rip pulled his gun and followed Joe carefully into the building. The Central City National Bank branch was being robbed, there were two man in ski masks waving guns around. Rip counted twenty civilians all cowering on the ground, including several children.

Grimacing Rip nodded when Joe motioned him to go the opposite way. Moving slowly, he found a position so he could get one of the robbers by surprise while Joe got himself situated.

Rip waited and when Joe nodded, he slammed the handle of his gun across the back of the robber’s neck. The man went down at the same time Joe took out the second one.

Cuffing the two men, Joe and Rip moved to help the hostages.

The door behind them burst open and a third robber appeared waving a gun. As he began to shoot, Rip grabbed a little girl who was in the line of fire, tossing her at the nearby security guard before three bullets struck him square in the chest.

Hearing Joe call to him, Rip fell backwards pain blossoming in his chest. His head hit the floor and he blacked out.

Swimming back to consciousness, Rip tried to focus hearing beeps around him while the sharp smell of disinfectant filled the air around him.

“Detective,” a voice called to him, “Open your eyes, Detective.”

Forcing his eyes open, somehow his eyelids felt like they were made of lead, but he managed to do so finally, wincing at the bright light.

“That’s good,” Doctor Wells said, “Well, Detective you are one lucky man. It’s a good thing you were wearing your vest.”

Rip grimaced, “Don’t feel that lucky just now.”

“That will be the concussion,” Wells told him, “You might want to think about wearing a hat,” Wells laughed at the look Rip gave him, “Now you’re awake I’ll let the people cluttering up my waiting room in to see you.”

Rip nodded, “Sure. Let them in.”

The doctor rested a hand on his shoulder, “Just for a few minutes. You need some rest.”

Rip closed his eyes, smiling as people invaded his room.

Rip was back home in his own bed, with orders not to do anything for the next week. Sara had stood with her arms folded and a determined expression telling him she would be making sure he followed the doctor’s orders.

To be honest, Rip had no intentions of trying to go back to work. His chest still hurt and so did his head. Not to mention it was nice to have a few days to relax and do nothing.

He was laying just listening to music, letting it wash over him as the ‘really good’ painkillers he had been given started to kick on. Sara was at work, so he had peace for another few hours and she was bringing dinner back for them both.

In the haze of the painkillers, Rip felt a presence in the room with him. Forcing his eyes open Rip caught a flash of raven black hair before the bed sank when someone sat on it.

“Our poor detective,” Miranda’s voice came, and a gentle hand caressed his cheek.

“So brave,” another voice said, which Rip deduced very quickly was Gideon Ryder, “And selfless.”

Rip tried to focus, “What?”

“Sh,” Miranda breathed, “You’re currently on medical leave. You don’t have to think about arresting us while you’re injured.”

“We just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt too badly,” Gideon took over, her fingers sliding through his hair.

Part of him knew he should care that the two women he was trying to capture were here, but the painkillers he was on made him lethargic and a little bit dopey. The two beautiful woman he was chasing were sitting on either side of him and he just couldn’t manage the energy to try to arrest them. Then they were lying beside him wrapping an arm over him, cuddling close to him under the covers.

Rip sighed softly, feeling the two women brush kisses against his cheeks, neck and chest while their hands were sliding across his body. He drifted slowly enjoying their touches, his brain floating away on the cloud of medication, jumping awake to find he was alone.

With a grimace he wondered if they’d really been there or if his drug-fuelled imagination had played tricks on him.

*********************************************

Rip was back to work and found a pile of files sitting on his desk.

“London sent you some presents,” Cisco said appearing in the doorway with two coffees in his hand, “Welcome back.”

Taking the offered coffee Rip smiled, “Thanks, Cisco. No rest for the wicked I guess.”

The younger man grinned at him before disappearing, leaving Rip alone with his coffee, a pile of files and the case he was now determined to solve more than ever.

Taking a seat, he started to work.

Feeling a presence near him Rip looked up, surprised to see Sara standing there.

“What are you doing here?” he asked closing the file he had been reading.

She smirked stepping into the office, “I thought I’d come see if you’re received anymore racy pictures.”

Rip frowned at her.

“Just came to check up on you,” she admitted laughing at his expression, “Since it’s your first day back.”

“I’m fine,” he assured, “My ribs are only a little sore and the headache is gone completely.”

Sara nodded, “Good. Then you can take me for lunch”

“An ulterior motive,” Rip laughed. He stood and they were about to leave when Captain Singh appeared in the doorway.

“Sorry to interrupt your lunch plans,” Singh said, “But Zaman Druce’s lawyer has just called. Druce wants to talk to you. He says he can help you find Sapphire and Steel.”

Rip smiled to himself, “Took him less time than I expected. Sorry, Sara I’ll have to take a rain check on lunch.”

Stepping into Iron Heights Rip nodded to the guard at the gate, checking in his gun as he signed in. Each step allowed him to centre himself before seeing Druce again.

Entering the room, Rip saw Zaman Druce sitting with his lawyer waiting for him. Rip took his seat and waited in silence.

“Detective Hunter,” the lawyer, a slimy man called Eobard Thawne, said, “My client is willing to speak to you in exchange for the information you have on Michael Carter.”

Rip pretended to muse on this, before he finally nodded, “Okay.”

“Before he will speak,” Thawne continued, “All recording equipment must be turned off.”

“Why?”

“You know how smart these women are,” Thawne stated, “My client feels it is safer for him if they are not aware that he has given you information on them. It is not beyond them to tap into the system and find out that he has spoken to you.”

Thinking this over Rip finally nodded, “I will agree to that, but you have to provide me with your information first and then I will give you what I know.”

Thawne and Druce spoke quietly before Thawne nodded, “Those terms are acceptable.”

Rip stepped outside and spoke to the guard quickly, returning he watched the camera and nodded as soon as the light turned off.

“Alright, cameras are off,” Rip said, “What do you have for me?”

Druce leaned forward, “Miranda appears to be the one who is in charge, and in many ways, she is but she is utterly devoted to Gideon. Don’t go after them together, your best chance of getting them both is Gideon.”

“Really?” Rip asked.

Druce smiled leaning back as he reminisced, “When she turned sixteen, I decided it was time for Gideon to learn some other skills in addition to her brilliant mind. You’ve seen how beautiful she is, even at sixteen she was stunning. One of my business partners was very taken by her…”

“Get to the point,” Rip told him sharply, sickened by this man.

Druce smirked, “Miranda refused to let it happen and I lost a business partner. I learned that day never to separate them. If you want them both go after Gideon. Get her and Miranda will follow you to the ends of the Earth to get her back.”

“How do you suggest I do that?” Rip asked.

Druce smiled amused, “Gideon has a few interests. Jewellery is one, that girl loves anything shiny or that sparkles, but she has a weakness for new forms of technology. Find something new, something that will pique her interest and she’ll come to you then you trap her. Once you have her, Miranda will follow.”

Rip mused on this for a moment before he nodded, “Okay.”

“Now,” Druce stated sharply, “Your part of our deal.”

Standing Rip shrugged, “All I know is Michael Carter died the day after you threw him off a roof.”

Druce glared at him, “What?”

Rip smiled blithely.

“You said you knew something about Michael Carter,” Druce snapped.

“Think about that,” Rip stated amused, “I only said I had a name for you. Thank you for your co-operation, Mr Druce.”

Without losing his smile, Rip walked out hearing Druce yell after him angrily.

#fic #legends of tomorrow #the flash #rip hunter #gideon #miranda coburn #joe west #cisco ramon

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sellomega2 · 2 years ago

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webuydiamond · 10 months ago

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

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Markets can't ignore the pandemic any longer. Stocks are dropping

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/markets-cant-ignore-the-pandemic-any-longer-stocks-are-dropping/

Markets can't ignore the pandemic any longer. Stocks are dropping

What’s happening: US futures point to steep declines at the open on Wednesday, with Dow futures off 1.7%, or more than 450 points. European stocks plunged to their lowest level in five months. Germany’s DAX dropped 2.8%, while France’s CAC 40 shed 2.5% and the FTSE 100 in London lost 1.5%.

“The financial markets are still nervous about rising case numbers and the pandemic,” said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management. “The concern is about the impact this may have on fear levels — either amongst consumers or amongst policymakers.”

Right now, Donovan said, policymakers seem more worried than the general public. That may mean that in the United States, where restrictions have been more limited, the economic damage will be less severe — one reason US stocks haven’t been selling off as sharply as those across the Atlantic.

Driving the news: French President Emmanuel Macron will announce new measures on Wednesday to fight the coronavirus, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to discuss further steps to contain the virus in a meeting with the leaders of the country’s 16 states.

Analysts are quick to note that the situation looks very different than it did nearly eight months ago, when markets entered a tailspin.

“Unlike in March we … know quite a lot about what Covid-19 means for market plumbing,” Nomura currency analyst Jordan Rochester told clients Wednesday.

He noted that the Federal Reserve has the framework in place to ensure ready access to US dollars, and that bond purchases are “ticking along and can be ramped up at the whim of central bankers.”

He has a point: The European Central Bank, which is due to announce its latest policy decision on Thursday, is expected to indicate that it will enact fresh measures before the end of the year, though the details remain hazy.

“We expect the Governing Council to signal rising urgency to act — noting that it stands ready to provide additional easing if the recovery slows sufficiently,” Goldman Sachs economists said in a recent research note.

But any indication that policymakers believe they’ve provided enough support would “severely change the dynamics for risk sentiment,” Rochester warned.

Microsoft is still cashing in on home life

Months into the Covid-19 crisis, Microsoft’s business is still booming as people spend more time at home.

The latest: The company on Tuesday reported more than $37 billion in revenue for the three months ending in September, well above Wall Street’s predictions, my Appradab Business colleagues Shannon Liao and Clare Duffy report.

Revenue from Azure, its cloud computing division, jumped 48% year-over-year. Personal computing revenue was up 6% thanks to a boost from Xbox and Microsoft Surface sales.

Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella said that the company has benefited from accelerated adoption of digital capabilities such as cloud computing and Teams, its workplace collaboration offering.

Teams now has more than 115 million daily active users, up from 75 million in April.

“The next decade of economic performance for every business will be defined by the speed of their digital transformation,” Nadella said on a call with analysts.

The results bode well for other top tech companies including Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (FB) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), which are due to report results Thursday. Like Microsoft, they’ve been lifted by changes in behavior, which have ramped up demand for online services.

Investor insight: The big question now is whether Microsoft can keep hitting its ambitious growth targets without burning lots of cash. Shares are down 1.5% in premarket trading.

“While revenues are exploding, we note that the buildout for cloud services is getting increasingly expensive,” Bespoke Investment Group said in a note to clients.

Not just Tesla: Shares in these US carmakers are surging

The rally in Tesla (TSLA) shares — which are up more than 150% since the beginning of June — puts most other stock increases to shame.

But GM (GM), Ford (F) and Fiat Chrysler (FCAU) are performing well, too. All have jumped more than 30% in the same period, my Appradab Business colleague Chris Isidore reports. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

What’s happening: Earlier this year, when auto plants and many dealerships were closed by Covid-related shutdown orders, there was a great deal of uncertainty about how automakers would weather the storm. But car sales rebounded strongly in the third quarter, as concerns about taking public transit to work helped generate demand.

Investors also hope traditional carmakers will get a boost from growing interest in electric vehicles, which are cheaper to build and could improve profit margins. According to analysts, GM — which recently announced a $2 billion investment to build electric cars in Tennessee — is at the front of the pack.

Watch this space: The big three American automakers all lost money in the second quarter. But a return to profitability is expected when these companies report third-quarter results. Ford and Fiat Chrysler report Wednesday, while GM reports next week.

Up next

Boeing (BA), Dine Brands (DIN), GE (GE), Mastercard (MA), Fiat Chrysler (FCAU) and UPS (UPS) report results before US markets open. Etsy (ETSY), Ford (F), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Pinterest (PINS) and Visa (V) follow after the close.

Coming tomorrow: The first look at US GDP for the third quarter is expected to reveal an economy that was growing at a record speed.

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