There are a number of things that have annoyed me this week. One of them has actually been annoying me for a while, but came to a head on Saturday when I was selecting a book as a birthday present. It's the kind of books that actually now are so numerous that they have a special section in Asda. Yes, the 'tear jerkers'.
These are books that are written by people who have been abused as children. Now I know child abuse is a horrible and horrific thing, but it does seem to me like everyone is jumping on the literary bandwagon and spaffing out a book about their horrid existence as a child. Maybe it's therapeutic for them to re-live their most sordid moment of their lifetime, but there's no denying that it's also a massive money spinner.
What annoys me even more is the un-imaginative titles given to these books which leave nothing to the imagination, per example:
Don't tell Mummy
Ugly:The story of a loveless childhood
Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed by Those They Trusted:
Please, Daddy, No: A Boy Betrayed
And so on and so forth. It's trite voyeurism and shouldn't be encouraged.
The other thing that's got my goat is the government's intention to reclassify cannabis.
No, I'm not one of those heavy weed smokers who claim that it makes life worth living, I just hate the way that illegal drugs have been segregated from legal ones, and the judgment that is bestowed upon them as result. The concept reeks of small-mindedness, policy over practice and of course nanny-statism (if that is a word) that every day seeks to violate our freedoms, our rights and our decisions:
Their reason for reclassification is this: Mental illness linked to the heavy and frequent use of the drug. Now, everyone knows that drugs, be they legal or illegal, are bad for you. Smoking can cause cancer, heart disease, emphysema, decreases your taste and smell sensation and makes you a social outcast (unless all your friends smoke, which means you can all die an early death together - everyone's a winner).
Drinking too much gives you a hangover. It also increases heart disease, and alcoholism makes for broken families. Oh, and drink driving can kill.
So let's look at tobacco and alcohol policy: It's bad for you. So what do the government do? They put up the tax - and hide behind the pretence that it will discourage over-indulgence. The same goes for smoking, although at least with that we know that second-hand smoke causes health problems too. Perhaps the one good thing they've done in the last five years or so.
They can't up the tax on cannabis so they reclassify it, making the prison sentence change from a 2-year to five-year sentence. My opinion: If you want to smoke weed, do it in the knowledge it might make you go a little crazy, that you might get caught, but the risk is yours. And you know that without the government spoon-feeding you all this classification nonsense that really, doesn't mean a thing to dealers or regular users.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Damages
The latest American legal drama to hit our screens, Damages is without a doubt the best TV drama I've had the pleasure of watching.
A star-studded cast guarantees its success, (Glen Close, Ted Danson, Rose Byrne) but the writing in itself is first-class. Damages takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions and assumptions, and delivers a gut-dropping twist in every episode.
It begins at the end. Hot-shot young lawyer Ellen Parsons (Byrne) is found covered in blood, and her finace is found dead in their bathtub at home. They don't give too much away, but by the end of the pilot, we assume that Ellen's boss, hugely successful litigator, Patti Hewes is behind it.
It's not even that interesting a case. Billionaire Arther Frobisher is being sued by his 500 employees who have lost everything after an accouting fraud bankrupts one of his many businesses. The twist is that Frobisher took his shares out the day before the company went under. The case falls on one weekend in Florida - where it is thought by Hewes that he met with his Broker. Prove that, and win the case.
Even though it's a complicated lawsuit, it's made in such a way that the viewer understands every turning point, every significance and that's what makes it successful. Perhaps more importantly though, are the characters. We see their every side, we make assumptions, we're proved wrong, we make new ones, again, we question our thoughts. Glenn Close, as always, delivers a fantastically chilling performance as Hewes and Danson makes a very convincing Frobisher.
If I go on about it too much I'll ruin it, but do yourself a favour and watch it. You'll be marking the time until Season 2.
A star-studded cast guarantees its success, (Glen Close, Ted Danson, Rose Byrne) but the writing in itself is first-class. Damages takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions and assumptions, and delivers a gut-dropping twist in every episode.
It begins at the end. Hot-shot young lawyer Ellen Parsons (Byrne) is found covered in blood, and her finace is found dead in their bathtub at home. They don't give too much away, but by the end of the pilot, we assume that Ellen's boss, hugely successful litigator, Patti Hewes is behind it.
It's not even that interesting a case. Billionaire Arther Frobisher is being sued by his 500 employees who have lost everything after an accouting fraud bankrupts one of his many businesses. The twist is that Frobisher took his shares out the day before the company went under. The case falls on one weekend in Florida - where it is thought by Hewes that he met with his Broker. Prove that, and win the case.
Even though it's a complicated lawsuit, it's made in such a way that the viewer understands every turning point, every significance and that's what makes it successful. Perhaps more importantly though, are the characters. We see their every side, we make assumptions, we're proved wrong, we make new ones, again, we question our thoughts. Glenn Close, as always, delivers a fantastically chilling performance as Hewes and Danson makes a very convincing Frobisher.
If I go on about it too much I'll ruin it, but do yourself a favour and watch it. You'll be marking the time until Season 2.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Spooks:Code Splat.
I was delighted to see an advert on BBC 3 yesterday afternoon advertising the beginning of a new series of Spooks. It's one of the only BBC dramas I make a point of watching, but as the advert progressed, I noticed that there was a new cast, (younger, pimplier, and most importantly, missing the nothing short of gorgeous Danny Hunter) and a new location - Manchester. Call me a snobbish southern-dweller, but MI5 dramas just don't work in Manchester. When the London Eye is missing from the skyline, it's not MI5.
But I decided to give it a chance anyway - it was a Sunday night after all, and the Olympic coverage for the day was over. Five minutes on, as always, I was proved right.
Script: Optional. Narrative: Non-existent. Acting Ability: None whatsoever.
Set in 2012, the story goes something like this. Olympics-Bombs-Mass Evacuation of London - recruitment of younger spies-who typically save the day. With lots of guns, blood and fast-paced plot collapse, Spooks Code 9 falls flat on its face in terms of being the next big thing.
Perhaps they set the bar too high by twinning it with Spooks. If you've got a good series, don't do a spinoff. This has only worked once in history - and that was Cheers, and Frasier - which had a character in common. Code 9 has nothing in common with Spooks, and is more of a 'Grange Hill with Guns' (Jordan, 2008) which could work quite well if it was marketed as such.
But I decided to give it a chance anyway - it was a Sunday night after all, and the Olympic coverage for the day was over. Five minutes on, as always, I was proved right.
Script: Optional. Narrative: Non-existent. Acting Ability: None whatsoever.
Set in 2012, the story goes something like this. Olympics-Bombs-Mass Evacuation of London - recruitment of younger spies-who typically save the day. With lots of guns, blood and fast-paced plot collapse, Spooks Code 9 falls flat on its face in terms of being the next big thing.
Perhaps they set the bar too high by twinning it with Spooks. If you've got a good series, don't do a spinoff. This has only worked once in history - and that was Cheers, and Frasier - which had a character in common. Code 9 has nothing in common with Spooks, and is more of a 'Grange Hill with Guns' (Jordan, 2008) which could work quite well if it was marketed as such.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Writing for the sake of it
I've decided to exercise my writing muscle a bit more, and start posting every day (well, every work day at least). It's the only thing that will keep me sane in what is, at times, a very frustrating job. I am counting down the days to my Egyptian holiday and then Australia. Three months with no work is going to be the best thing in the world.
What if no one worked? What if we all worked on the land, ploughed the fields, milked the cows, drank the cows milk and lived happily ever after? There would be no offices, no mobile phones, no need to slave away day after day at what is a completely pointless job, if you really think about it. Sometimes I'd really like to live in a commune. And with rising oil prices, fuel poverty and the credit crunch, it looks like it may even be a viable option.
But then I think about it some more. What, no facebook? No endless updates of who is doing what, who is enagaged to whom? No Ebay? No pointless searching for concert tickets that I can't afford, no selling of things that I have no use for (and probably no one else does either). And most importantly, no mobiles? Yes, I know I've just wished for an existence without them, but the truth is that my relationship with my mobile is a love-hate one. I feel helpless without it, yet hate that I am contacable at all times.
Switch it off, I hear you say? Well, see, you don't have a mum like mine. She'll assume the worst (car accident followed by kidnapping, then rape, followed by being hung naked from a cliff on the Isle of Purbeck) so I need to have it on. At least if it rings she assumes I'm alive. Then again, if I take an hour to reply to a text, my boyfriend worries about me too. I'm obviously someone likely to have got myself into some kind of predicament of some sorts, with all these people worrying about me all the time.
I seem to attract this kind of attention actually. For example, take this morning. My friends mum (and my landlady as it happens) insisted (by this I mean she practically dragged me by my hair to the kitchen table) that I eat pancakes. 'I give you lift to work. You eat,' she said, beckoning to the stack of pancakes. It was hardly an offer I could refuse. I think she thinks I don't eat.
Anyway, back to the mobile phone debate. The worst thing is, when you get back to your mobile phone after leaving it on its own all day (poor thing) to find that NOT ONE person has called or sent you a pointless text message. NOT ONE! That is the definition of rejection. But then again, mobile phones have other ways of making you feel rejected too.
Lynne Truss (the best, most grumpy author ever and I hope to be exactly like her in about ten years) in 'Talk To The Hand: The complete and utter rudeness of everyday life' sums up my feeling about mobiles in about three pages (I have a lot of feelings about them)when she explains the problem of them ringing when you're with someone else. It's just plain rude to have a conversation when someone else is there. It's like saying 'I'd rather talk to someone I can't see than have a face to face conversation with you'. Now that's rejection.
Speaking of which, I have to go. My phone is ringing.
What if no one worked? What if we all worked on the land, ploughed the fields, milked the cows, drank the cows milk and lived happily ever after? There would be no offices, no mobile phones, no need to slave away day after day at what is a completely pointless job, if you really think about it. Sometimes I'd really like to live in a commune. And with rising oil prices, fuel poverty and the credit crunch, it looks like it may even be a viable option.
But then I think about it some more. What, no facebook? No endless updates of who is doing what, who is enagaged to whom? No Ebay? No pointless searching for concert tickets that I can't afford, no selling of things that I have no use for (and probably no one else does either). And most importantly, no mobiles? Yes, I know I've just wished for an existence without them, but the truth is that my relationship with my mobile is a love-hate one. I feel helpless without it, yet hate that I am contacable at all times.
Switch it off, I hear you say? Well, see, you don't have a mum like mine. She'll assume the worst (car accident followed by kidnapping, then rape, followed by being hung naked from a cliff on the Isle of Purbeck) so I need to have it on. At least if it rings she assumes I'm alive. Then again, if I take an hour to reply to a text, my boyfriend worries about me too. I'm obviously someone likely to have got myself into some kind of predicament of some sorts, with all these people worrying about me all the time.
I seem to attract this kind of attention actually. For example, take this morning. My friends mum (and my landlady as it happens) insisted (by this I mean she practically dragged me by my hair to the kitchen table) that I eat pancakes. 'I give you lift to work. You eat,' she said, beckoning to the stack of pancakes. It was hardly an offer I could refuse. I think she thinks I don't eat.
Anyway, back to the mobile phone debate. The worst thing is, when you get back to your mobile phone after leaving it on its own all day (poor thing) to find that NOT ONE person has called or sent you a pointless text message. NOT ONE! That is the definition of rejection. But then again, mobile phones have other ways of making you feel rejected too.
Lynne Truss (the best, most grumpy author ever and I hope to be exactly like her in about ten years) in 'Talk To The Hand: The complete and utter rudeness of everyday life' sums up my feeling about mobiles in about three pages (I have a lot of feelings about them)when she explains the problem of them ringing when you're with someone else. It's just plain rude to have a conversation when someone else is there. It's like saying 'I'd rather talk to someone I can't see than have a face to face conversation with you'. Now that's rejection.
Speaking of which, I have to go. My phone is ringing.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Boys (and their obsession with toys)
What is it about men and their insatiable appetite for the latest Playstation, TV screen, drumset, Macbook? I mean honestly. When a woman wants something, she goes out and buys the damn thing. No browsing for hours on the internet, no humming and harring about the best deal, no. We go out and get the damn thing. Yes, we may not know anything about the brand apart from the fact that it's a 'red one' (to use the old cliche) but we're happy. In short, we don't waste time.
Men, however, are a different kettle of fish. My dearest boyfriend is a prime example. Buying things is his favourite thing to do it seems. But it's not only the buying of objects, but the entire process itself. Firstly, he gets it into his head that he wants a particular item. A new duvet, for example. Not a particularly manly example there, but he likes his creature comforts. Now that's all very well, but he (and this is no joke)took about three weeks from the initial process of research, pricing, reading reviews on whether a duck feather duvet is better than a goose feather one, (and emailing me constantly at work to ask my opinion) to actually buying it. He finally settled on a good old M&S combi duvet. You'd think it would have ended there. But no, he then proceeded to get excited about the fact that it was a combi duvet and proceed to demonstrate it to me for the first three nights we slept under it.
He does this for everything. TV's, TV brackets (he actually sent me a link so I could see it, asking me my opinion. I replied 'it's a lovely bracket dear') and actually, anything you can think of. He's the internet shopkeeper's dream come true.
I had to buy him a duvet cover the other day. Guess what happened? I went to the shop, saw one that looked nice and bought it. Simple as.
Men, however, are a different kettle of fish. My dearest boyfriend is a prime example. Buying things is his favourite thing to do it seems. But it's not only the buying of objects, but the entire process itself. Firstly, he gets it into his head that he wants a particular item. A new duvet, for example. Not a particularly manly example there, but he likes his creature comforts. Now that's all very well, but he (and this is no joke)took about three weeks from the initial process of research, pricing, reading reviews on whether a duck feather duvet is better than a goose feather one, (and emailing me constantly at work to ask my opinion) to actually buying it. He finally settled on a good old M&S combi duvet. You'd think it would have ended there. But no, he then proceeded to get excited about the fact that it was a combi duvet and proceed to demonstrate it to me for the first three nights we slept under it.
He does this for everything. TV's, TV brackets (he actually sent me a link so I could see it, asking me my opinion. I replied 'it's a lovely bracket dear') and actually, anything you can think of. He's the internet shopkeeper's dream come true.
I had to buy him a duvet cover the other day. Guess what happened? I went to the shop, saw one that looked nice and bought it. Simple as.
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