Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot, And Never Brought To Mind?

Or, "It's Been Another Funny Couple Of Weeks"

I know the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne are more for New Year than Christmas but bear with me here...

Not long after I started another blogging project, I decided I wanted to put it onto Facebook, not least for the potential advertising possibilities. That didn't pan out, but it did leave me with a Facebook account... Something which I'd previously avoided because I tend to like the idea that my social network - such as it is - is in the real world.

Naturally, when I left my last permanent job, I had friend requests from the few people who (a) found me on Facebook and (b) could be bothered, as well as my sister. Sometime later, a former friend and colleague from many years ago got back in touch - a bit of a surprise considering we didn't exactly part on good terms.

More recently, naturally, I've 'friended' my girlfriend and a few members of her family and social circle, but my friends list has remained minuscule compared to just about anyone else in my friends list, and I'm OK with that.

As a sidenote, I've recently been watching odd episodes of Catfish: The Series (by which I mean occasional episodes. They're all odd), and one of the litmus tests the presenters use for determining whether or not a profile is genuine is their friend count. "Everyone," they reckon "has more than a hundred friends if they're real."

Well, OK, that... or maybe they are more concerned about real life than the random updates people regurgitate onto their timelines? Hell, I had less than 20 friends, and I've blocked updates from most of them for reasons of DRAMA!

But back to the point.

Earlier this week, two odd things happened, and the first relates to Facebook and old acquaintances.

I had a friend request from someone I haven't seen in about 20 years. Someone I knew back in high school, and never really expected to keep in touch with. Not really a friend as I'd define it, but certainly someone from the social circle I hovered around during my A-Level years.

Naturally, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to accept this friend request. There's kind of a reason I didn't put much effort into keeping in touch with folks from those days... Mostly because I was a bit of a dick and just didn't see the point, but also because there was this nagging feeling (later confirmed by a third party or twelve) that these people weren't true friends. Granted, everyone acts like a dick in high school, that's one of the worst things about high school, but what with the put-downs and territorial pissings, there were many compelling reasons for not keeping in touch, even before the whole 'trying to find a job', then 'working my arse off for nearly 20 years' thing kicked off.

Still, I ended up accepting, despite two conflicting nagging feelings: one, that this will open the floodgates, and just about everyone from that era will suddenly bombard me with friend requests, and I'll probably have to accept all of them and then never look at Facebook ever again because it's become a nightmare of déjà vu and ancient DRAMA!, the other - coming as a direct response to the first - that none of the others will bother sending a friend request, and I won't bother sending any friend request to any of them because none of us can be bothered. I mean... why would we? It's been twenty bloody years.

Of course, accepting that one friend request did lead me into a little investigative schadenfreude. Seeing how this one former school chum has aged led me to look up others and, by and large, the years have not been kind. Perhaps I'm being vain here but I don't have half the wrinkles most of my contemporaries have. Some others have aged remarkably well and look better than I might have expected, but they're very much in the minority. Many of them seem to be married with kids while, until relatively recently, I've only had disastrously brief relationships. Most of them seem to be gainfully employed, and quite a few are no longer in London, let alone near their old stomping grounds (the one who friended me is now in Scotland).

The other odd thing that happened is that I got an email from a publishing company, inquiring about my availability for temporary cover in the New Year. It seems they received my CV a few years ago, though they didn't get in touch with me at that time, and can't remember who supplied my CV.

The timing is uncanny, since my lack of gainful employment over the last few months has had me thinking (again) that my best bet might be to leave the Publishing world behind and pursue something else (writing would be nice... if only I could get started... or somehow getting involved in the whole Retro Gaming thing and getting back into pixel art... if only I could avoid getting lazy and apathetic about it).

After a quick chat with the person who emailed me, it turns out that the job is pretty much what I was doing in my last long-term placement, plus a few extra responsibilities... and that they're also looking to recruit someone on a permanent basis, as I'll be providing cover because someone has moved on. Not sure how much they're paying yet, but I've asked to be interviewed for the job.

I'm now going through final preparations to head off tomorrow morning to my girlfriend's family home for the Christmas holiday. I've been there twice before, but it's a little more daunting to know that I'll be there for about a week, and specifically over the Christmas week. I'm going through all the usual worries about whether or not I've packed everything I need, but I'm confident I have all the necessities... all that remains is to sort out what extra stuff to include in my backpack...

Just for laughs, I developed a cold last week and, as I've probably mentioned, this has eventually led to the usual acid reflux problem. The last couple of times this happened, I was able to procure the necessary medicine over-the-counter but it's since been withdrawn from the market. I was quite lucky, though, in that I was able to make an appointment with my GP this morning, and now have the necessary stuff on prescription. I also have to pop back later with a 'sample'. While I was tested for ulcers (or the bacteria that cause them) on a previous occasion, the testing system has changed, and the GP I saw today wanted to look into this issue more deeply because it's a recurring problem. Of course, the results for the test are due back (a) while I'm away and (b) while the surgery is most likely closed for Christmas... but a few extra days won't do any harm, I'm sure... and it'd be great to get to the bottom of this recurring problem.

It's Been A Funny Couple Of Weeks

I shan't even attempt to pin down the weirdness into any kind of specific order, and a lot of the weirdness has been the bitty, random dream sequences I've had. There has been quite a bit of real-life weirdness, though.

First and foremost, after consulting a solicitor about the issues with my roof, I had a visit from the managing agents, the landlord - in person - and a roofer. They started out with a quick look at the state of the ceilings in my hall, bathroom and bedroom, then had a look up on the roof.

The landlord was very vocally apologetic - that is, he said he was very sorry and that he would endeavour to fix the situation as soon as possible - but this is a problem five years (or more) in the making. An apology would have been nice about three or four years ago... now, it's pretty meaningless. No plan of action was discussed in my presence, and they disappeared very quickly once they were done on the roof. I tried calling the managing agents last week but had to leave a message asking for a call back... and didn't get one. The person who's supposedly 'dealing with this' has a habit of not getting back to me where others - admittedly lower down the hierarchy - have been a little better.

The roofer had mentioned something about properly weatherproofing the roof - rather than having one tarpaulin just over my roof, he recommended a series of overlapping tarpaulins, properly joined, over the entire roof surface. This rather begs the question of why none of the other roofers have suggested that - in fact, most have said there was nothing they could do short of renewing the roof - though I guess they were offering free solutions rather than sensible solutions...

There wasn't time for them to have properly weatherproofed the entire roof during that visit, and they haven't been back since while I've been around, so I can only assume it hasn't yet been done. Weirdly, though, the last time we had heavy rain (and hail) the flat remained dry until late in the evening, when a few drips came through in the bedroom, but the hall and bathroom remained dry.

Next up, I had a job interview last week... Something like two months after I applied, and close to a month after I assumed they weren't calling me in. It's possible I got my dates confused, but I was sure they wanted someone to start at the beginning of this month...

Whatever... It was easily the most bizarre interview I've ever attended, with the two interviewers - the Production Manager and one of the Editorial folks - spending a good deal of time basically slagging off a large number of their colleagues. OK, granted, the relationship between Production/Editorial and Sales tends to be strained at the best of times, but for them to describe their salespeople as "unprofessional" and "not intelligent" is going a bit far. I've interviewed people and had to say much the same kind of thing, but I've always managed to find a better way, using less specific and negative language. I've also been able to discuss the positive elements of a job in Production, whereas these two didn't even touch on positives. I can't actually remember what the salary was, but it wasn't mentioned in the interview, so they clearly didn't think that was much of an enticement either.

What was rather interesting about the experience was that, everywhere I've worked as a temp, the general rule is that no-one ever leaves Production... unless made redundant, that is. If you're there, chances are you enjoy it, even if there is an element of masochism to that enjoyment. People only move on if they're unhappy... and they were set to lose two of their four/five Production staff, and claimed to be having trouble finding suitable candidates to replace them.

I left the interview wondering why anyone would ever want a job there - their primitive systems are likely to be the cause of many of their problems and their salespeople sounded truly terrible (I mentioned the 'time travellers' at my old place, and they reckoned they had a few of those). The only ray of hope was that the two interviewing me seemed to be on reasonable terms... so at least their Production and Editorial teams should have a healthy relationship.

At any rate, they said I'd hear from them by the end of the week, but I didn't... Not even a rejection... all the more strange because the subject of temporary work came up in the interview.

On the dream front, I had one recently which, at one point, had one of the mob folks from The Sopranos after me for a bit of 'accounting' work. All I can really remember about that one is that my first thought was that I really should have passed it on to a friend of mine who, in real life, works in Accounts. In another one, I was at a restaurant of some kind which miraculously turned into a Blondie concert... which caused me to wonder about a real-life friend of mine who's a fan. At one point, on stage, Debbie Harry turned to walk across the stage and was somehow replaced by a hollow model of her dress with only part of her head. Neat effect... There were lots more, but I haven't been taking notes and have left it far too long to write about any of them... Ah well.

This last weekend saw the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, which was all rather fun. The celebration started a week or two ago, with lots of documentaries and, last week, a dramatisation of the origins of the TV show. I need to watch the 50th Anniversary Special again, so I'll write that up separately...

Out Of Alignment

First off, I wouldn't be at all surprised if lots of people saw the sixth episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as further evidence that Joss Whedon has been neutered by his involvement in such a huge franchise. One of the team gets infected with an alien virus, tries to jump out of the jet to save her comrades, but is miraculously saved. I'll admit that half of me was hoping that they'd allow Simmons to fall to her death, because that would have been a welcome boot up the arse of the series... It's not just a matter of showing that 'no-one is safe' (which seems to be about the only thing that excites people about ensemble dramas these days - probably thanks to the legions of people who watched Game of Thrones without ever having heard of the books, let alone read them) to prove that Joss Whedon is back on form. I mean, let's not forget that none of the key players died in the first series of Buffy or the oft-cited, much-loved supposed pinnacle of Whedon's TV career, Firefly. Killing off one of the agents only a few episodes into the first season would just be pandering to the wrong crowd.

The half of me that was hoping for Simmons to die thought that it would be interesting to see Fitz develop without his other half - because, let's face it, the moniker 'Fitzsimmons' accurately reflects the impression that they might as well be one person.

The half of me that was certain she wouldn't - couldn't - die was more interested in seeing how the team develops as-is, rather than suddenly being either cut down or having to work in another new 'permanent' character. I have to admit that the team's current dynamic reminds me more than a little of the idiots from the first two series of Torchwood, only perhaps a little more professional and certainly not as oversexed. They're supposedly all brilliant in their fields, and they manage to solve each week's problem within the allotted 45 minutes, but they all act like students... and long-term readers of this blog will probably know my opinions on students (in terms of the general stereotype - I'm dating a student, so I know they don't all fit that stereotype). Part of it is that some writers assume 'snappy dialogue' means 'ceaseless infantile bickering' and, while AoS's writers aren't quite that bad - certainly nowhere near the likes of Star Trek: Enterprise - there are better ways of creating snappy character interaction.

Over the weekend, while the skies were clear, I suggested to my girlfriend that we attempt a little stargazing with my cheapo reflector telescope but, despite standing out in the cold on my balcony for something approaching half an hour, we never got much further than the certainty that I should properly calibrate the damned thing before attempting anything like that again. Today, I did just that.

It was an interesting process, hampered slightly by the fact that the image I get through the eyepiece is either 135° out of true or, more likely, upside down and only 45° out. Either way, the little laser pointer on the viewfinder was nowhere near whatever the telescope was looking at when I started, but now it's about as good as I can get it without turning the viewfinder into some kind of telescopic sight. With any luck and favourable weather, we should be able to see the moon fairly well when it's next in the right area of the sky.

Also over the weekend, I went to see the second Thor movie. I noted, when writing about the first film, that the biggest problem is that Thor isn't one of the most interesting characters in the Marvel pantheon. With the introduction out of the way, the film-makers had free reign to tell a proper story, delving further into the mythos. It's an interesting take on the Norse myths, but that small fact alone meant that even this film required a lengthy exposition, narrated by Anthony Hopkins, at the beginning. Just like any movie of this kind, it has its share of plot holes - for a story about the alignment of the nine realms of Yggdrasil, the fixation on Greenwich in particular was pretty bizarre, though that did lead to a couple of interesting moments of comedy, not least Thor boarding the tube (though I should have made a note of the station he boarded at, as I'm sure the directions he got were wrong!) - and much of the portal-related shenanigans were not properly concluded. For a film that weighed in almost 2 hours, it felt like a lot of the story ended up on the editing room floor, with huge great jumps from scene to scene in quite a few places. The tertiary characters had virtually nothing to do (I was particularly disappointed by how little screen time Zachary Levi had, taking over the role of Fandral from Josh Dallas, who's now occupied in filming Once Upon A Time) and Thor himself had very little to do other than hitting things... But perhaps that's about par for the course for the guy who wields Mjölnir. I had to explain the post-credits sequence with the Collector and an Infinity Gem to the friend I was with but, since I only had Capcom's old fighting game, Marvel Superheroes, as a reference, I probably didn't explain it very well. It was a fun film, just nothing outstanding...

Unconclusions

Continuing the thread about recent episodic television rather than doing something constructive with my time, the first seasons of a couple of shows have recently either ended or reached their penultimate episodes.

Orphan Black concluded last week with the introduction of yet another clone and the revelation that the least likely suspect for Alison's monitor - the one person she conclusively eliminated in her brief investigation - is actually her monitor after all. Because, let's face it, if you send a bunch of clones out into the world to observe them, you're not going to start observing them after they hit 30, it's going to be a lifetime deal.

Still more twists were thrown in with the arrival of the protagonist's (alleged) birth mother and the revelation that the doppelgänger who's been offing the others is her biological sister, not 'just another clone'. But that's not all... Going back to the previous bit about being monitored for life, it's been hinted that the protagonist's foster mother may not be all she appears... so the 'abduction' of the anomalous daughter is most likely very much staged... And now that the Police are aware that a number of women in their current investigation look identical, things are about to get complicated for all of the clones and the groups who are tracking them.

In spite of some of my less positive comments about the series, it kept me watching. I think my main gripe is that it feels like two very different ideas for the series were just thrown together. On the one hand, there's the science fiction story about a long-term experiment into human cloning... only, by the end of series one, we still don't know anything about the purpose of this experiment, other than its connection to the 'Neolution' movement, promoted by Max Headroom (sorry, but I cannot see Matt Frewer in anything without remembering his most famous role as a computer generated TV star, back in the 80s - I think he's a great actor and it's great to see him in TV shows like this, an especially in movies like Watchmen... but I'm always half expecting him to whip out a pair of 80's sunglasses and stutter). On the other hand, there's the sub-Dan Brown conspiracy thriller with a shadowy religious organisation out to kill all the clones simply because they weren't born naturally and so aren't 'real people'. The fact that this facet of the story took a back seat - turning up for an episode or two, then disappearing till the end of the series - made it feel very tacked on. It's also a massive cliché that only seems to exist because the protagonist's birth mother made the arbitrary, and thusfar unexplained, choice to hide her twin daughters separately - "one to the church, one to the state" - almost like the separation of twins Luke and Leia in the Star Wars movies... Kinda...

The way threads started tying together in the last few episodes was a big hint that the last episode wasn't going to be the conclusion of the story, just the first chapter. It was a huge cliffhanger of an ending designed to set up the next series which, in this day and age, is a very risky proposition.

Under The Dome reached its first season's penultimate episode this last weekend, and the clichés just kept piling in. Local businessman and aspiring tyrant 'Big Jim' Rennie decides he wants the dome to stay? Check. Four teenagers (with attitude!) set up to save the day, if only they can learn to work together and trust each other? Check. Anyone who can threaten or stop 'Big Jim' mysteriously turns up dead, yet everyone still believes him when he points the finger at someone else despite the fact that half the town now knows about his dodgy dealings? Check.

Never having read any Steven King (other than the Bachman books and his 'Memoir of the Craft', On Writing), I'm not sure how typical this is of his stuff, but this TV adaptation shares the common malaise of television series, in that none of the characters behave with any common sense. Far too many people are putting their own suspicions aside and following their budding tyrant, volunteering to have their personal freedoms cast aside 'for the good of the town' (fuck... is this some kind of metaphor for how 'the free world' is gradually - and without any apparent resistance or questioning - becoming less 'free' than many dictatorships? Politics masquerading as sci-fi?). The four kids are essentially the Power Rangers, just without any apparent skills - witness their useless attempts at concealing the 'mini-dome' and its 'egg' - and one of them is basically a complete loony, and the son of the villain of the piece.

Initially, I'd thought it was going to be a single mini-series - it is based on a single book, after all, not a trilogy - but it seems that almost 900 pages of novel can be happily spread out over more than thirteen episodes. Quite reasonable, I suppose, but annoying nonetheless.

Of course, as one series ends, another will always spring back... and the BBC's Ripper Street returned last week. It's just as ludicrous as ever, but fairly good viewing. This series introduced Joseph Merrick (aka the Elephant Man) and turned him into a key player in what is sure to be this season's main story arc (Reid vs his improbably named and very corrupt nemesis, Detective Inspector Jebediah Shine) only to have him killed off (linking to his actual cause of death) in the second episode. There's also a new addition to the team at Whitechapel, played by Damien Molony, formerly Hal in the last two series of Being Human. So far, they've made much of him being "a boy" (ie. too young for the territory), but shown him to be a shrewd investigator... which is what they probably need.

Still on the subject of TV, I've been reading lots of odd things about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lately, most of which are "it's not (as good as) Firefly". This strikes me as rather silly and very unfair, not least because it's nothing like Firefly except inasmuch as it's another ensemble cast action drama with funny bits. It may be Joss Whedon's show, but it's a Marvel property so there are likely to have been some constraints placed on the production (not least, for example, they're not allowed to use the term 'mutant' because that 'belongs' in the X-Men movie franchise!).

But here's the critical thing: Every TV show Joss Whedon has created since Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been cancelled prematurely. Buffy ran for seven seasons and, frankly, had become more than a little repetitive and silly before the finale. Angel, the spin-off featuring a piece of wood as a vampire with a soul, started out running parallel to Buffy, but only lasted for one further year - one very rushed-to-conclusion season - after its progenitor ended. Firefly turned up alongside both, but was cancelled before it finished its first season. Dollhouse came about long afterwards and limped through two seasons with very little actually happening.

All this focus on Firefly is all very well - it was an excellent series and deserved to carry on. Not only that, but I was deeply unsatisfied with the open ending of the cinematic 'conclusion', Serenity. However, fixating on it as a template for success - even within the fandom - is counter-productive. It's highly unlikely, even following Whedon's success within the Marvel movie franchise, that Firefly will ever come back. It's a sad fact, but a fact nonethless. So rather than fixating on that, surely it's better to view Agents with fresh eyes, and take it for what it is - another entry into Marvel's TV history, alongside the likes of the Amazing Spiderman and Hulk series I watched as a nipper. Personally, I'm enjoying it immensely... though the revelations about Skye were predictable. It hasn't done anything outstanding it terms of human drama but, considering its pedigree (on the Marvel & ABC sides, specifically) that's not exactly a surprise. Besides, something tells me there's a big revelation to come about Coulson.

Scenes of Devastation

So it's late October in the UK, and the storms have moved in. The winds were bad enough on Sunday night that most of the London Underground was out of action on Monday morning, and key lines still struggled into the afternoon. My local area wasn't too terribly hit - a load of leaves stripped from the trees and lots of litter blown around - but, with a tarpaulin on my roof weighed down by spare bricks and fragments of paving tiles, it was a loud night for me. So loud, in fact, that I woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache that stayed with me till morning. One of these days, I'll remember which parts of my brain can be fixed with paracetamol (front right, lower rear) and which requires the less friendly painkiller ibuprofen (front left), which I've all but sworn off and only use in real emergencies.

There were dire warnings of further adverse weather to come, but it's been strangely calm since Sunday night/Monday morning... and the Met Office (a body well known for predicting the weather by esoteric means that never include looking out of a fucking window) suggests things are going to remain fairly calm, at least until the weekend...

I learned yesterday I'd suffered some devastation of my own: my ancient Sega Saturn is working fine (no surprise, it's often said it was the most reliable console of its time, and mine will even run a game on a broken disc!) but my main memory card is buggered. It seemed to be OK initially, but after playing a couple of different games, the Saturn lost track of it. I pulled it out and put it back in (with the console off, obviously) and, after a few attempts, it picked up the memory card again... but it was suddenly blank. Bang goes all the saved games I had from when I was regularly using the machine - everything from Fighters Megamix to Panzer Dragoon Saga, from Castlevania X to Policenauts. It seems as though the battery in the memory card had finally died but, having switched it out for an equally old replacement memory card (which I thought had been bought new, but must have been second hand as it came with some saved files for games I never owned), things seem OK. Weird.

It's a bit of a blow, especially to lose completed games of Policenauts and Castlevania X (bar one painful boss battle that wasn't utterly necessary for the completion of the game), and a game of Panzer Dragoon Saga that was quite close to the end... but at least I can replay Panzer Saga. The other two, being imports, are rather more problematic. I have an emulator they both seem to work on, but it's not the same as using the console.

Plus One

So I've missed the seventh anniversary of this blog by a couple of days... No great shakes, since I did a big nostalgia-fest last year, but it's still disappointing that I didn't even realise until yesterday, when I happened to see the reminder on my cellphone, and then just couldn't be bothered to write anything.

Things have changed a fair bit since then, but almost everything I wrote then still applies... particularly the bits about writing. This year has been a bit drier on the work front - after my long-term role ended, I've had only a few scraps of work here and there. My finances are a bit rubbish, largely because of another inflated service charge bill, ostensibly for renewing the main roof.

On that subject, in spite of assurances from the managing agents that the landlord will allow the roof renewal to go ahead once the residential leaseholders' services charges are paid, they have also expressed some doubts. I've paid a total of something like £5K over the last two years on the understanding that the first floor roof was supposed to be done back in 2011 and that the main roof was to be done this year... and yet neither is any closer to happening. For this reason, I've actually engaged a solicitor to look into it for me.

Considering how expensive the roof non-renewal has been so far, it almost feels pointless and contrary to take on the additional expense of a solicitor, particularly after he told me that I probably won't be able to recover my expenses from the landlord... Any of the solicitor's bills could be crippling. Unfortunately, after owning a flat under a leaky roof for five years, it's only about the money in an abstract way. The point is that I've paid inflated service charges for absolutely necessary work which the landlord has failed to go through with. The point is that the managing agents had to threaten the landlord with ditching his business before he agreed - in principle - to carry out the work this time, and now it looks as though it's still not going to happen.

All this came about because I happened to hear someone up on the roof a few weeks back, then overheard part of a conversation about the roof and alternative methods of roofing, and decided to call the managing agents to ask what they knew about it... and they knew nothing about it. It doesn't inspire me with confidence when the landlord (most likely him, anyway) goes behind the back of his managing agents to look into alternatives after they've gathered quotes for the job. Two years ago, he insisted they look into 'liquid roofing' for the first floor roof, but still wouldn't agree to the expense. I've no idea what it'd cost to renew the roof with fibreglass, but I'm guessing it's not the cheapest option... and it's also not compatible with the work that needs doing when the landlord doesn't own the entire building, and so wouldn't be replacing the entire roof...

Finding myself a regular income just got that little bit more important, however you slice it...

Another expense was about £2.5K on a new boiler - very important now the weather is turning and the bills are set to rise - along with a heated towel rail for the bathroom. Thankfully, my folks bailed me out for that one, so I haven't had to delve into my savings too deeply as yet. I'm hoping that the new boiler will give me a more manageable winter fuel bill, but I'm still keeping the heating off for the time being, and until it gets completely critical.

On the upside, in about two weeks, I'll be celebrating the first time I met the young woman who is now my girlfriend and, a month after that, we'll be celebrating a year of being a couple... We celebrate being a couple basically every time we meet, but it'll be nice to have a proper anniversary.

Continuing The Roundup/Further Impressions

Following the TV roundup post from the beginning of the month, my impressions of a couple of the shows are shifting slightly.

This is most noticeable for Orphan Black, the alleged Sci-Fi show featuring a bunch of doppelgängers. Introducing us to the killer the way they did could have provided plenty of shock and intrigue... if only they hadn't tied her to some weird religious cult which - wouldn't you know it? - considers a bunch of clones to be a despicable heresy unto the Lord, which must be scourged from the Earth. That has to be the most tired plot twist ever in the history of television, and it drags the show further from its self-professions of Science Fiction. Now it's just becoming a knock-off Dan Brown 'thriller'. Further clichés include the small fact that Sarah's daughter can tell the ostensibly identical doppelgängers apart without any effort, and that the killer's motivation is a pack of lies fed to her by the folks who recruited her. The show is revealing some of its secrets, albeit clumsily, as in the conversation between Sarah and Alison, where the latter seems surprised that Sarah has a natural daughter, but it's still dragging its heels in the main plot. I've read the write-up to this week's episode, and it sounds as though things may start to hot up... but a quick side-trip to IMDb sent a chill down my spine for all the wrong reasons: there's already a Season 2... meaning, most likely, no questions truly answered by the end of this season, and an annoying cliffhanger.

Under The Dome, too, continues to play into clichés and stereotypes with the clash of wills between 'Big Jim' and Ollie over the fate of the town, both assuming the Dome will remain forever, and both determined to make the most of it. There is one interesting hint that the Dome is maintaining some kind of equilibrium - just as a baby is born (somewhat prematurely due to the mother's contact with the Dome) another character dies 'of natural causes'... Though the idea of 'a life for a life' doesn't quite jibe with the bodycount thusfar...

I didn't even bother watching the second episode of Atlantis, despite being intrigued by the trailer introducing Medusa in a decidedly un-Gorgon-like state... And the write-up for this week's episode almost left me weeping. The BBC needs to figure out what its target audience is for these shows. If they're aiming for the same 'family group' that watch Doctor Who, a bit more authenticity and a bit less utter stupidity would be welcome.

Egad, It Continues...

In spite of having a truly awful night's sleep last night, I managed to squeeze in another completely bonkers dream, in which I was apparently collecting mail-order exotic pets. One of the newest arrivals was a baby alligator, and my first instinct was to house it in the bathroom. It seemed happy enough, pressing its snout against the door, but I was suspicious of the fact that it seemed to be staring at me. Standing on the lavatory was enough to fool it into thinking I wasn't looking (the towels hanging on the door were somehow, magically, in its line of sight, though surely it could still see my legs?), and it made its first bid for escape, squeezing under the corner of the door. I gave chase, scooped it up and, in search of a more permanent home, tracked down my local mob-owned pet shop with the frisky little critter "in my pants". Because, obviously, when one speaks to stereotypical Sopranos-style contemporary mob folks, one speaks in American. The baby reptile was actually in my pocket, not my underwear.

I can't quite remember what happened in the pet shop, except that it was dark and somewhat spooky. It was a Horror Movie Pet Shop, rather than a real pet shop, and none of the lights - other than the eerie green glow from a couple of terraria - were working. The next thing I knew, I was back home, chasing the baby 'gator down the stairs in its second bid for freedom. My folks had suggested flushing it down the toilet - both amused by the 'urban legend' angle (well, I mean, there are terrapins in the canal near where they live) - or generally just destroying it, so it was no surprise that my father stamped on it the moment it ventured too close to the lounge... but, rather than going splat like a real baby alligator might, this dream creature went splat like Play-Doh, splitting in half and smearing around.

Firmly believing that the wilful murder of a Play-Doh creature was just as criminal as that of a normal animal, I was left wondering what to do... so, just like last time, I copped out and woke up.

In the end, it turned out to be quite fortunate that I was so restless... I'd set my alarm for 7.30am, but that was actually dangerously close to the time I'd need to leave home to get to work... and I really needed to shower. Waking up an hour before my alarm was due to go off, I had time to consider my timing, and realise that I should get out of bed right-fucking-now, or risk arriving very, very late...

So I had a day of work today, giving me a bit of extra cash (hopefully) by the end of the week. It was much the same stuff as my last single-day placement - lots of images to be rebalanced and some to be cut out in Photoshop. Their so-called 'Designers' are clearly a completely fucking lazy bunch... There would be more than enough of a Production role there even without the image editing they can't be bothered to do for themselves, so it's no surprise that they're feeling short-handed enough to employ a temp... But it's very weird that they're only being allowed to seek out a junior (with pay to match) rather than experienced people.

Of course, it sounds as though lots of experienced people have been interviewing there anyway... and having about as much luck as I have lately. My boss there told me that several candidates had mentioned having to lower their expectations on remuneration, because so little work for 'senior' types is available.

By the end of the day, a twinge in my eyebrow had become a full-blown headache and I felt quite nauseous on the way home. Hungry as I was, dinner seemed rather unlikely. I took painkillers as soon as I got indoors and eventually tried to take a nap... While my head started to clear, I didn't get any sleep, just ended up getting up and finishing off my cereal in an attempt to stave off the hunger... didn't work very well but, hey, it's time for me to go to bed now...

Trippy Dreaming Again

Of course, I really should have started writing this while it was fresh in my mind, but was otherwise occupied over the weekend... Still, here's what I remember from an awful lot of truly wacky dreaming from the last couple of nights:

A stage production of The Wolfman, with an all-star audience in attendence, was invaded by a real werewolf. Unfortunately, it appeared that the monster makeup was so good, no-one was quite sure which was the real monster, the protagonist or... well, the werewolf. People scattered out of the theatre and bolted for the exits, and I (trying to push back into the building for whatever reason) was passed by the likes of Benicio del Toro (har har - that'd be my subconscious acknowledging the 2010 remake of the classic monster film) and, perhaps most strangely, Dominic Monaghan. What little I remember of the rest of the dream was basically a cat-and-mouse chase through the theatre...

Then, in the same night, there was my subconscious trying to get in on the 'infidelity dream' schtick that has been troubling my girlfriend recently... But it was a complex tale all in itself. It was set largely indoors, but the geography of the house was a combination of my folks' place and my girlfriend's family home. Most of my family were there, in one form or another, and there was one additional inhabitant - a babysitter for the niece. I'm not sure it was ever explained how or why it came to pass, but I seemed to spend a lot of time snogging the babysitter. At one point, I was asked to wash my niece, but what was presented to me as my niece was a tiny baby, easily fitting into the palm of my hand, rather than the rowdy four-year-old from real life. Nevertheless, I started shampooing her bare head (classic dream logic!), only for the real niece to turn up shortly thereafter. I asked what should be done with the tiny baby and was unceremoniously told to flush it down the toilet. I don't remember doing so in the dream, but nor do I recall seeing the baby again. Later on, still in the hybrid house, I happened to look out the window, and saw a group of three or four men, looking suspiciously like tramps, sat on the opposite side of the road, and a couple of finely-dressed women limping toward them. Well, one was limping, the other was dragging herself along the ground using her hands, as if her legs weren't working. Both seemed to have been injured somehow, and I got the impression they were looking for help. One of them looked over at the house, and exclaimed something along the lines of "that's the one with the dolls' house", and both of them - suddenly able to walk perfectly well - strode over to ring the doorbell. By this point, thanks to the wonky geography of the house, I was in the front garden... and had to sneak into the neighbours' house to get back into the house without also allowing the two women in. The rest of it is rather hazy now, but I do recall suddenly realising toward the end that I'd soon be returning home to my flat and - most crucially - my girlfriend... and that there was no way to avoid the terrible scene that would inevitably ensue from my infidelity... other than waking up and returning to a world where the babysitter doesn't exist. So that's what my dream self - cad that he is - chose to do.

Both of those were from Saturday night, and Sunday night's dream was no less all-over-the-place but, weirdly, most of it seems to have been far less memorable... I remembered bits of it before I started writing but, having written up the previous two, I can't seem to recall any of it now. Ah well.

My girlfriend - only recently returned to our fair capital - spent the weekend with me and if I were to say that neither of us slept especially well, the most obviously-drawn conclusion would be incorrect. When last we slept together, the bed was slightly - yet significantly - larger and the mattress possibly harder. I'm beginning to think I need to replace mine, as it's not especially comfortable for me alone these days, let alone with another person. Having restarted her course only a day or two before, my girlfriend was understandably restless, but things improved steadily as the weekend wore on, and we watched movies, TV, did some shopping, did some cooking, and I learned how to play Top Trumps using a set of Doctor Who 45th Anniversary cards.

While it seems her week hasn't got off to the greatest start, mine has had a small positive note - I'll be working another single day, back at the place that brought me in for a single day last month. Likely the same sort of work, so my eyes may be bloodshot and unfocussed by the end of the day, but it'll be fun... and money in the bank.

Autumn Telly Roundup

Just for fun, you understand... and because I often end up writing about the TV shows and movies I've seen sooner or later... This year's autumn season has been quite surprising in its diversity, and by the sheer number of new shows that I'm actually interested in. I'm probably not watching much more TV than usual, but I'm certainly setting things up to record more often, on the off-chance that I'm too engrossed in something else (read: pointlessly surfing the interwebs) to switch on in time.

That said, and before I get into specific shows, I've also been impressed that the new shows are actually being repeated more frequently so, on the rare occasion that I miss something (or, for example, accidentally cancel a series linked recording because my Freeview box is weird), I can generally pick it up again in the following couple of days... or just watch it on the channel's web service, if available.

But onto the shows themselves...

We'll start with Under The Dome, based on a Steven King novel, running on Channel 5. The story can be summarised as "small town America gets cut off from the rest of the world by a mysterious, invisible dome. Shenanigans ensue." and, based on what little I know about small town America (whatever turns up on the news), some of the shenanigans wouldn't even require the presence of a mysterious, invisible dome cutting them off from the rest of the world. Hell, I've known people from small town America who would happily admit that those kinds of folks would probably never go as far as the next small town, so they may as well be living under a dome anyway. The characters are horribly stereotypical, even down to the interracial-lesbian-couple-with-rebellious-daughter who were caught under the dome while 'just passing through', and the town has accepted them far too willingly, especially when you consider that one of them is the only black character I can remember seeing. On the upside, their sexuality isn't the centre of their characters - one is a lawyer, the other a doctor, and they come across very well as individuals. Most of the other characters are a pretty motley crew and most of their actions are predictable. Still, it's just about watchable enough to continue... and the series is halfway through at this point.

Next we have BBC3's new Friday night headliner, Orphan Black. Billed as a sci-fi show, it took three episodes to actually introduce its sci-fi angle. Up till then, we had the central character - some kind of con artist - taking over the life of a woman who jumped under a train... and who just happened to be physically identical to her. Complications arise because she's a police officer (and initially under investigation for the fatal shooting of a civilian), then the full plot kicks in, and she finds that the woman who killed herself is not her only doppelgänger. The side-story, of the protagonist's desire to be reunited with her daughter (currently in foster care) doesn't add a great deal of character, and the main story has been pretty slow-burning so far - all the audience has is questions, because that's all the characters have. Sadly, it's another show with a comedy gay sidekick (the protagonist's fellow-orphan 'brother') who seems to fall into the 'gay dude trying to make all the dudes gay' stereotype (including introducing a pair of suburban pre-teens to crossdressing and picking up a morgue attendant while identifying a body)... which is a shame, because the actor makes him seem pretty charismatic for such a one-dimensional character... Though, is it me, or is his hair never the same from scene to scene? The doppelgänger angle is certainly very interesting, and it seems to be an investigation into 'nature versus nurture', in that what is ostensibly the same person is very, very different in each case... but, even having identified itself as sci-fi, there's very little science fiction going on in the story.

Then, of course, we have Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Channel 4... which is a bit of a coup for them. Now, I've only seen the pilot, and they're never the best indicator of quality (other than in the exceptional case of Chuck), but it seems "so far, so TV". There are things one would expect to see in a TV series based in the Marvel universe and centred around Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement & Logistics Division, and the pilot certainly showed potential for lots of that... but it also showed far too many of the 'ensemble cast genre drama' clichés that have been part of US TV series for many years. You've got your 'mysterious backstory' character, you've got your 'bad attitude' character, you've got your 'nervously babbling scientist' characters and you've got your 'implausibly good with computers' character... And you know from the moment you're introduced to Agent Grant Ward that he'll be slowly learning 'people skills' throughout the series, softening up those hard edges and generally becoming less of a dick. You know that the two babbly, bickering scientists will be the key to saving the day on more than one occasion. You know that Agent Melinda May's past will catch up with her, and she won't just be 'driving the bus'. You know that superhacker and Rising Tide insider Skye will be playing both sides until she realises S.H.I.E.L.D. are the good guys after all (probably around the time Rising Tide turn out to be Bad Guys rather than just concerned whistleblowers). You also sense there's something amiss with the story of Nick Fury faking Coulson's death, just from the dreamy way Coulson talks about Tahiti using exactly the same phrases every time. In many ways, this isn't Joss Whedon at his best... but that's still far better than most of the dross on TV these days.

And on the subject of dross, I gave the BBC the benefit of the doubt with their new home-grown fantasy series, Atlantis... but it's basically the same crap as their interpretations of Robin Hood and Merlin. It looks like something thrown together in a studio and features passable CGI, but plays very fast and loose with its source material, sending a contemporary Jason back in time. There, he becomes an ancient Greek superhero (somehow speaking ancient Greek so fluently there aren't even any jokes about his accent, and allowing everyone to speak English with British accents), meeting up with Pythagoras (who, y'know, spent time in Atlantis perfecting his triangles, obviously) and a boastful and possibly cowardly Hercules. Like its predecessors, it's cut from the same TV cloth as Power Rangers, though it aspires to be more like Sam Raimi's TV series about the mulleted demi-God and that one about the warrior princess... And you know where it's going from the first moment the hero draws a flirty look from a local princess. I might give this a couple more weeks to find its stride, but I'm fairly confident that its stride will be identical to the BBCs other 'early Saturday evening fantasy drama' shows, so my expectations are very low.

In other news, I've applied for two permanent jobs recently... One picked out of a newspaper's online jobs section, the other via my regular agency. I'll also be dropping a line to yet another agency, because they seem to have a fair few jobs going. Not sure when I'd be likely to hear back on my two current applications... but it'd certainly be nice to have some full-time, permanent work again. If nothing else, a bit of interview experience would be useful.

Home Improvement Is A Nightmare

Following on from the dream in which my living room was getting drenched by leaking water, I had a very appropriate dream about getting a new boiler fitted in my flat. It was just over a week ago that I had someone in to look things over and provide me with an estimate, since I no longer feel that I can trust my existing model and I'm pretty sure winter is going to start setting in sometime soon.

The quote came with two different boiler options - let's just call them 'expensive' and 'not so expensive', since the difference in final costing was 'only' a couple of hundred quid - and there doesn't seem to be much to choose between them according to the specs. The estimate also includes thermostatic valves and, because I quite like the idea of warm towels, a plumbed in towel rail in the bathroom.

It's worth noting at this point that I mentioned to the guy who did the estimate that I was interested in an electric towel rail, but he recommended plumbing one in with the new boiler as it would be more cost-effective, especially with the addition of the thermostatic valves. I figure he knows his stuff (a certain family member is in the building trade and uses these people for all his installations) and, since I most certainly do not know my stuff when it comes to boilers and central heating, I accepted his assessment.

On the upside, a friend of mine warned me that British Gas required her to buy an entirely new set of radiators when they fitted a new boiler, so switching between isolated electric and plumbed in for the bathroom radiator is hardly a big deal.

So, having gone through all that, and received an estimate that's significantly higher than a ballpark estimate suggested by an engineer - in all fairness, he said it was very ballpark, and I hadn't discussed things like thermostatic valves or the new radiator with him - it's probably no surprise that my already somewhat heightened state of home anxiety turned it all into a very specific dream.

It seemed to start towards the end of the installation, when the boiler was being switched on... and it didn't work. At all. One thing I noted almost immediately after waking up was that the geography of the room was not that of my kitchen, where the boiler actually resides. Nor was it the bathroom, nor the bedroom, nor even the lounge. The size and arrangement of the room actually reminded me more of the back bedroom in my parents' home, where their boiler/immersion heater thing lives, hidden away in the airing cupboard.

Now, bear with me, because this is where it gets weird...

A brief investigation of my not-kitchen in the dream uncovered... an immersion heater hidden away inside a shadowy junk pile behind the wall. Referring back to the geography of the back bedroom at my folks' place, this area would actually be the cupboard/wardrobe which, for many years, has basically been a shadowy junk pile where all fear to go. It's only recently been turned over so that a few important things could be retrieved, and it's currently back to being blocked off by... a shadowy junk pile.

But back to the dream. The engineer told me there was no way that model of boiler would work with the immersion heater, so they simply pulled it off the wall (because, y'know, that sort of thing is perfectly plausible with a fully plumbed-in boiler in a dream) and left, promising to return with another model of boiler which would.

So, naturally, the first thing I did the following day was phone the boiler people and book myself in for the proposed 'not so expensive' option, with my ever-generous parents are assisting with the bill.

I've struggled to get anything else of any significance done... I've started a couple sketches, but they aren't getting anywhere at the moment, and my efforts toward tidying the lounge were quickly foiled by my habit of shuffling things around and then leaving them on the sofa. Or the coffee table. Or the floor. I'm 'equal opportunities' like that.

That said, on a complete whim this afternoon, I decided to move things around in my bedroom. There were obvious benefits - making it easier to place containers under the areas affected by the leaking roof, making more space at the foot of the bed and increasing the light in the room - and it didn't take very long. I did regret moving things 'out of the way' and thereby blocking my access to the vacuum cleaner, because it seems an awful lot of dust can collect under/inside a chest of drawers. For a few moments, while I was moving things, I had a sneaking suspicion things wouldn't be much better but, now I've done it, it seems to be a huge improvement. Still some way to go before it's all sorted, and what I've actually done is create space to eventually place additional furniture in there, but it was certainly worth doing sooner rather than later.

Ain't it nice when a whim pays off?

A Fictionalised Account

It's rather disturbing when a dream takes a real life unpleasant situation and then cranks it up to 11.

For example, the leak into my flat is bad enough without dreaming about water streaming down the walls in my lounge (so far unaffected by water damage in real life, but possibly showing signs of damp) and getting dangerously close to the power sockets. I was also struggling with a clearly failing computer, physically identical to my real machine in every way, including all the clutter around it, while the real thing is becoming a little glitchy, possibly due to an upgrade in the antivirus software (the beginnings of the glitchiness coincided with the upgrade, and the glitchiness is limited to internet access speed, particularly when using multiple tabs).

Making matters all the more fun, while I don't normally suffer 'sequel dreams' after waking up in the middle of the night, I had a very direct follow-up in the form of dreaming about my remodelled bathroom springing a very dramatic leak (on a bright, sunny day, no less... though this part of the narrative is unreliable because a window placed where that one was would actually only show through to my kitchen) which caused the new ceiling tiles to collapse. Strangely, these 'ceiling tiles' were actually the insulation tiles we put down on my floors in the hall and bedroom, before laying the wood floor panelling. Not exactly suitable for ceilings, not least because they'd be very susceptible to water damage.

There was also - continuing the theme of weird takes on reality - a bit about the upcoming Metallica movie... I seem to recall the band deliberately started their gig in a weird sort of acoustic/'unplugged' form with very simple lighting, before the frontman called a halt to proceedings and suggested they start again... However, rather than actually starting again properly, the whole band just started larking about on stage. The frontman did a long slide down a slippery track (visual metaphor?) to a separate stage within a section of the audience made up largely of pre-teen kids who wanted to know (a) why he was there and (b) when Metallica would actually start playing.

I really don't know where that one came from... but the water damage dreams could have come from being a little feverish overnight. Not for the first time this week, I woke up in a rather soggy, sweaty bed. I've had a few minor cold symptoms lately, but it'd probably be wise to start taking preventative cold medication.

Too Much But Nothing At All

At the moment, I'm not entirely sure whether there's lots going on or nothing much at all... Some things may or may not be happening around me. I have paid my share of the service charge, based on an agreement from the landlord that the roof refit will go ahead once all the leaseholders have paid. A couple of guys came round to reposition the 'temporary fix' tarpaulin that has been up on the roof over my flat for about a year, and yet the rain over the last few days has been positively gushing into the bathroom, and was also dripping profusely in the hall at the weekend. I've had another interview with an employment agency, and they have disappointed me all over again (the rep this time hadn't even bothered to read my CV beyond my previous job titles, yet she claims to 'represent' one of the biggest names in Publishing). There was talk of a job that I might be put forward for... but it was supposed to be starting tomorrow, and I didn't get the call. I popped in on a job fair in Harrow's Civic Centre and, while I found nothing to interest me, as such, it was buzzing and full of opportunities geared more toward school leavers than experienced, skilled workers. I've had someone in to quote on replacing my ailing boiler, and they'll be adding several improvements (thermostatic radiator valves and a heated towel rail) into the bargain. I've got all kinds of sketching and writing to do for myself, but rarely find the inclination to do so... That said, I've got one sketch virtually finished and ready for inking... so if I don't get a call about the job tomorrow, I really must try to finish it!

Then, on top of all that, I learned this evening that a sort-of friend of the family (a local personality, my sister went to school with his daughter) died a couple of months ago, after a fall in his back garden. He was an endlessly cheery fellow, always happy to stop for a chat... I hadn't bumped into him in ages, but he will be sorely missed by a great many people, I suspect.

But in spite of all that, I feel as if I'm in a weird little bubble, separated from the world outside... Perhaps that's just a sign that I should, I dunno, go for a walk once in a while?

My girlfriend mentioned recently that she'd had a dream in which she became the assistant on Doctor Who and I confessed that, despite having watched the show since I was a nipper (my folks being big Sci-Fi fans), I can't remember ever having a Doctor Who dream (perhaps I should search this blog for evidence before making such sweeping statements). I spoke too soon, however... I had a Doctor Who dream the very next night... and it went a little bit like this:

It was a kind of 'The x Doctors'-type special, though I'm not sure all his incarnations were covered. Smith and Tennant were there, and David Bradley was there representing William Hartnell (but dressed like a very flamboyant Goth, with some kind of feathered or furred ends to his skin-tight, velvety trousers). There was some kind of TV interview as part of the dream, too, as I remember Tennent speaking about how Peter Davison had insisted on playing his Doctor rather than ceding the role to a younger actor, as some of the others had... Hence Jon Pertwee's Doctor was played by his son (AWESOME!) and most of the others I just couldn't recognise... Though John Hurt's version was in there somewhere, I'm sure. The main difficulty was that all of them were dressed pretty much in the fashion of John Hurt's Doctor, so they weren't identifiable by their costumes, and I didn't see enough of their mannerisms to guess which was which. Mind you, the long scarf gave away the 'Tom Baker' version.

There was also an antagonist - most likely the Master - delivering a monologue (with David Bradley's Doctor and his assistant (SUSAN?! My God, this story is epic!), on the opposite side of a rocky lake (read: old quarry with lots of rainwater in a huge puddle) walking away from their TARDIS to meet up with the other Doctors) about how 'reliable' the Doctor always is... Can't remember the details, but he was another one dressed in Gothish attire... possibly with an old-fashioned military spin? Maybe even Steampunk, but black rather than brown... Whatever, he had long, black hair and no goatee. Shocking.

The story seemed to be something like this: Villain of the Piece was doing some kind of genetic research in a massive base on an alien planet with ginormous raging beasts wandering outside. He had a menagerie of past 'successes' who were essentially mermaid-type creatures, and a few basic, terrestrial sharks (or so they seemed). He also had airborne 'seeker' creatures - little more than flying shark heads, only they were genetically modified versions of local animals, so they didn't look exactly like shark heads - who he would send out to rip 'samples' out of the indigenous life. Literally, these things would fly after something, bite their way inside, bite out the particular organ their master wanted, then fly it back to him.

There was also a bunch of eight or so 'orphans'... Kids of about 8-12 who were being genetically modified by the VotP, and who were beginning to look a bit shark-like. VotP's paraplegic daughter was acting as their teacher, though this was probably tolerated rather than encouraged by her father. At the start of one lesson, one of the younger girls in the group started talking about how having grown up without parents meant that they didn't have much of a moral framework "other than...", at which point she clammed up and cast a quick look in the direction of the oldest boy in the group, who'd clearly set himself up as 'alpha'. He asked how the teacher would feel if he said she'd "become boring", then demonstrated what he did with things he considered boring, by somehow releasing one of the 'mermaids', then one of the 'sharks' into the wide pool overlooked by the classroom.

Cut to the group of Doctors arriving at the VotP's base, easily unlocking the door with one Sonic Screwdriver or another, but bickering amongst themselves as to whose was the most efficient (or something). They hear a scream and a splash, and dash off in the direction of the observation ports surrounding the pool at ground level. 'Pertwee' spies a couple of entry points, instructing one of the other Doctors (Tennant? 'Colin Baker'?) to dash down one tunnel while he goes through the other "and we'll see who gets there first." The other Doctors (and a selection of assistants) dash off upstairs in search of an overlook.

About all I remember after that was that the 'other' Doctors reached the kids' room but found it empty apart from a wheelchair, while 'Pertwee' and whoever went with him had to fend off shark(s) with their sonic screwdrivers until the 'other' Doctors could recall the shark(s) to their pens. I don't think the paraplegic woman was dead... More likely she'd been dragged off by the kids, who had decided to escape the base, and figured she'd have a higher level of access than they did. What I remember of the wheelchair suggests that the only thing that fell into the pool was the control panel/portable computer she used.

It's always a shame to have to leave a dream incomplete and it's very rare that I'm granted a 'continuation' (unless it's a zombie dream!), but I'm very keen to see what happens next...

In other news, I recently forced myself to go to a newly-opened branch of Morrisons in Harrow... and now I'm thinking I might forgo my local shops except in emergencies, and do a proper weekly shop there. Well, there or the Wembley branch of Asda, which seems better-stocked (and cheaper) that the nearest larger Tesco or Sainsbury's. Waitrose may be good, but they're far too expensive for me right now.

The biggest - and strangest - news, though, is that I've actually bought a cellphone for the first time. The one I'd been using for the last few years was a gift/millstone from my boss in my last job - she'd upgraded, and gave her old one to me rather than trade it in (since I had to be on call at all times for certain aspects of my job back then), and it was still working fine... it had just started to fall apart. The upgrade is the same make and isn't massive change... it just has a full (yet dinky) QWERY keyboard, making texting a lot more efficient, and a rather more intricate user interface.

Raising The Roof

Or perhaps that should be 'razing'..?

Considering the sudden and severe change in the weather over the last week or so, I can only find it darkly amusing that, having waited in for almost two whole days - during which I could have been doing other things - a pair of builders arrived on my doorstep a few minutes ago, all casual like, to finally fix the position of the tarpaulin over my roof, according to my instruction. This is the move they should have done weeks ago but, for no obvious reason, never actually happened. At least this time, one of them took a photo of the correct positioning so, if it does get blown out of position again, they know where it's actually supposed to go back.

Of course, now they've been and gone, and following a couple of days of nasty rain, the sun has come out and it's actually quite warm out.

In other news, my Managing Agents have an agreement from the landlord that, once the service charges are fully paid up, work can commence on replacing the roof. And, hey, all it took was threats of legal action from me (which I still fully intend to pursue) and an ultimatum from the managing agents that either he let them do their job or they'd fire him as a client.

Not exactly the best time of year for replacing a roof now but, hell, I'll take it.

What I Took Away From 'Kick-Ass 2'

So here's the thing... Kick-Ass 2 is mired in controversy over its violence, to the point where, in the wake of yet another shooting spree in yet another US school, Jim Carrey decided to publicly distance himself from the film and all promotion of it.

Yes the movie is violent... but the guns are the least of its worries. I guess the specific problem could be that Mindy Macready (aka Hit Girl) takes up a gun while only a high school freshman (approximately 14, it seems) because, other than that, there's nothing unusual about the gunplay in the movie... There's far more focus on blades and bludgeons, in fact.

But there's more to Kick-Ass 2 than the violence. It's probably the first superhero movie in history to even begin to deal with the topic of escalation ('super heroes' begat 'super villains' who are, naturally, even more extreme than the heroes). It also deals remarkably well with Mindy's journey of self-discovery following the death of her father in the first film. I'm a huge fan of Chloë Grace Moretz, so I may be biased, but I'd say Mindy's first kiss was one of the best first kisses I've ever seen: she's lecturing Dave about what it means to be a superhero, and you see something click in her head - connecting the dots between her remarks about bravery and her recently-awakened sexuality - just before she kisses him. Given the character, and given how she developed through the movie, that moment was perfect.

Also, Jim Carrey's character, Colonel Stars and Stripes - the mob henchman turned born-again Christian - was more than the sum of his violence. Sure, his methods were extreme, and the line "try to have a little fun because, otherwise, what's the point?" came across more like something the mobster might say, rather than the reformed man... but you can't fault him for trying the best way he knew how. Beating criminals and instructing his dog to bite into their groins one minute, reminding his team-mates not to take the Lord's name in vain the next. He's a very charismatic character, who clearly believes in what he's doing... it's no surprise the other heroes flock around him so readily. His self-confidence (or was it Faith?) make him seem immortal.

Even the horrifically OTT 'Motherfucker', played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, is comparatively well-rounded for a comic book supervillain. He's the spoilt but lonely rich kid out to avenge the death of his father... almost the Anti-Batman. He even tells his bodyguard/confidant "you're, like, my Alfred". He captures the self-absorption and misdirected anger of a teenager very well, and the moment Chris D'Amico realises he's about to die as a result of his alter-ego's vendetta was brilliantly done. Likewise his very muted response to the lesson in his bodyguard's sudden and savage murder.

Funny how a couple of actors best known for silly comedies put in some of the best dramatic performances in the movie...

Personally, I'd say Kick-Ass 2 is every bit as good as the first movie and perhaps, what with the themes explored, just a little bit better.

Of course, the introduction of Iain Glen as 'Uncle Ralph' is obvious foreshadowing... Just like when he first turned up in the Resident Evil franchise...

On another note... Just how many British actors were in Kick-Ass 2, for crying out loud?

The Perils of Optimism

So... Wow... was hoping I'd have pleasant things to write about my holiday, was I?

Actually, let's not be overly dramatic... The only bad part of the holiday, in fact, was that my four year old niece is currently a selfish, vicious diva who can get quite violent if she doesn't get her way. Most of the time, all we got were screams and tears ("I don't wanna [take part in the day's excursion]", often preceded by the lie "I told you...") but, at her worst, she decided to wreck a sand sculpture I has been attempting, simply because I refused to give her a small collection of flat pebbles which I'd collected from Weymouth beach (and the idea behind that was that I would have tried to show her how to skip them on the waterfront).

Even when playing, she can turn violent - she'll punch, kick and swing toys around (I got a plushy unicorn hobby-horse head in the balls!) and throw things. She'll grab and pull at anything she can get her hands on, be it clothing, body parts or hair. She'll demand attention, and insist that it's given just so...

...and there, I suspect, is the problem.

I've observed before that, when there are other adults present, her parents will effectively switch off, focussing their attention on their phones, laptops, books, television... anything but their daughter. At that age, kids just don't understand that there are other things, equally important, that need doing... but they should never be allowed to come to believe that Mummy and Daddy's phones, laptops, books and TV shows are more important.

My brother-in-law had a few stern words for me over playing with his daughter in the evenings, insisting that she needed to "calm down before bedtime". I don't what what planet he's on, but it can hardly be a coincidence that my niece was in bed and out like a light by about 6.30pm on our one 'lazy day' (where we stayed at home all day apart from a walk in the morning, a shopping trip and a visit to the cinema in the evening) after I'd spent most of the afternoon playing with her.

The other downside to the holiday came on our first day out, to the Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre. It was, by necessity, a short day out... it was a Sunday, after all... but, while trying to supervise my precocious little niece, I had to follow her up to the observation tower next to the Orang-utan pens and, right as I got to the top, a long-haired, angst-rock t-shirt wearing teenager blocked the way. It's a small cabin up there but, with other folks milling around and this guy giving the impression that he wanted to walk through me to get downstairs, I lost sight of my niece, so I pushed past. Cue some mutterings with his friends, before he said, out loud, "that jackass just barged past me" (or something similar). Had I not been intent on my niece, lifting her up to the window for a view of the Orang-utans below, I would have been just as loud in pointing out that looking after a four-year-old took precedence over any thought for the self-centred moron who thought that the best way to get down quickly was to block the staircase for those coming up. That pretty much spoilt the day for me, as I spent the rest of our time there on the lookout for the aforementioned moron, and didn't get many photos...

On the whole, the holiday was awesome. We went out almost every day once the whole family was assembled (as per last year, my folks and I arrived at the holiday home on the Friday, my sister and family arrived the following afternoon), visited some amazing places, saw some wonderful animals (a range of simians, horses, sea life, etc.) and had some delicious - and very reasonably-priced - food. My abiding memories of the whole experience are pretty positive, and the best day was, without a doubt, the day we spent at Weymouth, which just happened to be the day of their annual carnival. It was the second time I've spent any significant amount of time at the seaside in about the last 25 years (the first being Skegness last month, when I visited my girlfriend), it was a lovely warm day with a nice breeze, we had a picnic on the beach, ice creams, and a visit to the Sea Life centre. We viewed the gallery of sand sculptures (sci-fi was this year's theme), saw parts of a display by the Red Arrows and, aside from the small-but-destructive tantrum and a fall which prompted much crying (until remedied by a Mini Milk lolly!) the niece was very well behaved.

The funniest part of the day was when my niece basically ran off in the direction of a fairground ride in the sea life cente. I think I was the only one who noticed her dashing in that direction, and I ended up queuing with her, during which time she pleaded with me to ride with her (a necessity anyway, since she's under 1.2m tall!). In a fit of common sense, I phoned my sister to let her know where we were (she didn't sound especially worried), which brought mummy running back to the ride... and instantly the uncle was ousted. The staff on the ride did offer to let me go on the ride by myself (um... nah), or to let niece have a second ride with me (one ride was enough, as the niece got soaked!), which was pretty cool of them.

The most adventurous day by far was the day we went to Poole and picked up the ferry tour to Brownsea Island. Niece was most uncooperative on the way out, but settled down once we got to the island - the site of Baden-Powell's first ever Scout Camp, and home to one of the last refuges for native British red squirrels. Most of the adults in the group took a fairly long walk around the island, visiting views and gift shops along the way, while the niece made a kite in the kids' centre. Sadly, we didn't have time to explore Poole itself but, since I saw at least one amusement arcade on the promenade, that's probably a good thing for my wallet...

And now I'm back, I need to prepare for another weekend away, visiting my girlfriend again before she comes back to town at the end of next month.

On that note, and referring back to the family holiday, it's a bit of a turnaround for me for my abiding memories of anything to be positive. I'm basically an optimistic guy, but generally, I'll remember more of the bad than the good of my experiences... at least, until I met my girlfriend. Perhaps there's just that much more positive stuff to think about now (ignoring my continued lack of gainful employment), or perhaps meeting her and spending all this time with her has had a dramatic and positive impact on my perception of my experiences in the world at large... Food for thought, anyway...

Not That Anyone Will Notice At This Point...

...But I'm likely to be away from this blog for a week, due to another Great Family Exodus, like the one to Wales in November last year.

I'll be taking a notebook but, based on last year, I probably won't publish any of my scrawlings here. That said, the weather will supposedly be better, and we're heading toward the south coast, so perhaps there will be more pleasant stuff to write about.

The outward journey has me worried, since we weren't able to reserve seating. Supposedly there are seats available, they just closed reservations before we'd bought our tickets. Serves us right for taking so long to arrange it all, I guess. And, hey, on the upside, my stomach isn't turning somersaults anymore... I seem to have been clear of that problem for almost a full month now.

I've had three days' work this week, back with my most frequent and consistent employer, just ensuring that a report by one of their new departments got pushed through as far as possible while one of the Production team was on holiday. It was actually pretty good fun and, obviously, any increase to my bank balance is welcome at this point. One strange bit of news is that the magazine they canned last year - leading to the (temporary) end of my employment there - is being resurrected. Having been digital-only for the best part of a year, their print commitment is being extended from the three 'specials' to a full monthly magazine... though, since the member of staff who was on holiday was the one who handles that title, no-one was quite sure whether that meant two completely different magazines, or the same editorial content but different advertising. My guess is that it'll be the latter... It's no great surprise, except that it's taken them so long to do it.

Earlier this week, I had a very strange dream that involved, at one point, a kind of dance-off in Leicester Square (at least, that's what the location sort-of looked like - dream geography tends to be sketchy at best). I'm not sure if my opponent was just some random passer-by or someone I was supposed to know, but we were both doing 'The Robot'. Strange choice, but that's my subconscious for you.

Had dinner with a couple of friends earlier in the week, and probably learned more about one of them in that evening than I had during about five years of working with her... Specific to dating, since I'd been updating her on my wonderful change of circumstances, but interesting and very surprising.

While this personal blog of mine is the only one I use here, I do have several other blog projects on the go, including one very new addition. That could explain why this blog seems to be falling by the wayside - at least, so far, 2013 has the fewest posts in the long history of //ƒuƶƶy[løgic]. That, and there's just so much more going on in my life that I don't especially want to record here. While this is a personal blog, there is such a thing as 'too much information'.

On that note, about a week after I get back from this family holiday, I'll be heading back for another weekend visit to my girlfriend before she returns to London during September. Honestly, I'm more looking forward to that than this week-long family holiday...

Almighty Sugar Crash

Somehow I've let another full month slip by without comment. That means films I've not written about all kinds of fun that's been going on. Well, I say fun... and certainly some fun has been had... but, a couple of high points aside, this last month hasn't been great.

I'll get the crummy stuff out of the way first, because it's actually pretty brief: The biggest point is that I'm still out of work. The longer I'm out of work, the more worthless I feel, and it's now been almost two full months. This has led to the usual sense of apathy - I've left the flat probably only once this week despite needing to do some shopping, the washing up finally got some attention today (I found a fine bloom of mould in the set juices of a lamb joint I cooked earlier in the week... and haven't dealt with it yet), and all the phone calls I should have made this week were put off. Also, after a weekend away last week (more on which later), I found a couple of my shirts were quite badly stained by sun lotion... but only after they came out of the wash. Time to bring out the Vanish, I guess... but there's this creeping sense that they're ruined and that the effort would be wasted.

Similar feelings are aroused whenever I think about drawing or writing or - perhaps most strangely - playing videogames. Why start when it's going to go terribly wrong? Hell, I started this blog post first thing Friday morning, then gave up about two sentences in. I've got a cool idea for a sketch, but it's kind of only half-formed, and I just know I'll produce a shitty, scruffy scribble if I don't know exactly how I want to draw it... Or even if I do, for that matter.

And I've got a whole bunch of recorded TV that I wanted to get through... But I averaged about 15 minutes before putting anything on pause for anything between a couple of minutes and a couple of hours because none of the stuff actually interested me. Now, OK, part of that is because at least half of it turned out to be crap...

While it's been incredibly hot, the paper on my ceilings has been peeling in the lounge (about a third has come down already... and I'd pull down the rest if it weren't for the vacuuming I'd have to do afterwards), the hall (notably around the area where the ceiling was leaking) and the bedroom (strangely not just where there's evidence of water leaking in). I also had two rounds of baby spiders bursting forth from behind (above?) the paper on the ceiling, so I've been confining myself to a flat that seems intent on making me feel even worse than I already do.

Quite frankly, I've spent much of the last couple of days wishing I could just fade away, because I'm just not doing anything to justify the electricity/space/oxygen I'm using. I keep looking at my collection of stuff - toys, videogames, music - vacillating between wanting to sell it or just smash it.

On the upside... Well, for starters, there are more movies to write up than I can remember... Pacific Rim was OK, if rather predictable. The World's End felt a little overlong and, while it was probably the most thoughtful and thought-provoking part of the Cornetto Trilogy, the thoughts it ultimately provoked weren't as positive as those from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I'm sure there have been other movies since Man of Steel... but, like I said, none that I remember.

During the last full week of July, I popped down to Ladbroke Grove and visited a kind of theatrical installation called Crashed, put on by Immercity (see also here). For about the first half, I was wondering if this 'alien crash site' experience was intended as a form of edutainment, since all the 'aliens' seemed to be very similar to terrestrial sea life. Some of it was quite clever (though the use of filler foam and silicon sealant for 'alien coral' didn't quite work for me) and the overall experience was certainly enjoyable... though I can't help but feel it was diminished somewhat by the insight into life as a jobbing actor given by my group's 'guide' before the tour officially started.

The aforementioned weekend away was an awesome trip into Lincolnshire, to stay with my girlfriend and her family. While I saw more of her parents when I first met them (when they came into London), and barely spoke to her sister and her boyfriend, it was a bizarrely comfortable experience. I don't sleep properly on the first couple of nights in any new location whenever I travel - this has been part of who I am as long as I've been doing any travelling - yet I slept incredibly well there. The outward journey was delayed by a series of faults (signals, track and locomotive!) that had me arriving almost two and a half hours late, so the first afternoon/evening was a write-off.

Saturday was spent at Skegness, the kind of cheesy seaside resort that I just love. We wandered along the seafront, through the funfair, down the pier... Visited the seal sanctuary, had some pub grub, bought lots of rock... Even sampled some Skegness slurpees (of the non-alcoholic variety, but the range on offer truly boggled the mind) and Choco Kebabs. That was the only full day, as I was due to return home on Sunday evening... Giving me just enough time to take in a small portion of the sights in Lincoln in the morning and early afternoon. This was largely a tour of the shopping centre (including lunch) and a trudge up Steep Hill taking in the traditional delights of the tea shop, the sweet shop, the ice cream shop and finally the cathedral.

While the day trips were amazing fun, just hanging around at my girlfriend's home was cool... not least because of the swings in the back garden. For a short trip involving a fair bit of travel, it was surprisingly relaxing, and I got back into town feeling ready to tackle the week I had planned...

...Which leads me to suspect that what I'm feeling is the crash after a sugar high brought on by my binging on sweets since Monday. A box of 1980s-themed sweets lasted me to Wednesday (and that was through rationing - I thought - quite harshly), so I've only got a few sticks of rock left. My fridge is basically empty, not just of healthy stuff, but of anything that isn't bread, pickles, or processed cheese.

If I'm right, then this low should clear itself pretty quickly... I've actually been feeling a bit better since reaching the conclusion that my state of mind is largely induced by sugar poisoning, so perhaps all I need is a good night's sleep... but I've been staying up to silly o'clock all week, and sleeping fitfully... Maybe I'll get back on track this weekend.

Recap

It's very rare, in the history of this blog, for the month of June to go by without a single mention of my birthday, but that's just what's happened this year. That's not through lack of things to blog about - quite the reverse. If nothing else, the small fact that I'm now less than a year from turning 40 is something to write about. So, yay! 39!

For my birthday, my girlfriend and I had a cool day out at the Tower of London. I've been meaning to go back there for years, as the only other time I've been was a school trip, wayback when. Since I remember so little of the original trip, it's probably not surprising that it all seemed completely new... either they've changed things around a lot in the intervening years, I've forgotten more about it than I thought, or it's a mixture of both. Probably the latter, since I've heard tell of Living History shows (in addition to the beefeaters and guards), though there were none in evidence the day we went.

For anyone looking to go to the Tower, I would heartily recommend going on the London Walks tour, since that offers not only a fascinating load of history about the tower, its occupants, and the politics of the time, but it also gets you into the Tower cheaper. The whole thing got off to a bad start, with the guide arriving about 45 minutes late, but the walk - taking in areas outside the Tower grounds as well as inside - was very lively and interesting (London Walks generally are very good!). Once the guide left us - the tour finishes in the interminable queue for the Crown Jewels - things became a bit more random, as there's virtually no structure to the Tower as a tourist attraction. You can pick up a map, and then you are set upon your way. There's plenty to see and experience but, after such a brilliant guided tour, I felt something of a spare part. Some sections of the grounds are very definitely one-way systems, with rope barriers preventing visitors going where they shouldn't. Gift shops are everywhere and, while there's some crossover in the products available, most have something unique somewhere in their stock.

Interesting fact about the guards at the Tower: If you're in their way when they're marching, they shout "Make way for the Queen!"... and they really do expect you to make way for them. Also, the reason the queue for the jewels is so long isn't the jewels themselves... but an unaccountably hypnotic video presentation in the room before. People just bunch up in the doorway, so my advice would be to move straight on as soon as you see that room.

We ended up staying quite late and, despite the day being overcast and quite rainy at times, I ended up with some slight sunburn on my nose, forehead and, very probably, the top of my head where my hair is thinning - I do keep forgetting to wear a hat and/or use sunscreen...

I've also been a bit unwell lately. On my final day at my last job, I was struck by either food poisoning or a stomach bug of some kind (the latter being very common in that office - at one point, barely a fortnight went by without someone on my team getting a stomach bug and, judging by the sound effects in the Gents, it was just as common on other floors). About a week later, the same kind of thing happened to me at home (seemed very likely to be food poisoning that time, since I'd eaten something that was a little past it's 'Best Before' date). Just yesterday, the same thing happened again... though it's not exactly the same. This round came with terrible stomach cramps (which woke me up during the night and required pain killers) and a couple of other symptoms I shan't mention. Suffice it to say, I've made an appointment with my GP.

Just to add to the fun, after my ant infestation back in April, I've notices wasps flying in and out of a hole left by a loose and protruding board beneath the guttering around the roof. At some point, I shall have to call in the exterminators again... but I've only seen two or three at most for the moment - no sign of any swarming. I shouldn't be procrastinating, but it's another expense I can do without right now.

On a similar note, I received a letter from the managing agents of my flats - asking for a little over two and a half thousand pounds, to ensure the roof works can go ahead. Now, on the one hand, this is great news, and exactly what I've been hoping for over the last two or three years... On the other hand, they basically wanted the money within ten days of the date of the letter when, only a couple of years ago, I had to stump up just over two thousand for roof works which didn't happen. I had expected, based on my many conversations and email exchanges with the managing agents, that the landlord would foot the bill and then recoup the money in service charge. I did not expect to have to pay for roof works before they happened... not after last time. I wrote back to the managing agents, saying as much... and it took a week for them to get back to me, saying only that they would get back to me...

In other news, I've seen a few movies recently... World War Z is roundly described as having only the title in common with the book. It was a fairly dull, generic zombie movie in which the CGI hordes frequently behaved like a fluid, rather than crowds of former people. It also had a rather politically dodgy sequence where the singing of a group of Muslim refugees caused the swift downfall of a Jewish safe zone. I gather the book was quite far-reaching - evidently beyond Hollywood, either in terms of budget or intelligence and insight... Or possibly both. Perhaps I'll pick up the book, and see what the story was supposed to be about.

Man of Steel wasn't quite the triumphal return of Superman I'd hoped for. On balance, despite its flaws, I much prefer Superman Returns. Superman is one of those heroes that just doesn't do 'gritty', so this virtually monochromatic reboot, with it's jumpy camera work and dark tone seemed like something else altogether. Henry Cavill was great, Amy Adams was better than I'd expected as Lois Lane (I should expect better of her, but since I've only seen her do comedy thusfar, playing a seasoned investigative journalist seemed like a stretch... then again, I haven't like the casting of Lois Lane in any version of Superman in my lifetime!). The premise was superficially similar to Christopher Reeve's Superman 2, in that it featured General Zod and his cohorts arriving on Earth. The rest was like that rash of 'alien invasion' flicks that hit a couple of years ago. If this is paving the way for a Justice League movie, I suspect it's still a good few years off... The Avengers worked by coming after two Iron Man movies and one each of Thor and Captain America. Justice League would require a deeper look into this new Superman and, at the very least, introduce this continuity's Batman and Wonder Woman... the latter being a contentious property at best.

Movies aren't the only things I've been seeing lately, though. My girlfriend invited me to the recording of a Greg Proops podcast uptown, which was a very entertaining evening. I remember Proops from Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and had listened to one of his podcasts a few months back, so I had a fair idea what to expect. Seeing something like that in person is always a treat, though, and since each show is a completely new podcast, it was a unique experience.

A couple of days later, I took my girlfriend to see Derren Brown's new live show, Infamous. Due to the nature of the show, they ask that everyone in the audience keeps quiet about the content, so I won't go into detail. It wasn't as new and unique as I'd hoped - quite a few parts of the show were repackaged from previous tours - though it was an incredibly good evening, and seeing his performances is always a treat. The Palace Theatre is a beautiful venue - intricate carvings adorn the balconies and boxes, and it has the labyrinthine layout of all old London theatres. I've been wanting to see Derren Brown live for many years now, having seen previous shows when they turned up on television, and will probably try to see his next show, whenever that might be.

One thing I will mention, since it's not directly related to the content of the show, is that one of the possible 'volunteers' seemed to be faking his trance-like state. While most seemed genuinely hypnotised, this one guy, when 'dismissed' behaved very differently from the others, stretching and yawning as if he'd literally been asleep on his feet. I was only a little disappointed that I didn't succumb to the trance... Part of me was terrified by Mr Brown's description of what we should be feeling, so I found myself very deliberately checking myself every few moments. Weirdly, it's been said of me before that I'd never relax enough to let anyone hypnotise me, and I guess that evening served as confirmation.

Since finishing my last job, I've spent rather too long worrying about my lack of 'productivity' and not enough time striving to be productive. That lasted a good couple of weeks then, last week, I actually managed to start getting stuff done. On a whim, I did some sketching. I started adding to my other blogs. I finally got this update written, when some of this stuff could have been written about two or three weeks ago.

Still, any progress is good progress, right?