Baby, You Can Drive My Car

The 2007 Edition of the Highway Code has just been published: it’s now longer than Leviticus and with more rules!

The following are now considered ‘bad’ while driving: smoking, drinking, eating, listening to music, sat-navs, map-reading (it's far better to drive round forlornly staring at sign-posts) and talking with passengers.

So, basically all the things that a person would be doing to break the monotony of a long journey (...except smoking which is a vile evil thing that gets people thrown bodily from my moving vehicle), only the politicians and bureaucrats with easy access to the redoubtable London Transport system (or chauffeur-driven gold-plated carriages) could come up with this.

The Transport Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, asserted on the news,

“When driving your hands must never leave the steering wheel.”

I’ve been driving round in first gear ever since!!!

…And Justice For All?

A cuckolded husband, David Staniforth, has become the first person in the UK convicted of assault on a TV talk-show after head-butting his wife’s (now live-in) lover on the Jeremy Kyle Show. The Judge made the following comment,

“I have had the misfortune of viewing The Jeremy Kyle Show and it seems to me that its whole purpose is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people who are in some kind of turmoil.’

‘It is for no more and no less than titillating members of the public who have nothing better to do with their mornings than sit and watch this show, a human form of bear-baiting which goes under the guise of entertainment.’

‘It shouldn’t surprise anyone that these people, some of whom have limited intellects, become aggressive with each other. This type of incident is exactly what the producers want. These self-righteous individuals should, in my opinion, be in the dock with you, Mister Staniforth.’

‘They pretend that there is some virtue in putting this out there. These are wholly exceptional circumstances and the degree of provocation was so substantial that I propose to deal with you in an exceptional way.’

-District Judge Alan Berg

The defendant was given a minimal £300 fine for the assault. A small thought for the Judge, police or CPS: Incitement To Violence is still a criminal offence…

Mr Staniforth says he only agreed to appear on the programme after one of the producers had told him there was a chance of reconciliation with his wife. The defendant’s estranged wife is claimed to have warned the programme makers he might become physically violent but claims that the show’s security guards were not near the stage when her lover was brought out.

“We were told [by the programme-makers] it would be better if we didn’t go to the police because if we did there was a chance the show wouldn’t go on television.”

-Mrs Staniforth

“Before the guests went on stage there were at least two production staff on hand to wind them up about what their friends or family were saying about them… They were being selective about what they said… they were just relaying things that could have been insulting if taken out of context… There were girls working for the programme who sat in the audience generating ‘oohs’, ‘ahs’, boos and hisses.”

-Camerman on what he witnessed filming an as yet unbroadcast episode.

“…the programme never encourages or tolerates violence.”

-ITV Spokesman, 25/09/07

Why do they need such huge security guards waiting in the wings… they never needed them on Noel’s House Party and such-like!

“It is made clear to all guests prior to going into the studio that no violence is ever tolerated. On the rare occasions when physical aggression is displayed, we take immediate steps to contain any confrontation, if necessary involving studio security.’

‘The programme provides an opportunity for people to resolve pre-existing disputes and personal issues on neutral territory, with the offer of counselling, mediation and support, which is on-going following their appearances.”

-ITV Spokesman, 27/09/07

Mrs Staniforth says she received only one further contact from the show’s makers after filming and that was the night before it was broadcast.

“We do not recognize the district judge’s description of our programme.”

-ITV Spokesman, 27/09/07

Do I hear hollow laughter resounding across the land? Do they watch a different version of their programme to the one that gets broadcast to my home? Am I the only one who receives the version where Kyle aggressively tells guests what awful people they are?

I would advise you to watch this noxious show, just once, to find out what it’s all about then dig out the Optrex. Watch and decide if this is a forum ‘to help everyone resolve their pre-existing conflict’ on ‘neutral territory’. If you do find yourself with the time to watch morning TV may I recommend watching The Wright Stuff on C5.

“…a violently dispiriting talky bumcast like The Jeremy Kyle Show”

-Charlie Brooker, Screenwipe

I would say in the Jeremy Kyle Show’s defence that surely people should have the sense to check out the programme they are thinking of appearing on to find out how people are treated. However, it has been found in past studies that everybody thinks they’re going to be the exception and won’t get caught out or provoked by TV makers. This is thought to be one of the reasons that some people think they can safely go on Big Brother without ending up looking like prize-prawns.

There has been a lot of fuss about varying levels of faking, deceptions and manipulations recently so where would this sort of show sit within these ranks? It certainly seems to be deliberately manufacturing confrontations and situations but then again other shows for a variety of reasons have to take the occasional short-cut to become the programme that they need to be, often-times with no desire to mislead or deceive the audience. Maybe the focus should be on what the programme makers want the show to be.

Personally, I find Kyle to be little more than a bully… and like all bullies I believe he does so as he has a position of impunity, in this case by dint of his authority figure position. If he acted this way in some pubs he’d wind up with his face slit. I find his programme all but impossible to sit through in the same way I find it hard to watch news-footage of any bullying, happy slapping or dog fighting. Does antagonism, prejudice and intolerance actually improve the spiritual well-being of the viewer? Does broadcaster sanctioned bullying effectively legitimize other forms of bullying? Children learn their behaviour from adults but when adults behave like children what chance does a society have?

The only thing that really surprises me is that an incident like this hasn’t happened before on a British Talk-show. I was talking with someone about this incident and I was asked what qualifications Kyle had as a therapist… turns out he was a DJ. If I worked all day on this programme, I’d spend all night in a bath of bleach hoping to get clean.

Recently, there was a small uproar about ‘a bunch of young toffs’ making a film about ‘chav-hunting’. The makers were young and, hopefully, didn’t know any better (proving what a waste an expensive education can be). Are shows like Jeremy Kyle’s so very different? Is it not worse for the fact that at least in ‘Chav-Hunting the Movie’ they were only acting as the people they held in contempt?

And now to cheer you up after all that polemical ranting follow the link for an amusing clip from Dead Ringers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPZcN-PiomI

…and that’s my potential career with ITV well and truly screwed!

…but would I really want to be on the same channel as Kyle?

“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

-Groucho Marx

*And I really hope that nothing in that’s libellous!

The Long Hard Road Into Hell...

"The road to Hell is paved with works-in-progress"

-Philip Roth, Times Culture Section, 23/09/07.

Feel Good Hit Of The Summer

Today, we’re doing, whisper it, drugs. Actually, we’re not but I thought I’d just blatantly pique your curiosity to get you hooked. Recently, yet another ‘supermodel’* has been caught out by yet another rag over alleged cocaine misuse. Fair enough you may say: naughty girl, been a bit stupid, got caught out. However, it was discussed on daytime television the other day, where a well-spoken ‘media commentator’ said something along the lines of ‘while it’s alright for models and media types to do some coke at dinner parties from time to time it’s totally different for people on council estates and housing projects…’

…now, maybe I missed something in his preamble or a measure of sarcasm but it was all too easy to believe he was being serious as this is not the first time I’ve heard various celebrities, media commentators and such like express such views in magazines and on TV.

I doubt I really have to expound why this annoyed me but I will anyway. At its heart, in each time this view is expressed, there is a tacit arrogance and elitism that harks back to an 18th or 19th Century of rakes and dandies. Surely, if it’s bad for people on council estates it’s bad for supermodels, actors and media commentators? What makes a girl whose only claim to fame is her looks so much better at handling narcotics than someone who lives on a council estate? Especially since that very model might have been plucked from that self-same council estate!

I’m not after debating the rights and wrongs of cocaine (or any other drug): I’ve not tried it and I’ve no desire to. (Anyway, I have chronic hayfever so I’d probably end up re-enacting that scene in Annie Hall!) However, do not such attitudes reinforce the perception that there is a ‘them and us’ situation; an elitism where certain elements believe themselves better than or above and detached from the wider public, exempt from the rules and laws that might be enforced on the ‘lower orders’ as was?

Chris Morris’ work has increasingly become less funny but as a chronicler of and commentator on modern mores and morals he has been perceptive. Every time I hear such views on drugs as above I always think of his dialogue from Brasseye:

“Luckily the amount of heroin I use is harmless; I inject about once a month on a purely recreational basis, fine, but what about other people: less stable, less educated, less middle class than me: builders or blacks, for example. If you’re one of those my advice to you is leave well alone.”

Here endeth today’s lesson...

*What Superpowers do these people have? Can they fly? Do they have X-ray vision? Enormous strength? All in all as Superheroes go they’re quite a disappointment really!

Demon Days

It may have seemed, of late, that I've been neglecting the Scribosphere. There is, of course, a perfectly good explanation: I have been neglecting the Scribosphere. And there has been a reason for this too. Hoorah! So, much rejoicing about the whole bunch of reasons that I have for a whole bunch of things...

...anyway, simple truth, I found a small box behind the sofa the other day and it said on the label 'here be demons: do not open'. So, like an inquisitive fool, I tore open the box and there were demons just everywhere. Long story short? Bell, book, candle, yadda, yadda, yadda, demons re-boxed, Scribosphere rejoined...

...you may now be pleased/fearful to know I'm back and my opinions follow quickly in my wake! Mwahahaha! And other miscellaneous sinister noises...

We Could Be “Heroes”

******Here be spoilers******
for Heroes Episodes 1-8

“This is the way the world ends not with a bang but a cheerleader”*

Hoorah! You say in expectation of the obligatory lionization of Heroes. Ha! I say as I confound you! I have heard the hype, read the reviews and watched 8 episodes of the show… and so far I have to admit that I just don’t get it. What’s all the fuss about and perhaps more importantly what’s the show all about? So far I have nothing against the show but on the other hand I can’t find anything pro the show either. I’ve found so many irritants with the programme that I’ve starting forgetting before I find the next. These are just some of them.

1. Each episode starts off irritating me with ‘chapter headings’. I presume this is a comic book reference but it’s still irritating. (Don’t get me started on how I dislike the term ‘Act’… it’s film and TV not theatre… surely after a century we should have created film into the entirely new form it so deserves to be, free from encumbering orthodoxy of a theatrical tradition…?)
2. Each episode starts and ends with a voice-over. These give us, the humble viewer, a lesson in ‘deep meaningful wisdom’ which would work if it wasn’t for the fact that these come across as trite, downright bemusing or both. This tone carries through the episodes to the extent that the show comes across as very portentous and humourless.
3. The look of this show is the standard American high gloss and is therefore indistinguishable from everything from The OC to Smallville to Charmed. Not bad, not good just rather average.
4. Eight episodes in and nothing much has actually happened: a bunch of disparate people have discovered some heretofore unknown mysterious superhuman powers and are experimenting with them. Meanwhile a possibly sinister organization is possibly taking an interest in them. And everybody seems to be concerned about the possibility a cheerleader who can’t die might die. Where are the twists, where are the turns. So, in 8 episodes, more than two-thirds of the way through, little has really happened: that’s the equivalent of 40 minutes of a 2 hour feature film. If little more than character introductions and build-up had happened in the first 40 minutes of a feature would you be considering the exit yet?
5. Anything that does happen seems to be left off the screen: we have serial killer who eats brains (or something) and we have a psycho hooker but we’re not allowed to see what she actually does. And that’s just cruel!
6. Each individual episode is not overly encumbered by it’s own individual structure. Something like The X-Files had long multi-episode storylines but each episode had a formal structuring with a cliff-hanger ending to keep you watching. The same goes for chapters in books and comics.
7. The eclipse was surely important but seems to have been thus far ignored.
8. The superpowers are a little dull: no webs, no fire-breathing? Presumably, as they all have very human based superpowers they are part of some sort of genetic experiment to create new superior hybrid people… (just guessing actually!).
9. The amount of coincidence and randomness is just plain odd: there are 6.5 billion people in the world, 300 million of them in the US and very few of these are ‘gifted’ yet all of the gifted special types seem to be perpetually bumping into each… I know there’s that whole ‘universal lattice of coincidence’ thing (see Repo Man) but Heroes is really pushing it to the limit of credibility…
10. The characters themselves aren’t coming across as particularly individual defined solely by about one, often stereotyped, trait: sensitive nurse, oleaginous philandering politician, down-on-luck stripper, moping geneticist (who seems to have little grasp of science), lovably bumbling nerdy office worker, tortured artist (are there no other kinds of artist) on heroin, dumbish cop and the irritatingly chirpy cheerleader. Save the children, save the world? At the moment I’m voting kill the cheerleader, screw the world!
11. …this leads to the next problem: the characters being created with such broad strokes has given me little to latch onto to make me care (or empathize with) about what’s happening or potentially going to happen to them.
12. …this then leads to the next big problem: much has been made of the necessity of saving the cheerleader who all the characters say is going to get killed. However, it’s already been established that the cheerleader can’t be killed. She gets spikes through her head, part dissected and still gets to go home! If I know she can’t be killed, how can I fear for her safety?
13. Quite a bit has been made of the daring use of subtitles in a mainstream US show and this should be applauded and yet I have a caveat for the Hiro character. While he is ‘cute’ (as the waitress put it) he is also the most humourous character… the bumbling comic relief. To me, he keeps drawing a comparison with Kato in The Pink Panther.
14. Out of around 9-10 major characters only 2 are female. These two women are an internet stripper and possibly part-time prostitute and the other a nubile cheerleader seemingly surgically attached to her never ending supply of outfits. (Or maybe her Mom launders them and sews them back up… but wouldn’t that lead to so many awkward questions about all those blood and bone fragments?) In comparison, the men get to be Nurse, Politician, Artist, Geneticist, Cop and so on. Apparently, in the writer’s thinking, men do man’s jobs and women are either ‘virgins or whores’. Indeed, the cheerleader has fiercely defended her virginity to the point of killing. This has lead to my wondering about the age of the creators. Is stripper and high school cheerleader the best they could have come up with for the women? Presumably, the stay at home Mom who does a little temping was left out for being too outré.

Does this all seem too harsh? I envy the programme’s success and critical praise. I keep feeling I’ve missed some episodes but I'm pretty sure I haven't. I keep creating bits of story to fill out the whole: my new stories include the genetic experiment storyline, the eclipse-trigger storyline, the alien-DNA storyline and, my favourite, that they’re all part of one entity who all just have to get together so they can all meld into a super-monster. I can’t tell where all this build-up is going and that’s a problem because it doesn’t raise any expectations to either be thwarted or fulfilled.

Despite all of this I’ll be sticking with the show for at least another couple of episodes because greater minds than mine assure me it is ‘very good’. If nothing else that cheerleader’s date with brain-eating serial killer seems to be looming large and I really want to see how they get around her indestructibility.

Now, please, tell me where I’m wrong.

“The Maestro says it’s Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you’re waiting for the miracle to come.” –Waiting For The Miracle, Leonard Cohen

*Apologies to T.S. Eliot.

A Pain That I’m Used To

I was reminded of something by an aside in a post from Comrade Arnopp at http://jasonarnopp.blogspot.com/2007/09/writer-endorphin.html. (I'd do something smart with that cumbersomeness but I haven't worked out how yet.) I rarely drink these days, no drugs or 'fags' (neither really appealed), however…

…however, most days, I rattle like a pharmacy. A couple of pills for the usual minor ailments we all have… you hit 20 and your body just starts falling apart… or was that just me? Then I often take a few painkillers: the maximum strength Ibuprofen. (Annoyingly, I found out a coupld of months back I’d been taking twice the daily dose- ineffectually- because being a writer obviously means that I can’t actually read simple bits of packaging!)

By the way, explain this one to me: if I buy 400 mg tablets I’m allowed to take 4 a day but if I take the 200 mgs I can guzzle 8… but isn’t this the same thing? Now, I have a high pain threshold, I was told that by an expert (a physio not dominatrix… though their techniques look suspiciously similar), but I still prefer to have the edge removed. By the way, it’s nothing particularly serious in the scheme of things, so don’t be getting all big concerned looks across your collective faces.

Paracetomol doesn’t contain an anti-inflammatory, aspirin helps me become reacquainted with my dinner, Ibuprofen works a bit. But I find this a touch problematic. Then to counter the numbing of the Ibuprofen I drink about 8 gallons of PG a day.

So, here’s the conundrum: if I take all the Ibuprofen I need for to do its trick I end up rather foggy and my brain feels like it’s wrapped up in damp towels and writing becomes somewhat difficult as I can’t come up ideas or good words. On the other hand, if I don’t take them, I can’t settle for more than 10 minutes without getting uncomfortable and needing to stretch all the time but my mind fires on all cylinders. (Don't think I'm whining about this though, 'cos I'm not... there's a lot of people with far worse problems than mine. It's just an intriguing conundrum for me.)

Tricky though, t’ain’t it?

Now, don’t get me started on Opioids*…

*prescription synthetic morphine-codeine preparations.

“Time may change me but I can’t trace time.” -Changes, David Bowie.

A Life Less Ordinary?

According to an article on IMDB Tim Burton has just been honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival this year as "one of America's bravest, most visionary and innovative filmmakers". Their choice, of course, but…

…while I love Burton’s films as much as the next-potential-outsider-on-the-street there are a couple of flaws:

• Burton has directed 12 features in 22 years which can’t really be considered a huge canon (still trumps our very own Ridley Scott: 16 in 30 years),
• the canon, while excellent, does not show a huge variety- all wonderfully Gothic, stylish, sympathetic to the outsider, etc.- but not something for all tastes yet,
• he now lives and works in Britain and has for quite some time,
• but above all, Tim Burton is only 49! This is a lifetime achievement award? Do they know something we don’t? Do they decide these things, not based on work, but from spirit consultations? Has Burton himself worked out the horrifying implications?

So, there you go… Tim Burton gets an award for being good (which he is) but also for living his lifetime (which is hopefully nowhere near done yet).

Just to make this clear: I love Tim Burton films, might even love Tim Burton (but I’ve not met him so wouldn’t know) but I’m thoroughly baffled as to what exactly constitutes a lifetime these days. This gives most of the scribosphere 10-15 years before our lives can be officially classed as either over or a failure. Whichever’s worse. And before complacency sets in... you may think you've got 15 years to achieve in but they’re handing these things out younger and younger.

Next month’s lifetime achievement goes to Haley Joel Osment.

*Peter O’Toole, of course, didn’t get his lifetime until he was 71. So we’ll swiftly ignore that.

The Long And Winding Post

Well, that was a bit of a mistake. That last post was going to be short and ended up expanding exponentially without my permission...

Just to let you know, if you couldn't make it through to the end, the good guys won, Vince turned out to be an intergalactic neon wombat and Marilyn Monroe ascended to his home planet, just like Elvis, in a burning winged chariot.... and they all lived happily.

The End.

Apologies for the overkill people. I promise it may happen again.

Read the title People! The truth is out there!

Shock Of Point 6*

******Here be spoilers******

for The Piano, The Fencing Master and possibly The Official Version, Hellraiser, Odishon, The English Patient and The Big Heat (depending upon your definitions)

I watched Fritz Lang's 1953 movie The Big Heat again the other night. Fritz Lang's style has always struck me as a touch cumbersome but he is how he is and the films are still better than being pegged out on a rock for vultures to peck at. The Big Heat is arguably from the last wave of the film noir cycle and can be safely described as 'hard-boiled'. It's not quite at that point which came soon after where not only were the crooks are bad, the system corrupt and all the good guys were just a lighter shade of pitch black but it was on its way there. Glenn Ford's cop here may have been pushed to the limit and started to use 'questionable' means but he's not that self-same hair's breadth away from the bad guy that comes in a film like Kiss Me Deadly. As the one character says to Ford on his insistence that he could have killed a corrupted widow, "I don't believe you could, if you had there wouldn't be much difference between you and Vince Stone (the hood)." But such rhapsodizing is merely a digression and padding to an otherwise rather short posting....

The Big Heat was notable for a new zenith cum nadir in the field of shocking Screen Violence. A rather young Lee Marvin throws a pot of boiling coffee into Gloria Grahame's face (done off screen) and I noticed it still has an ouch factor. (There's also a shocking car-bombing which everybody forgets but must have his the period audience... I can't think of an earlier one.) This coffee incident got me to be thinking of what makes a moment of shocking screen violence. I've seen Jason stab, Freddy slice and Pinhead dice; I've seen anonymous hordes shot and thumped and batted less than an eyelid but some moments always stick out. They have that bit that makes you go 'Mary, Mother of God, what the...!'

I think there are some key factors to these really shocking moments (list time!):

• they come in films which you do not expect to be violent and look even less likely to be... imagine if you will what it would have been like to see the finale of A Room With A View with a hint of Se7en,
• they need to involve appendages (preferably) that are held in deep affection by the general public- something to empathize with, something that you may have imagined losing,
• they need to involve an implement that you use regularly, may use regularly or have seen used at close hand and therefore may have had paranoid fantasies about the disasters misuse or fate may bring... chainsaws still count higher than hand gun,
• this implement needs to be something that would make your fantasy 'hideous accident' overly messy and preferably red-sticky-wet,
• the incident itself should barely be shown- as various members of my family have put it- the pictures are better on radio... the imagination is a powerful tool sometimes it's better to use (and get a more audience friendly 15 cert.)
• they need to involve a character that has a name and has some kind of connexion to the audience.

I'm sure there's a couple more reasons but those are the big ones that struck me. So, where can we find such hideousness? Here's the incidents that are quite high up my list and in no particular order.

1. The Piano: Holly Hunter's meeting with an axe,
2. The English Patient: Willem Dafoe's date with some nasty Nazis,
3. The Fencing Master: Assumpta Serna's date with Destiny,
4. The Official Version: involves a door... and most of us will have come close to doing it ourselves,
5. Hellraiser: doesn't involve fish-hooks or the like but does involve a sticking out nail and a hand...
6. Odishon: the whole end section rather comes out of, not so much left-field but, an entirely contiguous field altogether!

I know there's a couple that I can't remember right now but there you go... distance over time equals forgetfulness... possibly.

The lesson for today is: if you want to make an audience squirm, badly hurt a character that they know with an everyday object that they have used. Then light it nicely and put everybody in period costumes! So, we're looking at Merchant-Ivory's Helena Bonham Carter in the Edwardian conservatory with Professor Plum and a chainsaw....

*Shock Of Point 6 is a track by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and is quite good. Best title I could come up with at short notice.

Age Of Panic

How do you feel old very, very quickly? Talk to someone young.

I was talking to my cousin's 14 year old boy, not so long ago, and we were talking music- a wondrous subject. He asked me if I had anything special. And I said I had a record worth £100+ in some parts. I thought that should make him say 'wow' or some such other youth related term. Instead I got....

"What's a record?"

...I thought he was jesting. But no! Finally, after some consideration he came to conclusion I meant the old-fashioned plasticy things with a hole in the middle. Then, he said 'wow' and disappeared off to do 'young person stuff'.

I slunk off to my cave to work out how to create fire. With sticks.

Houston We Have A Problem! The Eagle Has Landed On The Red Planet!

...hopefully!

And lo! It came to pass that I got the old bounce-back for the 'ubiquitous competition'. So, I just re-sent (not resent- I don't hold grudges against it) my submission to the Red Planet People. (Martian Men! Not very covert declaring yourself as such but, hey, now we know there's Life On Mars.)

My submission is a 'supernatural thriller'. When I'm feeling smug I think it's the best thing since the invention of the tea bag, nay, the opposable thumb. Ah, the opposable thumb, the only thing that keeps us safe from our Feline Overlords. When I'm feeling less smug I spot the major problem: the words. There's too many of them. ('Very good, my dear Mozart, but far too many notes.')

Actually, there are 3 possible problems, none of which work in its favour:

1. Overwritten: too many words. Conjure up atmosphere sure but do I really require quite so many words to do it?
2. Passive Protagonist: if it was up to me (and it is- see not only smug but also arrogant) this wouldn't be a problem. Moreover, the protag. isn't actually passive... they're actively seeking to be passive... and they're not very good at it! (Conflict too!)
3. No Clear Antagonist: I shouldn't even have to explain why I'm annoyed at myself for thinking how bad this is: spot the antagonists in The Sixth Sense, Jacob's Ladder or The Station Agent and a herd of others.

I'm not going to try and sort these out for the time being. I have other things I want to be doing right now. To be precise, I want to write a 'conspiracy thriller'... with ordinary working class people in it. That in itself is surely controversial and political. Everything of this ilk that I see is full of people I find hard to identify with: love Enemy Of The State, Three Days Of The Condor, The Parallax View, The Pelican Brief, The China Syndrome et al. but I do find it hard sometimes to sympathize with the Lawyers, CIA Agents, etc. who populate these films and they all seem to come from rather rich backgrounds. So, I was thinking of doing something about someone from a more small-scale background: something about an underdog.

One of us.

Not one of them.

"This one's for the freaks, you're so beautiful." -Underdogs, MSP

A Slight Case Of Overblogging!

Well now. I would appear to have created a blog. I didn't intend to. I was just looking up how to do it, messing with titles and so on... and there it was!

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To paraphrase the Bard, Edmund Blackadder, 'So, you don't know the way to blog either! Bugger!'

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I had decided not to start posting anything until I'd actually got something to say. All I have is opinions. So, now I'm here and you're out there and I ought to say something about something. And I still don't have anything to say. But, hey, that's never stopped me before.

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I know the blog title is a Sisters Of Mercy album but I was trying it for size and it went hideously wrong! And anyway, if I'm prolific it's accurate and if I never post again, it's ironic.

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So and indeed... there!