Nothing's gone OK today. I blame the dreams. I hovered till late, and by the time I got out of the house it was very late. I was returning my library books to coincide with Spring Awakening, remember? So it was 7 before I had lunch, and 8 before I got out of the house. I got as far as the bus stop before succumbing to lethargy and turning back. I'll go tomorrow. Ah well. Nobody's perfect.
Someone had the TV room, scuppering my second idea for the evening. All afternoon I've been sketching for my new Doctor Who project. I had to look up some screenshots from Unearthly Child for character references, and suddenly remembered how wonderfully intense the thing is. Not what you'd expect of 60s kids TV at all. It's dark, violent and edgy telly, with the odd downright shocking moment. And he's just wonderful.
At that point I returned to my delicately scented chamber and finished Maurice. Oh, the ending is just wonderful! I grinned for five minutes, so perfect a wrap was it. On the whole, it is a brave and brilliant book. Fanciful, but it works, and his style is always worth reading. It fits neatly with the rest of Forster's output, as its central theme is Man vs. Society, but here his damning of Society is not gentle but absolute. Apparently, it's also virtually the first novel of its ilk. I remain amazed at how frank it is, and am unsurprised that he did not want it published in his lifetime.
Then I got distracted by Sandman, in particular World's End. It exists a little bit outside continuity, and it's a poisonous thing, because there are stories within the stories and everything just spirals, then suddenly it's two hours later. The City and the one about Prez I particularly like. And Morpheus - man, he's just scary. On a second read, it's nice making the connections and following regular characters. Oh, Fiddler's Green! How we love you!
Then capped it off by watching me some A-Team. I've mentioned before why I love the A-Team - it's unchallenging, unworrying entertaiment. It does not have the power to upset me, because frankly it's not that deep. It's no secret that certain episodes of Doctor Who do upset me - it's horrible, wearing and, as for the Greeks, totally part of the charm. Planet of Fire has the power to send me off the rails for about three hours. It's also in my top five episodes. And choose any TV show you like, the tearjerker high-drama episodes will be the most popular. Because the higher the stakes, the further the characters are pushed - well, it is more exciting than them simply sitting down and sharing a coffee.
The A-Team never demands that sort of commitment. No one gets killed, fewer get injured. You are never in any doubt that the heroes will come out unscratched (physically and psychologically), unchanged and on top. The downside of such low expectations is that you are less prepared. There are episodes of Doctor Who so violent I can't watch, yet I adore my Tarantino and can watch it without blinking. It's all about expectation. "Violent" is not a fixed description, it only exists in terms of "the level". "The level" of violence in Doctor Who is frequent, but without detail or dwelling. Shockingly I-can't-look violent in Doctor Who probably doesn't approach the tamest Tarantino death, but remains alarming as soon as it passes that imagined "level".
A very extreme example. There are bits of The Two Doctors I find very hard to stomach - particularly the sequence surrounding a minor villain. It starts with him smashing the Doctor in the leg with a meat cleaver, which is weirdly violent enough as it is. So the Doctor staggers out of the building across the plains, and his pursuer runs close behind with the largest knife you have ever seen. The Doctor reaches a tree where earlier we saw a minor character hunting for butterflies, complete with a cyanide dish. He hides behind the tree, and when the villain comes past he pounces on him, grabs him around the back of the neck and whips this cyanide-covered handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Then he holds him there until the struggling goes away. If this was a James Bond film, it wouldn't bother me at all. Even were the scene three times as detailed, with swellings and gargles, I'd continue to happily munch my popcorn. Yet the fact something that downright unpleasant has happened in Doctor Who is shocking, much worse because the Doctor is the one doing it.
And the same goes for scary - there are episodes of that show which terrify me deeply, and it's all because it's just a kids show and I don't expect to be scared. Or sex: Maurice suprised me for its explicitness because it was written in 1914.
So while The A-Team is unable to sustain proper tension for more than 20 seconds, the problem of my ultra-low expectation has in turn given it the power to really, really rattle me, the moment anything looks a little bit edgy.
It was rather rattled, then, I left my room for food, part comfort, part to excuse the fact I'd had no tea. I almost burnt down the kitchen.
No, let's qualify. The horrible state of disrepair the Skeelings* have left the appliances in put me on the recieving end of a fire for the second time within a year. Last time, I innocently placed a microwaveable Christmas pudding in the microwave and settled down to do some washing up. I turned around a few minutes later, and thick folds of grey smoke had covered the corner of the kitchen. It was awesomely beautiful. I switched off the microwave at the wall, opened the door - then shut it again. I switched on extractor fans, opened windows and vainly tried to prevent the alarm from going off. I gave up fairly quickly. They're not kidding when they say that smoke is the killer in fires - even though there was no actual fire, it just felt awful and wrong. I used whichever scarf I was wearing over my nose and mouth, and very soon after that found I couldn't stay in the room. Then the alarm went off. I gave up, confessed to the front desk and explained there was no fire. They still had to call three fire engines, and everyone gave me sour glances as they trooped out the building. Or maybe I just imagined them. The firemen confirmed what I'd said: there was no actual fire. Then they opened a few more windows and went away. I consider myself free of guilt - all I did was put a microwaveable christmas pudding in the microwave. The pattern on the bottom of the bowl, scorched yellow and black with cremated fruit, remains as the trophy of that event.
I was pleased to see the microwave replaced a few hours later. So today, I merely put an oven-bakeable breadbun into the oven. A few minutes later, I hear this sound like a firework fuse: pshffffffffffffffff, and I turn around to see a very pretty sparkler-style spark buzzing on the hot-iron cooky part of the oven. It illuminates the oven a rather fetching shade of yellow. I did the mature and sensible thing, which at that point was to swear loudly and reach for my mobile. In a moment of staggering insight, I'd added security's number to my phone a few months back. I lingered there watching the sparkler til it went out, to be replaced by an ominous little burning flame still on the hot-iron cooky bit. Then it died as mysteriously as it had appeared. There are some who might attribute this to mere malfunction, others who could presume the cleaning lady had not wiped clean some chemical. But I'm fairly sure it looked more like an assasination attempt by the Skeelings...
*they originate from the Lower Skeel, and within the Halls of the Dude, take on effectively gremlin-like roles. They steal cutlery, spirit away food and cause malfunctions. If you sit very quietly, you can sometimes hear them laughing...
Someone had the TV room, scuppering my second idea for the evening. All afternoon I've been sketching for my new Doctor Who project. I had to look up some screenshots from Unearthly Child for character references, and suddenly remembered how wonderfully intense the thing is. Not what you'd expect of 60s kids TV at all. It's dark, violent and edgy telly, with the odd downright shocking moment. And he's just wonderful.
At that point I returned to my delicately scented chamber and finished Maurice. Oh, the ending is just wonderful! I grinned for five minutes, so perfect a wrap was it. On the whole, it is a brave and brilliant book. Fanciful, but it works, and his style is always worth reading. It fits neatly with the rest of Forster's output, as its central theme is Man vs. Society, but here his damning of Society is not gentle but absolute. Apparently, it's also virtually the first novel of its ilk. I remain amazed at how frank it is, and am unsurprised that he did not want it published in his lifetime.
Then I got distracted by Sandman, in particular World's End. It exists a little bit outside continuity, and it's a poisonous thing, because there are stories within the stories and everything just spirals, then suddenly it's two hours later. The City and the one about Prez I particularly like. And Morpheus - man, he's just scary. On a second read, it's nice making the connections and following regular characters. Oh, Fiddler's Green! How we love you!
Then capped it off by watching me some A-Team. I've mentioned before why I love the A-Team - it's unchallenging, unworrying entertaiment. It does not have the power to upset me, because frankly it's not that deep. It's no secret that certain episodes of Doctor Who do upset me - it's horrible, wearing and, as for the Greeks, totally part of the charm. Planet of Fire has the power to send me off the rails for about three hours. It's also in my top five episodes. And choose any TV show you like, the tearjerker high-drama episodes will be the most popular. Because the higher the stakes, the further the characters are pushed - well, it is more exciting than them simply sitting down and sharing a coffee.
The A-Team never demands that sort of commitment. No one gets killed, fewer get injured. You are never in any doubt that the heroes will come out unscratched (physically and psychologically), unchanged and on top. The downside of such low expectations is that you are less prepared. There are episodes of Doctor Who so violent I can't watch, yet I adore my Tarantino and can watch it without blinking. It's all about expectation. "Violent" is not a fixed description, it only exists in terms of "the level". "The level" of violence in Doctor Who is frequent, but without detail or dwelling. Shockingly I-can't-look violent in Doctor Who probably doesn't approach the tamest Tarantino death, but remains alarming as soon as it passes that imagined "level".
A very extreme example. There are bits of The Two Doctors I find very hard to stomach - particularly the sequence surrounding a minor villain. It starts with him smashing the Doctor in the leg with a meat cleaver, which is weirdly violent enough as it is. So the Doctor staggers out of the building across the plains, and his pursuer runs close behind with the largest knife you have ever seen. The Doctor reaches a tree where earlier we saw a minor character hunting for butterflies, complete with a cyanide dish. He hides behind the tree, and when the villain comes past he pounces on him, grabs him around the back of the neck and whips this cyanide-covered handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Then he holds him there until the struggling goes away. If this was a James Bond film, it wouldn't bother me at all. Even were the scene three times as detailed, with swellings and gargles, I'd continue to happily munch my popcorn. Yet the fact something that downright unpleasant has happened in Doctor Who is shocking, much worse because the Doctor is the one doing it.
And the same goes for scary - there are episodes of that show which terrify me deeply, and it's all because it's just a kids show and I don't expect to be scared. Or sex: Maurice suprised me for its explicitness because it was written in 1914.
So while The A-Team is unable to sustain proper tension for more than 20 seconds, the problem of my ultra-low expectation has in turn given it the power to really, really rattle me, the moment anything looks a little bit edgy.
It was rather rattled, then, I left my room for food, part comfort, part to excuse the fact I'd had no tea. I almost burnt down the kitchen.
No, let's qualify. The horrible state of disrepair the Skeelings* have left the appliances in put me on the recieving end of a fire for the second time within a year. Last time, I innocently placed a microwaveable Christmas pudding in the microwave and settled down to do some washing up. I turned around a few minutes later, and thick folds of grey smoke had covered the corner of the kitchen. It was awesomely beautiful. I switched off the microwave at the wall, opened the door - then shut it again. I switched on extractor fans, opened windows and vainly tried to prevent the alarm from going off. I gave up fairly quickly. They're not kidding when they say that smoke is the killer in fires - even though there was no actual fire, it just felt awful and wrong. I used whichever scarf I was wearing over my nose and mouth, and very soon after that found I couldn't stay in the room. Then the alarm went off. I gave up, confessed to the front desk and explained there was no fire. They still had to call three fire engines, and everyone gave me sour glances as they trooped out the building. Or maybe I just imagined them. The firemen confirmed what I'd said: there was no actual fire. Then they opened a few more windows and went away. I consider myself free of guilt - all I did was put a microwaveable christmas pudding in the microwave. The pattern on the bottom of the bowl, scorched yellow and black with cremated fruit, remains as the trophy of that event.
I was pleased to see the microwave replaced a few hours later. So today, I merely put an oven-bakeable breadbun into the oven. A few minutes later, I hear this sound like a firework fuse: pshffffffffffffffff, and I turn around to see a very pretty sparkler-style spark buzzing on the hot-iron cooky part of the oven. It illuminates the oven a rather fetching shade of yellow. I did the mature and sensible thing, which at that point was to swear loudly and reach for my mobile. In a moment of staggering insight, I'd added security's number to my phone a few months back. I lingered there watching the sparkler til it went out, to be replaced by an ominous little burning flame still on the hot-iron cooky bit. Then it died as mysteriously as it had appeared. There are some who might attribute this to mere malfunction, others who could presume the cleaning lady had not wiped clean some chemical. But I'm fairly sure it looked more like an assasination attempt by the Skeelings...
*they originate from the Lower Skeel, and within the Halls of the Dude, take on effectively gremlin-like roles. They steal cutlery, spirit away food and cause malfunctions. If you sit very quietly, you can sometimes hear them laughing...
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