If not, why not? Christmas, which to be fair is looking pretty tired and tatty by the night before Christmas Eve, has now been going on for six weeks, and long before I have sung carols, opened gifts, and pulled crackers, the tv has decided it's over. The adverts are no longer dominated by scent and aftershave, but by "SALE STARTS BOXING DAY!!!"
It is as though there is no time to do anything , because you should be planning to do something else. Having endured Christmas shopping in Sainsbury's this very day, I am in no mood to go out on Wednesday and shop for anything, thank you very much. I found the last parking place in the world and when I left an idiot would hardly let me drive off for mooching and lurking over it before I had left it. Go out on Wednesday? I should cocoa.
NOTICE TO SHOPS: I HAVEN'T HAD MY CHRISTMAS YET. LEAVE ME ALONE YOU VULTUROUS BASTARDS.
It's exactly the same as the annoying television habit of obscuring credits by plastering details of coming attractions on a split-screen at the end of a programme. This makes me feel not only put-upon, but annoyed. I like the credits. Sometimes I'm curious as to who has played a role or composed the music. Sometimes I like to enjoy a moment of quiet reflection on the programme just finished. Never do I wish to have the creepy voice of the Phantom of the Operative Bungloiderers yattering on in a smarmy Smashing and Nicey voice about my possible viewing choices which have not yet even started. It causes me to switch off the tv faster than I ever thought anything could. If not, I mute it and concentrate on my knitting, for I expect if I watch these workings of the Dark Fairies my brain will be turned to mush.
Bungloiderers at the BBC have also been on the case at Strictly Come Dancing, where this season's Saturday night subtitles have been striking for many reasons, all fine examples of Numptiness Unleashed. I enjoyed the information that Matt di Angelo is an alumnus of the Slyvia Young Theatre School, but this dyslexic reinterpretation did not equal the subtitler's earlier Fabulous Mistake of broadcasting "Name and Name: Number 09011 21 30 XX", instead of the full names of the couple and their voting number. It sort of brought the BBC to a whole new level of phoneline tampering, but by reason of sheer incompetence, which is always a nice change from grasping and avaricious deceit. Rather like Channel 4's moments of sound mixing during the last few weeks, when sound has just buggered off, or wrong pictures been matched to the track, this is amusing mainly because these people spend huge sums on their Empires, and yet they don't train their broadcast staff - the frontline, you might say. The operatives are thinking about their futures too much to carry out their tasks, and their masters are too busy with their plans for World Domination to waste energy on the Here and Now. We sit at home, being ignored for being now.
It reminds me of government. They, too, want me to get on with my future before I have dealt with my presents. Get on with your life, underlings, because if you don't hurry up and finish first, everybody else will be after your afters. Except for me. I will be at home, watching rubbish tv and knitting. Stitch that.
Sunday 23 December 2007
Thursday 6 December 2007
Chrstmas Creeps Closer ...
... you can't run and you can't hide. Seasonal inebriation and weirdness is afoot all around. People have started talking to themselves in shops. For some reason Christmas shopping brings us nutters out in droves, and we wander about the glittery displays wittering away to ourselves like so many senile fairies at a spell-chanting convention, trying desperately to remember their incantations wordperfect. Some sing soft seasonal melodies to themselves as they sway in front of sparkling trees and little fluffy fairy figures. I feel terrifically at home in department stores at this time of the year.
The wind is blowing up a bit now, as well. I live in an area called Windmill Hill, which, it may or may not surprise you to learn, is windy. It's clearly still a bit of a shock to the council, who must receive about a thousand requests for new recycling boxes and mini-bins every Christmastide, for they are emptied at around 10 am, leaving them a good seven hours to play the excellent wind-powered game of "which bin can get the furthest away from home" which so delights their little plastic souls. For those which don't enjoy that there is also, "which bin/box can cause most havoc and hazard on the roads", a popular secondary game, often drawing passers by into the fun. High times.
Also, my car has been vandalised, and this is another sign of the time of year. In December some dimwit - a term I use advisedly - tries to nick my car. According to the police they are trying to get home, which is heart-rendingly sad as my car, though small and ancient and easy to get into, is impossible to drive away due to it having an immobiliser chip in it. Since they have not found this out (over five years and three attempted thefts, people!) I assume they must be off-worlders and their belief that my car will fly them home is so sad that I nearly weep with pity for them. Frustrated by our Earth Hi-Technology, they chuck the plastic lock cowl into the back seat and re-lock the door and have to walk home anyway.
So - Christmas is on its way, and this year there is a threat in my world of No Proper Dinner - a taster of what it will be like to be old and have nobody to make angel costumes for. It is not particularly nice for anybody, but we must plod on, brains melted with concern about tinsel and stuffing, and complain as heartily as we can until it is all safely over.
I Just Wonder ... if anybody anticipates getting or giving anything truly wanted this year? Answers please!
The wind is blowing up a bit now, as well. I live in an area called Windmill Hill, which, it may or may not surprise you to learn, is windy. It's clearly still a bit of a shock to the council, who must receive about a thousand requests for new recycling boxes and mini-bins every Christmastide, for they are emptied at around 10 am, leaving them a good seven hours to play the excellent wind-powered game of "which bin can get the furthest away from home" which so delights their little plastic souls. For those which don't enjoy that there is also, "which bin/box can cause most havoc and hazard on the roads", a popular secondary game, often drawing passers by into the fun. High times.
Also, my car has been vandalised, and this is another sign of the time of year. In December some dimwit - a term I use advisedly - tries to nick my car. According to the police they are trying to get home, which is heart-rendingly sad as my car, though small and ancient and easy to get into, is impossible to drive away due to it having an immobiliser chip in it. Since they have not found this out (over five years and three attempted thefts, people!) I assume they must be off-worlders and their belief that my car will fly them home is so sad that I nearly weep with pity for them. Frustrated by our Earth Hi-Technology, they chuck the plastic lock cowl into the back seat and re-lock the door and have to walk home anyway.
So - Christmas is on its way, and this year there is a threat in my world of No Proper Dinner - a taster of what it will be like to be old and have nobody to make angel costumes for. It is not particularly nice for anybody, but we must plod on, brains melted with concern about tinsel and stuffing, and complain as heartily as we can until it is all safely over.
I Just Wonder ... if anybody anticipates getting or giving anything truly wanted this year? Answers please!
Sunday 25 November 2007
Just How Sexist Are We These Days, Anyway?
I grew up in an era when girls did have to pretend to be boys to get on. I don't have any complaints; a bloke who disliked girls with hairy pins when I was first at University could resign himself to three years of celibacy, and Serve The Rude Baskets Right.
However, I can't pretend it wasn't a bit of a relief when we could start being a bit saucy again and the Lesbian Contingent were allowed out of their hideous handknits. And all the time the pay gap was closing ... or well, it wasn't really, was it?
I look at the BBC these days and wonder WTF they're up to. Oggling the old goggle box, I often wonder where are the women on telly? And the answer is, in the newsroom. The number of women newsreaders is very striking and nowadays you even occasionally see TWO WOMEN (in trouser suits, usually) reading the main news on the main channels. Oooh.
Strangely, women have largely disappeared from light entertainment; panels for Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You are often entirely male, which puts me off programmes I would otherwise watch. Anne Widdecombe enlivened the latter considerably on Friday, and should be hired permanently. Fat chance; having more balls than most of the male room she was presenting, she still lacks the main hiring criterion.
ROBIN HOOD AND HIS INDISTINGUISHABLE MEN
Finally the Great Leap Backward - because this is the kind of serial I grew up with, where there was one woman, with whom all the guest men fell hopelessly in love each week, and met with Quite Inexplicable Rejection, for the Hero never gave the Heroine so much as a chocolate kiss, let alone any commitment. Were life to resemble these serials in its sexual behaviour, humanity would have died out hundreds of years ago. Or at least shrunk to the population of the Isle of Wight.
All the regular men are quite indistinguishable from each other. I have watched this show regular-like from the start, and can barely tell the Treacherous Bastard member of the gang from the loyal 4th in command, or either from Robin. They are as monozygotic a selection as ever despatched from central casting, which may explain why the guards in Nottingham never recognise them as they stroll merrily in and out of the castle with the odd change of headwear, but always in a Large Gang. Last week, indeed, the gang managed to get all the way from Sherwood Forest, on foot, before any among them noticed that the forbidden-by-Robin Maid Marion had accompanied them. Is it mildly offensive that Robin does nothing but tie Marion up and order her about, and she has to apologise to him for disobedience, while he never does? You decide.
The chief indication of sexism, though, is that there are hardly any women in the cast. Why is Gisbourne hopelessly in love with Marion? Because there are No Options, the whole of Nottingham being empty of women. For those of you who remember your reading of The Dialectic of Sex, Ms Firestone's idea was that women's lower sex-class means that to justify partnership with them, men must believe that the One they love is Special. If Robin Hood's treatment of Marian doesn't furnish a glaring example of this, while "Jak", also a woman, is like George in the Famous Five, or a Serbian Sworn Virgin, a woman who accesses the privileges of the higher caste sex by denying her own, further illustrates it, it's hard to know what does. Though the constant belittling of Much might be a further example.
Though technically male, Much is Robin's faithful servant, and does the cooking. The others treat him like a skivvy, and upon occasion throw his cooking at him. Because there are no women, Much is treated as one, and not in the way any woman would be pleased by.
A show often stands or falls by its portrayal of same sex relationships. I stopped watching Smallville after an episode where all the "goodies" were so appalled and repulsed by a lesbian that she was deemed to be wicked solely on that premise. (This is a series shown on Channel 4. How very politically correct is that?) The fact that she was also wicked in terms of storyline helped to confirm that the programme-makers' political views really were as nasty as those of the characters.
Compare with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show which had one of its principal characters develop into a lesbian with no ill effects on her character whatsoever - almost as though sexuality is not any kind of moral barometer. Buffy was a radically different show, with real sophistication and depth, reflected in its character development, and it was the maturity and possibly real life experience of its makers that allowed it to be so.
In an era when in real life most half-way sensible blokes marry high-income-generating women - lawyers, doctors, architects, business-women - is this a programme which shows women or men in a way we really aspire to be? Hell no. A lack of imagination and awareness makes this a pretty poor piece in terms of politics or reflection of society. Escapism? After watching this, how I long for some.
However, I can't pretend it wasn't a bit of a relief when we could start being a bit saucy again and the Lesbian Contingent were allowed out of their hideous handknits. And all the time the pay gap was closing ... or well, it wasn't really, was it?
I look at the BBC these days and wonder WTF they're up to. Oggling the old goggle box, I often wonder where are the women on telly? And the answer is, in the newsroom. The number of women newsreaders is very striking and nowadays you even occasionally see TWO WOMEN (in trouser suits, usually) reading the main news on the main channels. Oooh.
Strangely, women have largely disappeared from light entertainment; panels for Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You are often entirely male, which puts me off programmes I would otherwise watch. Anne Widdecombe enlivened the latter considerably on Friday, and should be hired permanently. Fat chance; having more balls than most of the male room she was presenting, she still lacks the main hiring criterion.
ROBIN HOOD AND HIS INDISTINGUISHABLE MEN
Finally the Great Leap Backward - because this is the kind of serial I grew up with, where there was one woman, with whom all the guest men fell hopelessly in love each week, and met with Quite Inexplicable Rejection, for the Hero never gave the Heroine so much as a chocolate kiss, let alone any commitment. Were life to resemble these serials in its sexual behaviour, humanity would have died out hundreds of years ago. Or at least shrunk to the population of the Isle of Wight.
All the regular men are quite indistinguishable from each other. I have watched this show regular-like from the start, and can barely tell the Treacherous Bastard member of the gang from the loyal 4th in command, or either from Robin. They are as monozygotic a selection as ever despatched from central casting, which may explain why the guards in Nottingham never recognise them as they stroll merrily in and out of the castle with the odd change of headwear, but always in a Large Gang. Last week, indeed, the gang managed to get all the way from Sherwood Forest, on foot, before any among them noticed that the forbidden-by-Robin Maid Marion had accompanied them. Is it mildly offensive that Robin does nothing but tie Marion up and order her about, and she has to apologise to him for disobedience, while he never does? You decide.
The chief indication of sexism, though, is that there are hardly any women in the cast. Why is Gisbourne hopelessly in love with Marion? Because there are No Options, the whole of Nottingham being empty of women. For those of you who remember your reading of The Dialectic of Sex, Ms Firestone's idea was that women's lower sex-class means that to justify partnership with them, men must believe that the One they love is Special. If Robin Hood's treatment of Marian doesn't furnish a glaring example of this, while "Jak", also a woman, is like George in the Famous Five, or a Serbian Sworn Virgin, a woman who accesses the privileges of the higher caste sex by denying her own, further illustrates it, it's hard to know what does. Though the constant belittling of Much might be a further example.
Though technically male, Much is Robin's faithful servant, and does the cooking. The others treat him like a skivvy, and upon occasion throw his cooking at him. Because there are no women, Much is treated as one, and not in the way any woman would be pleased by.
A show often stands or falls by its portrayal of same sex relationships. I stopped watching Smallville after an episode where all the "goodies" were so appalled and repulsed by a lesbian that she was deemed to be wicked solely on that premise. (This is a series shown on Channel 4. How very politically correct is that?) The fact that she was also wicked in terms of storyline helped to confirm that the programme-makers' political views really were as nasty as those of the characters.
Compare with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show which had one of its principal characters develop into a lesbian with no ill effects on her character whatsoever - almost as though sexuality is not any kind of moral barometer. Buffy was a radically different show, with real sophistication and depth, reflected in its character development, and it was the maturity and possibly real life experience of its makers that allowed it to be so.
In an era when in real life most half-way sensible blokes marry high-income-generating women - lawyers, doctors, architects, business-women - is this a programme which shows women or men in a way we really aspire to be? Hell no. A lack of imagination and awareness makes this a pretty poor piece in terms of politics or reflection of society. Escapism? After watching this, how I long for some.
Monday 19 November 2007
The Humbling of Revel Horwood
FREE AT LAST!
It is done. The trap sprung, the goose cooked, and Kate Garraway finally voted off Strictly Come Dancing. Hurrah! For her sad little rictus frozen claw-fingered paws as she fell back into a catatonic pose supported only by the superhuman strength of her long-suffering partner were too much for human sympathy to bear. Here, gentle viewer, was a woman unable to walk unaided about the dance floor in a sparkly dress. Her hand gestures - horrid dead-meerkat paws aside - were often assertive and even elegant, but she was unable to - well, stand up and walk about. The judges suggested she had no sense of rhythm, and it seems certain that this contributed to her magnificent inability to see what was coming next, even after six days of unbroken rehearsal. Nine out of ten steps came as a complete surprise to her, this must surely have contributed to her repeated injuries. It is easy to hurt oneself if one is moving about without the smallest notion of where one's body is going or what it may do next, let alone if there is another person in one's space moving with a similar degree of mystery.
But Kate Garraway has brought one prodigious moment to television; she brought Craig Revel-Horwood to button his lip.
Mr Revel-Horwood has always liked to be quite stinging in his remarks, and not always constructively critical, either. But Miss Garraway was the Elizabeth Bennet to his Mr Darcy, and by her, he has been properly humbled. By connecting the continuing public vote to keep her in with the pity generated by the judges' cruelty, he has finally seen the light and renounced rudeness. Though it must have pained him, he spoke highly of her "courage" in coming out to dance on Saturday night; and with justification, for someone of her clumsiness must be pretty brave just to get out of bed. Even after he had got his wish, and she had made the bottom two, he was gracious and spoke only of his obligation as a judge, rather than metaphorically trampling all over her with the hobnailed boots of accurate comment.
This goes to show what I have always felt about Craig; he is a big soft lass at heart, and upset and distressed when people don't like him, and I find I rather do.
It is done. The trap sprung, the goose cooked, and Kate Garraway finally voted off Strictly Come Dancing. Hurrah! For her sad little rictus frozen claw-fingered paws as she fell back into a catatonic pose supported only by the superhuman strength of her long-suffering partner were too much for human sympathy to bear. Here, gentle viewer, was a woman unable to walk unaided about the dance floor in a sparkly dress. Her hand gestures - horrid dead-meerkat paws aside - were often assertive and even elegant, but she was unable to - well, stand up and walk about. The judges suggested she had no sense of rhythm, and it seems certain that this contributed to her magnificent inability to see what was coming next, even after six days of unbroken rehearsal. Nine out of ten steps came as a complete surprise to her, this must surely have contributed to her repeated injuries. It is easy to hurt oneself if one is moving about without the smallest notion of where one's body is going or what it may do next, let alone if there is another person in one's space moving with a similar degree of mystery.
But Kate Garraway has brought one prodigious moment to television; she brought Craig Revel-Horwood to button his lip.
Mr Revel-Horwood has always liked to be quite stinging in his remarks, and not always constructively critical, either. But Miss Garraway was the Elizabeth Bennet to his Mr Darcy, and by her, he has been properly humbled. By connecting the continuing public vote to keep her in with the pity generated by the judges' cruelty, he has finally seen the light and renounced rudeness. Though it must have pained him, he spoke highly of her "courage" in coming out to dance on Saturday night; and with justification, for someone of her clumsiness must be pretty brave just to get out of bed. Even after he had got his wish, and she had made the bottom two, he was gracious and spoke only of his obligation as a judge, rather than metaphorically trampling all over her with the hobnailed boots of accurate comment.
This goes to show what I have always felt about Craig; he is a big soft lass at heart, and upset and distressed when people don't like him, and I find I rather do.
Monday 12 November 2007
Customer Satisfaction Survey
I've just had a customer satisfaction survey - from the Council.
I am thrilled. I morris dance with fervid joy. I have never, ever been satisfied with any of the "services" provided by the Council. Public transport sucks, the schools are among the worst in the country, the council tax levy among the highest, and only yesterday the search for parking in the city centre had me on the verge of tears. Bristol's city centre is hopelessly underutilised, in my opinion, as a direct consequence of the council's poor planning. The only available parking is extortionately expensive - I have checked, and Bristol's £3.20 for two hours is the most I have ever been expected to shell out anywhere, including Kensington and Chelsea. Like many of the Distraught Citizens of the City, I have found myself moreorless coerced into paying to park in the Mighty Galleries Car Park, a multi-storey number reminiscent of the Death Star, though possibly with more warnings about your liability for items left in your car. It certainly feels like a journey to the Dark Side, and had I a Jedi lightsabre and the good fortune to find Council Leader Helen Holland between me and the path to Marks and Spencer, I suspect that my hatred might well overwhelm me and lo we would have four council leaders for the price of one, completing my initiation as Darth Gardner.
Why the Evil Council (most undemocratically composed of the Labour group, instead of the Lib Dems duly elected to the majority) robs its taxpayers blind for street parking, instead of just running what must be a highly profitable multi-storey which charges less, is something they have never explained. Possibly because they do not wish to out themselves as a bunch of spendthrift incompetent dollops. Like nobody has noticed.
Back to my customer satisfaction: since the strange Paper I have received does not mention which particular complaint they wish me to comment on, it is quite difficult to complete. I have made two different complaints; one about being awoken by a noisy and re-starting warehouse alarm, and one about Fiery Rubbish, and their response has been quite different.
For the alarm, they kindly said they would send someone to investigate, then rang me back that same night to say it had been off when they visited, and perhaps I could let them know when it started again. Then somebody else telephoned me again the next day to repeat the good news.
The Fiery Rubbish was quite different. Next door but one to me houses people who make more rubbish than seems humanly possible. In a dramatic face-off, the dustmen refused their refuse, until eventually I rang up the council explaining that I objected to living next door to 20 bags full of rubbish on the walkway, usually split by investigative feral felines, foxes or possibly rats, spilling chicken bones and dirty nappies, and that I was not convinced the dustmen's "teaching them a lesson" approach was having the desired effect.
The telephone operative agreed to action it, and some of the rubbish disappeared. Then the rubbish at the bottom of the steps was fired. I was awoken by the flashing lights of the local fire brigade putting it out.
Almost as fired up as the rubbish, I rang again, and demanded that Something Be Done. And to be fair, it has improved massively. Except for the random dumping of toy buggies, old furniture and television sets, almost no refuse is left out on the walkway now for much longer than the statutory fortnight. There have been no further fires, and a significant reduction in the nappy / chicken spillage. But why the council would ask me whether somebody has let me know and kept me in touch with this, I cannot fathom. In the first place, surely if somebody had, there would be a record, and in the second place, why on earth would I care? I don't need the council to talk me through the trauma of the dirty nappies, I just want them to sort out the damn rubbish.
And just for the record, I will not be filling out their monitoring form. They have no right to monitor the gender, colour, sexual orientation or anything else about those who would rather not live on a tip. They should Just Deal With It.
I am thrilled. I morris dance with fervid joy. I have never, ever been satisfied with any of the "services" provided by the Council. Public transport sucks, the schools are among the worst in the country, the council tax levy among the highest, and only yesterday the search for parking in the city centre had me on the verge of tears. Bristol's city centre is hopelessly underutilised, in my opinion, as a direct consequence of the council's poor planning. The only available parking is extortionately expensive - I have checked, and Bristol's £3.20 for two hours is the most I have ever been expected to shell out anywhere, including Kensington and Chelsea. Like many of the Distraught Citizens of the City, I have found myself moreorless coerced into paying to park in the Mighty Galleries Car Park, a multi-storey number reminiscent of the Death Star, though possibly with more warnings about your liability for items left in your car. It certainly feels like a journey to the Dark Side, and had I a Jedi lightsabre and the good fortune to find Council Leader Helen Holland between me and the path to Marks and Spencer, I suspect that my hatred might well overwhelm me and lo we would have four council leaders for the price of one, completing my initiation as Darth Gardner.
Why the Evil Council (most undemocratically composed of the Labour group, instead of the Lib Dems duly elected to the majority) robs its taxpayers blind for street parking, instead of just running what must be a highly profitable multi-storey which charges less, is something they have never explained. Possibly because they do not wish to out themselves as a bunch of spendthrift incompetent dollops. Like nobody has noticed.
Back to my customer satisfaction: since the strange Paper I have received does not mention which particular complaint they wish me to comment on, it is quite difficult to complete. I have made two different complaints; one about being awoken by a noisy and re-starting warehouse alarm, and one about Fiery Rubbish, and their response has been quite different.
For the alarm, they kindly said they would send someone to investigate, then rang me back that same night to say it had been off when they visited, and perhaps I could let them know when it started again. Then somebody else telephoned me again the next day to repeat the good news.
The Fiery Rubbish was quite different. Next door but one to me houses people who make more rubbish than seems humanly possible. In a dramatic face-off, the dustmen refused their refuse, until eventually I rang up the council explaining that I objected to living next door to 20 bags full of rubbish on the walkway, usually split by investigative feral felines, foxes or possibly rats, spilling chicken bones and dirty nappies, and that I was not convinced the dustmen's "teaching them a lesson" approach was having the desired effect.
The telephone operative agreed to action it, and some of the rubbish disappeared. Then the rubbish at the bottom of the steps was fired. I was awoken by the flashing lights of the local fire brigade putting it out.
Almost as fired up as the rubbish, I rang again, and demanded that Something Be Done. And to be fair, it has improved massively. Except for the random dumping of toy buggies, old furniture and television sets, almost no refuse is left out on the walkway now for much longer than the statutory fortnight. There have been no further fires, and a significant reduction in the nappy / chicken spillage. But why the council would ask me whether somebody has let me know and kept me in touch with this, I cannot fathom. In the first place, surely if somebody had, there would be a record, and in the second place, why on earth would I care? I don't need the council to talk me through the trauma of the dirty nappies, I just want them to sort out the damn rubbish.
And just for the record, I will not be filling out their monitoring form. They have no right to monitor the gender, colour, sexual orientation or anything else about those who would rather not live on a tip. They should Just Deal With It.
Tuesday 6 November 2007
Today I am a Lifer ...
I have low expectations.
It is part of who I am; much of the limitation of my achievement can be directly traced to my limitation of expectation - mine and other people's, mainly mine.
However, today even these modest expectations are Not Being Met, and I am warning the universe, because today, Matthew, I am a Lifer. "Lifers", as you will know, are people - men, largely - who have committed crimes sufficiently nasty to be banged up forever - at least in theory and on the paperwork. When I worked in Probation, the point about Lifers was they were HARD. They were dealt with by specialist officers, a Crack Troop trained to recommend refusal of parole and groupwork to serial rapists and murderers. The Dangerous Offenders POs were so determined and rational they did not give chocolate biscuits to their crims - the polar opposite of Groupwork, where these were a vital part of the befriending and rehabilitation process. I digress. The thing about Lifers is that for the first few years of their sentences, with no hope of parole, they enjoy a reputation for uncontrollability that would be the envy of Britney Spears. They infest prisons, fighting, wounding and generally making a nuisance of themselves to all who cross their paths, because they have nothing whatsoever to lose (much the same is true of the more unpleasant among schoolchildren. As soon as it is legal to restrain 13 year old children in orange fright wigs and encourage others to throw custard soaked sponges at them there will be a lot less conviction among the junior Tontos that they have nothing to lose, and the world will improve very quickly.)
HOWEVER, custard sponging would probably not work for Lifers - certainly it would not have any effect on my stony determination - and today, I am a Lifer. I ask little of the world, but I expect my modest needs to be met. And so, I set out my demands:
1. Kelly and Brendan must be voted off Strictly Come Dancing. Preferably with immediate effect. Perhaps like Emily of Ex X Factor infamy, they might be caught "happy-slapping" some innocent party - Kate Garraway, maybe - on a mobile Device, resulting in their prompt dismissal from the show. Without the public having to look any more at Kelly's ridiculous sequin scarf waving Wonder Woman antics. Why is she running round in her knickers? Even sparkly knickers look a bit silly in public, and combined with Brendan and his corset fetish, it is all too annoying. People who dress like that belong in 1950s Western motion pictures or Eastern European Eurovision Entries.
2. Sootycat must stop pooping on the bathroom floor. Once the poop has been delivered, it is pointless to hope she will not attempt to cover it with a towel or bathmat, because she is pretty cretinous, and obviously doesn't realise I can instantly see if she has clawed down a towel and crumpled it up in the middle of the floor, and even if I were Stone Blind, I would be able to identify the whiff of catshit and make some deductions so astute as to astonish Sherlock Holmes himself. Neither am I overly impressed by her vomiting over my shoes, but one step at a time.
3. I must be delivered a Sinecure. My needs are modest, but I no longer wish to have to do unpleasant things to obtain the money to meet them. If I were prepared to do disagreeable stuff for money I could have Come Upon The Town, so I don't want to do any more. If no sinecure is forthcoming, I shall have to become a Webcam performance artist, and I bet you would all much rather I didn't do that.
You have been warned. Don't mess with me. I am a Lifer.
It is part of who I am; much of the limitation of my achievement can be directly traced to my limitation of expectation - mine and other people's, mainly mine.
However, today even these modest expectations are Not Being Met, and I am warning the universe, because today, Matthew, I am a Lifer. "Lifers", as you will know, are people - men, largely - who have committed crimes sufficiently nasty to be banged up forever - at least in theory and on the paperwork. When I worked in Probation, the point about Lifers was they were HARD. They were dealt with by specialist officers, a Crack Troop trained to recommend refusal of parole and groupwork to serial rapists and murderers. The Dangerous Offenders POs were so determined and rational they did not give chocolate biscuits to their crims - the polar opposite of Groupwork, where these were a vital part of the befriending and rehabilitation process. I digress. The thing about Lifers is that for the first few years of their sentences, with no hope of parole, they enjoy a reputation for uncontrollability that would be the envy of Britney Spears. They infest prisons, fighting, wounding and generally making a nuisance of themselves to all who cross their paths, because they have nothing whatsoever to lose (much the same is true of the more unpleasant among schoolchildren. As soon as it is legal to restrain 13 year old children in orange fright wigs and encourage others to throw custard soaked sponges at them there will be a lot less conviction among the junior Tontos that they have nothing to lose, and the world will improve very quickly.)
HOWEVER, custard sponging would probably not work for Lifers - certainly it would not have any effect on my stony determination - and today, I am a Lifer. I ask little of the world, but I expect my modest needs to be met. And so, I set out my demands:
1. Kelly and Brendan must be voted off Strictly Come Dancing. Preferably with immediate effect. Perhaps like Emily of Ex X Factor infamy, they might be caught "happy-slapping" some innocent party - Kate Garraway, maybe - on a mobile Device, resulting in their prompt dismissal from the show. Without the public having to look any more at Kelly's ridiculous sequin scarf waving Wonder Woman antics. Why is she running round in her knickers? Even sparkly knickers look a bit silly in public, and combined with Brendan and his corset fetish, it is all too annoying. People who dress like that belong in 1950s Western motion pictures or Eastern European Eurovision Entries.
2. Sootycat must stop pooping on the bathroom floor. Once the poop has been delivered, it is pointless to hope she will not attempt to cover it with a towel or bathmat, because she is pretty cretinous, and obviously doesn't realise I can instantly see if she has clawed down a towel and crumpled it up in the middle of the floor, and even if I were Stone Blind, I would be able to identify the whiff of catshit and make some deductions so astute as to astonish Sherlock Holmes himself. Neither am I overly impressed by her vomiting over my shoes, but one step at a time.
3. I must be delivered a Sinecure. My needs are modest, but I no longer wish to have to do unpleasant things to obtain the money to meet them. If I were prepared to do disagreeable stuff for money I could have Come Upon The Town, so I don't want to do any more. If no sinecure is forthcoming, I shall have to become a Webcam performance artist, and I bet you would all much rather I didn't do that.
You have been warned. Don't mess with me. I am a Lifer.
Monday 29 October 2007
Strictly Go Homing
I am really not sure about democracy. Leaving aside the huge problems it creates in government, which fiddles the system and then throws its weight about because it has "a mandate", the weaknesses in it are very plainly demonstrated by Strictly Come Dancing.
How come Gabby Logan - lovely, rhythmic gymnast Gabby, with her amazing figure (after TWINS, people!) and her staggering work ethic - is off, while Kute but Krappy Kate and Kenny live to dance another day? It is Democracy At Work. Or, to be more precise, another skewed and controlled system.
The Judges have always had first say, and distributed the first votes, and now, under a new, improved Gordon Brown regime, they have the final say, as well, cherry picking the "best" of the bottom two in a sadistic Sunday dance-off.
So this year the voters are really under the cosh, because now they have to keep those they hope to see again out of the bottom two. And it seems not to have occurred to the producers, or whichever fruit loop changed the system, that there is NOTHING people loathe more than knowing that Their Input Doesn't Count. The point used to be that the public had the final say. Okay, often this reflected painful truths about our society, or our taste in dancing, but nobody could claim it wasn't a straighforward system.
The reason Christopher Parker was kept in for eleventy seven episodes more than he should have been was partly the fact that - like God - we love a trier, but mainly because the Judges were utterly cruel to him. The nuttiness that keeps us great rose up in rebellion against the Voices of Sequinned Authority, and as a nation we voted for the Hopeless One to be given new challenges and represent our own uselessness. When Julian Clary proved nearly as poor, we cheerfully voted for him. Did we care that he moves like Andy Pandy might with a carrot up his little wooden bot, that he wore the clothes better than he wore the moves, that he had as much rhythm as a single vegetable rolling unfettered around the back of a transit van? Did we hell. He went on "It Takes Two" with Miss Erin Whiplash and Valerie the dog, and we remembered how well we like a little bit of camp, and voted, voted, voted.
This ends up with the Great Sadness of Gabby. In my book, she too was a trier. She had the misfortune, however, of being a succeeder. The tactical voters - voting to keep in the couples they hope will improve, or who they feel have had a raw deal (whose heart doesn't ache for Anton du Beke, who has Yet Another Celeb who can't cut it, while Brendan Cole has another glamour puss, this time clearly with ballet training?) fight it out at the bottom of the pile.
So perhaps the problem is not democracy, but the mistrust those in authority have over our voting habits. The more our powers are constricted, the more we weave, dodge and manipulate the system. And poor Gabby Logan, whom I admire for her determination and drive, fails to attract the vote by reason of her competence.
How come Gabby Logan - lovely, rhythmic gymnast Gabby, with her amazing figure (after TWINS, people!) and her staggering work ethic - is off, while Kute but Krappy Kate and Kenny live to dance another day? It is Democracy At Work. Or, to be more precise, another skewed and controlled system.
The Judges have always had first say, and distributed the first votes, and now, under a new, improved Gordon Brown regime, they have the final say, as well, cherry picking the "best" of the bottom two in a sadistic Sunday dance-off.
So this year the voters are really under the cosh, because now they have to keep those they hope to see again out of the bottom two. And it seems not to have occurred to the producers, or whichever fruit loop changed the system, that there is NOTHING people loathe more than knowing that Their Input Doesn't Count. The point used to be that the public had the final say. Okay, often this reflected painful truths about our society, or our taste in dancing, but nobody could claim it wasn't a straighforward system.
The reason Christopher Parker was kept in for eleventy seven episodes more than he should have been was partly the fact that - like God - we love a trier, but mainly because the Judges were utterly cruel to him. The nuttiness that keeps us great rose up in rebellion against the Voices of Sequinned Authority, and as a nation we voted for the Hopeless One to be given new challenges and represent our own uselessness. When Julian Clary proved nearly as poor, we cheerfully voted for him. Did we care that he moves like Andy Pandy might with a carrot up his little wooden bot, that he wore the clothes better than he wore the moves, that he had as much rhythm as a single vegetable rolling unfettered around the back of a transit van? Did we hell. He went on "It Takes Two" with Miss Erin Whiplash and Valerie the dog, and we remembered how well we like a little bit of camp, and voted, voted, voted.
This ends up with the Great Sadness of Gabby. In my book, she too was a trier. She had the misfortune, however, of being a succeeder. The tactical voters - voting to keep in the couples they hope will improve, or who they feel have had a raw deal (whose heart doesn't ache for Anton du Beke, who has Yet Another Celeb who can't cut it, while Brendan Cole has another glamour puss, this time clearly with ballet training?) fight it out at the bottom of the pile.
So perhaps the problem is not democracy, but the mistrust those in authority have over our voting habits. The more our powers are constricted, the more we weave, dodge and manipulate the system. And poor Gabby Logan, whom I admire for her determination and drive, fails to attract the vote by reason of her competence.
Thursday 25 October 2007
Bye Bye Wild Guy
The Wild Gourmets is at an end. This is sad, for the pointlessness of this series touched and moved me deeply. What were they hoping to prove? Viewers are most unlikely to be able to pop up to Scotland for the red deer cull for their daily dinners, so the programme fails to be like most cook shows, where you might conceivably improve your life by making some of the recipes. Equally, stomping about the Scottish Highlands with a land rover shows us very little that is unfamiliar enough to be a revelation, so the "wild" side of things seems pretty tame; a far cry from Bruce Parry or Bear Grylls.
Still, they earned my kindly if rather patronising respect because Guy can kill a deer with a single shot, poke it in the eye to check it's dead, and then gut it without turning a hair. Tommy can pick an entire salad from a mouldy old wall, and confidently identify berries that won't kill you so she can cook them for Guy when he returns with the Meat and Makes Fire for her. As old fashioned family values go, they are Poster Children. And of course, should anything ever bring civilisation to collapse, they would be good types to Take To The Woods With. Remember you read it here first.
Still, they earned my kindly if rather patronising respect because Guy can kill a deer with a single shot, poke it in the eye to check it's dead, and then gut it without turning a hair. Tommy can pick an entire salad from a mouldy old wall, and confidently identify berries that won't kill you so she can cook them for Guy when he returns with the Meat and Makes Fire for her. As old fashioned family values go, they are Poster Children. And of course, should anything ever bring civilisation to collapse, they would be good types to Take To The Woods With. Remember you read it here first.
Saturday 20 October 2007
Happy Snapping
This week the Wild Gourmets stepped up a gear by going fishing. Wading about the marshy shallows of East Anglia, they got a flounder. A flounder is, as any readers of fairy tales knows, a bloody good catch, not least because they often turn out to be magic speaking fish who offer you a statutory three-wish deal in exchange for not eating them (indicating a high degree of tastiness, when you think about it. Unless I was very hungry, I suspect I would be bought off with the offer of a single wish by any speaking fish. Or even just a nice chat.)
This fish did not speak, partly because Guy was so busy extolling its fleshiness it would have been well lucky to get a word in edgeways before suffocation kicked in. There would have been no point in his letting the fish speak, anyway, as he was so excited that any more stimulation would have caused expiration on the spot. He spoke so long and glowingly about the lovely fleshy flounder and what a wondrous fine, decadent breakfast it would make, that I began to think he would embrace the other fairy tale standby, and send it to the King, in the hope of future marital links to the Royal Household (going up in the world really has got harder, hasn't it?) But the longing for fried breakfast overcame his proper duty to his sovereign, and we cannot look forward to Tommy marrying a Prince any time soon. Disappointingly, as I have considerable respect for Tommy, even if she does celebrate the first days of winter by sewing herself into chunky knitwear.
On the subject of the Royals, I notice that William and Kate have been suffering from Papping again. I could almost feel sorry for them, because it must be so vile and horrible, being hounded by Mad-Max style mercenaries with long lenses when you have ALWAYS worn knickers in public places and thus done nothing to merit the intrusion of what seems very like a bunch of motorised psychopaths. But I can't, and it's to do with their insistence on having "an ordinary life". Rich people have no right to an ordinary life.
Firstly, to work. If you have enough money to live off without working, you should have no right to take well-paid work from out of the way of those who don't. Is Kate Middleton "middle class"? Not in my book. If your daddy is a millionaire, don't you sort of go up a grade? And rich people never get out of bed for the minimum wage. I say no. The rich should only be entitled to minimum wage. Work is for most people the ticket to a better life, and just how could people as rich as the Royals have a materially better life? The money from well-paid jobs should go to poorer people - ones who support children and work for a living, perhaps. And if they make a mess of running the BBC - well, so what? The men who gave us Maisie Raine need sacking anyway, and so do those who steal people's money on Premium Rate Phone-Ins.
Secondly, to being Defender of the Faith. You can't hold this title - or even be second in line to inherit it, imho - without realising that with the cash comes responsibility. Since I seem to remember that Jesus says the rich need to sell all they have and give the money to the poor in order to obtain heaven, I am Massively Shocked that none of the holders of the title, in its whole nearly-500 year history, have ever spent their time flogging off as many estates as they can, and making donations all over the shop, but they nobly choose to sacrifice themselves for us by keeping the poor out of the way of temptation or solvency or any of that nonsense. Thank you very much Royal Family, we say. But it's not an ordinary life, is it? So the Paparazzi hound you and it's frightful - but it's their cross, I guess, because that's the one they choose. So, one way or another, even though I do think it's an abuse of their human rights - I can't bring myself to feel much sympathy.
This fish did not speak, partly because Guy was so busy extolling its fleshiness it would have been well lucky to get a word in edgeways before suffocation kicked in. There would have been no point in his letting the fish speak, anyway, as he was so excited that any more stimulation would have caused expiration on the spot. He spoke so long and glowingly about the lovely fleshy flounder and what a wondrous fine, decadent breakfast it would make, that I began to think he would embrace the other fairy tale standby, and send it to the King, in the hope of future marital links to the Royal Household (going up in the world really has got harder, hasn't it?) But the longing for fried breakfast overcame his proper duty to his sovereign, and we cannot look forward to Tommy marrying a Prince any time soon. Disappointingly, as I have considerable respect for Tommy, even if she does celebrate the first days of winter by sewing herself into chunky knitwear.
On the subject of the Royals, I notice that William and Kate have been suffering from Papping again. I could almost feel sorry for them, because it must be so vile and horrible, being hounded by Mad-Max style mercenaries with long lenses when you have ALWAYS worn knickers in public places and thus done nothing to merit the intrusion of what seems very like a bunch of motorised psychopaths. But I can't, and it's to do with their insistence on having "an ordinary life". Rich people have no right to an ordinary life.
Firstly, to work. If you have enough money to live off without working, you should have no right to take well-paid work from out of the way of those who don't. Is Kate Middleton "middle class"? Not in my book. If your daddy is a millionaire, don't you sort of go up a grade? And rich people never get out of bed for the minimum wage. I say no. The rich should only be entitled to minimum wage. Work is for most people the ticket to a better life, and just how could people as rich as the Royals have a materially better life? The money from well-paid jobs should go to poorer people - ones who support children and work for a living, perhaps. And if they make a mess of running the BBC - well, so what? The men who gave us Maisie Raine need sacking anyway, and so do those who steal people's money on Premium Rate Phone-Ins.
Secondly, to being Defender of the Faith. You can't hold this title - or even be second in line to inherit it, imho - without realising that with the cash comes responsibility. Since I seem to remember that Jesus says the rich need to sell all they have and give the money to the poor in order to obtain heaven, I am Massively Shocked that none of the holders of the title, in its whole nearly-500 year history, have ever spent their time flogging off as many estates as they can, and making donations all over the shop, but they nobly choose to sacrifice themselves for us by keeping the poor out of the way of temptation or solvency or any of that nonsense. Thank you very much Royal Family, we say. But it's not an ordinary life, is it? So the Paparazzi hound you and it's frightful - but it's their cross, I guess, because that's the one they choose. So, one way or another, even though I do think it's an abuse of their human rights - I can't bring myself to feel much sympathy.
Sunday 14 October 2007
Give a Car a Break ...
Actually, I have given my cute little Corsakins a break - I drove it into a white van on Thursday morning. Eek. A break in its headlamp, front wing, bumper and bonnet. I was turning out of my road and I looked and looked the other way and checked the other way again and then drove forward and there was this van that had come out of nowhere! as people who don't look properly invariably say. Worse, I don't know if I saw it and didn't notice, or if I didn't look properly or if it really did appear through a rip in the space-time continuum - although given the enthusiastic appearance of a Witness for the White Van, my money's against this last. I got a really long way across the road before I hit it, so I suspect he had time to swerve, as well.
Then the twelve-year-old driving the van got out and said cheerily to my ashy green little face behind the feebly waving pencil, "Oh, it's far too early in the morning for all this, isn't it?" and when I had finished giving him my details, "Well, nice to meet you, anyway." Crazy earthlet. Doesn't he mean "We have to stop meeting like this?"
Anyway, now my car is in a Sorry State, so I, brave and foolish owner of only TPFT insurance, am seeking advice. Should I:
a) Get it properly repaired?
b) Get it partially repaired and resign myself to looking like I drive a scrapyard dodgem?
c) Not repair it at all and wait to see how long until I am arrested / it falls apart around me in the middle of the A370?
d) Knock the whole sorry thing on the head and buy a new car?
If any of you knows a bodyworker type who could be soft-soaped into charging me under £600 to do the job, let me know. (I could offer to coach his children in English in exchange, but I do realise that this may not be practical - and English teaching is probably much cheaper than car-fixing ... not for the first time I suspect I'm in the Wrong Job, except when I imagine just how bad a car repaired by me would look ...)
Like so much of life, it's a horrid nightmare, and next time I swear I'll look, I swear I will ...
Then the twelve-year-old driving the van got out and said cheerily to my ashy green little face behind the feebly waving pencil, "Oh, it's far too early in the morning for all this, isn't it?" and when I had finished giving him my details, "Well, nice to meet you, anyway." Crazy earthlet. Doesn't he mean "We have to stop meeting like this?"
Anyway, now my car is in a Sorry State, so I, brave and foolish owner of only TPFT insurance, am seeking advice. Should I:
a) Get it properly repaired?
b) Get it partially repaired and resign myself to looking like I drive a scrapyard dodgem?
c) Not repair it at all and wait to see how long until I am arrested / it falls apart around me in the middle of the A370?
d) Knock the whole sorry thing on the head and buy a new car?
If any of you knows a bodyworker type who could be soft-soaped into charging me under £600 to do the job, let me know. (I could offer to coach his children in English in exchange, but I do realise that this may not be practical - and English teaching is probably much cheaper than car-fixing ... not for the first time I suspect I'm in the Wrong Job, except when I imagine just how bad a car repaired by me would look ...)
Like so much of life, it's a horrid nightmare, and next time I swear I'll look, I swear I will ...
Tuesday 9 October 2007
Not Getting Richer
STOP PRESS, CHICKEN LICKEN! The sky is falling! Oh my God, we're not getting richer! Forget about floods in Vietnam, child-stealing in China, the dodginess of local council services - this is important!!!
For too long we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from what's really important by piddling little issues like party politics, international humanitarianism, and illegal wars over the oil supply. Now comes the reckoning. We've been getting richer year on year since the 1950s, and now WE'RE NOT. What a chastening thought. Just because we have too many cars in the cities to find space to park them, too many waste computing and electronics items to dispose of without shipping them to the other side of the world, and children who totter to school jingling with mobiles, MP3s, iPods, assorted silver chains and Playboy Bunny charms like so many Christmas trees put out in a stiff breeze, does not suggest by any stretch of a wild imagination that we might damn well have ENOUGH. Hell no.
If we don't carry on getting richer, what will become of us? Will children have to pay attention at school because they can no longer text their paramours in neighbouring classrooms? Might we start looking favourably on flower-growing and vegetable cultivation, in our tragic desperation? Might we have a greater inclination to hold conversations than vast vats of beer chugging contests? Could the housing market realign itself with incomes, so that nurses and firemen could afford to buy a roof over their hardworking heads? Maybe people would begin to eat vegetables and home cooking instead of Ready Meals and die later and with a lower amount of obesity and farting. Oh it is all too horrible to contemplate. Quick, how can we solve the problem?
For too long we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from what's really important by piddling little issues like party politics, international humanitarianism, and illegal wars over the oil supply. Now comes the reckoning. We've been getting richer year on year since the 1950s, and now WE'RE NOT. What a chastening thought. Just because we have too many cars in the cities to find space to park them, too many waste computing and electronics items to dispose of without shipping them to the other side of the world, and children who totter to school jingling with mobiles, MP3s, iPods, assorted silver chains and Playboy Bunny charms like so many Christmas trees put out in a stiff breeze, does not suggest by any stretch of a wild imagination that we might damn well have ENOUGH. Hell no.
If we don't carry on getting richer, what will become of us? Will children have to pay attention at school because they can no longer text their paramours in neighbouring classrooms? Might we start looking favourably on flower-growing and vegetable cultivation, in our tragic desperation? Might we have a greater inclination to hold conversations than vast vats of beer chugging contests? Could the housing market realign itself with incomes, so that nurses and firemen could afford to buy a roof over their hardworking heads? Maybe people would begin to eat vegetables and home cooking instead of Ready Meals and die later and with a lower amount of obesity and farting. Oh it is all too horrible to contemplate. Quick, how can we solve the problem?
Friday 5 October 2007
The Wild Gourmets - Dumb With Admiration
Channel 4 Tuesdays 8.30pm
I am dumbstruck with admiration by this programme. It has two Very Posh Types - one of each sex - running about the countryside causing annnoyance to local landowners by chirruping on about how you can Feast Off The Land FOR FREE!
Turns out stuff you need for this venture - and can presumably get for free - includes a gurt big shotgun, shooting licence, fishing rods, an extensive portable kitchen garden of herbs and olive oil, and a large Land Rover. Up till last Tuesday night I thought that getting these things for free was probably illegal, so I struggle to articulate the full extent of my frothy-mouthing jazz-hand-waving excitement at this good news.
I missed the first episode (which presumably covered the acquisition of these goodies in some step by step detail) to discover the mad naked people heartily throwing buckets of water over themselves while justifying this open [air] masochism with plucky references to "bush showers". It's all so splendid, and so utterly irrelevant to feasting off the land for free - though sadly Tommy (who is a Lady) is not quite as sporting as Guy, and often keeps her very Guernsey jerseyed outfits on.
Another splendid feature of this prog is the way that whenever they Utterly Fail to catch their supper, they say "It's not a supermarket, if you can take feast or famine then you'll live well off the land." What is this, Channel Four Fluffy Outdoor Eating Half Hour, or Rudyard Kipling? What a doodlenoodle headed thing to say. You said you were going to feast off the land, and now You've Failed. Eat grass, you posh mollynoddle, go on, EAT THE GRASS. But sadly they refuse the grass, and still more sadly refuse to poach salt-turf-eating sheep, and instead choose to trade turnip-cutting for a leg of lamb. I found this a bit poor spirited, but I suppose it is better than if they had shot the farmer from the other side of the Bristol Channel, cited that rather evil law from Very Long Ago that says English shooting of Welsh people is legal, and then appropriated his whole flock and family, which is how I understand is how the upper classes have traditionally lived for free off the land.
I am dumbstruck with admiration by this programme. It has two Very Posh Types - one of each sex - running about the countryside causing annnoyance to local landowners by chirruping on about how you can Feast Off The Land FOR FREE!
Turns out stuff you need for this venture - and can presumably get for free - includes a gurt big shotgun, shooting licence, fishing rods, an extensive portable kitchen garden of herbs and olive oil, and a large Land Rover. Up till last Tuesday night I thought that getting these things for free was probably illegal, so I struggle to articulate the full extent of my frothy-mouthing jazz-hand-waving excitement at this good news.
I missed the first episode (which presumably covered the acquisition of these goodies in some step by step detail) to discover the mad naked people heartily throwing buckets of water over themselves while justifying this open [air] masochism with plucky references to "bush showers". It's all so splendid, and so utterly irrelevant to feasting off the land for free - though sadly Tommy (who is a Lady) is not quite as sporting as Guy, and often keeps her very Guernsey jerseyed outfits on.
Another splendid feature of this prog is the way that whenever they Utterly Fail to catch their supper, they say "It's not a supermarket, if you can take feast or famine then you'll live well off the land." What is this, Channel Four Fluffy Outdoor Eating Half Hour, or Rudyard Kipling? What a doodlenoodle headed thing to say. You said you were going to feast off the land, and now You've Failed. Eat grass, you posh mollynoddle, go on, EAT THE GRASS. But sadly they refuse the grass, and still more sadly refuse to poach salt-turf-eating sheep, and instead choose to trade turnip-cutting for a leg of lamb. I found this a bit poor spirited, but I suppose it is better than if they had shot the farmer from the other side of the Bristol Channel, cited that rather evil law from Very Long Ago that says English shooting of Welsh people is legal, and then appropriated his whole flock and family, which is how I understand is how the upper classes have traditionally lived for free off the land.
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