Destiny rarely calls on us...

Well, since my last emo-tastic posts, I've got a job (working at BBC Radio Leicester as part of a community outreach service), am finishing that job in 12 working days (O.o) and have hopefully secured myself a new position at Santander in the call centre. Not great, but not altogether that shit either. At least the pay's better.

On top of that, my darling mands_angelfox and myself have found somewhere to move to since Peter's moved back in at her mum's place and it's just not big enough for all of us any more. It's the most beautiful little house and we can take our cats with us. It's just awesome. And we're looking at application forms right now and filling them out and stuff. It'll be great.

I've had a hair cut, though I don't have any decent pictures, so that'll have to be a wait, heh.

Hm. Anything else?

Oh, Primeval = AWESOME. Seriously. I adore this show. And Merlin starts filming next month for presumably airing at the end of this year. I just can't wait.

*Grabby hands*

Thank you British TV for finally showing that you're not totally just shit!

Isn't it weird how the things we're told as a kid to keep us in line stay with us even when we're more than old enough to know better?

For example, when I was a lot younger, my dad, in a fit of evil glee, told me that if I killed an insect - even by accident - then a bigger one would come after me for Inigo Montoya like revenge. I believed this whole-heartedly throughout most of my childhood and then realised when I got a bit older that there was no such thing as the Insect Mafia as, if there were, my dad would have been put in concrete shoes and webbed in place while angry ants gnawed at his face. But when I was harrassed by a big spider a couple of years ago, there was still a part of me that thought it might have been seeking revenge of the money spider I had accidentally killed the night before. The same goes for bluebottles when they fly at my head incessantly, trying to get into my ears, it would seem, usually after I've rather viciously killed those little bastard fruit-fly things or whatever they're called.

Of course, that random phobias is nothing compared to the reason for this random 3am ramble. No, when I was in Infant School (between the ages of 4 and 7, I'm pretty sure), I read a book about a boy who never did as he was told despite the warnings that if he misbehaved "old Raw-Head Rattlebones will come and turn you into a pile of dust!" (direct quote, see how much this book traumatised me?!)

So, he climbed trees and picked apples on a Sunday, he wobbled his loose teeth and several other very naughty things but Ol' Raw-Head never came for him. Here's the problem, when this irritating and badly behaved kid slept with his head at the foot of hte bed, even when he'd been told not to, he got turned into a pile of dust and his mother swept him away in the morning, unable to hear his pitiful dusty cries for help.

That image rather stayed with me, and, like that little voice that pipes up just when you're about to fall asleep to remind you of the most embarrassing moments of your life - particularly if they happened recently, so there is a little voice that pops up in my head too, in the shrill imitation that I used to read the mother's voice out in that warns me that when I wake up in the morning, I'll be a pile of dust. This is particularly bothersome because I can apparently cure my insomnia by sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed, on top of the covers with them folded over my like some kind of human apple turnover.

It might be stupid, but it gets me every time.

What's wrong with Science Fiction television that means it keeps getting cancelled? There's nothing wrong with science fiction as a genre, people love it. Half of the top ten grossing films of all time are science fiction (six if you count Spiderman, which, technically you can't), look:

1	Titanic (1997)	$600,799,824
2	The Dark Knight (2008)	$533,316,061
3	Star Wars (1977)	$460,935,665
4	Shrek 2 (2004)	$436,471,036
5	E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)	$434,949,459
6	Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)	$431,056,444
7	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)	$423,032,628
8	Spider-Man (2002)	$403,705,375
9	Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)	$380,262,555
10	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	$377,019,252

And as the list goes on, there are more science fiction films to be found!

There's always some kind of science-fiction release coming out each year, this year we're gonna be blessed with two, Terminator Salvation and Star Trek which has just been released and I've yet to see, but by all counts, even by some of the die-hard trekkies that I know, it's a good film. Mark Kermode called it a "clean slate" for the franchise to be revamped. So clearly there's still a viable market for Science fiction otherwise people wouldn't go to the cinemas and warrant the creation of these movies.

So what's the difference between having a movie created that you have to pay £5 to go see in a cinema (plus extortionate travel and popcorn/beverage costs) than having a TV show - which is in effect a far more detailed movie spread out over a number of weeks, allowing adequate characterisation and more interesting, detailed plots, broadcast to you on a weekly basis?

( Cut for length. )

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
T.S.Eliot

If - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

People - D.H. Lawrence

I like people quite well
at a distance.
I like to see them passing and passing
and going on their way,
especially if I see their aloneness alive in them.
Yet I don' want them to come near.
If they will only leave me alone
I can still have the illusion that there is enough room in the world.