reading

Fooled Into A Spinoff

I was expecting to write my response to the BBC’s exciting new science fiction series today. From the trailers it had looked quite promising: at last something new to get into and blog about. Something which would potentially divert my intellectual energies away from the usual staples of Star Trek and James Bond. Thus last night I settled down to watch the first two episodes of The War Between the Land and The Sea full of optimism.

I freely admit I can be a dumbass sometimes, but it took me a few minutes to realise what I was watching. The opening struck me as somewhat cheesy, but I could let that slide. It wasn’t until I kept hearing references to “The Doctor” that I realised that, rather than the brand new science fiction series I was expecting, I had stumbled upon some sort of godawful Dr Who spinoff. The odd thing is, there had been no mention of Dr. Who in the trailers, leading me to feel rather misled.

I have not watched Dr. Who in years. It is, let’s just say, not my thing. As much as I love science fiction, I prefer it to be grounded in some semblance of reality – something which Dr. Who does not have. The plots are derivative and contrived, lapsing so far into the fantastical that it becomes nauseating; the special effects third rate at best. Thus to have been tricked into that fictional world when I was expecting something far more refined irritated me. More to the point, I quickly found that what I was watching wasn’t any better.

As an educated, aware man I have nothing against environmentalism. Of course we must do what we can to curb the damage we are now doing to the environment. However, to have such an ethos rammed down my throat with all the subtlety of a shovel wielded by a Eastend builder whose football team just lost five nill was another matter altogether. What we were witness to last night, with its mysterious sea-bound yet humanoid species emerging from the depths to reprimand us for filling the seas with shit, made Beavis seem like an expert in Lacanian psychoanalysis or a three-year-old with a well-loaded paintbrush look like Turner or Matisse.

Check out this no less critical Guardian article for slightly more detail, but if guys like Russel T. Davies want to spread the message of environmentalism, there are far better ways to do it than through something so crass and infantile. Of course, people need to be told about such issues, but to do so so heavy-handedly risks putting people off.

Just Exchanging A Book

It amazes me what a numpty I can be sometimes. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a James Bond-related video on Youtube, which concerned a biography of Ian Fleming which I thought sounded interesting. I have read a couple of good bios of Fleming in the past but not this one, so I determined to try to look it up. A day or so later, I set off for Waterstones in Lewisham, and put in an order for the book I was interested in. A few days after that, of course I went back to Lewisham, payed for the text and brought it home.

Truth be told I don’t read that much these days as I get too distracted by the internet, but I told myself to make the effort to read the book I had gone to that much effort to buy. It wasn’t until that point, however, that I glanced at my book shelf to see that a copy of the very same book had been there all along! At that moment I felt so infantile and stupid – I would have died of embarrassment, if anyone else had known what I had done.

Fortunately for me they didn’t, so today I was able to pop back to Lewisham and exchange the book for one I don’t have, on Hitchcock and Truffault. It’s not that I think this is particularly noteworthy or blogworthy – many people probably do similar things every day. Yet, on another level, in a way it’s pretty amazing: if I had been told as a ten or even fifteen year old that I would one day be trundling around South-East London, living independently, doing my own shopping, talking to strangers and even buying books I already had, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Every once in a while, it stuns me how differently my life has turned out to the way I always assumed it would growing up, even down to the ability to go out on my own and buy my own things. That is why I think it’s so important that I help to encourage young people in similar positions to mine. When you have a disability which effects how you communicate, you often don’t realise that you can interact with society just like anyone else.