Re-using actors and the occasional failure to suspend that disbelief.

Do you ever find that casting choices can sometimes spoil your enjoyment of films and TV shows? I don’t mean the casting of someone in a role they don’t suit – that happens all the time (*cough* Stallone *cough* Dredd *cough*), but because of a role they previously had. Does it bug you that Chris Evans is both Captain America and The Human Torch? Even though both Cap and the Fantastic Four technically inhabit the same Marvel universe? Usually I can manage – the fact that Indiana Jones and Han Solo are the same person is fine, but just occasionally something like that will make me double take and cause me to fall out of the story.

I can find no real reason why this happens in some cases, but not in others – Whedon, for example, re-uses actors all over the shop, but this tends not to faze me – the casting always seems pretty bang on, but then when Tonks got her kit off in season two of Game of Thrones it smashed that suspension of disbelief to tiny pieces. The fact that Johnny Depp has played Willy Wonka, Sweeney Todd, The Mad Hatter and Ichabod Crane somehow doesn’t faze me. Martin Freeman and Ian Holm are Bilbo Baggins at different stages of his life, and that I can handle, but the next time I see the prologue to Fellowship and Holm is playing Bilbo at the Freeman age, I get the feeling it’s gonna bug the shit outta me.

This mini-rumination has absolutely no point to it, but I’m intrigued as to the reason why sometimes particular casting choices just intrude on my enjoyment of the story, and sometimes they don’t.

Voting and the problem with not doing it.

So, unless you don’t have the Internet you likely know all about Russell Brand’s recent Newsnight interview, during which he advocated not voting and revolution. His reasons were good ones, and true ones, but the action recommended is, in my own opinion, reckless. I think it would be difficult to argue against the notion that self-interest and the interests of the corporate world far outweigh the need to take genuinely effective action against the very immediate and urgent problems of poverty, climate change and wealth disparity. I’ve mentioned it before and it’s still true that our democracy, so-called, isn’t really a democracy at all, more an elective oligarchy. There is no real alternative. At least not yet, although the Green Party occasionally show promise.

But. There are consequences to withdrawing your vote. There are differences between the parties, albeit small ones. One of them is accused of indulging in the demonisation of the poor, vulnerable and disabled. Another is criticised for being seemingly unable to keep a single promise it ever makes and shows no sign of the smallest backbone. Another has huge problems, is too much like the others to offer a genuine alternative, but doesn’t do quite so many of the unpleasant things the other two do. While some things won’t change regardless of who is in power, some other things do. And it is important to choose which side of that line you want to stand on. You choose that side by voting.

There is another reason, a better one. If enough people stop voting (and we are already not far from the cusp of this), then there is the risk that those who do vote will vote for parties wholly abhorrent to the majority. There seems little chance at the moment of the British National Party enjoying the level of support they had a few years ago, and if the English Defence League ever decide to become a political party, it is unlikely they will get widespread support, but, and it’s a big but, if we all make like Brand and stop voting, it’s leaving a crack in the door for them to get in – they don’t need a percentage of the population to support them, they only need a percentage of those who vote. The more likely proposition is the BNP-lite UKIP, who have enjoyed an up-swelling in support recently, despite having no real manifesto for running the country other than wanting to blow a big raspberry at Europe. If you find you are having trouble bringing yourself to vote because of the discomfort of seemingly arbitrarily supporting a system you know is unworkable and the very definition of the modern phrase ‘epic fail’, then simply vote to halt the spreading of the far right. All those of us who are not racist dicks have a duty to our country, to vote and stop this ugliness from taking over. While it is perhaps an extreme comparison to make, it is nonetheless noteworthy that in 1930s Germany, the Nazi party gained power even though they weren’t particularly popular and never gained more than 37.4% of the vote. There is more than one type of revolution. The same applies in America. Whichever party is in power, little changes. But there is still a choice to make; an ideological line to stand on either side of.

So what is there to do? Brand was open and honest about the fact that he has no solution and is certainly not the person we should look to to provide one. Is there one? Well, maybe there’s the start of one. Make your mark on the ballot and choose your side, safe in the knowledge that it doesn’t matter much either way. Do it even if it is for no other reason than to neutralise a vote for the far right. And then, focus on your local community, for this is where your power to change truly lies. Be involved as much or as little as you like. Whether you run for a councillor’s spot, become a Community Support Officer, donate to a local homeless shelter or volunteer in a food bank or merely support your local library and businesses, you are a potent force for positive local change. And it’s like a ripple in an ocean; on the face of it there seems no way it can make a real difference on a grand scale, but we have the numbers, and if there is enough of us, we have the collective will to force those who purport to lead us down a different path.

Viva la revolución!

Children.

Kids, right? Selfish, greedy, dirty brats who think only of themselves with nary a sniff of empathy. It’s all about them, all day long. All they want to do is mess around, have fun and never be responsible. So selfish: if someone’s got something they haven’t got, or if there’s something they can’t have it’s just the world being unfair. They should get whatever they want, and screw everyone else. It’s tiresome.

Oh, wait. THEY’RE CHILDREN. THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT. *gives everybody else a long, long, look* WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR EXCUSE?

Yeah, I have a job. And yeah, there are other people that don’t. And yeah, out of all those people out of work, there are some who would rather not get a job, and would rather be supported by the state. Seriously, who the frick cares? Who decided that our society should be geared so intensely towards working for the majority of your life? If it really bothers you that other people don’t have a job while you do, perhaps you need to find another job. Perhaps you need to find another way to live your life. Perhaps you need to walk a mile in their shoes to disabuse yourself of the notion that they are living an unpressured charmed life at your expense. Besides, even if they are, the expense is such a vanishingly small fraction of your total tax payments that it would make no appreciable difference to the life you live if that money appeared in your pocket. It’s all about your perception that they have something that you don’t, and your instinctive feeling that they shouldn’t. Like a kid in nursery who has noticed another kid playing with your favourite toy.

I heard once on a BBC documentary that you don’t lose that knee-jerk selfishness until you are in your 30s. It seems to me in a good deal of us that it’s never truly lost. Not that I’m not childish. The hours wasted on Xbox exploring Cyrodiil, shooting Locust or shaving precious seconds off those lap times testify to that fact. I just don’t see the fun in getting all annoyed at a misguided sense of privilege derived from a feeling that everybody should live their lives the same way you do. I don’t mean that everybody should be able to do whatever they like with impunity, or have no sense of civic or moral responsibility, I mean that the Jam lyric “Work, work, work ‘til you die, ‘cause there’s plenty more fish in the sea to fry” are not necessarily words to live by.

Operation Don’t Die: Update.

Well. I’m still less than I was. But the progress, it is also less than it was. I kind of ran out of steam on the regime I was on. If it’s supposed to be a change for life, then it can’t be something you get sick of, right? It’s gotta be sustainable. I didn’t so much as fall off the bandwagon, it was more like I was being crushed under its wheels.

So, I’ve altered it a little. I’m now going for more of a gradual long term improvement, rather than quick de-chubbing. I no longer feel quite like King of the Toads. It’s a bit tricky at the moment, because there’s not enough money to go on with the swimming, but it isn’t like there aren’t cheaper, nay free ways of getting exercise, so I reckon I’ll manage. Like they say, slow and steady wins the race. And loses the chins. Eventually.

A quest to find a haircut that doesn’t make my heart hurt.

Not too difficult you’d think, right? Apparently where I live, it is a bit tricky. A little while ago I resolved to stop going to the hairdresser I had been going to for, well, for a long time. It’s local, but only for the house I grew up in. Since I moved out it’s been a bit more of a trek, but I continued to go not out of some strange sense of loyalty, but just because I’ve always gone there. Then, as it ruins so many things, this long-standing arrangement was ruined by The Daily Mail. It had always been there, sitting on the side for waiting customers to peruse, should they wish. But then it began to inform her worldview. Seemingly unknowingly, she went from the friendly hairdresser I’d always had, to friendly but with a nice line in unpleasant conversation.

Our town is, supposedly, being overrun with foreign people. And not just those brown ones that are easy to spot, oh no. Polish. They’re everywhere. A factory that someone she knows works at, or someone they know, or possibly... (you get the idea; there might not have even been anyone in the first place, but anyway). This factory is, she says, something like 70% Polish, workforce-wise (gotta love the research that must have gone into coming up with that guestimate). And they’re making the pleasant, hardworking English people feel uncomfortable, like strangers in their own place of work. It’s why someone else she knows (probably) has a kid that can’t get a job now he’s graduated from University. She doesn’t seem to have noticed the flaw in this Mail-informed illogical position; that graduates tend not to apply for jobs at factories, unless either they need something temporary, or their degree meant nothing (like mine). It makes for an unhappy haircut. Now, I could engage in some political debate in an attempt to show her how much bollocks she is spouting. But I do have to travel a fair way to even get here, so I let it go, and resolve to find a hairdresser closer to home.

There’s a barber within walking distance, so I start going there. Seems reasonable. Friendly chap, decently priced. Yep this’ll do. For a bit, at least. Until one day, when over the radio comes the speech made by the unfathomably brave Malala Yousafzai when she addressed the UN in an attempt to progress her worthy goal of helping to provide education to girls in places where they don’t get it. The girl was shot in the head by someone who, at best, can only be considered an utter fucktard of the highest order, at 15 for campaigning for education for girls. Because she is fucking amazing (or because the cunt who shot her is, as mentioned, a fucktard) she survived, and was brought here to the UK for treatment. Now, if that isn’t a statement about how our health care system is world-beating, I don’t what is. Anyway, during the radio broadcast of part of her speech (is there a more eloquent way to sum up the nature of the world’s ills and the way forwards than “Education is the only solution”? No. No, there is not) my new friendly barber, calm as you like, declares his fervent wish that she just “...fuck off home.”

Now, what followed this is a rather awkward silence. Until my new friendly barber proceeded to dig himself in deeper, declaring that “I’m not being funny” while trying to point out that yes, we should treat her, but then simply ship her back, because we already have enough people over here that shouldn’t be here. Perhaps I should have pointed out that in doing that, the most likely outcome would have been said fucktard doing his damndest to finish the job, so why even bother treating her at all? Unfortunately, I had been focusing all my energies on trying to stop myself bursting into tears from the first moment he’d spoken. One of my problems is a distinct lack of balls in situations such as this. Maybe I should have responded with ‘no you’re not being funny, you’re being a cunt’. As it was, I stayed quiet, paid for my haircut, left and resolved not to return.

Luckily, I’m not yet out of options, as there are about another four hairdressers within walking distance, including one with a rather attractive young blonde lady who was very pleasant when I went for a haircut once. That, in addition to a lack of horrifying bigotry, has got to be worth a few extra quid, right?

Why? This is why.

During my Interweb adventures recently, I came across a strange thing. One of those single people, waxing lyrical about how amazing being without a lover is. It would seem this person considered being in a relationship pretty much equivalent to death. Why would anyone want to be with the same person for months, years, or, worse, their entire lives? While I was glad this person was so happy with their state of affairs, I felt it might be worth exploring that question. Why would anyone want that? Well, in my case, here follows just a couple of reasons.

Because she couldn’t step on an insect for any amount of money – she could not live with the guilt. Because she loves to run for the sheer love of running, not for competition, not for ‘self-improvement’ (ugh), but for fun. Because there is nobody she won’t see the best in – a skill with empathy unmatched by anyone else I’ve ever known – a skill I’ve learned much from. Because even after 16 years, I still want to jump her bones every single time I see her. Because she loves me for (or in spite of) the silly things I spend time and money on. Because she saved me from all the other lives I might have lived without her. Because when our daughters are grown, they will look back and consider what their mother did for them, and what she instilled in them, and they will be overwhelmed with gratitude.

Service. Or lack thereof.

You might have noticed a minor interruption in content this last month or so. Well, you see, my laptop developed a fault some time back. Problem with the screen – couldn’t see anything but flickering static when online. Since I bought the thing from a leading retailer I’ve been forking out money each month for a sort of insurance thing where they would fix anything or replace that which proved unfixable.

So, off I pop to hand the thing over. Turns out it’ll take nine days before I get it back. That’s quite a bit longer than expected, but maybe they’re busy. I hand it over and leave, muttering a little under my breath.

Nine Internet-free days go by. By now the number of funny cat pictures I’ve missed must be astronomical. The previous day (that is, after eight days), they figured out that the laptop is still under the manufacturer’s warranty so they need to return it to them to fix –they can’t touch it. Eight days. To figure that out. So that’s another week to wait. And the monthly payment turns out to be wasted money because we would’ve got this anyway due to it still being covered by the manufacturer.

We wait another week, through gritted teeth. We head on in. It was picked up yesterday. So once they knew it needed returning to the manufacturer it took six days to arrange a pick up. So that’s 14 days so far, and now they’re telling me it shouldn’t be more than another five in a tone that suggests I’m expected to be impressed by this. The pleasant person behind the counter telling us this didn’t seem to understand why we found this surprising and frustrating. Where in the world would this be considered decent service?

We finally get the laptop back almost three weeks after bringing it in. We’ve learnt a few things in that time. We’ve learnt that we are cancelling the payment we’re currently making in case anything goes wrong. As the laptop is junk anyway, we’ll be glad of an excuse to get a new one. And we learnt that there is a major retailer of electronic goods and services that will have to manage without any more of our money. Not that that’s likely to bother them much, but even a minor protest is still a protest.

Operation Don’t Die: Update.

So, since this year got underway it has been markedly more difficult to get out of the Christmas period of excess (I had December off, see). I’ve not gone back to how I was, but the weight loss has slowed down, and perhaps even reversed just slightly. If I exercise a little more will power, I could probably maintain this weight without too much trouble. The problem is, I could still do with kicking off a bit more. While I might be able to fasten the top button on my shirts now, I still resemble a grown up ginger Chunk doing the truffle shuffle when shaking my shaving gel in the bathroom mirror. Work still to be done, then.

Less of a man and loving it.

2012 included one of the weirdest experiences of my life. Having decided that we were not going to have any more kids in addition to the two daughters we currently have, I made the decision to have a vasectomy. 33 is probably quite young to do it, but we are sure in our convictions. Once we’d made our decision I paid a visit to my doctor to get the procedure booked. He asked if I’d considered sticking with less permanent forms of contraception because I’m a bit young. I convinced him of my determination to not have more children and he booked me in for an initial consultancy. Then he told me I was a fat bastard and to lose some weight (but that's another blog).

So Rach and I turn up for the appointment a little later. We had been preparing ourselves for some difficult questions (the worst I could think of was what might we do if through some terrible tragedy we lost both of our kids but the both of us were still alive – would we regret the vasectomy then?) but nothing of the sort happened. It was more like ‘So, having a vasectomy? Right-o, here’s how it works...’ She talked us through it fairly matter-of-factly, going through how I’d need to prepare (by shaving), what would happen on the day (needles, snipping, difficulty sitting afterwards) and what I would need to do afterwards to be sure it had worked. Well. She looked me square in the eye and she said: “You will need to ejaculate as much as you possibly can.” You see, to make sure it worked, you need to clear out the, um, plumbing, so to speak. You get 16 weeks before you need to submit a sample, and then again at 20 weeks. And both of them need to be completely sperm-free. A ball-park figure is at least 50 times before the 16-week point. So for 4 months it was my solemn duty to become completely sex-obsessed. Not a great stretch, I’ll grant you. But initial thoughts of sending oneself into knuckle-shuffle oblivion soon sour in the cold light of day. It didn’t take long to become, frankly, a bit of a drag.

But I get ahead of myself. That was afterwards. First came the operation (no pun intended). We arrived at the surgery and I went in while Rach took the kids off to play. After sitting around in a small waiting area for a while, I was called in. In the room was a nurse. She was older than me, probably mid to late forties. I’m not sure if her being a different age or gender would have made the prospect of getting my cock and balls out in her presence better or worse. “So, had enough kids?” she asked. Yep. Two’s plenty for me, thanks. Then in comes the doctor. A silver haired, confident fellow, he gave the impression of experienced competence. So, on the table, lie back, think of England, jeans and boxers round your ankles, so these two people I’ve never met can closely examine my bits and pieces. It seems my preparation is inadequate, because the first thing he does is grab a bic and give me a quick additional shave. At least his hands are warm.

Next come the needles. Needles in the bollocks. Or at least in that general area – to be honest I was too busy quietly freaking out inside my own head while staring at the ceiling to remember exactly where the pricks were felt. Numbness, and then, incision time. The next bit involved hands down the weirdest sensation I have ever felt. There was no pain, but you could feel it. And it was uncomfortable. The best way I can think to describe is a bit like going to the dentist. Not that a dentist would ever do this. And if yours does, they need reporting. What I mean is that when you have a tooth out, your mouth is numbed so there’s no pain, but you can feel your tooth being loosened and pulled – you can feel the pressure on your gum. Well, I could feel my tube being pulled, unravelled and cut. First one, then the other. Eventually it was done. It didn’t take long, but every uncomfortable second seemed to drag on interminably.

A few pieces of gauze to hold against the two incisions and trousers up. Another female nurse in her forties has a look. Before today I would have put money on my getting my dick out in close proximity to three complete strangers getting me reported to the police. As to recovery, well, there is no pain, but there is a great deal of discomfort and sitting becomes something you do with a great deal of care. Lifting and having your kids jump on you are both pretty much out of the question. But this is over in a matter of days, not weeks, and then the fun begins. Well, it’s fun for a while, but, as mentioned before, the pressure to jizz over and over again rather takes the fun out of it pretty quickly.

Not long after the procedure there was a frightening few days where I found a few lumps and hoped fervently that it was just these granuloma things. Looks as though they were ‘cause they eventually went and I’m still breathing. The long slog finally over, the time came to produce the samples. There is something uniquely depressing about getting it on with a small plastic cup, but get it on I did. Twice, in fact. Thrice, in fact, thanks to the hospital sending the results to the wrong medical practice originally. Still, it was confirmed: I am spermless. Shooting blanks. Unable to make babies. Hoorah!

Driving: Bad for blood pressure.

I’m not the world’s greatest driver. Hell, I’m not even the best driver in my family – that would be my wife. Sometimes I misjudge distance or speed and come out in front of people when I shouldn’t, I get nervous when traffic builds up, or I find myself driving through somewhere unfamiliar. When I was learning, my instructor once said to me “You’re not a natural driver, are you?”

But. I do try not to be a dick. I try to be a little considerate. I try not to be idiotic. Take the recent snow, for example. I do think people went a bit over the top due to a bit of the white stuff. But some roads were pretty slippy. So you try to take care – avoid particularly difficult roads, instead of brakes go down the gears to slow down, pull off in second, high gear to go up hills, low gear to come down. And yet, time and again, you see cars attempt to get up hills while revving the throttle in first gear. Surely they know lower gear means more power, which means more spinning on the snow? So you can’t get up. What do you? Retreat and find an alternate route, right? Apparently not. For some, the correct course of action is to try again coming at the hill faster, with more power. I know I’m not the only person to wonder what on earth these gobshites think they’re doing.

But some mild annoyance at some shit driving in the snow is nothing when compared to the incandescent fury caused by the widespread lack of indication. It’s just basic manners. You’re not the only fucking thing on road, you know? At a roundabout or junction there are usually other cars, cyclists or pedestrians who would really like to know where you’re going. As the Government enjoy nannying us so much (“Don’t forget to wash your hands”, “Don’t drink too much”, “Don’t forget your five a day”) it should start an initiative around the considerate use of indicators. They should call it ‘Flick the Stick’.

So if you’re near a roundabout and you hear a muffled scream of “CUUUUUUUUUUNT!!!!!!!!!” I wouldn’t worry – it’s probably me shouting at the non-indicating spasm in the car in front.

Things change.

You can’t stop the arrow of time. Things, people, societies, they all evolve. Things that used to be a good idea don’t remain a good idea forever. That’s why religious texts look sillier the more we learn. The things in the Bible, in the Koran, the things those on the fanatical outer fringes of religions (or death cults, to put it more accurately) believe are, in the cold, scientific light of day, obviously nonsense. It isn’t the fault of the books, the religions or the people who wrote them. They are merely products of their time, attempts to understand and describe their Universe as best they can. But, things change. Most of us know it wouldn’t be right to stone an adulterous woman to death. Most of us know that homosexuality is not something to be reviled. Most of us know that the Universe is billions of years old, not thousands. Those that don’t tend to be strongly religious. Funny, that.

I apologise for any offence I may cause Americans now, but your Constitution is not immune to this. The 1787 US Constitution is the shortest written constitution and this reverence accorded it is so embedded that to suggest it is flawed in any way is akin to heresy. Mostly it works fine, and is a beautiful example of a set of articles that can be used to successfully govern a large number of people. When the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, I doubt they looked at their muskets and foresaw the utterly terrifying array of fully automatic weaponry that is so easy to purchase nowadays. Of course, they knew very well in 2008, when it was confirmed that the Second Amendment applied to any fucknut on the street who wants a gun. The pressure from the NRA and the fact that pointing out that sometimes a gun is a dangerous thing is political suicide might have had something to do with that.

I’m not saying the US is alone in worshipping old Constitutions – we are very fond of our own 1215 Magna Carta, more than five-and-a-half centuries earlier than America’s, but viewing it in a glass case isn’t tantamount to a religious experience. If people are allowed to carry guns, other people are going to get shot. It really is that simple. The much-celebrated right to bear arms is defective in a modern society, and if you want people to stop getting shot, you need to retract that right, at least partly. Gun crime is almost unheard of here. It has been much reduced in Australia since a change in law was adopted following a tragic shooting incident in 1996. The sad truth is many, many more people will have to die before anything changes. But hey, an outdated civil liberty applicable to a different age is more important than life, isn’t it?