I Need A Hero. With A Screwdriver.

Have been Twittering about the filing cabinet of doom but this is deserving of a real blog post.

Perhaps it seems strange that I would want a filing cabinet. But I am self-employed and work from home and I have a lot of paperwork. Those Polish book contracts need to go somewhere. Also have been all excited reading a book called Getting Things Done - in life, I dearly aspire to be the type of girl who Gets Things Done - and one of the key instructions in Getting Things Done is that I need a decent filing system.

So I ordered a filing cabinet form John Lewis. Looks innocuous, doesn't it? Also, expensive. But there's a lot of metal in there - 32 kg of metal, and 32 kg of metal costs. And I am willing to invest that money in Getting Things Done, because if this were a Mastercard advert, Getting Things Done would be priceless.

This is not a Mastercard advert, and what is actually priceless is having 32kg and £259 worth of filing cabinet in 214 pieces on the floor of my study. I have self-assembled before. I am an Ikea veteran. But this is above and beyond. There are bits you have to glue. Glue, I tell you. And the pieces are all referred to by five-digit numbers, except those that have one or two letter codes. There are 15 pages of instructions. There are 27 diagrams each with an average of four sub-diagrams. There are ten different types of screw. That's a whole Kama Sutra of DIY right there.

Here is what the book Getting Things Done has to say on the subject of assembling flat-packed filing cabinets:

That's right. NOTHING.

Meanwhile, I am just a girl with a screwdriver. Not even a sonic screwdriver (wherefore art thou Doctor?) And I am manifestly not going to Get This Done.

I made a pitiful call to John Lewis. I believe that the words "I'm a single girl" may have passed my lips. I have no shame. (My mother pointed out that saying "I'm a single man" would not have helped my cause in quite the same way. First sign of DIY and my feminist credentials go flying out of the window.) I explained about the 15 pages of instructions and the 214 parts. I reminded them that this thing cost me £259 already. I swore that I was not inexperienced in flat-packing, but that I had never seen anything like this in my life. I think I finally broke them with the mention of glue. The nice woman on the phone is going to discuss it with her supervisor. I am hoping they will send me a man with a screwdriver. Second hope: they will allow me to return it despite torn packaging. Otherwise I am going to have a mountain of Not Got Done metal on the floor of my study until the end of time.

I have given in.

And it only took me one month and 19 days. The month was February, mind.

What is a bad movie?

As you might remember, I went to see a series of mediocre movies earlier this year, all of which were considered good enough to get nominations and awards thrown at them, but were not actually good enough to hold my attention in any convincing way.

Over the last fortnight, in contrast, I have taken myself to see Duplicity and He's Just Not That Into You, both of which were completely disposable movies, and yet, for a couple of hours, totally entertaining and fun.

Duplicity is a stupid movie about industrial espionage, and He's Just Not That Into You is a stupid movie about romance. Duplicity is the classier affair: the double-crossing (or are they?) leads (Julia Roberts and Clive Owen) look gorgeous, the supporting actors (notably Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giametti) are smartly-cast scene-stealers, the direction is slick and glossy, the script sharp if shallow. If you liked Ocean's 11 and you liked The Thomas Crown Affair - and who didn't? - you will like this film. You may not remember it all that clearly five minutes after leaving the cinema, but you will like it. In the end it's a Tony Gilroy film, which is pretty much a guarantor of quality. He wrote the Bourne movies, he wrote Michael Clayton, and I've blogged about his fabulous ice dance romance The Cutting Edge before. (Toe pick!) You will not go wrong with Duplicity, but it's not going to win any Oscars.

Then there's He's Just Not That Into You. You need to peg your expectations around the mark suggested by a movie based on a self-help book based on an episode of Sex and the City. Pretty low, in other words. And yet my pretty low expectations were pleasingly surpassed. Feminist readers, or women with even a shred of self-respect left, may have to hold their noses around the Ginnifer Goodwin storyline (perky and somewhat thick hopeless romantic is taught the rules of dating by a self-satisfied Scott Baio ugly-alike who turns out, of course, to be the man for her - it's hardly a spoiler if you have ever seen a movie before). However the Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Connolly strands were surprisingly moving, thoughtful and mature, and both actresses put in excellent performances (it's an aside, but: is Jennifer Aniston the most underrated actress of her generation? She is consistently excellent in both comic and dramatic roles.) And for male viewers dragged along by their girlfriends, Scarlett Johansson is ridiculously sexy. Those tits! That bum! Those lips! That hair!

In conclusion? I would rather sit through Duplicity or He's Just Not That Into You two or three more times than see The Reader or Benjamin Button again. Remind me which are the bad movies?

Then, last night, I went to Nicko and Joe's Bad Film Club, which I have also blogged about before. Last night they showed Leprechaun In The Hood, the fifth movie in the Leprechaun franchise, a Leprechaun rap musical if you can imagine that. Of course, it was bad. As bad as only a movie that might choose to name the lead rapper hero 'Postmaster Pete - because I deliver a positive message' can be. As bad as only a movie with a sex scene between a leprechaun and a fat, unconvincing transvestite can be. As bad as only a movie that stars Coolio as himself can be. I mean, BAD.

And yet - despite Nicko, Joe and guest Rufus Hound's excellent commentary - it was disappointing. It was the wrong kind of bad. The problem with Leprechaun In The Hood is that it was obvious that nobody involved in the film at any level thought that it was good. Everything about it drips cynicism and carelessness. It was cheap, nonsensical and at no point did anybody even bother to focus the camera. It looked like it had been cobbled together on someone's lunchbreak with the direct intent of taking as much money as possible from the pockets of fourteen-year-old boys. It couldn't truly be bad because it was never intended to be good.

A really, truly bad film needs to have been believed in by somebody. It needs to have been crafted and nurtured. Effort must go into its creation; vision and dedication. And despite this it must turn out to be a horrendous, laughable turkey. Only then can the true hubris of bad filmitude be achieved. Did Mariah Carey think that Glitter was going to be a pointless heap of crap? No, she thought it was going to showcase her incredible talent for all the world to see. Glitter was sacrificed on the altar of Mariah Carey's ego. This is the kind of bad film I want to see.

Which is why I have such high hopes for next month's Bad Film Club offering The Wicker Man. Did Nicholas Cage turn up in the morning thinking "I don't care, just show me the money"? Did Neil LaBute think "Who gives a toss how crap this is as long as people pay to see it?" That's Oscar-winner Nicholas Cage and multiple award-winner Neil LaBute. No: they thought they were onto a good one here. The very best bad movies are made by talented people, blinded by ego, making awful decisions with the loftiest of goals. Think of almost any Kevin Costner movie made from 1995 onward.

Which is why He's Just Not That Into You could never have been an entirely bad film. It's based on a self-help book. Thus it fulfills its intentions admirably. But is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button any kind of success as a huge-budget cinematographic feast of an adaptation of an F Scott Fitzgerald story? Well, you'd need to see it to find out. And I really can't recommend that...

Another day, another depressing serial rape story.

Only weeks after taxi driver John Warboys was convicted for a series of rapes that the police had failed to act on, another serial rapist emerges who was left free to attack women for years due to shoddy police work. As with the Warboys case, police believe that dozens more women may have been attacked who have not, as yet, come forward.

I am of the opinion that we barely know how many sex attacks take place every day. I know a number of women who have been raped - and those are only the ones who have told me about it, I am sure there are others amongst my acquaintance who haven't shared their stories with me. They were all raped by people they knew - though not necessarily people they knew well - and not one of them reported the attack to the police. Either they did not wish to relive the experience or they didn't think they would be believed.

Then there is the category of 'sexual assault'. How bad does an assault have to be to be considered a crime? I have no idea. I do know that I've had a number of deeply unpleasant experiences that it would never have occurred to me to report:

1. Walking down the street, a passing man reached over, grabbed hold of one of my nipples, and squeezed. I had the presence of mind to shout at him.

2. While I was in a queue in a restaurant, a man put his hand between my buttocks and pressed his finger against my vagina. I was so shocked and embarrassed that I laughed, and it took me years to forgive myself for it.

3. In a bar, a man pushed me down on a table and, holding me down by the head and the small of my back, proceeded to lick all over my bare back above the top of the strapless dress I was wearing, while the people around laughed and clapped. But hey, I knew him, so that's OK, right? Right? On this occasion I tried to get away but he was too strong, so I just gave in and waited until he'd finished. Oddly enough I had a very similar experience in my first ever job, when a senior producer took it upon himself to lick my sunburnt back. But he was gay, so that doesn't count, right? Right?

4. I was surrounded by a group of young men in the street who made a series of threatening comments about the smell of my "unwashed c*nt". Who knows what they would have done if I hadn't seen a couple on the other side of the road and ran away towards them. This happened in Australia: I told an Australian friend, and she was astonished that I was upset about it. This may have been the most troubling aspect of the whole experience.

5. I interrupted a man masturbating in the street who then chased me.

6. I was flashed at outside my school.

7. As a young child, I was followed by a strange man around WHSmith until I went and found my mum.

Which is not to even begin on the more everyday occurrences of having my bum felt in pubs, clubs and on crowded tubes, of having sexually explicit comments shouted at me in the street on a fairly regular basis, of drunk men grabbing me and shoving their tongues in my mouth for some spurious reason (England scores), and, of course, of being sexually propositioned - though fortunately no more than that - by the very cab driver I was trusting to get me home safe. There seemed little point in complaining about any of it.

I would say that my experiences are by no means atypical. In fact, I would actually count myself as lucky that this is all that I have had to endure. My guess - and it has to be a guess, because this is something which is rarely openly discussed - is that most of the women reading this will have a set of similar stories to share, whereas most of the men will be horrified because they have no idea that this is daily life for women, especially young women.

If we are going to understand rape, and why men like Warboys and Reid get away with it for so long, we need to understand the entire picture of sexual harassment and intimidation, which means that women - and for that matter men - will need to start talking about their experiences of sexual bullying. Rape, sadly, is part of a continuum, and some of the people who get away with this type of lower-key intimidation will carry on to do much, much worse. Equally a woman who has been subjected to a lifetime of minor sexual assaults without anybody - including themselves - taking them seriously may simply not see the point of reporting a rape.

No doubt the Warboys / Reid cases will result in an overhaul of police approaches to rape, but I would argue that it's time consider whether we have the right approach to assaults at the other end of the scale.

Spring

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Or, in my case - perhaps because I am not a man - vermin.

The ants are back. There is no obvious entry point, there is no obvious nesting zone. There are simply ants, everywhere I look, in twos or threes, casually scoffing from the sugar bowl or checking out the toaster crumbs. They are sort of dilettante ants, tourist ants, just here for the sights. But you know what it's like with holidays, sometimes you just don't want to go home. This, I do not want. Also, possibly not as with holidays, I am desperate to figure out how to kill the blighters but I can't figure out where to put the ant poison. "All over the kitchen and dining room" seems a bit like - well - overkill. Soon, they will be building condos and selling timeshares. Why don't ants need planning permission?

Then, this morning, I went to take the recycling out and discovered a dead mouse lying in the middle of the path, pristine, but rather wet from yesterday's rains. Natural causes? Drowning? Or an offering from Matilda, next door's cat? Matilda likes to hang out on the path outside my house, and sometimes when I am doing my cello practice she jumps up onto the windowsill and rubs herself against the glass, from which I can only deduce that my cello-playing sounds like the mating call of a male cat. This is slightly better than I thought my cello playing sounded so I am not entirely disappointed, but I don't want to start receiving furry, dead gifts from an amorous Matilda. And what am I supposed to do with the mouse? Pick it up? Put it in my own bin? Do you think it can be recycled?

More to the point, do you think I could train Matilda to kill ants?

Sex

I have just added a document called "sex" to the piece of work I'm developing in Scrivener. Label: "concept". Status: "to do".

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Next Month: A Month in the Country

Thanks to everyone who took part in this month's book club. I thought it went well, so well in fact that I am having another go for this month. The book I've chosen is A Month in the Country by JL Carr (or check out this lovely illustrated edition.)

There are two reasons that I have chosen this book:

1. It is one of my all-time favourites, and woefully under-known, and
2. It is very short.

I am feeling inclined to only pick short books for The Woman Who Talked Too Much Benign Book Dictatorship, so much so that I may rename it The Woman Who Talked Too Much Benign Book Dictatorship Of Short Books, So That As Many People As Possible Can Read It In Time. Though I don't want to tie myself down, in case at some point in the future I decide that I really want to get you all to read Bleak House because it's just so good (well, it is.)

But in the meantime: A Month in the Country, by JL Carr (not to be confused with A Month in the Country by Turgenev, though by all means read that as well, only I haven't, and cannot comment on whether it is (a) any good or (b) short.) A young man, scarred both by his experiences of World War One and by the betrayal of his wife, takes a job repairing a fresco in a country church in the north of England. His work, his growing friendships in the community, and the stirrings of love begin to heal him, but can he ever be entirely healed? This book is beautifully written, with a real delicacy and lightness of touch, and a healthy amount of dry humour, and was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1980. I believe I may have blogged about it before, very much in the context of its pleasing shortness. The late Natasha Richardson was in the film, but the timing of my choice is just coincidence. However it is a nice excuse to illustrate this post with a picture of her with the other two stars of the movie, Colin Firth (nice 'tache!) and Kenneth Branagh. If you are feeling super-keen, you could watch the movie as well, and make a comparison. If you are not feeling all that keen, you could just watch the movie.

Meet back here to discuss it on Thursday April 16th.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Ali and Nino

OK, so this first meeting will be a bit experimental. I can be experimental in my dictatorship: it is benign, as you can see. But anyway, I think that most of the fun is to be had in the comments, so I will start us off with a few of my own thoughts regarding Ali and Nino and then hand it over to you.

First a little summary for those who have not read the book.

Ali Khan is a Muslim, Nino Kipiani is a Georgian Christian. They live in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, at the turn of the century. And they are in love. Baku is a melting pot of cultures and at first Ali and Nino are able to pursue their courtship relatively unhindered, and their anxieties regarding their different backgrounds are little more than the usual worries between lovers. But then the First World War breaks out and they are forced to flee Baku, and for all their desire to stay together, history conspires to tear them apart.

The book itself has a remarkable history: written under a pseudonym by a Tartar who converted to Islam, and fled the Bolsheviks only to die at the hands of Italian fascists, it was first published in Vienna in 1937. By the end of the Second World War it was out of print, but a copy was found in a second hand bookshop in the ruins of post-war Berlin, by the woman whose translation we now read. It was published in the UK in the 1970s, then once again forgotten, and reissued by Vintage in 2000.

(Those who have read A&N may spot a few key plot points that I have left by the wayside, but let's keep the spoilers for the comments section.)

Anyway, what I thought of it: I loved it. It was one of those books which picked me up and transported me utterly into another time and place. I didn't know a thing about Azerbaijan at the time of WW1, didn't know a thing about Azerbaijan full stop really, I'd never even heard of Baku. Now I feel like I've been there. And I am desperate to visit for real, though I imagine things have massively changed. What I particularly appreciated was the delicacy of the detail, there wasn't that urge you get in so many novels to club you over the head with endless descriptions of time and place so that you choke on the smell of the local cookery and the frangipani (isn't there always frangipani?) Reading Ali and Nino I felt as if I was learning something, about a period in history which resonates so clearly now again, when once again society is obsessed with the relationship between the Muslim and the Christian world. It's both a love story and an adventure, the love story adding emotional depth to the adventure, the adventure adding jeopardy to the love story.

Also: the humour. The whole book, which at times is achingly sad and moved me to tears, is nevertheless laced throughout with subtle, sly humour, filling it with warmth. This was one of the reasons that I felt so attached to the book and its characters, and experienced such a profound investment in what happened to them.

And the characterisation. Ali, the narrator, is young, mercurial, confused, but warm-hearted, loving and well-meaning, and his forced journey to maturity is wonderful and sad. But it was Nino I fell in love with - stubborn, willful, funny, intelligent, emotional, vulnerable, thoroughly modern, and quite a remarkable creation for a male author of the 1930s, or for that matter for anyone. I found the ups and downs of their love story completely believable and terribly moving.

Ultimately I found this to be a magical, transformative book which I would strongly recommend to anyone whether they think they are interested in the Caucasus or not.

And you?

PS If you are putting a spoiler in your comment please say so first.

I'm in love!

With a computer programme. I guess it had to happen. My geekery is finally complete.

The programme in question is Scrivener and he - sorry, it - has totally changed my life. I was first introduced to Scrivener by the Family Helpdesk, aka my long-suffering Bro, who from time to time sends me links to interesting-looking Mac software. I ignored him - sorry, it - completely. I mean, what does Bro know about being a writer? I am an artiste! As if a piece of crummy software is going to make any difference to my creativity! etc etc. I pressed delete.

Fortunately, I got a second chance. Eschewing traditional apres-ski, one of my Alpine companions spent an evening re-introducing me to Scrivener ("Haven't we met?" "No, I don't think so." "But you look so familiar. Don't I know your brother?" "Maybe..." "I remember! He introduced us! And you totally snubbed me! But fortunately I don't bear a grudge, and you can have me for a 30-day free trial, and then for life for a single payment of around £34." If only all relationships were so straightforward.)

And now it's love. Proper head over heels. Scrivener is amazing. He's - sorry, it's - everything I could dream of in a word processor. Where to even begin? Everything about him - sorry, it - is incredible. Intuitive. Adaptive. User friendly in ways I couldn't ever have imagined from my mispent youth with other computer programmes. I never knew I could feel this way about anything I could download legally. I don't want to nauseate you, like those new couples who can't stop hinting about the amazing sex they're having. I don't want you all tutting "get a study". But you can convert all your documents into index cards with colour-coded pins and move them around and reorder your manuscript and recollate it in unimaginable ways, and you can label and tag it and group things by folder and keyword and levels of completeness and any other way you can dream up for yourself, and you can attach research items to individual bits of writing and open them split-screen in the same document so you can look at loads of different things like pictures and film and music in one application while you're writing! And it doesn't even get jealous of the bits of research!

I'd better go. Scrivener and I want to spend some private time together. But don't worry, you can get your own Scrivener at the link above (as long as you've got a Mac - it doesn't work on PCs). And no, I have not been paid to endorse it. This comes straight from the heart.

Holidays on Mars

The thing about skiing is that it's so completely different from anything else that you would ever do that it's a bit like having taken a holiday on Mars. "What did you do on holiday Marie?" "Oh, I just drove to the top of a snowy mountain, put on seventeen layers of clothing and a thick smear of factor 50 sunscreen, forced my feet into the most painful boots you can possibly imagine which weigh about six tonnes each, strapped fibreglass planks to the bottom of my feet, sat on an open chair swinging high above the ground in sub-zero temperatures, and then threw myself down the mountain as fast as I could go. Repeatedly. For a week." Result? I feel as if I have been off the planet for about a month. On the way home (Easyjet flight full of vomiting South Africans, but still miles preferable to the demon Ryanair) I fantasised lightly about how much all my friends would have missed me and how delighted they'd be to have me back, and then I remembered I had only been gone one WEEK. A blink of an eye. I think it's like light speed travel, it's changed the speed of time.

And now I'm back and I've realised that it's only two days til the great inaugural Woman Who Talked Too Much book club! Had you forgotten? Yes team, we will be discussing Ali and Nino here on Thursday, I hope you've all been busy reading. I finished it a while back and can report that it is... no, that would be showing my hand. I can report that it is short. So you can make it if you try. Or possibly if you go to a skiing resort right now and interfere with the passing of time...

Holiday Snaps

To make up for having left a picture of a hairy, naked, inverted arse at the top of my blog for an entire week, here are some rather less aggressive Alpine photos.

Here I am...



About to throw myself down this black run...



And on a somewhat more sedate but no less beautiful piste.



I suppose there is a certain arrogance in assuming that you'd rather look at me than a hairy, naked, inverted arse, but so be it. I'm sure I will find out when the Google searches come flooding in.

More ski-ery tomorrow, unless I am suddenly distracted.

I'm back!

What did I miss?

I'm off skiing!

Just checking that my travel insurance covers all eventualities...


Back in a week.

A Long Hard Look in the PVR

Having persuaded my PVR to take early retirement (read: sacked it for refusing to record programmes I really wanted to see, despite still having several gigs left on the clock), and installed a shiny new one in time to for Red Riding tonight, I can now play: what do I think I want to watch, but actually don't want to watch? Or to put it another way: which programmes did I record but never bother to look at? A portrait of my own self-delusion through the medium of television awaits.

- 1 x ep of Free Agents
- Swing Time
- Richard III
- King Lear (? don't even know which production)
- Wallace and Gromit Christmas special
- Lark Rise to Candleford Christmas Special
- The Good Girl
- entire series of Paul Merton in India
- True Stories: Forbidden Lies
- 1 x ep of What To Eat Now (I know the presenter, although apparently not well enough to go the extra mile and actually watch his show)
- Hellboy
- The Long Walk to Finchley
- Imagine: Oliver Sacks (apparently I can imagine him just fine by myself)
- In The Shadow Of The Moon
- Walk The Line
- The Sweet Smell of Success
- Holes

In conclusion: I think I like movies. I think I like documentaries. I even seem to think I like comedy, a bit. But what I actually like are drama series. In the time that I've had a PVR, I've made my merry way through any number of series of Doctor Who, ER, Mad Men, The Sopranos, The Wire, Gilmore Girls, Six Feet Under, Northern Exposure, Being Human, The West Wing, Heroes etc etc, and indeed have purchased a whole new box so that I don't have to miss any more of episodes of these programmes ever ever. I have been obsessively watching Heroes when I could have been watching The Sweet Smell of Success or In The Shadow Of the Moon. What was I thinking? Seriously? It's actually quite sweet that I think I have taste, when really I have no taste at all.

Thing is, I *still* think I want to see all of those things. Just, you know, not right now. Some of them I've had for years, and despite all evidence to the contrary I genuinely appear to think that one day I'm going to watch them. I am completely delusional. Sadder than that, if any of them came onto TV when I was in, I probably would watch them, but there is something about *owning* them which makes me not bother. There is probably some kind of lesson here about why marriages go sour.

All of which means that I'll keep my old PVR in storage because I believe that the urge to see a decent Jennifer Aniston movie will overwhelm me enough to make me reconfigure my entire "home cinema" (ancient second hand television, cheapo DVD player that has subtitles switched on as default so I have to turn them off by hand, irritating me every time I watch anything, and shiny new PVR which [I hope] actually works, as yet unproven - BUT in preference to real cinema, nobody eating loudly, talking, or taking mobile phone calls, aside from me) in order to facilitate this, when being within two button's push of the same was too much effort.

Now: what are the chances of me actually watching Red Riding?

Lipgloss Doooooooom: an update

The sorry tale of my lipgloss doom has been recorded elsewhere in these pages, but to summarise: to my enduring distress, perfidious Clinique decided to dispense with the perfect lipgloss that I have been wearing for years, and replaced it with some kind of repulsive pink-tinged superglue.

On the advice of fabhat of askhat fame, I thus made purchase of a replacement gloss from Shiseido, which, as promised, is slick, shiny, non-sticky, long-lasting, shimmery, and a gorgeous and flattering shade of red ('Ruby Luster'). I love it.

As I handed over my money, I remarked to the shop assistant about the horror of my Clinique experience and my relief at this excellent solution. Oh, she said, we're discontinuing these as well.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY??????

How much am I looking forward to In The Loop?

In The Loop, for those who are not in the loop (ha ha! sometimes I even impress myself), is Armando Ianucci's big screen version of the brilliant The Thick Of It. You can watch a clip of it here.

Warning: contains swearing. Lots and lots of swearing. And a slightly irritating advert for Toshiba.

UPDATE: I just watched it again and the advert was for something incredibly sinister involving a dead child and I would just like to point out that this wasn't the "slightly irritating advert for Toshiba" I saw the first time. I am not that flippant.

My Favourite Sound...

...is the rain outside, at night, when I'm snug and warm at home. That's cheesy. But it doesn't make it untrue.

Being Human: Series One Verdict

Back in January I reviewed the first episode of Being Human. To summarise: I totally loved it. Last night the final episode of this series was aired: so did Being Human live up to my expectations?

Oh my god YES. YES it did. I completely loved it. I loved it more than I love Doctor Who. I am going to put that statement all by itself so that we can stand back in awe of it.

I loved it more than I love Doctor Who.

Yes. I'm shocked too.

I am trying to put my finger on what it was that appealed to me so much about it, and I've come down to the following: It was intelligent. It was emotional. It was surprising. It was funny.

Intelligent. Emotional. Surprising. Funny. I've rarely been so excited, so moved and so consistently wrongfooted by any TV drama - the only ones I can think of are real top-end shows like The Sopranos or The Wire, so to find these qualities in some humdrum little BBC3 yoof-oriented fantasy prog with a special effects budget that only extends to a plastic wolf mask is completely remarkable. The lesson: you don't need a huge budget, you just need a sharp script, a talented bunch of performers, and really good taste in incidental music. I'm taking notes.

Something else to admire: Being Human took proper risks. Key characters were killed often enough so you never felt safe. Plot expectations were set up and subverted. Yes, Owen killed Annie, we all saw that coming. But did anyone expect his reaction to her haunting him? Nina was always going to find out about George's secret. But who foresaw that she'd get implicated in that particular way?

And there's more: it was properly nasty and dark, which is what a horror-fantasy should be. The fact that it was aimed at adults (albeit young adults) and shown in a post-watershed timeslot meant, for example, that the violence could be really violent (George's beating by a gang of vampires), which in turn meant that the stakes (see what I did there?) were higher. Bad things could and did happen (Mitchell getting staked), extreme consequences of actions could be shown (the blood farm in the basement). There was just a hell of a lot more to it than in the average British fantasy show. Who was it that decided that fantasy should be for a "family" audience anyway?

The other key element was that in only six episodes, the three lead characters developed a deep, complex friendship that I was able to completely believe in and invest in. The budding will-they-won't-they dynamic between Annie and Mitchell, instead of taking centre stage as you might expect, is only a small part of it. I'm struggling to think of a TV drama which has been so convincing about the nature of friendship. This Life? That's going way back. And the minor characters were far better-drawn and more nuanced than usual for this kind of thing: Nina, Owen, Herrick, Mitchell's ex-girlfrind, the sarky vicar (bring him back for Season 2 please!) etc - they all added so much richness to proceedings.

I say "this kind of thing". Of course, British TV has produced weighty and important dramas which are better than Being Human - State of Play, Our Friends In The North, and so on. But what's so fantastic about Being Human is that it's shown that being a low budget, minority channel, "genre" series is no excuse for lazy scripting or dull, unimaginative storytelling. It has raised the bar for everyone. Top marks.

If you're in the UK, I think you can watch the whole of Being Human on iPlayer, but only for the rest of the week.

Am In Shock.

There's a picture of Brad Pitt in the March 2nd issue of Grazia in which it looks a hell of a lot like he is wearing a toupee. Google appears to support my conjecture. I feel old.

Oh my god.

I'm on Wikipedia! That's so exciting! And I can only see two mistakes.

Watch Out Robert Webb

Here come Paddy and Keith. I have no idea who Paddy and Keith are, but I do know this: they are a hell of a lot more entertaining than Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage.



The final of this is really going to be worth watching. I'm not a betting woman but the smart money is definitely going on a man in women's clothes.

UPDATE: A very quick go on Google reveals that Keith Lemon is none other than the unrecognisable alter ego of a nice bloke who I spent some time chatting to at a party a few weeks back. I seriously had no idea.