The Long Walk

We Have A Lot To Talk About

Yes. We do, for once. I've been avoiding you all, truth to tell.

You see, there was this girl. Yes. A girl. It always comes back down to that, doesn't it. I mentioned that lass from Match who I was having a date with way back in September. Well, the date (we went to Boldon pictures, had a few drinks - well, I did, she was driving and then went to see The Dark Knight, even better the third time round) went extremely well. Halfway through the film, I rested a hand on her leg, she looked at me and smiled. A little later I kissed her. We kissed when we came out of the pictures. She drove me home. came in for a coffee. We kissed some more. I told her my mother was in bed and sort of invited myself round to hers there and then. We went. We had much fun. We spent the next day in bed together with a brief outing to her mother's house to pick up some stuff and had an hour at the beach. She brings me home that evening. I ask her to be my girlfriend (well, in fact, I tell her there's a question I want to ask her but I don't know how to ask it without sounding like a five year old in the playground, she tells me to ask it anyway, I do) and she says yes.

So the next five weeks are blissful. Seriously. I can't remember ever being that happy. We spend loads of time together, watch our favourite movies, have lots of sex and generally have a good time. Florence goes down Terry's for a week so I invite her over for a night, we go to the pub for a meal and sleep together in my mother's bed, which was mega weird, but my bed's only a single. She comes to the quiz, meets all my friends, everyone gets on amazingly well.

So. What goes wrong?

Well, you can imagine that I'd find some way to fuck it up and maybe I do, maybe I don't. You see, I do tell her that I love her, but she doesn't have an immediate reaction to it as Alison did. We even talk about it a little about it. But just over a week later, she still dumps me. She likes me, yes, she says, just not in the right way. She then goes on to say that maybe she hasn't had enough time to get over her last relationship.

Fuck.

She said she still wanted to be friends with me, but that she'd leave it up to me. As the dumpee I apparently have the right to choose the course of our subsequent relationship. So we've been out for a few drinks in Sunderland, tres awkward and I've tried to arrange a couple of outings with her but we've had clashing things. I would have been out with her last Saturday, but at the last minute Emma decided to change her birthday hootenanny from Friday to Saturday and Debra wasn't available on Friday.So I tried to sort something out for yesterday, but she had a family thing apparently. So I'm really reluctant to text her again because I don't want to come across like the stalker ex.

But for that short period of time, she really did make me happy. It's funny, for so long I've been depressed that I'd actually forgotten what it was like to be truly happy. But now she's gone I'm in a worse place than what I was before I met her, because, as a great man once said, it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but fuck me it hurts.

So now I'm back on Match. My subscription runs out on Christmas Eve, and so far there's only one potential possibility on the horizon but I honestly don't know how it'll turn out. Everything seemed to be so easy with Debra... with anyone else it's so much hard work.

Peace out.

Oh, England - My Lionheart!

Mother London

So I've just got back from another trip to London, having seen Blades and Amy, but unforunately missing Bill and Will (Will was out to work before I stirred on Wednesday morning, unusually for me). It was quite a nice trip, bookended with two horrendous coach journies. You see, I tried to be clever with regard to going to London and got the night coach down. It left Newcastle at a quarter past one in the morning. So far so good. It would arrive at London early on; half seven to be precise and so give me the full day in the city. The last time I went down for the one night, I didn't get there till half three so the day was almost done by the time I arrived, heavy bag in tow.

So, a good plan, you might think. Think again. For a start, Go Ahead Northern don't really have any concept of night buses. So I had to get a bus to Chester at half ten (the last direct bus from mine to Newcastle leaves just before seven) and then wait for an hour to get a bus to the town, which still gets me there a full hour before the coach is due to leave. And when the coach finally arrives (slightly late, I have to add) it is absolutely crammed with people. So I get stuck next to this bloke who smells a bit funny and who cannot sit still. In fact, he's so restless, he's constantly rummaging about in his bag. Which would be fine, but his bag is in the overhead compartment so he has to lean over me to get at it. Which he does. Repeatedly.

And on the way home two girls sink a bottle of vodka, proceed to sing very loudly and get very abusive and accused the entire coach of being racist. One of the girls' fathers had apparently warned her that people outside of London were very racist because there weren't any people who weren't white outside of the M25 - as a bloke on the bus said, yeah, there aren't any black people in Sheffield or Leeds. So, the driver repeatedly asked them to be quiet or they would be thrown off the coachg. They wouldn't and so were, the police ended up being called and they got removed from the bus. But we were still laid over in Sheffield for the best part of an hour and a half, so it was nearly an hour later than scheduled when we got to Sunderland, because we didn't stop for a break. Other than that, the ride home was quite pleasant, I finished off the book I was reading, read a Doctor Who novel, started on Michael Jan Friedman's relaunch of the Next Generation range following Nemesis; Death In Winter. I am about sixty pages from the end of that now, and enjoying it immensely.

My time in London itself was fairly and blissfully uneventful. Me and Blades wandered round town for the day, visited, Fantasy Centre on Holloway Road, Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue and generally just took things easy. Then we met Amy for drinks and food and her significant other, Ali, came along after he'd finished his game of squash that he'd gone to straight from work. We had come cocktails then a couple of glasses of wine. Talked for a bit, mainly about books and movies, but also some stuff about writing, and Amy convinced me that I was right in thinking that I need to focus on one specific avenue of literature - I just don't have the time to do everything I've ever wanted - and that maybe I should try my hand at science fiction after all. So I have decided to make a concerted effort and have actually started on the first in the Jericho trilogy, which is part of the Blood & Shadow chronology, but which is set something like halfway between the Turning Tides/Conrad Hart books (Christ, he needs a new name) and the Takashamar War. I think it's a good move.I know enough of the universe that I don't have to keep on inventing new things every few pages and it's still distant enough that it doesn't necessarily have to have an impact on Richard Swan's story. It's also a much less institutional story than the Centre novels or the Swan books; Captain James McHogue is a cargo hauler who just gets involved in the bigger picture through circumstance, so he's really outside of the #Empire and thusly able to comment on it.

I Have A Bad Feeling About This...

And so I did. After three weeks of trying to get to the pictures to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I finally managed to see it by dragging myself out of bed on Sunday morning and going to a matinee at the godawful time of eleven o'clock.And you know what? I really enjoyed it. It's nowhere on the same page as Empire (or even Sith really) but it is recognisably Star Wars and a lot of fun. Even the new Jedi character, Ashoka, who could so easily have becomne another Jake Lloyd era Anakin, is just the right side of spunky. SFX gave it four stars. SciFiNow gave it one star. I'm more inclined to go with SFX. After all, Van Helsing is a one star movie. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is, if not brilliant, than certainly an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

The same of which could be said of The Mummy - Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor. It's not going to change the world, or even necessarily be remembered a few years down the line, but, by and large, it's a good movie. Maria Bello is no Rachel Weisz, but about halfway through the movie, you kind of accept that and take her as, if not an entirely new character, then at least a kind of James Bondian replacement. They even cheekily acknowledge it in her first scene, much like George Lazenby's first scene in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The one niggle I have with it is the movie's peculiar chronology. Something like twenty three years have passed since the events of the first Mummy - as evidenced by Rick and Evie's son Alex now being a twenty year old collage drop out, but no effort has been made to age Brendan Fraser or John Hannah (and apparently, one of the reasons Rachel Weisz turned down the role was that she flat out refused to play a woman who had a twenty year old son. As she is exactly ten years older than me (making her thirty seven now and twenty eight at the time of the original Mummy) to even play her actual age in Dragon Emperor, she was have had to have been playing a sixteen year old in the first film, which she is blatantly not. So, while it is an example of an actress having a strop, maybe, in this case, she was entirely justified.

Peace out.

You Can't Go Home Again...

Except you can. it's all too easy. It's just never the same as it used to be, which is maybe the point they were trying to make.

Home Alone Again, Naturally

So, yeah, I'm back home now. Have been for the past three weeks, although the whole charade with the flat is still ongoing. I actually moved out on the 13th of August (although due to certain circumstances, I'd been staying at my mother's since the Sunday beforehand) and it went fairly smoothly, despite pissing down with rain and Clare having a hangover. I was supposed to get checked out on the 29th, although the letting agents claim it was the 28th and they weren't very happy when I wasn't there. They tried to ring me, but because of circumstances I'll get to in a minute, I have a new phone number and obviously they don't have it. So, when she came out again on Wednesday, she was really pissy with me, picking holes in everything (complaining about little spots of blu tac still on the walls for fuck's sake) and trying to blame me for some cigarette burns on the carpet which were there when I moved in. Now, you and I both know that a certain couple lived in that flat before I moved in. However, this cow from the letting agents was claiming that I was the first person to move in there since it had all been done out. I tried explaining it to her about six times but she blatantly wasn't paying any attention and didn't until I refused to pay for a new carpet, at which point she got all huffy and asked me why they hadn't been through the agency, if indeed they did actually exist. She obviously thought I was making it all it up (as if - I could come up with a better story than that if I was trying to wangle out of something). But she phoned the office and Mills House and everything seems to have been cleared up. I'd gone for my break at work by the time she came back in (she'd been showing a couple round the flat - good luck to them) and only mentioned getting the carpets cleaned, which was fair enough really. Florence had warned me about that. Andrea - who'd shown someone round the flat with me the previous Friday - had complained about the carpets as well, and didn't seem too convinced when I told her that it was because when me and Richie were moving the stuff, it was pissing down with rain and all muddy. She probably thinks that i live like a pig.

I'm sick of my life at the moment.

Which brings me to my love life. Or lack thereof. So that woman I was seeing. The older one. The nutter. Yes, she turned out to be even more psychotic than I imagined. A couple of weeks ago, after she'd handed in her notice at work, she started sending me texts claiming that Shaun had told her that I'd forced myself upon someone. Now, I don't know if this means that I've raped someone or attempted it or what, but Shaun denies it. He told her about this lass I was seeing off the internet, he says, but according to Andrea he was horrified that Anne had said what she had. But Anne had told Andrea as well (and asked her not to say anything to Shaun until she had left work). In one text she told me that someone else knew, and then in a further text she claimed that apparently there had been this whole discussion in the shop about it. Then, at half twelve one night after I've moved back home, I get a text from her asking me if the police have been in touch yet.

Naturally, I shit myself. Because, at the end of the day, even though I have done nothing wrong, she could have easily gone to the police and reported some imaginary crime. She's just cracked enough to do it. So I phone the police and report her harrassing texts. This is on the Friday morning. They eventually come to see me on the Tuesday night (they had called on Monday but I had been at work), by which time I've had a further two texts from her, one saying that I know, deep down, why the police are coming to talk to me and another saying that she won't contact the police, but if they come to talk to her, she'll speak to them (she signs off the text with 'whatever you have done, Mark, leave me out of it!!!' which is funny because A) I have not done anything and B) She was the one who started this whole mess in the first place) . Then I get another text, this one in big shouty capital letters asked me if she should dispose of 'what I have belonging to you' so she can make a 'clean break from u'. Which again, is funny, because she doesn't have anything of mine. It's also quite scary though, because she's obviously cracked.

So I change my number. Florence has a spare sim crad upstairs off when she got her last phone, so I take that one. When the police come round, I put the old sim card in just to see if she's still texting me and there's a message telling me how she starts her new job in September and all this bollocks and a voicemail which sounds like she rang when she was drunk, saying that she's probably the last person I want to hear from (damn straight - I'd rather get a phone call from my dad), that she's sorry how everything turned out and that she just wanted me to know what people have been saying about me. I haven't checked it since, and have no real desire to. She's obviously not right in the head, or trying to provoke me into some sort of action, whether that's to try and get back with her or to try and drive a wedge between everyone at work, I don't know. I'm just glad she's out of my life.

And A? Well, we went out again on the following Wednesday from my last post. We went to The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle. It's an art gallery for those of you who aren't cultured. Again, we had a nice time. So we went out to the pub, just me and A, minus the kid, on Sunday night. Just to Houghton. And, once again, we had a nice time. There was a bit of kissing and so forth and when she texted me once she'd got home, it was to say she'd had a lovely time and that she'd see me soon. I texted back saying I'd had a lovely time as well and did she fancy going to the pictures one day/night the following week.

And then, nothing. Not a single text. So I move house on the Wednesday. I text her once I've got my shifts for the next week, telling her what days I'm off if she fancies going out. Again, nothing. So that's a bust then.

But one thing niggles at me. When we first emailed each other, she said that her match.com was up for renewal at the end of the month and that, as she hadn't had much luck, she wasn't going to renew it. But she's still on there, and still active. You see, the site shows you how active members are. It'll say something like "Active within 3 weeks" or something like that, and yesterday, emailing this other lass (so there is still a glimmer of hope after all) A's picture cropped up with an "Active within 24 hours" label beneath it. So what seems to have happened is that she's gone out on a couple of dates with me, decided that I'm not for her, and instead of just telling me like a decent person, she's just ignored me.

And so we come to my unified field theory of relationships:

Men are dicks; women are insane.

I thank you.

He Was The Best Of Us!

So, The Dark Knight. I went to see it again yesterday. With moving house and everything, I haven't had a day to myself in what seem like ages. I haven't been to the pictures since the advance screening of Hellboy (and I was only able to go to that because I went with Clare and Richie and they gave me a lift home - the film didn't start until 9pm and there was no way I could have got a bus home). So I went yesterday with the best of intentions. I was going to see The Mummy (still playing despite my worries) Wall-E (open since the middle of July and I still haven't seen it, more to do with the fact that I din't want to sit through it with a bunch of screaming kids) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The trouble is, Star Wars didn't start until six. Then I got sidetracked in Sunderland and so missed the 1pm showing of Wall-E. I got there for two and didn't fancy hanging around for an hour, so went to see The Dark Knight again, with the intention of coming out of there at 5, going to get something to eat and then going to see Star Wars. So I goes to see Batman (still the best film of the year, the best superhero movie of all time) and although Heath Ledger is fantastic in it, it's a shame he died because that tragedy overshadows Aaron Eckhart, providing a virtuoso performance as Harvey Dent, embodying the heart and soul of the movie, an emotional core around which the forces of chaos (the Joker) and order (Bats) revolve.

So then I come out, go and grab a bite to eat and because she's up for the weekend, give Gilli a quick ring. Soon, plans are made to go to the pub and have a few drinks while she provides an intelligent and insightful critique of Traumaville, the notes for which I'll definitely put into operation when I get round to rewriting it. So Star Wars, ironically the film I wanted to see most when I planned on going to the pictures, got put on the backburner. But how often do I get to see Gilli?

And it's still on on Sunday, so if there's buses running I'll go out and see it then, cos I'm down London to see Blades, Will and AmyJo on Tuesday/Wednesday, and then the rest of my week off will be devoted to writing (I have three Doctor Who stories to finish) and catching up on my TV. And, with any luck, I'llbe going out for a date with that other lass off match.com that I've been emailing...

Peace out.

This Is How It Goes

Okay. So me and this woman split up. Again, that's the long and short of it. She was supposed to come down on Friday night and instead I got a text dumping me. Which, in hindsight, is no bad thing, because I was starting to wonder where this relationship could actually go. You know, as I approach my thirties (and it is with some trepidation that I note that in just over six months I am going to be 28) I am starting to think about the future a lot. You know, settling down, maybe having kids - adult shit - and I had got myself thinking about what we could have, and there wasn't any of that. I couldn't even see us living together. Which was a big problem. A log term one as well, but still a big problem, one which would only get worse in time. So, by getting dumped, my decision has been made for me. So whoppee. Not that it hasn't left me annoyed, mainly due to the fact that this is the second time I've been dumped by text - doesn't anyone have manners anymore?

But, sadly, the story does not end there. Because she kept on texting me. Repeatedly. Sometimes in the middle of the night. I got a text on Tuesday night at two o'clock in the morning. She's made a mistake, she says. She wants to get back together. I recall what I told her when we first started seeing each other; I don't like people who play games with me. I've been headfucked enough in my life. I gave her another chance after that first time, when she'd stopped texting me and didn't come down even when she said she would. And she wants me to give her a further chance? After what she did?

Sorry, but no.

On a lighter front, I've been experiencing the peculiar delights of internet dating. You see, I joined this website, paid my cash and for about a month I never got a single reply. Until I showed Andrea the picture I had on the site. She said I looked like a nutter, took another picture and, the day after I was dumped, went online, winked at a few girls and, would you believe it, actually got a response!

So, I arranged to meet this girl - 26 years old, so a more realistic prospect than my last two relationships - and we did, we had coffee and went down the park with her twenty month old baby girl and I had a great time. I really did. I was dreading it at first, and there were a few awkward silences, but yes, a great time, and she said she enjoyed herself as well. And so I think we're going out next Wednesday as well. So... yeah, it feels good. I hate to admit it, but the mental health nurse might have been right, that what I needed to do was get out there and interact with people my own age, with similar interests. A good, healthy relationship, that's what I need. We'll see how it goes.

And I'm moving back home in eleven days. Again, it feels good, but also a little weird. I bought myself a travelcard in preparation (plus I was out with A on Wednesday, am going to an advance preview of Hellboy on Tuesday, will probably be out with A again next Wednesday so don't want to spend all my money on day bus tickets) and it's strange thinking I can just go out whenever I feel like it again. If I wanted, I could nip down Chester for an hour and not have to think, oh, hang on, I've gt to spend all this money on bus fare, it's not worth it just for an hour.

It'll be an adjustment, moving back to my mam's. It'll be strange having to get a bus to work again, but that's something I'm lookig forward to, because since I moved here, I've barely read any books because I only really used to read on the bus. So hopefully, once I'm back spending an hour or so of every day on a bus, I'll get through some serious bookage. Particularly Revelation Space, which I seem to have been reading for months. It's a cracking book, but it's very long.

It feels like it did when I moved out in February; like the end of an era, but a transitional phase which I just want to get over and done with. Mam's coming across tomorrow to take a few boxes over home, but at the minute, I just feel unsettled, because I'm anticipating the big change, yet I've still got time to wait...

Peace out.

"Where Do We Go (From Here)"

Now, I could rhapsodise on the true brilliance of The Dark Knight, but I haven't really had time to process it all yet. I may have to go back and see it again next week, just to appreciate the whole thing (I did the same with Prince Caspian a few weeks back and found I enjoyed it so much more the second time round). Let's just say right now that it's the film of the year.

So, complete change of tack, let's talk about me.

Yeah. My favourite subect.

So, I'm seeing this woman. Lot older than me. Slightly older than even Alison was. And we work together, which is so fucking awkward it is unbelievable. Because we met up and we shagged. That's the long and the short of it, she came round my house and we immediately got stuck into each other and then nothing. I asked her round a couple of times and she said no. Then she said she'd come round on the Wednesday night. But on Tuesday night, I got this weird text from her about me and my flatmate and how she didn't want to get in between us bickering, which is something we've never really done because the dopey fucker is never here - he much prefers the comfort of his mother's house. And then she didn't come round on Wednesday. I texted her and got no reply. Then I texted her on Friday and still got nothing. So here am I thinking that I'm somehow the most incompetent lover ever and God knows what else. Fuck, I'm paranoid enough without shit like this going down. And so at work on Saturday, a 9 hour shift when there's just the two of us in the shop, well, I don't exactly ignore her, but I'm not overly chatty with her. We walk up the cut and as we sya goodbye, I get the impression that she wants me to invite her in. But I don't, because I'm hurting. She's practically spent theentire week rejecting or ignoring me, so I think, "Fuck it," and I say goodnight, I'll see you on Tuesday, which is our next shift together. She walks off looking pissed. Later on that night, I get a text asking me why I'm giving her the cold shoulder. I reply, telling her the truth, that I feel she's been ignoring me. So she texts back and then through mutual agreement she comes round and we talk, get through a lot of the bullshit that was building up around us and I think, great, things are going to work out. Except they haven't. She was supposed to come round on Wednesday night, but she called it off, because she got invited out for a meal by one of her son's. Fair enough, says I. At least she told me about it. So we agree she's coming round tonight. Except she's not here yet. I texted her about ten minutes ago asking her if she's coming round and she hasn't replied yet. Fuck it.

So we come to the big crux of the issue: Why can't I get involved with someone who is even slightly normal?

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

So, instead of a nice evening in with a gorgeous woman and some wine I'm sitting here by myself, contemplating that last third of a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the freezer, watching Freaky Friday (the Jamie Lee/Lohan iteration, back from when Lindsay Lohan actually seemed like a promising actress and the alky/druggy slut that she was to become the second she turned eighteen was but a blip on the horizon - as Disney family films go, it's one of the better ones) and wondering what the fuck I'm going to do tomorrow when I go into work tomorrow and she's there and we have to spend 9 long hours together.

Christ. Take my advice, never get involved with anyone you work with. It's not worth the hassle.

So. Jamie Lee in a thong. It's not as horrific a prospect as it sounds. Despite her age, she's still quite shaggable. Admittedly, she's not anywhere near the height of her powers like she was in Trading Places or Perfect (one of the worst movies ever made but she looks so hot in it), but thongs in a Disney film? It's just on the interesting side of perverse, kinda like Daryl Hannah in Splash. But I might just watch something a little more... well, something with a little more oomph. I'm pissed off and in need of a movie with action and stuff getting blowed up. It's that sort of night.

Peace out.

Wanted: Dead Or Alive, But Preferably Alive

A Trip To The Arcade And The Unfortunate Incident Of The Pepsi Can

Now, I'm not a squeamish person by nature. I watched Robocop 2 at a very impressionable age and you know the scene where Cain has been killed and his brain and spinal cord are in a jar? My dad walks in at this point and, showing pretty much the only piece of fatherly concern he will ever show asks me if I should be watching this. Bear in mind he was the one who rented the video for me. If memory serves, and it usually does given my almost autistic knack for date retention, I would have been ten.

But go forward a few years and I get Terminator 2 for my thirteenth birthday. It sits on the shelf for a few weeks before I watch it. Why? It's not uncommon now for me to have movies and TV shows on DVD for months if not years before I finally get round to watching them. But I have thousands of DVD's now. Back then I maybe had twenty videos. And I didn't have a video in my room. The simple fact of the matter is that I was scared.

What?

Yes, I was scared. I was faintly traumatised by the sex scene in the first Terminator film and I imagined that T2 might be even more traumatic (there's a pseudo-rape scene in John Boorman's Excalibur that shook me so badly that it's only been since university that I've actually been able to sit and watch the film without suffering from palpitations - but in that case, I was expecting a nice jolly film about King Arthur and the Lady in the Lake, the adverts for it on Channel 4 didn't mention anything about sex). But I watched it eventually and loved it. Except for one bit.

It's at the shopping mall, near the start of the film. The two Terminators have just met, converging on little Eddie Furlong and they're out the back of some arcade, your generic corridor. And there's this bloke there, telling them that it's for staff only or some such shit. And then the Terminators just open fire on each other. The T-1000 kills this poor guy who was just standing there. I remember it vividly, because he's holding a can of Pepsi and that gets a few bullets through it as well. And this scene really freaked me out. Honestly. I'm thirteen years old and sitting there getting really worked up by the fact that this guy, who, let's face it was just some lame-ass arcade worker, probably some student looking for a bit of extra cash, has been killed.

And the worst thing? No one even mentions him. As far as I can remember, even when the cops come to see Sarah at the nuthouse and tell her that Arnold has gone on the rampage again, they don't say, "Oh, and he killed this poor schmuck." He's not even a footnote in the history of Skynet.

If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It

And so, yeah, that disturbed me. A couple of years later and there was I watching Total Recall, that classic Arnold film (yes, him again, you really can't be a fan of sf cinema and not be at least passingly intimate with the Governer of California's resume - The Terminator, Total Recall, The 6th Day, True Lies, The Running Man, Predator - he's in half of the classic SF movies of the eighties and nineties, and some of the duffers as well). And there's a scene when the mighty Michael Ironside is chasing the big lug. They catch him on an escaltor and just open fire. Fair enough, they are bad guys. But the bloke in front of Arnie cops the brunt of it. Here's another poor schmuck, this one just out doing a bit of shopping and what does he get? A chestful of bullets. To make matters worse, Arnie uses the poor fucker as a human shield (alright, the dude is dead by this point, but come on, have some fucking respect). And again, this disturbs me. I start having visions of going to the Metro Centre and getting gunned down simply because I'm between the bad guy and the good guy.

So why doesit bother me so much? I mean, I can quite happily watch movies like You Only Live Twice where hundred of people get gunned down, poisoned, and generally made dead. Or Kill Bill, where Uma Thurman chops people up in a frenzy of limb-detaching action.

The main difference is, I think, that those examples I have cited above are all about people taking action. It's one thing for a soldier - even a goodie - to be gunned down (I've never felt much sympathy for Donald Sutherland at the end of The Dirty Dozen, f'rinstance) but it's an entirely different thing for an innocent person, one who is entirely peripheral to the plot to have the same punishment meted out to them.

What If I Told You Bullets Didn't Fly Straight?
(Spoilers For Wanted)

And it's this empathy on my part which mars the otherwise very entertaining film, Wanted. Based on Mark "God" Millar's comic (I refuse to pander to the intellectual's use of the phrase 'graphic novel' - it's a fucking comic and that is something to be celebrated) and directed by the Russian dude who made Night Watch and Day Watch (an example of two DVD's in my collection that I have owned for months and still havent got round to watching yet), it's the story of a dick who works in an office who suddenly finds out that he's actually a superhero. Not only that, but his dad was a superhero who worked for a bunch of assassins and he has just been killed. So it's a story of revenge. Only his dad isn't dead, the bunch of assassins have hired him to kill his dad because he's the best assassin ever and his son is the only person he won't kill.

So far so good. It's a fairly standard plot (although I have to admit that I didn't see the plot twist about Wesley's dad being the one he's been sent to kill coming) but told with a great deal of visual panache and style. You can forgive a movie a lot when it looks this good, and since it's not too shabby to start off with, well, we're easily into 4 star territory.

But one scene sticks in my craw. Between them, Wesley, Wesley's dad and Angelina Jolie manage to derail a train. And not a freight train or a nearly empty train, but a packed to the gills passenger train. And pretty much everyone on the train dies, apart from our hero. There's a couple of scenes which make it clear that most of the other people have died in the crash. A nd it leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth. Sure, it's a film about an assassin, you expect people to bite the bullet (literally in some cases) but such wholesale slaughter, and such unnecessary slaughter sits ill with the tone of the film. It reminds me of something Martin Campbell said on the GoldenEye commentary, that it was alright for Bond to crush cars and stuff when he was in the tank, as long as you saw the people were alright afterwards.

If the deaths of all those people had a dramatic point at its foundation, then I might be able to get away with it. As it is, it's an annoying moral niggle (and yes, before you say anything, I know none of it's real and no one actually died, but they went to the effort of showing us all the people on the train and then killing them purely to provide an admittedly spectacular set-piece) that will annoy me and will continue to annoy me even after I have bought the Blu-ray, because, after all, it's fifteen years since T2 and that poor schmoe in the corridor still tugs at my heartstrings.

Peace out.

Knock Knock, Who's Here

So, Season 4 of Doctor Who. I've gone on record before how much of a Who fan I am. It's probably even more important to me than Trek or Bond or pretty much anything else. I've spent a lot of time over the past seven years writing fan fiction for various incarnations of the Timelord website (address to your right) and am currently engaged in what we at the site are calling Season 5. You see, following the end of Season 1 (that is Season 1 of Nu-Who, the one with Ecclescakes in, not the Billy Hartnell years) we did our own series called Season 2: New Gallifrey which was masterminded by a member of our group. The notion was that we would do a thirteen episode series in much the same format as the actual TV series, so there would be a rough arc over the course of the season (in our case, it was the resurrection of Gallifrey). It worked well enough; I contributed episodes 2 and 3 (the snappily titled "2046" and "The Architecture Of Morality", still one of my all time fave titles I'e ever come up with). So we did another season, still starring Eccles, because one of the conceits of our series was that he didn't regenerate at the end of "The Parting Of The Ways" and it was in fact this plot point that I seized upon when I myself masterminded Season 3: The Fray. I supposed that the Doctor's continued survival had such a detrimental effect on the multiverse that the entire thing was falling apart. I ended up writing five of the thirteen installments for this one, although that was not really the plan. What happened was that my season opener (as with the TV series, which has always had RTD writing the first episode and then the finale, the 'mastermind' behind each season has done the same, although we don't generally bother with the episodes RTD would write in between so we give more spots to other writers) got a little too big. My average story for the site is about 8000-10000 words long. "State Of Flux", Episode 1 f The Fray was something like 30000 words. A little bit more effort and it could have been a novel. And my two-part season finale, "A Shrine To Futility" and "The Wellspring Of Regret" both bottomed out at about 15000 words each. So "State Of Flux" was cut down into three seperate parts and formed the 'feature length' opening story and took up the first three episodes. I still think my work on The Fray, which saw the death of Rose Tyler, the Doctor's regeneration (we decided to keep Tennant, but saddle him with a slightly more composed, less manic persona) and the intoduction of Heather Jones, a companio I created, as well as the return of Robbie Bainbridge, a companion I had originally envisaged for my series of 5th Doctor stories and a new version of the Master from a parallel universe (this was of course long before the TV series resurrected the Master, interestingly, James, who created New Gallifrey had a Master in his finale for "New Gallifrey" who was, like the John Simm version for the telly, resurrected to fight in the Time War). Then we did "Shadows In Time", for which I contributed the middle 'returning monsters' two parter which saw the return of the Sontarans and the Rutan, "Storm Front" and "Foul Moon". They werea hard slog to write - I actually thought that I might have written Doctor Who out of my system with The Fray. But then immediately afterward, I came up with the idea for a further season which would see New Gallifrey engaged in a civil war. The idea got changed around massively until it became a story about the Cybermen invading New Gallifrey and I somehow ended up masterminding it with one of the other members of the site, who wrote the opener and finale and I took three episodes in the middle, a two parter ("Blood & Steel" and "Tempus Fugitives") which sees the actual invasion of Gallifrey and which I'm writing now and "Broken Kingdom" which... well, that one's a bit fuzzy at the minute. And already I've concocted Season 6: Rapture Of The Daleks (TBC) which will see the death of Heather. I'm writing a big three part finale fo this one and leaving the opener for James to handle, seeing as how the idea to do a Dalek arc was his idea. I might just destry New Gallifrey while I am at it.

The reason I'm going through all this is to point out the divergent route we've taken from normal TV continuity. Essentially, we started with what was in Season 1 and then, using that as our foundation, built up something that's entirely different. Sure, we've had our similarities. The TV show brought back Sarah Jane, we brought back Romana and Susan. My whole outline for The Fray shares a certain level of DNA with the story that is on telly now, dealing with the breakdown of the barriers between universes (the main difference is that I used it as a plot McGuffin and RTD used it so he could get Billie Piper back) but by and large, we've gone down a much more complex and mature route, most likely due to the fact that we aren't broadcast on national telly on a Saturday evening and our audience is composed largely of confirmed Doctor Who fans.

But Season 4 of the tv show has, interesting, been possibly the most child-friendly seaso so far. Sure, we've had the darkness of some stories like 'Planet Of The Ood' and Steven Moffat, despite a shaky first part to his two parter managed to pull of his usual genius, but the overall feeling for the season has been daft runaround. Even the Pompeii episode didn't hit as hard as it could have. And coming off the blinding run of stories since "42" (with particular mention for the darkest TV Who has ever really gotten with the Master trilogy) it's a bit of a let down. The Christmas special was all well and good - we like a daft runaround at Christmas, so we get high concept, the Titanic, Kylie and big shonky effects sequences. You don't want to challenge the viewer too much whe they're soporific after the turkey. At the time, I reckoned "Voyage Of The Damned" was the best Christmas special so far, but, like a lot of Hollywood blockbusters, they lose an awful lot on the second time around (conversely, "The Runaway Bride" has grown in my estimation - I really didn't think much of it after the first viewing).

So, while it's true that since Moffat's two parter the series has regained it's footing (and it's no easy task, given that the remaining scripts have all been by RTD, a variable writer at best - "Aliens Of London/World War 3" is possibly the worst episode of Nu-Who so far while episodes like "Turn Back", "Utopia" and "Gridlock" show that despite all his flaws, and there are many, he can still produce some of the best Doctor Who since Hinchcliffe's day) even if the finale so far has the feeling of scoffing an entire cheesecake in one sitting, one smothered in cream and strawberries - it's damn tasty while you're eating it but once it's finished, you start to feel a little queasy because it was so bloody rich.

Of course, there's always a danger in judging a story before you've seen the end, especially with RTD - "The Parting Of The Ways", peculiarly beloved of fans, is a damp squib after "Bad Wolf" and the ending of "Last Of The Time Lords" is - subtly telegraphed or not - an abomination (I'm talking here about the Doctor's miraculous rejuvenation, which belongs in fantasy like Peter Pan, not rational science fiction, rather than the quite brilliant death of the Master and Martha's coming to term with who she is). RTD has a habit of copping out ("The Parting Of The Ways" obliterates much of the Earth, only for it never to be remarked upon again, "Doomsday" features a huge all ut war between the Cybermen and the Daleks in present day London only for it to be dismissed as hallucinogens in the water or something. The existence of aliens is still not confirmed, despite the events of "World War 3", "The Christmas Invasion", "Voyage Of The Damned", "Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday", "Smith & Jones" and "Partners In Crime", just to name a few examples off the top of my head. The Master trilogy has a big huge reset button built into it - as soon as we see the Paradox Machine we know that's what it's there for - and the only thing that stops it becoming a huge waste of time, akin to the Doctor falling out of the shower and proclaiming to Martha that it was all a dream is that our principal characters remember it and are changed by the experience, meaning that it still has some emotional weight). So "Journey's End", due to be broadcast next Saturday, will doubtless paper over the cracks and everyne will conviniently forget that Earth was once zapped halfway across the universe, invaded by Daleks and generally put through the wringer.

Does it matter?

In the long term, yes, yes it does. In the long term it's essentially shock tactic storytelling, pretending to blow things up and kill people just to make an impact. In the short term, well, it makes for exciting TV, doesn't it?

Peace out.