This might sound a little extreme, but if my doctor were to inform me that I would be dead in six months, I would, probably, be the only person to ever shake his hand in such a situation and ask if he could make it any sooner.
I am tired. Tired of the big things, tired of the little things.
Big things like:
The only place I ever found that I loved, my university town, being changed from a quiet, easy going community of a place into an over crowded corporate madhouse.
That the few women I have really loved, either did not feel the same way, found other guys, ultimately rejected me, to the point that I am left assuming that I am, simply, unattractive, stupid, and not wanted.
Why I contracted M.E (CFS) at the point in my life when things were finally, after a hell of a lot of effort, just starting to work out.
The world is somewhere I do not want to be.
Little things like:
Why IT is promoted as being wonderful but rarely works. None of the software I have purchased ever ran smoothly and does not seem compatable with Windows latest OS. Why predictive text on mobile phones is pointless and annoying. Listen up: No damn machine CAN EVER, I MEAN EVER predict what I am going to do next, jeez….I don’t know what I am going to do next half the time.
Why there is a madness to convert everything to electronic gadgetry: I will tell you something, I have never had the batteries die in a book, or the words go missing, rearrange themselves or otherwise screw up, even in the cheapest paperback, so why do we want electronic readers..just something else to glitch in our glitched up lives.
There is plenty more….I am just too tired to bother anymore. I am just waiting for it to end, around about February 2012 at the latest.
Having only ever bought one Toshiba product; an external hard drive that has been looked after, hardly used and never knocked, mishandled or otherwise badly treated. I am guessing “Toshiba” is Japanese for “Crap that breaks really easily”. I won’t buy any of their stuff again, advise everyone else to avoid it too, unless you like wasting money and, in the case of my external HD, lose a load of backed up data.
The Dragon and the Damsel
We all know the story or are familiar with a variant of the theme. Brave knight fights the dragon to save the damsel in distress. On the surface this could be, merely, read as a bit of a macho man thing, striding in, slaying the beast and saving the defenceless woman. I like to look at it differently.
Stories like this always fascinate me because they deserve a little more attention than we sometimes afford them. Plus, they always bugged me a little because I could not help feeling the old dragon, not to mention the damsel, got a raw deal.
I was reading a few books recently about the limbic part of our brain. It was referred to as our Lizard brain, because it consists of the oldest and most primitive part of the brain. Possibly, the part that generates dreams, it is concerned with basic drives, connected to the nervous system and has an emotional aspect to it. It would take too long to describe its full make up here. The point being that Lizard, Serpent and Dragon really represent the same thing. So we have a starting point with our story: the dragon may represent the Lizard part of our brain. So why do we need to “slay” it. This caused a few problems for me. I have spent a lot of time seeing the need for us to develop and listen to this very aspect of our minds. As humans we spend too much time in our rational, cerebral mind and suppress a lot of what the cerebellum creates for us. Recently, I realised that, maybe, the Lizard/Limbic and the cerebellum are not quite identical, or that there is a negative side to this portion of the brain too. It is the fearful, selfish, spoilt child part of us, the “do as I please”, want things my way, throw the toys out of the pram aspect in each of us…a shadow side to the cerebellum’s creative, nurturing aspect which is the part that has the potential to give birth to dreams and creativity. So, the dragon represents this shadow aspect. It does not have to be slain but it does have to be tamed. This is done with the rational, organising, logical aspect of our brain; the cerebral, thinking part. Rational thought, logic, etc, are qualities often attributed to the male. The masculine aspect of the brain, in other words: The brave knight. So, why does he save the Damsel? We have already brushed upon it. The emotional and creative aspect of the cerebellum, where ideas and creation are born and nurtured. These can be seen as feminine attributes. The damsel is a woman and a woman can bring forth new life. The damsel in the story is the positive manifestation of the limbic system that needs to be separated and rescued from the negative aspect (the dragon) by the cerebral aspect of the mind (the knight). Once the cerebellum is protected from the dragon of selfishness, fear, anxiety, stagnation and denial, the damsel of nurturing, creativity and love can be unchained.
Laugh?
Posted: August 10, 2010 in televisionTags: bbc television, comedy, Dawn French, Simon Amstell
Maybe, I am the one missing something here but isn’t the purpose of “comedies” to be, fundamentally, funny?
The BBC has missed this crucial aspect not once, but twice, with their new “comedies”, Roger and Val have just got in and Grandma’s House both of which are woeful. I must admit I have never found anything Dawn French has done that hilarious and Simon Amstell has always struck me as that kid in Sixth Form who thought his humour was sophisticated and amusing whereas in fact it was just extremely unfunny. The BBC seem to lack good comedy writers, even things like The Old Guys and My Family are pretty dreadful.
First episode of Sherlock on BBC1 Sunday 9pm. Having always been a fan of the writer Steven Moffet, having written Coupling and Jekyll, I was happy to give this a go, notwithstanding the fact that I was seriously keen on the Sherlock Holmes stories as a child: Avidly obsessive would be a reasonable description of my enthusiasm.
Well acted, particularly, Martin Freeman. One of those actors who does not get the credit he deserves. I thought the plot a little predictable. The scene where they were tracing the GPS on the murdered victim’s mobile as the cabby ascended the stairs with Sherlock remonstrating and trying to solve the dilemma was painful to watch. Working out that Mark Gattiss was Mycroft and not Moriarty was also telegraphed. Liked the style, the use of graphics. The scene where Sherlock gave a description of Watson’s brother by observing details on his mobile was also a bit clumsy but an interesting reworking on the original, I seem to remember Holmes analysing a pocket watch, the scratches around the winder indicating drunkeness. Worth sticking with, though. Now when I hear the word “Moriarty” I have the immortal line, “I’ve got it, it’s Arty Morty!” and if you do not know the reference, you have not seen “Without a clue” and you are missing out on a funny film.
Good to see BBC4 repeating the entire first series of the Swedish version of Wallander on Saturday nights, brilliant television.



