Catch up on EastEnders when I get back!
Here's Nancy Banks-Smith on last night's episode, which was apparently a tour-de-force monologue by the 80-year-old June Brown, aka Dot Branning:
"Ethel and Dot were like the girls Dylan Thomas described from his boyhood in Wales: "There was always one pretty and pert, and always one in glasses." I find that quite irritatingly memorable, as I used to be the one in glasses."
Ah, yes. And now I have a train to catch.
As many readers of Baroque know, I always think EastEnders is like a prism, refracted off which we can see our (admittedly scrambled) own selves. Higher-brow friends deride this, saying we can see ourselves in King Lear, Antigone, or even the Restoration comedies* - but I say I can see us everywhere, and Easties is also a window onto how we see ourselves.
Although: is the BBC run by humans? Discuss.
So anyway, with all this in mind, I watched a few episodes last night. I hadn't seen it in a good couple of weeks, for one reason and another. Little Mlle B and I were both curled tiredly up on the sofa in that kind of "let's watch some aimless telly" way: lovely, really. So I came to it fresh, if you can call it that. And oh dear God! Miss Hacksaw, are you there?
1. Okay, that new guy, that Jack Branning. Fair enough, he's after Ronny Mitchell, you can't blame him for that - but there's no acting going on. Can't they tell? The guy wouldn't convince even as a six-year-old reciting something to his teacher. Urgent lessons needed!
2. the Max/Stacey storyline. I can't believe I missed the wedding. And it still hasnt come to a head. Dear God in Heaven.
3. Jane and Ian. Bo-oring - and her doormat routine is really getting to me. Time to move on! Unless something's actually going to happen, in which case, please let it happen! A bomb, maybe?
4. Sean Slater. Let him have a heart. But will it be made of lead? (I did like when he took his mother's tranquilisers, but when they showed him on the couch "spark out" I half thought he was dead.)
5. Loving Roxy though, in her new red wheels, with her little dog. She's a riot.
On second thoughts, scrap all that about seeing ourselves. But anyway, at least I'm caught up now.
* Though I always find The Philadelphia Story, or North by Northwest, will do just as well.
This is me, about half an hour ago. My main emotion at the time was, although it doesn't show, a deep happiness at having achieved my ambition of doing nothing at all today - not even dressed yet at 5pm! Hurrah!
Yesterday, not working because still not quite well, I nevertheless and unavoidably spent much of the day running around. That is, two hours of it were spent in the optician's shop, admittedly doing nothing much, but it was still more stressful than sleeping, which was what I wanted to be doing. (There may be more on that particular, and peculiar, peccadilo anon.)
Yesterday afternoon I went into town to record four poems for a very enterprising young poet and student called Alex Pryce, who has a website of poetry podcasts. (She's only 19! And she got the funding! More impressive than my own dossy kids, I say.) We sat in a VERY plush office at NESTA, just off Fetter Lane - appropriately for podcasting, it looked like a gleaming white space-pod: two small poetry people round a giant table with orange leather swivel chairs, and I read four rather quirky poems into a posh, very officlal-looking, microphone.
Then I had an hour to kill before the shockingly penultimate poetry reading at Oxfam Books & Music - after four years of Todd Swift's seasonal events, one has bevcome accustomed to their simply happening as usual - so, finding myself very near Dr Johnson's house, I paid him a visit. Strange place, and strange to be in his house. I feel like I know him so well - and I don't think he was home. But it was lovely to be there, in his bedroom even! (Lawsie!) But, it's a shame, none of his windows look out on anything remotely like what the great man would have seen from them. The whole neighbourhood was heavily bombed in the war; his house escaped only by a miracle, and at the cost of the roof of his famous garret.
There were many pictures, including almost every portrait you've ever seen of Johnson. That was a thrill. And was struck, once again, as I always am, by how kind David Garrick (the great actor) looked. He was a lovely man, a great mimic, and had a party routine of Johnson squeezing a lemon into a punch bowl, (apparently with "uncouth gestures"), saying, "Whoosh for poonsh?" And I saw Mrs Thrale's tea service! Another, & great, thrill. But of "Dr Johnson and his friends" there was precious little sign of any women, which seems a great shame. I came to him, after all, through the wonderful Fanny Burney.
And then a rainy, Londony trudge up to Marylebone for the reading (maybe a gift from the Doctor, whom I consider in many ways to be the embodied spirit of London, even though not originally "from" the city), by way of two buses and a long walk through Fitzrovia - by then already feeling debilitatingly tired - and an excellent evening. Three Salt poets in a row - Chris McCabe, Giles Goodland, and Julia Bird (whose book will be published in autumn 2008) - were fascinating and fun, with possibly more "innovative" (is that really the word we use?) work from the first two than you mostly hear in Oxfam... I loved them, they were funny and serious and sort of questing... though I could see two older poets shaking their heads as Chris McCabe read his letter to Rimbaud. One told me afterwards, "I just don't agree with him about Rimbaud!" Love that too. But I am on a book-buying moratorium and so did not take anything home with me from any of the authors. Damn. A splendid evening, though!
In addition, Chris Beckett's poems, inspired by his Ethiopian childhood, are always wonderful to hear & he was fab last night. Fleur Adcock was lovely; she read a poem about water, and ancestors, that has stayed with me a lot today. Mario Petrucci read from his new book , and Matthew Sweeney (not Matthew Sweney), dashing about the country like a blue-arsed fly to promote his new book, Black Moon, gave a very spirited reading at the end, rousing us to a finish.
I got home late, & struggled all night to stay asleep in the midst of intensely vivid, jumbled dreams. I managed to pretty much stay asleep till about ten, & then swore to stay in bed all morning and do nothing all afternoon. Well - I was going to do wome writing. But then I watched all the last week's EastEnders episodes instead. Ahem. Stacey in that mothbally wedding dress!!
Looks like I've succeeded, then. And I do feel better for it I think. But now I have a pizza date with three girls.
...and, as it is EDW, after all: here's Garrick for you. Another great London figure, painted by Gainsborough in this instance.
(Next week: William Blake in his filthy dressing gown, kicking Leigh Hunt out at his doorway in Poland Street.)
(aside) Someone accessed this blog today using a google search on "Sean Slater poetry." Now that's poetry!
(Is there something I don't know about? Perhaps someone would like to get me up to speed on the last couple of weeks' episodes?)
You have to really know your stuff. Only then can you play with it.
The storyline people over at EastEnders* are letting us down badly again - yet again - as Sean Slater, who has been perfectly normal (for him) up to now suddenly, in the course of a day, goes loopy remembering his troubled past in the Army. And now the rest of it!
My great chum That's So Pants hits the nail on the coffin this week, in a post that is completely sublime. (The title alone is completely sublime: "Sean of the (soon to be) Dead.") The picture alone is worth the long lonely walk along the pier to her place - she is, I always say, a picture editor of genius - but really, her whole analysis of the state of affairs is to die for:
"Traditionally in EastEnders there are only four ways of dying. You can either be run down by one of the many cars constantly circling the square specifically for that purpose; you can fall, usually from a height but Pauline Fowler managed to achieve death by merely toppling from her orthopaedic shoes; you can be hit over the head with something quite heavy or you can be shot. In some cases (notably that of Den Watts), you can have more than one of these, together or separately.
There's more. Check it out.
I for one wasn't tired of Sean Slater (you can sort of see why in the picture, even if he is making that face - it just makes me laugh every time). If it's Robert Kazinsky wanting to leave, I can hardly blame him, because he's not exactly been given the scope for more longevity, has he? And they haven't exactly made him a household name, either. I'm hoping he won't die. I'm hoping someone will find the missing CCTV tape about that obnoxious Chelsea's person, & she'll have to go to that other place characters retire to: inside... (spin-off, Porridge-style series featuring her and Chrissie Watts? Please, nooooo!)
All-new best-ever EastEnders moment: Phil Mitchell, mad with fury, lurching along the rooftop of a disused factory shouting, "Stella! STELLA!"
Oh my God! I take it all back! Classic.
Dr Caligula in the home counties. Unattractive Rob so wet he squelches when he walks... Remember? This character started with a massive judgement meltdown when he faked Dawn a credit card in Jane Beale's name... ah, innocent days! Well, it has realised its perfect apogee in this episode!
I loved the fake blood on Dawn's arm getting messier in every scene... May getting more and more wild-eyed as she sings lullabies and prepares the criminal caesarean... I tell you what, after Dawn bashed Rob with the lamp, stabbed May with the illicit scalpel and drove off in the rented car I burst out laughing.
It's that old satisfying feeling: you'd almost think Grant must be around somewhere.
And anyway I'd forgive a lot for that scene with Big Mo in front of the telly with the enormous jar of pickled eggs.
Twenty minutes later, editing in: still laughing. Ah, happiness.
Just as it seemed to be getting better.
Now the bloody Polish guy is hitting Shirley - in the same room, the same doorway, where they set the whole turgid business with Denise and her insane wife-beating ex, not one year ago. I thought th ePolish builder was going to be fun! But no! They just can't spot comic potential, they think we all want to sit around larfing at those endlessly repetitive Keith jokes. And I'm sick of domestic violence. It's all biology equals destiny, on EastBloodyEnders, isn't it. Women are weak, duplicitous, conniving creatures at the mercy of their hormones and their men, and men are great lumps.
There must be another storyline available in this day and age. Even that book last year said there were seven, but EastEnders only ever uses three of them.
Not only that but "my mum's a slag" is wearing pretty damn thin. What is this, 1957? Jesus. My kids watch this.
And what, like Max & Tania and the kids have just left? To escape the bunny-boiling Stacey? Lave her alone! She's the best thing in Walford at the moment. And what about Tania's Girl Power plan to open another salon?
And this storyline with the baby-mad GP. What's it all about? So Dawn is now a prisoner of Mad Dr Whatshername and Unattractive Rob, and it's all been a plot to get her baby off her, all along? He never loved her?
Insane.
We all know blokes aren't like that.
And why does the decorator Marco or whatever his name is have to move in? Kissing people's hands!? Tedious. And are they really going to redecorate the Vic? Even more tedious.
Stacey and Bradley getting back together, good. But you just know Max & co will return after all, and the whole thing will end in tears. Mine.
I really did prefer Abby's guinea pig.
Sadly, I don't watch Coronation Street; life seems too full already, what with Phil Mitchell and Ian Beale, and Stacey and Bradley (And Deano!), and Dot and that baby (did you cry?) - to say nothing of all the people I really do know. In the same vein, I've never really got the Archers habit. Radio isn't really my thing, anyway. When I've been exposed to it in the past it has had the same cosy glow as an afternoon of cricket: definitely something to love about England, something to be treated to occasionally by someone, but not really my thing.*
The poem below - well, the whole poem, of which the bit below is the first half - could almost make me change my mind. Arthur Clewley is the chap you can thank; he lives in Yorkshire, and clearly has a feel for everyday stories and farming folk. Now I know what's going on, I could almost reach for that dial...
The shadows grow, a nation mourns
The death in the archers of Siobhan
She died as she lived with enough ham
To supply for life Tom's burger van
The strain finished her off, it's so exacting
Cause of death: overacting
Read the rest here.
But Eastenders is a little more cheerful than that at the mo; I might write a little celebratory something myself for Abby's guinea pig, Marge, now she's safely out of the rubbish.
* alas... and those things that aren't really your thing never work if you try to do them without someone whose thing they are. Have you noticed? If I tried to watch (or, even better, listen to) the cricket on my own it wouldn't be nearly so fun.
God, I just know this is going to bring about a bazillion Google hits, but I can't resist.
Every once in a blue moon EastEnders manages to hit a nugget of the real thing. They came close recently when Kevin Wicks quoted Samuel Beckett (a quote so well embedded in the script that it didn't even show unless you knew the quote, and they even got the bit before the famous bit of the quote) and referenced Derek Jarman in the same episode. That was the bit where Kevin turns up at Dungeness, having been missing for over a month, and has an existential encounter with a young vagrant played by the bloke who played Mr Guppy in Bleak House... well, that came close, but wasn't quite the real deal. The thing is, the truly transcendental moments on the Square always, & I mean always, involve Dot.
Once, when I was burbling on about human nature, la comedie humaine and cheesy scene-editing, a friend of mine told me nothing amuses her more than the spectacle of her most intellectual friends trying to develop a construct to justify something they like watching (mentioning another friend of hers who likes Mulder and Scully). But sometimes you don't really need the construct. Sometimes a story just manages to go somewhere deep. As the books will tell you, this is almost always because of something in a character, which is why the Derek Jarman routine never got above (very enjoyable) kitsch.*
A week ago it was a storyline like any other: Yolande starts "helping" Dot out at the launderette, because she's trying to run it singlehanded since Pauline left - I mean, died. Then Dot becomes convinced she's no longer needed, and then she sinks into a depression. Jim takes her away for a day in the country, down to where they used to go hop-picking in Kent (just like in Of Human Bondage), and the day becomes one of those EastEnders set pieces (like the Dungeness one, but without the jokes about Scotland).
The hop fields are gone, and there's a museum. The farmhouse, where "it used to be all mud and barking dogs," is all cleaned up and gentrified. Dot and Jim stand there looking stricken. Dot wants to go visit her old hop-picking friend, and on the way there she stops at the local church, only to find that her friend has recently died. She goes to see the friend's son, who was a vicar, but who now turns out to have renounced his faith in favour of a pastiche of cultural relativism, i.e., big fat Nothing. He becomes a bit ugly, despite his Free Tibet T shirt - blaming his mother's religion for his loss of faith, and explicitly blames Dot for all the trouble with her son Nick (his childhood playmate, see) (currently languishing in prison: not sure what they've done with the erstwhile cancer storyline). Dot is now precipitated into total crisis. Not only is she completely useless, and not only are her memories all destroyed, her world oder turned on its head, but she is accused of having been a failure all along. She makes Jim stop so she can go into the church again to pray, and when she gets into the church she finds a baby in a basket, and sees a young girl running out of the church.
Well, reader, you know what comes next! The baby has been given to Dot by God. God has given her another chance. She is going to give the desperate girl a chance. She takes the baby and leaves a note with her address on the notice board. It's a Sign.
This has been a classic couple of days: Jim's ill-fated visit to the sleazy "gentlemen's club" in Dartford - address found on a flyer in the basket with the baby; the sub-plot about Big Mo thinking she's being haunted by the ghost of Garry and Lynn's lost baby, because she keeps hearing crying;* Jim's "good-citizen" call to Immigration to shop the girl. Dot, get this, doesn't even go to church on Good Friday. There is, of course, the almost obligatory current-affairs, educating-the masses aspect, as the story by now involves the lovely young Russian-sounding girl, an illegal immigrant of course, who is the mother of little Tomas - but, because it is the EastEnders Easter story and is all about Dot, it soon overtakes all that. By the end of tonight's episode even Jim can feel the holiness and realises that Anya (as well as Dot) is the child of God.
Maybe you had to be there.
I feel Dot's inability to feel needed after the death of Pauline - her fear of losing Jim as well - her questioning of how, after all, she belongs to the world - is being played out in ways that would not disgrace Tolstoy.*** The immigration officers follow them to the church, where Dot has taken Anya for sanctuary ("where all o' God's lambs can find shelter"), and Dot stands there implacable in the opening of the rood screen, her arms held straight out to the sides so they can't enter the chancel."I will not let you pass!" she says. "I ain't scared o' yer. I'm a woman o' Christ, and Jesus' hand is on my shoulder, and the mark of 'is love is on my brow, and 'e will not let me be swept aside in 'is father's house."
Anya gives herself up but leaves the baby to Dot & Jim (the immigration officers don't know about the baby), whispering in Dot's ear while she hugs her goodbye, "I trust you." Dot runs out and stands in the dark night waving helplessly as Anya's white face recedes... the closing shot is Dot & Jim standing huddled together in the dim gold light of the church, near the altar, cradling the swaddled baby.
Gulp! Dot is the hero of EastEnders.
* Mr Guppy to Kevin: (something along the lines of) oh yeah? Well what makes this Jarman geezer so flippin special then??
Kevin to Mr Guppy: He made films. (menacingly) And I like films.
** Sadly, Ms B laughed like a drain when Mo ran over to beg Garry for forgiveness for always calling him a plonker, with rolled-up loo roll sticking out of her ears "like the Easter bunny"...
*** I say this advisedly, in light of the kischiness of the Russian novelists and in particular the Tolstoyan brand of it. It's not Dostoyevsky and it sure as hell ain't Chekhov.
n.b.: this has been brought to you in the place of the previously scheduled report on time travel, vis-a-vis this week's final episode of Life On Mars.
Before I went off sick I badly wanted to post a link to this. Delightful.
Okay honeys. It seems there is a huge untapped well of longing, relating to the thirst for knowledge of whether Sonya has indeed killed Pauline Fowler.
Put yourselves at ease. Yes, Sonya did hit Pauline; but she didn't mean to. She was goaded. Pauline's lines right before the blow were shocking even to a seasoned viewer (part of the terrible scriptwriting thing I mention below. The humble viewer asks nothing more - or less, indeed - than to be able to simply believe what is put before him of an evening). And Pauline was fine right afterwards: like the proverbial blow to the head that reverses amnesia, Sonya's slap totally cured her of all the bitter acrimony that had been poisoning her most recent storyline. AND, two weeks earlier, Pauline had herself smashed a plate over the hapless head of Joe, and I am waiting for that salient little morsel to come out at the trial. (There has to be a trial, so they can bring Joe back to the witness stand for a dramatic denouement; but, as with Jake, I fear they will not take advantage of the opportunity for fictive closure.)
I'm sad to say, however, that the whole impossible storyline of Sonya's arrest etc has only been brought to you by a powerful cocktail of appalling scriptwriting, acting and direction, and the tacit understanding of every single viewer of 'Enders that life in Albert Square is not as life anywhere else.
Shame. I much preferred Dennis & Sharon.
And in fact this is only fitting. Nostalgia is the quintessential Albert Square emotion. They've rather cleverly engineered it so that, however much a storyline may annoy us at the time, we pine for it afterwards. Now, that is like real life!
And no, no, a thousand times no: Dot had nothing to do with it! The thought.
Pauline Fowler is due to leave the series in an "emotional Christmas episode" - maybe her son Martin will murder her when he finds out she's lying about having a brain tumour!
Do we think Dot's ominous cough presages something untoward, or do we think it's a red herring? I certainly hope it is a red herring. I love Dot. And if she got sick and died from this cough she'd have been murderd by Ian Beale - remember that. Think how tedious and depressing that storyline would be.
And, for nothing, here's my prediction. A lot of poor souls have been accessing Baroque in Hackney off Google searches for info on Jake Moon. We all want to know.
Well, my analysis, if you can glorify it with that word, is this: the BBC put it about that Jake's death, although "family friendly" and involving no actual on-screen violence, would leave viewers in no doubt that he was dead as Marley's ghost and would never be coming back in earthly form. So, duly, Jake is seen being hustled by two hit-men who have been wrongly informed that Johnny Allen's dying wish was to see him dead. Well, in my experience, the producers of EastEnders have never been shy of disturbing scenes, and we faithful viewers are only too aware of the amazing comeback, two years ago, of Den Watts. When a character dies we now know we need hard evidence.
My view - probably a completely wrong and misguided one, based on nothing, as I don't read the soap mags (and certainly have no aspirations to write a serious EastEnders blog!) - is that, with Ruby now almost officially insane and abandoned by all who love her - indeed having spurned them, so that she is now unstable and alone - the only thing that can now happen in that storyline is for Jake to reappear.
Which I tentatively predict that he will.
Maybe around Christmas time.
And if he doesn't, at least it was a good idea! Right?
Quote of the week, from Dot Branning: "Just think - people didn't used to have inside lavvies, and now we got aromatherapy! Ain't progress amazing."
Okay, this is what I get for not reading the soap mags. It's the cheesiest goddamn thing in the universe and hardly the route to recuperation for a girl whose trouble is already connected (if only hypothetically) with her poor beleaguered nerves. I was better off watching King Bloody Kong.
What am I rambling on about? I'll tell you. This bloody stupid storyline. I thought it was going to be Good, but it is Bad Bad BAD! Johnny Allen's dead of a heart attack in prison, and muttered Jake's name to his cellmate ("It's only one phone call, mate, who's the geezer?") by some stupid cheesy accident, meaning, I guess, "I have asked Jake to kill the bastard," but racked with pain (like Ms B) could only mutter "Jake..."
Now, end of Friday episode, Jake's confronted by a couple of the meanest-looking hitmen in the whole hitman union. A quick Google search reveals a Sun article revealing the imending death of Jake. What a waste. And Johnny Allen too! And with Phil Mitchell obsessed with being a good dad, and Grant Mitchell off in Portugal obsessed wtih being a good dad, you have to wonder. I thought this programme was supposed to be full of villains. Well it won't be now, they'll all have been killed off! Is someone trying to turn it into Brookside??
I won't watch it, I won't.
I hate it! Isn't just the very concept - a watered-down, blandicated version of our beautiful city - as well as the stupid spelling, isn't it just detestable? And which is more detestable, the name, or the concept, or those awful oppressed people in purple polo shirts, thrusting these execrable organs in your face every few yards as you try to walk to the station??? One on each side of the road, as you cross; another a few yards on, in case you missed the others; come on! WHO thinks that's a good idea??
And London is turning into nothing but a tawdry sea of trampled, dirty newsprint. If it's this bad now, think what it's going to be like in late November.
I can't help it. I HATE 'London Lite.'
In other news, however, I've finally caught up - I think I might have flu, I spent the whole entire evening in bed taking my temperature (100.5) and watching the last week's 'Enders - and, great news. At LAST. Johnny Allen's back! And Jake's going to turn, you can see it happening already, it's that look in his eye. I haven't seen today's yet. Ah, thank God. Thank you, lovely BBC!
Several days in which Ms Baroqe has done nothing. She has cosseted what remains of her eyes (much better today); tried to read the Forward-Prize-winning Swithering, by Robin Robertson, but was defeated by a combination of Celtic twilight and trying to read it (in that light!) with one eye shut, which doesn't bode very well either for Paradise Lost; she has bought and cooked the minimum necessary foodstuffs, except for a Ben & Jerry's Oh My! Apple Pie! ice cream (yes), and has cleaned the kitchen. The mushroom, chicken & lemon risotto was a perfect autumn Saturday dish. She did a hell of a lot of laundry. She went for a lovely walk in Clissold Park, with the intention of finding the tree the fifteen-year-old rock god's crowd hang out under, and giving him a bollocking in public - but they weren't there, so it was just a nice walk in the park. The conkers are coming out, and if it hadn't been so painful she would have brought home a decorative bowlful of them in their prickly pale green pods.
Excitingly, she caught up with EastEnders after a long lull - but still has no idea what's happened to Sonia and Martin, the odious pair, to say nothing of that noxious storyline where Ian Beale was pretending young flibbertigibbet What's-her-face was his 'wife' for the purpose of impressing those weird charity swingers (why has Jane taken him back?? Oh - because she's a soap character).
See, we do manage bits of low culture in this house. I'm trying to ban reality TV for being too boring, inane and the augury of the death of civilisation, but I'm all for the soaps. You just can't ask too much of them.
And I'll have to get someone to come and read me Paradise Lost, but even if one did that, these days the little minx would be trying to watch America's Next Top Model at the same time (talk about HELL).
It's here, isn't it. I keep feeling as if it's nearly October. It might be an effect of having had three glorious, hot months off work and now being office-bound with a jacket on the back of my chair; or it might be the yellowing leaves on the tree right under my balcony. It could even be the general air of decay in the world, with clear plastic bags on airplanes, radical jihadists in Walthamstow, the world divided between Israel and Lebanon, and the whole situation.
But every August does this. Sandals or shoes? Even the sunsets over Ally Pally are not what they were a month ago - however tranquil and blue and however wonderfully the geese may fly past as they leave Clissold Park.
Clearly I need rejuvenating and the detox diet is not doing it* - in fact a £1.50 1/3 bottle of tempranillo (Spain's Noble Grape, and I'll go along with that) tells me it's not doing it. EastEnders certainly isn't doing it (I see Wendy Richards has quit, and in my relief I'm only irritated by the fact that she's only quitting because of the violence those poxy script people are doing to the character of Pauline Fowler. So we can't even hate her...)!
I have all the new clothes my semi-Baroque wardrobe can hold. Shoes and boots galore would be lovely but the hallway won't take it. The shelves are groaning with fine and near-fine copies of everything I love. The vegetable drawer is full. I managed to squeeze most of the slipcover back onto the couch, which is endearingly called Caruso. The kids are healthy and my sister's a grandmother. (Jane - oops!)
Any more ideas?
* Note from future: this turned out to be the gall stones.
It occured to me in a half-sleep the other night that the whole problem with a blog is that you would never normally show everyone something you hadn't finished making yet. THAT is why this is so scary! I can't stand that rambly, oh-God-what-shall-I-say-now kind of blog and yet here I am, thrashing around looking for something to say, in public! And if you don't think of anything, and then don't post, it still shows! AGH, the empty page! It's like one of those bad dreams involving things like toilets, stages, exam halls, voting booths, etc. Or, in my case, for some reason often Nazis. Apparently the secret police like things to be well composed & quite polished.
So the blogosphere can just sing for all the pithy comparisons and trenchantly analytical observations I'm constantly making in my head all day! If you're lucky I might write some more about EastEnders.
Oh and EastEnders! What's it coming to?? I'm sorry, it was only a matter of time - and not much time, at that - before I had to say something. Under the so-called auspices of the new production team the show is now FIVE TIMES more boring than when it was supposed to be so bad! The storylines are both stagnant and all over the place. There's no consistency. Phil and Grant have seemingly both had lobotomies to prepare them for fatherhood. Naomi should go. Sonya should go, come to that, if only for how bad the acting was with Naomi: the two lesbians who looked sick every time they had to touch each other. Better just not to run the storyline! The whole Fowler household is turning more boring than a wet day in February. What happened to the romance between Joe's friend and Big Mo? And where's Honey's father? He was fun, being him back! They seem incapable of following anything through, so we're stuck with Sonya exploring all the different faces you can pull to look sorry for yourself, sitting on the bench in the square, presumably while the story team try to think of something to put next.
And the scriptwriting is suddenly down the pan, dialogue-by-numbers based on hypothetical scenarios rather than on precedents set up in the previous day's script. Or, oh yeah, character. The weird about-turn on the story with Jane and the strangely personality-free Grant, for example, is just embarrassing. It's enough to make you miss the much-maligned Ferreiras. (I never minded them in fact, & they were a lot more fun than bloody Pauline Fowler. And what's with HER? She's suddenly the colour of a mahogany sideboard! What, she got that at the launderette?)
