Another Glee Rant - Bullying (Spoilers obviously)

Yes I am still watching it, but its credibility is hanging by the tiniest thread right now. I can actually deal with their annoying desire to see Will topless in every episode, the pointless Sue self marriage storyline that added literally nothing, but this week it was the main plot which took things too far. The recent episode of Furt saw Glee continue to tackle the issue of bullying, repressed homosexuality and the difficulties faced by Kurt, being the only openly gay kid in an unforgiving environment. Now I cannot relate directly, but for me during Furt the issue of bullying was handled fairly well, right up until the conclusion.

The introduction of the Utopian College, Kurt visits earlier in the series, rankled with many. At the end of Furt, his dad and new step mum put together all their existing funds , that were going to be used for a honeymoon, to send him to the college and he transfers. This is painted as the obvious right thing to do. Now Glee, a story about supposed outcasts probably appeals to many high school outcasts around the world and has carried some poignant messages. The message that can be gathered from Furt:

Being Bullied? Run Away to a Magical Utopia where you will be accepted.

What the Fuck Glee? Seriously? That is your answer to a bullying storyline. The ultimate conclusion which we are meant to reach? I understand the show is gravitating further and further from reality, but this seems a ridiculously irresponsible thing to write. Bullying is always a sensitive issue to deal with, and its a hard choice to decide whether to give a character a happy ending or reveal the often harsh life of the victim. Glee had been doing such a great job, with the boys standing up to Karofsky (at the behest of their girlfriends) , initial expulsion of Kerofsky, and the dance between Kurt and Finn, and general message of tolerance and understanding, but ultimately I cannot fathom what led to the choices made at the end of the episode.

It may well lead to an interesting few episodes, with Kurt now competing against New Directions at Sectionals, but Glee has made a habit of trying to deal with the issues faced by high school kids, as well as being an all singing dancing production. In this, they have given completely the wrong message. Utopias don't exist in reality and running away from your problems will rarely ever solve them.

Spooks and the Character Assassination

I have rarely had time for authors or writers who feel the need to suddenly and without any real prior warning, assassinate their leading character's personality. To pull it off convincingly you have to had it in mind from the beginning and rarely is this the case. I am a huge fan of BBC Spy Drama Spooks and believe it has been some of the best written and most suspenseful drama certainly in the U.K in the last 10 years.

Spooks spoilers follow. If you have not seen up to series 9 do not read on

Since then we have seen the demise of Tom, the demise and unrelated heroic death of Adam and now clearly it is the turn of Lucas / John. Spooks has more reason to kill off characters than most series and we have been shocked, saddened and stunned by what is ultimately a justifiably ruthless series. Last night's episode was brilliantly acted and the side storyline involving Ruth was perfectly executed, but the writing of what has become the main plot reads only as if it has been created to excuse Richard Armitage, so he could go in search of a shiny crystal instead.

The plot with Vaughn and Maya had seem forced throughout but last night it all came to a fore as John's involvement with them became clear. When John confesses to Harry, it was a little far fetched but also believable and you could see how the ultimately clueless and suggestible John had been caught up in something much bigger than himself. It was a good lie and Vaughn was an easy fall guy, leading to a semi satisfactory conclusion where John, with the help of the others would have to deal with the threat to Albany and stave off the Chinese. It was clear that John would not be able to rejoin as section chief, but he could be retired, much in the same way that Tom was.

Then came the scene, "The Big Reveal", flashbacks to the moment we realised Connie was a traitor in Season 7, as it turns out John was responsible for the civilian bombing, murdered his best friend and was ultimately a very nasty piece of work. Vaughn died, and his actual role in everything was left hanging. John was shown to be unreliable narrator and as such we were left with nothing. Vaughn remains a mystery and having died, seems incredibly like a loose plot end, designed for one purpose.

The problem was it didn't fit. It didn't make sense. As a spy, who has on several occasions killed, it is fine that the character may have a dark side but it has just has not been given much development. Lucas was a well written character and I actually preferred him to Adam, and now from the preview it seems he takes Ruth hostage, threatens Harry, the others and no doubt is shot by people he would have called friends. For what, a relationship with a character introduced this season, whose attachment to him is totally unexplained.

There are in the end ways to write characters out of a show. Actors move on and sometimes characters are even removed for plot based reasons. Death in a show like spooks is a common one and given Adam died heroically it was inevitable that John had to die a traitor. My issue arises when series or even books kill or destroy characters for reasons other than it fits with the character and the events, and on this I am disappointed to say Spooks has totally failed.

Just how awesome was the mega-drive?

A friend of mine has recently brought his megadrive back out of storage along with a host of old games titles. I admit, my eyes glazed over a little bit when I saw it, there is something about the console that radiates awesome. Either that or it was the console that for my generation, was their first experience of console gaming, and therefore the device that got them hooked.

One of my all time favourite games was on the megadrive in the form of "dungeons and dragons warriors of the eternal sun." This basically involved you having a 5 man party and wandering around a strange land defeating monsters and ultimately looking for allies. The story was simplistic and linear but the gameplay had a steep but manageable difficult curve, you could use a host of different battle tactics in turn based combat, or have to deal with being FPS in the dungeons. It was an altogether amazing game and one I have played several times before. Sure it did not have the size of say oblivion, or the reels of dialogue from dragon-age but I enjoyed it as much as any other game of its genre.

It got me thinking, we have come a long way in terms of game development but there is still a huge attraction in the old games of the megadrive. For one thing they seemed harder. (partially due to a lack of saves, a harsher game over, and also partly probably because gaming did not need to be so mainstream) They were simplistic, the graphics were often pretty awful, but they were great fun. Amazingly some of the franchises that made their name on the megadrive never worked when the graphics improved and gameplay became more complex.

Sonic is still *going* but nothing I have played has matched sonic 3 and knuckles combined. Micro-machines I believe is now dead, it was genius on the megadrive, right down to allowing you to create your own racetracks. Huge choice and selection taken away by the ps2 version. Even worms suffered when taken outside of the standard simple design seen on the megadrive, although armageddon and world party were both great fun games. Sega themselves struggled to produce a better console and in the end they lost the battle.

Ultimately the megadrive is still an amazing piece of technology and even though I have had a gamecube, a ps1 and 2 and an x-box 360 since, my eyes still light up at the thought of playing the megadrive again!

The rise and fall? of Glee

When I heard about the concept of glee I can honestly say I had no interest in it whatsoever. A show about attractive teens who sing, a program which is half musical, both put me off ever watching. This post will contain spoilers. Season 1 Part 1 first paragraph.

Then a friend recommended it to me and I thought I would have a look. I was almost instantly hooked. Not because of the barnstorming performances, the talented actors and actresses or even because of Sue (Jane Lynch). I was hooked by the drama, the unfolding storylines that ran through the first part of season 1, as well as many of the little side plots. For me the show whilst exhibiting exaggerated sterotypes of characters who spontaneously burst into song while walking down a corridor or in the middle of class felt human and somehow real. It did not matter that you had to suspend your disbelief as suddenly a team of american football players performed Beyonce to win a match, it just simply worked. Part of the power of the show lay in its antithesis of the title and the dark humour which was cleverly written in. The storylines built nicely and both main plotlines involving Finn, Quinn and Puck, and Mr Schuester and his wife's faked pregnancy were acted and written superbly.

This led Glee to become an inevitable hit, one of the most popular shows out at the time and as with many mainstream popular shows, Glee lost its way.

From the offset of the second part of season 2 we were greeted with some strange writing decisions. Characters suddenly acted out of character or performed sudden U-turns in beliefs/morals. We were greeted with mutiple themed episodes, where the theme drove the episode and the story took a back seat. There were some strong moments and Glee continued to deal with issues but they felt forced, as if they had been put in just to fill the gaps between each showpiece performance. Exaggerations were continued with characters failing to grow but into bigger stereotypes of themselves. Even an episode produced and directed by Joss Whedon felt out of place, and although entertaining, ultimately pointless. The conclusion to the series was inevitable and ultimately disappointing in its execution if not content.

Then came the second season with even more hype surrounding the introduction of new characters and a whole new group of celebrity fans wanting cameos or for their songs to feature. The way in which the show is written seems ultimately has changed, with stories now being fitted together to work with the songs being sung. Progression has been discarded in favour of emotional set pieces which allow the actors to yo-yo from emotion to emotion.

Glee may still have legions of loyal fans and be an entertaining show. But for me it has lost the elements which made it great. (The story and the human characters) I will still be watching for now, but possibly not for long if it continues on the same path.

The "lost symbol" is not fact. FACT!

This post may contain spoilers. Scattered spoilers because I am not going to review the book periodically.

I have lasted longer than most when it comes to Dan Brown. Yes his stories are basically all carbon copies but its a good story right? The pages turn quite quickly, helped by page long chapters and the characters are wonderfully one dimensional and simple to understand. I thought this was all I needed, I was wrong.

With both The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the conspiricies, the locations, the mad rush against impossible deadlines and the occasional threats faced by the characters. The Angels and Demons twist even surprised me.

With Lost Symbol I did not have a care in the world for any of the characters, the conspiricies, the locations and the mad rush was muted and pathetic partly because the actual reason for the rush is not revealed until the first last minute, when it is also miraculously stopped. Who saw that coming!

Brown also attempts to present all the theory, religion and science as fact. Techncially yes, everything he mentions exists. His referencing of it suggests he spent rather too long researching on wikipedia but the theories exist. My my main issue with this novel is with noetics.

Now Noetics is a science, yes. There are some people who believe it, yes. But there is no proof of it. It is just a theory and a wild one at that and far too much of the novel is focused on trying to make you believe it is real. After all, why begin with the fact statement if everything you write is a like of jumped up, fictional drivel?

Oh, and the twist, if you can call it that.

The only reason it might not be obvious is that the character lies to himself in his own internal narration. There is no reason for him to do this storywise, its just a poor attempt to hide the truth from the reader.

This will be the last book I read by Mr Dan Brown. They work better as films anyway, which does not say much for the contents of the books.

A higher force?

I am not a religious man. Those of you that know me will know I am in fact a steadfast atheist. As time goes on though I increasingly am beginning to believe in a some driving force, something akin to fate that affects my life each and everyday.

I am talking about Sods Law

This is in fact not even my first blog entry about sods law (although you may have to go back a bit, back in blogs in fact), I regularly fall afoul of it and today was no different.

Each morning I catch the 8:35 bus to work. Some mornings it has been late, and so this morning rather than leave myself 10-15 minutes I decided I would leave at 8:25 leaving myself 10 minutes for a walk that takes at slowest speed 5.
I admit to not even being particularly surprised when at 8:29 I watched the bus speed past with me still 200m or so from the stop. I sprinted and just reached the bus as it pulled away.

If the driver knew how to use wing mirrors he was clearly just feeling vindictive. After another sprint and a deviation from the bus route I reached the stop and caught the bus.

Later on I was at work waiting to hear back from companies, it had been a relatively slow morning so I decided to have my lunch break. I went downstairs heated up leftover chinese and headed back upstairs. At exactly that moment my email went *ping* and I received not one but two responses. Halting from eating my lunch I replied to each and continued eating. As I went to get myself a drink and a yoghurt, the phone rang, and I reverted from lunch to business mode. It was then I noticed that my phone was dying.

I finished the conversation and looked for a usb cable that had until that day been sitting in my office, it had gone. Cursing I thought up a quick alternative and set up a voicemail directing people to call my other phone. No sooner had I done this than my other phone beeped to tell me it was dying too. Cursing some more I rang my boss, explained the situation and headed home where the charger would be.

Naturally I received no further phone calls over the afternoon.

Now of course there are logical explanations for nearly all these happenings
1. companies contacted me in their lunch break, when THEY had spare time
2. the guy who rang was in response to an email I had sent
3. My boss had taken the camera which used the usb to develop photos
4. both my phones were low on battery because I had been out the night before and therefore had not had much chance to charge them.
5. And I had been using it a lot thus causing the battery to run down

Alternatively some higher power simply want to screw with me. It is after all, a lot of coincedences.

Ducking and Weaving

We as a race seem to want to avoid responsibility.

The phrase "It wasn't me" is one we have all used at one time or another. Yet when companies do it, it can really become tiresome. Trying to shirk responsibility is never going to be the best approach to a satisfied customer. There are some businesses where unsatisfied customers are more dangerous than others and it is always surprising when such businesses fail to understand this.

One such business is the property/lettings market. Potential tenants are quick to ask their friends for opinions and online reviews are perhaps paid attention to more than most. Even one damning review can put off a potential buyer. After all, there is very little room for error.

When I began looking for a flat I was quick to ask the opinion of my friends. One stated, "avoid x, they have messed us around" so I did not even bother to look. As easy as that my potential custom is gone.

Yet here I am a week on from the discovery of a problem and my new letting agency is yet to solve it. They have been quick to admit their mistake, but what they intend to do about it has not been so easily forthcoming.
To explain, myself and my girlfriend were informed by 2 separate agents that an active phone line was available in the property. A week on from agreeing to take the said property it is revealed this was a lie. They have since admitted they are in error but have not suggested they will solve the issue.

Ignorance is not a valid excuse.

I am beginning to tire of their ducking and weaving in an attempt to somehow shift the blame, or at least the cost of dealing with the issue. You could get a dongle and then you would not need a phone line was one such attempt. I could, yes, but I want a God Damn phone line.

The interesting thing in all this is that they have admitted we are by no means at fault. It is possible the tenant is at fault for failing to keep an active phone line, it is possible the agency is at fault for failing to penalise a previous tenant for making off with the number and thus leaving the line totally disconnected.

It is certain that the agents who showed us the flat are at fault for providing false information. The fact that they were misinformed is fairly irrelevant. It is their job to get it right and failure to do so makes them culpable.

At the moment they are looking into their options and trying to avoid blame. I am also considering my options, and how much damage I can and should do them as they continue to fail to accept responsibility. Whether we have a legal case due to misrepresentation is one thing. (and early impressions suggest we do) Naming them in this rather damning review is another thing altogether. Should they solve this satisfactorily I will say so, otherwise may I advise anyone reading this to avoid letting a property with The Flat Agency!