Sexually-ambivalent Wallpaper

God moves in mysterious ways...

Really? I would never have guessed.

The reason I say this is because according to one website He's (or She's) been stealing all the creative geniuses (Bowie, Prince, etc) to create a new Earth where everyone and everything is at peace and loves you all. The writer of the 'article' also claims that anyone who died in 2016 is going to this new utopia. That means Lemmy missed out by a few days and my mother-in-law goes despite being neither creative nor peaceful...

Other things I saw pop up in my social media feeds [don't even go there] included a Venusian who used to work for the US government, THC found on meteors and that the UK by-passed living and chose to go straight to perpetual purgatory. I'm sure one of them is fairly accurate and I'd put my money on the Venusian...

The thing I find ironic about fake news is that anyone who has ever read a newspaper (specifically the Sun, the Mail or the Express) has been reading fake news for decades. It seems that the largely unrestricted Internet has pissed off the other media - who probably thought they had a monopoly on making shit up - and it's now a 'problem'. Am I the only person here to see this particular irony?

Actually, the real irony here is that the world has gone so surreal and bonkers that fake news can even be considered real; but who could have forecast some of the crazy shit that has happened?

I was slightly bemused to hear that paracetamol is about as effective a pain killer as a punch in the mouth is a sign of friendship. I was even more slightly bemused to hear that the NHS uses it and spends far too much money using it.

I was equally bemused that our current government's default position of blaming everyone else for problems despite it being their fault to begin with still hasn't been seen through by, well, everyone. Or perhaps it has but no one can be arsed to argue any more? There is also that other default position of NEVER ANSWERING ANY QUESTION - EVER!

Changing the subject, just to be contrary for a minute (yeah, I know, very rebellious of me), I feel I need to throw my 2 cents in about Sherlock...
Back in the late 1980s, there was this independent comic book called Elementals and, at the time, it was fairly cutting edge and quite different for essentially a superhero team book. It was also relatively successful and built up a host of fans, not least because the creator, a guy called Bill Willingham, had a growing reputation for being very left field. He caused something of a mild controversy (which I expect would have raged far worse in the Internet age) by writing an editorial thanking his growing army of fans for their support, but asking them, in a very candid way, to stop asking for stuff to happen in the comic. He was growing tired of people asking for so-and-so to fight blah, or girl to fall in love with boy and he explained that Elementals was his story, his idea, his property and his decision where he takes the story and for the love of God stop asking for shit that won't ever happen.

A lot of people didn't like this attitude and argued that without the fans Elementals would not be where it was. Frankly, fans think this all the time, yet in Bizarro World where they actually get to write their favourite comic/film/TV series, no one can understand why it's rubbish, incoherent and makes no narrative sense at all. If you have a product and 10 people like it and all ten people make different suggestions about how to improve it and you incorporate all those things, what will you have? Something better or some kind of hybrid abomination of wishful thinking?

Indeed.

Sherlock has come in for criticism from just about all corners. Not overwhelmingly and it has been outweighed by positives, but still far more dissenting voices than you would ever have believed possible after the fawning reviews when it launched. The problem with things like social media is it gives twats like me a platform to air their opinions and if they are controversial enough or I have enough friends, I will be heard [seen] by more people than if I was just down the pub with my mates talking bollocks. I also know I've watched things that people have had orgasms over and I've walked away thinking that part of my life has been wasted that I'll never get back. The thing is as I'm getting older I'm appreciating more and more that this kind of thing is all about personal taste and that we all differ in our opinions of things. Why spoil your day/week/life by getting wound up by your own dislike of something? It's about as productive as raging against time and about as effective.

Sherlock is essentially action/adventure TV and is designed to entertain. If it doesn't meet your expectations it's your problem. It's why ultimately the idea of a critic stinks in the 21st century, because everyone can be one and to varying degrees of ability.

A bit like vegetarians and carnivores and their poo.

If people want to rage against something the way some of them raged against Sherlock then they should, maybe, focus on the injustice surrounding us and growing exponentially every day; but somehow people can turn a blind eye to suffering especially if they can shout hysterically about a bloody TV show.

I recently said I hoped the Netflix TV show The OA didn't turn out to be a load of old twaddle. It did, but I find myself in a strange position. I neither feel as cheated by it (as some people did) nor did I expect resolution from it. I found it was a refreshing change to have a lead character who wasn't a Hollywood glamour model and supporting characters who were very flawed, emotionally crippled, ugly, overweight and had gender and sexuality issues. For every frustrating thing about the series there was - and boy, there were many - the feeling that those of us isolated, alienated or ignored by mainstream society also have an important place to play in the world was far greater than the 'mystery' of Prairie Johnson aka The OA.

I reconnected with an old friend recently. He'll be 58 soon and makes me sound as though I'm as fit as an Olympic athlete. He's currently in a relationship with a very glamorous 34 year old TV personality... This morning I've been contemplating arthritis, prostate examinations (if I was in the USA some doctor would have shoved his finger up my arse by the time I was 50 and charged me a mortgage for doing it) and the fact I have to get up twice in the night to have a wee. I'm thinking none of those things would make a 34 year-old TV personality feel the slightest bit attracted to me let alone horny and begging for it...

Or maybe she isn't and this is a tantric thing... Or she has a secret desire to work in a care home? Or he's hung like a fucking donk... but that'll be God, moving in mysterious ways, again...