Fake

I lied. I do that sometimes. You will understand why very shortly.

There's a saying; if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it must be a duck. It makes sense, but equally, Sherlock Holmes will tell you that once you've exhausted all the logical explanations whatever is left has to be considered.

My friend Will made the suggestion last week, when I was feeling like five day old shit, that I probably had flu. You see, it looked like flu, sounded like flu and despite my protestations that it was possibly withdrawal symptoms, he argued, logically, that most people get one or two side effects from dodgy drugs, not an entire arm full. However, after seeing my (new) doctor, she said that what I had experienced was undoubtedly withdrawal and that morphine-based drugs can have varying affects on people.

By Tuesday afternoon, I was feeling pretty good, in a relative way. I was happy that I'd got most, if not all, of those nasty painkiller drugs out of my system. Yes, I still felt a bit dodgy, but nowhere near as bad as I had done over the weekend and on Monday. In fact, Monday was so bad that I just wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

However, by Wednesday evening things took a turn for the worse. Except this time I wasn't alone. The wife was feeling exactly the same as me and as she had not taken any of the devil's Oxycodone, we had to presume that whatever was wrong was now something new. I have been told off for being a miserable git just recently, so I wasn't about to make things worse by pontificating about an almost continuous run of ill health; although it certainly feels that way. The doctor told me that a mixture of repetitive boredom, pain and lifestyle is enough to bring a person down and make them feel like they're catching every bad thing possible; but when the wife started feeling crappy it sort of pooh-poohed that idea.

It seems that we might have eaten something that didn't agree with us. A Tesco cheese and potato lattice pie, which was (I was told) very nice, but seemed to have adverse affects on both of us. It probably didn't give us food poisoning, but upset our stomachs enough to make us both feel like pooh. It seemed to have more lasting effects on me than it did on her and it seems to have exacerbated my inability to taste anything. Since Wednesday, I also seem to have rediscovered heartburn and indigestion, which appeared to have deserted me completely during the first 25 days of stopping smoking.

Speaking of taste, as I mentioned it briefly recently. I didn't ask my doctor why the hell I seem to have lost my sense of taste over the last few weeks. I mean, I could taste thing perfectly (well, as perfectly as I believed) before I packed up smoking and now it seems that I can't taste bugger all*. Or, to be more specific, everything tastes the same, unless it's got a lot of salt in it. I even got to the stage where I decided, after not finding anything on the net that helped, to go to Yahoo Answers to see if anyone on there had any bright ideas. To date, the only answer I've got is that years of smoking have permanently damaged by receptors to the brain and its unlikely to get better - which, I could understand if I had no sense of taste before I packed up smoking.

I'm hoping that its a mixture of change of lifestyle and the last knockings of the withdrawal. There is a school of thought amongst experts that when you stop smoking your body undergoes a huge battle, which involves repairing itself as well as struggling to cope with the sudden change in its usual routine. Which, if you think about it makes some sense. After all, some of the well known things that happen after quitting include a quick return of your sense of smell, massive appetite surges, insomnia and a change in your digestive reactions (or as a friend once said to me, quite disgustingly - your shit starts to stink again!). So, there might be things that happen to individuals rather than en mass. Or I might just be clutching at straws and I'm never going to appreciate the taste of anything ever again...

Two paragraphs above I put an * at the end of the second sentence; the reason for this is that I'm pretty sure that my lack of taste buds has happened since I started taking the Oxycodone, although if you look at the side effects of that drug, losing your sense of taste doesn't feature at all. However, some extensive research on Google suggests that some peoples' taste buds are affected by Oxycodone; it's rare, but then again so is experiencing a shedload of side effects.

The upshot of all of this is that while I am now two weeks away from my proposed return to work; I can't see that happening the way I feel. On top of the feeling crappy, indigestion and general malaise; I also have what appears to be a problem with the muscles and tendons in my left leg - caused by inactivity. I can't actually straighten my left leg and if I try to it feels like someone is tugging the tendons like a double bass. I also have very little balance on it - this was perfectly highlighted by my doctor when she got me to stand on one leg. I almost fell over! Which is why I've been using a walking stick most of the time.

I also drove my car for the first time in ages on Tuesday evening. The wife was struggling to park because there were no obvious parking spots and I took over the chore. Using the clutch seemed to aggravate the tendon problem and by Wednesday morning all the optimism I had about my aches and pains subsiding had disappeared, again...

I tell you, I am getting fed up with all this doom and gloom. I am getting pissed off with feeling shitty. I am getting incredibly self aware that all I ever seem to do is whinge and moan about feeling bad. I am also beginning to wonder if I might have something more serious wrong - the irony hasn't escaped me that I might end up with a really bad problem shortly after stopping smoking. I am also aware that when you do something like slip a disc or have a debilitating problem it does have an equally debilitating effect on your entire mind and body - its why people who suffer from severe depression are actively encouraged to get out of the house, go for walks, do things they wouldn't normally have the time to do and the last month has been difficult for me to do any of these things because of the constant pain.

I am also aware that writing about it has helped; which is why I still do it. The reality of this blog is that I get a kick out of the fact that a lot of people read it and the precious attention seeker inside me feels that its maybe self-defeating to have built up a following both through the blog and Facebook and then potentially put them all off by constantly telling them what an unlucky bugger I am, especially in light of the fact that we all have our own axes to grind and we all live in a world where reading about someone else's misery doesn't exactly inspire us. But, I don't think I'm searching for sympathy; I look at this as a diary; the same way John Diamond or Deborah Orr used or use their newspaper columns to talk about their cancers; or a guy called Greg, whose blog I found a couple of years ago, who basically blogged about what life was like after losing his arm and then 6 months later his wife; because she couldn't cope with his massive lifestyle change - so she left him. It made pretty depressing reading at times, but never once did he ever seem like he felt sorry for himself and I hope that I don't come across like that - even on the darkest days. But, yeah, as far as I know, having a back problem isn't life threatening; it doesn't compare to facing death every day; even if it has countless wrinkles that transpire to fuck me off and make my life feel like a chore sometimes...

***

Have I mentioned that I still hate this keyboard? Despite all the thousands of words I've written over the last few months, it hasn't gotten any easier to use. At some point, I may just leave an entire paragraph without going back to take out the typos, just so you can see how bloody frustrating it is.

***

Next time, I promise I'll have something to say and it'll be positive with maybe a joke or two thrown in, just to prove that I'm not the world's most miserable and self-centred arsehole!

Spheres Side

Last night at White Hart (White Hot) Lane, a new legend was born. His name is Gareth Bale; he is 21 and from Cardiff. He plays for Spurs. He destroyed one of the best teams in Europe and made their manager - one Fat Spanish Waiter called Rafa Benitez - look as crap as I've claimed him to be for years.

Today, the press are calling this young man one of the best young players in the world - they're not wrong. I've believed in this lad's talents since Spurs first signed him in 2007. He had a lot of bad luck to start with, but he is now emerging as one of the team's true world class players and effectively made himself a £40m player.

But take nothing away from the entire team; to beat Inter Milan - the European Champions - by 3-1 is an achievement par excellence. The shame of it is regardless of how brilliant the team was last night, they'll probably be brought down to earth on Saturday when they lose at Bolton. However, today, I am a happy man!

***

Andrew Lincoln played Egg in This Life and was a huge success. In my mind, he's done very little since that I've noticed, yet he's returned to the star spotlight in a quite extraordinary new television series from the USA called The Walking Dead. This is based on a comic book originally published by Image comics and created by Robert Kirkman (who I'm told has become something of a major player in the years since I gave up comics).

The show follows a group of survivors in the USA after a zombie apocalypse - which, I presume we will discover the reason for as the series continues - which will eventually be led by Lincoln's character, Rick Grimes. In the first episode, which in many ways mirrors both the 1961 Day of the Triffids and Danny Boyle's zombie reinvention 28 Days Later, the lead wakes up in a hospital unaware that the world has completely changed while he's been unconscious. But after that similarity, it goes off in a new and at times unexpected direction.

The Walking Dead will not be every body's cup of tea. It is gory and it is remarkably creepy. As someone who has always found the idea of zombies rather ludicrous, this is handled with a cinematic brilliance that makes the first episode feel like a fully-fledged motion picture. Lincoln struggles with a deep south accent, but other than this small quibble, he does an excellent job of portraying a policeman who wakes up in a nightmare world of which he has no comprehension.

The pilot is pretty relentless and its not long before we're introduced to concepts that George Romero has successfully burned into our collective consciousness. Unlike 28 Days Later, the zombies in The Walking Dead are slow and dead; but don't let that put you off. One or two of them are easy to handle, but when you're faced with an entire army of them, it suddenly becomes a different proposition and under the able direction of Frank Darabont (he of Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) gives us a pilot episode that will have you scrambling for a cushion to hide behind.

It has a climax to the first episode that is one of the best I have seen in many years and had the wife gripping my arm so fiercely I thought she was capable of ripping it out of its socket. Remarkably, the first series is only 6 episodes long and AMC, the producers have refused to confirm whether its getting a 2nd season. If the next 5 episodes are half as good as the first, it will become essential viewing. Bollocks to vampires - zombies are the new TV bogeymen!

***

Talking TV. My favourite programme for the last few years has been Dexter. For those unfamiliar with it, it's about a serial killer who works as a forensics specialist for Miami Dade police department.

Starring Michael C Hall, who was also quite brilliant in Six Feet Under - also one of my favourite TV shows of all time, it has become a firm favourite and unlike many TV series doesn't appear to have run out of ideas. In fact, far from it; the first two series were brilliant, but the last 3½ have been quite extraordinary. The finale of series 4 being possibly one of the best episodes of TV I have ever seen.

That changed on Monday when I watched episode 6 of the new series. Called Everything is Illumenated, it was possibly one of best episodes of television I have ever seen; on par with The Body - an episode from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I have felt is the best 45 minutes of television I have ever seen.

***

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRjZ_3ZLL_I will take you to a video from the new Porcupine Tree DVD that shares the same name as this blog entry. The song - Half-Light - is one of those rare treats and I mean rare, as it doesn't actually exist on any official Porcupine Tree CD. This is what Steven "I'm the busiest man in showbiz, me" Wilson says about it: "...this is probably my favourite "lost" song from the PT back catalogue (don't look for it on a studio album, you won't find it) so I'm really happy that [it] now [has] a much higher profile as part of the live DVD/Blu-Ray. The special video guitar was created for me by Visionary Instruments from California."

The guitar really is something to behold! The song is also something special and I have been lucky enough to see it performed live - in Cambridge - back in 2007. I never in a million years expected an out take to be played at a gig, so imagine my delight when they just segued into this.

***

It's been a month and I'm proud as punch to still be off the dreaded cigs. But there is one thing that I'm really not very happy about. My sense of taste (the kind involving taste buds rather than a liking for flared jeans and floral skirts) seems to have completely deserted me. Nothing tastes the same any longer, and more worrying, nothing tastes very nice!

I have cooked several of my favourite meals over the last couple of weeks and nothing tastes right; or in most cases, nothing tastes very nice. I did a saag paneer yesterday; it's a dish that I can cook with my eyes closed; I've got it worked out, I don't need to move away from the recipe, yet, yesterday's was tasteless. The wife thought her's was fine - no changes - mine was just like tasteless mulch.

If it isn't a lack of taste, it's that everything is salty. Whatever I eat that has salt in it just seems to taste of salt and if its something like salted peanuts or crisps; then it just tastes of extreme salt. I know I smoked for best part of 31 years and when I wasn't smoking tobacco, I was smoking pot; but Christ on a bike, have I destroyed my taste buds so badly that only extremes seem to register now?

The worst part is that beer has gone from being wonderful stuff, to a sort of bland watery substance with an underlying taste of alcohol - seriously; last night at the pub I was drinking a beer that I normally really enjoy - Gravitas. Both Roger and Phil, my beer drinking buddies, were saying that it was an exceptionally good pint. I struggled to get through my pints. Even with my current predicament stopping me from going to work, I'm supposed to be attending a beer festival at the weekend with the aforementioned gruesome twosome; a beer festival featuring my favourite brewery in the entire universe - Oakham ales. I'm a little worried that none of it is going to have any taste, or worse still, it will have taste, but one I just don't really like.

We went to my favourite restaurant last week and not only did I struggle to get comfortable, but some of the courses we ate had a distinctly unpleasant taste. "Does this taste of disinfectant?" I asked Roger of our chilli paneer. He looked at me like I had gone slightly mad. It appears, that while I have this ravenous appetite, I am not putting on much weight because I'm not eating the things I would normally be eating. For fuck's sake, even chocolate doesn't taste right!

Subsequently, in the four weeks since I stopped smoking, I've lost 3lbs... How weird is that?

***

I'm a little disappointed. I know I've been bemoaning firework night recently; but this year its arrival has rather fucked up something.

A few months back, I wrote a review of my favourite restaurant - Pooja in Wellingborough; a proper 100% vegetarian restaurant, run by actual Indians and a place where the wife and I have visited so regularly that we not only feel like part of the furniture, we're treated like family by the owners.

Every year, Myood, the maitre de, insists we come over for Diwali and every year we sort of think that its an Indian celebration and we might be intruding on their religious festival. This year, Myood insisted again and was really adamant that we come and celebrate with them. He made a very good point of saying that Christians invite people into their homes at Christmas and Diwali is like a Hindu Christmas. In other words, he wasn't taking no for an answer. Every year, Pooja sets up a special tent in the forecourt of the restaurant and there are numerous foodstuffs not available on display. It is a time of celebration and they insisted we come over and celebrate with them. We agreed.

Then we realised that it falls on Bonfire Night weekend and with the dogs being turned into quivering wrecks because of it all, it means that we can't actually go over. It's pissed me off a lot, because while idiots have firework parties, ignorant of the pain and misery they're subjecting the nation's pets; we're going to have to, yet again, avoid spending an evening of celebration with our friends. Friends, who, incidentally, on learning that the wife and I want to go to India next year have become our unofficial 'hosts'. They are talking about arranging for us to stay with their relatives, meet up with friends who used to work at the restaurant or generally for us to be looked after by their friends in Gujarat.

I hope it pisses down with rain to dampen the fireworks - but sadly, I also want it to stay fine so my Hindu friends can have a great Diwali celebration!

***

I'm going to change my mind about something. I thought the new Orb featuring David Gilmour album was a pile of shite. I've given it a couple more listens and I'm now thinking it isn't that bad. It needs a few listens before it begins to have the desired affect. I'm listening to the metalic side at the moment and I have to admit, it's actually quite good.

***

Last, but not least and more music... While I think of Porcupine Tree as the best Prog Rock band on the planet (and, reluctantly, the best Prog Metal band, because of their propensity for heavy riffs in the last 10 years); I think of Amplifier as the best heavy rock band on the planet. Having seen them perform an hour long set at 2000 Trees in 2009, they did nothing but cement that feeling. Well, the boys from Amplifier have finally got their new album ready and in the next few weeks it should appear.

The Octopus is a double album and isn't just a record, but an experience. Go here: http://ampcorp.blogspot.com/ to see what I mean. Read Sel Balamir's blog and get an idea of why I think they're awesome.

I'm going to be doing another interview with him; which will be an updated version of the one I did a couple of years ago for The Comics Village (and I'm going to introduce him to a few more groovy words). But, in the meantime, check out their stuff on either Spotify or Grooveshark. Most people I know who like their rock music hard have enjoyed Amplifier. Now, they appear to be doing it all themselves - I don't think there's a record label involved any more - which I find a complete mystery - so if you like them: support them!

Stand by Me

A review of a 1994 mini-series.

The Stand

Based on the novel by Stephen King; adapted by Stephen King; directed by Mick Garris. Starring: Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Miguel Ferrer, Jamey Sheridan, Laura San Giacomo, Ruby Dee, Corin Nemec, Matt Frewer, Ray Walston and Rob Lowe. 366 minutes; first broadcast May 1994

I watched this back in 1995. Obviously, I allowed it to be purged from my mind because it was that bad. Recently, my good buddy Phil decided to read the novel; a decidedly excellent tome about the end of the world as we know it and the ultimate battle between good and evil. The Stand might not be the best book ever written, but it is a rollicking good post-apocalyptic adventure novel. Therefore, you would think it would make a good TV mini-series... Once he'd read the book, he discovered there was a TV adaptation and asked me if I had it. I informed him that from memory, the TV series stunk to high heaven and he should keep well away; but he seemed determined to watch it. So, I downloaded it for him, burned it to a DVD and was about to delete the four parts from my hard drive when I became incapacitated with a slipped disc. This meant many weeks of doing nothing; so I opted to keep the files and watch it one day when I'd exhausted everything else available.

The biggest problem with the book and the subsequent extended version is that it is long. It weighs in at over 1000 pages and weaves a tapestry of characters that need to be believable if you're going to get the most out of the book. The book spends a lot of time delving into the complex humanity of its leading characters - what makes them tick, what drives them, what are their human frailties and these things are, essentially, why some of the characters veer to the side of good and others to the side of evil. For the uninitiated, this is important, as there are a number of characters in the book where you don't know if they'll go with good or evil. This was completely ignored in the adaptation.

My biggest criticism with The Stand - the novel - is that it starts well, has a great middle and a superb epilogue; it's just the ending that has always felt forced. The Stand isn't just a story about the end of the world, it's a tale about good versus evil - good is represented by Mother Abigail and her 'followers'. Abigail is a 106 year old woman who people predisposed towards good dream about after the plague has decimated 99.6% of humanity. Evil comes in the form of Randall Flagg - an enigmatic 'walking dude' or 'dark man' who takes advantage of the humanity's destruction to attract bad people. Flagg assembles a group of people in Las Vegas and runs anything but a benign dictatorship. Mother Abigail takes her people to Boulder, Colorado (which, thanks to a nuclear generator scare has been left largely deserted, even after the city is killed off by the flu). Both sides work to get the old ways back - power (as in energy), politics and order; but they all know that at some point there will be an ultimate battle - one between the old woman's people and Flagg's followers. However, that battle doesn't take the form that many expect and instead relies largely on the fact that God has set this up, so in the end it will be God that breaks it down. That was where I struggled to accept the ending of the book. As an atheist, I cannot get my head around the need for a God that needs sacrifice to appease him. If God did exist and that was his raison d'etre, then it makes me wonder why people would follow him/her blindly - which is essentially what happens to four of the book's leading characters.

To the uninitiated, the above probably sounds a bit crap; but King (who was still a young man when he wrote the book) manages to build an intelligent, thought-provoking and moving book; which is full of surprises, shocks and emotion. It is a sum of all its parts and it doesn't really work without all of these parts... And that brings us to the TV adaptation.

I've read a lot about this TV adaptation over the years; King's story about how it came about - it was originally going to be a George Romero project (oh, how I wish that had happened); how ABC gave King a budget of $28million dollars; how it broke ratings records when it was first aired; how King found his director and was pleased and how he decided that no one else could adapt his magnum opus - it had to be him. In fact, if you read the various accounts of how The Stand came about, you almost expect to witness this totally brilliant piece of US television history. Instead you get, quite possibly, one of the worst examples of television I've ever seen.

It really is one of those things where it's difficult to find a point to start. Almost from the opening scene you realise that something is really wrong with it; like a production of something well known by an amateur dramatics group with no actors. Literally, from the opening scene where Campion, the army guy responsible for spreading the super flu, decides to high tale it out of the top secret base that has just had a rather serious accident; you're left wondering who got the job of casting this atrocity. But that wasn't just it; never in the book is it suggested that Randall Flagg was responsible for the release of the superflu known as Captain trips; it just made it clear that he took advantage of it, like he had taken advantage of other momentous occasions in world history. Yet, in the TV adaptation, you are immediately shown a crow, a recurring motif throughout the show signifying Flagg.

From Campion's escape from the army base, because of a malfunctioning gate (not in the book) to his subsequent arrival in Arnette, East Texas - where in the book everything begins to happen - you get the impression that this is going to have to be an abridged version of the book, despite the lengthy 366 minutes devoted to it. However, it isn't until much later in the show that you realise that King hasn't actually done any abridging at all; he's just mixed his pack up and dealt a slightly different hand, choosing to omit characters and replace them with other characters also from the book, but maybe not scheduled to appear as early as they do. But before we get into that, there's something else we need to look at.

The book focuses on a bunch of characters specifically; these are Stu Redman - an ex-serviceman, decent guy who just happens not to have a job (from the aforementioned Arnette). Frannie Goldsmith - a co-ed who has just discovered she is pregnant by her largely idiotic boyfriend. Larry Underwood - a nomadic, drug liking waste of space who has finally made it big as a singer and is on the verge of becoming a star, but can't escape the fact that he is actually a walking fuck-up and Nick Andros, a deaf mute wanderer who despite his handicap is a clever, self-effacing young man, who just happens to be in the wrong place at the right time. There are other large characters in this book, but these four are the quartet that the book follows. The TV show largely follows the book in that these are the main characters. However, with the possible exception of Gary Sinise as Stu Redman, everything about the other three is just wrong. Wrong people chosen to play them and wrong reasons for their involvement.

Stu Redman's story is simple. He is, like Andros, in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up becoming a guest of the US government, because unlike everyone else, doesn't appear to be affected by the super flu. His character isn't complex - he's where he is because fate has put him there. His character in the TV show is almost identical to the book, without some of the background. The same could also be said about Nick Andros; his story is very abridged, but largely the character in the TV series is the same as he is in the book; except casting Rob Lowe as a deaf mute was possibly the least inspired thing I've ever seen. Arguably, he would have made a much better Larry Underwood (as was originally intended). It is the Larry character that is, as the US military say, FUBAR. A guy called Adam Storke plays him and while Storke has the acting acumen of a house brick, he wasn't really given much to work on. King, in adapting his own book, seemed to think that he could strip out Underwood's entire raison d'etre and still leave a believable character. In the book, Larry isn't a nice guy - he's your will he or won't he character. He goes through a series of personal tragedies and skirmishes and comes out the other end a changed man - this doesn't happen in the TV show. In this he's just as shallow, but instead of coming across as a man in crisis with his life, he just comes across as a petulant wanker. And finally, there's Molly Ringwald's Fran Goldsmith. If Larry Underwood's book persona had been dismantled and reassembled as a photofit version, then Fran's was wiped out and completely started again. Yes, she did things that were the same as the book, but so much of her back story was just completely rewritten that by the time you get half way through the first part of the show you're seriously wondering why King was allowed to go within 100 feet of his own work. Plus, she was played by Molly Ringwald. Ringwald was 26 when she made The Stand and she had already left her best work well behind her. Essentially, she was good as a teenager working for John Hughes; she attempts to recreate this persona in The Stand and fails miserably; also her story has been condensed so much, there is no mention of her being pregnant until the 3rd part of the mini-series; this, of course, was her main driving point in the book. Fortunately, the director seemed inclined to relegate Fran to almost a minor character role by the time the series got into its stride.

There was also the apparent need to omit characters from the series and replace them with existing characters. For instance, Nadine Cross, who ends up as Randall Flagg's bride doesn't show up until half way through the book, but replaces the doomed Rita Blakemore as Larry's companion out of New York at the start of the story. Harold Lauder, a spotty 16 year old nerd and brother of Fran's best friend in the book has his character changed so much he becomes a different character entirely and much of his story is ignored, especially the strange but distant bond he formed with Larry - an essential part of both characters' developments. Various other characters were just forgotten about or merged making anyone familiar with the story wonder what the hell was going on. This is what I meant about the adaptation feeling abridged, yet in the end isn't. There are a lot of omissions, as you would expect from such a long novel; but the longer it goes on the more you wonder why King omits important things in favour of superfluous bits.

The TV series is atrociously acted; as I said it feels like an AmDram production; it has no soul; none of the actors act like they believe what they're doing. It really does feel like they're all reading from the same dreadful script - which of course, they are. Plus there are glaring continuity errors: Judge Farris dies considerably later in the TV series than he does in the book. He was one of 3 spies sent from Boulder to find out what Flagg was doing and appears to be the first to leave; yet he is killed over two weeks later and still many miles from Las Vegas, while one of the other spies is already doing his job at the US Air Force base that Flagg is rebuilding. Also, the US is strewn with dead and decomposing bodies, yet in the space of one main street there are mummified corpses and bodies that look as though they have literally just stopped breathing. Some characters in the book have been placed in different groups of survivors in the series, which makes later interaction seem a bit odd. There are also some glaring non-story continuity errors: during a funeral scene, allegedly taking place in July, the trees have no leaves on them and it looks more like November; then later, during the very abridged epilogue, on what appears to be November 2nd, it actually looks more like July. There is also a scene in which Tom Cullen, one of the spies from Boulder leaves Las Vegas to return home; he leaves when the moon is full, yet over a week later, he looks up at the moon and its still totally full. You would think that the continuity editor would have been doing his job right.

I've mentioned the acting is bad, but even the dog supplied to play Kojak is dreadful; he is obviously more interested in his wrangler than he was in playing his role and on a number of occasions could be seen looking elsewhere or just not being aware that he was supposed to be a dog. In the book, when Stu stumbles across the dog and his new keeper, Glen Bateman; the dog goes crazy, barking and jumping up and down. In the TV show, the dog is totally unaware of a new presence and is actually looking in another direction. A simple thing, but also totally hilarious - which is what this TV series needed, some intentional humour, because the only laughs you get are from wondering how all these people managed to keep straight faces in the face of such a dreadful script and atrocious direction. I've used the word 'atrocious' a lot - not nearly as much as I would want.

As I said, the series cost a reported $28million dollars to make, yet you wonder, seriously wonder, how they spent all that money. Even the special effects make 1970s Dr Who episodes look state of the art. There is a scene where an oil refinery blows up and it looks exactly like it is, a series of small explosions set in front of a oil tanker, with use of camera perspective to give the impression wanted. Jamey Sheridan's Randall Flagg is bad enough without some of the worst special effects imaginable for his transformation into a devil like creature. In fact, the use of the word 'special' is an insult. It is also very difficult to be scared of an actor who looks like he's trying to be a redneck Billy Connelly...

Other notable things that happen include, the introduction of a character called Ratman, for which it seems no good reason at all; the actor who plays Ralph Brentner is a shoe in for the golfer Colin Montgomery's life story. There is also the appearance of a number of famous film directors such as Sam Raimi and John Landis - both capable of making superb horror films, who would have made a far better fist of this abomination than Garris; who later went on to make other King adaptations - badly. W.G. Snuffy Walden's music is probably the best thing about it and even that is a pale Ry Cooder impression.

I warned my mate Phil that this series was bad and that was before sitting through it a second time. 15 years later, I think it is possibly one of the worst pieces of junk that has ever been released by US television. It is worse than dreadful and it amazes me that it was nominated for several awards and actually won 3 of them. According to Wikipedia, it won the best casting award, which beggars belief; it won a best make up award, for which I can almost understand - the dead bodies at times were the most convincing thing about the series. It also won an award for the best sound mixing, which, I think you'll agree is scraping the bottom of award barrels somewhat. The series tends to get outings every few years on SyFy, normally in the afternoon. If its on watch Murder, She Wrote or something with Dick Van Dyke in it.

The Big Sell-Out

I think I'm feeling more human again. Which is a good thing. Whether I was suffering from Oxycodone withdrawal or I had a bout of coincidental real flu, I don't care. But today, I feel a little more like my old self. That said, since I've stopped taking the man-made morphine I am suffering from back, hip and groin pain again. But even that doesn't feel quite as bad as it did. Maybe, and optimism isn't really my strong point, but maybe I might be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Even the nasty whack I took to my thigh last week has come out - leaving a bruise that is quite sickening to look at, but is at least coming out.

I mean, how long can this shit last?

***

However, despite feeling a little better, I haven't really got much to talk about. I did just go through a really unpleasant last five days - in more ways than just the above - and at times I actually thought I was losing my mind.

I'm just about at the end of my B movie bonanza. I fell asleep during Them! yesterday, despite the fact that it actually is a pretty well made movie and calling it a B is probably an insult - especially as it has a cast that would not be out of place in a 'proper' film. It also appears to have been written with a certain degree of skill. I fell asleep because I was just plain exhausted, which sounds a bit weird coming from a man who has barely been able to move for best part of the last month; but I have had recurring bouts of insomnia and when you lay in bed between 3am and the wife's alarm at 6am, I suppose you have to catch up at some point.

Speaking of insomnia - this was heightened, I believe, by me stopping smoking. My achievement has somewhat been overshadowed by my health issues, but I'll have stopped for a month on Thursday and I suppose it has been easier than I expected because I've had so much to keep my mind occupied. In fact, I'm bloody amazed that I haven't been out and bought a packet of tobacco and OD'd on it!

***

I firmly believe that whatever government we have in power, they should do something about arseholes letting fireworks off on any day apart from November 5th. I realise that the current administration is highly unlikely to do anything - I mean, firework manufacturers and sellers need to earn money so they can employ more of the public sector casualties - but it really isn't fare to all the people in the country who own pets.

On Saturday night, we got back from going shopping and had three of our four dogs quivering in fear; one of them, Murray, was so panicked that I thought he'd been permanently traumatised. The shame of it is that for the last two years it hasn't been that bad; but on Saturday one of our neighbours decided to have a firework party - one whole week before Bonfire Night, the twats - and it seemed that every rocket and airborne banger went off directly overhead. It seems to me that whenever we have anything like a Tory government people seem to think they can get away with murder and if one of my pups had died from fright, I would have been calling it murder. My dogs are my kids and if I had forced next door's two boys to be subjected to two hours of something that scared the wits out of them, I'd get prosecuted.

We're a nation of animal lovers? Like fuck we are.

At least we didn't have to suffer Trick or Treaters knocking on our door last night. It might have had something to do with the sign - "All Trick or Treaters will be fed to my terrified dogs" hanging from the doorbell...

***

My MRI scan is a week tomorrow. I won't get the results back until the 17th. I am going to try and keep my health issues out of this blog for the next 17 days, even if it means not actually writing anything for the next 17 days. But, then again, I'm sure that won't disappoint many people!

Reward

I promise I'll stop talking about my health soon enough. I just thought that today's piece of poetic justice was worth mentioning...

I've been suffering, not from pain, but from the withdrawal of my artificial heroin addiction. I've been sweating, shivering and sweating and generally feeling sick (and sweaty). It's the reason why I stopped taking the pills 24 hours ago, even though I had a good idea that my body would react this way. Today, sitting here, doing the research on my last blog entry, I broke out in a cold sweat that was almost unbelievable to accept if I wasn't a first person witness to it. I watched my black T-shirt go an even darker shade of black as around my armpits, my chest and stomach area. I was amazed - as well as not very happy. It really isn't a nice sensation, but it was worth watching. it was like I'd run a marathon in my head but my body reacted like it really did do a marathon. It was so bad, the sweat was almost dripping off of my forehead.

Anyhow, that isn't the point I'm trying to make. While taking a break between When Worlds Collide and The Sarah Jane Adventures, I decided to empty the dishwasher. Nothing groundbreaking there I admit, but I did something really stupid; I left one of the cupboard doors open; so when I whirled around on my good leg, I whacked my left leg right on the edge of the open door, right on the main part of my leg - the rectus femoris muscle; the one that apart from your gluteal muscles is really important for balance and walking. This was already suffering from some muscle wastage due to the inactivity of the last 3 weeks. I effectively gave myself a massive dead leg. I expect the bruise will be well impressive. The thing is, the force I hit it with has aggravated my hip and groin again. The limp is back, even more pronounced.

I am so not fucking happy...

***

Among my SF loving buddies, there was a sense of disgruntled disbelief that Caprica, the follow up to the rebooted Battlestar Galactica had been cancelled. Many of them believed the latter to be one of best SF TV series of all time and a the prequel to be equally as good in a more soap opera rather than action adventure way. Personally, I found Caprica to be as dull as dishwater, uninspiring and above all, a series where we know how its going to end; albeit not for another 50 years.

The makers of Battlestar are obviously desperate for something as successful because they haven't given up trying to flog the franchise. They have just green lighted Battlestar: Blood & Chrome; a series set during the last days of the 1st Cylon war and focussing on a young Bill Adama (the main human in the reboot) and his rise to the top while fighting the Cylon threat.

There's just one massive problem with this series. We all know how it ends.

Now, a great idea for Battlestar that seems to have been universally overlooked is setting it ten years after the epilogue of the first show. Which, if any of you were still awake by that time, turned the attention to Earth in the current era and how electronics and robots were gaining more and more of a foothold over our every day lives. Surely, a follow up series based on this premise and extrapolating to the point where maybe archaeologists find remnants of the original settlers millions of years earlier; thus proving that mankind didn't just evolve from primitive versions of ourselves, but possibly from humanoids from other worlds and were involved in a desperate battle against man made machines; might, just might, have made for a better idea?

***

The aforementioned When Worlds Collide was remade in 2009 under a different title and thanks to the advancement of scientific knowledge with a slightly different premise; however 2012 was essentially the same film, but was over an hour longer, cost 37 times more money and was arguably not as good...

***

Boris Johnson - has he discovered his human side or is he worried that he'll be voted out of office so fast his feet will only barely skim across the scalps of the mass exodus of poor people from the city? You decide.

Mission

I've spent the last couple of hours talking with Røyrvik about this Facebook/Friends issue. It has sort of ignited my dormant journalistic instincts. It hasn't just been talking; we both spent a fair bit of time looking at the profiles of the people we don't know, who have become our 'friends' just so both parties can progress at whatever game they play.

There is one very obvious thing - the entire practice of making friends with people you don't know is irresponsible, frighteningly so. And it just isn't the people; it's the actual applications as well. While none of these on-line games actively encourage people to befriend complete strangers; it also doesn't discourage them.b Which, I suppose, is okay in many peoples' eyes and I'm sure all the games developers will be the first to say, "we don't encourage young people to make friends with strangers", which, of course, is the stock argument of any entrepreneur who is trying to make a profit from something as morally dodgy as this. I'm betting our current government would actively encourage people to make money this way, because it stops the government from having to fork out any money...

Just about every Facebook, MySpace or any other social networking application have games on them and the more of your friends playing this game the better you are rewarded. All of these games do make a point of saying that if you get more of your friends to join then you'll get more credits, a higher bonus, more chances to do this, that or the other. Obviously they fall short of telling you to befriend any Tom, Dick or Harry; but you don't need the IQ of Wayne Rooney to realise that this is actually exactly what they're doing (or suggesting).

Now, to digress slightly and turn the focus of this to Social City. It would appear the developers of this game (its the only one I can relate to in this specific fashion) seem to have got a way around this indiscriminate friend making. For starters, Playdom - the creator of this and many other games - has a Privacy Policy, a statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Developer Principals and Policies, Payment Terms, Platform Terms, an entire section on their relationship with Facebook, etc., In fact, they cover their arses so well you couldn't actually have them on anything apart from unenforceable moral grounds. Of course, most people aren't going to wade through the pages and pages of legalese; especially not a large percentage of our young and uninitiated. I mean, why do paedos target kids? Because they are considerably more trusting (and easily led) than adults...

Now, I'm not suggesting that Playdom or any of the other games developers using Networking applications are kiddie fiddlers; but they actually use a similar grooming technique. But, we'll come back to that, I need to finish showing how developers cover their arses:

On Social City, you can circumvent the need for befriending total strangers. You can buy something they call 'City Bucks', which is a form of virtual money. You can expand your cities two ways - by having a lot of friends who become your 'neighbours' or by purchasing 'land'. Obviously 'City Bucks' actually cost real money, which means that you have to send the developers your bank details. There are lots of people who do this; so Playdom are probably raking it in - trust me, I've been playing the game for about a year and I'm not obsessed with it, but I still manage to spend about 4 hours a week on it. My 'city' looks like a pathetic village compared to many other peoples' huge sprawling Metropolises. Many of these massive cities are jam packed with what Playdom call their 'special items' - buildings that can only be purchased using City Bucks; some of these special items cost hundreds of CBs and when I tell you that 25 CBs cost $4.99 and 1010 CBs cost $149.99, you can see what I mean.

If you're not leaving yourself open to potential crooks and creeps; you're throwing your perfectly good money for something that exists no where but on a server somewhere. The game, I should point out, is actually a boring version Sim City. When I say boring, I mean just that. It sort of inveigles its way into your psyche yet apart from continually expand, does nothing else. Your cities aren't even subject to aging or decay. It is, totally boring and yet it won an award this year for being one of the most popular social network games in existence. How fucking sad is that?

So, it doesn't matter if you play Social City, Bejewelled Blitz, Farmville, Texas Hold'em Poker, Farkle or any of the other games where the more friends you have on Facebook means the more bonuses you get; the developers have their arses covered and can hold their hands up, without any guilt, and say that they don't encourage the use of their games to be used in anything other than the spirit the game was originally intended. That sort of diminishes my whole point - because I can't really blame these people... Or can I?

I have 190 friends on Facebook. Of those 190, 48 of them are total strangers to me, they are people I have befriended to progress on Social City. Yet, equally, these 48 people don't know who I am and if they're anything like me they'll have me blocked from their news feed and in a little subgroup called - People I don't know. However, of these 48 people, there are at least half a dozen girls who appear to be under the age of 18; all of these 48 people, not just the girls, have full photo albums; in these albums are their entire photographic lives and some of them are quite personal. I'm not talking rude (although some are bikini or beach shots), but they are there for anyone to right click and save to their own computer.

Then there's the business of Facebook Privacy. I belong to a group of people who are concerned about this and have set my own personal privacy settings accordingly; of the 48 strangers I 'know', I have access to all their on line information; more frightening, their friends are maybe not as diligent about their privacy settings, so I can click on Person A's profile, then click on her friends list and more than 75% of these have settings that allow 'Friends of Friends' to have access to personal information and photos. In the space of 10 minutes, I had linked to a person who had put over 100 photos of a pool party attended by mainly school girls. Now, on the humorous side, this might be regarded as a number of funny or comically perverted things, but on a serious note, I could then click on the tags and I then get taken to a specific girl's info page. What it does is polarises the 6 Degrees of Separation theory.

Because Person A befriended me for her Social City advancement, I've not only got access to Person B, but persons C through to V, and also Person C1, C2, C3 etc. If you don't understand the equation I'm driving at, by knowing one person, I've managed to find out more information about her friends than I should be able to. If I was clever at deceiving people, this could allow me to do all kinds of nefarious deeds, just by faking a Facebook page and then approaching these people armed with enough relevant information for them to believe I'm nothing more harmless than a friend of Person A or B or C. Do you see what I mean? This is how young people get groomed...

Now, I have nothing specific on my Facebook page. Nothing that can be used by anyone wishing to pull a scam on me. But over 75% of the connections I looked at through my own list of friends - actual people I know as opposed to people I just befriended for the sake of a game - have details ranging from mobile phone numbers to status updates that announce such gems of information such as 'Loving the Weather here in Tenerife' while giving anyone their telephone number, announcing where they live, what school they went to, what job they do, etc. How much of a stretch of imagination does it take a dodgy geezer to find out where this person lives and burgle them? Or save their holiday snaps and create an entirely fake identity using someone else's life? Or eventually making friends with that person using a social networking game as an icebreaker; and then arranging to meet up with them somewhere a little away from the beaten track? I am more than aware that a lot of people meet their dream partner on line nowadays; I'm also pretty sure people advocating the dating qualities of the Internet don't want to make an issue out of the number of kids who are killed or abducted using the same method...

I know, it all could be really horrible. But it does happen! You read and hear about it all the time. For all of Facebook's posturing and all of these developers arse covering - it isn't safe and even if you're not bothered by it; surely the fact that your children or your friends' children use these things like we used to climb trees or play in parks must have some impact on your conscience? We've already heard about pervy men in their 40s pretending to be teenagers on Facebook. Do I need to remind you all that the last thing on these dirty old men's minds is improving their Social City property portfolio?

I'm not trying to scaremonger; I'm being realistic. If you don't know someone, you shouldn't really befriend them. Even if you don't care and you don't think you have anything to worry about; you might have friends who do care and do have information on their sites that if it was to fall into the wrong hands could have tragedy written all over them.

I'm bored. I have found that Social City has been a real boon; but I've decided that its time for me to call it a day with it. I think its dangerous. I know that people who I don't know can look at my friends list and click on my 10 year old great niece's photo and get all of her info and possibly all of her friends' info. I don't want that on my conscience. Do you?

Pornography

I face a dilemma. I'm going to have to stop taking the Oxycodone. I would appear that I am suffering from every single possible side effect connected with them and to be honest I think I'd rather be in pain than go through some of the fucking weird and wonderful shit that accompanies this opiate.

In a nutshell - itching, constipation, dry skin, bad taste in my mouth, listlessness, bad temper, insomnia, red eyes, lack of sensitivity, loss of sex drive (not that I could do anything about it with my back, but it just adds to the list). In fact, I put a big fat tick next to every single one listed apart from heavy periods (you can go figure that one out yourself).

So, I'm reverting back to the co-codamol, naprosyn and ibuprofen concoction. I also think that my back/groin/hip has eased off sufficiently for me to ease off on the powerful 'controlled substance'. I mean, the wife has to show her ID whenever she picks up the prescription.

Yes, if the pain returns with a vengeance I might have to go back on them, but I'm going to take that gamble...

***

I watched The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and 20 Million Miles to Earth today. I strongly recommend you don't. At least X the Unknown had a quirkyness about it. 20 Million was just misogyny at its worst and 20,000 was just poor.

Tomorrow, I have two from Them! When Worlds Collide, The Day The Earth Stood Still and Earth Versus Flying Saucers. I'm hoping that at least two of them are as good as i remember them to be. I know one is a classic, but the other 3?

***

My ex-boss and work colleague Wilky came over to see me today (he's the one who said if all the cuts come into play we'll see a return to the workhouse and debtors' prisons - I showed him Steve Bell in the Guardian today; he must have felt like a prophet!). It was good to hear what's been going on since I've been off work - not a lot by the sounds of things. He also brought me that new Orb and David Gilmour CD. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a load of shit, especially as he rates it...

***

I have to admit that I've spent a lot of my time playing a Facebook application game called Social City. I always swore I'd never get sucked into this kind of ridiculous and frankly unsafe type of thing that eventually means that to progress you have to make 'friends' with total strangers because your own friends are sensible enough not to get involved. It isn't just Social City. Farmville is the most popular game of this kind on Facebook and at least two of my nieces play it. They need more neighbours to play and progress and they don't have enough of their friends that play it; so this means, like many thousands of other people, they post "Add Me" on the Farmville homepage; inviting total strangers to befriend them and therefore allowing these strangers access to their personal information, photographs, etc. This is a bit wrong, don't you think?

My mate Røyrvik posted the following (after he had an attempted scam pulled on him) on the game's website tonight and feels that more people should take note:

Jijankata Kane is a fraud and a scammer. He or she does not play Social City, yet is fishing for people to add him or her claiming to have cheats, ways of making extra cash, etc. Some of the links posted on his/her page take you to outside web pages with no controls on them.

This really proves that Social City developers have no conscience - there are kids under 18 playing this game who are having to make 'friends' with all kinds unknown people to be able to progress in the game. This is dangerous. Does a kid have to be groomed and possibly abducted or murdered before games developers realise that it is dangerous forcing people to make 'friends' with strangers just so they can advance in their games? Social City and other developers need to come up with a safer way (that doesn't involve real money) for people to progress!

I totally agree and support him! I mean, think about it, if there really are 400 million users on Facebook, then a percentage of them are going to be crooks, hackers, paedophiles, rapists or murderers. If your kid is on Facebook, do you know what information they're sharing with strangers?