Shopping in the festering season

This was going to be my next rant in the festive session, but looks like Vicky has beaten me to it. Then again, I may still write it anyway.

The Shield

Right since The Shield started showing on Five it’s caused me almost a moral problem. It’s been exceptionally hard to empathise with the characters, particularly the main one, Vic Mackey, a spectacularly amoral police office for whom the end always justifies the means.

In the first episode, Mackey shot and killed a colleague who was preparing to accuse them of illegal arrests etc. – an event that very much set up the moral attitude for the entire series. Throughout it we’ve had illegal searches, violence, and more nasty corruption bits than I can remember seeing on TV in a long time.

Tonight was the end of season one, and it’s been stunning. All through the series I’ve finished watching an episode, and wondered if I’ll bother with next weeks – it’s not often a TV programme can make you feel like washing oyur hands afterwards, but The Shield has consistently managed that feat too. But each week I’ve gone back to it, and also wanted to see how the stories develop, what’ll happen to these characters.

And now season 2 won’t be on until sometime in 2003, and already I’m wondering how things will progress.

So when it comes back to Five, yes, I’ll be there and watching, even when it leaves me thinking “that’s vile, why do I watch it?”

Think of the children, indeed

Much as I understand some of the fear about paedophiles etc., there is such a thing as hysteria too. Banning all photos, cameras and camcorders from school nativity plays is pretty much the definition of hysteria. At the end of the day, it’s just as easy for someone of that ilk to go and get a catalogue from Argos Additions, or Littlewoods, Kays or any of the other home shopping companies.

But do they get banned, or castigated? Hell no – because they’re convenient.

Yesterday was a bad day

Obviously spending the day in the temple of the gods of retail and materialism (AKA the city centre) yesterday had a bad effect on me. Some of it is detailed in this mini-rant about the day. Must remember to update the umbrella campaign too.

RIP Mog

I can’t believe that Mog has finally died. I remember reading Mog books, and OK, the cat has been going for years now, but all the same – dead? That’s a bit scary – Mog was born the same year I was. You just don’t expect cultural icons to peg it.

The rest of the series is also still available.

Then again, I also can’t believe that the price for this last one is £9.99 – that’s another way of showing my age, remembering that they started off at about 50p.

Tis the season to be a vigilante

Ah, the festering season. A time of drunkenness, office parties, illicit snogs under the mistletoe or on top of the photocopier, and to grass up your pissed mates who are driving home afterwards. A £500 reward? Sounds like a perfect example of “stitch your enemy”, coupled with “How to make a profit from your office party”.

Skiving

As the inimitable Green Fairy also comments today, the story on the BBC about children not understanding the meaning of the word ‘truancy’ is really quite stunning. Of course, I personally object to someone griping about the dumbing down of “truancy” to “bunking off” (a few years ago it was “skiving”, but that now seems even more outmoded than “truancy”) then uses “kids” instead of “children”.

Sorry, but I despise the use of the word “kids” in the media to describe children. Kids are juvenile goats. (OK, maybe he does have a point…) The word has insidiously crept into common usage, and it’s simply bloody wrong.

As for children not understanding the word “truancy”, perhaps it’s a way to persuade people that education should be taking a little bit more seriously by the skiving little bastards. Of course, it won’t be, because most of the parents who were with the children doing shopping and so on were actually “off sick” from work to do the shopping in the first place.

I wonder if the “bunkers off” of today will be “pulling sickies” in five-ten years time? Hardly a piece of rocket science guesswork, is it?