SAD revisited

As Peter asked, so shall I tell. Yes, the SAD has eased off a fair amount recently. The days are getting longer – although they’re still horrifically grey and unpleasant at the moment. But still, the increase in daylight is perceptible, and it’s helping. Over the weekend I didn’t need to put the lights on ’til gone 5pm, and now the sun is rising between 7.30 and 8am, which is beginning to make mornings a tad easier too. No bad thing at all.

Of course, it’s still not completely gone – that’ll happen in around March or so. But for now it’s getting better, the depression is easing off, and that’ll do me.

As always, there are good days and bad days – but there’s more of the former, and less of the latter. I still want to batter the twadge who told me it was easier to deal with SAD if I stayed busy – but fortunately for the aforementioned twadge, I can’t remember who told me. When I do, though…

Bizarre

I love a good bizarre story, and the one today about the American Airlines pilot who wanted Christians and non-Christians to talk about their religions is definitely one out of the cracker barrel. Or, more accurately the “completely crackers” barrel. But all the same, it’s a good sign that the “religious” keffwits aren’t only sitting in passenger’s seats.

Don’t make me laugh

A report has been issued saying that the UK needs high-speed rail links. Supposedly, we should have a network for trains capable of up to 200mph. My favourite quote is :

A report from the commission warns that existing intercity routes will run out of capacity by 2015, forcing rail companies to price passengers off trains and onto already overcrowded roads.

Honey, that’s not going to wait ’til 2015 to happen, the buggers have been doing it for years.

And quite honestly, I think there’s rather more chance that we can all be commuting via the new medium of flying pig than by high-speed rail. My experiences this weekend yet again show that we can hardly manage a service that runs at 60mph, let alone something three times that speed. In fact, mastering teleportation has more probablilty than a high-speed rail link.

Sick joke

Two sharks were swimming off the sea in Newquay.

“I’m bored of surf’n’turf, let’s go to Morecambe for a chinese.

*Gets coat, and exits stage left*

Feh

Do you ever have one of those days where your motivation is actually well into the negative figures? Where you don’t want to do much, and normally there’s a shedload of stuff waiting in the wings, needing to happen, and/or be done?

Yes, today is one of those days. I’m on a train down to Reading this afternoon/evening, and there’s a load of things I could/should be doing during the journey. However, I think that at least some of it is going to go on hold while I read “Be My Enemy“, (aka “Fuck this for a game of soldiers“, according to the first page) the new novel by Christopher Brookmyre.

Ah well, we’ll see. Also, the site may not be updated as much this weekend, depending on how online I can be bothered to go…

Angels in America

While I’m on the subject of Channel 4, and things that should be worth recording, they’re showing “Angels in America” over the weekend. I’ve no idea if it will be as good as it promises to be, but it’s certainly got a noteworthy pedigree. Originally written by Tony Kushner as a stage play, and adapted by him for television. Directed by Mike Nichols (who has previously done films including Primary Colo(u)rs and The Graudate (among many others)).

The cast is pretty stellar too – Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Simon Callow (who I’d just typed as Simon Cowell – damn my brain) and even Maurice Sendak (not a star per se, but hell, he wrote “Where the Wild Things Are” – that makes him stellar in my book *Grin*)

The basic premise of it doesn’t sound overly cheery – primarily, it’s based around people with AIDS in New York, but the plotlines give it some chance to be interesting. Based partly on the story of the lawyer Roy Cohn, who died of AIDS in ’86, all the time denying even his homosexuality, it also deals with sexuality, politics, and death. Newsweek described it as

“Daring and Dazzling! The most ambitious American play of our time: an epic that ranges from earth to heaven; focuses on politics, sex and religion; transports us to Washington, the Kremlin, the South Bronx, Salt Lake City and Antarctica; deals with Jews, Mormons, WASPs, blacks; switches between realism and fantasy, from the tragedy of AIDS to the camp comedy of drag queens to the death or at least the absconding of God.”

As I said, I’ve no idea if it will be as good as it promises to be, but I think it’ll be worth taping at least. Oh, and it’s bloody huge – 7 hours in all – so set it on long play. And if TiVo fucks me about on this, it’ll get reprogrammed with a very large hammer…

Channel of Preference

Looking at what TiVo’s recording for me over the next two weeks, I discovered that at the moment everything I watch/record is on either Channel 4 or Five. Nothing from BBC or ITV at all.

Now – remind me why I pay for a TV licence?

UPDATED : OK, Pat came up with a reason I can’t fight – the BBC website. And I should point out (again) that it’s just a personal perspective. I agree, there are loads of good things about the BBC – it’s just that recently I haven’t used any of ’em (other than the website). Everything I’ve been watching has been on C4 and C5, simple as that.