PIDU : Missing the Main Attraction
Posted: Mon 8 May, 2017 Filed under: 1BEM, Cinema, Gigs, I Don't Understand, London, People, Seeing Films, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »[PIDU = People I Don’t Understand]
There are many, many types of people I don’t understand – or at least whose thought processes are beyond me. That’s the theme of the PIDU posts (as mentioned here, although I’ll probably repeat this a few times) and may also become a bit of a throwback to the rants of yore. It may also just fade out. We’ll see.
Anyway, one of the many things that are beyond me are the people who turn up for a concert – indeed, a performance of any kind, really – or a film, and then keep on going out, or chatting, or really doing anything that doesn’t involve focusing on that main act.
In the cinema, it boggles my mind. People will rock up late, when the film’s already started. They’ll sit for a bit, eat their sodding popcorn, slurp their bastard drinks, and before you know it, they’ve got to go to the toilet. (I assume. They never come back having purchased more food or drink, anyway) Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people, that they can’t manage to control their bladders for a couple of hours so they can sit and watch a film they’ve paid good money to see? Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever had to walk out of a film in order to have a slash. Even in the five-ish hour Alien/Prometheus double-bill the other week.
I get it, some people have bladder issues, or continence issues, and there are other complaints along the way. But I haven’t been to a film in years where no-one walks out at some point in the showing, and then comes back. Yes, those issues exist, but a) so do preventive measures and things to cater for those issues, and b) I truly don’t believe that the issues are so prevalent that it affects that many people in Milton Keynes.
And then, of course, we get to the fuckknuckles who go to concerts and performances, and chat to their mates all the way through – a lot of the time barely even looking at the stage. If they are looking, these self-absorbed vacuous twatwoggles are filming the performance/act on their bastard phones and tables, and screwing things up for everyone behind them.
What’s the point? Why would you pay £20-50 per head to go to a concert and then not bother watching/listening? If all you want to do is drink beer and talk bollocks, you might as well save the ticket money, and fuck off to the pub. Let more people in that want to see the actual gig, rather than making them listen to your braying laugh and piss-awful “banter”. (speaking of which, anyone who uses the word “banter” or “bantz/bants” to describe their interactions with friends is a fuckwitted jizzwizard by definition) Just cock off and spend your money on lukewarm piss at a Wetherspoons round the corner.
At some point, it’s all going to annoy me enough that I walk up to one of these spaffbuckles and just ask what went through their minds, why they decided to go to a gig and then ignore it all, and just chat. It’s happened before, and all I got in return was a look of blank incomprehension (I’m pretty sure it was their default expression, in fairness) but it fascinates me, I want to know why they’ve decided that those actions are a good plan.
Maybe one day I’ll find out. But I can’t see it being any time soon, because those doing it don’t have the introspection or self-awareness to be able to explain those processes.
Five
Posted: Fri 5 May, 2017 Filed under: 2016/17, A428, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, M1, Milton Keynes, Rebuilding, Single Life, The Future, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Amazingly, I’ve been in the current house for five years today. How time flies when you’re having fun, and all that piss.
As it stands, this is now the longest I’ve been in any one place since I moved out of the parental home. It’s certainly not my “forever” place (whatever the hell that means) but it does suit me for the moment – and even admitting that feels kind of weird.
There are two significant reasons why I’m more settled here than pretty much anywhere else I’ve lived…
- The location. To coin a cliche, it’s easy to get away from (as I’ve said before) with the M1 for North-South travel, and the A421 for East-West, both within easy reach. It gives me plenty of options, and lets me be away from here on a regular basis while still having somewhere that’s easy to come back to. Compared to (for example) living in Norfolk and Suffolk where it was an hour to get out of the damn county – or onto decent dual carriageway – and this is just easy. Because of that, I’m not keeping on thinking about where would suit me better.
- The finances. While I’m doing a lot better now, and could easily fund a move, it’s more about the credit-checking and so on that would go with any new tenancy. At the moment, I’d likely faily it (or at the least it would cause problems) so it’s easier to stay here. That wouldn’t stop me from moving if I really wanted to – but because of Reason One, that’s not currently the case. And without an urgency to it, why cause myself more problems or hassle than I need to?
As things stand, my tenancies expire in November – because the first tenancy was just six months, and then they’ve extended as 12-month ones. The bankruptcy comes off my record in August 2018. Unless things change radically in the meantime, I think I’ll be here ’til then, and from there I’ll see how I go. So the odds are, another 18 months here, and who knows after that?
Landlords And The Like
Posted: Wed 26 April, 2017 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »When I wrote last week about visits from my Landlord, it made me think a bit about bad landlords and the like.
I’ve rented houses for the great majority of my life since leaving home. Indeed the only real exception was the Norfolk place. All told, I’ve probably rented places for twenty years. And in that time, I’ve not had any seriously bad experiences with landlords or letting agencies.
At the same time, I’ve got friends and connections who have had nothing but bad experiences, and there are umpteen ‘reality’ (or semi-documentary) programmes on TV about nightmare tenants, landlords etc.
I really can’t decide whether I’ve been incredibly lucky, or that they’ve been incredibly unlucky. The other option (and the one I’m more likely to lean towards) is that a lot of it comes down to the people involved. I get twitchy when anyone always has issues with others, and it’s always ‘their’ fault.
For example, I had a manager years ago who bragged about how he’d got through 30-odd deputies in three years, making out that none of them were good enough or up to his standards. That’s where I started really considering the whole “common factors” thing – if thirty people aren’t good enough for him, I’m guessing that the problem isn’t with the thirty.
I feel the same with those people’s landlord issues – there’s a commonality to the stories, to the complaints, and it all got to be a bit “Yeah, the problem is likely not the ten landlords”. I could be wrong – I could just be hugely lucky, and the massive majority of landlords are dickheads. But that’s not been my experience.
The same “common factor” could apply on the positive side as well – I try to not be a fuckknuckle (and I’m usually fairly successful) which might mean I just don’t trigger shit reactions from landlords. I don’t know.
Regardless, I hope I continue to be lucky in having decent landlords.
Outlining
Posted: Fri 14 April, 2017 Filed under: 2016/17, Creativity, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Ideas, Thoughts, Write More, Writing Leave a comment »At the moment, I’ve got several writing plans/projects in my head, but two that are really standing out, and that I want to work on. And already that’s a fair dollop of progress.
For now though, I’m trying something a bit different – I don’t yet know if it’ll work out, but so far it appears to be doing OK.
Basically, rather than just writing and seeing how things develop, I’m taking some time first to outline it all, so I know what the plan is, where characters will go, and how everything interacts. It’s also interesting, from the perspective of figuring out more about how my brain processes these things.
The only thing that concerns me currently about this process is that I know how I am, that once I’ve written something down or otherwise got it out of my head I’ll forget all about the details, and there’ll be something else to grab my attention instead. Oooh, shiny.
So it may be that doing these outlines is as far as I go on these ideas. Or it may be that the outlines gel everything together so that I know what I’m doing, and then just want to get it done.
And only time will tell which of those options will happen. Which is kind of cool, and kind of frustrating…
Slight Demoralisation
Posted: Thu 13 April, 2017 Filed under: 2016/17, 2017 Inspirations, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Media, Television, The Future, Thoughts, Writing Leave a comment »Over the last couple of weeks, one of the satellite TV channels has been repeating one of my all-time favourite series, “The Closer“, and I’ve been recording and re-watching them. In some episodes it shows its age (it first went out in 2005) with the technology, phones etc., but that’s pretty much to be expected now.
Right from the start I liked it, each episode contained all the clues and ideas needed to solve the crimes, which raised it above an awful lot of the procedural dramas around. It was intelligent in a number of ways, but there was also a focus on personalities, clashes, and idiosyncracies.
I was well into it anyway, and then the last three episodes of the first season hooked me completely. I won’t go into the details, but the final episode of Season One has the best apology ever seen on TV, and it still makes me laugh, even knowing it was coming.
However, it also has a bit of a downside. The writing is so sharp, the characterisation so good (in my opinion, naturally) that I watch it – and a couple of other things, particularly “The West Wing” – and just find myself thinking that I’ll never be able to write like that.
I’m going to damn well try, don’t get me wrong, but yeah, it still makes me a bit demoralised about the whole thing. Fun and games.