What the Housewives don't tell you

I gave Desperate Housewives a try, even though I suspected that as American TV imports go it would be more Six Feet Under than Sopranos. I was wrong, in so far as it didn't even have the superficial appearance of depth. This was the later seasons of Sex and the City, after it stopped being fun, pushed ten years into the future. And then in the first ad break, what's the second ad? Some new cream which will let you "take back ten years".

For all that I hate Tony Blair, I don't think he was wrong to stay on holiday when the tsunami news came in. That's what holidays *are*. The idea that one should race back to the office if the Job demands it places a pernicious primacy on Job over Person. And it's not as if he's some form of divine leader whose special powers would have significantly improved the situation, is it? He'd have been in the office just for the sake of being seen to be in the office, as too many of us are, too much of the time.

I'm still catching up with events from the period of my absence, such as Grant Morrison's forthcoming Superman comic. It need hardly be said that I am very excited about this, but in particular I really do think that if any artist can make the Superman/Clark Kent transition plausible, it's Frank Quitely.

Spent barely more than £30 between the Virgin and HMV sales last night. I fear I may finally be learning to live within my means.

If I combine the first line of each month's entry into a post, I sound even more cliched than usual!

Well that rather threw me. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is wait for all the other little LJtags to update and let people get the story from your friendslist.
When you're watching prebuscent rockabillies cover 'Folsom Prison Blues' and 'Tutti Frutti' as a blizzard rages outside, you know Something Is Amiss. Last night's Alan Clark featured an emblematic sequence where, after repeatedly saying "I won't back down on this one", Alan tore up his anti-fur bill because it was either that or the backbenches. Walking up the Parkland Walk at twilight on Beltane, there wasn't a soul about.

"Broad-minded as you are in many ways, Florian, you are a romantic; and I have never known you to break your given word or to voice any purely utilitarian lie. You are positively queer about that."

Stayed late at work last night responding to mail from irate communists over this week's listings. Hampstead Heath is very much how I imagine Arcadia. Why had I never heard of The Doom Generation?

Clubs are not works of art. On Thursday I realised I hadn't had a Cool, Crisp Pint for a full week - a situation soon remedied with the aid of the V. Last night was meant to be a send-off for how_i_lie but after an enigmatic cancellation, I found myself watching Bertolucci's The Dreamers instead.

Flashback: January 1-2, 2005

Unusually, I have an actual plan for New Year's Day, rather than the impromptu post-mortem activities the date normally favours. I have been invited to see Ealing horror anthology Dead of Night at the NFT. Apparently, the invitation was extended to me because I seemed the most suitable companion for a film which was at once spooky and terribly English. If my friends persist in such innovative compliments, 2005 will go well.
I often read articles about films that are on at the NFT, think they sound interesting, and then totally fail to go. I am glad that on this occasion someone else took the initiative, because it's a marvellous film. I doubt that even at the time it would have given anyone sleepless nights, and when they rely on special effects it all collapses horribly, but it has the same just-about-plausible hyper-Englishness for which Ealing are famed, and is most effectively eerie.
The segment which I feel most viscerally is the one by Robert Hamer, who also directed Kind Hearts and Coronets. It concerns the purchase of a second-hand item in Chichester which is still possessed by the spirit of its previous owner. Now, as my entry for December 24th shows, on that day I went shopping in Chichester for the first time, and bought a second hand item.
What's worse: that segment of the film stars Googie Withers. Later in life, she was in a film with my Dad - and it was my parents with whom I was in Chichester.
However, while the film shows exactly how a mirror might be possessed, I've yet to work out any viable way to possess a Zodiac Mindwarp album, so I think I'm safe.

After the film we look at the Thames and talk about death, waves and the pioneering racial harmony of Captain Scarlet.

The next day is less cerebral; finally catch up with the little sister at a Stoke Newington pub which commendably offers two ciders. Return to her crashpad for carrot & coriander soup (mmmm) via the deer of Cl1tor1s Park. Head home for the last of Oz and then out again to meet the usual suspects that we might fill in each other's gaps as to exactly what happened on New Year's Eve. Then back to Caledonian Road where I finally taste Jaegermeister. Not a bad start to the year, all told.