Pretending they're essentially alive

[alexsarll]

I know it's a truism that hangovers get worse as one ages, but my problem is that I only get them after not drinking. In connection with which, according to last night's news the Office of Fair Trading has issued guidance on minimum drinks prices. Funny - I always thought the OFT was meant to break up cartels, rather than found them. Oh, and that suggested Labour poster which shows Michael Howard as a hypnotist? Apparently it shows him as a "Shylock figure". It reminded me more of Kenny Craig.

As I recall, Whatever Happened To Harold Smith? was marketed as one of those loveably eccentric English retro comedies. I was expecting something a bit like East is East (except hopefully less sh1t, because this had Stephen Fry in it). But it was so much more than that. This was Scanners played for whimsy, or Oedipus at Colonus sponsored by Hovis. Too few films, even superhero films, deal with apotheosis; this one managed to deal with that, and the tensions between disco and punk, and a boy becoming a man, all in about 90 minutes. Plus it had a cameo by Keith Chegwin. And Stephen Fry's sanctimonious, tiny-c0cked lecturer character is called Peter Robinson, which should amuse some people I know.
(I taped it from ITV, and one of the ad breaks contained only trailers for other ITV shows. Is that normal these days?)

As I rewound the tape, Channel 4 were showing something about women with difficulty achieving org@sm, and a scientist who hoped to treat them by installing some kind of electrode arrangement under the skin at the base of the spine. At no stage in the 10 minutes or so that I watched was the term 'sexborg' used. What a missed opportunity.

[Poll #433402]

I suspect today will be much less interesting than last Mardi Gras.

edit: Could all the deviants voting for twenty-oh-five please explain themselves?

Comments

tiny-cOcked Peter Robinson

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

You know me too well :)

[papamoomin.livejournal.com]

Anybody answering twenty oh-five is incredibly wrong.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, this was what I thought. I can vaguely understand 'Twenty-ten' for five years' time, but the newsreader referred back to 'Twenty-oh-one'. What the blazes? Did anyone ever see Twenty-oh-one: a Space Odyssey?

[papamoomin.livejournal.com]

It just sounds too unwieldy to me. It sounds like an american thing to me...

[johnnybrolly.livejournal.com]

Yes, but "two-thousand and five" will only be b@stardised to "Two-thousand five".

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've never heard anyone use that version.

[big-trend.livejournal.com]

that suggested Labour poster which shows Michael Howard as a hypnotist? Apparently it shows him as a "Shylock figure"
What is this?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I can't seem to find a picture of it online. It was part of the same series of possible posters as the flying pigs - it had Michael Howard swinging a pendulum and "I can spend the same money twice" in what I assume is intended as a 'spooky' font.

[big-trend.livejournal.com]

And who compared the portrayal to Shylock? Was it Labour/the ad agency or is that just a commentator's view? I take it it hasn't been given the go-ahead? It is outrageous anyway.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I think the article I read about it claimed he was being portrayed as a "Fagin". I think it must be that if you mention a man of Jewish origin and money in the same breath it's a RACIAL SLUR.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I am technically Jewish. If anyone wishes to portray me as wallowing in money they're more than welcome, so long as I get to keep the money.

[violentbec.livejournal.com]

yeah wot's this pancake stuff aboot? today is fat tuesday my friend and tomorrow is for walking around with a hugeass ash cross on yer forehead, because fr don likes to make his crosses MASSIVE and then not washing properly till it comes off ere you BURRRRN!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Things really haven't changed much round your way since Wisconsin Death Trip, have they?

[violentbec.livejournal.com]

you know, i've never actually seen that all the way through.

i have copied my cafflick zine for you, btw.

[jamesward.livejournal.com]

I only saw a bit of that Orgasmatron programme, and it was where they showed the operation. They keep the patients awake so they can talk about what sensations they are having. So instead of a normal medical examination, where the doctor says "Does it hurt here? What about here? Can you move this at all?", the doctor with the Orgasmatron must say "How does that feel? You like that? Yeah, does that feel good? Yeah, you like that don't you? Yeah, you love it"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It did all come across a bit like a misjudged comedy, and was worryingly close to some of the stuff on the subsequent episode of Look Around You.

[innerbrat]

I know it will be. But at least I may get some sleep tonight.

Also, this whole "sex cure" sham get sme angry because it makes women feel like they're abnormal if they don't have multiple orgasms at the drop of a hat.

*mutters*

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They did have someone on at the end suggesting that looking for a one-size-fits-all medical/technical cure might not be best idea when the causes and varieties of the problem were still so poorly understood.
You could see with the test subjects that some of them were really chuffed with the procedure, while others were feeling absolutely wretched because they *still* hadn't managed it. I suspect he should perhaps have screened his patients more thoroughly.

from a self confessed ice maiden...

[violentbec.livejournal.com]

...thank you!!!!

[tiny-tear.livejournal.com]

I agree... the orgasm is veeery nice, but the getting there or trying to is lovely as well

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Isn't the middle 8 MENTALISM fantastic? Hope you liked the rest of the cd!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm only up to Annie (with which I confess I'm not yet as impressed as I'd expected to be), but otherwise it is all Top Stuff. Though bizarrely, I do already have 'Fred vom Jupiter'. Imagine how much it would hurt one's throat to vom Jupiter!

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

I have thought about my reason for deviation and it is...
Consistency, why on earth suddenly change the rules for the sake of a decade or so? It's been 2 digit number - 2 digit number since before Harold got one in the eye...why get all precious because of a Kubrick film? It's not 'In the year Two thousand five hundred and twenty-five' and we're not the French - it takes them half an hour to say 1999. Dix neuf cent quatre-vingt dix neuf, I ask you. 'Twenty oh-five' sounds ridiculous, I'll admit but this decade was always going to be troublesome. We still haven't officially named it and we're halfway through it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The decade thing does still bug me at times. It's not been quite fun enough to be the Noughties or quite goth enough to be the Zeroes.

And yes, it does need a reason to change the rules - but 2000AD is reason enough. Anyway, I've admitted that it'll be different next decade - would you really say ten-oh-five rather than one thousand and five?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

It hardly goes all the way back to Mr Godwinson. People alive in 1900 called it nineteen-hundred, not nineteen-oh-oh. Admittedly that probably lasted for all of one year, but the point still stands.