Wednesday, June 30, 2004

One of the most frightening aspects of Caleb, series 7's misogynist priest, was his distinct resemblance to Tony, Neil Morrissey's character in Men Behaving Badly. It was as if we were seeing Tony's true self, what he would be like if he had the opportunity to behave badly on a grander scale than just stalking Debs.

I'll tell you where MBB went wrong. It was in the series written after Leslie Ash and Caroline Quentin had successfully agitated for the same pay as Martin Clunes and Neil Morrissey. In order to justify paying the actors the extra cash, Simon Nye had to give Deborah and Dorothy equal prominence as characters, and they were just not intrinsically funny in the way Gary and Tony were - because they weren't as fucked up.

Friday, June 18, 2004


Dear Abby,
A long time ago me and my brothers rebelled against the Valar and went back to Middle-earth with Fëanor. Since then I've been beset with ill-fortune. All my brothers have been killed, particularly the youngest, of whom I was especially fond.

Now I very much regret what we did. Should I try and let go?
G., Cerin Amroth

Dear Galadriel,
Yes. Don't look back in Aegnor.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

I discover that one reason why so many of the forced postal votes were ruled invalid was that the papers have to be witnessed. I can't think of anything more likely to put me off voting than having to trail round to get confirmation of identity. Unless it's the idea that the names of the witnesses would be a way of identifying the person who cast the ballot.