Floating down to Camelot

I watched the first episode of Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds last night. It was all about those things that happen too fast for the human eye to see, and it showed slowed-down footage of various things - exploding spores, flying bees, swimming dolphins etc. - to show what was really happening. I found it all very interesting, and there were some really arresting images.

However, if I'd received a pound whenever he said something along the lines of, "We can't see what's happening because it's too fast for the human eye to see. Only by slowing it down can we understand it," I would be rich by now - especially if I had a bonus pay-out whenever he said Invisible Worlds, in capitals, as part of this. Yes, Richard, we do understand the point of this episode. It would be hard not to, given that you've said it 59 times already in the last hour.

At least it didn't make me want to throw things at the screen, which many modern factual TV shows do. You get the first five minutes wasted on an extended trailer of forthcoming attractions, with the presenter getting ever more excited as the music swells. You get the presenter pretending to be a total idiot, as he and the viewer go on a "journey" together to "discover" the answer to some question or other. You get the presenter raving about some wonderful sight, only for the camera to whiz around so fast that you can't look at it, or else to spend the whole time focusing on a close-up of the presenter's face as he speaks about how moved the sight makes him. You get "amazing discoveries" of things that have actually been known for years, and you get minority opinions expressed as fact - something I notice in history programmes about periods I know about, and which therefore makes me sceptical of anything they tell me in programmes about things I don't know about.

I did rather enjoy the recent BBC series on geology, though, since all the jet-setting and dramatic stunts did at least serve to demonstrate valid points. I've only seen a bit of the new Solar System series on Sunday evenings, but I liked most of that, too. At least the presenter didn't pretend to be an idiot, and explained things to us, rather than standing there nodding like a fool while some "expert" explained things to him. I was, however, rather distracted by the fact that he popped up in all the four corners of the earth while still wearing the same t-shirt.

Grr! Every time I do Wii Fit, I end up snarling. Now, I know that there are far more worthy ways to get fit than to use Wii Fit, but the concept suits me well. I can do it inside - good on this rainy days - and I can do it in a short burst while dinner is cooking. Since I'm a person who will do absolutely anything to earn five shiny gold stars, that aspect of it all is good for me, too. (Or somewhat good for me, anyway, in that I will work obsessively on an exercise until I get five stars, and then lose interest in it completely until Pellinor kicks me off the top of the high score table, in which I suddenly feel the urge to exercise in that way again.)

However, although much of it is good, it is also so very annoying. It talks to me all the time. Now, I am an impatient person when it comes to computer games. I'm the sort of person who likes to skip cut scenes and get on with the killing. I therefore find it very annoying when I want to do a 1 minute yoga exercise, and first have to sit through my "trainer" waffling on about how he was up late last night and giving me an unasked-for tip about sleep patterns, and then, when I've finished, to sit through a lengthy speech which is exactly the same as it was the previous 67 times I did this exercise. To clock 30 minutes of exercise, you have to play the thing for nearly an hour. (Although Wii Fit Plus does improve on this, since you can string together exercises into a routine, which is free from waffle.)

I also get very annoyed when it tells me off. Weight can fluctuate by several pounds a day, depending on what you've recently eaten, or even on what you ate yesterday, since some foods cause your body to cling onto fluids, which can temporarily boost your weight by a pound or two. If your weight is one pound heavier than it was the day before, it does not mean that you have "put on one pound," yet the horrid machine shouts at you and interrogates you about your awful habits that might have caused this weight gain.

In fact, it seems to tell you off no matter what you do. I was once told off for missing a day of exercise, and then immediately told off for exercising too hard and not taking a break. I did a half hour exercise routine in which every single exercise earned me comments about how wonderful I was, only for the final comment to be something along the lines of "that was pathetic. Unless your posture is great you can't be beautiful."

1. Non-fiction books with no page numbers. Children's non-fiction books always have a contents page and an index, even when the book is aimed at 5 year olds and has only a few sentences a page. This is so children can learn how to use such things, and is all well and good. However, today I was faced with a request from a teacher who had decided to do a topic that isn't on the curriculum, but still expected a box full of books on it. (This is yet another grr-some thing.) Since it wasn't on the curriculum, there were precisely NO children's books on it, but I thought there was a possibility that I might get odd paragraphs here and there in books on broader topics. This required searching in about a hundred books. The topic in question was indeed mentioned in the index of a few of them, but in several cases, there book didn't actually contain page numbers. Or, rather, the number for page 1 appeared at the top left, the number pages 2, 3, 4 and 5 were missing, 6 had its number lurking at the bottom right, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 were missing... and so on. Very, very annoying.

2. Blurbs that ruin the entire plot. I also had to search for children's novels about a particular topic, and I found a likely-looking candidate. However, the blurb was a complete summary of the entire book, even including words along the lines of "until it reaches an exciting conclusion, in which..." This happens far too often. I've read several books in which the shock revelation that happened on page 500 had been totally ruined by the blurb. Why do they do it? I know that writing blurbs is hard; it's something I always find very difficult when posting my own fanfic. You don't want to spoil major plot twists, but neither do you want to say so little that the reader has no idea what the book is about. But, still, summarising the entire book, even including the final chapter. Why?

3. Public toilets with automatic hand-washing units. I went to some public toilets today that had 6 cubicles, but only two hand-washing units. When you put your hands in, you got blasted with a ridiculous amount of soap - soap that made my hands itch for hours afterwards. Then you get what felt like a bath-load of warm water, and many seconds later, you got a very long blast of hot air. The whole cycle lasted a lot longer than the average toilet visit, so the result was a long queue for hand-washing, even though there was no queue for the toilets. The person in front of me walked off without drying their hands, but I still had to stand there for what felt like a good minute while it finished its cycle, before I could start washing my hands. Grr!

*insert predicatable rant about much-ranted-about topic here*

EDIT: There was actually a real rant here. I spent the entire drive home over lunch writing it in my head, before becoming almost certain that I'd posted something very similar in the past. I was going to rant away anyway, in shortened form, but ended up with barely a minute in which I could post.

While most of the comments in this article are doubtless tongue in cheek, it still leaves me fuming in righteous indignation. I doubt that reputable journalists would get away with writing things like "men have always known that women are a bit of a waste of space" nowadays, but apparently it's quite okay for women to say such things about men. (Would fume in more detail, but work calls.)

Totally unrelated: The Google Street View camera had its lunch in our work car park today...

EDIT: And also totally unrelated: This may well be common knowledge, but it's new to me. If anyone has any forthcoming railway journeys in the Southern Railways region, tomorrow is the day to buy the ticketd, since they're offering 90 percent off tickets booked in advance. (Or "advanced tickets", as the picture shows, although they look pretty basic to me.) I've not read the small print yet, though, so there may well be millions of exceptions.

Today's rant is about food that gives a long description on the packet of its contents, and then proceeds to hit you with the overwhelming taste of something that hasn't been mentioned. Today, for example, I had a Sainsbury's Taste the Difference chicken soup. The blurb went on at great length about the happiness of the chickens, and the wonderfulness of the cream. When I came to eat it, the only thing it tasted of was onions. When I checked the ingredients, I saw that onions were the second ingredient, above cream (12 percent) and chicken (6 percent), but they weren't mentioned anywhere in the verbal description on the front. In "Taste the Difference chicken soup" presumably the said "difference" is that it doesn't taste of chicken.

I do actually like onions, so the soup was okay, but a few months ago I had some "chorizo and tomato" soup which was so thick with crunchy beans that I couldn't bear to eat it. Again, no mention of beans in its description. I've had the same happen with sandwiches, which have had a veritable essay on the front about their contents, but fail to mention the actual main ingredient.

Yes, yes, I know the moral of this story is that I should read the ingredients list, but they make it so hard, by listing every ingredient of every constituent part. I actually skimmed the ingredients of my chicken soup three times today before I even noticed that little word "onions" lurking there.

Dear self-styled poet, muse-inspired,
Your verses leave me rather tired.
The slightest drama stirs your pen;
You scribble down your verse, and then
You send it to the local press,
Where, you hope, it will impress,
The common reader there at home,
Too muse-impaired to write a pome.

( More )

What is an LJ for if not to launch totally unjustified rants about trivial things that really don't deserve your vitriol? My chosen target for today is umbrellas. Now, I'm sure that many people here are habitual umbrellas users, and many more dabble in the umbrella sub-culture every now and then, and yes, yes, I know: unreasonable, but I refer you back to the whole "trival things" and "really don't deserve vitriol" etc. etc., and I will rant away.

Umbrellas. I don't like using them. Within that simple construction of fabric and metal lurks a monster of extreme willfulness. Nothing delights this monster more than to buck and lash around, forcing the hapless person who wants to subdue it to fight it every step of the way. When it's mildly drizzling in a strong wind, I look out and watch hordes of people fighting an enormous battle to win one small foot of land at a time, and I think, "why bother?"

Most of all, though, I hate falling foul of other people's anti-social umbrella use. There you are, watching a nice joust or a ritual burning, when two drops of rain fall from the sky, and everyone on the front row immediately erects enormous umbrellas large enough to protect an army, totally heedless of the fact that no-one behind them can see a thing.

Then you have those people who put umbrellas up in crowded shopping streets, and charge ahead in their protective little bubble, not caring that they are leaving a train of people with poked-out eyes in their wake. Worst of all are those whose umbrellas are broken, due to the epic battles described above, so that they become a deadly aedifice of impaling spikes.

And then you have people who insist on sharing their umbrella with you - and, yes, yes, I know that they do so with the best of intentions, but when you genuinely say, "no, honestly, I'm fine, please, no, don't, please, please, no, anything but bring me within the deadly shadow of the deadly umbrella," they still do it, meaning that you have to walk with your neck at an angle of 45 degrees to avoid having a waterfall land on your head.

So I bring you umbrellas, subject of my unjustifed rant. Anyone else want to rant at an unjustified and trivial subject?

Ordering books today, I find these two books:

Illustrated Classics for Girls. Pink cover, edged with flowers, with Heidi frollicking with goats. "A collection of stories of adventure and magic suitable for girls. This delightful collection contains six timeless classic stories to enchant and delight." Contents are abridged versions of Heidi, Little Women, The Railway Children, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, and The Wizard of Oz.

Illustrated Classics for Boys. Blue-ish cover, edged with black trees, showing a moonlit forest scene, with someone (a highwayman?) galloping through it. "A collection of stories of action, adventure and daring-do suitable for boys. This lively collection contains six thrilling classic stories of action and adventure." Contents are abridged versions of Moonfleet, Around the World in 80 Days, Gulliver's Travels, Robin Hood, The Canterville Ghost, and Robinson Crusoe.

Yes, yes, I know I'm ranted about this before. I know that children are usually the first to announce that something is "for boys" or "for girls." But... But...

I think it's the word "suitable" that particularly grates.

I always feel a very surprisingly strong feeling of outrage when I can't find something out of the internet. It's not as if I believe that "it's all on the internet now," to use the argument of head teachers who are closing school libraries across the land, and there are many, many occasions when I would turn to a book, rather than the net. However, when I want to look up a quick fact, apparently I expect the internet to have the answer. Librarians are forever hearing users wail "it isn't on the internet!" only to find said fact within a few seconds, utilising their super librarian powers. So when a fact does elude me, I feel this enormous sense of outrage, as if the very universe itself has betrayed me.

ETA: Ooh! 15 minutes ago, I could view my Friends page, but now it's been blocked by my work filter, so when I get home, I might have some great clues as to exactly what words it doesn't like. I still reckon it's something totally random, like parsnip or marmoset.

When I am supreme ruler of the universe, the following things will be declared illegal forthwith:

- Books with one word titles. Exemptions will very probably be granted when the word in question is sufficiently unusual, but common words are right out. Calling your book by a word ignored by most search engines (such as "it") shall lead to punishment more dreadful than any man has ever dreamt.

- Authors who insist on spelling their name in an unexpected fashion. If your readers are going to ask for you as "Susan" then you will jolly well be forced to spell your name "Susan", not "Soozun". (Made-up example to protect the guilty.)

- Books that appear to be called on thing - e.g. "Let's talk about recycling" - but actually secretly call themselves something else - "Recyling", which happens to be in the "Let's talk about" series - and don't bother to tell anyone.

- Vacuous celebrities with no talent who still manage to get themselves publishing deals, which they use to "write" books telling 6 year old girls that beauty is everything.

Actually, on second thoughts:

- Stupid, idiotic, poorly designed search systems. Once they're banned, I might even allow the others to become legal again. Except for the last one. There's no excuse for that.

For the record, I don't speed. I certainly can't say hand on heart that I've never accidentally gone a couple of miles an hour over the limit, but I do try not to. There are many occasions when I go very much slower than legally allowed, such as when driving through a housing estate littered with parked cars and packs of playing children, or when on a single-track road with not enough passing places, high hedges, suicidal rabbits and lots of blind corners.

Now, our Council has this strange idea that "island roads are different" and likes to slap 40 limits of any road that stays still long enough, even those that really don't merit it. Therefore, when I say that this morning I was driving on a road that still has a 60 limit, you should assume that it's particularly wide and clear and hazard-free.

Or so I thought. To the person in front of me, it was clearly more dangerous than a jungle track beset with crocodiles. To the person in front of me, the "unrestricted" sign clearly meant "drive at 27 miles an hour, but ensure that at least once a minute you slow sharply to 17 miles an hour, making sure that this slowing is not related to any external prompt such as a bend or an approaching wide load, but is always for no reason at all."

I'm sure there are many reasons why someone might want to crawl along an A road. Maybe he had a priceless goldfish on his front seat that he was transporting to a show. Maybe he was a secret service agent who'd been told his car would explode if he went over 30. However, there were also plenty of nice, empty, alluring lay-bys where he could have pulled in and let people pass. All I can think of is that his childhood ambition was leading a procession of fifty people across the Isle of Wight.

Then to go to the other extreme, there was the chap who was trying to get from Newport to Cowes as part of an unbroken stream of cars all going at exactly 40, the limit. Whenever he could – and, often, when he really couldn't – he jumped one car forward in the stream, thus meaning that he reached Cowes about twenty seconds earlier than he would otherwise have done, but forced half a dozen people going in the opposite way to slam on their brakes for him.

Yes, yes, I know I'm predictable. I've said it all before, but... but...! I went to a dance practice tonight in the room above a pub, and the pub was heaving. Packed with people, full of green and shamrocks and special offers on Guinness. Now, leaving aside the fact that it isn't actually St Patrick's Day today, due to the whole "cancelled it if clashes with Holy Week" thing, here we have an English pub, in England, in which I bet well nigh a hundred percent of the people inside were English, absolutely packed for St Patrick's Day. Fair enough. I have no objection to them doing this. I have no objection to them celebrating St Andrew's Day and St David's Day, and any special day from any other world culture that they want to celebrate. I'm all for multiculturalism and diversity... but I just wish that there could be at least some attempt to celebrate the English special day and reclaim it from the racists and the xenophobes and the aggressive patriots.

I bet this pub won't be doing special offers on local real ales on St George's Day, or putting roses on the wall. It bet they won't be playing English folk music in the background. I bet they won't invite Morris dancers to perform. It's quite incredible how the English have managed to neglect, or even laugh at, their own traditions and folk culture. That leaves a gap that the racists can step in and fill, and make it so that standing up and saying, "hey, my country has some rather nice traditions, actually, and I'd rather like to celebrate them" gets heard as "my country right or wrong, and down with the rest." A couple of years ago, BBC radio's special St George's day programming was a concert with music from Wales, Scotland and Ireland... because to play English music would be jingoistic, I presume, so not allowed.

Anyway... Yes, I've said it all before. I just need to quote Roots again, though:

( Roots lyrics )

While I was driving across the island today, the Health Secretary came on the radio, talking about his plans to make eating hamburgers a criminal offence. (Okay, no, he actually didn't say this, but it didn't seem far off.) One of the things he said was how they were working with computer game manufacturers to find ways to ensuring that children don't spend too much time indulging in such sedentary activities. This part wasn't elaborated on, at least in the part of the programme I was able to hear.

Given that computer game manuals always advise you not to play for too long, and many games already flash up messages suggesting that you take a break, I don't see what else they can do short of making the game stop working if you play it for too long. Imagine LAN parties in this brave new world. There you are, stalking your friends down a dark corridor, when suddenly the screen goes blank. "You have to go Outside now," intones the voice of the Health Secretary. "This game is now locked until you can prove that you have burned off 500 calories." Or you could be on the point of killing that impossible boss who's troubled you for days, when suddenly the screen flashes urgent red. "Pringles proximity alert! Pringles proximity alert! Remove the Pringles immediately! Replace them with vegetables now or this game will be terminated!"

Why limit it to computer games? Well, of course, everybody knows that computer games are pure evil, created by sociopaths whose sole aim is to corrupt innocent six year olds with games of graphic violence, but apart from that… What about books? Stop children from playing games, and they might pick up a book and, absorbed in the story, do no exercise for hours on end! This vile trade must be stopped! No-one should be allowed to read more than a chapter without stopping and going Outside to do some healthy exercise. What about selling books on a chapter by chapter basis, and making it illegal to buy more than one chapter at a time? Oh, and all bookshops must be located at least two miles from the nearest road, so people have to walk to get each new chapter. Yes, that will work. What a wise idea! It's amazing society didn't collapse years ago, with all this wanton unchecked reading of books. Thank goodness we have the government to look after us!

Does anyone else get annoyed by the fact a film's takings are usually broken down as "domestic" (i.e. the USA), and "overseas" (the rest of the world) even if the film was made in one of those "overseas" countries. My hackles rise whenever I encounter it. If it's an American publication, written for American people, about an American film, then fine. If it's an international publication, written for people across the world, then I don't think they should do it. I don't mind them breaking it down that way per se, but I wish they'd label the categories "US box office" and "non-US box office," or something. I find it quite vexing to be lumped into a generic "overseas" - a far less important market, it seems, usually quoted only as an after-thought - especially when we're talking about a British-made film.

I also wish they wouldn't talk about these "overseas" takings as being in dollars. I've often read in British newspapers that a film took "the equivalent of ten millions pounds in America." Fine. It makes more sense to British readers to have it translated like this. However, I don't like reading that a film "took ten million dollars in the UK." It didn't. It took however many pounds.

Over-reacting...?

I was talking to someone today about historical inaccuracies in films. He was of the opinion that they didn't matter, and that only sad anoraks cared about them. I was of the opinion that they potentially do matter – and matter rather more than faithfulness in literary adaptations.

( Historical films )

We spent all of yesterday dancing on The Mainland, for our annual Christmas jaunt to Lymington. Going without a coat, and trusting in raggy jackets and layers, was a very stupid thing to do, since it was freezing, but someone came to my rescue with a spare body warmer (presumably brought along for their spare body), and various market stalls provided cheap fluffy gloves, warm socks etc. 'Twas icy cold.

At the end of the day, we extracted ourselves from the pub, paid for our very nice dinner (certain people who shall be nameless had two puddings, and tried hard to get a whole extra pint of custard), and headed to the station. ( Disappearing guards, trains and drivers )

I read today that some booksellers have put "not suitable for younger readers" stickers on Jacqueline Wilson's latest book, in response to complaints from outraged parents that it featured a gay kiss.

Now, Jacqueline Wilson's books are adored by girls aged 8 and over, but some of her books are specifically aimed at older girls – 14, or so – and are full of issues that most parents would consider unsuitable for 8 year olds. The trouble is, the cover design is no different from her younger books, and of course all her fans are eager to read all her books. I'm sure that a lot of parents buy her teenage books for their 8 year olds, not realising the content. I have no objection to a sticker alerting readers and their parents to the fact that these few titles are aimed at a different audience from her usual books.

It's the "because of a gay kiss" element that bothers me. The book – and, yes, I've read it – is about a 13 year old girl who has been best friends with the boy next door for her whole life. She has lately started having romantic feelings for him, but he seems rather more interested in a boy at his new school. Later on, he seems very distressed, and it turns out that – off-camera - he tried to kiss this boy, who reacted with disgust. The girl, although upset on her own account, supports him as a friend, as does his family, although the other boys at school are less understanding. His family also point out him that same-sex crushes are a not-uncommon feature of adolescence, and that his feelings might change, but also make entirely clear that they'll support him and love him whatever happens.

However, in another plot strand, the girl is befriended by a wild and precocious girl at school. This girl lives with little sign of parental presence, and has wild parties in which all the 13 and 14 year olds drink spirits. She sends her boyfriend a topless photo of herself, and talks about having sex – or almost having sex. But no mention of this in the report of the "outraged parents." One sensitively-handled off-camera attempted gay kiss: shocking! Underage drinking and 13 year olds (possibly) having sex: no problem!

Frustration is: Writing the dialogue of a four page scene fluently and word-perfect in your head in the shower... and then forgetting every last word of it as soon as you get out and are sitting at your computer again. Grr!

In an email today, evilmissbecky happened to mention Joss Whedon's oft-stated opinion that "happy couples are boring" - hence his decision to painfully tear any happy couple apart in all his shows. I know I've ranted about it before in an email, so rather than do so again, I'm doing it on LJ instead.

( Happy couples are boring )