Its time.....

...for a post. So, whats been going on?

More online arguments though not quite as arsey as the last one. A chap posted one of those womens magazines surveys on a webgroup - 'How bi-curious are you?'. It contained the usual ignorant nonsense you get from a straight women's mag when talking about lesbianism but I was particularly incensed (sp?) by one question about preferred clothing which, to cut a long story short, said that if you liked wearing combats/boyish clothes you were automatically a dyke and if you liked girly clothes you had to be straight. Naturally, being a muncher of the rug myself, I posted that it was a load of bollocks. I was careful to say that I wasn't getting at the bloke who posted it and I tried to make it a bit humourous so's not to offend him. I might as well have not bothered. He immediately took offence and said I lacked a sense of humour. I posted again reiterating that I wasn't being arsey with him and trying to explain my reasons etc. I think this guy has a slight reading problem as he still maintained that my original post was aggressive at which point I simply quoted a line from my original post that said in one simple, straightforward sentence that I was sorry for the rant, I wasn't getting at him and that I was just angry at the ignorance of the survey writer. I've left it at that. If he still can't see that my anger wasn't personal then he's a stupid twat and I've wasted my time. Sigh.

I didn't used to be so argumentative but I've spent years not speaking up for myself and being walked all over by selfish, arrogant c**ts that I'm really damn sick of it. Which would bring me neatly on to the jumped up, snidey little troll that I have the misfortune to work with but I really can't be bothered right now.

My first directing effort went fairly well. I was so stomach-churningly terrified before we went on that I couldn't concentrate on the first play that we watched. Good job it was exactly the same play some of my compadres put on last year and I knew the script backwards. Our main male lead, bless him, was worried about forgetting lines (it was a big part, fnarr fnarr), and he did actually jump forward half a page of dialogue, then jumped back again which left me frantically thinking "How the hell are we going to get out of this?" but total and utter kudos to him he managed to jump forward again just at the point he should have been at. Phew. So, in Morecambe & Wise stylee, he said all the right words but not necessarily in the right order. The audience didn't laugh enough for my liking but then it wasn't a big belly laughs kind of play so I musn't grumble. We had a critic in from the local drama federation & she gave a talk about each play at the end of the evening. Talk about torture. The main niggle she had with ours was the set. Or lack of. Not enough atmosphere created by it. Could we have had a coffee table and armchairs and a small bar in one corner (the play was set in a hotel bar)? Well, no. Not when you're travelling 30 miles in a Corsa you can't. She didn't fault the acting, didn't comment on my directing or the moves really so I got off lightly. Not bad for a first effort. And despite giving their production staff instructions at the last minute they managed to run the lights and music as I'd wanted.

The music was from a new CD I've discovered recently. Nouvelle Vague they're called. I'd heard a cheesy listening version of Depeche Mode's 'Just Can't get Enough' on a car ad and wondered who they were. Then I heard a similar version of Teenage Kicks while watching Sugar Rush and finally caught a bit of them live on the Glastonbury coverage, thus finding out who they were. So I bought the CD which is a bunch of their cover versions of eighties songs in a bossa nova style. Its just so wonderful, strange and silly. Half the songs I didn't know as I hadn't heard the originals. The best by far is 'Making Plans for Nigel' which is sublime and chilled and lovely. Funniest is 'Too Drunk to Fuck' which is one of the ones I've never heard before but which I now can't stop singing. Its going round in my head right now in the lead singer's European accent, "Too drrrunk to fack..". Buy it, its fab.

Talking of fabness I saw the best ever ep of CSI last week in which a man in a raccoon suit is found dead at the side of a country road. Too many fab bits to mention but I think the whole ep must have been an excuse to get in the punchline at the end when Grissom comments, "Hmmm. Fur and loathing in Las Vegas!". I was also looking forward to the Quentin Tarantino two parter but due to the London bombings its been postponed by a week. Methinks the announcer gave the plot away a bit. She said that due to the nature of the plot and recent events it would be on next week. AFAIK the plot centres round one of the CSI team being buried alive - no bombings. Or is there? Have we been inadvertently spoilered? Only time will tell.