EastEnders in Trouble

 Wednesday. 1.45 p.m. Milton Keynes MP, Ben Everett has demanded an apology from the BBC over the appalling way Milton Keynes was portrayed in the soap EastEnders in an episode which was aired on BBC 1 this week. There were scenes of grim, dilapidated housing, gangs of teenagers and drug-addicted neighbours. Apparently, the scenes which were supposed to be set in Milton Keynes weren't even filmed there, but shot in Barnet, in North London. Ben Everett has said that he would be contacting the BBC and demanded that producers come up with a storyline which portrays the positive side of the city.

I'm not exactly EastEnders biggest fan. I find it so miserable and certainly not an accurate portrayal of life in the east end of London. Gloomy, depressing and just plain nasty. But there really is no excuse to portray Milton Keynes in such a negative way. It can't be too difficult to do a bit of research. Just lazy, on the part of the storyliners and scriptwriters.

Friday. 9.40 a.m. I was expecting a parcel to be delivered yesterday. I had an email and I clicked through to the Royal Mail website and by putting a code into the software I got a message which gave me a time window of yesterday to confirm an approximate time for the parcel to be delivered. Not only that, but I was out at a Bible study at the OTC yesterday morning and when I got home at around 12 o'clock there was absolutely no sign of it being delivered. It could have been left on my doorstep, and there was no card through the door to let me know that they had attempted to deliver it and where it was.

This morning I went on the Royal Mail website and discovered a message which stated that they had attempted to deliver the parcel, but it wasn't left because I wasn't at home. So, it would appear, I will have to wait until Monday for it to be delivered. No card through door to inform me of this, or even whether I could collect it from the parcel office in Brinklow.

1.35 p.m. I have been into the main shopping centre to get my hair cut. The barbers have changed their name. It used to be 'Central Barbers', but it's not called 'ROK Barbers.' I'm not sure what ROK, but I have an idea it's a brand that produces cosmetics, hair products and so on. I had booked my appointment online, which makes it easier and quicker when you book and pay, making sure you have the appointment at a time which is convenient.

I parked where I usually do, next to 'The Point' and paid using the Ring Go app, and then walked into the shopping centre. I was in good time, so I decided to go into Boot's Optician and booked an eye test, which is later in the month. From there I walked to the barbers and sat outside until it was my time to have my hair cut. Once I finished in there, I went to T.K.Maax, because I had been given a card which had money on it and I wanted to buy a saucepan. Not difficult to find what I wanted in there and paid for the saucepan and then went to Gregg's, which is a few doors along and bought myself a ham and egg roll, some Belgian buns and I got a free drink with the order, and then it was back to the car and home to Dexter House.

Another Week (So, What's New?)

Monday 9.40 a.m. It continues to be relatively fine but chilly. It's that time of year when you never know whether to wear a coat or leave it at home. I suppose it's the transition from summer into autumn. Not just a coat, but also an umbrella. Unfortunately, I'm hopeless with umbrellas. I either leave them somewhere or other, get the thing caught in something, like an overhanging branch of a tree, stuck in a sliding door or there's a gust of wind, and it gets blown inside out. How many umbrellas have I seen on my walks around Oldbrook Green, the wrecks of such instruments which have become torn from their user's grasp by a sudden blast?

Driving towards Camphill was crazy. Crossing the roundabout along Chaffron Way which intersects with Marlborough Street can be somewhat hairy, to say the least. It can be somewhat tricky as you can't see vehicles coming around one side and then all the way along Chaffron Way towards the roundabout at Brickhill Street it's a fairly straight run, but in the opposite lane the traffic is stationary, more or less nose-to-tail. There are two more roundabouts, one at Childs Way and the last, Portway, which is the busiest of the lot before I can reach the car park at Camphill.

As with more or less everything which happens in the theatre workshop, the day began with a 'check-in', which is when everyone involved put the chairs into a circle and each person talks about their day, what they have been doing and how they are feeling.

Some drama games were played, some of which I got involved in. One, called EastEnders, is a game based on the infamous BBC soap. I'm not altogether sure of the rules, but everyone stands in a circle, and you start off shouting 'Oi!' at the next person in the circle, and this gets passed around until someone says another phrase (I can't remember this phrase.) Then someone says 'get out of my pub!' or 'You're not my mother!' (all based on incidents in the soap.) It's quite noisy, as you can imagine, but it gets everyone working. The basic idea is to get people who generally have a problem with communicating and, can have a problem with speech, to boost their confidence and increase the power of their voices. It's certainly a good way to get the group to communicate. I'm not so sure if it's something I'm overconfident with, but mostly, for me, it's learning the rules! It's just great to be back at Camphill on a Tuesday and out of the flat for most of the day.

Terri, who is the new drama leader, has started the guys off on rehearsing and devising a panto version of Shakespeare's play 'Twelfth Night.' The guys have their characters and are working on developing their characters. Terri goes through the text of the play and then adapts the Shakespeare lines into something the gang can speak. Some of the scenes are very funny and I can't wait to see how it all develops.

Tuesday. 7.10 a.m. I could hear the wind in the middle of the night. It sounded very powerful and possibly enough to cause quite a bit of damage, with trees being torn down and branches falling. As I write this, it's a good deal calmer, but, when I took Alfie out we had to contend with rain which we weren't expecting.

I was cold when I woke earlier in the night, so I had to put on the much thicker duvet which is kept in the wardrobe. I will need to put in the duvet cover and change my bedding as a result of all this. Not actually one job I enjoy.

1.15 p.m. I have changed the bedding for the thicker, winter, duvet, which was a real effort. Why is this job so difficult? It's easy if you know the trick of putting corners to corners, the corners of the duvet to the corners of the cover. The buttons which do up are a pain, but it's worthwhile and done for a while.

Wednesday. 6.45 a.m. It appears to be a good deal calmer this morning. I can't hear the roaring wind like I did the other night when I woke up. I did one circuit of Oldbrook Green at around 7 o'clock as it was a good deal lighter by then. I don't think Alfie appreciated the walk and came back indoors and went to sleep on my bed.

Thursday. 7.20 a.m. Another totally untypical November morning. It's incredibly mild, with very little wind and no sign of rain.

Friday. 6.25 p.m. Not a lot has happened today. Well, that's life at Dexter House for you. If you want to vegetate, then you can just sit in your flat and bore yourself stupid with daytime television. (There can't possibly be many more programmes about selling antiques or houses that an intelligent person can take, surely? I think 'Homes Under The Hammer' really needs scrapping.) There is a Wednesday afternoon tea-and-biscuits get-together (for want of a name for it.) But it's really not my idea of fun. Attempted to get some sort of conversation going at the first one, but it was a bit like banging my head against a brick wall.

I have joined the Buckingham branch of the Historical Association, which I heard about when I went to the archaeological conference two weeks ago. I am booked for several Zoom lectures as a result of this membership and one Zoom call in December on Capability Brown in Bedfordshire.

Come On England!

Sunday. 6.20 a.m. Well, I can't really start this post by not mentioning the win for the England football squad's  in Italy yesterday evening. So it means they are only two more steps away from actually winning this championship. 'England in dreamland', being one newspaper headline, another being, 'Pinch yourself . . . we're in the semis!' Well, if nothing else, it will be fuelling certain areas of the economy, such as beer and lager sales, pizza, and probably fish and chips. I noticed huge piles of packs of lager and beer when I was in Sainsbury's on Saturday as well as racks with England replica shirts and other items of clothing on them. You really couldn't ignore any of it. Also, merchandise with links to football, such as Coca-Cola, Pringles, and Walkers, all no doubt sponsoring the football event. A lot of money tied up with football.

Well, football aside (no chance of avoiding it.) when I ventured forth with Alfie at around 5.45, there was a hint of rain, even if it was rather thin. Well, if nothing else it will cool things down as it is quite humid at the moment.

My writing has come to a halt. It's not a problem. It's not due to 'writer's block.' It's more that I know where the thing is heading, I just haven't worked out the mechanics of how such-and-such is going to work. It has to be logical and realistic, to make it work. Still thinking about the different options open to me, then I can sit down and do some serious writing. It is, however, quite strange how things change, even as I'm writing, how things can develop as I'm putting pen to paper (actually pencil. I don't like things to be too set, which would happen if it's in ink. With a pencil, you can rub it out and start again, several times in some cases.) Wandering around Oldbrook Green yesterday morning, I was pondering this particular point in the plot and I didn't know how or why it was (or wasn't.) going to work, and by the time we'd reached the other side of the Green I had come up with a solution (of sorts.) to bring in something which I had thought of some time ago but had no idea how to introduce it. I'm attempting to work out ways to bring in several other storylines so they intersect with what I have already written. It was never conceived as a single narrative, but over-lapping, concurrent storylines. Think of novels by Dickens, where several narratives are running together, or, in television soaps (EastEnders, Coronation Street for example.) where they use this technique, and they break off from one storyline and flip over to other storylines and then go back to the other storyline. The best example I can think of is 'Les Miserables.' I have read the novel, seen the stage musical and film and watched the recent BBC1 adaptation by Andrew Davies. It is written in the same way as Dickens, with overlapping storylines, with the Jean Valjean storyline which runs down the centre, or 'spine' and links up with the concurrent storylines. You'll need to read it and possibly watch it to get my point. All storylines connecting at the end to give the thing completeness, a denouement. A journey, what Joseph Campbell describes as The Hero's Journey.' This 'metomyth' construction common to many stories, such as The Lord of The Rings', 'Star Wars' (well, at least the first 1977 film and the two sequels 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'The Return of the Jedi.'

Later. I've been out with Alfie at around 9.15 this morning. I'm still mulling over how to shift the plot forward. Thinking as we walk around Oldbrook. I think I've cracked it! How character A meets character B. (No, I'm not telling. No spoiler alerts.) Great! So later I manage to begin to write this sequence. Actually going to be quite central to what happens next. Now it's getting reasonably exciting. I have written a side of A4. I'll just leave it for a while and then return to it. I just want to get the story down on paper and then go back and modify it, tweaking bits here and there. As long as the main points are down on paper, then I can go back and redraft. A lot of over-used phrases and words, but that's not a problem. Time to get out my thesaurus.

Later. 3.05 p.m. I think I have cracked the problem (if indeed it is a problem, which it is and it isn't. I know that sounds odd, but it's not really.) which was so simple that it makes sense. Again, walking around Oldbrook Green was where the idea came to me. These light-bulb moments sometimes come when I go to bed, and usually when I can't get to sleep. It's in those relaxed moments when my mind just drifts which is when these ideas come. 

Lockdown Lifting!

Tuesday. 8.30 a.m. Yesterday afternoon we had another of the, by now, rather a familiar coronavirus press conferences from Downing Street, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson in charge.  The best news was that the 'Roadmap' out of lockdown will go ahead as planned, without any u-turns or diversions along the way. So Monday will see most of the restrictions that have been in place for many months being lifted, but still with a certain 'cautious optimism' pervading the whole. One of the restrictions being removed is, being able to hug family members. A great deal is made of this! As I imagine you would expect.

It's bright and sunny as I write this, but still not particularly warm. Just thinking of the saying 'Nay cast a clout until Maybe out.' Which may or may not (sorry about the pun, unintentional or intentional??) refer to the May tree, or hawthorn, or possibly the month of May. Meaning, to not take off a layer of clothing until the month, or possibly, the May tree is blooming. Possibly winters were colder than they are now, because the hawthorn, or May, is definitely blooming at the moment. So, is it such a good idea to go out without your coat at the moment? That's a matter of debate, but I have gone out without mine on a few occasions, but then, when it's felt cold, I have regretted it.  Similarly, the Shakespeare line in one of his sonnets (can't remember which one.) 'Rough winds do shake the darling buds of may.' It's from Sonnet 18. (I cheated as I did a Google search, but never mind.)

I've done some more writing! I had started a sequence and then had some thoughts on how to improve it, so I started it again and have amended it with the new addition. There is more of it to go and it seems to be working better now. I can't believe I was working on this so early. Barely 7.30-8.00 p.m. I just need to construct the conclusion of this sequence. I have to say I rather enjoy the construction of plots. If I say any more then it will give things away. It has a 'meta' feel to it. If you understand literary terms, then you will know what I mean.

A trailer for EastEnders as I wait for something or other to come on this evening. I think it was for 'Money For Nothing.' Anyway, a lot of shouting and being really nasty to each other. A wedding of a couple of characters. Don't ask me who, why, etc. But you can always tell what the outcome will be, don't you? Always ends in disaster. What is it about living in Walford that means a marriage ends in tragedy or at least total disaster? Is it the water? Just living in that run-down square? In real life, would you choose to live somewhere like Albert Square? Why not simply move away? 

Wednesday. 6.50 a.m. A bright and sunny morning. Very still as we walked down Strudwick Drive and an almost perfect blue sky. How long will it last? 'Sunshine and showers', according to Carol Kirkwood on BBC Breakfast which is on the television as I write this.

Later. I've managed to write a good deal more. The only problem is that Alfie is staring at me. It's difficult to concentrate on what I'm doing. I give him a couple of treats out of the treat tin on the bookshelf. I write a bit more, but he continues to sit on the sofa, staring at me, his gaze shifting towards the treat tin. I attempt to ignore him but this is a dog with an incredible ability to get what he wants, so I take a few more treats out of the tin. Several are placed along the edge of the coffee table and one on the back of the sofa. He finds the ones on the coffee table, and from where I sit it amuses me to see his little face appear above the edge of the coffee table and he manages to pick one up with his mouth and then he jumps onto the sofa and finds the one on the sofa back. So, he settles back down and I continue to write. 

At around 9.45 I decided to take Alfie out. It is threatening rain which I can see from the kitchen window. Dark clouds gathering and when we come out onto Strudwick Drive there are definite spots of rain that fall onto my face as we walk along. I had to buy somewhat inferior poo bags from Morrison's because for some reason, Sainsbury's didn't have any in stock when I did my last online order, and then when I visited the store there were none. Probably stock availability due to lockdown or something. Morrison's version is thinner, but they do their job more or less adequately. On returning along Strudwick Drive I can see blue flashing lights at the junction of Strudwick Drive and Chaffron Way. I can vaguely see what must be a police car in the distance, the green and blue check design identifying it, or if not a police car, at least an emergency vehicle of some sort. I couldn't be certain, but I reckon someone has attempted to turn out onto Chaffron Way and got hit by a passing vehicle. Generally not advisable to turn right out of there, but to turn left and then do a complete circuit of the roundabout and continue along Chaffron Way.

More of . . . What??

 (Thursday) More of? Let's think for a moment. Drinking tea? Watching television? Yes, but at least I'm selective in what I watch. No soaps. Gave them up long ago, just after my first heart attack. Listen to music? Yes. As I have an Amazon Music subscription and an Alexa Echo, I can have as much music as I like, just by asking. Brilliant! And as I gave most, if not all, my CDs away, saves on space. The same with Amazon Video, or whatever it's called, as well as Netflix. No need to buy DVDs as you can watch instantly and, yet again, save on space. Reading? Yes, I have certainly read a good deal more since lockdown began in March (or at least the first version of it.) Sleeping? I think it has improved. I'm not waking at all hours and not getting back to sleep. Eating chocolate and sweets? Probably have eaten more than my fair share. The same with biscuits, but I have cut down recently. Honest. I have put on weight I'm not going to say how much.) I know, I know. My blog posts are somewhat mundane. Probably, but life is somewhat mundane. What do they say about drama, it's life with the boring bits removed. Well, if that's true. something like 'EastEnders, for example, is life with the boring bits put back. Say no more!

Late yesterday evening, just as I was settling down to eat my meal and watch 'Pointless,' there was a buzz on my door phone. I'm never sure which button to press, but I eventually heard a voice say 'mail for you,' or something, but it wasn't clear. I din't expect a delivery, so I went down to the front door and opened it, to discover a postman standing there, bundle of letters in his hand. 'Oh, the excitement!', I thought to myself, 'what could it be?' He handed me a single letter, a white envelope with one of those windows for the address. As I read the address, I found it wasn't actually for me! So I handed it back. It was for someone, a lady, who must have been a tenant of my flat years ago, but would have left to live elsewhere. I wasn't too happy that I'd had to walk the way to the front door to discover the post wasn't for me. I returned to the flat and a couple of minutes later the letter was pushed through my letter box. Our post is being delivered later and later. I don't think we've ever had post so late in the day.

I took Alfie out at around 7.45a.m. and I didn't realise it was raining. Thankfully, as the days pass, it gets lighter earlier. He didn't exactly relish the rain, and as soon as I said 'home' he turned round and we went back to the flat. Funny little dog! We went out again at around 10.30. It was still raining, although somewhat thin and weedy. Alfie did what he had to and then we returned home. There is the puddle part way along the path to Oldbrook Green. Just like a river. Some of the water cascades down the road further on. Alfie really didn't like getting his feet wet, and I can hardly blame him. I put his Regatta rain coat on and I had my bright orange Regatta raincoat on with the hood up. 

I've been looking for a reading light, possibly on a stand. I was hoping to find one somewhere which has a white light and with a bulb that would angle over the chair where I sit and read. I've been looking all over the place for such a light. I had a browse on Amazon and I found a perfect light with a swan neck and it stands on the floor. What I like about it is that you can change the intensity of the light with a remote control and also the light colour, from white to what I'd call a yellowy colour, a bit like candle light. I have ordered it and it should turn up in a couple of days, so I will have to see if it comes up to my expectations. One can only hope.

Lockdown!

(Friday) Another sunny but frosty morning here in Milton Keynes. I've been up since 4.30. Nothing unusual in that, because I can do plenty of things. I started watching a documentary about the Normans which was on BBC iPlayer. It was presented by Sam Willis, and showed the use of a variety of weaponry as used by and introduced by the Normans. I didn't watch all of it and paused it and finished watching when I got up. A really interesting documentary and well worth watching. Made a lot of what else is on, such as soaps such as EastEnders or Coronation Street or endless reality shows such as Big Brother look pathetic and irrelevant, this is what the BBC does best. I think that, if you've read my earlier blog posts, you will know how I feel about EastEnders. A bit like sticking pins in your eyeballs. Just hateful and miserable. Why waste your time watching such misery when there's better stuff elsewhere, a lot on iPlayer? The BBC never seems to trail this sort of stuff and it's hidden away on BBC Four. Go on iPlayer and you will actually find quite a lot of archive stuff which is worth looking at.

I begin to wonder if the BBC, or at least, those who are entrusted with it's administration, have forgotten the first Director General, John Reith's mantra that the BBC should "Educate, inform and entertain." The guiding principles of what is known as Public Service Broadcasting. Too much of the 'entertain' and certainly plenty of informing going on but far too much 'entertaining.' Far too much dross being shown. Stuff that should be only available on commercial channels.

(Saturday) The excitement is getting too much! Scrolling endlessly on Facebook. People are desperate, putting trivia on social media. The effects of this 'lockdown' must be having some sort of effect on people. It is; just trying to keep busy, but, if you are stuck at home, not being able to work, then anything is better than nothing, so scrolling through Facebook and putting senseless stuff on your profile is one way of relieving boredom.

We had church on-line via Facebook on Sunday and will continue to do so every Sunday until this pandemic is finished. There is also the chance to use another on-line site called Zoom, which is intended for conferencing, similar in some ways to eater Skype or FaceTime, but which allows up to 100 people to communicated at one time and we will be using it for a communion service in a few weeks time.

There's quite a lot of free resources currently on-line, such as theatre productions, notably the National Theatre, putting what were recorded productions which were originally screened in cinemas on line through YouTube, 'One Man, Two Guvnors', with James Corden in the lead, which is loosely based on the Goldoni play, 'The Servant of Two Masters.' I had wanted to see this when it was originally staged, but never got a chance, so now I will be able to see it. These productions will be available to view on Thursdays, via YouTube.

I was supposed to have been going to an archeology conference near Peterborough today, but it has been cancelled, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Disappointing, I know, but I have just learned that I can do a free on-line archaeology course though something called 'Dig Ventures,' so that should more or less replace that 'live' event. It obviously can't entirely replace something which is 'live,' but at the moment, with the way things are, certainly better than nothing and it should keep me busy when it's not possible to meet people face-to-face in the 'real' world.

I have been attempting to change the time on my Casio G-Shock digital watch. It's very complicated trying to move on the time by an hour. I have had this watch for around 5 years and have always found it difficult to reset this watch. I found a video on YouTube, but even then it was a bit of an effort. I have now managed to reset the thing, but I think, because it's supposed to reset it set using a radio signal from the nuclear clock near Rugby, I think it did it anyway. The date seems to have reset automatically.

Whodunnit . . . and Why?

The 'Who-done-it,' (or should it be spelt whodunnit?) is a format of many a television series, stage play film or radio drama. They seem to be a regular fixture in television schedules. What is it about them that makes them so popular, not only with schedulers and producers, but the general viewing public? Generally speaking, they have a familiar element to them, rather like a soap opera (EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale come to mind, but also the BBC Radio 4 Soap, The Archers, which, amazingly, celebrates it's 70th anniversary in 2020, making it the world's longest-running drama series.) Usually set it a familiar environment, a village, a closed society or environment, such as a railway train, stuck in a snowstorm or on a cruise liner, or most likely, a country house, usually isolated from the rest of the world, or an island. Then we have a relatively small group, many or even all are suspects in a murder and then the crime is solved by an outsider (usually) who has a knack of resolving the crime and will search for clues and interview all the suspects and eventually, at the climax of the show, reveal who the murderer is.

It amazes me that some of the locations in which these shows are set that nobody thinks it's strange, the number of murders which are committed. Just think of 'Midsummer Murders', which has been running for goodness knows how long, that there is a murder in that area of the country every week. Surely there's more than the average number of homicides than the rest of the United Kingdom? Why doesn't someone look it to such things? And would you choose to live in such a village if you knew that the murder statistics were above average? Would you avoid such a place? The same with the village in which the BBC1 daytime drama, 'Father Brown' is set, the almost cliched Cotswold village of Kembleford or the village in which Agatha Raisin lives in? Likewise, St Mary Mead, where Miss Marple resides? And what always gets me with these shows, how the detective just happens to be around not long after the murder occurs or at least, as soon as the body is discovered. How come whenever Poirot or Miss Marple goes on holiday, or visits a certain place, no soon have they turned up THAN THE MURDER TAKES PLACE and they are called upon to investigate. And often the amateur sleuths get in the way of the police, and usually manage to solve the crime before the professionals, who invariably get the culprit wrong! Their investigations are generally a total disaster and the amateur sleuth makes them look totally inept.

Most 'whodunnits' follow the same format, with usually the scene being set, in most cases in an enclosed environment, such as a country house, village, or as in the case of two of Agatha Christie's novels, a railway train (Murder on The Orient Express) or a cruise line on the River Nile (Death On The Nile), with the detective just coincidentally being around somewhere when the murder is discovered, then the bulk of the novel revolves around the suspects being interviewed and the clues gathered. Usually we have a small cast of characters, who we discover have good reasons to possibly be the murderer and at the end the detective reveals who the murderer is.

Some 'Whodunnits,' aren't about murder. Better to actually call them mysteries, because that is really the basic plot, because there is the secret at the heart of the plot, or mystery, of who did the crime. They can be about theft, such as some of the Sherlock Holmes stories, written by Arthur Conan Doyle, such as The Scandal In Bohemia.

In effect a 'Whodunnit' is a bit like a knot. There's something which has to be unravelled, a mystery (usually, but not always, a murder.) and it can only be unravelled when an investigator/detective, either professional or amateur, can piece together all the evidence and then decide who was responsible. This person, either male or female, tends to stand apart from the group of characters who are suspects, has a very keen mind and is able to see all sides and the come up with an answer so that the murderer can be bought to justice. Quite often the amateur sleuth gets to the result quicker than the professionals, who are often seen as bungling and incompetent and probably come up with entirely the wrong solution and suspect the wrong person as the murderer.

The detective, whether they are professional or amateur, is often portrayed as having flaws or at least appears separate from the world of the suspects in a 'whodunnit.' One can mention, as an example, Sherlock Holmes, more like a computing system, who is high-performing, in that he is a single man, who can identify clues which other people cannot. It is almost as if he is O.C.D.  (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) or he's at least on the autism spectrum, most likely he has Asperger's. He finds it difficult to make friends (apart from his companion, John Watson.) but he uses his compulsive behaviour to assist in his investigations. Also, he has a drug habit, which, no doubt, also aids (or even hinders) his investigations.

Other detectives, such as Morse, in the Colin Dexter novels (which were made into a highly successful television series which starred John Thaw.) is a divorcee, is grumpy and has a love of classical music and drives around in a Jaguar, have 'fatal flaws,' (or hamarthia,) which helps develop them as characters and explains their nature.

Alfie Has Fans!

I am absolutely overjoyed by how well Alfie has settled into the flat at Dexter House. I was really concerned that he wouldn't cope with living in a far smaller place, considering we had lived in a much larger, three-bedroom house with a garden, where he could go when 'needs must.' He does get excited when it's time to go out for a walk (he has always done this, barking and generally making a lot of noise when he has his lead put on, for example.) He has met many of the other residents and they seem to love him. Well, he does have a sort of magnetic personality, loving being the centre of attention and all the fuss he gets. We are constantly meeting other dog-walkers, particularly in Oldbrook Green, the rather pleasant open space which is a short walk from the flat. We seem to meet the same people with their dogs, which means we have a sort of ready-made set of regulars. Although most of pleasant, there are one or two who aren't quite so friendly. The other day we came across this young man who had two dogs on leads and which had muzzles on. I think they were Staffordshire terriers, by their size and shape. Is it me, or are a 'certain element' under the impression that such dogs give them a sort of 'hard' edge? I'm thinking mostly, male, sporty types, of a 'certain age,' (probably between 18-35), with a sort of swagger. (I'm building up my character description for an archetype here, but never mind. Probably a character from the BBC1 soap, 'EastEnders. Probably based loosely on one of the Mitchell brothers.) Anyway, we had walked round the park once and had encountered this individual and then, on the second encounter, he saw Alfie, who, by the way was behaving impeccably, and when this individual saw him, he said, 'if he (meaning Alfie) snaps at my dogs, I'll  take their muzzles off!' What was the reason for this? Alfie wouldn't hurt a fly! He's well behaved and would never bite anyone, and certainly not get into a fight with another dog. He always wants to be friends with the dogs he meets, even though he can be a bit 'in your face' with his barking and running around. I suppose it's just that he gets over-excited. This 'individual' was being unnecessarily aggressive (or I suppose he thought he was.) and somewhat threatening (in a rather pathetic manner, so I thought.) He was using his dogs as a sort of protection for his no doubt, fragile masculinity. Somewhat sad and pathetic generally. Why threaten a harmless little Yorkie with aggression and threats in the first place?

EastEnders Does Joe Orton

We thought we'd watch EastEnders last night, just to see what on earth was going on. I had accidentally strayed into soap land the other evening when I was sitting and working on my laptop. The television was on and I wasn't watching as my concentration was elsewhere. Then EastEnders came on. (See earlier post where I discuss this.) So I was somewhat fascinated to see how things were developing, hence what follows.  As I've mentioned in an earlier post, Christmas in soap-land is always fraught with drama and excitement. Possibly this will be the only episode we'll bother to see for the rest of 2018, but who knows? We have a television set in our bedroom, so if it's too awful we could always just fall asleep, due to the boredom. So, what on earth IS going on in Walford?  Possibly not boring. Someone is in intensive care. I assume they are. I couldn't work out if the 'someone' was male or female. Carol insists it's female. This is a soap stand-by. Have someone or other involved in an accident of some sort, traffic, house-fire, shot or whatever, so they end up in hospital, in intensive care, miles of tubes, things stuffed in their mouth, bleeping monitor at bedside, and family members come in and stand or sit at their bedside, tears running down faces, gloomy, not sure if they'll pull through (the patient, that is, not the family.) Usually this is done when an actor wants to leave the show, or hasn't decided to sign contract to remain, so the producers do this to their character. They die if they don't sign the contract, or they live if they do. They can remain on life-support for endless episodes. Harrowing and dramatic, but probably incomprehensible if you're not a regular viewer of the show (as we are.) Who is this character? Why are they in intensive care?

Then we had another plot, involving a coffin, Billy Mitchell as a funeral director, and a whole gang of 'hard' men, including Mr 'Potato head' Phil Mitchell grunting and scowling (as he always does.) in a scene which was more a cross between Joe Orton's play 'Loot' and a piece by Harold Pinter than your average EastEnders storyline. Had they hidden some ill-gotten cash inside the coffin of someone's dead mother? Or whose corpse was it anyway? (Good name for another play, methinks, a farce perhaps, or even another television show of some sort.) It did smack of Orton, as I know the play well and worked on a production at Colchester Rep when I was an A.S.M. in the early 1970's. Anyway, I just hope the Orton estate doesn't sue the producers of EastEnders for plagiarism or something. It was all a real muddle, particularly as we weren't sure what was going on, or who was who (or whom.) Was someone pretending to be a priest, or at least a man of the cloth, or a vicar?  This character began to speak a load of gibberish, sort of stage Latin. Was he supposed to be attempting to say the Last Rites? More laughable than anything. Then they decided to take the lid off the coffin and I assume put the loot inside and, for some unaccountable reason, the corpse fell out. I don't think it was necessary, but I think they got complaints from some viewers as a result, or I expect they would. Who on earth would want Billy Mitchell as a funeral director? He's fairly incompetent at the best of times, but the thought of him organising a funeral leaves much to be desired. Not exactly realistic. I felt sorry for the person who had to be the corpse. I assume it was a real person and not a dummy. They would have had to remain still and not breath for a long time, although there were no shots of the corpse, except very brief glimpses. Had they got the wrong coffin? I assume that what was going on. Billy Mitchell selecting the wrong one, no doubt.

Are we to assume that the stolen cash is put in a different coffin and Billy buries the wrong one? In the play 'Loot,' the hearse taking the coffin to the cemetery is involved in an accident and later the coffin and a casket, which contains the hidden money from a robbery, gets burnt and returns to the home of the deceased wife of the central character, so it'll be interesting to see if they pinch this plot idea from the Orton play. I don't think I can be bothered to watch to find out. The whole thing is too absurd and not worth the effort to watch, but never mind. They have had gangsters in earlier episodes of EastEnders and it got ridiculous and unrealistic. People with guns and things in a soap is going too far if you ask me. Not just in EastEnders, but I seem to remember something similar in Brookside and we know what happened to that particular soap opera. It got cancelled. Just a good way to lose viewers when things get unrealistic and crazy.

One assumes the cash has been stolen in some sort of robbery. I didn't discover where it had come from. If you're a regular viewer you would obviously have learnt all these details, so watching one episode it does take a while to fathom out what is going on. No context for any of the current goings-on. A bit like picking up a novel, probably quite a long one at that, and just opening at a random page and reading and expecting to understand the plot and characters from only reading a couple of pages. New characters have been introduced since I last watched EastEnders. Some have left, and old characters have reappeared.

A Load More Daft and Cliched Things in Soap and Movies

Why is it that generally speaking, if a character has a posh accent, they are generally not to be trusted,  that they get to be a villain in a soap (or any other drama)? In American films generally, if they want to cast an actor as the 'bad guy' then they will go out and find a British actor to play the part. In 'The Lion King,' the voice of Scar, the villain of the piece, is voiced by Jeremy Irons. What is it about a Britsh actor's voice that suggests 'villainy'? In soap-land, if you cast an actor with a middle-class accent, you can bet your bottom dollar he'll be untrustworthy, and either be a landlord, businessman, accountant or have a similar job. Cockneys, in general are cast as being 'the salt of the earth,' hard working, good parents, loyal and so on (or in shows such as 'Only Fools and Horses.') that is, unless they live in Walford, and in particular in and around the streets near Albert Square.

Getting away from soaps, it's occurred to me that super heroes (and heroines) costumes are just plain silly. Well, thinking about them in general, super heroes are pretty stupid. I know it will upset a lot of people, but that's my opinion. A load of stupid characters dressed in ridiculous costumes, roaming about the world. For example,Wonder Woman's costume is really impractical. Does she never get cold? How does she manage if she goes shopping? How does she manage at work?  In fact, what does she do for money? Does she have a paid job? Does her boss mind if she shoots off and saves the world? Then, of course, where do you purchase such an outfit? They never seem to get dirty, when you've saved the world from some evil monster or villainous character. After jumping all over the place, smashing down brick walls, swinging on ropes and scrambling down the side of skyscrapers, how come their costumes never get dirty, or get torn on nails, caught on splinters of wood? Where does Wonder woman get her clothes repaired? Not just her, of course. There's the age-old thing about Superman wearing his underpants over his trousers. How does he manage to get from the Clark Kent garb into the Superman costume so fast? Then, how does Lois Lane never realise that Superman is actually Clark Kent. All he has to do is take off his glasses and he changes into his ridiculous costume and he's his alter ego. Why does it take Lois Lane so long to catch on to who he is? Is it because Clark Kent is such a geek and Superman the complete opposite. Not very convincing. It's not just Lois Lane who has never caught on who Clark Kent is really. Nobody else notices. Even if they peer at his face closely, wouldn't they see he's Superman?

Hollywood seems to be obsessed with making more and more films based on super heroes. There is obviously a certain section of the audience who love these characters and the movies which are based on them, but generally I think they would be in the teens and twenties. As a result they are ignoring those of us who prefer something with a bit more depth, not all about fighting villains and daft stunts like flying about on the end of bits of rope and climbing up the side of sky scrapers. Most are what you'd call 'Summer Blockbusters,' noisy and action-packed. Although there's nothing wrong with 'action-packed' movies, it annoys me that they take up so much space in the multiplexes up and down the country and then there are countless sequels. It's really no wonder that television seems to be the place for really good stories to be told. So many actors and directors are now turning to television because they can tell stories over seasons or series, have a longer time frame to really get to grips with characters in more depth. We have directors such as Ridley Scott investing time and energy on projects such as 'The Man In The High Castle' on Amazon and with series like 'Taboo' on BBC 1 with actors like Tom Hardy involved in not only acting but having a say on the writing and producing. 

Cliche Soap Misery

I couldn't resist. I had to write something. I said I wouldn't write a blog post over Christmas. But every Christmas it's the same. They can't manage to come up with a happy storyline for EastEnders. The characters can't have a nice, peaceful, happy Christmas. Den handed the divorce papers to Angie on Christmas Day goodness knows how many years ago. Someone has a complete dislike for someone so they have to shoot that 'someone,' (was it one of the Mitchell brothers?) Pauline Fowler breathes her last, falls over in the snow in the middle of Albert Square, all alone. How come it snows exactly on 25th December (when in reality the temperature is spring-like in the 'real world'? Does Albert Square have it's own micro climate?) Why on earth would anyone choose to live in Walford? Does nobody have the common sense to just LEAVE for a better life elsewhere? It makes me wonder why ON EARTH people want to watch soap. Particularly when most are so full of misery and such horrible characters. I reckon it's because they're on at the same time every week, it's familiarity and nothing changes. Just a habit to go on being bored with he same old same. Pity really.

In tonight's episode, Max Branning explains the reason for his behaviour on a 'virus in his 'ed.? Is this a new medical condition? How can you blame your mental state on a virus? Just a weak scriptwriter's excuse. Now, as I watch, Phil Mitchell is threatening to shoot Max with a shotgun, he's lying on the ground and it's pouring with rain. Mind you, it's good BBC stair-rod type rain  (real rain never falls in that shower bath type fashion. Far too regular, and they're using pre-recorded BBC sound effects thunder.) Just one big cliche if ever there was one. No, sorry, I'm not concentrating too hard on what's going on. A great deal of arguing and shouting about something or other. So, this is Christmas television entertainment? Over two 30-minutes instalments? I don't generally watch any television soap. Quite frankly, I have better things to do with my time. There's far better drama on elsewhere. Piles of stuff on catch-up with our SkyQ box.

Can nobody cook a Christmas dinner without burning it, or there being some other disaster in the kitchen? Then, as a result, everyone going to the Vic to have their Christmas dinner. Or going somewhere else in the Square for their meal. Then their being an almighty argument over the turkey and pudding. Probably a lot of stuff being broken, food thrown about, possibly somebody having their face thrust into a plate of food.

Then, the other old stand-by. A long-lost relative arriving at the last moment. A character who hasn't been seen in the Square for years, knocks on the door or someone or other. Or a love-child or a character arriving to stir things up somewhat. Admittedly, this doesn't always happen at Christmas, but it matters not, as it's still a cliche.

I know this is all awful, but I only ever watch EastEnders to see how truly bad it is. There can be no other good reason, and particularly over the Season of Goodwill. Certainly the characters in EastEnders have never heard of 'Goodwill.' 

Something Of Nothing

So, I'm short of things to talk about in this blog post. Which is unlike me. I can usually manage to find plenty to waffle on about. Just staring at a blank screen or sheet of paper can produce writer's block. Many writers have managed to create something out of nothing. When I'm out and about I always attempt to start conversations. If we're in a waiting room for example, as we've been doing for the last few months in N.H.S. facilities, it's always a stress-reliever if you can start a conversation. Even at the supermarket check-out, I always feel sorry for the staff who have to put up with grumpy customers who don't like waiting for any length of time. Whenever I've done any television walk-on work and I arrived early on location and have to sit and wait (a great deal of that when doing that sort of work.) I always manage to strike up conversations with all and sundry who I sit next to, usually on a bus or whatever. As a result, in some cases, I've managed to get more work, or find out such things like other agencies taking on people which has lead to me getting cast in other shows, or going for auditions for things I would have otherwise known about.

There have been quite a few instances of television shows which have had complete episodes which  utilise 'nothing much happens' for an entire 30 minutes running time. 'EastEnders' have done several complete episodes which have just a single character or only a handful of characters in a sort of one-act style storyline. Well, like most television soaps, not a lot happens, or if it does, it's very, very slowly over months and months. Then, just think of the famous 'Sunday Afternoon' episode of the classic 'Hancock's Half-Hour' where all that happens is Hancock, Sid and Bill discuss how boring things are and nothing much happens. There's an episode of 'One Foot in The Grave' where Victor, Margaret and Mrs Warboys are stuck together in their car in a traffic-jam  on the way to some Bank Holiday destination and, again, nothing much happens, except, of course, that Victor gets on everyone's nerves with his constant moaning and upsets several people who are in other cars in the jam.

Taking of traffic jams, I get annoyed when we get stuck in them on the motorway, usually when we go north on the M1 and it's caused by roadworks and they cone off one of the lanes and, as we pass by at a crawl, I look over and there's miles and miles of these roadworks and nothing going on that would possibly warrant coning this section of motorway, no sign of workmen digging holes, laying tarmac or otherwise being busy. 

Of  course, Hancock was created during the 1950's and 1960's when Sundays were boring, nothing was open, no cinemas or theatres and shops had very restricted opening hours, so sitting at home doing nothing except watching the rain-drops running down the window pains would have had resonances with most of the audience who were listening at home.

Perhaps the most famous instances of nothing happening must of course be 'Waiting For Godot' written by Samuel Beckett, where the main characters spend the entire play doing virtually nothing as they wait for Godot who never appears. It's a lot of almost gibberish dialogue.

Then there's works of art. We've been to Tate Modern and seen art which can, as best, be blank canvasses or have nothing in the way of a 'picture' on their canvasses, just canvas with a few slits in or a couple of blocks of coloured paint (think of Marc Rothco.) I won't go into the artistic value or otherwise of these pieces of 'art.' A few artists work in what's called 'conceptual art,' perhaps filling a space with  - nothing. Which is supposed to make a statement. But don't ask we what. Not actually my idea of art. Supposed to make you think.

John Cage, the composer, created a piece of music called 4'33", which consists of silence for 4 minutes 33 seconds. Quite frankly it can hardly be described as 'music,' but being a minimalist composer it couldn't be much more minimal if it consists of nothing. Not sure whether this is considered a serious piece or whether he was having a joke on the audience.

So, at the end of this blog post, where I started off with nothing, I have quite successfully managed to write about something.

Crazy Television

Why do we have to have so many trailers on television? I don't mean for films, but for television shows. They seem to show the same clips for a drama, for example, and it surely ruins the actual show because if there's several clips which are extracted from that show, they're just going to spoil the surprise element and just destroy that programme. If it's a comedy show, then, to have some of the comic moments shown endlessly during a trailer is going to kill any sense of humour that may have been in that particular show. Having said that, they're running trailers for my least-favourite programme, 'EastEnders,' where all the most dramatic 'bits' are squeezed into about 30 seconds and actually improves this programme. Whenever the famous introductory music starts, we always reach for the remote and switch channels or turn the television 'off.'

To the question 'why so many trailers on television?' I'd say, so we know a new show is coming up in the near future and the producers want us to watch. Which I suppose is obvious.

I've mentioned how they have to squeeze the credits at the end of a programme into a horrible narrow strip and insist on telling you what's coming up. Why does the announcer have to speak over the credits and why on earth do the credits have to be rushed through so fast that you can't possibly read them clearly? Just an insult on the actors as well as the production staff.

Something else I hate about television is when directors and cameramen insist on using crazy angles to shoot film or video. WHY I have to ask? It can be very unsettling. Also, using what they call 'whip-pans' (I think I have the correct term for this) when they spin the camera around quickly, perhaps cutting from one place to another. It makes you feel sick. Then there's this thing they have of filming people as they walk along, which can make you feel sort of sea-sick, or at least motion-sick. I feel sorry for the cameraman having to walk along backwards to follow the actor or presenter. It must be difficult, probably having to avoid colliding with furniture or, worse still if it's outside, falling into a ditch or running into whatever is in the way.

Daytime television: why are there endless programmes about couples selling houses? Some are fine, such as 'Homes Under The Hammer,' because it's about people who buy empty, probably derelict houses, at auction, and you then see how they manage to transform them and then sell them on at quite large profit or rent them out. At least they're giving people homes and preventing houses being built on greenfield sites and increasing the housing stock. But it the programmes about couples who have so much money, from selling one over-priced properties, usually in the South East and London, and have this fantasy about moving to an idealised rural property with a 'large kitchen,' and 'space for a pony' or most likely it someone who's retiring and has got money from a bonus working in the city or it's from being a director of a company or business they've had something to do with and got share options. . . the show I'm thinking about is called 'Escape To The Country' and it's on virtually every day, in the afternoon.

A Load More Corny Television Clichés (Usually In Soap Operas)

Why is it that scriptwriters, as well as directors, use lazy clichés in television drama, particularly soap? Things that annoy me such as when a scene is supposed to be night time and the action is outside and dark, it's always lit so that you can see the characters and the action perfectly clearly. Why is it so light? Where is the light coming from? The moon isn't always full at night, or if it is it's not always clear and cloudless. It's just rather corny. I bet if I go outside at night and there's no street lighting and there's the chance of it being a full moon, I don't somehow think I'm going to be able to see that well and certainly not other people, regardless of how close they are to me. And it's always a sort of false moonlight-blue sort of coloured light. Why? If it streetlights it more likely to be that orange sodium light that are more common these days.

Why is it when a character in a drama, particularly a soap, is searching for something on the internet, using a search engine such as Google (although for some reason, another cliche, they never actually use Google, which anyone else would use, they use a made-up search engine which nobody else in real life would bother to use, basically because they couldn't use a named 'brand' particularly the BBC, which tries it's hardest to disguise a known name, otherwise they'd get done for advertising. Probably ITV could pass it off as 'product placement' and then get paid by the company.) Anyway, returning to this character using a search engine. How is it that when they're searching for something or other, they always manage to find exactly the right website and THEN, once they're on it, they find the bit of information they're looking for, if it's a detective story, the detective finds the vital bit of information which will lead to the murderer or whoever. Too corny by half. Another one, when there's something someone wants to hear about, such a news item, how is it, when they turn on the television or perhaps a radio, it just so happens to be EXACTLY the right bit of news on when the set comes on, at just the right time, with exactly the right person or thing that they wanted to know. The headlines on the front of a newspaper just HAPPENS to be about a particular incident, a murder, a police investigation, which is the main subject of a particular television drama, how is it it is on the front of the paper at that particular moment in time, or if it's inside the paper, when a character is looking for it they find it so easily, without making any effort to search for it? If I was looking for a newspaper article I imagine it would take a good deal of time and effort before I discovered it, having waded through many pages before I found it. Totally unrealistic. I realize that television drama isn't always supposed to be REAL, but at least make it believable. I know it speeds up the action, but why does it have to be so UNREALISTIC?

In a soap, particularly EastEnders, so many of the characters find it difficult to communicate logically. Why are they endlessly searching for another character? Why not just use their mobile phone and RING UP the other character or text? Wouldn't you do that in real life? They do seem to spend an amazing amount of time on this search for so-and-so. Again, crazy and unrealistic. Just another cliche.

In soaps, why do so many of the characters put up with the generally awful surroundings they live in? In EastEnders or Coronation Street, why is it that someone like Ken Barlow, who had a degree, became a teacher, then ran a local newspaper (amazing and very unconvincingly, all on his own. How come? Was he editor as well as reporter etc etc.) He then became a local councillor or something, and ended up as a (wait for it) trolley collector in a supermarket! Crazy and unrealistic. How many wives has he had and why has he spent his life living in a somewhat rundown back-street in a Manchester suburb? Why on earth didn't he move away years ago? Totally ridiculous and crazy sort of thing for a man with his academic ability. In real life, how many people remain in exactly the same street they were born and raised in and then went to university and then come home and spend the rest of their life in? I know a soap isn't supposed to be like a documentary, but at least make it a bit more convincing. I know I wasted a lot of my time watching Corrie for years and years, but I haven't seen it for more than 10 years so I'm somewhat out of date with the characters and plots, but I don't imagine things have moved on much.

In other forms of drama there's got to be some sort of journey for the characters to go on as the story develops. The central character has to change as things develop, he/she should be different at the end of the story, at the climax of the plot, to have learnt a lesson to some or a greater extent. In soap opera the characters never seem to develop, to learn from their mistakes and try to change things. They're not supposed to, because the audience expects things to be safe and cosy. To retain the audience it's no good having the characters change too much. That is what makes soap so popular, the fact that you know exactly what you're going to get each time you tune in. It's a sort of familiar and safe place for your returning audience. Make too many changes, such as writing out characters to frequently or changing the location, you'd find you would loose your audience in droves and a soap is really there in the schedules as a ratings winner. The fact that a soap is set in one location, such as a Manchester suburb street, a square in the East End of London means that it's a good deal cheaper to produce with fewer sets which can be reused endlessly and cuts down the expense of producing the show. Also, with a large cast of characters they can have virtually endless plots created for them, even if they are actually recycling the same sort of plots week after week and year after year.

I can see why soap is so popular, but for me they're just full of stock characters and cliched plots that are, as I've already mentioned, recycled endlessly. I can't stand the fact that most storylines go one ad infinitum. I want plots that come to a definite conclusion some how or other and characters that change. We always get a 'big story' breaking over the Christmas period. Who'd ever get married in a soap? There's always a big bust up or some 'reveal' whenever there's a wedding, or someone who's been out of the show for years suddenly makes an appearance or a long-lost relative makes an appearance or the illegitimate child of someone appears who didn't realise they even existed. Or as I say, at the big Christmas dinner there's an almighty bust-up or another 'reveal.' Just think Angie Watts and Den, when Den gives Angie the divorce papers on Christmas Day, perhaps one of the first big 'events' in the early days of the soap. 

Early Morning Visit To A and E

Carol came home from work a few days ago complaining that she had a problem with one of her eyes. She said she had something in it which irritated. She wasn't sure what it could be. I didn't think any more about it because often if you get something in your eye, such as grit, a small fly or a hair, it can generally work it's way out and that's the end of it. But this appeared to get worse instead of better. She wondered whether she had got some chemical she uses in the labs at Milton Keynes Academy as a science teacher into her eye accidentally, by rubbing her eye, having picked it up off something or other. Which would seem easy to do if a surface, for example, hadn't been wiped clean properly by another teacher using the same lab.  

She didn't make much comment about this until Tuesday evening. We went to bed, then early next morning, around 3.45 or around that time, she said it was getting much worse. So, after much consideration, we thought it might be a good idea to go to A and E (Accident and Emergency) at Milton Keynes Hospital, which is only a relatively short walk away behind our house in Eaglestone. There's really no point in using the car because you have to pay anyway and we weren't sure how long we were going to have to wait until she would be seen by either a doctor or a nurse. So we walked, leaving the house at around 4.15 a.m. The hospital campus was more or less deserted and, on arriving at the A and E department, there were only a couple of other people waiting. She reported her issue at the reception and then sat down. She was seen by the triage nurse within half an hour, but then another nurse came out and pinned a hand-written notice on the front of the reception desk saying that waiting times were between 4 and 5 hours!

So we sat in the waiting area. There was a television on with  the BBC News Channel. Time ticked by. People came and went. Several with young children. They seemed to be fast-tracked through the system. Taken through to a special children's A and E department. Some people seemed to get taken through to the nurse's area before us. They most likely had priority, as I realize that the more serious an injury is, the quicker you will be seen and dealt with, such as when I have gone to A and E with my heart condition, or even when I had my original heart attack 10 years ago (although I was living in Bedford at the time and went to Bedford Hospital.) A fairly minor eye injury, such as Carol's, would be considered minor which is why she wasn't seen immediately. At around 9 a.m. she was called through to the main area beyond the double doors (which you couldn't enter unless you used a swipe card, which most members of N.H.S. staff had. She was gone about 20 minutes and carrying a small tube of ointment which had been applied to her eye and made it go bright yellow. We walked home and immediately fell into bed and fell asleep. I must say, as we sat in the A and E department waiting area, I was gradually falling asleep. We did manage to get a bottle of orange juice and two chocolate bars out of the vending machines in the department. Fortunately, we had my wallet with us which I had managed to take when we left the house and these vending machines have contactless card payment which meant we could have the chocolate and drink which we wouldn't have been able to have if it was only able to take coins to pay.

Later in the morning we got a call from the hospital to say that she had got an appointment the following day (today, Thursday.) at the eye clinic at 2.30.

Later. Thursday.

Carol's appointment was at 2.30 as I mentioned in the above. We walked to the hospital. I went on-line and found out where exactly the eye clinic was. It's within the outpatient's department, which, on thinking about it, is fairly obvious. I wanted to avoid the situation that we might have found ourselves in, wandering the seemingly never ending corridors in Milton Keynes hospital, rather like the Flying Dutchman in the Wagner opera. Although he wasn't lost in a hospital, but on the hight sea. Although the setting of an N.H.S. hospital might he rather interesting. You can walk in one entrance and then spend the rest of the day walking from one end to the other and never finding the department you want. We got there with plenty of time to spare. Full of people waiting. A definite captive audience. You could sell sandwiches, coffee and tea, newspapers, anything (but I bet you'd have to go through no end of paperwork and go through endless hoops, through regulations, health and safety, patient protection procedures etc, before being able to sell anything, so don't even bother to take it further. No doubt there's a tendering process, red tape and no end of  beurocratic nonsense before you could set up quite a lucrative business.) People of all ages, waiting for their appointments, all attempting like crazy to avoid eye contact with one another. Looking thoroughly bored. Along one side of the room, an array of booths, or kiosks, where you would go for your appointment. Each has a number, in extremely large sized lettering, from 1 through 6 or thereabouts. I realize that the patients had sight problems, but why do the signs have to be so large and obvious? It seemed a bit over the top. I have an image of someone of a 'certain age' who wears glasses, with those extremely thick lenses, like the bottom of bottles, which make their eyes look huge (rather like the bushbaby in the brilliant Ardman Animation mini film "Creature Comfort", which sits on a branch and at the end takes the glasses off and their eyes are tiny.) This person turns up for their appointment and then has great difficulty finding the right room their appointment is in and has to search by touch virtually alone, even though the sign for the room they have to go to has a sign with extremely tiny signage. Just an idea.

We sat at one side of the waiting area, right near the television that was on the wall. The gameshow "Decimate" comes on, a daytime show which I might or might not have seen. It has Shane Ritchie as compere. He plays Alfie Moon in 'EastEnders.' Our Yorkshire Terrier is named after him. Anyway, we had to sit quite close to the screen, but it meant we would have our backs to the rest of the room and wouldn't see anyone who came out to call when Carol's appointment came up. After around 10 minutes it was time for Carol's appointment. She went into the room and was gone for around 20 minutes or so. A young man with his mother came in. They sat directly under the television screen. He looked bored silly as if he didn't want to be there. I wasn't actually sure whether they were mother and son. She seemed to look too old to be his mother. She might have been his grandmother. They didn't speak or make any indication that they were actually together. Perhaps he wasn't old enough to get to the hospital appointment on his own. He probably couldn't drive a car or get a bus on his own (unlikely, thinking about it now.) Then she offered him an extra strong mint, which he accepted. He just stared off into space, but they never spoke to one another. Or perhaps she was going for the appointment. I wasn't sure. Anyway, they are now filed under 'characters' which I can use in my writing. Even just sitting in the hospital I was beginning to get ideas for writing stories. A definite fertile ground for inspiration.

Then Carol came out of the room where she'd had her appointment. She wanted me to go back in with her as the nurse who had been dealing with her eye injury had to go off to find a doctor to give a second opinion about her eye. It was regarding the eye problem she had had several years ago when she had gone to have an eye test at Asda and we were sent to Stoke Mandeville Hospital because the optician had found something which needed attention. Surprisingly, she has never had a follow-up appointment in all the intervening years. The lady was gone five minutes or so but then came back with a doctor who looked at Carol's eyes through a sort of microscope machine and gave the all clear on that problem. Regarding the recent eye injury, it appeared that whatever it was that had got into her eye had come out. It might have been a bit of grit or chemical from working at the Academy. The surrounding area around the eye had got very puffy and red and this, apparently, was due to the fact that she was getting an allergic reaction to the ointment she was given at the A and E department the previous day and was told to stop using it immediately. Also, she was given a prescription for some sort of drops which would help prevent dry eyes as apparently she wasn't producing the natural lubricant her eyes should produce to stop her eye healing properly. So, we walked out of the department and home and then drove to Sainsbury's to get the prescription made up. Unfortunately, on enquiring at the pharmacy, they didn't have it in stock but had to put in an order which should be ready for collection tomorrow after 12 noon.

Working on EastEnders

In 1988 I managed to get on the books of an agent in London called Ivor Kimmel. I'm not sure exactly how I came across him, but I think it may have been as a result of over-hearing a conversation on a bus when I was working on something else. I think I wrote to him to try and get onto his books and he must have written back saying something to the effect that his books were full, but he would bear me in mind if anything came up where they required more people on anything. I never went to his office or met him, but I got quite a few bits and pieces over the next couple of years. One bit of work that springs to mind was when I spent a few days working on EastEnders. When I was called by Ivor Kimmel he asked me whether I'd worked on EastEnders, to which I replied that I hadn't. This was only a few years into this show's run, as it had only begun in February 1985. He said they were looking for people to work on a show called 'Caged' or 'Behind Bars' or something and the location was in a school just outside Borehamwood in Hertfordshire. I went off to the location, not for one minute imagining it was actually EastEnders I was going to be working on.  They'd used the other name for the show they were filming as a sort of 'blind' to put off the tabloid press who are always hot on the heels of stories related to any of the 'soaps.' It was at the time they were filming episodes when Den Watts ('Dirty Den' as he was called, and played by Leslie Grantham.) and the character was about to be written out. He was in prison (don't ask me on what charge.) and the school was being used to film the scenes where he is visited in prison and also some scenes where he is being interviewed. I was to be one of the prison warders in the visiting room scenes and was in the background wandering about. I think I was seen but probably from the waist down as the camera was set up very low as the visitors are sitting at tables. These scenes were directed by Julia Smith who was responsible (with Tony Holland) for devising the format and characters for the show. Quite a formidable person. Being what they called 'rapid turn-round' television drama, there was no time to do endless 'takes' so you were expected to do it more or less in 'one take' so woe betide if you made a mistake. A scene would be shot and then the cameras would be moved around for the next set-up. When I arrived on location I was put into my costume as a prison warder and then I had to wear a long coat over it to hide the costume as there were press photographers around outside the location who would have taken photographs and given away the plot of Den's exit from the show which would have spoilt the whole thing, obviously. I believe the scenes within the prison cells were shot in Dartmoor prison, but I can't be sure. As so many of the 'regular' characters were supposed to visit Den in prison it was easier to set up those scenes elsewhere rather than travel to and from the Dartmoor location, or so I was lead to believe. I did quite a few scenes in the school on one day, but was later called back to be used in scenes where Den was being interviewed in a room elsewhere in the prison and was supposed to be guarding the room outside and let people in and out of the room. It was on the final day of shooting that Leslie Grantham was given a special cake with a prison decorated on it and was presumably his final day working on the show. 

I have done a bit of a Google search because I couldn't remember the name of the school where these scenes were filmed but I'm fairly certain that it was Haberdashers' Aske School in Aldenham, which is just outside Elstree, which is where the outdoor 'lot' for EastEnders is  situated and the show is made.

I never actually got to work on the EastEnders outdoor set or 'lot' at Elstree studios, but I did get a chance to see it when I was working on another drama series, 'House of Cards' (the original four-part BBC series and not the American version that has been remade.) For that particular series I did quite a lot of work in and around various London locations. I was with a group of other walk-on's or supporting artistes and we were supposed to be journalists. It was usually when the central character of Francis Urquart, played by Ian Richardson, was involved, usually when he appeared outside Downing Street. They had built a mock-up of Downing Street, as obviously they couldn't use the real one, and it was built alongside the EastEnders set. Ian Richardson came along in a car and got out and we were supposed to photograph him. It was an extremely hot and sunny day and it was supposed to be winter so we had thick coats on over suits and we got very hot. They had to put up special screens to block out the sun, which is strange as usually they use very large arc lamps to make a scene seem sunny when it it overcast. We did another scene somewhere in central London, I think it was supposed to be near Conservative central office, and we were expected to run across the road towards the front door of this large building, I think it was in a St Jame's Square.  On the cue for 'action' we had to time it precisely as there was real traffic and there was a real danger of getting run over. I seem to remember the unit was set up near where WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot outside the Libyan Embassy as there was a memorial set up at the site of where she was shot in 1984.

Cliche and Over-Worked Plots In television soaps

In my last post I managed to hint at a subject which intrigues me a great deal and that is the subject of cliche, nowhere more prevalent than in the area of films and television soaps. If you watch soaps on television you will no doubt be aware of the over-use of certain story lines, stereotypes etc. I cannot actually see what the attraction of soaps is, although  in the past I have been caught up in the long-running story lines of soaps such as Brookside (long since cancelled), Emmerdale, EastEnders, Coronation Street and the only radio soap left, The Archers. Admittedly, it has to be said, it must be extremely hard to keep a soap going for 52 weeks of a year, and there must be times when there is nothing much happening as regards plot. But then there are big stories that are supposed to hook the viewer, usually at peak times of the year, most notably at Christmas. The cliche of the big Christmas 'reveal' around the dinner table in EastEnders, Den giving Angie the divorce papers in EastEnders was during a Christmas episode and consequently the rating soared to record levels. Some long-running soap story lines do 'hook' the audience, for example the Trevor Jordache 'body under the patio' in Brookside which ran and ran and was a definite 'hook' (I have to admit I was caught up in it during the 1990's.)

It has often intrigued me about soap and that is, why do the characters live and work in such a small area, i.e. a small northern backstreet,  an east-end square that  is run-down, etc etc and not only live and work there, but form relationships with one another in such a small area, why do they never seem to do what the rest of us do and not move away from such a small area?  I know, you're thinking to yourself as you read this, "well, it's not real. It is drama, and it isn't supposed to be real." But that doesn't excuse the fact that it doesn't bear any resemblance to how the 'real' world acts and behaves so we can at least identify with what we're watching. For example, why is it they never seem to move away from that little closed world as the rest of the world does? Some do seem to go outside the confines of this small world, but when they do they never seem to return or are forgotten. Perhaps it's because of the soap format, the restrictions of the soap 'form' because if they do the soap can't work. In that respect I find it so boring, so depressing and unimaginative. I suppose the story lines have to work within such a restrictive format because it is an open-ended form of drama, because it is expected to run several time a week, for 52 weeks of the year. For me, I have to say I prefer something which ties up within one episode or over a set number of episodes. We rarely get single dramas or plays on television as we used to have in the 1960's or '70, with such strands as 'Play of the Month', 'The Wednesday Play', 'Play For Today' or 'Armchair Theatre.' It's a pity that everything seems to fit into a series slot, either crime, mystery, who-done-it, medical, etc etc. There's nowhere to go for a 'one-off' story. The BBC have done daytime drama series, such as 'Moving On' which has a sort of theme, but all the stories are told over a 45-minute running time and don't relate one to the other with stories overlapping or having returning characters. A bit like short stories in the printed form as opposed to long-form writing with, say, novels.

Why do soaps get such high ratings? Could it be that it's actually a habit-forming sort of drama. Soaps are on several times a week and at the same time. Also, people are drawn to the gossipy element, everyone love to 'find out' the latest bit of juicy gossip, which is always carried by the tabloid newspapers. Soap seems to sell newspapers so it's a sort of cyclical thing, soaps drive sales, the audience for soaps soar and round and round it goes.

I do seem to have wandered off the topic of cliche, but never mind. Once I get going on a subject such as this it is always so easy to get onto another area. I'm just interested in why people get so hooked on soap, unfortunately they don't have much else on that they can get their teeth into. Soaps seem to make good topics for the tabloids whenever they use social issues as the basis for story lines. It was usually such playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh and all those who wrote for the BBC series such as 'Play For Today' and 'The Wednesday Play' which used such subjects as homelessness which made those plays so memorable.

EastEnders and Coronation Street are one big cliche without going into too much detail. Corrie is stuck in some sort of late '50's early 60's time warp.  EastEnders is stuck in a sort of 1980's time warp. Do people still live in backstreets like that? Wouldn't that area have been bought up by developers and been bulldozed long ago and been replaced with a retail park, modern houses and business premises? As for EastEnders, can someone please explain how it is no one in Albert Square owns a washing machine? And from experience I have used quite a few laundrettes, but the one near Albert Square has staff who DO YOUR WASHING FOR YOU and the place looks dirty and uncared-for and would most certainly put off customers. Why, whenever the writers want to kill off a character or characters do they have someone run into or run over by a car, when there are surely no more than half a dozen cars in the Square and that person just happens to walk into a car when there are no other cars about and there's no through-traffic? Ludicrous and silly, to say the least. How is it so many of he EastEnders characters can afford to spend so much time in the Vic pub (the same can be said of Corrie in the Rover's and Emmerdale in the Woolpack.) and they drink excessive amounts of alcohol yet can still stand up straight and walk in a straight line. Most people would have permanent hang-overs and be falling all over the place. No one seems to have a job that would earn them enough to be able to afford to buy the homes they live in. Most of the houses in that area of London would be worth far more than they could afford.

I could go on. I may return to this subject in future posts.

Creative Writing

My writing is going well at the moment. I'm not sure whether I mentioned on here that I'd done a one-day creative writing course at Milton Keynes Art Centre one Saturday at the beginning of November and as a result of that I have got a good deal more confident as regards sharing my work with other people. From that course I'm signed up for a further 10-week evening  creative writing course, again at Milton Keynes Art Centre, and again lead by Deborah Fielding. I'm really looking forward to this and I'm absolutely sure that it will inspire me to write new material and also help with my writing in general.

I've been watching the series 'Moving On' which is a BBC 1 early afternoon drama series which must by now be in it's fourth or fifth series. It's shown each day for a week. I remember the BBC doing what are termed 'single dramas' when I was growing up in the 1960's, series of plays such as 'The Wednesday Play' which eventually became  'Play For Today. ' This series is very much in the same mold, and the plays feature subject-matter which is far more socially-aware than a lot of current, prime-time television drama. Writers such as  Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter, John Mortimer and Mike Leigh and wrote plays for these drama 'slots'. Mention of John Mortimer reminds me that he wrote ' A Voyage Round My Father' which I worked on at Greenwich Theatre in the early 1970's and started life as a Play For Today. 'Moving On' is produced and developed by Jimmy McGovern, a writer whose work I very much admire. My own writing is an attempt to produce more current material,  and has, hopefully a sort of depth to it. My current 'multi-strand' project was inspired by 'EastEnders.' I'm not actually a lover of this 'soap' and I wanted to attempt to create my own project much in the style of a soap in that it's set in a single location. I used Bedford as the location so that I could tie the various elements of the stories together (although it isn't actually set there.)  Some of the characters are based on people I observed while I lived there, not necessarily their real stories, but from making observations and visiting various places which I was familiar with was able to develop some of the characters and stories. Much as in the style of a soap, but I hope I am able to get away from the somewhat stifling restrictions which the average television soap has, such as the same old recycled story lines and the fact that the stock characters only live within such a restricted setting (i.e. a street, square or village such as Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale.) Some of the stories over-lap and characters cross between the various story elements. I had intended to have a single day as the time-frame, but having got so far with the project it seems that this will be too restricting and it now seems to cover a far longer time frame. As it has developed I am really surprised how the characters individual stories have grown and extended far beyond what I had at first envisioned and I'm more than pleased by how it has gone.

Working In Care- Part 6

The residents of the house in Everton had a good life. They went out and about, not only going to daycare, but some went shopping with staff, not just food shopping (although most of this was done using the internet, which saved time and effort as it would be delivered by the supermarket, Tesco, just the same as  for any other customer.) but also to shop for their own things, such as clothes. The lady I supported at the daycare centre in Biggleswade also went to a lunch club which was held several days a week in a church in Brickhill in Bedford, St Mark's. They not only got a meal, served by volunteers, but could play games, such as bingo.  As the homes that the residents had been moved into when Bromham Hospital was closed in the late 1990's had many friends which they had made in the time they had lived at Bromham, it was felt that they would want to continue seeing their friends, if they had for example been moved to a home some distance away from where they lived. Everton is some way from Bedford, perhaps the furthest out from the centre of Bedford, so these lunch clubs were set up so that residents could keep in touch with their friends. There was another one in Harrold, a village the other side of Bedford, which had the same sort of remit as the one in St Marks. 

Now this lady, who was in her 80's, was a keen player of bingo, but if she didn't win she would become very upset. You try telling her that she couldn't always win,  she would get very annoyed, but we are talking about someone with a learning disability. She had an extremely strong personality and was quite wilful if she didn't get her own way, which was quite often. She was obsessed by television soaps, and watched all the regular ones such as EastEnders, Coronation Street and Neighbours. I think she more or less lived her life through these shows and would talk endlessly about the various plots and the exploits of the characters, to the point that I think she thought it was real. We had to time her bed-time to the soap's schedules, and she had to be ready for bed so she could sit and watch one or other of these programmes. I didn't actually have any interest in any soap at that time, so, in order to be able to talk about them I began to watch some of them, which was something I did so that I could interact better with her.

Each year the residents went on holiday. Not always all together as some of them had holidays on a one-to-one ratio with staff as some needed more individual attention. Another lady who lived in the house and well into her 80's, could be extremely stubborn. Well, I suppose if you had reached her age you had every right to be stubborn and difficult. She didn't like going out much and whenever she was asked she would refuse point blank. Although there was one thing that would get her to go out and that was a cream cake and a cup of tea, generally consumed at Willington Garden Centre which is not that far from Everton. Even when it was baking hot in the middle of summer she would insist on wearing her vest and a really thick coat and wooly hat! Try and prise them off her and she would get quite aggitated. When the rest of the residents were told they were going on holiday (to somewhere on the east coast, Cromer I think, but I'm not sure.) she wasn't told and was got ready on the day the mini bus was going to depart. It was quite an ordeal loading all the wheelchairs into the minibus as they had to be put in so that each could be locked using a special device which hooked over the axels and then into a sort of grooved track in the mini bus floor. This meant that the wheelchairs were firmly anchored and wouldn't move about as the mini bus moved along. It could take a good 45 minutes to get all the wheelchairs into the vehicle and loaded using a hydraulic lift on the back of the vehicle.

I enjoyed the days when, instead of merely staying in the house with the residents we took them out and about, for example, to the daycare at St Marks or to the college in Biggleswade. One Sunday when I was on shift we took some of them to Whipsnade Zoo. I have always loved Whipsnade from my childhood, so to have a free day out there, even if I was officially working was something of a bonus. Not that it was an easy day, far from it, as not only did we have to load and unload the client group in their wheelchairs, but we had to push them around all day, which was extremely hard work. We had made up a picnic so that the group could have their meal out but we also had to take all their medication with us as most of the residents were on quite a lot of medication and we had to make sure they were given this at the correct time. This also meant taking their administration charts to make sure it was all given properly and marked off correctly.
Anyway, we arrived at Whipsnade (I seem to recall I drove in my car with another agency carer, so I wasn't in the mini bus on this occasion. Perhaps it was for lack of room or something.) We unloaded the residents and then discovered that we were a wheelchair missing. The gentleman responsible (I'm not mentioning his name. I have not mentioned names on here as it might infringe confidentiality.) was a Senior Support Worker and he should really have checked before they had left Everton to make sure they had everything for an afternoon out with the client group, including wheelchairs. So while we sat in the bus, he went into the zoo to fetch a wheelchair that could presumably be hired for those customers who had a need for one. He returned a few minutes later and it turned out this wheelchair had no straps and the brakes didn't work properly. And who was it had to push this wonky wheelchair for the rest of the afternoon? You've guessed it, yours truly! And it was something of an effort as Whipsnade is not all flat surfaces. There was the possibility that the client who used the wheelchair which I was pushing might fall out without the required straps to hold him in, or the wheelchair might run away down a steep slope and he could have come out in quite a nasty accident. But fortunately nothing of that sort happened. The afternoon was unfortunately cut short when it began to rain, so it was a rather wasted afternoon, and quite a long journey from Everton to Whipsnade then back again.

Tickets to see gameshow 'Pointless'

We've got tickets to see a recording of the hit B.B.C. 1 gameshow 'Pointless'. Yes, I know, I did mention in an earlier post that we got tickets to see this, but unfortunately it clashed with something else, so we didn't go. This time we're determined to go. It records at the studios in Elstree, just over the road from the B.B.C. studios where 'EastEnders' is made. I worked on the B.B.C. drama series 'House Of Cards' when I was a supporting artiste and we were supposed to be journalists outside Number 10 Downing Street. I did manage to get to look round the 'EastEnders' 'lot'  as the set I was on was right next to the outdoor set.

The recording is on 21st May, so I'll have to post on here how we got on, but I can't wait to see this show as we're both fans.