Overdue

It's been a while.  All cobwebs are figurative, because this is the internet and they don't have that sort of thing here.  In spite of the lack of any new content, page views are ticking over though, and I won't be surprised if this post facilitates the 11,000th view, an amazing number of unexpected magnitude - although this is barely over the three years mark, that "Blog Every Day in May" thing certainly helped, with May itself having some 2000 visits alone.  Had I not have put myself through such a grueling schedule, perhaps I would still be looking forward to the big ten thou?  Having no formal training in style, and often showing dreadful inconsistencies of tone, I can't help but wonder just what is so compelling about all this.  I moan, wail and hammer on about how miserable things are, perhaps impart secrets of hopeless devotion, the lack of definition or direction.  There are even posts about that time I was dreadfully ill and lost almost half a stone overnight, I suppose there must be something about the time I had the Swine Flu...?  I can't imagine it happened before I started writing surely not?  Oh I can't find anything, not even circumstantial evidence from that time I went to a Green Party social in the Eton Cottage (pictures are on my laptop, not on the internet) and looked the then-leader of the Green Party for Norwich straight in the eye, after firmly shaking his hand, and answered the question "So what's your interest in the Green Party?" with 'None at all; I do not believe in centralised government.', which really put the wind up him.  In all honesty, my interest in the Green Party was completely invested in the girl I was seeing at the time, a young lady I now regard with very mixed emotions: some pride and a little envy, possibly even a hint of regret and perhaps something I'm not quite equipped linguistically or emotionally to express, as I am met by wave upon wave repeating of her wedding photos from her recent ceremony.  It's certainly odd, but not ill-meant by any degree.

Every now and again I wonder what the future holds for my blog; in fact, not just that but also writing and my creativity in general.  I publish it and disseminate links in public for a reason: so people can read it.  That's sort of the point, and I'd hate to labour it any further.  One...issue(problem?) I've come up against is in referring to other people, or in fact things being read into.  I usually keep other names down to a minimum, and have fallen out of the habit of conferring pseudonyms.  I've touched on this before, the great and thorny topic of authorial intent, previously unrecognised, is now at a forefront of my mind as I type.  This road leads to witless paranoia however, which is where I have languished for at least a week now.  What use is it trying to run a blog if I'm worried that things will get taken the wrong way and make trouble of it?  Jesus H. Christ, there always have been and always will be those who take issue or even straight up stand in opposition to the way I do, say, think, sing, write, dress... The list goes on.  To live constantly worried is no life at all!  How desperate have things become?  It's probably why, after a month of pre-packed titles, I turned to things like Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan and why I like stories without happy endings: safe to middling territory that can't be dissected.  Oh well.  Damned if I do and damned if I don't.

!?!

The past two weeks have been flecked with madness, loneliness and some small notes of triumph!  It never really stops being stressed in my head really, as I do live at a certain level of nerves.  Call it whatever you will, but I'd hate to be any other way.  Similarly, I detest being massaged.  Interpersonal contact issues notwithstanding, the act of having my shoulders rubbed is actually rather painful; it appears that I am composed entirely of knotted muscle, and actually I can get on just fine like that thanks.  Who are these people who must be perpetually relaxed?  I am not one of them.  Anyway, I was talking about being alone.  The house is all but empty, with the occasional visit of one of my fellows and his newly Facebook-official girlfriend.  Other than that... Well, one of the Lay-Vicars and his wife came round the week previous, but my visiting schedule is still wide open, YOU WILL ALL BE PLEASED TO HEAR SO COME ROUND.  It isn't awful living alone... The house is quiet (something I sorely missed before), I can stay up til whatever hour I like in the living room, usually doing some sort of cleaning or similar, bombarding the house with various albums ranging from the time I listened to Major four times in a row to the recent rediscovery of a Handel box set.  Not having a set of surround speakers downstairs means I play less from my phone, but that's a small sacrifice.  Last night I dragged the Freezer back in after several days defrosting outside sat over a drain.  Most of the time, blasting out Baroque concertos is an effort to replace the booming bass and raised voices spilling over the back wall from what I can only describe as one of the finest and most popular venues in the whole of Truro.  It could be worse.  Most Friday and Saturday nights I am actually out drinking, usually there, myself.

I must now turn my focus from the Scholary to my future lodging.  I am genuinely sad to be leaving the Scholary, the first house except for my mother's that I have lived in for more than 2 years in the last 5.  It's funny really, but I like the old place, creaky and moldy as it is, in severe need of damp coursing, new carpets, a wiring overhaul, new white goods, fresh wallpaper, new sash windows... I think you get what I'm saying.  Not to do the place a disservice, but it just needs a bit more care.  I am sad to be leaving it, make no mistake.  This place has been more than some sort of doss-hole student house to me, it has been my home, a site of dread triumph and fantastic unprecedented failure.  Those of you who are card-carrying members of my "Fan Club" will be pleased to hear that I have secured a place to live for next academic year, and at a price that is remarkably affordable for the South West, particularly in Truro.  A stones' heave from the Cathedral (rather than the Scholary's comparative lob) from the Shed, I already feel confident that things will be okay, and the extra few hundreds of yards distance will help me establish myself as a Lay-Vicar rather than be tied in to the Scholars.  Already, plans to move from Truro are in an embryonic state, but let's just say I'm thinking big.  Fed up to past the back teeth with living a boring life of no event, it's high time I did something about it and cast away.  I'm much more capable now than I ever was when I was 18, but as always, money is the big problem and it's a problem that will never go away really, as we all need to find funds from somewhere.  As much as I know that we are not our jobs or our bank balances, society is sadly geared the other way around!

As for employment?  To be frank, I haven't bothered lately.  I've had enough with trying to budget my way out of a dead end and finding somewhere to live to take on the extra stress of finding a new job.  I have, however, been working at the Cathedral Office again, which will keep me in enough money to pay my phone bill in August while I'm gallivanting around Sweden with the rest of the choir, hemorrhaging SEK like there's no tomorrow.  All I ever hear about Sweden is how expensive it  is, which is less than inspirational.  What is happening before that tour, though should prove pretty inspirational in itself is the return of a great dream team, Toon and Get!  If there was anything that I could ask for to return my spirits to their position once on-high, it is this pair of terrible oafs, ready to hit Truro once again!  Last year's Banter Tour took us through the lanes at some 60 miles an hour in a Fiat 500; the words "death defying" have never been so well applied.  All the money that I have earned will inevitably be spent with abandon and in all honesty, without regret.  It'll be a time to cherish, not to be ridiculous about it, but we three bad men will ride again.

Let's not even talk about dating, shall we.  I know it's usually the last (or really the first) of the big three, but can we just leave it for now?  Thanks.  I suspect that it'll all come out in the wash in the next few weeks, so for those of you who watch very closely just be patient because the Tell-All account is on the way.

&!&

It's good to write again.  I've been venting most of the madness through Twitter and Facebook.  Regular followers will obviously have noticed, I'm not exactly embarrassed by it, and those of you who take my pathetic cries for attention too seriously are advised to calm the fuck down, basically.  Often, there are plenty of people who are probably welcome to hear from me, which I am reminded of regularly enough - but of course, my lack of communication and poor confidence often shuts me down.  It's only three weeks until the tour, and I might see about taking my computer so at least I'll have a word processor available.  Lord knows I need to get one of those international plug things for my phone anyway.  A few more good weeks of good behaviour, and then we're off!  And after that, it all begins again.  Christ.

Comfortably Disturbed

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted”.  Discuss.

What a great phrase, huh?  An excellent tent pole for discussion about what art really is, and what its purpose may be.  More and more I feel that art should have the capacity to challenge, an opinion I have discovered not so much by sitting and thinking that it ought to be that way, but more as a retrospective of what art I prefer, and how I engage with it.

My shelves are full of dystopian fiction, be that in print or on film (well, DVD) and I champion the works of George Orwell and Philip K. Dick.  While the latter author may not be strictly dystopian per se, his neatly written and sharply witty science fiction is far more preferable than the reams of ponderous teen-fiction trilogies that are cropping up in response to the sudden boom created by the wild success of the Hunger Games trilogy, itself seeming to borrow heavily from the genre-defining Battle Royale.  In truth, it seems that it’s a case of convergent evolution rather than direct imitation, but for the record I prefer BR.  The premise seems more intriguing to me; rather than being set in some sort of near future post-apocalyptic world where society has been restructured to a kind of neo-feudalism with televised death matches (cf. The Running Man), but where the death game is actually part of a contemporary society (although in an alternate timeline) in 1997.  There are slight cultural barriers (although the fine translations make light work of these), and I suppose that the fact that names in the Hunger Games being in English (if deliberately slightly unfamiliar to heighten the sense of societal breakdown as we know it) makes it easier for the general trilogy reading public to engage with.  Hot on the heels of Hunger Games races the Divergent trilogy, or whatever its series’ name will eventually become, on course for a film adaption of its own (and also another source of my constant gripes about everything having to be a trilogy these days).  Books of this particular genre all continue an underlying theme of current and familiar societal rules and regulations breaking down as we join our cast in the aftermath of the apocalypse.  In all truth and honesty, I’m not particularly excited by this genre.  I know plenty of you are, and God forbid I should express any sort of alternative.  There’s a sort of “identikit” feel to these: not too far in the future, modern democratic practice has ceased as we know it, with teenaged protagonists who are the agents of change.  I doubt that there would have been much to say about this particular style a decade ago: BR is almost 15 years old now, and we’re almost at the stage now (and not then) where these dystopias are becoming believable.

I much prefer the political fables of 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell, while we’re still on the subject of dystopias, and I’m sure Philip K. Dick will feature sooner rather than later.  Another issue I take with the previously discussed trilogies and their ilk (although not with BR, but also 1984) is their ‘after-the-fact’ settings.  The revolution has already been and gone, but it still hangs heavy in the air.  Star Trek, even though it is utopian fiction, is set many years into the future after their universe’s revolution, where war ravaged the planet (particularly the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s with my good chum Khan Noonien Singh) before humanity pulled together out of the ashes, the dust having settled.  Here, Orwell differs with Animal Farm, which has the reader follow the action of the ‘revolutionaries’ and the creation and degradation of a new regime.  In fact, when you look at the two together from a slightly side on angle, Animal Farm shows a precursory environment that could indeed lead to a 1984 situation, mostly in the use of propaganda to keep the other farm animals from asking too many questions, and the ‘vaporisation’ of animals within the farm who have become considered dangerous by the Farmer’s dogs as raised by Napoleon. 

Dick’s work, on the other hand, feels much more contemporary.  As I’ve said before, A Scanner Darkly is one of my favourite films, and in comparison to the text is almost page for page just put on screen, a refreshingly excellent production.  The peculiar rotoscoping used gives the film a unique aesthetic.  Perhaps the familiarity is due to it being semi-autobiographical, and relatable to almost anyone who lives in shared accommodation at any time in their lives (although particularly student accommodation in the UK), and the particularly dystopian aspect found in the relationship between “Substance D” and the “New Path” clinics.  Over the course of the narrative, not much is as it seems, and Robert Downey Jnr.’s casting as a substance addict surprising nobody (truly, the world’s greatest method actor) particularly gifted delivery as Barris being a true highlight of the film.  The death of Charles Freck is completely the same in both book and motion picture, which is something that pleased me greatly.  Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, with a plot too complicated to reduce to a few pithy lines is worth a read.  It encapsulates one of my favourite things about dystopian fiction – a lack of a typically ‘happy’ ending.

Another thing that I enjoy about dystopian fiction that works so well for me is the lack of hope.  On a day to day basis I often genuinely feel that there sometimes... there is no way anything can improve, and having lived through dreadful times where there has been little to no resolution, it’s nice to see that there are fictional characters saddled with much the same yoke as well.  Let’s put another favourite piece of dystopia under the spotlight: V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd.  All we know about the title character is that he dresses up as Guy Fawkes in order to maintain his anonymity, and performs acts that undermine, destabilise and expose the nature of a Government that subjugates the people by fear and brutality, and also having run genetic experiments in concentration camps known as “resettlement camps” after a brief nuclear war.  The themes presented by this work are vast, and are a reflection of the political environment they came from, but the fascist government sets a stage for racial segregation, institutionalised sexual discrimination, the manipulation of populace through media control... You know, the usual sort of dystopian checklist.  As we reach the conclusion of the story, sacrifices are made, allegiances questioned and chaos embraced – not a traditional happy ending by any standard; in fact; the last few frames of the book show just one man walking down a darkened motorway, having turned his back on everything that has gone before.  I don’t want to put any sort of spoilers in, because it’s so bloody good and if you’re remotely interested in reading it (and I do mean reading it, because while the film is good it just doesn’t quite measure up in the same way, even though it is rather good), just do.  The anti-heroic protagonist’s intellectualism and cultural knowledge stands in stark opposition to the fascist Government’s strict control on art and any form of self-expression.  When we reach the end, the country is in total chaos.  Rather than reach a resolution, we witness the next step in the journey.

Finally, the catalyst for all this: Fight Club.  The film adaption of Chuck Palahniuk’s 1997 novel has had all sorts of labels slapped on to it: neo-noir, slumming tragedy, black comedy... It’s even been analysed as what happens when Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes grows up – the comparative points are both very amusing and worryingly believable.  I love Fight Club though.  It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s completely ridiculous, and the final revelation is a real stunner that lets you know just how steeped in madness the whole operation really is.  The unreliable narrator struggles with his own identity in a culture given over more and more to consumerism, surrounded by the deeper issue of masculine identity in the service trade (blue or ‘gray’ collar workers).  Tyler Durden, the dark reflection of, well, almost all of us, pontificates wildly on the subject of what freedom really is in this day and age, where the American Dream became a nightmare, where economic status is the real measure of class and from which people now draw their self-worth.  Conforming to society for the sake of acceptance is completely worthless.  Tyler’s Devil may Cry attitude is something I particularly enjoy – nihilistic yet engaging.  My anarchist tendencies tell me that there is always another way, always, and here is one, portrayed by Brad Pitt.  His continual popping up and witty monologues remind me of another force of cynicism in fiction: Travis Bell.  While Travis’s role in Killer7 is ever so slightly different that Tyler’s, they serve a similar purpose in showing the audience that there is something else happening behind the main players, and both exhibit a keen knowledge of the fourth wall (cf. Tyler’s Cigarette burns and Travis’s intimate knowledge of the Smiths’ abilities).  Tyler also bears resemblance to Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes fame, and although it’s widely publicised that Touchdown’s appearance is based on Johnny Knoxville, you can’t help but feel that SUDA51 is inspired by more things than first thought. 

What really got me about Fight Club was how it relates to one of my more worrying catchphrases, “I only find validation in self-destruction”.  It’s simple.  Direct.  I like to say it to point out the hopelessness of trying to play by the rules of a social environment that doesn’t work out for me.  Why bother seeking group acceptance if the effort makes me feel ill when I can just have a drink?  Maybe some answers are found at the end of a bottle, but you have to ask the right questions.  The original version of one of Tyler’s most Travis-esque statements “Self-improvement is masturbation.  Now, self-destruction...” bears an even more fatal resemblance to my outlook, after a year of trying to fit in and work with attitudes and approaches so violently removed from my own, faced by total ignorance and apathy, manipulation and more commonly, excuses... I mean honestly, “Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer.  Maybe self-destruction is the answer.”  I can’t help but draw parallels between SUDA51’s ‘Kill the Past’ movement, where the protagonists must leave their pasts behind in order to move forward.  After all, “it’s only after we’ve lost everything are we free to do anything”, right?  Even our identities?  That’s quite enough to leave you with for the weekend, isn’t it?

Oh well.  We’re all mad here, Smith.  Straight up.

Week 52

I was trying to write a post over the weekend, I really was, but life got so busy and there was so much drink that I mostly forgot, but also found that I was boring myself, which is possibly the least favourable place to write from.  It was another post about a video game, specifically the contraversial masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and how much I like it because it is one of the weirdest things in the world.  Like the aborted effort about Killer7, it was too close to an absolute description, even to the point of picking up the controller.  I have an abiding love for these strange and odd games, even though they belong to out-dated systems (I have the Gold cartridge for MM, not the disc), and I think it's because they are about altered perceptions and are set in realities that challenge.  Of course, I must feel some sort of 'kindred spirit' kind of thing for the characters therein, as I constantly find reality a challenge, mentally and physically taxing beyond the pale.  And indeed, no more so than now!  What with the end of the year, everyone else moving on and whatnot, where I need to find a job and somewhere to live and Jesus Christ I can barely cope!

This summer's main event is the Choir tour to Sweden!  Oh yes.  As I do love telling people, it'll only be my fourth flight, and the first such journey that won't end in Germany.  There are plans afoot to go to a water park, a zoo, possible opportunities for lake swimming... with the odd concert thrown in here and there (but we wouldn't want anything to be too taxing now would we!).  It promises to be an interesting week, although the fact that booze is punishingly expensive (somehow worse than Truro?) may lead to any sort of poverty, madness and desperation, and so on.  What am I saying?  Of course it'll be great!  It will also be the last time that I see certain members of the current Truro Cathedral Choir team, being this year's Scholar's last hurrah.  End of an era, huh?  Another chapter done and dusted, but at least I'm staying here.  I vacillate wildly about my appointment actually: sometimes I do wonder whether it was made out of convenience, but mostly I fret about the fact that...well, it doesn't seem terribly exciting.  I get the feeling I've written this before, but with people off to the Royal Northern, the Royal Academy, Collegiate choirs... What am I doing?  Staying in Truro?  Putting myself into the firing line for a life of financial hardship?  Actually having a job and being like, a... Grown up?  We're back to the end of the first paragraph again though, where I reach the very end of my limited (but still effective) set of coping skills. 

At least the weather's picked up!  Although I haven't really made much foray to the coasts (unlike my housemates, strong swimmers and keen surfers that they are), I do find it a rather enjoyable climate and will often take to just walking through town of an afternoon, deciding what I will spend my money on this time.  I find myself quite bored a lot of the time, so most of the time I'm thinking about what I'd like to eat.  I am the worst comfort eater in the world, I used to bank roll the local Chinese take out place at the end of my road in Norwich coming home from... well, anything really: choir, uni, also my home... Anything that had disturbed my delicate temperament that day would be answered with Roast Chicken Chinese style and Egg Fried Rice.  I spent a lot of money there, I can tell you.  Anyway.  I wear short trousers now.  Even under my cassock!  The secret's out, good lord.  Neither delighteth he in any man's legs.  I'm still really warm at night, obviously now because of the environment, not the central heating.  Thank GOD.

I guess now it's almost all over (again), things are a bit sad.  I've had a couple of really bad episodes and have come to the conclusion that I have almost no power over my mood, but at least I'm on a bit of an upswing currently.  The difference between one day and another can often be nothing short of staggering, and indeed, even catastrophic some times.  I do try though.  I hate being a shut in, and try to make some sort of positive difference, usually rescuing my items left for dead in that biohazardous desert that is the Scholary Kitchen.  Nothing can live in its disgusting mire.  Or having a cup of tea.  I will force myself to leave the house sometimes because I will not allow myself to be trapped in my own home. Sometimes, especially when my mood is particularly poor, I even feel as if I'm trapped in my own head.  It's awful, and it's terrible and sometimes there just isn't anything I can do about it, like I have to sort out a mask so people don't ask me questions I'm to anxious to even begin to consider answering and get out the house... And we're back to Majora's Mask!  

Oh well.  Things have a habit of evening out, I suppose.  A major factor to my poor moods is exactly because we are at the end of the year: everything must change and if there's one thing I hate it's change.  I mean, I hate everything, right?  Change is the worst though you guys I mean seriously it is.  Because change is unexpected, I am often ill-prepared to deal with whatever happens, and of course that gets me worked up as well.  It certainly isn't easy being me sometimes.  But then again... If it was easy, it'd be boring.  And I really can't stand being bored.

Slow News

Looking at the date on my watch, it's been a full 12 13 days since the last time I published anything.  How awful!  I have been alternately depressed and busy over the preceding fortnight, so there's that.  I have been thinking about what I should write about, but not really hitting any bulls eyes:

• I have a new phone now and I have no idea what I'm doing
• How the hell did a Bejeweled clone take over Facebook
• What I'm going to do with The Scholary when everybody else leaves
• How much I hate everything and what that actually means

I think you get the point.  It's been a dry fortnight, shall we say, with very little exciting happening and then DESPAIR and then A NEW PHONE and then back to absolutely nothing again.  And now we're here!

There's little new to report, and that's the problem.  Another week of unsuccessful job applications and aborted attempts at asking people on dates, and then last Thursday I had the closest I've come to a complete breakdown when I lost my wallet and basically just lost it and ended up rocking backwards and forwards in the Cathedral Office and stammering so badly that I legitimately had to reassess my vocabulary and restart sentences so I could avoid whatever syllable I was stuck on it was awful I wanted to die.  I mean honestly, how can one little tiny thing that goes wrong like that upset me so much?  I think I apologised to everybody about ten bloody times after I found the offending item in the interior side of the reclining sofa (who no longer reclines).  Vomit.  I mean seriously...

Okay, but the next day, excitingly enough, I finally sorted out a new mobile telephone.  Instead of upgrading to a Windows 8 handset (which actually I rather fear I should have), I now have a top-of-the-line Android handset, the Sony Xperia Z.  And I almost have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  It's been...what?  5 days already, so I'm blundering my way through, although it is one hell of a fag getting all my contacts over (and I'm sure that there's some that have been missed out anyway).  Of course, the Sony has two things that I really wanted out of a phone and that's a good camera and the option of expandable storage... The only Windows 8 phone with anything approaching both is the expensive and difficult to find Samsung Ativ S.  One thing I've noticed is this insane hardware arms race with phones nowadays, even more so that home videogames consoles - I'm pretty sure my phone now has more RAM than my laptop, the HD touchscreen, 13.1 Megapixel camera blah blah... Of course, there isn't anything that has Windows 8 in it that can come close, hardware-wise, let alone when you get to the whole waterproof thing.  It's early days. 

Maybe Android will grow on me, much like black mold grows on anything left alone for too long in the Scholary Kitchen.  It's a shame I have swapped out really, as Windows Phone is a pretty good mobile OS.  Microsoft really need to get their finger out and actually get the more popular applications like Instagram and more app support across the board generally.  Too many websites have links to iTunes and Google Play alone, without the Windows Marketplace alongside.  As for the hardware race?  One of the things I noticed about the running speeds of my old and new handsets is that I can hardly notice anything at all.  What Windows did was great, press the back arrow enough times and the apps shut down, they're not shuffled to the back like on the Xperia and have to be closed manually, which may well be the cause for Android getting beefier hardware.  The Windows desktop is tiles that rotate, not up to 7 homescreens with widgets that rotate in 3D.  It doesn't need to have huge amounts of power to run, because it's optimised down.  Although at this rate I'll be on course to pick up a Windows Phone 9 handset once this contract is over... I'll be talking about phones again later this week.  I know how exciting that must be.

Something else I've been puzzled with recently is the appearance and the supposed "addictiveness" of 'Candy Crush Saga', a Bejeweled clone that has taken over Facebook, phones, people's lives, taken their children away &c &c... And I just don't get it!  Sure, it's a fine game to burn a half hour on, but other than that I don't really see it.  I am only truly addicted to one game, and I have to be careful when I choose to play it - this year's tour to Sweden will see hours stacked away YES BECAUSE I MEAN TETRIS.  I actually have to limit myself because it's just too easy to get sucked in to beating my score all the time.  I don't go by the string of numbers, I go by line count, and I currently stand at 192.  I swear to God, and you as my witness that by September 2013, I will have broken the 200 barrier.  I may have to sacrifice higher brain function, but whatever, I don't care.  Where was I?  Oh yes, Candy Crush Saga.  Where a cheap story line has been wrapped around some colourful graphics laid over the top of the 12 year old Bejeweled engine.  Okay, maybe it isn't the same on before any sort of copyright action takes place, but the process is exactly the same.  Match three of the same symbols to blast them off the board, BUT WAIT WIKIPEDIA HAS MORE TO SAY ON THE MATTER where in fact this concept comes from a Russian game, Shariki, programmed in 1994.  That's older than this generation of school leavers.  So that's why it's so addictive.  Another great game from the frozen north! 

So, almost 20 years of colour-matching later and it's finally taking over Facebook.  I wonder what message lies therein?  If you want a good game that's simple and eats up your every living second, call Russia, circa 1984 to 1994?  In a world where the hardware war between console generations is reaching simply ridiculous heights of power and realistic, High Definition graphics rendering, it doesn't half amuse me that things like Candy Crush and even Temple Run are so popular and addictive - perhaps a necessary tonic to the sheer power of console and PC gaming.  As for me, I'm playing my way through the Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker again, and bar the ridiculous sea journey aspect of it (which is roughly half the game), it's just great fun.  The actual dungeon design and combat improvements over the legendary Ocarina of Time and the brain-bending Majora's Mask are really well done.  Not bad for a game over 10 years old.  It may well be showing its age, but it's still really just a fun game.  It's a Nintendo thing, really.  They got out of the hardware arms race with the launch of the Wii, and have continued on their business plan with the WiiU. 

Maybe I did have a lot to say after all?  Don't worry folks, I still haven't forgotten about how much I hate everything (and what that really means), which will form the core of a future post, probably alongside the fate of The Scholary.  For now though, I shall retire... But not for too long.  Honest.

Are you there God? It's me, Khan.

Okay okay I knew there was something else that I was supposed to complain about last week.  I've just been reminded by happening upon a short review of the new Superman picture, Man of Steel, starring Henry Cavill in the eponymous role.  Another serious, gritty reboot of a franchise that's decades old just as a film series, let alone the original appearance if the character in the 1930s.  Let's get things straight, I haven't seen Man of Steel, but I think I will.  I might even...

...No, I couldn't.  Anyway. 

It hasn't taken me long following a few links to find out that a sequel has already been fast-tracked.  What?  Already?  What the hell you guys.  This is the heart of my final problem with Star Trek Into Darkness, and I'm so glad that I remembered it because I knew that when they killed Kirk...thay couldn't really kill him.  The main cast for the new Trek have signed on for three movies.  Three movies!  Another Trilogy!  This wasn't like the early 80s and the original cast, where tensions between the studio and Leonard Nimoy in particular had grown to a fever pitch.  To begin with, Nimoy wanted an out, which is why they kill Spock off within the first ten minutes of Wrath of Khan.  It survives from an early draft where it was permanent.  Of course, it became the bait-and-switch we know and love and weep over, but really...we could have seen the true 'end' of Spock right there and then.  Nimoy pulled the eternal "I'll come back if you let me do whatever I want" card, took a pay rise and ended up directing the next two films: The Search for Spock and The Journey Home (or Star Trek: Save the Whales).  The relationship between Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner played a big part in all this, which you can find exposited at some length in Shatner's book, Star Trek Movie Memories.  It's the companion piece to Star Trek Memories, the latter of the two detailing his experiences on set in the Original Series, and touching on his acting career before being flung into space.  I really like Bill Shatner anyway, and these informative, amusing and highly illuminating books (alongside Get a Life! and Up til Now, his autobiographies) are firm favourites.  

I'm getting away from the point though.  The final reason why basically Kirk's death in Star Trek Into Darkness is completely empty is because of the widely publicised fact that the cast had signed on for a three picture deal.  They can't kill off the Captain!  Not if he still has another film to star in!  It's a no sweat operation.  As soon as I realised this, sat there like some sort of hot mess, I immediately got what little shit I have together and rationalised that they would find some sort of magic McGuffin to...oh yes there it is KHAN'S BLOOD YOU KNOW THE STUFF THAT RESURRECTED THE TRIBBLE (nice reference to The Trouble with Tribbles, huh?  Almost as good as the DS9 episode where they go back in time and Benjamin Sisko becomes the first black man in space and meets Kirk with some top-notch editing).  This is it, the final key.  Not content with playing the pivotal moment almost beat for beat, we have already been cheated out of the consequences.  When they killed Spock, you had to wait two years for the next film, and even then his character only remembers himself at the very end of the film, none of this ten minutes rubbish.

The whole sequence is bereft of the emotional weight and significance of the original.  Everything will be fine, because if they killed him for keeps what would the third film be?  The Search for Kirk?  It is illuminating, finding vox-pop style quotes from not just William Shatner but also George Takei about the difference between this 'Nu-Trek' and their Star Trek.  It seems that a lot of heart has simply gotten lost.  Of course, things are different now we have the internet and the sheer size of the film industry the world over is much larger than it was in the 80s - the budget for Star Trek II was a mere 11.2 million dollars, comapred to the $190 million for Into Darkness.  This isn't hitting out so much, but merely commenting on how much easier it is to get hold of information about any film these days if you have an internet connection.  I myself used to scour one particular site for news on the Transformers sequels daily for anything I could possibly learn.  The upshot of this was that I had discovered enough clues to piece together enough of the plot to Dark of the Moon, along with the very spoiler-heavy TV spots to basically predict what would happen.

Sorry.  I just get a little animated about how everything gets turned into trilogies at the moment.  Don't think I'm detracting from the performances on screen as well: not only were they highly enjoyable, but critically very convincing and believable.  Once you can get the audience to believe in your performance, of course, they are in the palm of your hand.  The little domestic sequence in the flying Hamburger really zings back and forth, before Spock ends it with what basically amounts to a Holocaust-style reference to the death of Vulcan.  It's tense, and importantly, it's emotional.  I'm getting away from the point again though!  Let's face it though, three is a good number.  Even though I'm a gently lapsing gamer, I can still name a few trilogies off the top of my head - Metroid Prime, Halo (now moving into a second trilogy), the Batman Arkham series, Fallout... Also Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy... And Michael Bay's Transformers (also moving into a second trilogy)!  Having a trilogy is fashionable, it seems.  Of course, the original trilogy is and always will be Star Wars, the epic saga of the Skywalkers, which is itself set to become a trilogy of trilogies (a meta trilogy?), the first new film of which is to be released into the wild in 2015, directed than none other than Mr. Lens Flare himself, J. J. Abrams. 

There's just something inevitable and slightly disappointing now every time I see that a trilogy is planned or optioned or whatever... Like film makers see it as a no-fuss ticket to big bucks.  A license to print money.  I suppose it's also connected to the subject of rebooting film franchises, especially comic book movies: the first film deals with the new interpretation of the origin story, and then a story arc is started, picked up in the second film and concluded in the last of the three.  But sometimes, it seems like a trilogy for the sake of it.  Like The Hobbit!  Yeah.  The fact that that's been spun out into a trilogy is kind of... Well, it almost seems like a waste.  Sure Lord of The Rings (especially the extended cuts) makes a hefty trilogy, where each film is worth two books.  But where three films is one book, especially a book that's much smaller?  Hmm.  I'm almost kind of glad that Hellboy never made it into a third film...

Is this the end of my Wrath of Wrath of Khan?  I doubt it.  I haven't even approached the issue of 'whitewashing' Khan, because that has no real impact on what I have to say.  I'm sure there'll be another one of these posts once I've seen Man of Steel, although from what I've read already it doesn't quite slavishly homage the older films with the inimitable Christopher Reeve.  Don't forget guys that 2006's Superman Returns, as deep into homage territory as it went was also a kind of sequel to the older film series as a whole.  Who knows whether Man of Steel will be spun out into a trilogy, or perhaps the third film of its lineage will be the first act of the Justice League idea that's been floating about even before The Avengers (Jesus there were so many different titles for wherever that film was released I can't even be bothered picking one)? 

To finally conclude, I obviously feel pretty passionately that a huge oppourtunity was missed here.  Rather than go for the 'go-to' sequel idea of the most lauded Star Trek Villian ever, they could have done something completely different.  Heavens, they could have brought V'Ger back instead!  The lack of imagination is... Disappointing.  You know, they could have left Khan out of it until the third film, where the Botany Bay went undiscovered, crash landed on a planet (killing 9 of the augments), leaving Khan and the surviving 72 on board to conquer the planet and be discovered by the Federation in the future - with wildly different consequences.  Oh well.  I suppose I can wait for the next reboot.

...Khan?

Since first seeing it some... Oh I dunno, thee weeks ago, I've gradually been coming to terms with Star Trek Into Darkness.  Of course, this amazing summer movie has been nothing short of an event, whether you liked it or not.  The thing is, I absolutely fucking loved it.  Went to the cinema, saw it in 3D, waved my arms about, probably shouted out loud a few times, and cried at the appropriate moments.  I did say I was going to see it again and take notes on all the 'Old Trek' universe references, but the time has been and gone and it's now no longer on at The Plaza on the cheap night.  What I did do however, was track down the classic 1967 episode of The Original Series Space Seed.  I don't really need to watch Star Trek II Wrath of Khan again (it's not a necessity at least), because various parts of that film are BURNED INTO MY MIND AND WILL NEVER GO AWAY.  Because of being steeped in Trek history, I basically have three major problems with the film:

• The emotional crux of the film is essentially empty
• Not only is it empty, but it becomes a race for the McGuffin
• It is one reference after another and cherry picks elements from the above mentioned Khan stories
  

 Also a really funny thing I came across in one of trawls through the internet is that this film is like the John Harrison Ford action movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the film opens with the protagonist being chased by angry natives, and closes with the superweapon being safely locked away... Who says Hollywood has run out of plots?  Anyway.

Are you sitting comfortably?  Are you ready to hate me, possibly yourself and maybe everything you know already?  Let's go then.  Don't worry though!  Because I hate absolutely everything already, so I am way ahead of you.  DID I MENTION I WILL SPOIL LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE FILM JESUS CHRIST YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EVEN READ THE TITLE.
 We open to a brilliantly shot set-piece with Bones and Kirk pegging it through a jungle away from spear-toting natives, cut with Sulu and Uhura in a shuttle, about to dangle Spock (dressed as a disco ball) into a Volcano.  Turns out the Enterprise has been sat in the sea for the best part of two days, on a self-ordained mission to rescue the planet from the cataclysmic eruption of said volcano, by dropping a cold fusion bomb that freezes the eruption.  The one important moment in this section is where we end up with Spock stranded in the volcano READYING HIMSELF TO DIE after the immortal line 

• "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... Or the one."
  

FORESHADOWING no?  Anyway, it wouldn't be much of a film (seeing as this is an impersonation of Wrath of Khan rather than The Search for Spock) if they killed Spock off before the opening titles, so of course, they raise the leviathan from the waves and rescue the green blooded son of a bitch.  We know that this isn't the only Star Trek sequel that does the old bait-and-switch on Spock dying.  For once we get to see the great and mighty ship in the atmosphere, which is something I really liked!  I remember that they put landing gear on the crate in Voyager, but I only saw the one episode where they landed the big ship?  There may be more, I didn't see every single one.


Okay.  We get introduced to 'John Harrison', the man with the magic blood (remember that).  The ultimate expression of Sherlock Holmes - cold, calculating, intellectually superior, misanthrophic, a gifted tactician and a talented combatant.  Just say if you know any old Star Trek, just say, who else do you know fits all those categories?  No... It can't be him?  Anyway.  He orchestrates the explosion of some super-secret research facility in the basement of London, not a stone's throw from Wren's St. Paul's OF COURSE IT'S STILL THERE Seriously guys they still have red buses.  Sherlock also performs a daring assault on Starfleet high command (only seconds after the comedy block-head Kirk works out why they've all been gathered there on that day ahead of everyone else in Starfleet including Spock) before beaming off to the Klingon Homeworld when Captain First Officer Kirk knackers up his snub-nose starfighter (transworld beaming because Starfleet pinched the transwarp equation without crediting Scotty - some sort of satire on Intellectual Property rights I think), only moments before Kirk swears REVENGE.  The Wrath of Kirk!  After a tense meeting with Admiral Marcus, as portrayed by Robocop (check the desk out for yet more classic references), Kirk gets his Captaincy restored, his Spock returned, the Enterprise given back... and orders to kill 'John Harrison'.  Further to this, the Enterprise is armed with 72 super-secret long range proton photon torpedoes (does that number mean anything?).  When this magic missile payload appears in the engineering section, Scotty won't sign for them!  Not at this address mate!  He's not happy because they won't let him look at the secret ingredients.  The upshot of this is that Scotty gets kicked off the Enterprise, complete with his little wee Ugnaut man.  This frees him up to advance the plot later on after being absent for at least an... hour?  In his place, Eastern European stereotype Chekov stands in.  Alongside the torpedoes arrives Carol Wallace, who occupies the 'fit bird eyecandy' character archetype, that all Sci-Fi must have.  When they reach Qo'noS, holding position miles out with the magic missiles pointing at 'Harrison' Ford, while Kirk, Spock and Uhura (with two redshirts) dress up as smugglers and fly the Kessel Run in a prototype for the Millennium Falcon.  Spock and Uhura have a full on domestic in the flying Hamburger. While all this is happening, Sulu is sat in the captain's chair (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, anybody?  Sure, it's no Excelsior...)


Another high-speed fight scene gets cut, with the mirror universe Klingons... who look just like their Prime Universe (thankfully.  Right?) counterparts, which starts to get pretty hairy...until Sherlock appears and literally just kills the shit out of everybody who isn't in the principal cast.  He surrenders instantly after a grueling battle once he learns the exact number of torpedoes pointed at him.  Why?  Why would such a furious badass simply yield in a heartbeat like that?  What importance does the number 72 have?  And then Kirk punches him alllllllllllllllllllll day without Holmes even flinching.  They drag him back to the Enterprise where it is finally revealed that yes, Sherlock Holmes IS Peter Guillam!  Ho ho!  Of course, he is Khan Noonien Singh, the most dangerous of all the despotic genetically modified human beings from the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s in the Star Trek Universe (multiverse?).  Remember, the timeline only split when the Kelvin was destroyed at the start of the first film of this franchise.  Literally everything else up until that point was exactly the same - First Contact and even Enterprise is still canon at this point.  I hope you remember the models on the desk?  Not just another nod, for once. After the underplayed reveal, he soothingly rumbles about the torpedoes, what's inside them?  What's inside is a game changer, and explains why the SS Botany Bay  isn't in the film, because we discover that as well as a highly explosive payload, they each contain a cryo-stasis pod with Khan's crew safely tucked away!  Before this we see Carol Marcus Wallace in her underwear.  Phwoar.  It serves no narrative purpose.  Around this time, Khan gives Kirk a space postcode, which moves James Tiberius to call his friend and now free agent... Montgomery Scott!  Who is drinking whisky in a club.  He drives a shuttle craft over and discover a huge shipyard and manages to infiltrate... Dr. McCoy also takes a sample of Khan's blood.  Keep hold of that.

But it seems that this Khan is not a bad Khan?  It transpires that the Botany Bay was found in space, just like it was in the 'real' universe, but this time by Admiral "Robocop" Marcus.  Khan was awoken and used, used I say, to create weapons of mass destruction for space war (this is most unlike Khan Prime) with the Klingons.  Khan's crew are used as leverage by Marcus, and are included in the payload of each and every torpedo that was supplied to the Enterprise.  All of a sudden, loyalties are compromised.  A new ship appears, the USS Vengeance.  The captain is none other than Admiral Marcus, who is hunting down Khan as well.  Marcus orders that Khan be transferred aboard the Vengeance, as he is a war criminal and must be executed.  I've missed out part of the debate here (most of which happened before the torpedoes' cargo was discovered) but basically Kirk, rather than follow the orders of his Admiral, follows Spock's suggestion of bringing Khan to trial on Earth, a deeply legalistically ethical suggestion.  It's what Kant would have done.  Marcus, of course, doesn't like this one bit.  The Enterprise escapes at warp speed... But is chased down and fired upon!  This is a real surprise to see one ship not only caught up on but attacked while in hyperspace at warp.  It's really amazing on screen, make no mistake.  The Vengeance makes a fearsome noise.  Still, it adds up to make this Khan almost a sympathetic enemy at the least - yes, he may be the Khan of the Eugenics Wars, but so far he hasn't seemed to be trying to take control of the Enterprise and his crew are in danger and he has been kept prisoner and taken advantage of.  All things that can be sympathised with. 

Okay, let's relax on the whole plot synopsis here.  There's one point I haven't yet addressed which I'll get to, but I'm sure if you've seen it already you know what's happening, if you haven't seen it but don't mind finding out there are several, less cynical and more detailed synopses, and if you want to see it but haven't WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU GOT THIS FAR.  Let's get to the cut and thrust of this...review?  I dunno, but the climactic death scene.  As I said earlier, this film oscillates between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, and by now it's definitely swung into the latter.  However, this is the mirror universe so it's not going to play out quite as you expect.  Or quite as you remember.  The Enterprise is wrecked, barely holding together in Earth's upper atmosphere.  The power's out, because the warp core is misaligned due to the preceding battle, and time is running out before the ship crashes and the crew liquidised by the force.  Thing is, Bones is in the Medical Bay, and Spock is strapped into the Captain's chair as per the space jump that Khan and Kirk did in order to infiltrate the USS Vengeance.  Scotty and Kirk are in Engineering.  So the usual "you can't go in it'll kill you!" happens, and Kirk... Punches Scotty out.  That's it.  Sits him in a chair, and puts his seatbelt on... and goes in the reactor chamber.  What.  Seriously.  Kirk goes off to his death.  Let's cut here.



Now, there are three critical things that raise Wrath of Khan above other Star Trek films primarily, and these are as follows:

• Ricardo Montalban straight up OWNING every line (the performance of a God)
• The Enterprise and the Reliant playing Battleships in 3 dimensions
• The death of Spock

Aside from this, the scenario where the crew are beginning to age (Kirk gets reading glasses for his birthday!) and the stirring faux-naval score really help the sort of campy atmosphere.  You will notice that Into Darkness has none of these things.  The 18 year gap between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan is almost exactly mirrored in real time, the episode coming from 1967 and the film from 1982. 

As noted earlier, this Khan does not think in three dimensions.  The superbly played and brilliantly tense final shootout between the Reliant and the Enterprise is at a stalemate...until Kirk remembers that unlike the sea, space operates in three dimensions (with which Khan is not experienced), and uses this to his advantage.  As a final act of bitterness, Khan, shattered and dying, makes one last-ditch attempt to vanquish his enemy by setting off the Genesis device before expiring.  The Enterprise limps away, but can't break into the run that Warp speed is because the warp core is misaligned.  Engineering is cut off due to the inhuman amounts of radiation pouring out of the warp core, and there's no way to get in... Or is there?  Not all of the crew are human, remember.  It is at this point that I start weeping with no sense of regret.  The only crew member who could biologically withstand the radiation is... Mr. Spock. 

Spock's self-sacrifice is the emotional climax of the movie.  It is Spock's Kobayashi Maru test - by his own admission.  He slips off quietly while everyone else is panicking, and gets it done.  Bones tries to stop him, but Spock nerve pinches him and then mind melds.  "Remember".  Of course, he manages to fix the vital component of the reactor in time for the Enterprise to escape, but fatally irradiates himself in the process.  His final breath is so touching not because it's Spock and Kirk, or the fact that they're in space or anything... It's seeing a man watch his best friend of almost twenty years die in front of him, totally unreachable.  The one person he needs, he can rely on is... just slipping away behind the glass.  Just give me a minute you guys.  I'll be okay.

This is where Wrath of Khan pulls ahead, because it's also about the way that their lives have changed through time.  This theme continues through all the original cast films, as the surviving cast of Star Trek TOS have a combined age that is greater than the Rolling Stones.  These guys in the mirror universe haven't even gone on their 5 year mission, they've known each other for all of 5 minutes, so the death of Kirk is deeply unfortunate and still pretty sad - rather than deliberately choose himself, he is the one man who makes the choice.  The emotional hook in this is remembering Spock's death, and, rather than the Captain being trapped inside the planet, it is in fact the mirror Spock who utters the famous scream before chasing Khan down on foot, so that famous Vulcan physiology gets referenced after all... After a fraught punch-up on aerial platform vehicles, Uhura gets beamed down and stuns the living shit out of Khan with a phaser.  They need him alive for (drum roll yes that's right it's McGuffin time) his magic blood!  If it can resurrect a tribble, it can resurrect a Kirk!  I have another problem with this, that I realised even in the cinema was there are 72 frozen supermen on board in Medical who have the same genetically superior blood.  They even turf one of the Botany Bay crew out of their cryo-pod in order to preserve the gradually decaying body of Kirk, so they can pump him full of Khan's blood... Whaaaaaat?  Why can't they use that one?  IT ALWAYS HAS TO BE KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

And look at that.  Ten minutes later, (two weeks in the movie time) and we cut to Kirk in bed.  Laid up with a case of the Khans, he has miraculously recovered from being dead (just like that tribble earlier), and Khan himself is safely locked in his chiller cabinet with the rest of the surviving Botany Bay, who knows how long for this time.  The one thing I said I was going to come back to was when Kirk and Khan do their space jump (in which Khan saves Kirk's life no less!), he rings calls Spock Prime on Space Skype in order to ask him about Khan.  Khan is a bad man, and was only defeated "at great cost" (although this cost is not elaborated on).  Spock to Spock, we finally hear what we knew about Mr. Noonien Singh all along, "He is brilliant, ruthless, and he will not hesitate to kill every single one of you".  This brutality was seen on Qo'noS, and also in the corridors of the Vengeance, where Khan, Kirk and Scotty work their way up to the bridge where Khan has his showdown with Admiral Marcus.  During the course of this Mexican stand-off, it is finally revealed that Carol Wallace is in fact Carol Marcus, the Admiral's daughter and another classic Trek reference.  That's not terribly exciting, sorry. 

Even though I found the experience of watching Into Darkness deeply enjoyable and very exciting, I ultimately feel a little disappointed.  A plot jammed with elements from two old stories (one of which is a feature length resolution of the first), laced with top of the line special effects and visual set pieces, then mixed in with more references to classic Star Trek than  you can shake a stick at to keep it all together.  Lens flare does not replace character development.  Disappointed is the wrong term, too strong perhaps.  Underwhelmed?  Now I've had the time to think about it (and write it all out) especially.  I'll definitely watch it again, buy the DVD you know it, but still.  Having split the timeline in 2233, and planet Vulcan being destroyed in 2258, the alternate universe is different enough already, without comparing how much more emotional this particular Spock is: we see him and Uhura conduct a relationship in public, something that Nimoy's Spock would never do.  Chronologically speaking, there was no need to make Khan the villain of the piece, seeing as the film is set 8 years before the Prime crew discover The Botany Bay (or perhaps this is another repercussion of being on an altered timeline?) anyway.  I feel that it was a bit of a cheap shot using the exact same plot device in the shape of the damaged warp core.  Even down to the critical use of the word "friend".  By making Khan's blood the only thing that can save Kirk, they make the baddy into the source of their deus ex machina, and also make sure the other augmented humans are left inhuman by leaving them as the cryo-pods, basically.  However, the memorial presided over by Captain Kirk at the end of the film rededicates Starfleet's purpose: rather than prepare for war either in secret or openly, and the famous five year mission is finally launched.

A reboot like this would always be tough.  Imagine if they rebooted Star Wars like this, where perhaps... I dunno, Qui-Gon Jinn survives the lightsaber duel but Anakin Skywalker still becomes Darth Vader in a series of very strange but similar events?  Maybe it was some sort of attempt on the writers' and director's parts to make a statement that these characters are 'destined' to interact in this sort of way, regardless of where we find them.  Or maybe they wanted to put their spin on an established part of Trek history.  Or... I don't know.  Even though Wrath of Khan's no world beater itself, I think Into Darkness can't even dream of touching it.  Sorry, but Montalban beats Cumberbatch any day.

Oh, Khan.  For Hate's sake, I type my last words at thee.

One Whole Month

Right, three days late, let's finish this once and for all...

I discovered Blog Every Day in May purely by accident.  Having taken an unscripted two week break from the weekly blog round, I found myself apologising, disappointed that I had been defeated by a busy schedule and erratic mood patterns.  Sometimes it's difficult!  Sometimes I just think that perhaps there has been nothing worth writing about, which is kind of where BEDM started to look like a good idea: ready made titles just waiting to be filled in by me.  Rather than review the suitability of titles and how I might get on with them, (well, I looked at some and thought I might like them, but didn't really overthink it), I just dived in and started straight away.  Already a day behind, the maiden journey was posted past midnight on the 2nd.  

It's been... Interesting.  Sometimes it's been a real struggle, having to think about concepts that I wouldn't normally ever.  Things as simple as exclamations marks and favourite this or that are things I'm unfamiliar with.  Usually, following the pattern of being a day behind, I'd post at around 1am (technically the next day), which ended up being a more regular posting time than when I kind of got things together and clawed back the daily schedule and posted in the middle of the day, funnily enough.  Where I've missed out the title for the day I have subbed in with my own observation of how things are, one of which was far more popular than what I did with the prescribed.

Of course though, the obligatory stat-attack.  If there's one thing I do enjoy, it's telling everybody how much I've written, as anybody who was my Facebook friend while I was writing my dissertation with the daily updates will attest to.  I dimly remember putting a running total out about half way through the month, something to the order of... 12,000 words or so?  Anyway, let's hit it:

• Out of 31 titles there are 4 missing posts
• Over the course of May, I have written 32,308 words in total
• The average sentence length is 19 words.
• 17 out of 31 posts were published between Midnight and 3:30am
• There are in fact 31 published posts!
• Thanks to BEDM, this year has almost double the amount of posts that 2012 had, 2 less than 2011, and 10 more than 2010

This has been one hell of an undertaking.  I've written while drunk, worked through a hangover, queued posts, written two at the same time... all for free as well.  It's been enlightening, actually, and in a way quite pleasing - not only explaining how I managed to write my dissertation in 8 days, and giving me some sort of hope for the possibility of Masters or PhD level writing: if I can churn out an average of 1042 words a day without any real basic idea of what I'm doing before I start, then think about what I can do when I know?  The mind burbles.  I was asked whether I had thought about writing a novel by the time the third week had dawned, but it's a bit different.  Most of the time I have enough difficulty writing convincing and interesting narrative about what actually happens in my life, let alone that of completely fictional characters.  How would I make them believable when I have more than enough difficulty believing in myself?

I think I'll go back to my old weekly schedule now.  I did actually find myself struggling with coming up with enough to actually write some days, I guess you can't win 'em all, huh?  Seeing as I always write at least a 1000, and anything up to 2000 words for every post that goes out anyway, I suppose that these titles weren't designed to be written out so much.  A more mixed-media effort might have rescued a few titles, but I can't be bothered taking photos: having gotten used to technology that only works when I'm as patient as is possible - a weighty effort if ever.  While my laptop works much better nowadays, I still can't really be bothered.  I quite enjoy having a writing blog for writing, and have actually got out of the habit of taking pictures anyway - I haven't uploaded an album onto my Facebook for ages and ages, I should really get that sorted out...I don't think there's been anything serious since Christmas?  Oy.  Now and again I put single pictures, such as the latest round of self-shots and the recent poster.  

Only recently have I started to think seriously about blogging, as well.  Well...more like writing on the whole.  Having to think about moving out and finding new and permanent employment in order to actually afford to live in Truro; the Lay Vicars' remuneration is sadly less than enough to fund a flat.  Things are going to get very difficult for a little while before it call gets sorted out.  I can't pretend at all that I'm looking forward in any way to the tumult of having to move out for the fourth time in five year, let alone the upheaval of actually having to get a job and do some actual work...

Anyway.  You'll all be pleased to hear that I'll be taking a rest (I already have since the weekend, but I thought I'd best close the whole thing off once and for all), and back at the end of the week again.  Who knows what I'll have thought up by that time, as long as I've survived another of my infamous mother's visits...

Thanks for tuning in, and for your comments both sent to me up here and people who've got in touch personally.  There will be a much longer hiatus in store for us once I have to move out again, but hopefully this summer will be much more fruitful than the last one was.  But it's time to sign off for the last time and say farewell to the punishing madness that was Blog Every Day in May...

That's all.  For now.