Taking Leave
We were watching something this evening that made me stop and think. I won't go into the detail of what we were watching, but it involved some people saying goodbye to each other in circumstances that were pretty final.
And I started to think about whether I'd ever done that. And I'm not sure I have.
I mean, yes I've said goodbye to people who I knew I wouldn't see for a while, and I've said goodbye to people when neither party was aware it was for the last time, but I really can't remember ever saying goodbye to someone in the certain knowledge that I would never, ever see or hear from them again. Even when I've known people who were close to death I think I've always left them with hope, and the expectation that they would last to see me again.
And really, I wonder, except possibly in that situation where someone is so close to an expected death, does anyone ever take that kind of leave of someone else? Not simply not to expect to see someone again, or even want to, but to know that the parting is utterly final; that there is no conceiveable way in which you might even bump into each other in the street.
I'm not at all sure why, but now this subject is lodged in my head and I can't stop thinking about it.
Soap-Boxing
I've been meaning to comment on this for a little while:
Over in the sparkly world of Glitter For Brains, Lee recently noted that though he's a committed believer in TV, the one rock on which his belief founders is soap operas. And I wanted to add my voice to that sentiment.
I have, in the course of my 40 years on this planet, thrown my faith, my commitment and my basic happiness behind Time Lords, telepathic teenagers, secret agents, housewife-witches, mechanically reconstructed men and women, space travellers, alien bodysnatchers, magicians, admirable politicians, dead detectives, leather-clad adventuresses with bowler-wearing companions, 'intergalactic freedom fighters', muppets, puppets and Supermarionettes, global conspiracies, Aztecs, Atlanteans, Martians, Moonbase Alphans, those Upstairs, those Downstairs, Wonder Horses, explorers, inventors, vampire slayers and The Kids From Fame.
All of these and more I have taken in my stride and for all of them, to some degree or another, have I suspended my disbelief.
Not soaps though. Can't for the life of me get past the fiction. And the ridiculous plots. And the frequently dire acting (I make an exception for most of the performances in soaps called Coronation Street).
David goes through phases of addiction, and they burble away on the screen in the living room evening after evening. And I can just about admire their craft, but never in a million years will I care about the characters or their gloomy lives.
And never in a billion years will you get me to believe in them.
Ranting Where No One Can Hear
I don't often find myself shouting at the radio (during Thought For The Day doesn't count - that's just a reflex), but listening to the news during a long drive back home from mum's yesterday I found myself doing just that.
The news item in question was this small matter of the passengers who were removed from a plane because their fellow passengers didn't like the look of them. The specific point that set me off was when the BBC interviewed a couple from among the passengers, and the male half of these paragons of good sense, tolerance and all the best bits of the human spirit said "When they got on, rightly or wrongly, the atmosphere on the plane changed."
To which I found myself shouting; "WRONGLY! What the hell is wrong with you people????"
And as for the fact that the aircraft crew went along with this kangaroo court and removed those passengers from the plane? Sometimes, every single bit of my misanthropy and lack of belief in humanity feels entirely justified.
What A Palaver!
Comic book scheduling delays trigger the most astonishing level of emotion.
A couple of days ago, Marvel announced some delays to their mega event of the year, Civil War. Unfortunately, these delays also affect series in the regular publishing schedule which have plot points arising from events in CW, so in the end, quite a lot of Marvel comics in the latter part of the year are affected. Mark Millar, writer of the series, went online at his own site forums to explain what the reasoning was behind an editorial decision he didn't take, caused by factors that were nothing to do with him, and various people (especially the good folk at the heartland of reasoned debate, Newsarama, but also at his own site), decided to focus their ire on him. Then the artist, Steve McNiven (at least somewhat responsible as the art is taking longer than planned), sent on a message explaining his perspective and apologising, which some people took well, and others took as a red flag.
Then the editor of the series, Tom Brevoort (also responsible for having made the initial scheduling call), offered his perspective and things got even more nasty.
While recognising that retailers will indeed suffer because they won't have product to sell on the scheduled basis, it should be noted that this is creating the best overall sales figures for many of these titles in years and years, and Civil War itself is doing that rare thing of selling *more* copies with each issue. So generally speaking they're probably going to do okay out of the bigger picture.
And at the end of the day, therefore, the ridiculous and utterly over-the-top reaction from the fans to the fact that a few comicbooks will ship late just serves to remind me why we comic-book geeks have the reputation we do. Some people need to read some real-world news and get some perspective.
Decisions, Decisions
Having realised in a somewhat startled way on Monday night that the 'wedding' is now less than two months away, I started getting Monica again about some still open areas where decisions are needed and presented David with a list of areas to address. And lo and behold, last night we made some small progress on this stuff.
The latest checklist:
Rings - In the works
Outfits - Broad decision on direction - follow up next week
Witnesses - Decided on
'Ceremony' - format decided (we're not having a ceremony as such, but have decided that if the family want to come and watch us sign the paperwork they can)
Lunch with the families - General location agreed
If we manage to get all this lot sorted finally by the end of this month then the only significant thing left is to finalise catering with the party venue once we've got a better sense of final numbers after the RSVP deadline.
It all seems finally to be coming together.
Appreciating The Effort
So having sent out 'wedding' invitations before we went away, responses have started to come in, and yesterday's mail produced a star of the genre. David's brother had made a card with a glitter enhanced photo of himself with a 'Looking for Love' placard stuck on his front, and large cutout glitter covered letters of the words "I WILL BE THERE".
As I said to Himself, "I thought you were supposed to be the camp one in your family."
Lookit!
Everything's different. I thought I'd try another WordPress theme, and this is the one I've settled on for now. I'm using it as a starting point and will be tweaking it in various ways until it's more what I'm after - I've already started in fact - and personalising it with a photo of my own and colours to match, etc, but it feels a bit more vibrant than what I'd grabbed as the starter layout when i first did the WordPress conversion.
I've also reintroduced the 'blogroll' (still hate that word), with David's and Dave's sites - more will be added over the next few days.
No Way….
Once the cabin door is closed, the passenger list - together with other personal data - is transmitted to the American authorities. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and other agencies comb the manifest in the search for people on the "watch list". Only when all the officials are satisfied about passengers' credentials is permission for departure given. This process has been taking an average of three hours, with some flights delayed by up to seven hours. (Independent on Sunday)
You've got to be kidding me.
Travels With Terror
So we made it back into the country with an actually quite surprising lack of disruption as far as flight times were concerned, but the restrictions on cabin baggage appear to be being applied more than a little arbitrarily at the originating inbound airports. My bag, which has travelled halfway round the world and back with me in the cabins of more than a dozen airlines, was suddenly deemed unacceptable to the airport security staff at Mahon airport so it had to be checked in. Which I could have handled, if I didn't see people in the departure lounge with the usual array of bags, cases, carriers and boxes. And as David pointed out, given that they let his camera through, together with a bottle of Menorcan gin, he had both a battery and a liquid with him which are the specific things that were apparently the source of the security scare.
Logical, it wasn't.
We also had a few moments as we packed on the morning of our departure. Having seen the news the night before we knew some of what was going on, and the morning news detailed the hand baggage restrictions, though there was a lot of uncertainty (including at our tour company) as to whether they applied to inbound flights. And David wasn't happy - in his eyes, all of the restrictions and procedures (mothers being made to taste their babies' food in front of security staff, not being able to carry a book, or an iPod, etc) serve primarily to treat all of the ordinary, not-terrorist passengers as if they're the criminals. I couldn't actually argue with the fact, though much more travel, and many, many more security alerts of one kind of another have made me more than a little blasé about such things.