A Polar Bear in Episode 1 is not a good sign

Cate does not often get the opportunity to watch TV but when she does she likes to sit down and watch back to back episodes of TV series that require absolutely no concentration.

She just likes to let waves of dross wash over her so that she can drift into another world - far from the fairly difficult one she inhabits here.

To this end in the last year or so we have watched 24 together (yes all 7 series) and she watched - on her own - Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal. I can’t vouch for Desperate Housewives or Boston Legal but can assure you that 24 is complete rubbish.

I got hold of ‘The Wire’ which has had rave reviews from everywhere and we started to watch it - but it is impenetrable. They apparently speak a strange dialect of American in Baltimore - and they mumble - so at no stage did either of us have any idea what was happening. We have given up on it for the time being - but may return after some sessions with a voice coach.

Which reminds me that in New York many years ago I spent some time in a bar trying unsuccessfully to order a Bacardi and Coke. I got blank stares from the lady behind the bar and after my fifth request she said ‘Yawl must be from Baltimore!’

So after this failure I recently bought from Amazon the first 5 series of Lost - and we have watched about 8 episodes so far. Now I know you cannot expect high quality drama from a show which is based on the premise that a plane crashes on a deserted Pacific island - and a Polar Bear turns up in the first episode - but we had some hopes.

Cate’s initial opinion of the show is that it is ‘rancid’. I think this is a bit harsh and don’t think it is any worse that most current TV shows of that genre - but then I was not expecting very much.

I had apparently led Cate to believe that it was better than this. She mistook me saying ‘it’s very popular’ for ‘it’s very good’. Disappointment has followed her since then.

Surprisingly - I haven’t yet developed a passionate hatred for most of the characters. A few yes - and I will be pleased if they come to grisly ends - but most of them are so boring and vacuous that you cannot help but feel sorry for them. But the pregnant Australian woman is tedious beyond all belief and I just hope there is another Polar Bear out there just for her. But - could an American script writer kill a pregnant woman? I don’t think so!

Given what has happened in the first few episodes it will be interesting to see what the script writers can come up with in the series to come. But I guess if there are no rules - and you are a serious drug taker - you can make up almost anything you like. It certainly worked for 24.

I know most of you do not watch these things as closely as I do - so you may have missed this from a month or so ago.

In Texas (and in some other places) they have a system whereby the elected Board of Education gets to decide what goes into school text books. Uh Oh! I hear you say. So you know what’s coming right?

Yep - inevitably the Wingnuts got hold of the Board and are re-writing the history books to get rid of those pesky bits that don’t fit with their own personal fundamentalist religious and racist views.

How cool is that? Fuck history as it happened! We will have history as we would have like it to have happened.

‘God made Texas and all the people in it in 7 days. On the 8th day he wrote the US Constitution and didn’t mention himself in it because he was busy making more damn beetles - but clearly he meant to put it in there - so we shall. There was no slavery - the black people were Peace Corps members who volunteered their labor because they love cotton. God wants every American to have at least one gun - and the only worthwhile legislation ever has been passed by Republicans. Those Democrats are vile Kool Aid drinking marxist pagan gays who are trying to destroy the American way of life.’

This is fantastic. We should all do this. I could re-write the Austrian history books.

‘Adolf Hitler was born in Waco Texas on 20 April 1889 and was raised by members of the Texas Board of Education. He was sent to Germany to learn the language and was drafted into the German Army where he became totally unhinged by having to eat Wurstel every day for four years while loud explosions rattled his brain. Understanding that Texans were more unhinged than he was he decided to stay in Germany and ran for Chancellor. He was elected by a large majority of deafened Wurstel eaters who wanted to wear uniforms and shoot people. His achievements included achieving full employment for all Germans, urban renewal programs in Russia, encouraging the Jewish people to move to warmer climates for their health and developing rocket powered flight.’

The Wingnuts are starting to make the Taliban look positively reasonable.