24 June 2010 (Thursday) - Stuff

For about the fourth or fifth time in the last week I was in the back garden at 3am trying to see this dratted comet. Needless to say, despite a clear night it wasn’t there. If some bright spark turns up at the astronomy club tomorrow night with photos of the thing, I shall be shoving telescopes up bottoms!

Despite my early morning fun, I was still out of bed by 6am. I watched the last episode in the current series of “V”. A re-imagining of the series from the 70s (or was it the 80s?), and having enjoyed the entire series immensely, I find myself reflecting on what I watched, and coming to the conclusion that much as I really did like it, I have to admit that nothing actually happened after the first five minutes of the pilot show. For those of my loyal readers who didn’t see the program, allow me to summarise the first five minutes of the first episode:

  • In the opening minute of the first episode aliens visit Earth, and promise all sorts of technology to repair the environmental damage humans have done to the planet (for no adequately explored reason.)
  • In the second minute it turns out there’s already aliens on Earth – they’ve been here some time (for no adequately explored reason.)
  • In the third minute an assorted bunch of misfits (humans and aliens) suspect the aliens of being evil (for no adequately explored reason.)
  • In the fourth minute the boss alien would seem to be a baddy (for no adequately explored reason) but we don’t care because she’s fit.
  • In the fifth minute one of the aliens who’s been on Earth for years gets his human girlfriend pregnant (because she’s fit)

And then, that was it for twelve episodes. For all that the various misfits and aliens plotted and conspired, in retrospect the story didn’t actually move on in any way whatsoever. I hear a second season has been confirmed. Let’s hope that something happens in that season.

Earlier in the week I mentioned that I’d found homes for two of my surplus gazebos. Yesterday I found a third home and dispatched a gazebo. However it turns out that all I’d sent was a bag of poles. Woops! I’d better check that the replacement I’m lining up is actually a gazebo and not another bag of poles. Still, if nothing else, I’ve got rid of a bag of poles…

And I’ll end (for today) with a rant. I suppose I should mention the budget, if only to crow that according to the BBC’s I’m-all-right-jack-ometer, despite the nation’s having had the most severe cutbacks nationally in living memory, after the budget is implemented, I shall be an estimated two hundred quid a year better off. I’m not sure how the BBC can justify their prediction of my finances, since all they asked was how much do I earn, and do I have a company car.

If I am truly going to be better off on the basis of these questions, then presumably the government are lowering income tax? But that’s not what the news says. The news also says I am having my wages frozen for the next two years which, bearing in mind inflation is always happening, means I am effectively getting a pay cut.

The BBC’s website is clearly talking pro-government drivel. Presumably the BBC are sucking up to the Prime Minister to ensure their licence fee bung isn’t cut along with everyone else’s budgets?

And it’s not just the Beeb who are sucking up. Perhaps the most telling point of all is the rise on V.A.T. The bunch of spineless sycophants for whom I voted only two months ago were against these V.A.T. increases, weren’t they? Perhaps they might remember their election promises – some of them have - but I wonder if they will actually do anything about these promises. On the one hand this is a problem of a coalition government in that compromises have to be made. On the other is this the true face of the Dithering Democraps who will say black is white to stay in power? I hope not….


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