Falldog

I’d been warned by those who’ve seen more of Heroes than I have (as of tonight, the series’ debut on British terrestrial TV, that would be more than two episodes) that it doesn’t really kick in until the end of the second episode. They weren’t kidding, though I enjoyed the ride up to the ohmigod cliffhanger they’d talked about. An airy, measured (the Mrs would say slow) pace, really interesting characters, and decent writing (a little hung up on its themes here and there, maybe – but for every character who banged on about their destiny, there was one who was just caught up in the sometimes brutal realities of the life they’re stuck with now).

There have been a heap of comics that pose the question “What would it really be like if someone woke up in the real world with superpowers?”, but it’s refreshing to see a TV show telling this story for the first time. What’s more promising is that the writers haven’t just rested on that alone for the concept: there’s clearly loads more going on, and many more stories to tell besides those of the characters dealing with their new abilities – which would almost certainly have become tedious before very long.

I’m pleased that I’ve enjoyed it as much as my friends who’ve seen it thought I would. I’m just going to have to keep my lug-holes shut now, to make sure nobody spoils any of it for me.

Which brings me to Harry Potter (NO SPOILERS!). We saw new movie The Order of the Phoenix last week, which I hugely enjoyed. This book is the first I hadn’t even attempted to read, so I came to the film totally fresh. The book before, The Goblet of Fire, I tried to read about a dozen times, but I could never get past the teeth-grindingly dull Quiddich World Cup at the beginning. Now, since seeing the new film and witnessing the release of the final book, I’ve been faced with a difficult decision: read books six and seven before the next film and so get up to speed, or don’t read them, enjoy the films for what they are, but spend the next three plus years trying not to find out what happens to Harry in the end.

I should point out I’m not hugely bothered. The HP stuff is fun, on the whole, but the books are generally turgid: I just can’t get behind either JK’s clunky prose or the evident love of the author for the world she’s created. It’s a rod for her own back, really. I can’t imagine for a minute the HP books became the phenomenon they are because she’s a good writer; their success, I’m sure, is down to a mix of the hugely detailed world of Hogwarts and some inexplicable mass delusion of the part of the reading public. (I honestly believe that there is a similar drive behind both the fervour surrounding Potter and the national meltdown following the death of Princess Di. They are, to me, equally inexplicable in any rational sense, but both tap into some desperate society-wide infantilism: eager dreams of a world in which you can learn to be a wizard, and the terrible mourning over the death of a magical princess. But anyway…)

I get the feeling the wordcounts for the Potter books spiralled out of control not just because her editors were too scared to dare tell JK to write more concisely (or, heaven forbid, just better), but also because JK’s confidence in her own abilities was not so great as to avoid cramming in every little detail of her world, again and again, in every book, just to cover all bases with regards to what people may have liked before.

Anyway, I digress. I think that diatribe makes my decision a bit easier. I shall not bother with the books (I’m knee-deep in du Maurier at the moment, and I’d rather spend my precious reading time with her at the moment), and I’ll just wait for the movies. In the meantime, having the ending spoiled would be irksome, but not the end of the world.

I know about Dumbledore in book six, by the way.

[swipes finger across throat]

… surfing the net instead of doing any work. (An amusing re-captioning of a Nintendo merchandise catalogue from 1990, since you ask.) The managing editor of the mag I’ve been working on since December comes over, thanks me for all my hard work and gives me a bottle of champagne! I hurriedly hide the obvious evidence of not-hard-working-at-all until she’s gone, when I get back to my reading.

Then the editor himself nips over to thank me as well, so I have to swiftly switch to another window all over again. Honestly, sometimes it’s been harder work to look busy here than the work itself. But it is over! This long stint has finally ended. Or it will do this afternoon, though I detect a strong whiff of not-really-working from everyone around me. Hooray for Easter!

In other news, don’t forget to watch Doctor Who this Saturday. The episode is called The Shakespeare Code, it’s written by my friend Gareth (who rightly loathes Dan Brown, just so you know), and features a bawdy prostitute named after my good self. Pride, fannish confusion and excitement rules the day.

Lovely moment on Relocation, Relocation last night as Kirsty showed the local amenities to a buyer interested in the area:

Kirsty: You’ve got your post office over there, greengrocers there, there’s a butcher, a cafe that way, a Co-op over there…

Punter: So, it’s my one-stop shop!

I, like much of the internet, have come to love pirates. So imagine my glee when, on a quiet evening telly-watching on our recent Florida trip, an episode of the truly histrionic US version of Wife Swap cropped up featuring the scurvy, um, dogs themselves.

As ever, one wife was a typically uptight WASP, with a love of organisation and a heartfelt belief that appearance is all. The other wife came from a family of pirates. Not real pirates, you understand. That would be strange… and wonderful. No, this was a family who (one suspected, mainly for the cameras) lived like cartoon pirates: all skull-and-crossbones hats, plastic cutlasses and ruffled velvet pantaloons.

Early on in the show, it was announced that Mr Pirate, John Baur, was the instigator of Talk Like a Pirate Day, and had written a book on ‘Pirattitude‘, or how to live your life like a pirate. He was a bit of a joke – but crucially, and this is where our highly-strung WASP fell down, he knew he was a bit silly. That aside, however, his thinking was built on some sound principles, and the differences between the pirates’ life and that of the WASPs was truly something to behold.

Mrs WASP got very hung up on the eldest pirates’ daughter’s use of the f-word. She was 16, too, so it’s surely not that surprising. John explained that he let his children run free and live life the way they wanted to because he wanted them to discover for themselves who they are and how they want to present themselves to the world. (”That’s what pirattitude is all about!” he would unhelpfully bark.)

“You’re messy, disorganised and wilful,” Mrs WASP told one of the daughters. “How do you expect to be a good wife and mother?”

Somewhat (rightly) shocked and appalled, the daughter replied, “But that’s not what I want to be! That’s not what I am!”

This concept was lost on Mrs WASP. (It was around this point in the show that I found myself suddenly and very deeply grateful to my own parents for, while (sadly) not being pirates, letting me live my life by my own rules, and supporting each and every one of my major decisions.) Mrs WASP wanted her own daughter to grow up to be just like her: pretty, slim, clean and tidy, and a good wife and mother. Horrifyingly, Mrs WASP Jr seemed to relish this hard outlining of her future.

In one of the programme’s more distressing moments, we saw how much the daughter had already picked up some of the highly-strung nature of her mum, as she was sent into a crying fit when she was told that she was no longer allowed to keep her room tidy. She was a mean little bitch to Mrs Pirate, too – she was only 12 or so, and I’ve rarely seen someone more quick to judge on looks alone. “You’re pretty,” she said to Mrs Pirate on her arrival, in a tone of voice that said, “Looks are the most important thing in the world to everyone, and I have now dazzled you with that compliment and so will have COMPLETE CONTROL OVER YOU!”

But it didn’t take long for the veneer to crack, and she proceeded to call Mrs Pirate smelly and rude and mean and what have you, and was unremittingly evil right through to the last minute. All of her behaviour was informed by an upsetting mix between the strains of her own crack-of-the-whip upbringing and her split-second, appearance-based judgements.

To see someone so young be so narrow-minded was terrible. Truly awful. But then again, one day, she will make a great wife to some emotionally unavailable bully (don’t get me started on Mr WASP…), and churn out plenty of screw-ups of her own. Job done, therefore, and slapped-backs all round.

Meanwhile, back in the pirates’ house, they finally learn that maybe putting things in boxes and hoovering once in a while might be a good thing. But, on Mrs WASP’s departure and the reunion of Mr and Mrs Pirate, we see how messy, and proper, and real their love and life is, and… well, I know which I’d rather have.

I know these programmes are very carefully engineered by their makers to make two extremes clash as noisily as possible, and so we should never take them as any reflection of reality, but seeing this show was the perfect punctuation to a week where I got some idea of how schizophrenic the US can be. From the rich-bitch mansions of Palm Beach to trailer trash on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida contains its own explosive extremes. It’s no wonder this is the state that was the source of much of the political problems the US has experienced over the last few years. That said, it is the country that brought us John Baur and Pirattitude and the perfect platform for showing up a shameful family of tightasses.

God bless America, indeed.

“I worry that The Office relies so much on getting laughs from people caught in awkward and embarrassing situations that it might start to get old.”

Says the man who wrote Frasier!

ITV2. Ghosthunting with Girls Aloud. Oh, yes.