New Frontiers - and a once ONLY Big Brother round-up.

I've had some time off from the world. I'll soon be doing something I really enjoy. I needed some time to smooth my feathers before that new beginning, but decided that, rather than grab my dearest and flee to a miner's cabin in Daylesford, I should stay home and force myself to get things organised. One of the things I did was purchase a brand new Mac, which I took a frustratingly long time to learn how to use, being the old stick in the mud I am. I sometimes find that busting through the gauntlet of technology - text encoding, compatibility, printer drivers and all that bullshit - takes all the creative stuffing out of me. When I was a teenager I'd just grab a pen, of course, so there's no real excuse. One of the technological timewasters I am enjoying is "Photobooth" though, I must say. I find myself preening into my monitor of an evening, to be joined by my even more vain boy:















I've spent a lot of time just hanging with Chris, which I love doing - going for pub meals, listening to PBS in the mornings, cooking, watching DVDs that have piled up. Watching any old guff in fact, as we shall see.

One film that I watched again for the first time since about 2000 was Human Traffic. At the time I loved it - I even bought the soundtrack, god help me. But I must have been selectively ignoring the highly irritating characters and the general conceits of its director. Put simply, I must have been as out of my mind as "Jip" and co when I watched it. Because I hate its guts now.

Firstly, the music. All that late 90s Wall of Sound/dance/drum and bass bullshit makes me cringe now. I don't believe we will ever need to revisit the sounds of Fatboy bleedin' Slim, DJ Shadow, the Chemical Brothers or Death in Vegas ever again, let alone bloody Grooverider. It's completely unlistenable to me now - it's not even good to dance to (unless you're completely off your dial, and I tend to like my dial these days), and it's obviously pretty damn useless for anything else. Perhaps it's the times we're living in, but as Jeff Tweedy of Wilco says "I just want somebody to sing me a song right now".

Perhaps it's also the times we're living in that make the characters in Human Traffic seem like jumped up, self-indulgent little space cadets. There's a scene in HT where John Simm's character opines that pop music doesn't say anything important (which, granted, it doesn't), but what does that shambolic, put-my-eyes-out-with-a-ballpoint-now-please music they spend the film waving their arms about like nuff nuffs to say? I feel embarassed for everyone involved in that film, and I don't think I was showing my age, because Chris' eyes were rolling - spinning - too.

Another pile of turds I recently had the misfortune of tuning into on crap central, Channel 10, was Hamish and Andy's 'Real Stories'. It was the unfunniest thing I've ever seen. These two primed, over-exposed economics graduates really have stretched their run of luck with friends in high places (Rove, Chris Lilley apparently) to well past breaking point. Their mock current affairs program is full of school play level writing which is desperately over-acted by both Andy and, particularly, Hamish. Not the sort of hilarious over-acting you expect of comedians prepared to make buffoons of themselves in order to be funny a la Little Britain - the sort of restrained, "I wrote this line guys so I'm going to screech it through my teeth but oh hang on, that's not my best angle and according to Who weekly I'm one of 2006's most intriguing and sexy individuals" acting that is painful to watch. It's no Mighty Boosh, that's for bleedin certain, so why do they continue to waste film and our time?

I must also admit to casting my eye over this season of Big Brother on the odd occasion - only because I was reeled in by my acquaintance with one of the housemates, since evicted. I cannot keep my silence, though I was snorted at by my dear one for announcing that I would blog about this....

That Emma is vile, vile, vile. She reminds me of the ridiculous so called 'popular' (read: loathed by everyone but their afeared lackeys and the boys from the neighbouring schools for whom they slavishly gassed the rest of us with Impulse and hairspray in the toilets) girls at my school. I'm not impressed by some of the bullying I've witnessed in that house, and bullying is what it is. Emma has systematically ignored those in the house she deems unworthy of her time - Jamie and Rebecca. Refusal to be civil to someone, refusal to acknowledge their existence, is far more damaging to their self-esteem than engaging in an argument with them - which validates them as someone worthy of battling wits with. Not that Emma has any wits with which to battle, I'll wager. For my money, bullying is as bad as racism, and the show should be hauling her up for it, and her minions, who appear to be doing all the dirty work.

Even more sickening is watching a woman who has mutilated her chest to appear in Zoo Weekly and Ralph picking apart the appearance of others in the house. She's a real sister, isn't she? Hardly surprising, as this is obviously someone whose entire existence has been concerned with her appearance, to the detriment of her brain and, quite clearly, her heart.

And I don't mean to wade into the murky territory of how she 'should' have behaved knowing that her father was very ill, but try as I might, I cannot see how I'd even contemplate going on Sale of the Century, let alone Big Brother, if I thought my father's passing might be imminent, which she apparently did. I don't get how the sort of career she is evidently pursuing could be more important than her unresolved family stuff. But then, I don't get breast implants either. That said, I don't like the show's ethics, and she should have been notified of his death to be given the once-only chance to go to his funeral.

Aleisha went into the house a sweet country girl who 'dreams about boys'. She'll leave it as the brainless sidekick who got stuck into Jamie and made him cry, because she's the sort of stupid person whose opinions are swayed by others. Watching BB has helped me understand how it comes to pass that so many people vote for John Howard. Some people are born nasty; others are too easily influenced by the nasty. Unfortunately the same goes for 'Mr. Nice Guy' Andrew - who impressed me early on. Why are humans constantly wavering on the cusp of good and bad? I'll be interested to see how our environmentalist chicky turns out. She too seems too afraid of Emma to tell her to fuck off. Respect to Daniela who appears to have no such qualms.

Susannah was sweet. I had no issue with her at all. Why should people be labelled princesses because they enjoy a bit of glam? She didn't hurt anyone. As for kicking back and treating it like a holiday - why shouldn't she? What are the others doing anyway? Don't tell me it's boot camp! Perhaps because she is a 30 something office worker, rather than a snowboarding backpacker (like Billy for example), she truly appreciates the reprieve from the drudgery of earning a living. I think I'd be exactly the same!

Anyway, I feel cleansed (but also a little bit dirty) after that purge. I read a great article on 90s feminism on the weekend. I don't know if that makes up for all the other gumpf I've visually ingested... but what can I say?