Where does the week go....

This week has sped by. I'd love to say that I knuckled down and got some work done, but that really isn't true. I was going to write a scathing criticism of a Pride & Prejudice Variation, but mindful of something my Mum said once, which was simply, When you've written your letter, full of bile and accusation, put it away for a week. Then if after a week you've re-read it and you feel the same way, send it. But don't send it in the heat of the moment. You may live to regret it. (This is in the days before Email and Facebook and Twitter.) She was right of course, and Twitter being the platform that it is, thrives on the immediate knee-jerk reaction to people and events. In almost every sense one could say that Twitter is a drug, the act of typing a statement, the reaction to it and the constant re-tweeting of said statement which only adds fuel to the fire. I use Twitter (occasionally) and most of you know that I'm on Facebook fairly regularly, but I try to use the old mandate, 'If you can't say something nice; don't say anything at all.' For God's sake, we're only here once although admittedly I'd like to be reincarnated as a pampered cat having seen how our cats live and their luxurious lifestyle.

On the downside, I've mislaid one of my USB Sticks (and it has half a dozen stories I was working on on it.) Yes, I know that they're only FanFiction, and you can criticise all you like, frankly I don't give a damn. I really don't. Although there were many websites that explain how I could download documents from my Kindle to my computer, they didn't work. In the end I had to try a completely different approach [and thankfully this worked] and the thought of having to do another E.M.Forster did not appeal. {It may be urban legend, but apparently Forster typed up the entire manuscript of Where Angels Fear To Tread, put it in a suitcase and put it on a train Or, he got on a train and put it in the baggage compartment. Said manuscript disappeared and Forster hadn't made a copy. He had to retype the entire manuscript.} I just wasn't keen on doing that, I had notes and scribbles of course, and I hadn't thrown anything away, but the finished manuscript sometimes bears no resemblance to the scribbles that started the story. So that thought really and truly cheesed me off.

Television is just appalling. I know that it's probably me, but there's either a glut of programmes like Coronation Street or Emmerdale (and I'm still waiting for the alien abduction episode) which are misery, misery, extra dose of angst without happy ending, misery and final death. I have never found soaps to be particularly interesting, as I don't really want to watch people living their everyday lives - and none of these lives are happy ones, nor do people seem to experience any joy in any of them. I mean I know that Thomas Hobbes said that human life was 'nasty, brutish and short' but subject prisoners to hours of soaps and you won't need torture. They'll tell you everything you want to know - either because they can't take any more, or because they need to know how Heather is dealing with her disability and her engagement to Scotty. [Soaps are also addictive] so all you need to do is to say, 'We'll tell you about Heather and Scotty if you give us the information.' As you might have guessed, I loathe soaps.

I couldn't get into them when I was a younger, and now I find thtem so dull that I just can't get into them. But on the plus side we're doing fantastically in the Olympics and I'm looking forward to the Paralympics.