T'eyla Minh

Okay. So yesterday's entry was mostly about getting something out of my brain which has been fermenting long enough. Something incredibly minor kicked it off, pissed me off, and I figured venting it was better than stewing about it all day and sulking at work. I'm hoping that now I can just forget about it and get on with my life without worrying about this particular issue. What's done is done, and that's that. (Eni - remind me to email you, if you're absolutely deathly curious...)

Anyway, it obviously didn't help that I was tired yesterday. marz109 read the entry and then told Paul and he rang me up all worried, bless him. As a result we went out for food instead of finding something to cook, and went to Kings (local curry house) for a proper sit-down curry instead of a takeaway.

It was all very nice (mine had slices of boiled egg in it!), and the portions were actually a reasonable size rather than being enormous. As Paul rightly pointed out, when you go for a curry, nobody comes over to check if your food is okay, because they know it is. ;) We had a bottle of wine between us which for some reason made me very drunk/tired very quickly, so by the time we got home again I was exhausted. I did potter about online a bit (reading fic when half-asleep and tipsy is brilliant, by the way) and then fell into bed around 9.30, finally going to sleep about 10.30ish... no idea what time, actually. Early, at any rate.

So today I've had too much sleep instead of too little... Tonight I will attempt to be slightly more productive, as there's washing up to be done and I have to cook before Paul goes out for the gig later. Busy weekend for him this week: gig tonight, we're meeting his mates Vicky and Sarah tomorrow and then he's going to a Eurovision party on Saturday. It's also Pride on Sunday but to be honest, this year I'd rather just enjoy the extended weekend, especially as we no longer get 'Council Tuesdays' (obviously everyone else booked that one off before I could even think about it...) Here's hoping the weather is nice, anyway, as last year it rained all day and was horrible...

Oh, on a completely unrelated note, I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago and forgot. Courtesy of metalmikey666, God hates Goths now, apparently... I really want to think it's fake, but at the same time I suspect it may be genuine. Worth a look, anyway, for the sheer "whuh??" factor.

Aaanyway. Better do some work, I suppose.

There's nothing like two days of holiday to make you appreciate NOT BEING AT BLOODY WORK. Came in this morning to ridiculously huge piles of typing (both current and backlogged) and then spent 15 minutes inside the photocopier, which someone appears to have broken one of the internal handles of. Also, there was a letter in my drawer this morning addressed to Judy Lyon, who left in August 2004. Yes. Of course I know where she went... apart from the fact she didn't TELL US. Meh. I'll give it to Cynthia on Monday.

Anyway. It's just as well I was on leave, since I came down with a cold on Tuesday so would have been off sick anyway. Bloody typical. But anyway, on Tuesday we went to the Victorian Restaurant for lunch after a brief wandering around town. Lunch was pleasant and laid back, and we were going to go to HMV/somewhere for further shopping, but saw the bus back to mine and got on it to try and beat the traffic.

The tickets for Rocky Horror are now booked. I require £27.50 each off metalmikey666 and rubytitania, please... 2nd May 2006 (the Tuesday after the May Bank Holiday), 8.00pm, Alexandra Theatre. (Go to the official site for more details of cast and such. I'm personally quite excited about Frank N Furter. :D)

Evening was spent with me suffering for my cold, watching Bob and Rose (I'd forgotten how good that was) and Something's Gotta Give because there was nothing else on. It's quite good, though the best bit is the entire sequence with the hysterical crying...

I spent most of Wednesday being asleep due to cold-induced exhaustion. We left at about 5.30 to head off into town to grab some food before seeing Jerry Springer: The Opera at 7.30. Due to bus stupidity, we had a grand total of 45 minutes in which to find food, with plans also being scuppered by the Briar being rammed (okay, the no smoking policy is great - marvellous, even - but did they have to significantly reduce the amount of tabels in there?), as well as the Hill, so we ended up finding a table (just about) at the Windsor, where we then had 15 minutes to stuff our faces before legging it down to the theatre. Unfortunately, I couldn't eat fast, because I'd not eaten since 11.00 that morning and had reached the stage of hunger where I felt sick. But my steak was very nice anyway.

(For future reference: the Windsor does very good steaks, and their steak night is Wednesday.)

There were protesters at the theatre! Well, about seven of them, anyway. They'd all disappeared again by the interval, but someone had left a leaflet on the front desk in the foyer, which Paul grabbed on the way back in. They were there again at the end of the night handing out entirely different leaflets. I'll type them both up later (the first one's funnier...) and do a show write-up while I'm at it.

Didn't do any lurking due to tiredness and coldness (I'm losing my stamina) but we went to the Fox for a quick drink, then headed home.

My cold seems to have cleared up, at least, and I'm hoping to gain lots more flex this week (I'm 6.3 hours in credit at the moment) due to having to take 7.3 hours as standard on leave days. When I've done this second backlog, I'll take a well-earned flex day.

Right, back to work, I suppose...

So, Jerry Springer: the Opera was on BBC2 tonight.  I've taped it and will be watching it tomorrow.  Actually, we nearly saw the show in London back in October but decided there wasn't enough time given everything else I wanted to do, so I'm quite pleased the Beeb decided to show it.  Even though they nearly didn't.

Oh, for fuck's sake...  (Link from killer___queen's journal.)

Okay.  I'm an atheist, which is fairly common knowledge.  I'm not anti-Christian, or even anti-religion. I think faith and belief is a wonderful, powerful thing.  I know lots of lovely people from lots of different religions.  But they're not annoying evangelist extremist idiots trying to force their beliefs onto the rest of us.  And this rant is going to be incredibly incoherent as I'm tired and trying to fight off a cold and failing horrendously, but bear with it.  I'm not intentionally trying to upset anyone and I apologise if such happens; it's nothing personal to anyone who reads this.  (And if frightened wants to take this and run with it, I'll let her. ;) )

Some points.

Firstly: burning your TV licences.  Yeah, that's a good plan.  You'll be the first to complain when you get a huge-ass fine.  And really, it doesn't do anything.  The BBC probably couldn't give a damn whether or not your TV license is intact or a pile of ash, because you've already paid for it anyway, and they're not going to make a special list of people who've burnt their licences then remember not to fine them when the time comes to check people have got one.  It's not a protest, it's pathetic attention-seeking.  You are not martyrs, and in all liklihood, the executives up in their warm offices are staring out of the window laughing at you while you freeze your backsides off, and are about three seconds away from throwing a fire extinguisher out of the window in the hope it knocks one of you unconscious.

Secondly: "The use of foul language together with mocking Jesus Christ and portraying him wearing a nappy with sequins is highly offensive to Christians and we felt that it was totally wrong," apparently.  Is that a royal 'we'?  Just how many protesters are there in all of this anyway?  A whole country's-worth of church-goers?  I doubt it.  Most likely it's a few fundamentalists with nothing better to do than find things to complain about as being 'offensive' and 'wrong'.  Guess what?  Not everyone cares what you think.  Some people like foul language and obvious visual humour.  Get over it, and stop trying to shove your morals into our faces.

Thirdly: "He said the BBC would not risk upsetting minority faiths like Islam or Buddhism."  He's right, they wouldn't.  And they're not trying to upset the sodding Christians, either.  The BBC didn't produce the show; they didn't write it, and they weren't responsible for Jerry Springer's chat show in the first place.  They're not sitting there thinking, "oh, let's show this, it'll really upset those Christians."  They're just trying to provide an entertainment service, for those who cannot afford to go to London and see the show live, for those who've already seen it, for those who are morbidly curious.  They're highlighting the fact that this is a unique, interesting show that, yes, may not be to everybody's taste.    Deal the Hell with it.

Fourthly: "Because we are Christians they think we are fair game for any insults..."  When you act like morons, what more do you expect?  Shut the Hell up and follow your faith quietly like everyone else in the world, and we'll leave you alone.

Fifthly: "Religious leaders fear the hundreds of swear words the Springer show contains would cause offence when broadcast."  It's on after the watershed.  Also, human beings have this amazing little thing called 'free will', even though half the time they choose to ignore that fact.  Don't like it, don't watch it.  Yes, it's really that simple.  The television has an off-switch.  There are at least four alternative channels to choose from.  Nobody is forcing you to sit down and watch it.

Sixthly: I get the distinct impression that most of the hoo-hah is revolving around the fact that it's being shown on the BBC.  If it were any other channel - Hell, even another less-establsihed BBC channel like BBC3 or 4 - then the level of complaints wouldn't be so high.  If it was on Channel 5, nobody would bat an eyelid.  But because it's the almighty holy BBC, which - of course - never shows anything with swearing in, never shows anything controversial, suddenly everyone's up in arms about it.

Seventhly: leave my nightly entertainment the Hell alone.  Do I come into your Sunday communion or your carol services and complain that they're anti-atheist?  No, I don't.  Just because Christianity is one of the largest established religions in the world does not give you the right to inflict your beliefs on those of us that choose not to follow them.  I do not want to be saved; I will not be going to Hell, because that's your belief, not mine.  Go pray for someone else's salvation.  Put some of that energy you've been using to burn your TV licences and shout about it into, say, raising money for the tsunami appeals.  Do something useful for a change, and maybe we'll stop "insulting" you.

I think I should probably stop there.

This rant is brought to you by the letters O and Y, and is a product of having redisovered the truly terrifying Chick tracts last night.  Thank you and goodnight.

And, again, it's not directed at anybody I know. :)