Jan
Heaven In My Hands
The heavy rain this morning, usually greeted with the kind of "meh" that makes me sound like I'm still fifteen years old, was for once welcomed with open arms here as it slowly helps get rid of the four or five inches of snow that trapped me indoors for the weekend and drove me slightly stir crazy.
I think I've now read every book in the house – with the exception of those dull social work ones which I never read properly for my degree and aren't about to start now – and I'm nearly up to speed on the DVDs-to-be-watched pile, currently up to part four of ten of the last Second Doctor serial The War Games.
My absolute lifesaver over the past week, though, has been the magnificently amazing Zo, whose gift of a bumper pack of Nintendo DS games has kept me sane [whilst ruining my eyesight and giving me a "stylus wound" in the palm of my right hand].
Especially enjoyable is how I've zapped all sorts of things in Space Invaders Extreme – at least until it got to the sodding impossible level four; I've been working my way through New Super Mario Bros, which has all the fun of the original whilst being new enough to be fresh; and I've been working my way through Mario Kart DS trying not to break the buttons with furious stamping.
Along with the others she included they've been very welcome: that is, apart from the Countdown spin-off game which I beat on Champion level on first try, and I Love Horses which Z rather malevolently added to the bundle knowing that giving me a horsey game was rather like sending Fox News an I Love Socialism title. [Thanks, sweetie 
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One of the fun things about being indoors over the past few days has been the schadenfreude of watching the news as the fanatic bigots that are the Robinsons implode over in NI.
Ang has documented this much better than I have with good insight into the moral implications for their particular microcosm of society, but one thing I particularly want to point out is how Northern Ireland has always existed in a time-warp several decades behind the "mainland". This may be no exception.
Twenty-five years ago, we [the UK in general] had a Conservative government big on "family/Victorian values", ready to enact a horrendous piece of legislation known colloquially as Section 28 to enforce its "moral" credentials. Like the Robinsons, homosexuality was an abomination outside of "normal family" life.
Then, a few years later, during a campaign which was known as "Back to Basics", the shall we say "interesting" private lives of many Government ministers – including my MP at the time, which gave the little town I worked in a week of media frenzy – were revealed in sordid [and sometimes made-up] detail which convinced them, and the subsequent Labour government, that any attempt to preach sexual morality would only show them up as hypocritical.
The issue's not completely gone away – Cameron has made noises about "tax breaks for marriage" [oh yeah, like I'm really gonna get married just to save a couple of hundred quid on my income tax bill], but has fought shy of trying to take any moral high ground [yet] – but the kind of language the Robinsons have used has been out of fashion – and out of order – here for fifteen years; Iris would have found herself immediately chucked out of any of the three major parties for her stupid rant eighteen months ago.
It may well be, then, that this is part of NI's "normalization" post-troubles; one step on the road from segregational, isolationist, extreme-religious politics to one more closely based on the values that all serious "mainland" politicians now hold.
After all, DUP etc., if you lot keep insisting how you're so sodding British, shouldn't you show it by adopting the greater tolerance and liberalism that we have?
Don't you see how being fanatical about anything, outside of caravanning, canal restoration or collecting horse brasses, is the most un-British value there is?
January 12th, 2010 at 11:31
Thank goodness postie got it to you in time, is all I'll say. Like you I've been rather confined to the house and going stir crazy too. I even dug out Mario Kart on the Wii on Sunday. I'm glad that the games have kept you going, and I'm sorry about the palm, but it was a small price to pay for semi-sanity
If there are any others that you'd like, you know you only have to ask and I'm pretty sure I can find most of them… if I haven't already got them.
I think you need to add 'weather' to your fanatical list. If we're fanatical about anything, it's the weather first and foremost.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:25
I was talking to Mum yesterday about this very thing; the fact that most people elsewhere in the UK would be quite astounded to hear that DUP types consider themselves to be the epitome of Britishness. They say 'British', I say they're the worst kind of Little Englanders.
It may well be, then, that this is part of NI's "normalization" post-troubles; one step on the road from segregational, isolationist, extreme-religious politics to one more closely based on the values that all serious "mainland" politicians now hold.
This is an interesting and hopeful view of it – for Iris's rant to become a scandal in itself indicated that attitudes were changing (though not in all quarters). And politicians must, you'd think, be learning from this that everything eventually comes out in the wash. You'd hope.
I just hope we can keep the Assembly together; last night's Tele recounts various alarming possibilities should we end up with some combination of people working together who actually refuse to work together….
January 12th, 2010 at 13:30
I would say, Z, that we're "obsessive" rather than "fanatical" about the weather; we catch every forecast and talk about it, but we don't attempt to impose one narrow kind of weather on the climate…
January 12th, 2010 at 16:31
You're so right about the time-warpedness of the Robinson saga. I was struck by the fact that in the Panorama special about it last night, the presenter even had a haircut and suit like my dad c.1975, as if to underline how outdated the whole stupid chebang is. It reminded me of that ad campaign Stonewall did on the Tube recently with 70s-style drawings of a bloke in office dress and the slogan something like "It's not 1975 anymore."
Amazing, though, to think that one fundamentalist fruit-loop having a Lady Chatterley moment could possibly have such far-reaching consequences for a society (even a society roughly the size of Dorset…)
January 16th, 2010 at 17:38
Sorry this is totally nothing to do with your blog.
I have two books I don't want – would you like them?
"Moab is my washpot" by Stephen Fry and "Red Carpets and other Banana skins" by Rupert Everett.
Wouldn't cost you anything as I'd post them from work. Don't have your address though. Email me if you want them. No worries if you don't.
January 16th, 2010 at 22:11
Read the first, not really interested in the second. Thanks for thinking of me though