Ashes to Ashes - Dust to Dust

So the Gene Genie's final hurrah has come and gone and I for one was not disappointed. In fact I think it was a fantastic end to a fantastic series and it even made me want to go back and watch the disappointing second series!

Of course Ashes to Ashes (ATA) has never really lived up to it's predecessor Life On Mars (LOM) and many would argue that in fact that there was no need for a spin off in the first place, tarnishing the perfect memories we had of  DCI Gene Hunt, DCI/DI Sam Tyler et-al but after 2 years and 3 series we finally got the big answers. Who is Gene Hunt? And what was this place? Were Sam and Alex mad, in a coma or had they travelled back in time?

Many had probably guessed after 2 series of LOM and a further 3 of ATA that the place they inhabited was somewhere between heaven and hell or some variation on it at least. The biggest shock (to me at least) came from the fate of the support cast, I'd already correctly guessed that Alex was dead before the end of series 1. Even better was the fact that the Guv himself had died as a young rookie cop and had decided to dedicate his (after) life to helping other dead coppers reach the pub (the implied heaven).

Did anyone else notice the massive references to the Wizard of Oz in the final scenes? Alex as Dorothy in her ruby red shoes, Shaz, Chris and Ray as the Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man respectively. Then of course you've got Gene Hunt as the Wizard and Jim Keats as the Wicked Witch. Life on Mars played massively on references to the Wizard of Oz (Sam being transported to another world, Frank Morgan etc) so it's good to see the writers/producers etc pay one final nod to their influences.

One other source of possible influence that I picked up on is The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. I had heard that the LOM/ATA writers were influenced by Lewis's Narnia series so wouldn't be surprised if this isn't a total coincidence or just me reading too much into this. For those not familiar with The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis (the guy who wrote the Narnia books) it's basically a series of letters between a trainee devil (Wormwood) to his mentor (Screwtape) updating him on his progress to tempt a man into sinning and therefore straying him away from the path to heaven. Sounds just like the role Keats plays trying to split up the team and transfer them to his division (via a descending lift!), telling his 'boss'(?) via his phone that he's got 3 new recruits/souls!

Luckily we've got good old Nigel Perkins, sorry Gene Hunt stepping in at the last min via Chris's walkie talkie to save the tortured souls of Fenchurch East CID and after one last successful bust (resulting in the symbolic death of the Quattro!) he delivers them safely to the pub, 'our boozer' The Railway Arms from LOM complete with St Peter himself Nelson the Jamaican/Bury accented barman.

To end it all LOM/ATA comes full circle as another confused modern copper comes bursting into Fenchurch shouting the odds demanding his iPhone and his desk back ala Sam Tyler leaving our hero to put down his Mercedes brochure down and mutter the immortal words, "A word in your shell like pal".

Long live the Gene Genie!

Rock bottom

Today it seemed I'd lost all hope, I've started applying for warehouse jobs. It's got so desperate now that I've lowered my standards so low that even with two degrees to my name I'm looking for work in dirty old warehouses for minimum wage with a bunch of inbred smackheads for workmates.

To add insult to injury few of these jobs actually exist, the ones that are actually advertised online are just ploys by local recruitment agencies to get you to sign up with them (and they'll let you know when work comes up).

It appears that I will actually 'work for biscuits'!!

Episode IV: A new hope

As one era of my life has come to an end (and I'm ok with it) I'm starting to cast my eye to the next and how I intend to get there. Here's a list of goals I hope to achieve over the next year or so:

• Get off the anti-depressants.
  
• Become debt free and/or find work.
• Start playing regular gigs again. 
• Get down to my ideal weight (lose over 2 stone!)
  
• Enter a recording studio to record my own work.
  
• Get a place of my own.

Maybe at some point probably after all the above has been achieved I can think about finding myself another girl. Perhaps I'll be over H by then.

Also wouldn't mind bagging myself a United season ticket once I've found myself a decent job and debts are cleared.

Good junk food

This morning I dragged myself out of bed and to the gym for my weekly Friday morning spin. I don't have anything to eat until I get back home as: a) I don't get up early enough to have it and b) with the way I go at it in spin I'd bring it all back up!  For the past 7 weeks I've had to attend the job centre immediately after spin so it's normally going on for 12 when I come out and am usually starving.

Every week for the past 2 months or so I've been craving a Burger King. Today was the first Friday in almost 2 months I didn't have to go to the Job Centre and thus could go straight home and satisfy my hunger with good old Aldi's knock off shreddies. However I still needed to buy my Christmas cards for the family as well as my Mum's present. Driving down the main road out of the gym just before the turn off for the retail park I suddenly got some divine inspiration and knew exactly what I would get my Mum. What luck, retail park has a card shop, a shop where I could get the present from (they didn't have what I wanted incidentally and I had to travel into town but at least I knew now what to get!) and best of all a Burger King! :D

I never get to have Burger King. My Mum's not keen on it and I don't like chicken (ie KFC) so we always end up at McDs. Needless to say I enjoyed the burger (Double Whopper by the way) but wasn't too keen on the chips or the BBQ sauce (which was rank despite being produced by Heinz) and it got me thinking this would be the perfect fast food restaurant if they had KFC's chips and McDonalds BBQ sauce.

So with that thought in mind here's my idea of the ideal fast food restaurant:

• Burger King's burgers
•  McDonald's BBQ sauce
• KFC's chips
• The look/style of Subway's restaurants
• Subway's/McDonalds idea of free refills
• McDonald's prices
• McDonald's happy meals/toys
• McDonald's quantity of restaurants - I can only name 2 Burger King restaurants (1 in Wigan and 1 in Manchester), I can name at least 4 McDonalds in Wigan alone: (Leigh doesn't count, it's not Wigan!), Wigan town centre, Saddle junction, Sainsburys, Platt Laz.
• Burger King's option to super size the meal. If you don't want to eat so much and get fat don't super size your meal instead of doing so and then suing McDonalds when you do eventually pile on the pounds!
• Cheese is not standard on burgers but an extra like at Burger King thus you don't have to wait ages for a decent burger without cheese!
  

Laptop lament

I don't know how I coped in the days before my laptop. I only decided to get the thing as a means of actually getting access to a computer as at the time Craig would hog the main PC literally allday everyday. Now he lives with my Dad again and I can now access my PC whenever I want so really there's no need to miss my laptop which I have lent to my other brother. Scott borrowed the laptop to entertain himself whilst he worked away from home last week. I should have it back by now but he's asked if he can borrow it a little longer as he's finding using his computer a little difficult as he can't grip the mouse properly at the mo.

In theory there's no reason why I should miss my laptop but I do, it's portable so I can work wherever I like (usually in bed), it's convenient (I tend to want to use it late at night/early in the morning and it's there right when I need it) and most of all I guess it's because it's mine.

The funny thing is over the last few days I've had a bit of difficulty sleeping, normally I would boot up my laptop and do something productive (or not so productive ie Facebook!) rather than waste time lieing in bed not sleeping. During this period of slumberlessness I have had a plethora of ideas flowing in my tiny brain and have found myself getting a little frustrated that I can't put these thoughts down into some electronic format be it a blog or just a few paragraphs of notes in Word. I did scribble a few pages of notes down in a small notepad which ideally I should be using but I seem to reject the idea and find myself just not writing anything down thinking if it's good enough I'll remember it in the morning. I suppose that's the danger of coming up with such thoughts when you're lieing in bed and of course the convenience of having a laptop computer to hand. Guess for now it's back to pen and paper and the trusty old PC to type up any subsequent scribblings.

The lost weekend

Up until Friday I was happily blogging at least one post a day then as usual Scott (brother) throws a spanner in the works! Firstly the kids were deposited on us for a whole weekend instead of just the obligatory Saturday night. Secondly as he's working away all week he decided it would be a good idea to borrow my laptop. Didn't think it would be so much of a problem as I still have the main PC but with my Mum being off sick it's not been as easy to get a few private minutes on the comp to put down my thoughts in electronic verse. Oh how I miss my laptop! Speaking of which it will now be costing me an extra fiver a month as I decided to take out insurance on it as I could see it going missing in Scott's care. Not that Scott is careless, I just don't feel safe it being out of the house. No doubt if it did go missing and I tried to make a claim the insurance brokers would say it's void as it wasn't in my possession at the time!!!

Also since I last blogged I've started reading Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I love Gaiman's work, ok technically this is the first of his books I've read but I did listen to an audiobook of The Graveyard Book (which he himself read out aloud) and I have seen Stardust and Coraline; all of which are beyond superb. Almost near the end, should have it finished in the next day or so then onto Stardust. :)

Just got back from the Dentist, third dentist I've had in a year! Original dentist left at the beginining of the year not sure what happened to the last one I saw. Got told off for not brushing twice a day. I always brush in the morning and try to brush at night but I tend to forget and it doesn't help that the bathroom is downstairs so if I do remember I usually can't be arsed getting out of bed and traipsing all the way down just to brush my teeth.

My other big news today is that I went for a job interview, can't believe I almost forgot about that! Job isn't permanent or full time and it's not even teaching but it's better than having to prove myself to people beneath me on a weekly basis. Interview actually went pretty well but I expect that someone with more admin experience will come along and pip me to it. Should find out tomorrow evening at the latest if I'm successful.

Money, money, money

Today's theme seems to be money. It started with a PayPal invoice, the direct debit I've had in place for a few years had to be cancelled the other month and this is the first time we've had the dilemma of paying for their services since. The solution was to put some money into a new bank account my Mum's opened then set up said account on PayPal and make an instant payment.

On my return I found the postman had been. Letter from the bank, token payment rejected etc etc. Also a bill from O2 for my broadband. Rang up and paid it.

Later went to the gym for spin and was informed that my direct debit failed, no suprises there seeing as I cancelled the old one. I did set up a new one the other week but they take around 2 weeks to clear so knew that this would happen, paid it anyway.

Today's been a pretty expensive day!