Category Archives: In The Media

Doctor Who 2010

(NB: This article was originally begun around the third week of April and was put on hold for various reason until now)

I haven’t given my Whovian view of the new series of Doctor Who yet, so I thought I would try and put down in words how I feel about the new era.

To preface what I am about to write in full disclosure I am a die hard Doctor Who fan who has very little bad to say about the show. I don’t critique negatively very often. Something has to really nark me to get me to write something bad… which is probably why my attempts at starting a review website over and again. To further get the facts straight I kinda liked Love and Monsters from series 2 not so much the bits with Peter Kay (the man gets on my nerves sometimes and that was one time he didn’t fit the role). Girl in the Fireplace is my all time favourite episode. I must have seen in 10 times in various places the most exotic being 33,000 feet over the Atlantic ocean flying back from the USA. So, on to my take of of Doctor Who Series 5.

It was with trepidation that I waved goodbye to David Tennant and good old Russell T Davies at the end of the year long set of 5 specials. The End of Time two parter was a great exit and I got a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye when Doc 10 said “…But I don’t want to go”. To see that moment of abject fear and distress manifest into a kinetic ball of lanky knee kissing foppish haired Matt Smith was a bit of a culture shock. We had seen the zany madcap timey wimey David Tennant, but this was taken to a whole new level.

The regeneration was pretty spectacular with everything crumbling and exploding around the Doctor. The TARDIS going down in flames as it were. Things were changing in front of us and it only took one word for the change to be sealed and clarified “GERONIMOOOOO”. Our seatbelt were buckled tight and we were in for one hell of a ride… and then it all ended… 4 months to wait till we would get any kind of pay off for all that angst we had been through for the past two hours and then for our hearts pounding again, the “series” was over and now the real fan boy and fan girl speculation could really begin.

There had been some leaked photos before Christmas but I had tried to avoid them but in the Online Doctor Who community you can go to virtually any website and have whole episodes spoiled for you without even looking. I hate spoilers, they well they spoil things for you and who likes to have things spoiled. So my Winter Doctor Who browsing was limited to places I could pretty much chance it and not get spoiled (AKA not much choice).

Once the show finally began airing again I was well up for it. But as per usual something would get in the way. I think Doctor Who should be a family experience where everyone sits down and pays attention and experiences it all at the same time and then afterwards talk about it. Now this is all well and good when your whole family are at home at 6.15 to watch the show but when mean arsed bosses at the local supermarket where my loving wife works insist on her working till 7pm for 3 of the past 4 weeks it’s pretty difficult to achieve that. So my anticipation was stretched to the finest gnats pubic hair you could possibly imagine. When she did get home at about 8pm we sat down and we took in the first episode the 11th Hour.

Doctor Who and Amelia Pond

As far as introduction stories go it was great. It ticked all the right boxes. It introduced the new Doctor as a nutty professor type chap. His struggles to keep his old jalopy of a TARDIS working just long enough to stop her from blowing up all together and ripping a rift in the time space continuum. It gave us a new companion in Amy Pond who was planning on taking a trip in the TARDIS aged 8 but things don’t quite go to plan. We meet up with an older more mature Amy later on in the episode who has now had 12 years of waiting and visiting Therapists to get her over her Spaceman fixation…(something I don’t think she ever got over). We got a whole new speices of Villain “The Atraxi” who kind of reminded me of malevolent Vogons from Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, just doing their jobs and on to the next one.

I won’t go into the stories because I don’t want to spoil to much for you if you haven’t already seen the shows in question. But at some point I will come back and give proper reviews for all of the shows in turn… maybe when the DVD box set comes out I’ll pick out odd episodes and give them the once over.

(edit – added on the 12th May)

It’s been a few weeks now and things are starting to look up. The first two parter with River Song back in the mix with the Weeping Angels was a slight turn to form and showed that Moffett still hasn’t lost his touch. The latest episode The Vampires of Venice was a true classic for me. It had everything a classic Doctor who episode should have and it was the first time in the first half of Series 5 that I have not felt that something was lacking. The only thing (and it is a small thing) that bothered me was how confusing Saturdays episode looks. I was confused by the trailer so god knows what will happen throughout the show itself.

Doctor Who is back and it’s good to have him back but we need just a little more consistency from the writing and we’ll be just tickety boo.

Until Next Time…

The Election

Don’t panic folks I am not a raving politico but rather an interested party. In every Election since I was 18 I have always picked out an issue or two that means the most to me. When I was in education obviously it was what they were going to do for students. When I worked and was earning my own money I was interested in taxation. This time around it has to be about Mental Health provisions.

It seems that all three main parties are “planning” on increasing the provision of Talking Therapies. They are planning on doing this by creating 8,000-10,000 new Therapists to facilitate 900,000 new spaces for sufferers of depression and related illnesses. One question should be raised… Where are these 8-10,000 new therapists going to come from in the next year?

According to Rethink, 40 Health Foundations are being asked to cut more from their annual budgets, and one way they have suggested doing this is by cutting 4.5-5% from mental health budgets. They are using MH budgets as soft options as no one “really” dies from depression do they? Not “REALLY”. I can understand there needing to be cuts in the NHS but taking money from one area you have just committed to funding to god know how much training and supplying new Talking Therapies is just cutting of your nose to spite your face. It is said that the cuts would amount to a saving of £50million. Which to my mind would be a saving of about Zero lives when it comes down to the devastation caused by a wrecked life caused by depression and mania for a Bipolar sufferer. I don’t think these bureaucrats have any idea what it can be like in the midst of a mood swing, where you don’t know if your life is coming to an end or if your swinging on a star high with life talking to god.

When you see an opportunity to speak to someone who wants to become one of our elected officials be it parliament local council or whatever ask them what are you going to do for me and my mental health. You deserve the answer… and don’t let them bullshit ya with platitudes… threaten them that you haven’t taken your anti psychotic and you have the power to smell a lie. Freak the bastards out and see what they do.

Until Next Time…

We Have No Bananas

It’s nearly 3am and I should be asleep. Actually let me rephrase that… Normally I would be asleep, but tonight is different. Tonight I couldn’t take any sleeping pills because I have to be up before noon tomorrow which is something I haven’t managed in the past week whilst taking the pills. I have been waking up anywhere between 4 am and 8 and having a cigarette and then heading back to bed, it’s that or I fall over where I stand. You would think that after taking these things for a few months my body would have built up some kind of resistance to them like most of my other drugs have done and continue to do so. I am not complaining as I like the fact that I can take two little orange pills and be asleep within an hour, that works for me fella.

I am now into week three of taking Byetta and I really do think it’s having some beneficial effects. I wasn’t a big eater before but I am seriously watching what I eat after a couple of really uncomfortable evenings early on. Obviously I don’t look any different… well at least I don’t see any difference. I wouldn’t I see me every day..lol. I go back to see the diabetic specialist nurse next Wednesday and I’ll find out then how much if any I have lost in the past few weeks and then my dosage will increase to 10 micrograms. Doesn’t sound a lot but that stuff fucks you up the first few days of taking it at 5 micrograms can’t wait to find out what 10 will do:/

I like to think of myself as fully clued in on today’s internet trends. I have two twitter accounts a semi regularly blog I have a Facebook account that I check daily (and I hate FarmVille and all those other game “apps”). But you know something I am so socially retarded that I don’t make use of them. I feel self concious about posting a status on Facebook because I don’t know how my odl school friend will react to my mentalism. I am sure if they took a look at my profile page it wouldn’t take them long to find the link to this blog. Some of the people I have friended over the past 18 months of Facebook haven’t exactly approved of my lifestyle and some of their comments have outraged me at times, but I sat back and hid below the parapets of possible flamage. When I say Lifestyle, I refer to my reliance on state benefits. It would be safe to say that quite a few of my peers from school are probably Daily Mail readers who look at The Sun for the pictures. One or two of them that I have let onto my little roller coaster car have been supportive. I think I have to use exceptional judgement to whom and of what I tell people. When campaigns like Time To Change talk about stigma I guess I am starting to learn that we stigmatise ourselves more than anything else.

Changing the subject totally, I always thought of myself as a man of the people and for the working man, but I gotta say a big FUCK YOU to the the train workers who have decided to go on strike the second week of the Easter holidays. For once in my puny little life I had actually gotten myself psyched up about going out some where and having a day out in public or maybe better yet, going to stay with my brother for a few days. BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Bob Crowe (the fucker in charge of the union) decides that it’s better to strike that to discuss and work things out. He thinks that it’s better to ruin peoples holidays. God that Crowe fucker doesn’t my nut in.. he always has and he always will. So you know where you’ll find me the week after Easter.. right fuckin here.

That’s it from me.

Until Next Time…

Stop The X Factor Madness

It’s Saturday night and that means one thing… FUCKIN’ X FACTOR on TV for two hours. Have I mentioned how much I hate that programme… I dunno if I have or not but needless to say it’s not in my top million shows to ever have to sit through. Hell I’d even prefer to watch Coronation Street than watch that pile of dog shit TV show. It has no redeeming features what so ever. It gives people false hope and feeds into this society’s need for fame and fortune via the easiest most work shy path with the least amount of resistance. There is a need for these vacuous TV shows. It gives the population false hope that even the little people can make it one day if only they turn up to a cattle call audition. PAH, I just wasted ten minutes ranting over something like that.

Back to me, yet another waste of time…

I saw my psychiatrist yesterday. First time since may of this year. I was getting a little worried that I had been forgotten by them. I saw him during week two of my medication management sessions and I thought at the time it was a bit of a waste of people time seeing both. I mentioned as such and they agreed, so I was (it seems) put to the back of the list only to be seen when all hope was lost.

I mentioned to him that I was having trouble with my moods and that was leading to sleep problems and without missing a beat he prescribed me sleeping pills. It was almost to easy. Not that I was angling for yet another pill to take but damn it I needed something to help me sleep when I was awake at 5 am watching Smallville knowing that the past two days and quite possibly the next two days would be more of the same. I was a little wary of taking sleeping pills as the last time I was given them I had a really bad side effect… I not only slept the night through but for the next 24 hours I did nothing but sleep. It was a nightmare… I didn’t take them again and flushed the rest of them. There were some dopey sewer rats that night.

I popped two of the Zopiclone at about 10.30 thinking it would be about an hour or so and I could head to bed for a nice restful nights sleep.. HAHAHAHA twenty five minutes later I can’t stop yawning so I say “Sod it” and go to bed. I slept through the night and woke up at about 9am and didn’t feel all that bad, still pretty tired but not out of it. Hell it’s Saturday so I can afford to go back to bed and sleep a little longer… again HAHAHAHAHA I wake up again at about 14.30.

I feel fine now and I just hope that I don’t have problems sleeping tonight. I hope that there is enough of the drug left in my system to mellow me out for tonight without having to take any more. If I don’t take any more and have a dodgy night I’ll just ride the wave and see what happens. After finding myself becoming a little reliant on Lorazapam, I don’t need another possible addiction to kick in.

When the psych asked me how I was doing I had to think.. “..now, does he mean how am I now or how was I 6 months ago”
I gave him the potted history of the moods going up and down and the sleep messing with me left right and centre and that was it. It was pretty much all over before it had started. He is still worried about me being on so much Respiridone so I gave in and let him reduce it by 1mg down to 6mgs a day. We’ll see how that goes, the last time they messed the Respiridone I was on a tailspin in a matter of days. I guess we’ll find out by the end of next week.

I am hoping I can get some minor work done on the website done in the next few days, but Nik is real busy at the moment but when it happens it shouldn’t take to long but If you happen to be here and things go funky you know why.

Until Next Time…

Money… It’s a Crime

So it seems that our beloved leaders want to screw the disabled over. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. They need a soft target and they need to appeal to the masses and seeing as the masses consist of Sun and Mail readers, they are going to go in hard for the “work-shy scroungers.”
It is those two papers that most often hammer it home that there are to many people falsely claiming benefits. I just prey that those who are screaming the loudest about saving £25 a week from IB claimants never get sick and need to claim benefits, because I have heard Karma is a bitch when it bites back.

Looking back over my life I have never had much money. I have never really wanted for anything. I have always been of the mind if I can’t afford it I probably don’t need it. That train of thought was always a bit suspect when I was Living on my own and had only rice and frozen peas in the cupboard and freezer respectively. Yes we got ourselves in debt now and again but it’s always been a source of pride that if I have spent the money I will find away of paying it back. Which brings me to the problem we have at the moment with our bank.

In December they are changing the way they run our account. They are no longer going to be making one off charges for going over your over draft. They are just going to charge you a fiver a day until you get it back into credit. That’s no to mention the £1 a day for having and using an overdraft. So on bad months it could be a case of accruing £6 a day in fees plus having to find the money to get back into the black. Now that (in an ideal world) is a lot more fair than the system they have at the moment, EXCEPT… we haven’t been out of our overdraft in over a year. It’s going to be tough to get our account under our overdraft in time for the December account changes. We are in our £1300 overdraft at the moment and we have been told that there is an account that gives you a £300 pound fee free overdraft (I have a feeling you have to pay some serious fees for the privilege of having this type of account.)We have a meeting with an advisor next Monday to talk over our account options. Which ever way it goes it’s going to end up costing us money. I really need a lottery win right about now. Anything above 2 grand will do.. I can pay off my debts and have a Chinese dinner and we’ll all be happy. Not that 2 grand will pay them all off but it will stop the main ones stealing even more money. One other thing I need to do is look into claiming back some of the fees they have taken in the past. That on it’s own could pay off a bill or two.

Anyway, money it’s a dirty word and I apologise for ranting away and pissing and moaning. Everyone must be having it hard about now and there are far more people worse of than I am so maybe I should just shut my pie hole and get on with paying the fees.

Until Next Time…