Thursday

This week seems to have faded away into a grey blur of nothing. Checking next week's weather forecast - it looks as if I'll need to de-camp to the studio - where the heating is on 24 hours and included in the rent.

Still behind on this piece of work - but enough time to complete it. Had a quick chat with someone I know who has a gardening business, a bit later in the winter he's going to help me terrace the garden - shouldn't take more than 2 days.

Watched a documentary last night about Bette Davies, essentially a selection of interviews from about 1950 - 1987, she was a very good subject, alert, intelligent and candid. The most interesting part was right at the very end when she was interviewed by Wogan, close to the end of her life and after breast cancer and a succession of strokes - but immaculately dressed, and despite the obvious limitations of her physical condition - still the same fierce intelligence. I saw the interview live - when it was first broadcast - I would have been about 17 or 18. What struck me most was how terrible Wogan was, smug, poorly researched and a bit bloated - and clearly annoyed that she was more interesting than he was, and determined to lead the interview rather than be led by his inane, repetitive questions - he looked quite angry at one point and his body language betrayed a rather vain, smug and talentless interviewer. I do remember a similar occasion when he interviewed Anne Bancroft and she clearly disliked him, looking back now - I can see why.

I caught an edition of Film 2012 over Xmas - I hated it when Jonathon Ross was in charge - and missed Barry Norman's intelligent and authoritative judgement - the new version was so staggeringly bad it made me angry - no critical analysis, pointless exchanges and a 'viewers panel' who are just morons who want to be on the telly and barely registered the films they were sent to see. Dumbing down doesn't even begin to cover it. I saw several documentaries over Xmas - not having had a TV for a few years, they were the one thing I missed - they all disappointed - were mostly double the length they needed to be for the content provided, included too many re-creations to illustrate points that were actually fairly simple and seemed patronising and intellectually barren - there was one about Tove Jaohnssen that I'd really looked forward to - but turned out to be rubbish - as if it was devised for a 10 year old to follow. Perhaps it has something to do with TV being such a passive medium, or so many programs devised for sale to commercial channels that require 10 min 'bites' followed by gaps for the adverts and then a reprise of everything they just said - in case you forgot.

This is a curious and fascinating aside.

A few days ago - the columnist Susanne Moore - who I generally don't particularly like but have no real problems with, made a comment in The New Statesman in an article that bemoaned how many young girls strive to attain a body image that - in her words - 'look like Brazilian transsexual' - I read the article, which was OK, and perfectly understood the nuance of what she said - however, she has been dragged over several mountains of hot coals for 'transphobia' by a myriad of people who consider her all sorts of evil - a response article in today's Guardian in which she makes it quite clear that she is NOT transphobic, has had the same effect - it fascinates me how many genuine nutters there are out there, not all confined to the comments pages of the Daily Mail, but everywhere - or perhaps they just like shouting about something in a world where nobody really listens.

Interestingly - in today's Daily Mail Online ( I read it so you don't have to ) - this article by Shone Sibary takes up the subject of 'Slut Shaming' - it's bollocks - a made up story based on another non story by a paper trying to fill dead air with pointless shite. Two things do interest me - Shona Sibary is a reasonably new columnist on the DM - she has already written articles on 'How we can't survive on £100k p.a  - "How we can't afford to live in West London on £100k in a house I inherited" and "I'm ugly - my life is pointless" ( or something along those lines ) - essentially - she is the perfect DM columnist - a woman so wrapped up in self loathing she 100% embodies the DM ethic. The other point that annoys me is that she seems delighted to post a picture of her 14 year old daughter in hot pants, looking like a slut, for millions of people to see. Nice one, mum.