Wednesday

We had snow last night - not much - it was perishing cold - just thawing a bit now.

I went into the kitchen last night - caught a mouse in the dog bowl. Can't blame them - they must be having a lean time out there - but really don't need it. I'm going to have a look around the kitchen this morning before I go to work. Assuming I can motivate myself. Bonnie Langford is on the radio and all that HAPPY is killing me - I may need to go back to bed and adopt the foetal position.

Last night, at the insistence of friends - I watched 2 episodes online of 10,000BC. A reality show where they take 20 idiots and put them into a Neanderthal camp - and tell them to live like cavemen for 3 months. It could, I suppose - be quite interesting - a bit like The Victorian Farm in animal skins - but they seem to be running it along the lines of a comedy show with the ever present threat of death looming in the woods. I do wonder where else this genre has left to go - possibly 6 weeks in the Warsaw Ghetto or a month in Belsen - it's really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The biggest clue to how they want to pitch it must be the contestants. If this is a serious attempt to pull together a cross section of society - I fear for us all. There are 3 'Alpha Males' - Young, muscular, good looking boys who would probably make decent, enthusiastic breeding stock or enough meat to last the winter. The youngest and dumbest only lasted one day - he missed him nan and kept crying, he was also a bit upset at losing a friend - probably when he let go of his hand at Chessington World of adventure. He was so thick and infantile he practically WAS neanderthal. Alpha male number 2 is even more stupid, a punch-drunk imbecile - he can barely communicate outside grunts and simian gestures - and upset everyone by 'doing a poo' in the camp. A bit like a toddler using a potty for the first time and presenting the stool to his mum for a reward. The other 'Alpha Male' is a slightly older, muscle bound fireman - amiable enough - he's as thick as shit and can only function when told exactly what to do in extreme detail and carefully supervised - he's totally useless without direction. This seems to come from an older man who has plenty of outdoors experience and has become camp leader. Reasonable enough - he's the only one who knows what he's doing and the only one who will be able to save them if things go wrong. I can 100% guarantee that within 3 weeks everyone will have ganged up on him and he'll leave. That's how stupid they are. There is another man who is a former male model, apparently he's been on lots of adventure holidays, there were pictures of him on safari and mountaineering in expensive gear. He also wants to be 'one' with nature. The first thing he did was get lost in the woods. He appears to have a secret supply of hair gel. I hope he dies in the first week. It's very likely.

One woman is a vegetarian - she can only eat acorns and roots. As soon as the rest of them run out of food, they will steal all hers. There is a stupid bloke with a lisp who may be gay and spends all his time wearing furs and eating all the food, and reclining about. He's a twat. Within a week, he'll be crying in the shelter while the women look after him as he starts making personal confessions and revelations about his inner torment.

Another bloke thinks he's a hunter - but can't seem to communicate in English and seems to think there are giant beasts out there, like tigers or velociraptors. I think he may have a very small penis.

A woman in her 60's who had apparently read a book once lasted less than 20 mins, passing out with fear as soon as she saw the camp and being taken home. Another woman is a born again Christian - she's sensible enough - but clearly really troubled and frustrated and very defensive, she has difficulty communicating without shouting and despite the fact she's probably a handy person to have around - everyone will hate her and bully her, she's quite combative - and the sad fact that she's probably right most of the time already has her marked for death. Best of all - a woman has brought her 3 teenage / early 20's daughters - who clearly just want to be on telly. The daughters - in particularly the blonde one - are morons, stupid, vain, self-absorbed, totally unprepared, whining, inbred idiots. I was really disturbed by the glee on the blonde girls face when they gutted the dead deer - her eyes lit up like headlamps watching a big, muscly fireman delve into the animals intestine and come out all bloody - she's basically an animal herself and seems to be motivated by the most basic urges (food, fuck) - and I'm quite sure that as soon as the mother starts getting hungry - she will sell her daughters for food to the men. When they are really desperate and need to work together to survive - the blonde girl will wander off to the shelter and spend all day making beads necklaces and trying to create eyeshadow from soot.

The lesson is - if anything really bad happens out there - we're fucked. For all our progress, none of us would survive more than a few weeks before descending to sub-human bestiality. The neanderthals had much more going for them. I'll probably watch every episode with relish - waiting for the inevitable cannibalism, conflict and human sacrifice. It's on C5. Obviously.