Come the morning and the headlights fade away

DoaMS Week Six: That ticklish throat

That suggests that, for what's probably the sixth or seventh time in my life, being in classes full of people from around the country and around the world pretty much guarantees that at least one person on campus has a cold, and, pretty soon, everyone else will.

But let's not talk about courses, or money, or problems, or the fact that I'm not really talking at all, being as I have what might be called a reader deficiency, and most likely will keep that until the faculty work out that I blog and it's not, well, always complementary about everything, ever, to do with studying.

No, let's talk about Spooks. (Or, if you're American, MI-5.)

Here's the thing. Ten seasons in, ten years on, and Spooks still carries with it the single fundamental message that's perhaps not what the creators intended. Ideally, it should be The good person is the one who will sacrifice everything for their country, but, in reality, the message that comes across is People are arseholes, and that's only worse if you're a spy.

Don't get me wrong, this world is not a wonderful candyland filled with sparkles, optimism, and nice people, but in the world of Spooks, by the time the job finishes with you, you're either (a) dead, (b) a traitor, or (c), an arsehole, and let's be fair now, you can pick a combination of all three options if you're so inclined. In a way, I worry for Peter Firth, who is probably already considering either a dignified retirement or a post-Harry Pearce career, but if I were to voice a concern it would be that Harry Pearce, as a character, occasionally confuses having A Dark And Secret Past with being completely inured to the deaths of every single person who comes into sustained or prolonged contact with him, occasionally at his hands.

I find Spooks frustrating now in ways I didn't back when it started because in every episode of season 9 and now in season 10 there are moments of brilliance - nice, character-based touches that stand out. But the show is a strange chimera of BBC-budget action movie, British drama and a deep, deep dark spy story, the last of which colours every episode without adding anything in particular to the plot, because, as mentioned above, everyone's a bastard.

I cannot confirm or deny if this is a strict interpretation of the reality of the world of espionage, although I suspect the day-to-day life of someone trained from the very beginning in the ancient martial art of Truss Tno Won is, basically, hell. But to begin with, Spooks always felt like a high-calibre recruiting video for the security services and a televisual panacea to trouble times, combining two simple tenets;

(I) Look at the spies doing their job with the latest technology and the highest grade of training, with quick, smart professionalism and ruthless cool; wouldn't you like that to be your career?

(II) If your answer to (I) is no, thank you, then look at the spies doing their job; they're protecting you, all the way up to laying their lives on the line for your security and peace of mind, even the poor lass who ended up deep-fat-fryed, prompting all those complaints back in the day.

But recently, the spies are no longer perfect, the lives are no longer perfect, and everyone seems to use iPhones, although the information security of Apple products is in no way endorsed by the British Government, obviously.

I have followed Spooks, series by series, for ten years, now.

I find the last sentence curiously difficult to assimilate into my worldview.

And maybe it's just that I'm a different viewer now to how I was when it started, but the character moments seem to matter that much more, somehow. In the last series, one of the best-played moments was the Home Secretary simply noting that Harry had not removed his gloves. In this week's episode, it all hinges around emptying a bottle of milk with quiet acceptance.

This is, I feel, a very British thing.

So is, of course, mixing action and drama with tragedy. Which is why so, so many characters in Spooks - functionally everyone except Harry and Ruth, who could form the centre of the most dysfunctional love around - are, well, dead, or gone.

Or an arsehole.

Look at it this way; in the world of this week's Spooks episode, a small part of the British secret service is able to comprehensively penetrate and control every security system in the American Embassy like it's, well, nothing. It's a world where Ruth, having just stolen an invaluable piece of equipment from said embassy, and having been a spy for a long time now, doesn't check the back seat of her car before getting in. A world where the CIA don't track (a) their directors movements, (b) have a dedicated car service which requires identification, or (c) their remaindered laptops). A world where a warehouse filled with sensitive material is guarded by two people who, when walking away, don't hear an incredibly loud door slamming behind them as someone goes in. A world where a van packed with explosives manages not to kill a man sat in a car around six feet away (although the car, being as it was for a cabinet member, was most likely armoured, so your mileage may vary). A world where a dedicated, decorated spy chief doesn't have his car checked for any kind of listening or tracking devices after meeting someone from an opposing security service (although the two were related, so, again, make of it what you will).

This is because, fact fans, how you tell the story is more important than the story itself.

*

Here's the funny thing. For all the changes, for everything that's altered over the decade the show's been running - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse - I still want to see the finale, because finales always bring out the best in writers, directors and actors. It's the same principle as credits - whatever your film is, the first and last thing people see are the credits, so impress with them and you can get people on your side. But the finale of ten years of skullduggery, occasional explosions, and people sustaining both physical and psychological damage and getting back up and fighting until they can't anymore; well, that should be worth watching.

Bigger, slicker, quicker, more black more upper London is a Taxi

DoaMS: You can't spell Inertia without Inert

So I look back at the entries of the past, oh, say, six months, and I wonder; when did everything become about the people, and not about, say, the course, or the films?

Sometimes this feels like a strange and livid soap opera.

Let's talk about something else, for a while.

Firstly, the soundtrack to Portal 2 is now fully availably and fully free to download at (http://www.thinkwithportals.com/music.php). This is probably not news to, well, anyone, but I liked it.

The important thing about Portal 2, to me, was the tightness of the scripting. Put it like this; you're a mute protagonist exploring a giant ruined facility on your own. This is not a setup designed for heart-wrenching drama or amazingly well-done comedy. But because of the voices that travel with you - in the guise of AI cores, mostly - there's an amazing, tragic story of scientific hubris, psychological trauma, and body horror all mixed up in there. If you haven't alreay played it, well, hey, you're probably not likely to.

But you should. You Monster.

Um... Other than that... I've been watching episodes of seasons two of Warehouse 13 and Justified, both of which I rate, the latter perhaps higher than the former. I'm a big fan of shows which establish a specific 'feel' and manage to stick to it without the inevitable decay onto other styles or tropes. Not that switching up is a bad thing in any way shape or form, though - but I've been watching a lot of Bones over the summer, and there's an odd shift from pathology to out-and-out comedy over the first five seasons.

Film wise, I heartily recomment Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, and I really, really enjoyed Thor. Book-wise, I've ended up with the most recent Deadpool Classic volumes, i.e. 4 and 5, because they conclude the storyline that I remember reading and greatly enjoying as a teenager. I would like to author an article about how Deadpool ended up as a superhero role model (viz. the talking, not the boom-bang-a-bang) along with Jamie Madrox, but hey, that would only lead to psychology. Add the Punisher in the mix - because, frankly, Garth Ennis' Max series are some of the best stories in comic format I've ever read - and it's probably time for some therapy.

Other than that, outside of the aforementioned soap opera - and despite my best intentions, that's truly what it's turning into - life is more or less good.

So isn't that something to celebrate?

Common sense is ringing out loud

DoaMS: See them long hard times to come

Here's an interesting thing. For once, the subtitle is entirely accurate.

I have a problem at the moment. The problem with the problem is that it's a fairly petty issue; I'm deeply aggravated with someone who thought it was appropriate to rip off my work and not make any pretense that they were doing otherwise. It's affecting my days; I can't bring myself to talk to the person (a remnant of being taught that if you don't have anything civil to say, don't say anything at all) and I feel extremely uncomfortable around them.

But when it comes to the Filmmakers Of The Future, as nobody in particular refers to our class of practical students, feeling uncomfortable is not unknown.

As I think I mentioned in the last thrilling installment, there is one person who I like, I think of as a friend (mostly), and whose technical ability I rate extremely highly and who I do not even remotely trust.

This was not strictly accurate. There are several people like that who I have to work with over the next eight or so months on the understanding that if something better comes along, I can most assuredly go fuck myself.

This is not unusual in life, obviously. I'm not saying anything or telling anyone anything that they didn't already know to be a truism.

It's just...

I didn't expect it to be so prevalent and so entrenched. Silly me, I thought eighteen to twenty-one year olds were relatively unformed clay, at least in personality terms. I certainly was, at that age, different in many ways from how I think of myself now. And I wouldn't even presume to want to mould the personality clay of the now quickly-escaping metaphor. I'm keenly aware that I have no right other than to perhaps provide some advice, now and then.

So when it feels like I'm constantly telling people how and what and when to do whatever, that makes me worry. For I Am Not A Leader Of Men, Nor A Maker Of Pompous Statements.

At my core, I'm just someone who wants to get things done.

And that's the issue; in order to get things done on this course, other people mostly have to be involved, and involving other people means involves this constancy of dialogue of sorts, this bizarre give-and-take where everyone is always trying to get out more than they put in, except for a few good people.

When I'm driving, I sometimes feel - if the road conditions are right, i.e. a slight downhill on an open, 60 or 70mph road - like I'm picking up speed, or more accurately inertia, without having to add any more acceleration. Unchecked, that kind of momentum leads easily to a crash, so you have to put in a little brake, check your speed and direction, and adjust what you're doing.

Right at this stage in the course, I feel a lot like things are picking up inertia without me having to do anything, and that feels really, really dangerous, like suddenly everything will pile up suddenly and uncontrollably. And - if you want to continue with the Speed metaphor - half the passengers on the bus are trying to work out how to slow it down, but the other half are just trying to work out a way to get the best outcome for themselves.

My personal favourite theory at the moment relates to four people I know on the course, who, at the moment, are not working together but instead trying to use each other and at the same time not realising that the others are trying to use them. I stare on in wonderment at this, quite frankly, because it's an example of meritocracy gone wrong in action; each one of the four seems to be thinking that they'll win some nebulous prize at the end of it and not have to worry about the others. I'm also guilty of this mentality, to some extent, but I actively worry about it to the degree that I try to give more than I get, which is nice, but dumb, in all kinds of ways.

Let's give this a nice summation, shall we? People are strange. But more than that, people are stranger to themselves sometimes than they are to each other. In the weird little fishbowl of student life, sometimes being an older fish can make you see things that are just that much stranger...

Nicotine for breakfast just to put me right

DOAMS - And now, the taster sessions are done with

Two years on, it's probably time to talk about Edward.

By the end of my association with Edward, he was difficult to deal with in the extreme, massively self-centred and only slightly less so in egotistical terms, utterly stubborn and - and I don't say this word lightly - a user.

A user in the sense that I was his enabler, in various ways. I enabled him by giving him someone, at first, to count on, then to rely on, then to depend upon, then, apparently, to be unable to live without. At the same time, I received someone I could go to for advice, and someone who could give the appearance of caring.

The final straw - two years ago, as stated - was when I came to the realisation that I was handling the entirety of the legwork and the travelling time and costs. Edward, you see, had moved to the south coast to be with someone he deeply loved, and I thought that was a good sign.

Then the demands started. When Edward lived in London, it was no big shakes to travel to him - an hour and a half, conservatively, by train and underground. the south coast, by contrast, was a four hundred mile round trip by expensive train or tiring car journey, all so that, when I got there, we could do what he wanted. Finally, I decided that since I was the one doing the travelling, I should have some say in the matter, and decided not to go.

This did not go down well.

Up until that point, I had not had the opportunity to watch a friendship disintegrate via the medium of increasingly passive-aggressive facebook updates, so this was a nice education.

Let's rewind back through time to approximately nine years ago. I met Edward at university, where through the student newspaper we became friends. Back then, I was living in London, so it was no big shakes to go and see him for a weekend's drinking, dancing, etc. Back then, Edward was handily a lot of things I wasn't - a large drinker, a drug taker, a jack-the-lad with a cool car, whatnot, whereas I was a fairly antisocial, isolated individual working on my final year during the first time on the university merry-go-round.

There was chemistry - I won't deny it - and in the curiously male way, we were close friends with the kind of friendship that revolves around a constancy of low-level insults and veiled homophobia on his part that allows for Men - more accurately, Men! - to have a close friendship without expressing anything like 'love' or 'feelings' or all these concepts that just don't apply during periods of heightened masculinity.

After I left university, it was still nice to have an extremely close friend, whom I could go to for advice, but the travel was almost always from my here to his there. There was a rationale behind this, in that where I am now has nothing really resembling a spare room, and not many drinking opportunities nearby. And the travelling was an adventure, a chance to get away from the job and the fairly humdrum but nice life. But still, it was always here to there, and on the occasions he would drive out here it would only be for me to go back there to do the clubbing and drinking thing.

Because it was always clubbing and drinking, or at the very least watching a film and drinking. There was always the drinking. Which, for a man in his mid-twenties, isn't a bad thing.

So Edward got on with his life, and got married - a wedding at which I was invited to be part of the wedding party, which was nice, although I later came to think it was because I was one of the only ones gullible enough to volunteer for the travel (oh yes, the travel), the suit hire, and all the unpaid labour that goes with it. And the marriage lasted just under two years, the latter six months of which I ended up providing marriage counselling of various kinds despite not being, as they say, a relationship kind of person.

When the marriage - as these things will do, for whatever reason - broke apart, Edward quickly found another lady with whom to make a life, which was - and still, as far as I know is, wonderful. They genuinely complemented each other, and I was happy for them, but the suspicion was growing in my mind that this was less of a friendship than Edward utilising me as a witness so that he could drink, maybe take the occasional drug, and have someone to act as a combination shepherd / minder / etcetera. This was not necessarily parasitic, because it basically seemed that Edward could only be the brash, cocky, confident public person he wanted to be while I was around to... not.

I am not brash, or arrogant, or cocky - at least, I try extremely hard not to be, because I cringe when I look back on the first jaunt on the merry-go-round and was... well... brash, arrogant, cocky, self-centred, annoying, the descriptives go on, and on. Until one day the fickle fist of destiny - personified by someone now very close to me - ran up one day, and hit me on the shoulder, and made me think about how I acted affected other people, and to be aware of my place in the world and in relation to the people who mattered to me.

Edward, I fear, did not have such luck as to receive such a thwack on the shoulder.

I do have a distinct personal fault, however, in that I pathologically give people the benefit of the doubt, and equally pathologically like to help people where, sometimes, they would be better off figuring out how to help themselves. Unless I'm careful, I generate brilliant and beautiful but reliant people. It's the administrator's curse, apparently - the better you do your job so that people can do their job, the more people rely on you. As curses go, it's not that bad.

But when I asked Edward to help out with a project local to me, at first he would only come up on the condition that we went drinking the night before. At first I acquiesced to this, but then I realised that showing up to something important with a hangover was - get this, I know - a bad idea, so I asked if this time, it could, you know, not happen?

Repeated rebuffings, followed by tantrums, arguments, a constancy of complaints and a litany of bullshit. In the end, I held my ground...

... At which point Edward decided to help, but drove up on the day, did his part (and, credit where credit is due, did it well) and drove back down to where he was living at the time. All seemingly because he couldn't get what he wanted.

Hmm, I thought.

And then I began to think about the 400+ mile round trips I was expected to make in order to attend to his need to go out and drink. The train was annoying - hour upon hour and change after change, especially at weekends - but the drive was worse, especially coming back.

So one day, when I was expected to make the journey that weekend - in the middle of the second week of study at my current academic pied-a-alma - I decided not to go. I had no reason other than I desperately didn't want to, because it was expensive on a student budget not only in travel but also in alcohol costs, and it just seemed... pointless. A 400+ mile trip to spend two nights drinking, two days with a hangover, then drive back?

Why?, to be honest, was my main thought.

In retrospect, I could have been more tactful, and worked on a proper reason or at least a generous lie. But I had become frankly sick of the attitute towards my willingness to bear the burden of being the traveller.

(And I know that this - divorced of feeling by two years and coming across as it is - probably sounds like a candidate for white whine  - "Oh, I had to travel so long and so far just to see my friend and go out drinking!" - but, frankly, try being treated like a mixture of friend and social slave for seven years and see how you feel frankly.)

In some ways, this was an embodiment of another thing I do which I could do with not doing - testing things and people. I wanted to see what the reaction would be - although I was hoping for oh well, too bad I guess, maybe another time.

But no. A lot of shit followed, along with the aforementioned passive-aggressive facebook status updates, which - to my shame - I actually found kind of funny at the time. A few more calls followed, but I instituted a new practice I'd decided might work, which meant waiting a week and thinking about what I was feeling and doing before emailing him a comprehensive list of why I had decided not to be the one to travel anymore and that, having been used as an excuse for drinking and bad behaviour for so long, I was not, as they say, up for it anymore.

A reply from Edward established that I was apparently in the wrong, and always would be, and if I'd just put up with it that little bit longer - the little bit that is always jam tomorrow - then things would have been ah-may-zing, etcetera.

I decided at that point that cutting ties was for the best, because otherwise, I knew, I would be in Edward's thrall for, quite likely, the rest of my life.

A few more calls followed, then there was a gap, then, in January, there was a phone call where I had to provide counselling because, with a major event imminent in his life, Edward was concerned about apocalyptic theories. I wish I was joking on this point, but with something amazing about to happen for him, Edward was concentrating on the world ending, not his new life beginning. I shouldn't have even engaged with him on the topic, but see above re: pathological helping of people when I should know better.

After the amazing, life-changing event, there were a couple of emails from him and his partner (seperately), and I replied in general terms, wishing them well.

After that, things went blessedly quiet.

A few months ago, I had a call from Edward, saying that he was in the town where I attend university, and did I want to meet, and catch up.

I said no, and hung up the phone. A ratty text message followed, and since then, I have tried not to let the people I think of as important to me turn into people who need my help. Instead, I try to make sure that these people will be able to help themselves, and not worry about needing anybody else. I do this with little acts of kindness rather than being there for everything, and, more or less - there have been one or two failures - it seems to work.

I still help people who would do better to help themselves, and I still solve problems that don't need solving, and organise people who don't need organising, but as long as I don't let it get out of hand, I hope I won't end up with another Edward on my hands. Ironically, I almost created one - almost in the manner of a golem - which has led to a situation wherein a person I like, work with, and get on with, I cannot trust even slightly.

But it beats the alternative.

I wish nothing but the best for Edward and his family, and to say that there are no happy memories from our friendship would be wrong. At the same time, it was unhealthy that he formed the closest thing that I've had to a personal relationship with someone since the firebombing of the house of love that was my previous relationship - the one that seems to have totally removed any impulse to meet, greet, and date from my worldview - and it only got more unhealthy as time went on, until I felt I had to do as I did.

It's been several months since I heard from him, and two years since I made the move to cut all ties with him, and this is the first time I've felt comfortable in talking about Edward, because the things that matter to you aren't always the things that are best for you.

Stick that on a greeting card, if you like.