Feedback Friday :: Taking Control

bulk :: 18st 2 (every cloud has a silver lining – stomach lining in this case but it all counts)
cigarettes :: 0
alcohol units :: 12
runs :: 2 (by runs I mean me lumbering through the park of course; not ‘the runs’)
the runs :: 500
stars out of ten for Control :: 1
stars out of ten for Juno :: 10
Colleen McLoughlin’s IQ :: 4
Get Well Soon cards received :: 2 (awww)

Well, I’m pretty much all better now. I’m still a little flimsy in the stool department but the running and the retching are over, thank God. Thank you for all of your kind wishes and warm words. Ange did come over last night, after work, and she made me leak and sweet potato soup. Then Keith came over with a copy of Juno, which made my heart bleed. ‘You’re just a big old softy, aren’t you?’ said Ange, but I couldn’t answer because I was blubbing into a cushion. I recommend it. Not blubbing into a cushion, but… actually yes, damn it, I recommend that too. Ange and Keith had never met before. They got on very well. When they left, they left together. Ange gave Keith a lift home. It gave me a peculiar and not particularly pleasant feeling.

One thing to have come out of the last few days which is particularly pleasant however, is the weight loss. I’ve lost much more than I would have, had it not been for the constant expulsion of stuff. And although I feel weak now, and still with the occasional twinge, I do feel somewhat purged. Not exactly born again, but certainly wide awake. In fact, I might go so far as to suggest that the norovirus has actually done me some good. For a while there it was like being eaten alive from the inside out by a double-headed anorexic poltergeist, but at the end of it, I feel positively lithe.

Ooh, something else that made me feel good through making me feel bad - Control. I watched it yesterday afternoon. (I was malingering a little by yesterday, and needed to treat myself.) Ian Curtis. What an incredible bore. Never have I watched a man drift toward suicide so slowly. ‘Do it, Ian! For God’s sake, man! If you want to bore yourself to death, that’s fine, but please, please don’t take me with you.’ And I’m sure he couldn’t have been so horribly unsympathetic in real life. I bet that in real life, he had a sense of humour. I bet there was something in him to make you care for him, something to make you melt a little just to see him suffer. But no. In the film, nothing. Just a flat, stale coward of a man, with one halfway decent song. Horrible film. While I was watching it I actually had to walk away and be sick at least three times.

‘It all looked so vividly real to my fortysomething eye that, frankly, I thought I'd died and gone to Q-magazine-reading 50-quid bloke heaven. And when John Cooper Clarke came on playing himself, a support act to Joy Division when they were called Warsaw, I pretty well levitated out of my seat with sheer happiness, and had to be tied back down with guy-ropes. What a fantastic film this is… a film about England, about music, about loneliness and love; there is melancholy in it, but also a roar of energy. I thought it might depress me. Instead I left the cinema walking on air.'

- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

‘This loveless farrago made me puke up my guts and shit myself. And not in a good way. Six thumbs down…’

- Bête de Jour, Hell's Bells and Elbows

And don’t even get me started on Colleen. I caught the last half hour of Colleen’s Real Women last night. Never was a woman so unintentionally antagonising as Colleen McLoughlin. Or maybe it is intentional. You can see she has a mean streak. Either way, she riles me. It’s not just her tiny brain and glans-grater of an accent either. It’s more that she’s just so unfit to be on TV. She can’t do any of the things that the job requires. She can’t think on her feet, she’s unpleasant on the eye (and yes, every single TV presenter should be physically adorable) and most importantly, she’s got no discernable personality. Let alone talent. She’s not even an average civilian. She’s like Max Gogarty. She’s there because of who she knows. TV should be about genuinely interesting people, and Colleen McLoughlin is anything but genuinely interesting. And it really gets my goat. I could crush a grape, I really could. I could pulverise a plum.

Speaking of small, sweet furry things, no word back from Grace as yet, but I did get another card from Sally. Wishing me good health.

God, I feel spicy.

It’s a horrible, vile day outside, but I think I need to venture into the air today. I’ll have to spend the weekend catching up with work, so for now I think I might drive somewhere nice, eat something hearty and hale, and prepare myself mentally for the challenges ahead. I don’t know what, exactly, but there are always challenges ahead. So I’ll just do some fairly vague mental preparation. Then I might watch This is England again. Now there’s a film.

Here's wishing a good weekend to all and sundry.