To the folks on my Friends List, bless your little black hearts:

I am hoping to change User Name in the foreseeable future (courtesy of my very kind sponsor at JournalFen), simply because I want something a bit more "fandom-neutral" for long-term use. Life on Mars as a TV series will be ending soon and it already feels like old news, good though it still is; I'd prefer a User Name that wasn't tied to a specific time and place and maybe said a bit more about me than just what shows I like to watch.

I'll hope to re-friend you all when the time comes, and will announce my new identity here for anyone who slips through the net. This is so that people will know that I'm not sock-puppeting (although I'm sure I could if I felt inclined) or otherwise hiding my intentions; I just feel it's time for a change of 'identity'.

Watch this space!

According to my TV mag, which gets things wrong as often as right, the second series of Life on Mars will also be the last, but there will be a spinoff set in the Eighties called Ashes to Ashes.

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Coming hard on the heels of the cancellation of In Justice, this is a major pisser. And so BBC, to kill a great idea before it's even got into its stride. I must admit I wasn't expecting LoM to have massive longevity but I had hoped for maybe three seasons.

Talk about having your pig killed. I feel less enthusiastic about the second series, knowing that it will also be the last. I'll be sitting there all the way through, looking for clues as to how they're going to wrap it all up. I just hope they don't get a case of 'galloping consumption' and try to resolve everything neatly in the last episode. And, moreover, if they KILL OFF GENE I will not be a happy bunny.

And 'spinoff' has to be one of the most ominous words in the English language. The only spinoffs I've ever seen that were any good were the ones from 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'. Although I suppose 'Softly, Softly' and 'Strangers' also count as spinoffs. Doesn't make my socks roll up and down, though.

Sigh.

Basically, if anyone cares, I've been away being someone else for a while. I got put off the 'Life on Mars' universe by the arbitrary stupidity of some of the fans, so I went off and did something else instead. In fact I'm hip-deep in what's going to be at least a 45,000-worder and don't expect to see daylight for another six to eight weeks. Assuming LoM is back in January, I suspect I'll be plunging back into the fandom then - but avoiding the dorks who made the experience so unpleasant the first time. Or perhaps I'll be writing "In Justice" slash by then. Hmmm, Conti/Swain ...

The laws of cricket are pretty clear. When the umpires are ready to start play, the team has two minutes to take the field. Not being on the field at the appropriate time is deemed a forfeit. The umpires allowed a great deal of leeway - the two minutes stretched to more like twenty - but when the Pakistan team failed to appear the decision was clear-cut. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the 'ball-tampering' allegation, the Pakistan team put themselves in the wrong by not returning to the field after tea; they handed the game to England.

What concerns me now is the fate of the One Day series. I can't imagine the Pakistani players being willing to continue with the tour; they'll certainly want a right of veto over the selection of umpires, and that's a dangerous precedent to set.

It all reminds me a bit of the people you hear on the news, who join the armed forces and then complain because they are injured or their mates are killed. You know what the conditions are when you go in; the armed forces are armed because they put themselves in harm's way, cricketers are obliged to abide by the laws of the game - this is what you sign up for. If you want the rewards, you must accept the risks.

There are ways of protesting an umpire's decision. Refusing to take the field is not one of them. Not protesting through the appropriate channels is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot to get out of active duty and will do you just as much good in the long run.

What Fandom Wank Baddie Are You? (Kabal Remix)

You are Deoridhe! You are not actually important, but you sucked up to the right people early on and they tolerate you for the blow jobs (which are mediocre but plentiful). You talk too much, make incredibly unfunny comments, and your icons are ugly and boring. You're pretty used to being condescending. And bitchy. And hypocritical. You can't follow a logical flow in a conversation, but then you never were known for having much of an attention span. You think people like you, but really they keep you around to be a punching bag. Everyone is laughing at you behind your back.
Take this quiz!








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... not having updated for a long while, and having acquired some new friends since. I've mostly been off in another one of my universes finally getting around to writing the thing that's been nagging at me one way or another for the best part of five years. Considering how many false starts I've had, it's going surprisingly well. Plus I've also had a lot of family problems which I'm not going to rehash here, and have recently had to cancel a holiday. This has been taking my time and attention away from things fannish, and I'll probably only be an occasional visitor in the near future. Just wanted you people to know, however, that I do appreciate your support - whether or not I'm actually around to acknowledge it.

Is Sam really Oedipus? Only I was watching the DVD commentary again yesterday and there was some mention of the attraction between the adult Sam and his mother - specifically, how he'd checked out her bum when he met her - and of course there's a confrontation with his father in the last episode which could easily have resulted in his father being killed. Somewhere in the middle of the night my brain pieced together "kills father, fancies mother" and came up with Oedipus.

Of course there's also something Homeric about his wanderings in an alien land and all the trials and travails he undergoes and the monsters he meets, so I'm thinking we're definitely in the land of Greek tragedy.

Which of course means 'Greek love' is okay ...

Hadn't watched the LoM DVDs until the end of last week, not wanting my West Wing plot to fly out of the window, but I treated myself to the audio commentaries on the first three episodes. Loved the bit where Claire Parker mentions 'the warmth between the characters', then giggles and adds; "Or maybe more than warmth."

I expect she's been trawling the web and seen some of the Gene/Sam which has burgeoned in the few months since the thing aired. Very little of it has any great merit but there are occasional gems. It's a very tough relationship to get right, and as with so many fandoms people seem more interested in the mechanics of the sex than in the emotional journey the characters would inevitably need to make.

But I'm heartened to think that the company are going into the second series armed with this information; there could well be more teasing Gene/Sammery onscreen next year, simply because none of TPTB feels in the least threatened by the idea. I find that refreshingly different from some of the homophobic responses of the past; I wouldn't want TV as a whole reshaped to take account of a slash preference, but the occasional sly nod of the head in our direction is a very welcome event.

So this bogus police officer came to my door and tried to get me to let him in, and I sent him on his way and called the cops about him. Superficially he was very plausible, but he wouldn't say what he wanted and he seemed to think that just being a copper would get him entry into my house. Tough luck, kiddo.

But if you asked me how I knew he wasn't the real thing I couldn't exactly tell you. I'd be reduced to suggesting that as he wasn't wearing a green shirt, white shoes and orange trunks and driving a shit-brown Granada he couldn't possibly have been real.

Pretty sure it was inspired by the one John Thaw used to wear as Regan in 'The Sweeney', I've got a pic of him somewhere wearing it.

Brilliant moment this week when Gene swung himself over the bar to clout the guy who was about to recognise him as a copper, but you have to wonder how bright some of those folks were when his face was apparently on the front of the local newspaper that day.

Could've done without Sam inventing chicken in a basket though, that was a bit annoying. I don't think the show's quite found its tone yet, veering between moments of brilliance and moments of teeth-grinding awfulness. However any moment when Gene and Sam are on the same wavelength is pure gold; they're definitely gelling as a team, even if neither one of them is willing to admit it just yet. I love some of Gene's little nicknames for Sam, too; 'Tinkerbell' and 'Boy Wonder' remind me of some other show but I can't quite pin down the memory at the moment. Was it 'The Sweeney' or something else?

Whatever, these guys are worthy successors to the legendary TV cops of yesteryear. It's a trip back in time for the viewer, too.

One idle mention of "me'n'the wife" liking Roger Whittaker? Seems forced to me. In other respects, last night's episode wasn't particularly satisfactory either although I liked Gene finding Sam stark naked and handcuffed to a bed; all it lacked was a little sign saying "Happy Birthday Gene".

As always, there was the telepathic moment when Sam offered Gene the chance to do something about the 'animal gnawing inside him'; in trying to put a name to what these two have, the best word I can come up with is 'unanimity'. They 'click', and the emphasis on their relationship makes me more certain than ever that the team-building between Sam and Gene is going to be the essential theme of the show.

But oh boy, didn't we all see the stupid honey trap a mile away? Sam did too. He could've left the girl overnight in the cells, except that it wouldn't have furthered the story. It was extremely clumsy plotting and if it had been in a piece of fan fiction I would've suggested a rewrite. Plus the scene where Sam tries to offer his mother money was crude, and surely he'd've remembered that they had to leave that house in a hurry?

Four episodes in, it's probably too early to say "Worst episode ever" but it was the least successful so far. Only the ending, from the cold store onwards, worked for me; the rest was a disappointment.

There's this fake death commotion over on F_W and I followed links from it to the fake_lj_deaths community which just made me incredibly sad. The amount of stupid, misdirected creativity that seems to go into these dramas is just staggering, and I couldn't help wondering whether the present culprit, 'limeybean', is the same person as a previous offender called 'limestreetstation' or some such. (I admit, I didn't write it down.)

You have to wonder at the mentality of people who do this stuff. Are their lives so lacking in drama and stimulus that they have to go out and make friends for the sole purpose of hurting them? I've seen them called 'attention whores' which is an ugly expression but an apt one; they're like the kiddies who start tantrums in supermarkets just to get an audience. Unlike a few of the other commenters, though, I do think it argues a mental imbalance of some kind before anyone can talk themselves into believing this kind of shit - and the person in a previous fake death scam who apparently persuaded her mother to take part (or who did so using her mother's online identity) is beneath contempt.

Fans have always been a misunderstood minority in the wider world but for the most part the ones I've encountered have been perfectly nice people who just happen to have an eccentric hobby - no worse than train-spotters or weekend football players. This kind of shit tends to stick, though, and to make us all look like teenage drama queens 'dying' left right and centre. I would have thought most of us already had enough real problems in our lives, without having additional manufactured ones foisted upon us by know-nothing infants with martyr complexes.

And I think I'll stop there, because I feel the goat cheese pizza backing up on me.

A couple of folks on fandom_wank liked the 'Matter of Time' icon, which really surprised me actually since it's a bit basic, but it was nice to see that there are other "Life on Mars" and Philip Glenister fans out there. This makes me bold enough to ask (probably rhetorically because it may be some time before anyone happens by and reads this) if I'm the only one seeing slash potential in the show? Never mind the existential stuff about Sam being in a coma and the people he meets in 1973 possibly representing aspects of his own personality which need to be integrated before he can recover, there is a definite magnetism between him and Gene - a case of opposite poles attracting if ever I saw one.

I think it would be pretty fair at this stage to counter this with the argument that Gene Hunt is the least likely person in the universe to get into a gay relationship, but since when has that kind of thing ever stopped a determined slash writer? (And I *am* a determined slash writer.) Could be a classic "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" scenario. He's also not a million miles away in character from the taxi driver played by Paul Freeman in the recent BBC play "When I'm 64" - a widowed football hooligan with (two?) adult children who ended up falling in love with a retired male teacher played by Alun Armstrong. He's got that blustering kind of masculinity which 'protests too much'. And Sam's the sensitive kind who over-analyses things; even if he's never fancied a bloke before, I could at least see him being willing to consider the possibility.

They're like spider and fly at the moment. Sam doesn't want to like Gene because he doesn't like the things he represents - a style of policing that he considers crude, as well as a sort of macho posturing he finds totally alien. However when you add that to a big, expansive personality and a determination at least as strong as his own you get someone who for all his faults would be hard to resist. He's drawn to Gene in the same way he's drawn to Annie; because they both have things he needs, and because he has to embrace the experience of living in the 'present' - whatever that may be. But if the series is going to end with him returning to his own time - and I for one hope it doesn't - then that's at least two partings that he's going to find very, very difficult to deal with.

I'm voting for Sam dying at the end, and staying in 1973 permanently; maybe it's actually Heaven after all, and Gene Hunt is his guardian angel. I have to say, if I got to Heaven and my guardian angel looked like that, I wouldn't be in a hurry to leave.

I have been mousing around under the 'alien' t_a mouse for a few weeks now and was kindly put forward for an account by someone I met during the 'Detention' brouhaha. (She knows who she is - take a bow!)

The user-name derives from the new BBC series "Life on Mars" which I urge people to see if they can. Basically it's about a cop who is in a traffic accident in 2006 and wakes up in 1973; it's incredibly inventive and it's introduced me to the delightful Philip Glenister who I had only seen before as the photographer in "Calendar Girls".

I'm not really here to talk about me or my interests, however; my ego doesn't need the exercise! The real point is just to have a proper user-name so that I can take part in the fun on fandom_wank. I'm constantly amazed by the imbroglios people get themselves caught up in, and the trivia which so often masquerades as important. However as well as mocking the afflicted (which I will certainly be doing) I would also like to have a chance to understand why people say and do the things they say and do. I'm an inveterate student of human nature, good and bad, and it seems to me fandom_wank is a very good place indeed to study it!