Reader, Dump Him

Something tells me that David Duchovny has been caught with his pants down by Tea Leoni. But it's okay, it's not cheating, it's sex addiction.

What the fuck ever. Most men married to the almost impossibly wholesome and beautiful Tea Leoni wouldn't look upon this as a great problem. And most men with a modicum of maturity wouldn't put his wife and his children (one of whom is 9, for God's sake, more than old enough to understand what's going on and be bullied in the playground about it) through this ridiculous charade. Say sorry and if she forgives you, she forgives you; and if she doesn't then she'll kick you to the curb which you more than deserve.

Sex addiction doesn't exist. As someone who has lived with a drug addict, I somehow do not think while Mr Duchovny is boning some nubile young blonde he is hysterical and sick, filled with the deepest, violent and most horrific self-hate and loathing, begging every deity to relieve him of this terrible burden of sex addiction combined with good looks and money. If anyone has a destructive addiction, I'd say it's Tea Leoni jonesing for her husband. Sweetie, you can do so much better. I realise it isn't actually any of my business, but this drives me crazy. It's insulting to real addicts. How can real addiction be recognised as a dreadful disease, when you have wankers like him using the name in vain?

There are ladies' men - Hugh Grant - and the women who stay with them know it and stay anyway. Hugh Grant is too rational to say he has sex addiction when actually he just wants a lay. Then you have the ones that make a mistake - Matthew Broderick - it remains to be seen if Sarah Jessica Parker stays with him, but at least they're handling it in as dignified a way as you can after the fact your husband has screwed a 20-something for months has hit international headlines.

Monkey has just suggested that perhaps she's making him go to rehab because it's in the pre-nup that she doesn't get as much money if she doesn't support him through that first and then dump him. That's actually a possibility. How Hollywood.

Old Things Are Made New Again

The Famous Five are returning. Initially I thought in the sense that the books would be reissued with flashy new covers. But au contraire. No, no they're returning in the sense that some mad people are writing new books. 21 weren't enough? And the publisher isn't stopping with the Famous Five. The Secret Seven is also being dragged into the 21st century along with, heaven help us all, Malory Towers. (Controversially, Malory Towers was always my favourite series, followed hot on the heels by St Clare's. My older brother once wrote to Jim'll Fix It asking him to send me to boarding school, because I was so obsessed).

Why, in the name of all that is holy, would you bother? Enid Blyton's stories are superb, I love them. Who didn't lie there and wish one could sleep on beds of bracken and eat milk kept cool in bubbling brooks and line up one's tins of tongue on shelves oh-so-conveniently occuring naturally in the random cave one had rocked up to? When I was little, of course I wished there were more of them. In the same way that when Roald Dahl died, my brother and I were furious with him because it meant there would be no more books (sorry, Roald, but I'm sure you understand). If kids today don't want to read Enid Blyton's stories, they aren't going to read them. If their eyes no longer set alight at the idea of random children finding treasure in quarries or if they no longer look upon camping out as fun, there is nothing you can do about it. Bastardizing them with overpaid fanfiction is not going to help your cause. And I'm sorry, the King of Siam's royal dragon??? What, did some random villains (inevitably called Jake or Edgar or Stella) steal it from, ya know, Siam, and bury it on Kirrin Island, doubtless in a hitherto undiscovered well, because where else would you hide the royal dragon of Siam?

For all that, there is basically limited damage you can do with the Famous Five and Secret Seven other than give them weak plots which, to be fair to Enid, she did sometimes (let's face it, Five Have Plenty of Fun is no Five Go To Demon Rocks). But Malory Towers has the real capacity to blunder. I have visions of Malory Towers meeting Hogwarts. The four towers, for example. Alicia will become Ron Weasley, Darrell will be Harry Potter and Sally can be Hermione. I can see it now! No, in fact, what I am seeing is that JK Rowling read Malory Towers too. Does Hogwarts have a swimming pool in a cave naturally carved out by the sea though? No, I thought not. In! Your! Face! Potterites!

I think this is just fortuitous timing that old Enid is having a blast of reheated air shortly afterwards being voted Britain's best loved author . I do wonder who on earth's opinion they asked though. I imagine they were all over forty. It's sad to think that in forty years, the top five most loved authors will probably be JK Rowling, JK Rowling, JK Rowling, JK Rowling and Judd Apatow. Anyway, today's top five are fairly uncontroversial, albeit rooted in some sort of idyllic England which exists purely in Richmond: Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, JK Rowling, Jane Austen, Shakespeare.

The first 3 I understand. Fond memories of childhood reading. Or in the case of Rowling, fond memories of feeling like you were a child again. Jane Austen - well, yeah, I enjoy watching her stuff on TV along with eight or nine other million people, not to mention the hotties who prance almost weekly across our screens thanks to her. By rights, it should be Andrew Davies. Shakespeare? Whatever. I was at a performance of King Lear at the Globe last week and people were laughing! Laughing! I swear to God, about half the people at the Globe haven't half an idea what's going on half the time. At the intermission in every play I have ever seen there, the place empties. People have had the 'experience' and then saunter off to get something to eat. But of course he's 'well-loved'.

Where was LM Montgomery? Louisa May Alcott? Frances Hodgson Burnett? Are you seriously telling me that more people love reading Chaucer (number 50) more than making a cup of cocoa, curling up on the sofa and reading Anne of Green Gables? In the words of Mrs Rachel Lynde: "Indeed!"

Once More With Feeling

Reports of the demise of my television career may have been exaggerated. I have just agreed to do a new show which will keep my hands from idleness until January. My current boss is less than enthusiastic by the new project: "Steaming pile of horseshit." Well, possibly. I didn't seek it out, I know the Series Producer and he asked me to do it. Such is the way with this hopeless industry, where the undeserving like yours truly and a million others just land jobs randomly, whereas hundreds of excellent types hunt for them forever. Anyhoo, aside from feeling guilty for robbing work from those who are actually serious about being in TV for the rest of their lives, it looks like it'll be good craic and at the very least it's more cash. Hallelujah. And best of all, it's not for BBC3, so, just possibly, the budget may amount to more than £15 and a mouldy sandwich.

So, I may still be homeless but I have a job. One out of two ain't bad, as Meat Loaf nearly said.

TV Trash and Internet Idiocy

I find it immensely saddening that in a conversation discussing our TV Memorable Moments from the last 12 months, the only one that immediately sprang to mind was watching Denise Richards on "Denise Richards: It's Complicated"*, going through her entry on http://www.whosdatedwho.com/ and getting affronted by some of the inaccurate ones, and clearly affronted that some are missing, getting in that she hasn't dated a "normal" guy since high school (for all the good it's done you, sweets). I remember her saying: "That's so funny" in a tone of voice that implied it wasn't at all funny. (To be fair, it wasn't. John Stamos? Scott Baio? The point of the episode was that she had a thing for bad boys, but I think the issue is more that she has a thing for hair gel and washed up 80s stars.)

Anyway, it was brilliant because honestly, Denise, you FREAK! I am perfectly sure celebrities do check out sites like that and forums, but not on camera. The reek of desperation was glorious. Denise, Denise, Google yourself! Go on! I bet Denise Googles herself at least once a day. Maybe it was when she Googled herself and the last news article was from 2004 that she decided to do a TV show to make sure everyone knows she is still out there, and as horrifically watchable as equally monstrous, good-argument-to-nuke-Beverly-Hills "The Hills." It was like television eating itself in front of you. The Naughties summed up in a single sequence of false "OMG!" Television relies on celebrities, celebrities rely on television. Meanwhile, I rely on Denise Richards and Dina Lohan. How did it come to this?

(The site kept us entertained for a while, especially for the younger celebs whose fans get well over the border of hysteria and forayed well into stalkerdom. Rupert Grint and Lily Allen? Really? Does your mother know? In the words of one disenchanted young fangirl who makes the error of believing an interview above the internet: "how reliable is this site, anyway?" Girlie, for Denise's and Rupert's sake, I hope not very.)

*Note: It Isn't.

More Venting than Mauna Loa

Winn's status on Facebook currently reads: "is sad to be back in London. Does this make me tired of life?"

On the contrary, I think Dr Johnson was either mistaken, misquoted or simply didn't anticipate the 21st century daily irritations of life in this metropolis which rise in one's breast until, as I did today, one bursts into tears on the South Bank and screams "I can't bloody take it anymore!" to the general dismay of the thronging tourists, one of whom dares to point out that I swore in front of her child. Because people don't swear in the backwoods of wherever the fuck she sprang from. Besides, if you don't like swearing, don't go to the God-damned South Bank. In fact, best not to go to London, really. And the language I heard the other day in Henley of all places was astonishing.

Since I am clearly no longer allowed to vent in public, I will vent here. (Incidentally, I think this is where Dr Johnson's London differs. In his, venting of every description was positively encouraged. The wretched Victorians ruined it all.)

Top 5 Irritants of the last 24 hours

1. Flat hunting/estate agents. Can someone explain to me this whole theory of arranging a viewing with three days notice, then ringing half an hour beforehand cancelling it? Or how a flat can be taken between our viewing at 7.30pm and our registering an interest at 8.15pm? Or why it's allowed for tenants to yank our chains by suddenly deciding that actually they want to stay put? Or why the term "bedroom/study" is an accepted term for: "priesthole".

2. Rudeness on Internet Forums A show I worked on went out recently, and the vitriol on display in the forums is really amazing. The thing is, I'm perfectly aware when something I work on isn't much good, and all power to the people who chase down the faults because hopefully everyone raises their game. But this was good. There's no excuse for personal, savage abuse directed at crew members (especially the extremely talented director) on the internet when actually their work quality was high. Just because you didn't like the story, for God's sake! Settle down. You wouldn't say that to someone's face, so don't write it down about them. If you can do so much better, I challenge you to give it a shot.

3. Job Hunting I'm too experienced/ I haven't enough experience. Essentially, after a long education and an extremely challenging few years in a competitive industry, I am of less interest to perspective employers than a school leaver. This irritant will rise to No. 1 after my savings run out (which I anticipate will be shortly after a holiday to Sardinia we are currently planning).

4. The Olympic Spirit. If this means public money funding private egoism and national jingoism, as well as accepting, praising and even acknowledging one of the most revolting, oppressive, human rights abusing regimes in the world whose leaders I wouldn't spit on if they were on fire, then fine: I am all about the Olympic Spirit.

5. Peaches Geldof. I heartily agree with Noel Gallagher's assessment: "somebody, please stamp on her." I'm sorry, sweetie, but most of us have to earn US visas. We can't just marry them. Having said that, if anyone's willing....

I don't mean to sound so awfully bitter. I know it's the weekend. But ultimately all that means is more time to flathunt, of course. Meanwhile, I face excruciating penury, and I am no longer at all sure where my life is going. Apart from that, all is dandy. None of that is the psychic flathunters', or the tourists', or the Olympians', or Peaches' fault, but I can blame them anyway. Why not? I'm writing this on the internet, I can say whatever I like apparently.

At least this post has distracted me from The Tudors, a series that actually gives me heart palpitations from purest rage. "A man born to be king," intoned the first trailer for the first series. No, he wasn't. Henry VIII had an older brother, dumbass. What the hell is the point of disregarding history? I don't get it. If you don't like the historical stories, INVENT YOUR OWN CHARACTERS.

My head! Is done! In!

In the meantime, is there any chance of any sun? Even a bit a warmth would be just wonderful. Otherwise, next July, the last person to leave the UK, please turn out the lights. Because seriously, I don't think anyone else can take a third summer of rain, wind and genuine cold.

It's okay, I'm going to have a lie down now....

The Slough of Despond; Or, flat and job hunting in London

You currently find me in a somewhat depressed mood; as I have, through extraordinary poor planning on my part, put myself in the position of simultaneously job-hunting and flat-hunting. Each of these preoccupations is a monumental hassle individually, put together it is little short of total disaster.

Frequently, you are paralysed by geographical indecision, which, as a long-time freelancer flitting from company to company, I have never really experienced before. If you take that flat in Ladbroke Grove, will your job end up being in Wapping? If you get that job in Tooting, will you end up living in Dollis Hill? And so on. Then, all stands still when you believe you may have finally pinned either job or flat down, only to be thrown into disarray when said job or flat falls through. Meanwhile, you have an increasingly unsympathetic and irate flatmate shouting to just make your damn mind up about where to live, get a job in Holborn like everyone else and deal with it. But as someone who commuted from West Hampstead to White City every day for three months once, I am keen to try and make a sensible, non-District-or-Northern-Line-reliant decision.

Meanwhile, you also have to balance other considerations. Sure, if you get that job, you can afford this flat. Then again, if you rent that flat, it will be okay if you get this job, but is it worth it to have mice in your living room?

It wasn't supposed to be this way. As far as I was concerned, we had ground to an expensive, slightly squalid halt in our current hovel. When we came there a couple of years ago, our area was wedged between two flash bits of North London, all the scummy individuals who once haunted the back alleys of Camden et al had been coralled into a few streets. The rent was reasonable, the transportation good and the flat actually a liveable size. Unfortunately, the braver of the professionals have put on their rubber gloves, got their jabs and have joined us. And brought their massive wage packets and keenness for daylight robbery with them, so our landlord has hiked the rent. I thought we were going to buckle up and take our medicine like good children, but Monkey has decided that damn it, if we are getting fleeced then we will get fleeced somewhere nicer.

So follows a disspiriting trek around the hopelessly overpriced tenement slums where the young professional classes of London shiver, while trying to get a job in various industries, all of which I keep being told are "competitive". A friend of ours from uni jacked in his job at a corporate law firm to become a plumber. He says its easier to get jobs and you earn a ton of money. "Plus enjoying the well-earned slumber of manual labour," he added, gleefully. But I am no good with my hands. Meanwhile, everywhere I look I'm required to take a massive paycut because I haven't any experience in the field. I thought this was the day and age you could career-change, a notion of total bullshit as far as I can tell.

In the interim, I have been forced to move back in with my mother. I hate it, almost as much as she does. I love London, it is my hometown. Sometimes I get so frustrated, as yet another flat goes, or yet another job is filled before even the application deadline. You begin to get irrational. I was born here - it seems injust that I cannot afford to live here, and can't find work here, that despite having worked hard at my education and at my career I am back living at home. I know how absurd that is, but it actually gets quite emotional, almost personal. Being born in London, I realise, gives me no entitlement whatsoever, but as it stands I simply can't see a way of staying here longterm. It's simply too expensive to have a comfortable quality of life.

But now we have a Conservative Mayor, I'm sure it'll be all better. Oh, wait...Conservative....no, no, it's just going to get worse. Edinburgh it is!

The X-Files Starter Guide

The key thing with The X-Files is not to worry about understanding it. Jump right in, wherever. If the mytharc makes any sense to you, then all power to you, but I watched the series for ten years and never got the hang of it, and I still love it. My favourite episodes are the ones where no prior knowledge is remotely needed. The TV series hit such highs that completely raised the bar for writing for all television shows that followed. My personal favourites are mainly the ones with humour, I must admit, but that's probably because they are easier to rewatch.

MY TOP 5 EPISODES:

1. "Small Potatoes" Series 4. Hilarity ensues after five babies in a small town are born with tails. Includes a shippy scene that nearly blew my brain when it first broadcast, that's how into the Mulder/Scully relationship I was.

2. "Bad Blood" Series 5. The same story told from each of their POVs. Yes, like that episode of Dawson's Creek. But so much better! Scully gets a laugh, Mulder sings "Shaft" and Luke Wilson guest stars. It's a cracker.

3. "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" Series 6. A couple of ghosts drive Mulder and Scully to murder and suicide. Funnier than it sounds, if only for the scene where Mulder walks into a brick wall.

4. "Pusher" Series 3. Freak of the week who can control people via mind control. Creepy because he only controls their bodies, so they know what they're doing but can't stop. The most skin-crawling game of Russian roulette ever.

5. "Squeeze" Series 1. Freak of the week who has an encore later. He crawls into houses through tiny gaps and eats livers. As you do.

And this list doesn't even include Dreamland, Eve, Syzygy, Paper Hearts, Quagmire, War of the Coprophages, Chinga and, of course, The Truth.

ONES TO AVOID

1. Teso dos Bichos - some nonsense about a South American artefact blahblahblah. Awful.

2. Musings of the Cigarette Smoking Man - Honestly, I haven't seen this for so long I can't even remember why I don't like it. Just boring, I think. Possibly something to do with JFK.

3. Kaddish - Unremittingly depressing.

4. Deadalive - Just ridiculous.

5. William - Needlessly confusing.

KEY CHARACTERS

FOX MULDER

Firstly, his name really is Fox. It's not a stupid nickname. The names in The X-Files are sometimes more interesting than the plots (cf "Dakota Whitney" in "I Want to Believe", who sounds like a contestant from "American Idol", not an FBI agent). Former FBI profiler, did postgrad at Oxford. He makes the eating of sunflower seeds sexy. Gave up a glowing FBI career for a less-than-glowing FBI career, stuck in a basement. His quest is for "the truth", which mainly stems from his unfortunate obsession with his long-since vanished sister, Samantha (possibly alien abducted, possibly arranged by her father. Possibly cloned to breed alien killer bees. Possibly not. Possibly dead. Possibly not. Certainly has a weird hold on her brother.)

The original truth he is seeking is about her disapperance (arguably), since then it has become a search for any random truth, until you want to take the word "truth" and shove it down his gorgeous throat. His alleged father, Bill, was as crazy as him and involved in the Syndicate. His mother appeared to be normal, but was involved with the Cigarette Smoking Man. All in all, Mulder's dysfunction is both nature and nurture.

There was a point in the late-90s where it seemed that Buffy Summers and Mulder died and were resurrected on alternate weeks. This was because David Duchovny decided he didn't want to be a regular anymore, and in an excellent example of Chris Carter's tendency to embrace the counter-intuiative, rather than making up a logical storyline to explain this (Mulder really dead/Mulder really gone), he kept making shit up on the fly. He should have jettisoned Mulder, upon sober reflection, though I freely admit at the time I lived from week to week hoping he would show up.

DANA SCULLY
Scully was reasonably normal at the start, having quit medicine to join the FBI. She is brought in to bring clarity of fact to the X-Files, a task she spectacularly fails at. For the first few series, she tended to be out the room whenever crazy shit went down, to maintain her mantra of "Mulder, the scientific facts can't be argued with". After an alien abduction, giving birth to a baby/alien hybrid (or possibly a Mulder/Scully hybrid, it's never clear) despite having been sterilised by aliens previously, bringing people back from the dead, witnessing shapeshifting, being given alien nose cancer and many other things, she is still surprisingly close-minded. She has her own "truth", which is Catholicism. Mostly she goes around and wipes up Mulder's mess after him, because she loves him. She has a totally horrendous few years at the end of the series, but it's ok because Gillian Anderson is a superb crier.

Mulder may or may not be the father of Scully's son, William. To be honest, I was so confused by the time William was born, Scully may or may not be the mother. Either way, William is another example of a Chris Carter Flogging the Dead Horse school of storytelling, eventually mercifully dumped on some random farmers who have no idea what they're getting themselves into. Mulder refers to William as his son, though.

Scully had her own Family Issues (apart from what species her son is). She constantly needed to prove herself her naval father (played by General Hammond from SG-1!), had a grouchy brother, and had dramatics when her sister, Melissa, met the fate of All Who Know Mulder and/or Scully Well. The Scullys are nowhere near as interesting as the Mulders, by virtue of being relatively down to earth.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR WALTER SKINNER
Mulder and Scully's direct boss, and consequently more than earns his pay cheque every week. He is a god amongst men, originally mostly confined to an office, the raison d'etre for which was to have the door to it bashed down on a weekly basis by Mulder/Scully bursting in demanding for help or advice. In later years he got out more though and saved their skin in a more active manner. Uncomfortably close relationship with the Cigarette Smoking Man, admittedly, but all in all a Good Egg. A man torn between pressures from the shadowy Syndicate, pressures from the government to shut Mulder up and pressures from his loyalty to Mulder as well as his own sense of morality, he chooses the Light Side every time, because he is just that awesome. Well, every time apart from that time when....er, never mind that. He's a good guy, who sometimes does the wrong things for the right reasons, let's say.

CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN
Key figure of the Syndicate, which knows aliens are going to colonize earth in 2012, fuelled by aforementioned bees and black oil, or something, it's really hard to say because I hated the mytharc so much I never understood it. The Syndicate plans to create alien/hybrid babies, possibly, an example of which may be William Scully, possibly, or Samantha Mulder, possibly. Good mate of Bill Mulder's, until he kills him. Keeps an eye on Mulder and constantly attempts to discredit him, possibly. He's Very, Very, Very Bad, is behind Scully's abduction amongst many other things. He is the face of the conspiracy to keep alien activity on the QT. Hangs out with Krycek, a sexy devil who sometimes works with, sometimes against Mulder, and sometimes even in the FBI, sometimes in the Syndicate but mostly for himself. The CSM is the dad of Agent Jeffrey Spender, (an irritant who takes over The X-Files at one of the several points it is closed over the years), and one or two others which are only revealed in the finale.

The Ex-Files: I Want To Believe You Can Do Better

Chris Carter is really extraordinary. He has displayed exceptional talent at various times in his career, as director, writer and producer. It is, of course, the curse of the showrunner that every show, eventually, runs its course. Naturally showrunners make mistakes too. And inevitably they burn out.

What makes Chris Carter really amazing is not a lack of talent, a burnout or even too many mistakes. Chris Carter built an absolute gem in "The X-Files", but at every possible opportunity he presses the self-destruct button. He doesn't make too many mistakes, he makes just one and then runs with it until the show is nearly in the ground, yet keeps enough quality around him to drive the viewer wild. The final couple series of "The X-Files" made people run mad not because they were shit, but because the potential for it to be good was palpable. The awful mytharc was infuriating because it could have been so much better. The cringingly bad "freak of the week" stories were so cringeworthy because they were up against episodes that were quite literally the best things on television. In effect, Chris Carter puts together the bad and the good in such close proximity that one feels like a teacher observing a student flunk their exams despite having aced their coursework.

I could not have approached "I Want to Believe" with more good-will, even though every review tried to discourage me from this. Mulder and Scully are old friends of mine that I haven't seen for a while (except on my copious DVDs). And actually, it is not a bad film. It is just not an especially good one. It is, in truth, an average thriller. There is very little of the paranormal in it, and while I massively appreciate the non-mytharc nature of it (I truly believe I would have run screaming from the cinema if I had heard the word "colonisation"), a little more of it being an actual X-File as opposed to a somewhat grisly earthbound, albeit odd, crime. Anyway, the whole thing takes place in a desolate Frozen North which is allegedly West Virginia, but is of course Canada. Mulder and Scully, like the audience, are older, wiser and sadder. The humour has pretty much evaporated, as of course has the steamy sexual tension, replaced with "My God, I love you but you drive me CRAZY!" tension familiar from every adult relationship (or is that just me?) It's not as charming as the TV show at its best, but then this isn't Clinton-era America, this is post-9/11 when paranoiacs don't need to be looking to the sky to feed their obsessions. Happily, there is a throwback to happier days as the villains include Russians, the traditional scurge of Mulder and Scully.

But the cinema was empty, almost literally. We had booked in advance, and there was most seriously no need. Everyone went to see The Dark Knight instead, which is a superb film, but I haven't the warmth of feeling for it that I have for The X-Files. Where's the loyalty?! As we sat there, Monkey pointed out that the kids of today probably don't even remember the X-Files, and the film certainly seems to accept that the people watching it will be of a certain age doing so from nostalgia for happier days. The X-Files has gone from being the crazy kid to the dignified veteran.

This must be rectified at once. Fresh viewing blood is needed!