Filler

Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm aware that I haven't added anything significant to these ramblings for a while.  It's not because there's nothing going on - quite the opposite, in fact.  However, much of what's happening is too homely to be of any possible interest, and the remainder remains too closely associated with work - about which I will not write in any detail.  If I told you, there are too many people out there for me to kill.

Face it, not everyone's life is a soap opera: dramatic happenings with little or no gaps between.  Some of us work 9 to 5, with family events filling the evenings and weekends.

Thinking of soaps, it always amazes me how anyone could live in somewhere like Albert Square - too many criminals carrying out too many crimes to be any sort of reflection on real life.  What's the hook in these programmes?  Misery piled upon despair loaded with lowlifes and steeped in madness.  Is there a single normal character in any TV soap?  No, because that would make it normal, and normality isn't what people want.

I can understand the attraction of something like Dynasty - how the other half lives, something to aspire to (albeit every bit as despicable as Corrie or East Enders).  But what is at all attractive about Emmerdale and its ilk?  All out to do each other down, never a bit of real effort or real neighbourly feeling.  I have a theory that all the soaps are really written from one script, with just regional accents differing.  The story lines seem to follow the same patterns, the situations (always based around some drinking establishment, be it the Queen's Head, Rover's Return or the Woolpack), and similar characters in each.  Even when an individual character is written out, they are replaced by someone very similar, maintaining the standard cast across all the variants.

Still, I suppose it means that you only need watch one programme per night to keep up with all the stories - leaving more time for work and family, so we must all be grateful.  Imagine having to keep up with three or four different storylines?  There'd be even less time for blogging - but no more to write about.