Now I'm going to ruin it totally

One of the aspects of blogging that I have long enjoyed is how accepting the blogosphere is. You can hear the taboos tumbling, as bloggers admit to behaviours and attitudes they've previously considered outrageous. Confessions are usually met with variations on the following responses:

Aw, Hon, don't worry. We love you anyway! And in answer to your question, yes, you're totally normal.

I'm SO glad you wrote this post. I'm not alone! I've felt the same for years, but I've never been brave enough to say so out loud. Thank you!

Bloggers are commended for their honesty, sympathy is offered, and the blogosphere absorbs the revelation of this drossy bit of human life, and moves on.

But there must be a limit. There must be things which bloggers confess to, that other people can't condone. There must be moments when lines are crossed, sensibilities offended beyond forgiveness. Moments when bloggers turn their faces... Bloggy Friends, I fear this may be one such.

I don't like the film It's a Wonderful Life. There. I've said it. And there's worse. Not only do I not like it, I really hate it. I've only seen it all the way through once, and then tedious snippets on various other unavoidable occasions. When I did sit all the way through it, I found it boring, pointless, and downright irritating. I thought the central character was dull, and at points a bit creepy. I thought his self-assessment was right, actually. He should have left that insipid and dreary town, and found himself a more interesting life. At the crucial point, he needed Barbie, in one of her many cinematic incarnations, to appear and warble on about following his dreams, believing in himself, trusting his heart. That might have got him moving. As for the angel, he annoyed me immensely. Angels should not be bland. I believe the word "mawkish" was invented for films like this one. It's 130 minutes long, which is approximately 129 minutes too much.

I've heard TWO discussions in the past 24 hours, one on Radio 4 and one on Radio Scotland, about the remake, or sequel, that is imminent. Those radio people were loving it. Lapping it up, they were. "I go every year, with my family, to see it on the big screen, and we're all weeping by the end." "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without it." "'Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings' - that line gets me every time!" I must have heard the word "heart-warming" as many times as is physically possible in the course of a radio segment. The only good thing was the aging actress from Vancouver, who played the daughter in the original film, and is playing an auntie in the sequel, who managed to give away huge chunks of the plot, before the interviewer could intervene. Ha! I enjoyed that bit, thinking of all you It's a Wonderful Life devotees speedily clamping your hands over your ears, but not speedily enough, and howling with distress at having caught a half-sentence too much of what she was saying. Ruined it for you, did she? Ha! (See, I have a dark side...)

Please don't judge me. I can't help it. It's a genetic condition. It's in my DNA. My sister hates the film too. We only have to sing "Buffalo Girls, won't you come out tonight?" to each other, in the knowledge that we are the only two people on the planet who feel this way about the film, to experience a Christmas bonding moment so magical, that I have only one word to describe it. Yes, you guessed it - "heart-warming".

Can you forgive me for my aberrance?

"Darling, you were right first time. Your life has been pointless and meaningless, and no amount of my smiling at you in black and white can make it better.

.

Recycling: Part II

When you move abroad, you find out new things about yourself. Lots of it is good, to do with the way you rose to the challenge, aspects that you enjoyed more than you anticipated, inner strengths you didn’t know you had. Feel good in retrospect stuff. But you also find out things about yourself that aren’t so nice. These are the dirty little secrets that don’t make it onto the expat websites. For example, you may be rather relieved if you’re honest, to find out from other people’s experience that your kids will lose their American accents when you return home, in spite of your assertion that preferring one accent over another is a form of racism. Or how about the fact that you never thought of yourself as materialistic, but it’s pretty nice, when it comes down to it, to live in a house double the size of the one you left in Britain.

Here is another one. I am not as green as I’d like to think I am. In Britain, I recycled carefully, I didn’t waste things, especially food, we used buses, only owned one car, a diesel, I minded about the future of the planet. Or so I thought. Here, we have two cars (which in our defence, is a necessity, given the almost non-existent bus service). I can salve my conscience by looking at the guzzling SUVs, and think “well, at least my minivan does around 20 to the gallon to your 15”. I try not to waste things, but it is harder, and I do less well. I do recycle, but it took us a while to get round to it, and I’m more lax about it. I have genuine questions as to the value of recycling – in a country where space is so vast, I do wonder if landfill is not a bad option, set against the energy required to recycle (and the comments on my previous post have done nothing to reassure me). It’s not these questions that make me lax though. It’s the conscience-salving that says I might not be doing it perfectly, but at least I’m doing it more than most people.

I can make all kinds of excuses, and have all kinds of logical reservations, but at the bottom level I know this to be true: I cared more for the environment when I loved it more. I know we’re talking global warming and consequences that will affect us all, worldwide. I know that being green is about safeguarding the planet and not about pretty green English lanes and how early in the year daffodils flower these days, and what is causing the decline in the number of sparrows, but there we are, I’m just airing my dirty washing in public and being honest. I may be a citizen of the world, but I am hugely influenced by my local situation.

There’s another element, of course. It’s not all to do with the English countryside. I tried to be green in the UK because everyone else is trying to be green. Sometimes it’s by reason of moral choice and sometimes it’s with financial or other incentive, but it is fairly unavoidable. Being a good citizen is increasingly bound up with being a green citizen.

I don’t share Margaret Thatcher’s view that there’s no such thing as society. There clearly is. We are hugely influenced by those among whom we live. This can be for evil – history shows that the majority of us can turn into the people who spy on our neighbors and colleagues, report them to authorities, turn on them, or turn a blind eye. I think it is often ignored, though, that society is a force for good too. We are all better people for rubbing along beside others who, in all kinds of ways, bring out the best in us. It is easier to behave well if the prevailing wind is carrying you along.