A Day in the Life

So, Christmas-time is here again and I repeat the same question I asked last year- so here it is, Merry Christmas, every body's havin ' fun. Or are they? Christmas can be a great time for children, but let's face it, by the time you become an adult the novelty has definitely worn off. All that effort buying presents in the packed shopping malls. All those relatives coming round who you don't particularly like. And don't forget, the absolute absence of the original message of Christmas which has been replaced by mindless materialism. The closest we probably get to that is playing John Lennon's "And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?" Also, it can be one of the most difficult times for those who have experienced mental distress. Our old friends isolation and social exclusion can be felt more acutely at around this time. And for those who aren't isolated, just the damn stress of the whole thing is enough to send you into a relapse. So, as

So, the film that I mentioned a few chapters back, after a few weeks of uncertainty, is still definitely going ahead. We have now given all our ideas over to the film making team, they have been back with a completed script, and now are off to make the film for us. Apparently it will be filmed mostly in January and February and should go into post-production and editing in mid-March and should be finished by the end of that month. It will be around six minutes long in running time and, of course, will be a mini-masterpiece. As I previously said the film will be there to highlight the experiences of the long-term mentally ill, usually sufferers of manic depression, i.e. bi-polar or schizophrenia. The film, however, is to be no straight-forward re-telling of our experiences but will be an arty, somewhat metaphorical, even esoteric rendering of what it is like to go through bouts of severe mental distress. As such the film will take the form of a mannequin going through a maze, the maz

So the government has recently announced plans for those on job seeker's allowance and incapacity benefit to be further "encouraged" to get back to work. It seems that those who won't commit to voluntary or community work or training in preparation for going back to work will have their benefits rudely taken away. The notion that people will, in effect, have to work for their benefits seems to be rapidly coming to the fore. The government says that the severely disabled will be excluded from this new wave of what seems to be right-wing thinking from a supposedly centre-left government. At this point everyone will be telling me to wake up- true socialism died a long time ago in this country and perhaps it can now be seen that Blair and his ilk were the true inheritors of Thatcherism . Personally, I don't mind the idea of working, despite my illness. I have good days and bad days and on the good ones I feel I am capable of doing at least something. I already do so

Is it me, or has television just plummeted to new lows? Watching last night's "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here", I suddenly thought, "What on earth am I doing watching a bunch of c-list celebrities, half of whom I've never heard of, arguing amongst themselves in the Australian jungle?" The answer was that I was wasting my valuable time, polluting my brain with garbage. Don't get me wrong, sometimes this show can be fun, and I remember the time when Paul Burrell , Princess Di's decidedly dodgy butler, called to his "mummy" as he put his hand into a nest of spiders. It was hilarious. So, I'm not being po -faced here, I am as susceptible to laughter and entertainment as any person. I suppose what offends me is the rise and rise of this genre of entertainment- the reality tv show. It seems you can't turn anywhere without a new reality show springing up. So, one has to wonder, where will this all end up- where are we going with