A Day in the Life

The above title is taken form a quote by some one who was describing Lord Byron, the famous and also infamous English poet, and it points to a rather destructive confusion, one which seems to have been around for a long time; that between what is "mad" and what is simply "bad", behaviour. This came to the forefront of my mind recently due to watching a few episodes of BBC1's risible afternoon "soap", "Doctors". "Doctors" is a low budget, corny affair, which if it knew better, would forgo any pretensions of serious drama and hold its tongue firmly in its cheek. At times it does appear to do this, and brings about comedic moments that could only be gleaned from that which is, seemingly, unintentionally funny. Problems come about and the cracks begin to show, however, when "Doctors" attempts to tackle issues of any seriousness. Which brings me on to the storyline which got me thinking about the mad/bad debate. It concerned ...

This is just a brief post to say that we at The Pathways Group (a recovery group run by my local residential unit for those who have experienced long term mental ill health, usually with diagnoses of either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) have been told that our plans to make another short film about our experiences may not be able to go ahead for some time, if at all. This is a great disappointment to all of us at the group, as our first film, "The Search" (the story of the making and screening of which you can read in my posts "Hollywood Here I Come, Parts I, II and III", respectively) was received with a great deal of enthusiasm by many and, indeed, may be going on to be used as an educational tool in Scotland. So, just why are we unable to go ahead with the making of our new film? Well, as far as I know, the reasons seem to be mainly financial. Despite fitting the criteria for a council grant, we cannot find anywhere to actually put the money, and one must ha...

As some of you will know I am a great fan of the movies. And of all the types, or genre, of movies there are, it seems that, of late, I have developed a penchant for the horror variety. The only trouble is, when it comes to the American horror film, one can't help but think sometimes that one is watching the same film, but with a different title, over and over again. For example, I have just watched "Sorority Row", and I can't help thinking that it was just produced to a formula that has been known to work in the past and so is rehashed time and time again. This will be an obvious statement to make to those familiar with the teenage "slasher" film sub-genre, but perhaps it is worth just reiterating how boringly familiar these films have become and to ask, then, just why they are made and appear to be so popular? Billed as "the best horror movie since 'Scream'", "Sorority Row" has obviously had money thrown at it. Although it has n...

This is just a very brief post to announce that I have been awarded the "Lovely Blog" award by my very dear blogging pal DC Relief. All I can say is I am extremely flattered at receiving this award, and I hope that those of you who read my blog find it justified. I would say though, that perhaps "lovely" is not exactly the right word to describe my blog, as it often deals with aspects of mental ill health which are far from being "lovely". However, for DC, she says she has gleaned hope, compassion and encouragement from my blog. I can only hope that it might do the same for others. You can read DC's own thoughtful, often poetic blog about her own experiences at the following address, and I will, of course, be passing on the award to another blogger in due course: http://dcrelief.blogspot.com/ That's all for now from your normal, average, delusional and paranoid man.