The quick ramble, x100.
Just like the quick crossword in the paper comes the 3rd instalment of The Ramblings of an overactive mind; its easy to digest and probably going to take until lunch time to complete. Actually you gave up on the cross word after spending the longest 5 mins of your life working out that one down is not gammon as it isn't a fish, which may surprise none of you but it surprised me! But again I am the one who has spent endless hours discussing the merits of Julia's theme from EastEnders. To the folks out there who don't watch EastEnders due to its fantastically true to life depiction of the jolly cockneys from the east end of our beloved capital, Julia’s theme is a special musical ending that is given as one of EastEnders highest accolade to an iconic EastEnders character, which is bestowed by the Great British public. Julia is one of the duo who created EastEnders way back in 1985 who unleashed one the most addictively depressing soap to grace BBC 1. EastEnders is a soap that enjoys depicting some of our country's most depressing secrets to grace mankind but unfortunately it all happens in one place. In real life I think no one would move there due to our own insecurities and how easily convinced into believing that a place is cursed. Actually, I must praise EastEnders and silence all the fools out there who believe that it should be taken off air due its unrealistic story-lines. When you have a highly analytical brain, a cup of British tea, a hobnob, (man's favourite biscuit to quote Kay "the marine of the biscuit world") a spare 2 hours and a loving lady or man (not to forget the gay community in this PC day and age) to battle back the tears of extreme boredom you’re on to a winner! These opinionated non-fans of EastEnders, I believe, are very much wrong. How can they say that in real life one community would not suffer so much extreme heartache and sheer bad luck? If one was to look at the news one would find that actually most communities would all suffer most (if not all) of the heartache and bad luck that the residents of sunny Albert square do. When you analyse the story-lines over the past 25 years we have had teen pregnancy; unfortunately to the rest of the world outside of Birmingham, Britain has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe, however it has just become more and more accepted over the past decade as sex has become an even bigger influence and the most readily accessible source on the internet, with little to no policing on content, especially in a day and age where 5 year old's are as computer literate as us fashionable 20 somethings! Pregnancy in the older ladies is also an issue we are recently coming across in the media, as we explored Pauline Fowler's late in life pregnancy with Martin. We have had numerous domestic violence story-lines over the past 25 years; even on my own doorstep has there been a case of a married couple with domestic violence issues, and they’re still together! EastEnders has explored many different types of cancers, and unfortunately most of us have known of someone amongst our family or friends to suffer or die from cancer. One of EastEnders’ latest story-lines has been the death of a young girl called Danielle, who was killed in a road accident. This one is particularly close to my heart as 4 years ago my 14 year old sister was killed in road accident involving an articulated lorry, where she suffered severe brain injuries. How people can begin to naively believe that these tragedies don't exist in real life or even that one family has only one tragedy is beyond stupidity. We are more than likely in our lifetime to suffer from one or more unfortunate life events, so we must commend EastEnders' guts in attempting to show the world the evils that lurk around each corner that we are blind to, that you are not the only ones to suffer. We all suffer, and if maybe one day you have to be one of the unfortunate people to have to live with such life changing events, here is a chance to see what help is out there for you and what to expect. Its not just EastEnders that does this, it’s all soaps. Thanks to soaps people have a chance to learn life lessons without actually making the mistake, for instance Brookside taught me never to get involved in hard drugs (I smoked the reefa once, as I was a naive boy!) due to the fantastic portrayal of how drugs ruin people's lives thanks to the Corkhill family. So to all the lucky people out there who have never had to experience suffering, have lead the coveted perfect life, and who want EastEnders off their screens, I think they need to sit down with a biscuit (may I recommend a hobnob, because the outlook is always less bleak with a hobnob or some crack if they have missed this week’s cloudy but throat-slittingly-good episode of EastEnders) and ponder why we watch soaps, maybe one of the reasons is that yes, we have nothing better to watch than a guilt-free look at someone else's life that is moderately worse than ours, but it’s a forum for us to understand real life and to be able love and grieve for a character is an immense achievement to the soap and the actor; to convey believability is one of the hardest tasks in an actor’s job! So don't slate them, rejoice in their ability to make you convey your own feelings, provoke life changing decisions and just entertain you. I’d like to see you try, it’s quite hard! Trust me I’ve been failing at this for quite a few years! Wow, the quickie ramble has turned into James' Times crossword, working out ridiculously hard clues to words that you will never again encounter in your life time! Such as the branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind, 11 letters … any ideas? Eschatology! But maybe this is a naive comment from a fool with half a hobnob, the other floating in my tea like an oaty submarine sailing the seas of PG before embarking on a gutsy (excuse the really bad pun) trip around the islands of buffoonery! To all attempting to read, this I don't have a soap box but I do like stand on one occasionally! Good luck, god bless and you’re going to need a whole lot of hobnob brain food for this one! Now to begin pondering over how we could make a tea and biscuit delivery business work, and if the pope needs a hat cleaner as that sounds like a remarkably good storyline for EastEnders, but first Phil Mitchell needs to introduce the pope to a crack house and convince him the Vatican needs an insurance job pulled on it. Real life folks, real life!
Good night out there, whatever you are!
