Thursday 18 October 2007

Lathering up - rant warning!

Due to some (not entirely unforeseen) family circumstances we've been staying at The Ultimate Other Halfs parents house this week. Luckily we don't live too far from them so situations in lines of "oh shoot, those bodysuits don't really fit Sir Sprout any more" can be rectified with swift drive there and back.

Are kids SUPPOSED to grow that fast? I mean - I could swear those things were fine on him last week. Either that or we were just too sleepy to take any notice that we had to apply extra muscle to squeeze Sir Sprout into his underwear.

I have also been blessed with Extra Mad With Topping Of Despair And Panic week at work.

All that together translates to ourselves rushing around until the young one has been knocked out for night (if we're lucky, he's teething on top of it all) and then collapsing on inlaws fancy (blue!) leather couch.

That's when the going gets really tough.

You see, we have entered The Soap Zone. Every single soap is watched in that house. Eastenders, Corrie, Home and Away, Fair City - bring it on!

For some mysterious reason Emmerdale seems to be blatantly ignored. I should bring up that issue in the future. When I'm out of the house again.

I am not a soap person. They annoy me with endless string of stupidity, see-through story lines and repetitions. The fake "realness" they strain to achieve. The token characters every single soap features - a wise old strong-minded woman, a vicious womanizing bastard, a long suffering mother on the verge of breakdown, an adorable kid, a rebellious teenager, a loudmouth vulgar woman (comic relief), a nasty Bitch From Hell etc. Because of that I don't even notice when one soap ends and another one starts. Same issues, same stereotypes. Same "keep it simple" very regulated directing style. Loooooong shots of talking heads. Brief inserts shot outside the set (why push the costs up...) usually when something really drastic is supposed to happen.

Above all I just don't have a stamina. You'd really want to be determined to watch the same story with slight variations for years and years (A was married to B and cheated her with C while running shoddy business with D. Two years later A is married to E, still cheating her with C, D blackmails him and there is probably also F-the-long-lost-love-child bouncin around while B-the-abandoned-and-deceived-ex-wife is plotting to ruin/kill A. Yaaawwwnnn.). Sometimes I admire people who have endured decades of mind-numbing nonsense like that, still insist on turning on the TV on Holy Hours Of Lathering and actually seem to have their sanity more or less intact.

Plus the limitation all that soap business puts on your life. Oh, I really can't meet you at 8, Corrie's on or Why have a conversation at dinner table when we can all watch Home and Away instead?

Oh well. Shouldn't get too carried away here.

After all I have my dirty little secrets/weaknesses as well. Wanna know what?

I watch CSI. All of them. In all their glossy morbid sci-fiesque glory.

So there. Now you know.

9 comments:

5h4mr0(k said...

Never could trust that D character - what with the shoddy business and the blackmailing... I heard that their life partner G is going to kill F in a drunken car wreck.

Foreigner by Default said...

I know, but you'd have to take into account that D has very valid reasons for life of shoddiness and crime, him being A-s fathers neglected and denied bastard son who grew up in poverty and abuse. Besides, he is not to blame in G-s drink problem which started with her despair when her adored daughter B married from the marriage with H married a womanizing jerk that is A.

Martin said...

Ok, deep breath, here goes...

I actually miss soaps.
"Glenroe" anyone?


----
B.T.W. (which is actually V.A.T. in Dutch), your command of English is quite stunning for a second (this is where you tell me it's actually your fourth or something)language, hearing the Dutch blow on every day about how good their English is, it's quite refreshing to read someone who's English IS actually that good. I doth my cap (if I had one that is, which I don't, my head is physically too big for them)to you madam.

Foreigner by Default said...

Xbox4NappyRash - it's OK for you to miss the soaps. You're just nostalgic :D

Thanks for the compliments about my English, means a lot for me.

And no, it's not a fourth language. It's third :p

Unknown said...

Yes, I'm always impressed with the lingo. It's one thing understanding a language, but quite another to be funny in it too.

I'm exactly the same - can't stand the soaps and LURVE CSI. Oh and Criminal Behaviour or whatever it's called.

Foreigner by Default said...

English Mum - it's Criminal Minds. (Foreigner swoons)

Oh, bless the Sky+ and cozy evenings of murder and crime...

Is it just me? said...

I feel your pain.I used to think that I liked Coronation Street because I'd grown up watching it ..mam was a big fan..until I realised about ten years ago that I wasn't.I just don't understand it.
My secret vice is Law and Order.They run it on a loop on one of the digital channels and if I get the remote first after we've put the rats to bed the hubby settles in with me for a night of crime.

Is it just me? said...

BTW FBD...I'd always thought you were Finnish for some reason...but Ditto the other comments..you speak terrific Irish-English=)

Foreigner by Default said...

isitjustme & English Mum - compliments on my lingo coming from eloquent language twisters like yourselves are really something. Thank you.
I might even stop whinging about my crappy English for a week or so :D

 
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