Thursday, October 23, 2014

Reflections on the Age of Ultron Teaser Trailer


So, who else has watched the trailer five times today and freeze-framed it, looking for clues?  


Yeah - no, of course I haven't, either.

What we know:

  • We'll be flashing back at some point to Romanoff's ballerina past.
  • Andy Serkis is playing an actual character, not just doing mo-cap for Ultron.
  • Ultron looks badass and James Spader is a perfect piece of voice-casting.
  • We've got a (budding?) romance between Romanoff and Banner (poor Hawkeye).
  • Cap cannot open doors like a normal person.
  • We may see the un-worthy-ing of Thor (who needs a hair trim).
  • The Hulkbuster-armour fight is going to be epic.
  • There's a mysterious new woman in town, probably played by Kim Soo-hyun, but Pepper and Jane appear to be no-shows (boo).

Here it is, for the three fans out there who haven't yet seen it:

Monday, September 8, 2014

"To read makes our speaking English good."

To commemorate the start of my third year as a mature student at university, here's a summary of what I have learned so far:
  1. You're completely out of touch when you're the only person in the room who's never heard of Angela Carter.

  2. Nobody under the age of 21 knows how to spell or put a grammatically correct sentence together. A lot of people over the age of 21 don't know, either - especially lecturers.

  3. You're really old if you DON'T think Jane Eyre caved in to patriarchal norms and abandoned her 'goal' of attaining some version of feminist independence when she married Rochester.

  4. There's a hell of a lot more sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in C18th-19th poetry than high school English lessons led me to believe.

  5. Advertising is pretty cool.

  6. Advertising is the spawn of Satan.

  7. Sorry, somebody has already written about that.

  8. Some people actually think that Roger Moore is the best Bond.
In the immortal words of Xander Harris, 'Guess I'm done with the book learning!'

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Gamers, Feminists, Misogynists...oh, my!

I've said it before:  there are certain feminist issues and viewpoints that I support, but nobody who knows me would label me a feminist.  Anyway, these days, the term brings with it a truckload of cultural baggage that means different things to people.  I am a woman with some very traditional views on things and some very radical ones.  (Many would call me 'right wing', but I have an intense hatred for that sort of boxing in.  There are things I both agree with and disagree with on the right and on the left.)  However, I am a woman who loves traditionally 'boyish' things.  I am a woman who loves traditionally 'geekish' things.  Comic book movies.  Star Wars.  Spock.  Die Hard.  Jim Cameron sequels.  I know well that special look people get on their faces when they find out these things about me.  I don't believe that a love for these things, any more than for gaming, should belong to one or the other sex.

This week's...I'm not sure what to call it.  War?  Brouhaha? Eruption? Scandal?  Let's go with brouhaha...in the gaming world has had plenty of coverage, so I won't set it all out again here, but I will say that it has affected me, and not in a way you might think from the above paragraph. 

I cannot and will not deny that sexism has been rife in the gaming world.  I cannot and will not deny that certain women misuse women's rights issues as a platform to further their careers.  Women in the industry have done stupid and horrible things, and have been the victims of stupid and horrible things.  Men in the industry have done stupid and horrible things, and have been the victims of stupid and horrible things.  For me, the real horror in all this is not corruption or misogyny.  The real horror is the way that people - people, not men or women - treat each other.  My horror is at the language and the abuse people throw at each other online.  

'Welcome to the internet,' I hear you say.  'Where have you been the last 30 years, you naive ****?'  But that's exactly my point.  Being online seems to give people a licence to say things they would never say to someone face to face.  Or would they?  I don't know anymore.  In the name of free speech and moral crusading, people lower their own moral standing (completely collapse it, in my opinion) by resorting to this kind of abusive and, frankly, downright disgusting behaviour.

If you dislike someone's actions or opinions, how about not supporting or buying their next product?  And yes, you do have the right to say why you are not supporting them.  BUT you can do that without using the names I've seen spat out in the last couple of days and in other, similar situations in the past.  You can pull your support from someone without putting their personal information online - which is illegal, I needlessly add.  'Oh, but it's about getting the truth out there about what they've done.  They deserve it.'  How about what you've just done?  How about taking care of your own immoral or hurtful behaviour first and foremost?  How about being kind to one another, no matter who the other person is or what they've done, as we can never know everything about them and their situation?  How about not lowering yourself to 'their level', whatever that may be?

It's a very, very old-fashioned notion (thanks, Nick Fury), but if we all took ten seconds to monitor our actions by thinking 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' or, if you prefer, Wil Wheaton's modern translation: 'Don't be a dick', the world would be a completely different place for men, for women, for gamers, for people.  And that would be the kind of revolution I could truly support.

END RANT

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The Importance of a Good Movie Villain, or, What Marvel Has Done Right and Sony Keeps Forgetting

I've had over a week now to process The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and my initial thoughts have stuck with me. Admittedly, they're not very deep thoughts - it is exam time, so you'll have to excuse me.  

Firstly, the CGI was a hell of a lot better in this one.  There were no clunky lizards this time, thank goodness.  The first one left me wondering, if guys like Neill Blomkamp can make convincing-looking Prawns on his home computer with a budget of bugger-all, why can't Sony with all its millions do at least as well?

Secondly, the main cast is top-notch.  Andrew Garfield really does do beautifully that mix of gangling teenager and graceful superhero, and his interactions with Emma Stone and Sally Field continue to sparkle.

This is, without question, a better movie than the last. There are two main problems, though, and they are big enough to damage the fabric of the whole thing.

The story itself is a mess.  I mean, it's like someone took a fruit crumble and put it in the washing machine.  No - that's a bad analogy, but I'm pleading temporary insanity due to assessment-time brain failure.  Now I'm craving fruit crumble....  You catch my drift.  It's all over the place.  No real through-line.  Deep revelations and bits of dramatic and action-packed things happening here, there and everywhere but by the end you've still no idea what Electro was actually trying to do.  Something about taking back a power grid. Does he want to destroy it?  Live in it?  Keep all the power for himself?  Hold a rock concert?

That leads me to the other problem, which you've already guessed if you've read the title of this post.  Star Wars has Darth Vader and the Emperor.  Star Trek has Khan and the Klingons and the Romulans and Q and the Borg.  The Avengers have Loki.  Batman has The Joker.  Spidey has...um....  In theory, the Green Goblin should be a great villain.  He's Spidey's former best friend, after all.  The character of Harry here is good, but the Green Goblin still just doesn't cut it, and Electro is very forgettable.  I can't put my finger on why. It's a problem I'd like to explore in detail sometime:  what makes a good movie villain?

If you've got any theories, put them in the comments.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

We didn't have to wait long - Star Wars VII cast announced

I must have had some kind of premonition when I wrote the previous post this morning, but we didn't have to wait until Sunday.  

The official announcement of the Episode VII cast was made during the day over at www.StarWars.com.  There are some familiar names in there (I have to wonder just how many characters Andy Serkis will be playing) and some new ones (I hope you're prepared for this, Daisy Ridley).

No Zac Efron, but definitely Oscar Isaac; also Domhnall Gleeson, whom I really like (that's Bill Weasley, to Potter fans), so I'm pleased about him.

The other newbies are John Boyega (from Attack the Block), Adam Driver (from Girls) and Max Von Sydow (from...well, pretty much everything).

Mind you, they still haven't told us much, but I suppose that's not likely to change.  So we wait, anticipating 18 December 2015....

Right about now, in a city not too far away…

It’s that time of year when every Star Wars fan gets little butterflies of nostalgic excitement in his or her stomach and cracks out the original trilogy discs (theatrical versions only, of course) in preparation for May the Fourth.  But we fans have a greater reason to be excited this year, because we’re all half-expecting some long-awaited announcements from Disney.

Details.  We want details.

J.J. Abrams, the master of keeping secrets every man and his tribble already knows (“Khan?  Who’s Khan?”), has actually managed to keep us in the dark this time.  The might of the Mouse.

So what do we know?  We know the new trilogy won’t follow the Thrawn/Heir to the Empire/Timothy Zahn novels.  That really was a given, although I’m certain that many a fanboy/girl has mournfully stopped and thought, every once in a while, how cool it would have been to see Mara Jade Skywalker on screen.  Can everyone who lives/works near Pinewood please keep an eye out for beautiful 40-to-50-something actresses with red hair?  Maybe she’ll pop up with Luke anyway.

We know that Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher (and presumably Peter Mayhew) are currently up in London, Hamill looking rather dashing in a mighty fine beard.  I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up, positive that they’ll all just have short cameos, but the latest rumour is that Han may have quite a chunk of screen time.  I wouldn’t complain – any additional Harrison Ford is a bonus, in my opinion, so long as there are no dodgy-looking fridges or monkeys involved.  (Aliens, in this case, are perfectly acceptable.)

We know that Zac Efron may or may not have been cast.  I’m thinking there’s got to be a role for a singing Jedi with great abs.

We know that Oscar Isaac has probably definitely maybe been cast.  He can grow a good Jedi beard.  He sings, too – I’m sensing a theme here.

Will the kidlets – Anakin, Ben and the twins – turn up?  NOBODY KNOWS.  We keep hearing that these films won’t be following the existing canon, but one assumes they’d still want to appease the loyal fans.

We know that J.J. has promised less CGI and more real sets.  Couldn’t be happier about that.  If the sets are as gorgeous as the Enterprise bridge, even better.  How cool would it be to see the Falcon again?  Well, she has been spotted in concept art on a wall at the back of a production meeting photo, so I’m crossing my fingers.

I’ve got to go and wash my Han Shot First t-shirt now.  See you all again on Sunday.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Cap is Back

I've just been to see Captain America: The Winter Solider (again) and (again) I loved it, but please, please, directors, can we quit with the tight 'n' shaky action sequences? When I come to watch Cap knocking bad guys' heads together, I want to be able to see Cap knocking bad guys' heads together. 

It's a dance; let us see the choreography.  Take Fred Astaire's tried and tested advice that dances should be shot full-bodied (especially when it's a certain superhero's full body - wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  If you hide all the stunts, it makes me think that you don't know what you're doing and so you need to do it off-screen or blurry.  As lovely as Chris Evans' kneecaps and elbows are, I'd like to see a little more than that when he's fighting...um...let's just call him The Winter Soldier.

That said, go see it.  It's good.  And stay for (at least) the mid-credits stinger, which is a nice little lead-in to Age of Ultron.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

UPDATE on my previous post - practical things you can do to help


Following on from my earlier post, here are some practical things you can do to help people with JHS (or similar), CFS and/or depression:
  •  If they’re sick, do some food shopping for them.
  • Help them to carry heavy loads.
  • Be aware of noise levels when they’re trying to sleep.
  • Offer them a lift in your car.
  • Offer to go for short walks with them.
  • Don’t stop inviting them to things because they can’t come once or twice (but don’t pressure them into coming, either).
  • Think about going around to their place for a movie night – it’s easier for them than going out.
  • Help them with cooking (chopping vegetables can be incredibly difficult), changing bedding and vacuuming.
  • Think of things to do that don’t involve too much social or physical effort.
  • If you’re out at a restaurant, pay attention to whether they’re having trouble cutting their food – offer to give them a hand if so.
  • Don’t try to offer ‘helpful’ suggestions when they just want to vent.  Sometimes, there is no solution and they already know it.
  • Talk things through with them to help them get clarity or stop a negative-thought spiral.
  • Give them plenty of notice about events, and make sure there’s appropriate seating available at the venue.
  • Don’t pressure them for a phone call – use email, so they can reply in their own time.
  • Understand that they’re more angry at, frustrated with or disappointed in themselves and their situation than they are you.
  • Give them space first thing in the morning and don’t expect a cheery greeting.
  • Recognise that they may need you to repeat instructions – it doesn’t mean they weren’t listening the first time.
  • Realise that simple tasks can take major effort.
  • Understand that every day is different – because something’s easy one day (or even one moment) doesn’t mean it will be so the next.
  • Ask them what their individual needs are.

Life With Long-Term Invisible Illnesses

This post is a difficult one for me.  I would never have written it but for two things: 
  • reading this post from Anne Wheaton and seeing the response to it; and
  • having to write a ‘realist’ story for university (I’m lost when I can’t include at least one ghost or spaceship) and my flatmate (also a writer) suggesting I write about my illness. 
When I was a kid and a teenager, it felt like I had something wrong with me all the time – infections, growing pains, injuries – you name it.  I wondered whether I was a hypochondriac or had a lower pain threshold than other people.  Ballet classes were a constant struggle.  I never could hold up my arms or legs as long as the other girls, despite the fact that I had twice as much muscle.  When I was about 15 I had a meltdown in Drama class at school.  I’d never had a problem with school and couldn’t understand why it was suddenly getting to me, especially in one of my favourite subjects.  I was sleeping a lot, but everyone said that’s what teenagers did, so I didn’t question it.  Then I was diagnosed with mild Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  That explained the exhaustion, but not the other things – it was just another problem to add to the list.

Throughout my 20s, continued CFS, disappointed dreams and a boring office job weighed me down physically and mentally.  I knew I was depressed, but it went officially undiagnosed.  Eventually, I moved countries, looking for a fresh start and hoping to break away from it all.

My new employers soon realised I was struggling and sent me to the doctor.  I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression and, after much reluctance, research and deliberation on my part, I was put on anti-depressants. 

One thing I’d never done was break a bone (although I did once get hairline fractures in the tips of my toes from pointe work – oops!)  I had multiple back and joint problems, though, including regular migraines and some old injuries that felt like they’d never properly healed, and I often saw a physiotherapist.  One day, she asked me to lie on my side and I obliged.  She gave me a funny look and said, ‘Is that how you normally lie when you lie on your side?’  I said yes, and she made an appointment for me to see her manager.  At that appointment, her manager asked me to do some strange things, then asked me to lie on my back, put my arms straight up in front of me and move them up and down.  I obliged; she made a funny noise and said, ‘One of your cervical vertebrae moves when you do that.  I’m pretty sure you have Joint Hypermobility Syndrome.’  I said, ‘I have what-whatety-what-now?’  I’d never heard of it.  So off I went to see the rheumatologist at the hospital and he confirmed it:  I had Joint Hypermobility Syndrome.  ‘So,’ I asked him, ‘does that mean I’ve been misdiagnosed all these years, and I don’t have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?’  He said, ‘No.  In my opinion, you’re unlucky enough to have both.’  Joy.

The reason I’d never broken a bone was that people with JHS (also abbreviated HMS) don’t tend to break; we bend.  We bend way too much.  Sounds pathetically minor or potentially awesome, right?  Compared to what some people go through, yes, but what it means is that our muscles have to work twice as hard, all the time, just to keep our joints in the right place (which also means it takes twice the effort to do things, including just sitting still).  Our joints subluxate very easily, and it’s not just our joints that are uber-flexible; it’s all our connective tissues.  That means it affects our internal organs, as well, causing things like IBS.  The foremost researcher on JHS is a professor in London who has recently retired, but he believes JHS is actually a slightly lower grade of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.  I have to say, I attended an eight-week pain management course with both JHS and EDS patients, and our symptoms were pretty much identical:  pain, exhaustion, injuries caused by stupid things like brushing hair or opening drawers, IBS, clumsiness/spatial awareness problems, sensitivity to cold/heat/noise, inability to stand or sit for long periods, depression, migraines….  Additionally, local anaesthetics don’t work very well on JHS/EDS patients, so to that idiot doctor who cauterised my warts when I was a little kid and wouldn’t believe me when I told him it was excruciatingly painful: 



So that diagnosis explained everything.  I hadn’t had multiple problems; I’d had multiple symptoms from one illness (later two).  And I didn’t have a lower pain threshold; if anything, it’s probably higher than normal, but I’m genuinely in pain 99.9% of the time.

Of course, what all three illnesses – CFS, JHS and depression – are is invisible, and this is the biggest problem:  people forget we have them.  But just because they’re invisible doesn’t mean they don’t affect us in visible ways. 

The greatest effect has probably been to my career.  I would have loved to pursue music or musical theatre, but I simply didn’t have the energy or the support I needed to pursue it.  So I spent 14 years, which is longer than you get for murder, these days, in a line of work I had no interest in, and that sucked all my energy and left me with none for the things I enjoyed.  I was bored out of my brain, and since one of my depression triggers is boredom…well, you can see the problem right there.  My psychologist said he believes I have a form of PTSD – not from any one trauma, but from having to spend every day in an environment that so completely clashed with my personality.  First World Problems, I know, but you’d be amazed how all the little negative effects add up.  Still, I’m the kind of person that does things 100%, even if I don’t enjoy them, but I soon discovered that even that wasn’t good enough.  In a corporate environment, it’s all about the mask you put on (which is one of the reasons I don’t get on with it – I like it when people are ‘what you see is what you get’).  At appraisals I’d be told I needed to ‘put on a face’ to hide my exhaustion.  What they could never seem to understand was that I was already putting on a face.  What they were seeing was the spillage.  All three illnesses affect concentration, and make it difficult to shift your focus from one task to another.  I was frequently told that I looked annoyed when my bosses gave me work.  As far as I was concerned, I was there to be given work, and I wasn’t the least bit annoyed, so why was I being told I was feeling something that I wasn’t?  Eventually, I worked out that the effort it took to refocus from the task that was interrupted to listening and understanding what the interrupter was saying to me was showing on my face, and they were reading it as annoyance.  (I have since found another friend who says their ‘efficient concentration face’ also gets read as ‘**** off!’, so I’m not alone in that.)  In hindsight, the effort it took to constantly justify myself and prove that I was working to get better had the opposite effect on me.  Never once was I told my work was at fault – in fact, it was often praised; only the way that I looked.  When a new manager called me into her office and all but told me she wanted me to quit, not because my work was bad, but because of my illness, that was the final straw.  Doing the work and doing it well was clearly not enough.  I made the decision to leave, even though it made me feel like shed won’, and go to university.  Still, I got a lot of very helpful medical treatment during that time, so I guess that good can come out of all things.  (I want to add that that manager was an exception - most people there were fantastic and a joy to work with; the main problem was the nature of the corporate world.)

I suppose the second greatest effect has been on my social life.  Depression has odd effects, like I can get blindly angry at the smallest, stupidest things (although very rarely at my friends, I have to say – usually just at things), and I have occasional memory-recall problems and anxiety issues, all of which affect friendships.  Invisible illnesses are difficult because you never know how you’re going to wake up.  You could be walkin’ on sunshine or drowning in the rain.  You could be full of energy or in so much pain you can’t move.  And, as I said, people forget.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been invited to something by someone, been unable to go at the last minute because of illness, and never been invited out by that person again.  I quite like being spontaneous, but I can’t be.  It takes days to prepare both physically and mentally for going out, especially if it’s somewhere noisy and/or without chairs, like a club.  When I lived in London, I wanted desperately to go out with my friends and flatmates, but rarely could because I never knew until the last minute what they were doing.  When you have an invisible illness, you are painfully aware that you are a wet blanket.  Sometimes, you need to feed off other people’s energy just to survive.  The weight doesn’t help, either.  I don’t care how many times people tell you that looks don’t matter to them; they do.  People started treating me differently when I got above a certain weight.  But when you need to exercise to lose weight but are not allowed to (and aren’t even capable of it)…what can you do but hide in the back of photos and shop at the old-lady shops? 

All of this caused a gradual stripping away of my personality and my confidence.  I guess years of doing the best you can and knowing it’s still not good enough will have that effect, but it’s not only that.  I can no longer trust my body.  I can no longer trust my mind or my emotions.  I used to enjoy driving – I found it relaxing – but now I’m terrified to get behind the wheel because I may not see something or react in time, or I may misjudge a distance due to the spatial awareness problem.  I have no faith that people actually like to have me around – I’ve been a wet blanket for so long that I’m sure they’re just being charitable.  I make a joke and beat myself up for the rest of the day about the stupidity of it.  I constantly think of myself as an inconvenience to people, and feel the need to make myself as small and as blank and as invisible as possible so as not to inconvenience or irritate them further.  (Although I’m not going to lay full responsibility for that one on the illnesses – some people I’ve known have had a knack for making me feel that way.)  I love fashion, but look like a librarian.  You can imagine how the downward spiral of depression operates in these circumstances.  I’m anxious about the future – how do I go back into a full-time job?  What if I end up back in my old line of work?  Tackling new things is terrifying.  Even speaking on the telephone is an effort in anxiety-control, because it involves thinking on my feet and having to remember things or solve problems on the fly.  There have been so many times when I just wanted it all to stop; wanted the world to go away.  I’ve not had suicidal thoughts since I was a teenager, but I can tell you there have been several moments when, standing on the edge of the road, I’ve thought, ‘If I was just hit by a car, I could go to hospital and then I wouldn’t have to go to work or look after myself or make the effort to keep up appearances.  It would be the best holiday ever.’

I didn’t want this post to be all negative; my intention was to help people understand what it is like to live with an invisible illness (or three), so they can understand when someone they know is in that position.  The good news is, things have improved for me since I left the office environment.  University has been tough physically and mentally, but I’m so much better off without the boredom.  You learn, over time, to deal with the pain, take each day as it comes, and ask for help when you need it (as hard as that can be).  But it means living by adjusting and readjusting and compensating and even missing out on things, and that has ripple effects.  I may not get to do what I want to or go where I want to; I may react strangely to things; I don’t have the life I want, by any stretch of the imagination.  But I do believe it is possible to have an enjoyable life and to do something with it that’s worthwhile, and I do believe there are people out there who genuinely care.  For a long time, I didn’t believe those things.  I still don’t know what my future will be like, but I have learned and am still learning coping strategies that I know will make it better than the last 15 or so years have been.

Lastly, I just want to say that if you are depressed or struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please, please ask for help.  It’s nothing to be ashamed of.  Mental illness is no different from any other physical illness, and it’s treatable. 

Things never to say to someone with CFS, JHS/EDS or depression:
    • ‘If you’re extra flexible, why are you so stiff?’
      (Answer: Because my muscles are working too hard and/or are injured.)
    • ‘Why do you talk to yourself?’
      (Answer: Sometimes it’s the only way I can concentrate.)
      • ‘You always get sick.’
        (Answer:  Yes.  I have a LONG-TERM illness.)
      • ‘Didn’t you just have a nap?’
        (Answer:  Didn’t you just have a drink?)
      • ‘We’re going out to a club in 15 minutes.  Do you want to come?’
        (Answer:  If you’d told me a week ago so that I could get my head and my body prepared, I would have been there with bells on.)
      • ‘You could always get a job in a bar.’
        (Answer:  Right, ’cause getting a job where I’m carrying glassware and standing on my feet for hours on end is a great idea.)
         
      • ‘You don’t seem very enthusiastic.’
        (Answer:  If I managed to get here, I’m enthusiastic.)
      • ‘Cheer up.’
        (Answer:  Do you need a slap?)
      • ‘So you’re better now?’
        (Answer:  Arggh!!) 
      You know you have Joint Hypermobility Syndrome when...
      (Cartoon from 'You Know You Have Joint Hypermobility Syndrome When':  Hannah Ensor, Stickman Communications - www.stickmancommunications.co.uk)




      Tuesday, March 25, 2014

      A Simile is Like…


      There’s a strange thing I’ve discovered in the last couple of years about myself as a writer:  I can’t do similes or metaphors.

      I mean that I can’t come up with new ones.  Something in my brain can’t make those kind of out-of-the box connections between the characteristics of two completely separate things.

      THE MOON SHONE LIKE SOMETHING…um…SHINY? 
      …GLITTER GLUE?
      …A ROUND, SILVER THING?
      …A HUBCAP?  Gee, that’s romantic.

      Of course, one of the big no-nos of writing is ‘avoid clichés like the plague’, and if I try to think of one, every 19th-century poet I’ve ever read comes flooding back to me like something that floods things:  ‘eyes like pools’, ‘black as night’, ‘rivers of blood’, ‘white as a sheet’, ‘rosebud lips’, ‘sharp as a tack’, ‘dumb as a post’, ‘he sped out of there like a bullet’, ‘he sat up like he’d been shot’, ‘he came charging in like a freight train’.  A significant chunk of my editing time is spent deleting the poor, tired things that flew in under my radar on the first pass.

      I don’t know why I’m this way (apparently I can’t read myself like a book), but I’ve come to accept the fact that my writing will have to be metaphor- and simile-free for the most part.  Hopefully that doesn’t make it as dull as ditchwater.

      I did once hear of an author who wrote a whole book without a metaphor or a simile, but I’m blowed if I can remember who it was.  If you know the name, please remind me.

      I think one of my favourite similes is ‘sweating like Pavarotti on a treadmill’.  What’s your (clever or funny) favourite?  Tell me in the comments.