Life on Mars

Last night I was watching an episode of Life on Mars. The show was about a police inspector from the present day who is hit by a car while investigating a serial killer. When he wakes up he finds himself in 1973, and has to discover whether he is in a coma, whether he has gone insane, or whether he really is back in time. The main element of the show is how his present day attitudes and police methods conflict with those of his early seventies colleagues. It's a really entertaining show, even though they are repeats it's the only show on at the moment that I really make sure and catch.

I was reading another story from the Essential Ellison collection by Harlan Ellison. This one was called "Punky and the Yale Men" about a hugely successful author who has been commissioned to write a follow-up to his debut book about his experiences among a teenage street gang in New York. He is really scared to do it, but he takes the job anyway, because he doesn't want to lose face. Then he meets a couple of students from Yale who want to show him the real dark side of New York, and he soon discovers that there are far worse things to lose than just pride. It's creepy but not really a fantasy, science-fiction, or even a horror story. Harlan Ellison writes extremely well though, so you can be literally laughing out loud at one point and then then extremely moved or genuinely terrified in the next paragraph.

Today at work was quiet. I am being profiled in the staff magazine next month and so had to answer a bunch of questions such as what makes me laugh? What living person I most admire? Who would be my ideal dinner date? and who would play me in a movie of my life? I also had to submit a photograph that they could make a charicature of.

I went home after work and then went over to the Standing Order for a few drinks with my Dad. So that was really nice.