As usual, it’s the day after nights and I’m struggling through the beyond an entire day awake in the hopes of forcibly readjusting my sleep pattern. Not least because there’s huge, vast, enormous quantities of stuff to do on the house to get it ready for valuation and then sale.
So after my 77+ hour week I’ve stayed up, as I do, for 25.5 hours so far (about another 3 to go). I’ve watched the film of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ – which is, it turns out, an excellent film. The subtitles came off the internet and weren’t exactly perfect, but having just read the book it wasn’t really a problem – and it was really interesting to compare / contrast the two.
Normally when I do a book/film comparison it’s because I’ve watched the film and then read the book because I liked the film. This time it’s the other way around – and it’s very interesting, because I’m used to more being added to the story – more depth, layers, characterisation. But this time, it’s the opposite – it’s paring down the book to the point where it’ll fit in a film – and I think to a greater extent they’ve done it well. The character of Lisbeth does loose something from not having more of her background hinted at – and her recent history too. The other thing that was either lost in translation or lost to my British sensibilities (it is, after all, a Swedish film) was the humour in the (translation of the) book. There’s some very darkly funny moments in the book and they seemed to be gone entirely which was sad – I was particularly fond of a scene (no spoilers) which takes place is Lisbeth’s kitchen. And it’s hinted at a little in the film, but it’s a brief moment of humour.
Anyhow, definately worth watching.
In other news, I’m quietly distressed about the Lib-Dem/Con coalition’s actions. I find myself in a painful place where I felt I could not in good conscience vote for Labour – their disregard for civil liberties and disgraceful behaviour surrounding the DEB meant that they had lost that chance. So I stuck my vote for the Lib Dems. I’ve always liked lib-dem policy proposals. They seemed to walk a fine line between left and right, not much privatisation, less privacy invading crap, fairer taxes, electoral reform, blah-dy-blah-dy-blah. And yes, I had a bit more faith in them, mostly because I imagined that politicians who’d decided to stand in a party that had as much hope of winning an outright election were smaller than a gnat’s toothpick probably had some kind of morals.
I have lost that hope now. I find myself increasingly distressed by the things that they, as members of the coalition, are allowing through. The recent budget while it shouldn’t hit me terribly hard (although fuck people who think the public sector should pay for the private sector screwing the economy – the thing these people forget is that we* get shite pay – which has continuously lagged far behind private sector pay and then when things go wrong our pay gets held at whatever shite level it was at for years, before finally starting to creep upwards until the private sector fuck it all up again, at which point we’re even further behind private sector pay**) does hit those on low incomes (lower than ours) *really* hard.
And I notice the ‘all-in-it-together’ ConservoDems or whatever they want to be thought of as managed to barely touch top-rate tax payers, the increase in tax their paying is all down to already existing stuff brought in by Labour.
The few good things the lib-dems have manged to add in are so vastly overshadowed by the crap that they’ve supported that they can add themselves to my ‘no, not voting for you again’ list. Have some fucking morals, people.
Can you tell I’m tired (and a bit cranky). In other news, well, there isn’t a great deal of other news. The garden continues to look lovely; the house schedule has, depressingly, slipped. I’d neglected this week of nights, but it does give me a week of solid house-work. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s going to be ridiculously hot all week, which will slow me down…
In other, other news – I’ve listened to Nikki’s appearance on Geekcast (excellent, very impressive Ms GB), and watched more of Caprica. Caprica hasn’t grabbed me like BSG, but it niggles at my brain summoning me back to see the world develop – so I’m reckoning it’s going to be quite interesting :)
And that’s it.
*By we, I’m referring to the we of which I have some experience – i.e. health and education sector workers.
** Seriously, I have no idea how Paramedics and even more so Techs and ECA’s survive. They are paid *pathetic* amounts of money to be sworn at, spat on, kicked and have less protection from their employers than any of them deserve.
