Cancellations

I can't just be me that finds cancellations one of the most annoying things in the world - yes there is something I find more annoying than Fred Barlow and cancellations are it.

The most irritating form it comes in is cheques. This is especially troublesome in my line of work as I deal solely in cash and cheques and there is nothing worse than when someone writes a bad cheque or writes one that will actually clear but then cancels it before I can put it in the bank.

This week alone I have had three, yes three, cheques cancelled on me so quite clearly something needed to be done and being a private investigator it really wasn't hard for me to find out where these deadbeat clients were hiding from me and took even less time for me to beat my money out of them. In my line of work you either get paid or you starve, or get whacked, or get walked all over by scumbags.

It did get me thinking though about other things being cancelled and why it is that you have no control over them. Bus and trains being cancelled are one of the more frustrating things for the general population since they often lead to people having to stand around in the cold and the wet waiting for something that is never going to come and on rare occasions does leave individuals stranded.

I tend to avoid public transport so that doesn't bother me too much though every time I seem to have to take a plane it gets cancelled.

The other form of cancellation that really annoys me is when TV series are cancelled - especially halfway through a series. The one that most people gripe about is Firefly, and yes it was amazing but there are other series like the Visitors, Sports Night, the Magnificent Seven and Caprica that were all cut short in their prime. It's one thing that Fred and Harry never seem to shut up about.

It worries me that most of their conversation seems to be orientated around topics like television and Star Wars and other things that they seem to talk about just to annoy me, but then again it is still better than listening to Rick and Harry discussing which of their female conquests that they have in common.

Television

Even with such a wide variety of channels that you can get free through your TV and even more that you can pay for - it still seems like it is seen by high-brow individuals as being an idiot box.

Now I will admit that things like reality TV shows and panel game shows and competitions are very much overdone, especially when different channels run shows that are almost identical in order to try and "compete" with one another.

But this similar format in programming is not just limited to reality TV, in fact there are so many procedural cop TV shows that glamorize a certain profession that has men with egos that are large enough without the extra publicity and status that these kind of shows bring. The other problem with procedural cop TV shows is that they tend to vilify the poor and innocent bounty hunter, private investigator and mercenary in a very unfair light...well maybe not so unfair but I still don't like it.

There are a certain number of shows that do seem to break the mould of this dreary predictability, shows like the West Wing, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, the Magnificent Seven, Spaced, Porridge, To the Manor Born, Firefly, Blackadder, shows that are wonderful to watch time and again due to fantastic acting, brilliant scripting and being well produced. Granted their ratings weren't necessarily as high as the more boring television and trashy programs that are broadcast, but that doesn't take away from how wonderful they are.

Then for those who see fictional programs as being a waste of time there are arts channels and programs, ballet, opera and theatre that is broadcast; nature documentaries - most of them seemingly having David Attenborough involved - historical documentaries and even channels that are there purely to provide religious and faith-based programming. 

The television is hardly an idiot box, a great drain and distraction on time - true enough, a killer of the art of conversation? Arguable. An easy way for people to have to avoid talking to each other about problems? Almost certainly.

However as far as television goes, it reached it's peak in the 1990s with Sharkey & George, Poddington peas, Family Ness, Jonny Quest, Earthworm Jim, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and the X-men cartoons. After that they really shouldn't have bothered doing anything else, I mean Top Cat and the Wacky Races defined the pinnacle of television before the 1990s cartoons came along and blew them out of the water. 

I know I am in the minority in yearning for the past glories of television that will never again grace the airways or digital signal as they are now, but then again I still have a working VCR and a TV that has a back box that is four times the size of the screen. So maybe it's me that is stuck in the past and digging my heels in, not wanting to move on, but then again I really don't care; at least my brain is being rotted by high class, time absorbing, entertainment and not modern trash.

Space Cowboy

The wild west has always been something I have loved. The gunslingers, the outlaws, the bandits, the Indians, the lawmen and the Texas Rangers; all of them seem to be my glamourous and overly romanticised precursors.

I say all of them because there are aspects of the stereotypical Hollywood portrayals of the different groups that I can identify with. With the gunslingers, I feel that the reason I identify with them is more than obvious. I share a desire to defend my homeland and avenge those that have been unjustly taken from me by bad, bad men. Men that have dodged the law avoided paying their penance for their crimes. A penance only payable by giving what they took - an eye for an eye.

The outlaws are fighting back against the heavy hand of justice that never gave them a fair chance, let off those that had done wrong by them and forced them into a life that they never wanted or intended to lead. Well in some respects at least. The times I ignore Fred, tie Fred up, lock Fred in cupboards, throw Harry off the scent, accidentally shot Fred don't really come under the "outlaws fighting back" category, more in the category of annoying my friends when they won't leave me alone. No I feel I fall into the outlaw category because I work very hard to bring down cops like Gary Rogers, Richard Ellis and Ross Turndune. Snakes that use the law to hide behind and crush the innocent under when it suits them.

The bandits, taking what they have to in order to survive, working for and against outlaws when it suits their purpose and reveling in the violence that comes with every new day. Well aside from the reveling in the violence part, I think that accurately describes my day to day life and struggle to survive long enough to kill...bring to justice those who have wronged me.

The Indians, having been robbed of what is rightly theirs, their free soaring spirits that are at one with the land and the pride in their way of life. All three fit perfectly with me and I have been tempted more than once to scalp certain individuals who find themselves funnier than they actually are.

The lawmen, standing as a barrier between innocent people and those that wish to do them harm. Well I sort of stand between between innocent people and those that wish to harm them, I also work for guilty people and protect them from guilty people who would do them harm as well.

And finally the Texas Rangers, that always get their man, I like to feel that I am that tenacious, that relentless and that focused. That I will not rest until those that have found themselves fallen afoul of me and my employers would feel the same terror as those that tried to run from or fight the Texas Rangers. I am Rooster Cogburn reborn in a woman's body, dressed in biker leathers and a trench coat and armed with revolvers.

Bounty Hunters I feel come a little too close to what I actually do to count as being from the wild west.

Though if I had to find myself a modern day equivalent then all I have to say on the matter is, I aim to misbehave.

Looking for the perfect present for Raven Siren fans? Look no further!  The Nicolette Mace books are now available in digital and paperback from Barnes and Noble. For more information about the Nicolette Mace universe please visit the wiki.