Technology turned against me today at a time when I really needed it to play ball. It's mainly my own stupid fault for insisting on using a day when I desperately needed to get work done to upgrade my iPhone and Macbooks to the new operating system, but I thought that it would be a background distraction for me, rather than self sabotage.
I had left things loading up overnight, but still the Macbook with the Objective script on it needed another 30 minutes to load up the new operating system, so I dusted off my old one to write my blog. I spent a good hour going back and forth between computers and had written an entry that had taken all kinds of twists and turns. And then Firefox decided to crash (it was an old version without all the patches and if I had been more cautious I might have written the blog in a backupable format) and I lost everything. This would have been annoying any day, but today, with so much to do, it was very frustrating.
Then when my newly enLioned macbook finally kicked into life I discovered that the new system does not support Microsoft Office 2004 and it seemed that I couldn't access any of my Word files, including what little work I had done on my script. Steve Jobs was laughing at me from Heaven above, or more likely his ghost was in my machine and making merry Hell with me, whilst laughing at all the money he was making, before them remembering he was dead and couldn't pick it up, before then remembering that he was inside a computer and could buy stuff using electronic money and then laughing.
I hate Steve Jobs so much that I wish he was alive so he could only move in the physical realm. The whole internet is now his plaything. Be wary lest he leaps at you through your portal. This would make a great Tales of the Unexpected if only Roald Dahl wasn't dead... And he was too technologically backward to use a computer. The man used pencils for Christ's sake. You can't haunt me from inside a pencil, Dahl. Well you can give it a go, but you're going to have very limited haunting abilities.
I also struggled a bit to make my email work in the new iCloud and my iTunes was certainly not syncing automatically like the adverts promised.
Worse still, in between all this, the script was not leaping into life. I am so keen to make my arguments about disablism solid and strong that it feels impossible to get started. And at the moment it's lots of polemic and not many laughs. Hopefully tomorrow will rescue me from this purgatory. We've been through this enough times over the years to know that the pain and fear is usually followed by me pulling it out of the bag. But every time it feels like this will be the time I don't. And one time that will surely come to pass.
Fear should lead to inspiration tomorrow (let's hope so) but please God (by whom I mean Jobs) let my computers work. I will worship you for always. Don't let your greedy Lion eat all my work (and money).
Tonight I went to the theatre, though I really should have stayed home and worked. But it was only down in Hammersmith and I thought a couple of hours off might actually kick start my brain. But the play was a long one,
Saved by Edward Bond and a bit overly theatrical for my tastes. I knew it wasn't going to be all flowers and sunshine because the famous scene in this controversial work (SPOILER ALERT) involves some men stoning a baby to death in a pram. There was also lots of shouting and crying and angst and pessimism about human nature. It reminded me of the work of Patrick Marber and there's little worse that can be said about theatre than that. But I have to admit that I didn't really get it and that it's probably down to my ignorance. I like nearly everything the Lyric does and I can see the skill of the actors and director in this one. I just didn't like the play at all. It ends (SPOILER ALERT) with a long scene where nothing happens (can that qualify as a spoiler) and almost nothing is said that dragged on for so long it almost made me laugh. Everyone sat quietly and watched. The world of theatre has it easy. If someone tried something like this in a comedy club they'd be ripped apart (or hailed as a genius). We'd already been in the theatre for so long that this did seem like a kind of a post modern joke (to an extent I suppose it was) but I would have had more repect for the piece if they made this final scene last for much, much longer. Maybe if they just played chicken with us and stayed sitting there doing pretty much nothing until someone actually complained or everyone left.
It wasn't all bad and there was some thought provoking stuff and some laughs (but again, it seems much easier to get these in the theatre) as well as some horrible imagery (though I never felt like there was a baby in the pram so it didn't make me gasp or cry as it did with some of the people around me), but the characters were unlikeable and the stuff they said and did unrealistic and mainly there it seemed to demonstrate how daring and brutally "honest" the playwright was, so it didn't matter if no one would do or say any of the things they said or did. Patrick Marber.
I await the 5 star reviews from the critics who get how clever and brilliant this was and to have my ignorance confirmed, but I wouldn't have minded if this play remained unperformed for another 27 years (though I'd loved to have seen Dennis Waterman in it - he was in the original production).
