Stuff about nothing

It's always difficult knowing what to write: whether it's stuff straight from the heart (please, just call me a lump of lead) which generally grabs me, or stuff that's popular, quaint and in which i have as much interest as a bear mating with a chipmunk - not to say it's lacking, just that it's not for me.

Lets take the tv-series game of thrones.  I say series as the whole phenomenon took me by surprise having never read any of the books.  I used to enjoy reading fantasy novels and watching the travesties that passed for book-to-tv adaptations.  Then I stopped reading fantasy novels and stopped watching the adaptations, or even looking out for them.  Instead i  stuck to the one remaining leg of the "why am i paying for satellite?" stool, which was at the time the sci-fi channel.  Well that was the case, until si-fi decided to become anything but, by cancelling everything sci-fi-ish it could get its hands on.  This took place so often, that eventually i hurled my now worthless subscription (for that is what i viewed it as - for me you understand) out the window and onto the polluted hedge outside.

But those voices refused to shut up.  Week in, week out, people who knew i had forsworn broadcasts and all their poisonous ilk, kept on going on about it.

My natural reaction was to pooh-pooh the whole thing as the deluded ramblings of non-genre-ites, probably clambering aboard a relatively okay cgi produced bandwagon.  This lasted for about a month, until more people kept on mentioning this game of thrones, and just how good it was.

Eventually my curiosity was piqued and sturdy fortitude gave way to  "well, what's the harm in watching an episode?"

So i did.

And i was hooked.

The foaming of the "whatdaymeanitsfinished!!!!" kind of hooked, that has you thinking up decidely suitable punishments for tv executives everywhere, for either cancelling or making you wait a year before the next season starts - if you're lucky.  The last time a show had that slight effect was on hearing stargate universe had been cancelled, again by sigh-fi!  Not that g.o.t has anything to do with sy-fy, but the general tenet regarding execs remains.

But g.o.t had sweep, plot, acting, brilliant casting and bloody good cgi - apart from the dragons at the end.  A world which, if you allowed yourself to fully immerse into it's winter is coming mantra, had you hooked in its bleak, yet gorgeous, portrayals, wonderfully reminiscent of the superb lord of the rings (peter jackson version).

There was going to be a point, and something in this rambling bit of nonsense about lord of the rings - apart from fantastic - but this will have to do.