Common Pieces of Advice that are Actually Awful

"There's plenty more fish in the sea."  "Look before you leap." "He who dares wins."  These three well-known sayings each have two things in common.  First, they're all said so often that its almost as though they're ingrained within our collective psyche from birth.  Who can remember the first time they heard the saying "Look before you leap?"  Exactly.  Secondly, they are all perfectly sound pieces of advice.  Each one concisely relays an important, impeccable way of dealing with life, and it is unlikely that, once heard, they'll ever be forgotten.
But for every common piece of good advice there is an equally common, but utterly terrible one.  Here are just a few of those.

"Never Apologise."
This spit of rhetoric garbage was foremost a way to handle certain acts of clumsiness that could have legal repercussions.  For example, saying 'sorry' at the scene of a car accident instantly renders you the party at fault in the eyes of others and could land you with a hefty fine or worse.  And in that respect, there's nothing wrong with that.
But recently, "Never apologise" has made its way into a more common pantheon of advice and is now readily used as a way to help people improve their assertiveness and confidence.  But, think about this; people who never apologise are fucking dickheads.  It is nigh-on impossible to pass through seventy-plus years on this planet without screwing up at least once, let alone every other month.  In the agonisingly long process of trial and error that is life, it is a given that you're a few wrong turns or double measures away for making somebody else's life a complete mess, for however brief a period of time, and if, in all that time, you utterly refuse to apologise, you're going to develop the reputation of a spiteful, heartless bitch.  The other week I got quite severely drunk and (as I am regrettably wont to do), lost the people I was with due to nothing more than my own inebriated idiocy.  Stupidly jumping to the assumption that my friends had instead abandoned me, I decided to text one of them with a cluster of angry, incoherent F and C bombs.  Now, the sort of person I am when pissed notwithstanding, what sort of person would I be if I'd simply held my tongue the following morning and not bothered to say sorry to my friend?  I'd quite possibly be at least one friend down at the time of writing, at any rate.  Now, this unapologetic way of being is really quite insufferable at any degree of severity.  Working in a bar several years ago, a fellow bartender dropped a tray of empty glasses on my foot.  It bloody hurt.  Want to know how she responded?  She looked me squarely in the eye, shrugged and walked off.  I imagine she'd been advised to "Never Apologise," by some equally misinformed self-styled sage.  Either way, she ended up losing her job not long after.  Guess that not apologising thing is really working out for her.

"Rise Above It."
Okay, this one isn't invariably awful as common advice goes, but there are many occasions in life where "rising above it" is, plainly put, the entirely wrong thing to do.
While "Rise above it" can often mean "don't stoop to the level of the immature moron," it can also sometimes mean "let the moron walk all over you."  For, sometimes, these morons don't go away just because you've held your tongue.  I'm not condoning violent retribution or childish vengeance, but it doesn't always do to internally say "Well, at least I'm not like them," and be done with it.  People that unleash their spew of hatred and abuse to an unwavering crowd of people silently "rising above it" are never going to be motivated to stop being dicks.  And if word starts to spread that there's no retribution against being a dick, sooner or later there'll be nothing to rise to, in a world of unflapping dicks.  Sometimes people need to be stopped, and sometimes that involves dropping slightly closer to their level.  Sorry (see what I did there?), but that's the way life works.

"There's Always Someone Worse off Than You."
Or; "You're not allowed to feel down because you're not lying in a pool of feces, simultaneously dying of dysentery and malnutrition while your father gets beheaded for desertion and your mother gets ravaged by the militia."
Not only is this one entirely redundant (is there anybody on Earth, short of the aforementioned, who truly thinks that nobody in human history has ever suffered a trauma worse than their cancelled flight?), but it is also condescending, and indicative of a false-friend who doesn't think you're entitled to feel bad about some things.  At best it is innocently misused as an attempt to cheer somebody up, but why exactly is the knowledge that, while you've just been dumped, someone else has just been murdered, a comforting notion?  In short, an absurdly high number of seemingly happy people have warped notions on how trauma can be dealt with; they apply a broad, non-variable approach to their suffering loved one when really it should be obvious that mental anguish is as personal and exclusive as emotion gets.  Being reminded of the real horrors of the world doesn't placate one's own horror, and that's without even bringing cultural variables into it.  For that reason, the complaint "First World Problems," (although not in its most extreme usage) also applies to this list.

"It Gets Better."
The most sickeningly optimistic and baseless piece of prolifically-spewed reassurance ever to befoul the human tongue.  Does it get better?  Definitely?  And you know this how, exactly?  Are you Doctor Who? 
You know how, when a cancer patient asks a doctor if they'll be cured, the doctor doesn't immediately grin and shout "Yes!  And you'll win the lottery, too"?  That's because giving people hope when they can't possibly know the outcome of a situation is an act that should remain entirely confined to children's stories.  False hope is both a virus and a placebo.  It alters impressionable minds toward the delusion that no more bad things are going to happen, and only makes it all the worse when they occasionally do.
There is some semblance of rationale behind the advice; used in a break-up, for example, it is employed with the knowledge that heartbreak doesn't last forever.  But what if that person learns that the former love of their life is now pregnant, or was carrying an STD, or is shacking up with their dad?  There are too many unpredictable variables that will ultimately render the adage "It gets better" a terrible thing to say.

"You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat it."
Let's be clear - having your cake means keeping it and enjoying its visual attractiveness; it's not another word for eating it, as some misinformed critics of the phrase have assumed.  But you can take a photo of the cake, then instagram it so it looks infinitely sexier, then eat it.  Yum yum.

Dartmoor Trek in October

I hopped on the bus at Newton Abbot with the intention of alighting at Manaton, a little village to the west of Dartmoor.  Chatting to a nice old lady about the imminent moor trek I was about to embark upon, she seemed unsure as to why I was going to Manaton of all places, which made me feel a little anxious because she should know.  From this point in the journey I held an increasingly foreboding assumption about Manaton but I couldn't imagine what horrors within would make a passive elderly woman baffled at someone's choosing to visit there.
The driver, making a judgement call about me I suppose, stopped at a pub called the Kestor Inn and let me off.  I didn't immediately get my bearings, so I walked up and down Manaton for a while until I swallowed my introverted pride and asked a lady for directions to the church which sits atop the path into the moor.
Once I found the church I began the trek as my map instructed.  I passed through a gate onto the lower moor and, able to see the legendary 'Bowerman's Nose' rock up ahead, I opted to follow my instincts.
This proved to be a mistake as the section of moorland which I passed over was fenced off halfway up.  To the right of the fence were thick, thorny bushes with no pathway through them.
Having walked back and forth through the long grass looking for a gap in the fence to no avail, I had a sudden rush of aggravated determination and decided to just traverse the hill through the thorny bushes.  At their worst they came up to my chin as I ploughed through them.  I tripped on rocks and cut my shins through my jeans as the hill got steeper and the bushes thicker, but looking back it was quite clear I couldn't return the way I came, and the spectacular rocky tor atop the hill kept my spirits up and kept me going.
The vast, rolling hills and untouched natural landscape surrounding me came up and gained breathtaking clarity as I climbed higher - an endless cascade of beautiful green and little to no evidence of human interference for what seemed like a hundred miles in any direction (even though I knew full well that there was a pub and a bus stop round the corner).
By the end of the stretch the hill had gotten so steep that I was no longer walking but climbing.  Finally I reached the top by the palms of my quivering hands and the highest Dartmoor panorama under the deep blue sky was exhilarating as I straightened my back and waited for my breath to return.

There were sheep roaming on the hilltop and in the distance I could see the Hound Tor (the cluster of rocks that featured in the Sherlock episode The Hounds of Baskerville and supposedly inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write the original novel in the first place), which was the main sight I came here to see.  I started back down the hill on the other side and the walk to Hound Tor was an easy one.
Once I'd made the climb to the tor I sat on a rock and ate my lunch.  I felt I could stay there all day, but I was on a deadline to be back in Manaton before the last bus back to Newton Abbot departed and left me stranded.
I got up and walked down the steep hill from the tor and came to the ruins of a medieval village.  It was quite interesting; the shapes of long-vanished stone huts remained at their bases.  From there I went further on down into the woods and crossed Becca Brook, passed through the shady woodland and came back onto the open moor.
Taking a left turn at the sign to Leighon, I drifted from the path and became lost again.  For the most part I was content with being lost; this was the most beautiful corner of England I'd ever seen.  I was the only person for miles in any direction and I could see the tors I'd passed earlier on the horizon to my left so, even without the path, I still had my bearings.
However, I also began feeling tired and short of breath as I traversed steep, rugged slopes in my attempt to find my way back to Manaton.  At one point I came to another wooded area and decided to run through it, hunched and snarling like a beast (aping the dream sequence from An American Werewolf in London), just because I wanted to and there was nobody there to laugh at me for doing so.  During the run I dropped my coat without realising and had to retrace my steps in order to find it.
I passed through a gate in hope that it would lead me back but instead I found myself staggering clumsily down a hill and landing feet-first into a boggy marsh.  Thankfully, the low branch of a tree was within reach so I easily pulled myself free.  Irritated, and beginning to grow concerned that I might not actually find my way back in time to catch the last bus, I began to run, as fast as my exhausted legs could manage, back the way I came.  Cows and sheep stared bemusedly at me, almost mocking me with their glares like the lost, unprepared tourist I was.  But I was being dramatic.
After an exhausting ramble, in which I almost stopped to fall to my knees on several occasions, I found myself back at the top of the hill and on relatively stable ground.  Manaton should have been ahead but the moor mist prevented me from seeing it.  For a good hour my bearings were irrelevant.  The afternoon mist had lowered slightly but even so I could not glean a slither of the modest village's skyline in any direction.  The ground was damp, the damp seeped through the soles of my ill-chosen shoes and now my already tired feet were soggy to boot.  The mist pinched my nose and cheeks and my stinging eyes were moistened in the freezing cold.  I wanted now to be off this wretched moor as soon as I could be.  A strong coffee and a warm armchair were in order.
To my relief, through the parting fog I could make out the shape of a close by cluster of shrubs, the centrepiece being a gnarly, crooked tree - bereft of leaves (understandably in this late autumn).  Beneath the tree stood an upright figure, rather still - a woman, facing toward the town, I hoped.  Finally!  The first human being I'd crossed paths with in hours.
I upped my pace to a modest jog to approach my would-be guide.  'Excuse me,' I called.  'Sorry, is this the right way to Manaton?'
My friend did not reply.  She remained motionless as I approached, closed in and eventually took hold of the terrible realisation.  She was not standing, she was hanging.
A weathered rope stretched from the lowest branch of the petrified oak, about a metre down to her neck.  Her face - clearly beautiful in life - twisted into a pained, sad snarl and her head was lopsided at the neck.  She was clothed in a thin, grey dress which was soaked through and clinging to her delicate frame, and her skin was as white as the moorland fog.
'Oh - no, no!' I groaned upon beholding all of this.  I stepped back out of morbid embarrassment, as though I had committed some deathly faux pas in requesting her attention a moment before.  Again I moaned, I raised my hands to my eyes and trod clumsily this way and that as I slowly got to grips with what hung before me, less than a foot from the dewy ground.
As I slowly regained my senses I caught sight of the most curious part of the whole grisly situation - the corpse's left hand was stretched out at her side, fingers closed around something.  I leaned in and squinted and realised there were strawberries in her hand.  In a sudden trance I crept toward the body and carefully took the strawberries - her cold, rigid fingers making it slightly difficult as though beyond life she was still reticent to let me have them.  As I closed in to retrieve the fruits I beheld her glazed eyes upon her crooked face and I would not have been completely shocked were they to then suddenly glance toward me, accusingly.  But she did not stir.
With tears forming in my eyes I pulled the stem from one of the strawberries and ate the fruit, staring sadly at the hanging corpse, like a pale ghost floating in mid air, as I chewed.  Beyond her I saw the beginnings of the village.  It seemed a petty triumph now, in light of what I'd just stumbled upon.
Simultaneously relieved and terrified, I ran into a waking daze for the comfort of the fringes of civilisation.  I passed through a gate that I'd avoided earlier because a large gathering of cows had been clustered around it.  They were gone now.  This took me onto a smooth, tarmac lane that helped me regain my calm.  By now it had hit home how ridiculous I was being before, fretting about missing the bus and being stranded on the moors - there was still an hour until my bus and I was already close to the stop.
Even so, I punched the air when I saw the sign for Manaton and, soon after, the inviting shape of the Kestor Inn.  I stopped for a pint of Devonshire's finest ale, perched in the serene beer garden and took out my notebook to write my adventure down before it faded from memory.  Parts of it seemed to already have faded and as I tried to recall every little detail I went hazy and felt as though I'd fallen into a near-dream state.  I looked up and saw something almost human silhouetted in the distant moor, and with a dismissive shrug I began to write.  It was, ultimately, a cheery afternoon's ramble and I'd gladly go back to Manaton. 

The Ashen Bough

The Ashen Bough is to be the title of my next novel.  I am not participating in National Novel Writing Month as I did last year, as I want to spend a long time on this book and not feel compelled to rush any of it by an impending deadline.  It is inspired by a dream I had as a child, in which my favourite boyhood tree turned black and gnarly and starting spouting rotten, severed heads and nasty ravens cawing at me.  The dream stayed with me and comes to me when I am feeling low.  I wrote a blog about it last year, when I was feeling particularly bad, and which roused some alarm among my friends and family.  This year I wrote a song about the Bough which I debuted at a gig at The Spice of Life a couple of weeks ago.  The song went down well.  All I currently know about the novel is that it will begin and end with a sullen child looking at the aforementioned tree of utter dread.  The remainder of this blog consists of the lyrics to the Ashen Bough song, the blog post I wrote a year ago (I'm all better now) and a picture I drew of the dream in order to promote the show I played.

The Ashen Bough (Song)

The Ashen Bough is such a sorry sight to see
You'd never make a lovely table out of this dread tree
But nonetheless, atop a barren hill, it stands in the cold
And it may look dead but it keeps on (it grows and it grows)
And the red glare of dusk flickers 'twixt its twigs
And it coils and it yawns and it starts to spout things
As the little baby me stands and stares in despair
Out pops a rasping, ragged raven and six or seven severed heads

Then the raven flaps its wings and it sounds like a laugh
As the seven severed heads turn to face it at last
And at once the bough breaks and, one by one, the dead heads
Start to wobble and to fall and they land at my legs
So the little baby me takes a sullen step back
But a black imposing wall stops me dead in my tracks
So I look back at the tree and I think that I know
This Ashen Bough is the last sorry sight that this sick world will show

All the severed heads on the Ashen Bough
Try to scream at me through their useless mouths
Dead eyes!  Dead eyes!  Trying to make their pleas
All the severed heads trying to laugh at me
Seven severed heads on the severed head tree

The Ashen Bough (Blog post from January 2014)

A little under a year ago I put myself out there in a way many of my friends weren't expecting and like wolves sniffing the wet blood of a fresh wound the brains on legs pricked their ears and cocked their heads and, like wolves - bloodlust substituted for throbbing urgency to promote superior intellects - they pounced on me.  Casual remarks about the recently translated Iranian existential tome they've just ploughed through, or the YouTubed lectures of esteemed liberal journalists I might not have heard of.  The offhand remarks about the ballet excursion, the "cinema that shows proper films" and the little-known cafe round the back where anarchic, youngblood writers read their political one man dramas and sip espressos well past midday.  "You should go there Joe, incidentally-" They continually try to intellectually one-up me because I've done something.  Appreciation is dead.  People who have had no interest in fiction writing or literary critique are suddenly literary editors when I dare to wax excited about my next book.  From my announcement to the death of time, the ability of my contemporaries to like or dislike something has ceased to be.  You now have to prove why you are a more esteemed authority on the enjoyment, or more accurately the critical analysis, of the work.  "Wait and see, Joe will crumble and go back to talking about The Simpsons.  What's he doing writing a book?  He hasn't done the research!"  Have you ever woken up with striking, stabbing pains about your gut, crippling lethargy and a headache that makes you realise you've never really had a headache before?  Ah but have you woken up knowing exactly why you're feeling that and not remotely surprised apart from in light of the fact that you have woken up at all?  Why do you ask?  Oh, you don't.  It's little surprise given that I wrote a character well known to be based on me, a character who attempts suicide twice and all of my friends and family read it and not a single one asked me if I was okay.  That I put out a blog detailing a real life suicide attempt and the crux of the interest garnered was a couple of facebook likes (are you liking my misery, or the quality of writing and if the latter, why the hold up?).  Every day a new niggle gets my mind racing to that thought again.  Depression used to be its own motivator for the unthinkable, but what now?  I anticipate my lasting, post-mortem reputation as a selfish man, as is the legacy of self-murderers, and that puts me off.  But when you wake in the dead of night virtually choking on your own self-loathing, misery and hatred of being, when the living motive of sparing loved ones of trauma is clouded by the trauma you are already heaping upon yourself, is it really that selfish to wish to opt out?  I stand on the windowsill attached via leather belt to the ceiling, and I must blink images that make me smile into my mind's eye just to muster up the urge to untie and step down.  There is Jade and she loves me and tells me I can do anything.  She is never cynical, never undeservedly cross and she always thinks of me even in her own times of hardship [sic].  There are my friends who make me laugh and do not emit loud, smelly intellectual burps when I try to confide about my next literary endeavour.  But they're not here at the moment, and I'm flaking away from the rationale that it is not their job to be there for me every minute of every day.  Why can't I appreciate or help with their problems?  Why am I only interested in myself?  And oh there I am refastening the belt and teetering on the ledge again.  Round and round and round she goes.  I feel the rancid, festering loathing, the leathery black loss of childlike innocence bubbling up and eating away at my guts and my red eyes see only quivering claws where once they saw a big exciting world.  A gnarly, scorched oaken bough coiling out of my mind upon which sits a rasping, ragged raven, demon-eyed and fluttering malevolently at the little boy who tries to peer in to explore.  And the dead tree winds and grows out of my howling mouth and from its leafless branches grow rotting, disembodied heads which groan and ask for help but they are asking nobody.  Between the jagged twigs the red light of dusk flickers, the collateral of a descending red sun that burns but does not warm.  It is not the night that I reach for in this pathetic fallacy, for the night is peaceful.  I can reflect in the night and I seldom look worriedly over my shoulder as I walk through the night among the shadowy spires of London and the still, sparse parks stretching out and breathing deeply as they recover from a long afternoon of being raped by tourists.  It is the day and its transparent, false hope that gets me as I try and make a straight path through the belligerent crowds of smart-phone zombies who'd sooner take a lamppost or double decker to the face than wait another twenty seconds to read their precious Instagram notification.  The meandering march of the zombie hordes - sallow faces planted firmly down at their shimmering touch screens (the extensions of their minds - brain in hand like the Ood from Doctor Who) is a sickening sight but if I'm the only one actually looking up to see it then is it really a problem?  And if I'm the only one suffering from my suffering then is it really a problem if I take the only straight path left available - the straightening of the falling rope?  But the last hurdle is physical pain - a pain I am (slightly) less familiar with so how about that gnarly, blackened tree with its demon sun and howling heads be replaced by a slowly sagging willow, lilting delicately to the ground as Autumn approaches and the skies darken with the grace of a landing jet plane?  I took an overdose for you.  This is what I've read about those who take the medicine in one hand and the whisky in t'other and close their eyes to their favourite songs and fall into a deep sleep with that scenario imprinting on them forever.  Not an escape of immense pain and damp-eyed anguish which leaves the macabre hanging corpse but a drastic coma - a passing as close to one of natural causes as my hand will allow.  "He went peacefully, in his sleep.  He took several dozen grams of codeine and seventy centilitres of Jameson's whisky to go peacefully but the important thing is he went peacefully." But that ever-pressing oversight of mine which the cod-intellectual wolves like to pounce upon slaps me with a cold wet flannel and I wake up with a start.  RESEARCH, JOE.  YOU HAVEN'T EVEN DONE THE RESEARCH!  Came the morning, it didn't work.  That's not nearly enough codeine to do you in, all that will do is corrode your liver and constipate you for a few days.  Idiot.  And now I'm that nerd from The Breakfast Club who tries to shoot himself with a flare gun.  Laughter erupts in the detention classroom of my mind and I'm annoyed I still have to work.  It's not my birthday anymore, either.  And time passes and I slink through the daily grind with a quiet embarrassment and maybe the world is a sentient being because after this I'm blindsided by decent days in double digits - things are going well, I'm plucking nice, new memories out of nowhere and not even thinking about... thinking about... thinking about... wait a minute.  No, it's fine.  I can get on with my work, go for a nice walk around historic London and fall asleep with the full intention of waking up.  Then I can talk about it (or, best I can manage, blog about it) as an event from the past but I've done the same before later relapses and in the back of my temporarily optimistic mind I know that I'm one gruff encounter or condescending comment away from hurling my collected memories into the fire and reaching for that leather belt again.  Time will tell.  At least I've done the research this time.

The Ashen Bough (Artist's Impression)

A Purist's Apology to Sherlock

At some point over the summer my girlfriend and I went for a drink in a quiet little pub to the south of St. James' Park.  After leaving we decided to stroll through the park as it is quite lovely in the waning summer sunlight and all the tourists had gone home (plus I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the headless ghost of the lake but no such joy there).  As we crossed over the Mall toward the steps up to Haymarket, I was astonished to see some nutter on a motorcycle hurtling down said steps.  In fact I was horrified.
"What is that idiot doing?" I gasped as his bike bounced and tumbled down the steps.
"We'll go a different way," said my girlfriend, cautiously.  The motorcyclist - who even had a female passenger hanging onto his waste, the swine - disappeared around a corner.  Then he did it again!  Yet again he bounded down those steps with no regard for the safety of us or his passenger.  I was seething.  With the assumption that he'd never do it a third time I took my girlfriend's hand and carried on towards the steps.
Before I could start up them, a man in a high-vis jacket - presumably a policeman - crossed my path and stopped me.
"Sorry mate," he said.  "Can you just wait here please?"
"I'm just trying to get home." I huffed.
"Won't be a minute," said the man apologetically.
"What's going on?" I asked.  "Is it to do with that moron on the bike?"
"We're just filming something actually," the man replied.
My annoyance flipped to mild - but still annoyed - curiosity.  "Oh," I said.  "What are you filming?"
"Sherlock Holmes."
Suddenly I was not annoyed anymore.  "Wow," my girlfriend and I said simultaneously.
"He's not here," laughed the man, presumably referring to Benedict Cumberbatch.  "It's a stuntman.  If you don't mind waiting he's going to come down one more time and then you can go through."
"Not a problem," I beamed.  It wasn't the first time I'd stumbled upon the Sherlock location shoot (I was lucky to catch a glimpse of Martin Freeman running into the show's makeshift 221B a couple of years before), but I was still excited to be seeing it.
Having already learned that the third series of Sherlock was due to adapt The Sign of Four, Arthur Conan Doyle's second full-length novel starring the great detective, I instantly deduced (wink) that this scene - of Sherlock Holmes and a female companion hurtling through the London night - must be taken from that episode, as The Sign of Four is the most exciting, city-spanning nocturnal adventure Holmes has featured in, and it also introduces the character of Mary Morstan, Dr. Watson's eventual wife.  Sure, there were better stories in the Doyle canon, but The Sign of Four is unrivaled in its sheer sense of adventure.  There are locked-room murders, mysterious treks through darkened city streets, stolen treasure and a night-time boat chase along the Thames.  It has so much going on for a rather light read and I couldn't wait to see what Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss were to do with it in their modern retelling.
Fast forward six or seven months and it turns out I was wrong.  The motorcycle scene (which my girlfriend and I eagerly watched in the absurd hope that we'd ourselves turn up as blurry extras) took place in the first episode of the series - The Empty Hearse (a loose retelling of The Empty House).  It was all as enjoyable as ever, but an arrogant part of me was a little disappointed that I was wrong.  Furthermore, The Empty Hearse is a very, very loose retelling of its source material.  Beyond Holmes' dramatic return from the dead and his dispatching of how he managed to fake it, there is really nothing in common.  And that's fine - putting a fresh spin on the old classics is what makes Sherlock so popular and I love seeing how things are rejigged or reinterpreted for a modern setting.  But the stories Moffat and Gatiss have adapted in the past weren't so liberally detached from their origins - The Hounds of Baskerville was broadly a straight up adaptation with a few appropriate changes, and even The Reichenbach Fall, beyond its location change from the mountains of Switzerland to the heart of London, weaves in and out of the beats of Doyle's classic short story The Final Problem.  They take the stories in new directions, but they haven't before junked everything but the title and a few in-jokes.
I loved The Empty Hearse - it didn't matter a jot to me that it was so different because the episode really was about Sherlock's return and how he faked his death.  The rest was just, as he put it, window dressing to bulk out the 90-minute runtime.  But I cautiously assumed, with the drama of his return out of the way, that normal service would be resumed with The Sign of Three, the promised adaptation of my favourite Holmes novel.

I was wrong again.  If anything, The Sign of Three (they always tweak the title a bit) has less in common with the original than The Empty Hearse did.  There are sporadic nods to the story - though mainly only concerning names of characters who are otherwise completely unrelated to their Doyle counterparts - but once again it's a completely original story.  Where Doyle's novel concerns Miss Morstan's mysterious acquisition of priceless pearls and the strange disappearance of her father that leads to a cross-city ramble, The Sign of Three is centred primarily around Watson and Morstan's wedding (which admittedly occurs in the novel also, but only as a couple of lines at the end).  Holmes deduces the attempted murder of John's old army general during his best man's speech, and the rest of the episode is a non-linear series of flashbacks to events leading up to the wedding.  There really are no narrative beats communal of the two.
Now you may think that this is just another internet nerd rant about butchering source material by some purist.  But during my grumbled viewing of the episode, something occurred to me about myself.  The problem isn't the relaxed view the writers have taken to faithfulness - it's me, and my own expectations hindering the experience.  I sat through an entire episode waiting for it to become at least remotely familiar, and in doing so I missed a compelling, unique Holmes story that is inventive in its premise and veers between hilarious and dramatic in its execution.  Holmes as a best man, Holmes getting drunk at a stag party and stifling his own deductive powers as a result, Holmes admitting he loves dancing - that's where Sherlock is at its best; placing Holmes in situations where Doyle never thought to place him and watching him respond in his detached, inhuman way.  This went over my head as I impatiently waited to see something I've already read twenty times and seen portrayed in countless old TV adaptations.  What is wrong with me?  Last night's episode, as it finished and I retroactively admitted that it was a good one, taught me not to be such a purist and to learn to love a bold retelling - it's much better that way, and a note-for-note adaptation will never live up to the expectations of those who have read the original - I sat through innumerable awful versions of Wuthering Heights learning that.  And the episode did wrap up in a neat and clever conclusion worthy of Doyle at his finest.  Furthermore, if I have to be so superficial and ignore creativity for the sake of geek-placation, the episode did revolve around a sprawling nocturnal journey through the city - in the shape of Watson's ill-fated stag party wherein Holmes gets more inebriated than we thought possible, with hilarious consequences.  And that is a far more loving a nod to the original than any tedious, word-for-word transfer from page to screen.
Sorry Sherlock.  I'll be good next week, I promise.

My Top 10 Films of 2013

I did this last year, so I thought I'd eke in the illusion of structure to my sporadic blogging by doing it again this year.  Despite now owning two cinema memberships, and having acquired a job as a film writer for a UK geek culture website, I've been a bit lazier with the cinema this year compared to the filmicly more formidable 2012.  Either way, I've seen at least 11 films, so that's enough to compile a top 10.  Unfortunately my laziness has prevented me from including films that I'm sure should be included, and my resolution for next year is to go to the cinema more.  I lament the celebrated pictures I missed, and will surely catch them on DVD when the time comes and perhaps blog about them then.  Until then...

Byzantium
On paper, the premise 'Teenage vampire finds romance in a quiet town' should have had me running for the hills, given the precedent for such films.  But Byzantium, starring the always remarkable Saorise Ronan, is a very different, rawer animal to anything that may have sprung to mind upon reading the previous sentence.  Described by director Neil Jordan as 'Nirvana to Twilight's bubblegum pop,' the film is a visceral, perpetually eerie modern take on the quintessential British horror story with all the best tropes present and correct; spooky coastal villages, abandoned funfairs, blood 'n guts (used sparingly) and vampirism by moonlight - the way it should be.  Inter-cut with some impressive period backstory featuring Johnny Lee Miller at his most deliciously detestable, Byzantium went largely under the public radar, as most effective British horror movies tend to do.

Frozen
The prefix 'From the Makers of Wreck-It-Ralph' would put any animated flick in good stead with me, but nonetheless Frozen really took me by surprise.  An all-singing, all-dancing return to cheesy fairy tale form for Disney, the wintery adventure evokes the '90s golden age of the animation studio, placing itself alongside The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, oozing childish nostalgia despite its formidable CGI.  A great, uplifting closure for family cinema in 2013, with the rather dated, anti-feminist 'values' of its memorable predecessors revised and cleaned up (falling head over heels in love at first sight with a Prince is now frowned upon and the value of self beyond status is made a factor).  That aside, there's an hilarious, enchanted snowman who steals the show from the moment he pops up a third of the way into the flick.  Good times were had by all. 

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
While last year's introduction to Panem and the grisly games is an underrated classic of dystopian Sci-fi, this year's sequel takes us further into the drained, war-torn districts of Suzanne Collins' young adult fiction series and the fallout of Katniss and Peeta's unprecedented double victory in the first film rears its ugly head as the driving force this time around.  The result is a sombre, dramatic and edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that even manages to squeeze in some sharp deconstruction of the falsities of celebrity culture.  Jennifer Lawrence outdoes herself with her superb portrayal of Katniss - a young woman taking a gradual turn toward the warrior society is forcing her to become, and survivor guilt plays out over every nuance of her phenomenal performance.  The final act is characteristically breathtaking, and even terrifying, as the continued build-up of the police state's anger with our young survivors promises to be even more brutal before the series is over.

Thor: The Dark World
The Marvel sequel, overseen by Game of Thrones' Alan Taylor, is a far more courageously fantasy-based entry to the comic book universe than the first Thor, and shares a fair bit with its brutal small-screen cousin.  Taylor delves deep into the visually stunning nine-realms of outer space, gives us more well-deserved time with the inhabitants of Asgard - glorified set-dressing the first time round - and devotes, as was predicted, a large amount of screen-time to the troubled relationship between noble meathead Thor and the superbly snide Loki.  Tom Hiddleston remains the runaway hit of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and there's even a surprise, riotous cameo from Captain America to whet our appetites for his forthcoming sequel.  While Natalie Portman's love interest remains surplus to requirements and Christopher Eccleston's villain is strangely underwhelming, The Dark World has enough going for it to render it a fresh, fun take on the gradually tiring comic book movie - with an Earth-bound final act set piece that is rather unexpectedly comedic in its execution, and all the more memorable for it.

Iron Man 3
Hot on the heels of 2012's phenomenal superhero team-up flick Avengers Assemble, Iron Man 3 had the rather nerve-wracking task of delivering something that could match up to that effort, but with only one superhero to play with (and to improve upon 2010's lacklustre Iron Man 2).  Thankfully, Lethal Weapon's Shane Black inherited the tetchy billionaire philanthropist and gave us a sharp, funny buddy movie that was rightly low key in comparison to what had come before.  Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark, suffering from PTSD after his explosive New York runaround, is a more reflective and empathetic creature than previously, engaging in some wonderful two-handers with Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Ty Simpkins as his girlfriend, his best pal and a befriended kid respectively.  There are shades of Black's '80s cop classic (the Christmas setting and the banter between Downey and Cheadle among them) and a divisive character twist with Ben Kingsley's perceived antagonist which some have called a disservice to the (dated) source material but which is really the most inventive thing anyone has done with a comic book villain in decades.  If this is the be the last of Iron Man's solo outings, then it ended on a high note.

This is the End
Barely thirty seconds into this unexpected comedic/apocalyptic triumph, Seth Rogen (playing himself) is heckled by a passer-by in an airport lounge, who asks why he always plays the same character in every movie.  From then on the self-aware, self-deprecating nature of This is the End is set and we know we are in safe, hilarious hands.  No appearing actor is left unscathed, whether that be by the fantastical threat that threatens to impale them at every turn or by the script's own razor-sharp roasting of its non-fictional characters.  James Franco plays up his smug, artisan persona while Oscar-fresh Jonah Hill is an insufferable, self-important twerp.  There are two incredible cameos from a sleazy Michael Cera and a foul-mouthed Emma Watson (shredding Hermione Grainger to bits with every F-bomb dropped) and if the wall-to-wall laughs weren't enough, there are even some clever twists along the way.  Of course the film delves into absurdity by the end, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

The World's End
Parallels were inevitably drawn between the aforementioned This is the End and Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy closer The Worlds' End, given their neighbouring release dates and similar contents, but if viewed as pond-crossing companion pieces, the two work surprisingly well as an unexpected double bill.  While This is the End frames its apocalyptic narrative with a no-holds-barred, frontal attack on Hollywood culture and excess, The World's End is an in-your-face, satirical grumble on the monopolisation of British pub culture ("Starbucking," as one character puts it) and the loss of identity in peripheral suburb towns personified by an invading force of hive-minded robots.  That, and it fully retains the trilogy's kinetic, sizzling wit and charm - with enough genre references to make a nerd's eyes bleed.  Simon Pegg plays out of left field as a thoroughly unlikeable and deeply troubled anti-hero (his most interesting role to date), while post Scott Pilgrim Wright is at his directorial best with the expanding number of inventive set-pieces and rolling, visual flair in bringing to life his small-town apocalypse.  Fast and funny, The World's End may not prove as memorable or quotable as its predecessors Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (though it's certainly funnier than the latter), but it is the third installment the geek-friendly trilogy deserves, and its repeat value remains in full glory alongside its genre-spanning kin.

Gravity
If you'd have told me a few years ago that two hours of Sandra Bullock floating through a black void would be some of the most intense, exciting cinema ever filmed I'd probably have laughed you out of the room.  And I'd have been deeply wrong.  Gravity is an intense, unsettling roller coaster ride through space taking its simple premise by force and making better use of the 3D format (something which I have decried before) than any of its contemporaries.  Alfonso Cuaron, previously known for little more than a solitary entry in the Harry Potter film franchise, puts the audience squarely into the fold and as Bullock's Ryan Stone drags and pulls herself through darkest space in a life or death effort to return to Earth, you'll feel as though you lived through it with her.  Time will tell whether or not Gravity will fare as well on the small screen, but as 3D event cinema goes, nothing else comes close.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
I couldn't bring myself to include last year's An Unexpected Journey in my 2012 top 10, as despite being an enjoyable and welcome return to Tolkein's fantasy world, it just didn't cut it against the rest of what I saw that year.  It was overlong, with far too much unnecessary padding that felt to me as though the expansion from two films to three was leaving stretch marks on the franchise.  No such issue this time around, as Peter Jackson has delivered a taut, exciting fantasy film that dusts off the problems of its predecessor and is ultimately more confident in itself, more engaging and makes better use of its rather large ensemble cast.  There is a real sense of growing menace only alluded to the first time round, and yet The Desolation of Smaug never strays too far from its more youthful, jovial tone. Nor does it feel longer than necessary at any point.  New arrivals, save for charisma vacuum Orlando Bloom's Legolas, all fit comfortably into the mix and help to add more and more depth to this ever-expanding world.  Of course I'm talking about Smaug himself, the smoothest-talking dragon this side of Sean Connery in Dragonheart.  Voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, he snatches the thunder from Sherlock pal Martin Freeman and runs the film into dreaded, fiery darkness, giving us Middle Earth's greatest ever antagonist.

Filth
Irvine Welsh's grimy, unstoppable novel about addiction, degradation and insanity gets a big screen adaptation that makes Trainspotting look like Love Actually.  James McAvoy's blistering police officer Bruce Robertson inhabits an Edinburgh without charm or optimism as he wiles away his crumbling existence by sleeping around, burying his face into piles of cocaine and suffering vivid flashbacks to a childhood trauma.  There are no punches pulled in this documentation of a fragile yet brutal man descending into depravity at both the cost of himself and those around him.  It is harrowing, arresting and darkly hilarious from beginning to end, and matches no film this year in its frank visualisation of pure, human filth.  Galleries of photocopied penises, nightmares of bestiality, cross-dressing sadomasochism and continual police brutality are all present and correct in the filthiest, funniest British black comedy in decades.