woman in black

I went last night to see a play in the West End called The Woman In Black. This is a play based on a book, and it was made into a film back in 1989.

I had no idea what the play was about before going to see it, though I had heard that it was supposed to be good and also scary.
Intrigued at the idea of being scared by a stage production, I waited in anticipation. And nearly fell asleep in the first 20 minutes.
I can't fault the acting, nor can I really fault the screenplay, I think they did quite a good job of it considering. Perhaps I just have high standards for scary stories... Needless to say I was somewhat bemused by the enthusiastic screaming coming from the rest of the audience throughout though there were some very effectively spinechilling moments in the play. One scene that I quite liked was this door that had been locked with no handle or bolts - after a ghostly scream in the dark the lights came back on and a handle had mysteriously appeared on the door... The main character hears an odd sound coming from upstairs so he goes through the door and upstairs to see a rocking chair rocking manically by itself. Very nice. In the end though, I was paralysed with fear in my seat throughout the play, but this was due to the fact that I had a seat in the gods, and it was a long long way down to the stage... I managed to scare myself half to death imagining scenarios in which I fell down the aisle and off the balcony..

Still. I went to bed at about midnight after a dose of Desperate Housewives to be suddenly awoken by a very loud creak in the bedroom. I half expected to see a woman with a white face staring at me when I opened my eyes :)

another night in the zoo

I drifted in and out of dreams this morning, mostly due to the fact that I set too many alarms to wake me up.
One dream was pure fantasy, my hero Neil Gaiman all damp from the shower talking about this dvd that we'd just watched. :)

The last one I had just before I got out of bed was almost a nightmare. I dreamt that a young elephant was on the rampage in the garden and we were all running away trying to avoid its charge. I can clearly remember the fear and adrenalin of having it right behind me. I managed to get inside the house and for some reason was climbing out of a bedroom window when my mum and brother appeared. They told me that they'd managed to catch the elephant - I glanced over at where they were pointing and sure enough, they had managed to tie it up. In bubble wrap.

The interesting thing about this dream (aside from the strangeness of seeing an elephant wrapped in plastic) was the new experience of semi-conscious thought. Usually in my dreams, most thoughts in dream-state are raw emotions - happy ,sad, scared, angry, that sort of thing. This time my thoughts were actually analytical, as if I was interpreting my dream whilst dreaming. I remember thinking, when my mum told me that they'd caught the elephant, that they had managed to achieve what I could not. That instead of confronting my fears I had run away from it.

It put me in a strange mood this morning.

life countdown

I am feeling a little thoughtful about life choices today.
We all live our lives and make so many decisions along the way. I wonder how much difference it would really make if we each had a death clock and knew the exact moment of our deaths?

You'd expect everyone to live their lives completely differently, to make the most of the time that they have. But I'm not so sure. Would the ideals of society change? Would most of us still grow up thinking that the logical progression in life is to get our qualifications, find a job, find a partner, get married and have kids? Would kids even be fashionable then? If we knew that we had 55 years to live, who on earth would want to spend 15 years of it studying, 30 years working and a good 18+ years of that trying to be a good parent? On the other hand, do the majority of people have the capacity to choose otherwise?

One thing is for sure, the world of insurance would be quite complicated. And there would also be a lot of depressed people out there. I think I'd train to be a psychiatrist :)

Me: "So, how do you feel today?"
Patient: "Pretty awful. I only have 45 years, 8 months, 4 days, 7 hours, 25 minutes and 32 seconds to live. And my wife totally wasted the weekend by forcing me to visit her parents. I lost two days of my life talking about potted plants!"
Me: "Well, what would you rather have spent your two days doing?"
Patient: "Um, well, I guess it would have been nice to do something a bit more worthwhile. New life experiences, that sort of thing."
Me: "How about bungee jumping? Or skydiving?"
Patient: "I'm afraid of heights."
Me: "Diving then?"
Patient: "I can't swim"
Me: "Learn to swim? It might save your life one day"
Patient: "What's the point? I know when I'm going to die. How is learning to swim going to help me?"
Me: "Er. Ok. How about volunteer work in Africa?"
Patient: "I already send them money."
Me: "That's not the point. You can enrich their lives."
Patient: "I only have 45 years to live. I should be enriching my own life."
Me: "Hmm. Well ok. How about trekking in Peru? Do the Inca trail."
Patient: "I'm scared of heights."
Me: "Go travelling for 6 months. Visit Australia, Asia, the Americas. Visit the low places."
Patient: "I'm scared of flying."
Me: "Why? You're not due to die for another 45 years yet...."

Hmmm. Just thought of another interesting slant. Old rich people would probably have a terrible time (or great, depending on your point of view) with young money whores who have somehow managed to find out their death days. Imagine the black market for bogus death clocks :)) The scope for exploitation would be massive!