Cabin Pressure: 'Zurich' Review

Zurich: How do you achieve an ending?

Quick Review
Name:Cabin Pressure, Zurich
Platform: Radio
Genre: Sitcom

Series rating: 10/10

Episode: 9/10

Recommended for fans of: Miranda, the Now Show, John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme, Frank Skinner’s Argumentative.

“Arthur:..doesn't feel like a happy ending.

Carolyn: It is a happy ending! Just not a fairytale ending. We can’t expect that. Real happy endings are never simple. “

How do you end your project? You may kind of know where your story, essay, or blog post is going, you may know what you want to say, but how do you actually finish it? When you write you want to reach the endgame- surely that’s the whole point-, but the best projects, the ones that makes artists and audience alike truly happy, are the ones where the journey has been so great you don’t actually want it to end. This is especially true for series', whether in print (Game of Thrones), televised (Game of Thrones), or on the radio (where the Archers shows the reverse is also true, that no matter how much you may want it to end, some things really, really don't.). Great shows have to wrap up eventually, otherwise the writers run out of ideas, and move too far from the heart of the show, and so you end up with the later seasons of Scrubs,and no one wants that.

So it must end, even when you're curled up in a corner crying as you wish it could go on forever, but what should an ending for a long series be like? What pay off do you give your audience?

The last episode of John Finnemore’s ‘Cabin Pressure’ was a bitter-sweet experience, as all meaningful goodbyes should be. Comedy wise it may have lacked the punch of Finnemore’s usual episodes- but it had to, because as the writer himself put it this was the episode where the characters graduated from being part of a sitcom. We walk away from the characters knowing that they too are moving on with their lives.

The Cast of Cabin Pressure: (from Left to Right) John , Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole, and Benedict Cumberbatch

This works. This emotional graduation is the pay-off both the audience and the characters deserve. Radio fills an empty room with voices, and feels more intimate than TV, like books do. Actually radio more so than books, because the listener is closer to the thoughts of the characters than the viewer. You are not watching their lives from a distance, but actively listening to people talk about their most vulnerable moments. Like you would for the people you care about. The confessional atmosphere of hearing a private conversation between the characters allows you to feel like the character trusts you, as you listen to their pain. It's a friendship.

My disk copies of ‘Cabin Pressure’ are the most listened to things I own. When I feel sad or lonely, I stick them on and fall into the world of a struggling charter firm, filled with flawed and loveable characters. Over the years the protagonists have come to mean a lot to me, and like I would for my real human friends, I wanted to leave them knowing they were ok.

That was the pay off that Cabin Pressure fans wanted. For the characters to be ok. Arthur gains strength, Carolyn weakness, Douglas softens, and Martin? Well Martin gets the princess and the airport in a faraway land. It was a good ending. Everything clicked into place and changed enough that you knew after listening to it, that it was over. That Martin, Douglas, Carolyn, and Arthur, as well as their friends and nemeses, were moving on, and that you, the listener, would move on too.

The rules of yellow car? click here.

This was the show that stole my heart. And now it leaves my life, the characters have all learned what they needed to. But what did I learn as an audience member?

I learned that I want to write for radio.I learned that things worth caring about are worth listening too, and, most importantly, when their isn’t a silver lining, their may just be a gold one. So thank you Abby, for introducing it to me- I guess I have also learned that Abby is always right.

What show's ending do you like best? Or can you think of some shows that should have ended earlier? Let me know in the comments bellow.

Take care,
Alice :)

The Latest in Anti-Tech Technology!

Mutual Phone-Attention: the highest state of intimacy the youth of today can achieve.

The phone epidemic is real. You can’t go anywhere these days without seeing people staring blankly at their glass screens. And we’re all thinking the same thing: so uncool.

Seriously how uncool do you get?

To counter this wave of un-hip, fad-following phone addicts, one corporation, Cavemen, has decided that 2015 will be the ideal time to launch their own anti-phone into the market. They promise it will have all the best features of Neo-Luddite technology to maximise the buyers cool factor. They are calling it the ‘Free Fone’.

The free fone itself!

This fake-phone, or ‘Fone’, has been set to be the newest big hit- a direct response to trend analysts’ prediction that people are sick of electronic devices and will now be following the Cool Kids, and ditching their phones for good.

The Free Fone is a completely electricity-free device, devoid of any of the up to date apps that have been consuming the attention span of the modern generation. It uses cutting edge technology to be as unaddictive and as useless as possible.

“We believe that all the really hip people believe that electronics are eating away at our life experience, despite TV ads futile attempts to claim the opposite.” Said a spokesperson for Cavemen Corporation. “It offers many excellent features. It’s completely wireless, and the battery will never run out on you. For even more cool-ness you can place it into any phone cover you like, making it personal to you.”

They promise their new fone will be a conversation starter at any party, and will guarantee to lead to laughter alongside those confused questions that will reassure you that you are the only one who gets it, along with your veganism and ironic René Magritte tee.

"We no usually the hip crowd base their beliefs on opposing the popular trend, however this time we think they're really onto something, and that this is not just a sensationalist idea."

Cavemen Corporation however are well aware that boring banks are too uncool to understand just what a revolution the fone will be, so they’ve decided to ask for money from the people that matter.

“We decided to use the Internet to crowd-fund the project, after the recent success of our competitors. After all, all the cool kids are using this new tech solution to counter corporations trying to make money out of gimmicks.”

What are your thought on the Fone? Let us know in the comment bellow.

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This Article is a spoof- but the links are real.

FEMINISTS ARE TERRORISTS

Guys! I'm a terrorist!

This is real. Freedom of speech...

As I know a lot of you know, I identify as a feminist. By this I mean:

What happens when you type 'feminist' into Google.

There's a line there on being equal to men- not above them, or eradicating them or such nonsense. It is not a case of #KillAllMen.

However the #KillAllMen does exist, and unfortunately I don't think all these comments are in good taste or a joke.

This, I, hope, is a joke.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is not really a feminist view. Actually if we took it as a feminist view the women would have to be killed afterwards in order to make them equal to the men, and that would be expensive. Not mention the end of our species, which would be a shame for us. Could be good for the planet though.

However what isn't good for our planet, or for any one, is the two extremist camps- the militant feminists, and the extreme anti-feminists.

One guy has collated a list of reasons why he's an anti-feminist.

It's long!

And reading it? Honestly I'm not surprised. These acts are horrible. Death threats and career ruining acts. If you think this is what feminism is, then hey, I get it, you want to be opposed to that. I am too.

But that's not what feminism is. It's like saying, though not as offensive, all Muslims are extremists and terrorists. Most sane, rational people know this isn't true, and wouldn't judge someone saying they were a Muslim based on terrorist bombings. At least I'd hope not.

Feminists hate militant feminists. In fact we probably hate them more than the anti-feminists. We have to spend our entire time saying "What? No male rape is just as serious!" and "Of course I don't think women should be allowed to beat up their partners!". Feminists know it's #notallmen, yet we also know that it's closer to #YesAllWomen then many people feel comfortable seeing. We don't want to label people as victims, instead we want to give a platform for people who have been hurt to fight.

“The Everyday Sexism movement is a fantastic idea - an opportunity for an open debate on the ways in which genders mindlessly form prejudices against each other. “ -Natasha Devon.

source

And she's right- but she's also right that a lot of people don't like the idea of men posting their stories- and believe me, many men are treated in a sexist manner. I've been a perpetrator of that, and I'm ashamed that of it. Thankfully my feminist friends, and other friends, have called me out on it. That's what we all need to do. Call each other our when are views are outdated.

Is the word feminism outdated? Not yet. Yes women are more free than they have ever been, and in the west they are very close to being equal. But we're not there yet. And more importantly, we're definitely not their globally. And I don't mean we as is women, I mean we as in all of us, regardless of sex or gender. Feminism is a just a sub-department of egalitarianism, that takes it from the perspective to the different treatments due to gender and sex. I think all true feminists are egalitarian.

The fact that male rape victims and female rape victims are treated differently? That is a feminist issue. We'll push it with the rest of you.

And to anybody who has felt mistreated at the hands of feminists, I'm sorry.

The Wikipedia article on the amazing Erin Prizzey, who has been harassed and threatened by militant feminists for daring to speak about domestic violence against men.

 She has signed the petition.

Don't judge us by our extremist camp. They are not us. Feminism is an ideology about letting people live their life they way they want to, regardless of their gender and sex. It's about freedom of identity and choice. Many feminists are men, we're not and 'us against them clique'. We don't hate men. We don't like the way people judge how they should have to behave based on their genitalia either.

Join the real feminists, and help us show the world Feminism shouldn't be a dirty word.

Wreck This Journal- Crack the Spine

It was either in year 10 or year 11 that I first came across Keri Smith's 'Wreck This Journal', my friend Beth had one. It was brilliant- a lesson in viewing creative destruction as a way to access art. Well, more... well it's a lot of fun to actually get to wreck something. It appeals to the childish instinct that sees a beautifully crafted sandcastle and wants nothing more than to jump on it.

Now, a few years later, I have been gifted my own by my lovely brother and sister-in-law. I have my own! Which means only one thing, it is time to follow orders and wreck it.

The question is where to start. After all, the order of the destruction is irrelevant. The end result is still a mess. So where to start... well last night, whilst sitting on my own in the dark I came across a command in the book that sent tingles up my spine.

Crack the spine.

If there is one label I am happy to have applied to me, it is that I am a bookworm. And like all bookworms I find the idea of dog-earing pages or cracking the spine physically painful. How could I intentionally do this to a gift? To a book? To a book?!How could someone who made the book, who most likely a lover of books themselves to create this format ask this of me? What could Ms Smith possibly want from me?

I have no idea how long I sat there in a daze, a cold sweat forming in the back of my neck. I knew I had to start here. If I couldn't do this- well what was the point of going on? (On with the journal, not on with life. I'm not that melodramatic).

So how to approach it?

Well... vertebra make up the spine right? And they have a spinious process! Easy I'll just crack one of them- or draw a cracked one! There! Problem solved!

Right?

Wrong of course. The fact is that the cracking of the books spine had to be that. It was a challenge I had to face up to and take face on. Coming up with creative excuses didn't solve the problem that if I couldn't face up to cracking to books spine, I wasn't going to be able to truly wreck the journal, and I would fail the artistic project.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. It was time for the plaster approach. I jumped to my feet and snapped the book sharply open and pulled down on the spine.

I'd done it. I'd intentionally crack the books spine.

I ran my finger along the newly scared back and wondered what I'd learned. The big thing was the book now felt real. As much as I don't like cracking spines after the end of the second read most of my books end up with them. Those scars show that the book and I have been on a journey together, and it's shaped my mind and distorted the books binding. It makes the book real, like it's grown up. Now the journal is real. It has been forced to go from being brand-new to looking well used in one movement.

It's like when you go through your first emotional loss as a child. Suddenly there's a new scar that makes up your identity and there is no going back.

I then used a Dalek to press the spine down further in a artistic display of just how evil book destruction is....

So, where to from here? Now that I've taken up a career of book destruction the sky is the limit! Have you ever wrecked a journal? How far did you get? Did you have any traumatic experiences? What was the most fun? And what should I do to wreck it next?

~Alice

New Lanark was awesome!

If I wanted to tell you about my walk in New Lanark I could say it was a pleasant day out. It was. However, in using the word ‘pleasant day’ I’d instantly fear that you don’t understand me. You may think I didn't enjoy it; that somehow there is something wrong with pleasant- despite the fact that pleasant is one of my favourite adjectives for things to be- that the whole thing wasn't that positive. Pleasant is great! However, I do not want you to think I mean the word to be dismissive so I may instead. ‘I had an awesome day out’ or ‘I had a wonderful day out’. Two very big words just to ensure you definitely understand it was a positive experience.

But pleasant is something different to ‘awesome’ and ‘wonderful’. So now I am going to (belatedly but shh) join the discussion surrounding the usage of the word ‘awesome’. To aid my point (I am making a point here, I swear) I looked up (googled) a definition for awesome:

“Extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring awe.”

Google, the ever helpful superintelligence that will someday enslave humanity, also gave, usefully, an example of the correct usage of the word:

“The awesome power of the atomic bomb.”

So, in-order to have you correctly understand how good a time I had out on my walk in New Lanark, I compared it to the power of an atom bomb. My walk under some pretty beach trees by a waterfall was awesome- like the bomb that wiped out Nagasaki. The word awesome means a very different thing to me than it does to google.

Because the word may define big things, but when it comes down to it ‘awesome’ means very little. You and I know that ‘awesome’ is merely a positive word that indicates a definite feeling happiness, universally applicable to all situations from getting an unexpected day off, to finding a shade of nail varnish that matches those shoes you love to wear. People call the word overused, and I have heard many people be-moaning that now it is very hard to describe the big, grande things in life, since large words are used for small things. The dictionary (google) may give the word its definition, but what the word actually means comes from people. If people think that everyone in the social group agreeing to meet at six is ‘awesome’, then people are right.

That is awesome.

But... how do we describe big things? Big emotions? Big days? With excessive punctuation? Lots of questions? Dramatic-over-use of language devices?

I don’t know. I am a person, not people. Authors have come up with millions of paper objects that have tried to find a way to communicate emotions effectively. But right now if I wanted to talk about the feeling you get when you’ve achieved something you’ve worked hard on for a long time, that feeling is… pleasant. If I was to talk about what it’s like to get lost in your mind thinking of all the millions of little things that change over all the millions of years to turn a single celled organism into an otter- it’s odd. Two small words. But small words can mean big things.

Just think Jane Austen vs Shakespeare and you’ll probably see the point I’m attempting to make.

So yes, I had a wonderful, nay, awesome time at New Lanark. But how did I feel seeing my family again for the first time in a long time? It was nice.

When will my life begin?

“I'm just waiting for my life to start!” one bored graduate told me. “I just want things to happen.”

The funny thing about life is that it happens. It always happens, and quite frankly, my dear, it does not give a damn whether you’re ready for it or not. Because the nature of life, what being alive actually consists of, is things happening.

Some of it happens inside of you. There’s that little internal clock-work tangle of lungs and capillaries and endoplasmic reticulums (reticululi?) making things happen.

Then there’s that blasted outside (you know; the thing you can’t really experience through the internet. Excellent graphics though). It consists of things happening: the purr of car engine reminding you that other human-things are living out their lives and effecting their change; the sweet and innocent sound of the black bird instantly informing you that it’s going to starve to death and that is would quite like to mate with somebody now. These living creatures make things happen.

Even without human impulse, even without you caring, the world outside happens. The sea keeps eating the rocks. The magma below the crust keeps tossing together continents in it’s rampant joy, regardless of how many tsunami’s this results in. Somewhere, billions of light years away, a star will explode. It’ll be amazing. No one will see it. But it will explode none the less. Things happen.

Then one day, it will stop. Everything that can have happened will have happened. Things will cease to happen.

The difference between the sea’s apathy and the apathy you sometimes go through, is that the sea’s is not a choice. You do have a choice. Be like the sea- let the only things that happen be the innate clockwork. Or choose to make things happen. Create around the Kipple. Create. Make. Imagine. Be more than you ever thought you could.

Life, on Earth, happens. Then life on Earth stops.

It stops.

.

But there’s something in between. Stop waiting for things to happen- life happens. It’s happening to you right now. So go and use it. Because even by taking a breath, you are already changing the world. And that is just the start of how amazing you can be.

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Note from the Author:

Hello all. Sorry It’s been a long time since my last post. The reason is life happened. First there was a holiday, then there was hoping I’d get into uni, then there was organising for uni, then there was arriving at uni and then settling in at uni. Now that life has ordained to give me back some time to do things I love, I'm back to writing. I hope you found today’s post at least a little thought provoking. I’d love to hear back from you, so please comment. 10 points to the Hogwart’s House of your choice if you get the Kipple reference.

~Alice

A walk home in the dark and why I thank god I'm an atheist.

A walk home in the dark and why I thank god I'm an atheist.

In all honesty I am one of the least spiritual people I know. I'm not just an atheist, I'm a extreme realist. I'm an 'it was carbon-monoxide poisoning', 'weather balloon' or 'shared delusion' kind of person. Well maybe not the last one. It's hard to get any kind of empirical evidence on shared delusions. Getting to the point I do not believe in anything supernatural. Not even Dean and Sam. My faith is in science alone, my addiction is empirical evidence and my doubt it raised at any mentions of angels, daemons, or Dan Brown.

I have often been asked where do your draw the line? How can you be sure? Well of course you can never be totally sure but I find using Occam’s razor works pretty well. The simplest solution is often the correct one. There is nothing simple about a belief in the supernatural! Take faith in guardian angels for example. It raises more questions than it answers. Who are they? How do they exist? Why can't I see them? How do they fly? Why can they see people's souls? Do people have souls? How come my shoes get a soul each, and I can't even be certain I have one?

These a very important questions!

A slight disclaimer, I am not saying there is definitely nothing spiritual about this world. Au contraire, I am happy to accept that spiritual feelings are very real. Followers of different faiths often do feel a very strong bond with the god(s) they believe in. Beyond that however, I have doubts. I know many people have no such issues, and I'm cool with that. You can believe it. I just don't. My brain has difficulty processing the consequences of ghouls and gods and so I do not, maybe even can not, believe.

Until the lights go out.

I live in a quiet, sleepy village where, in order to minimise disturbances to the residents respite (and to hide the criminal activity of the local slitheen), the street lights turn off come half an hour past midnight (it should be at midnight precise. Again, these sort of mistakes never happen in fiction...). When the lights are out, that glowing, warm barrier between our modern life and our ancestors fears vanishes.

The hills, so green and familiar by day, lumber closer next to the inky sky. They look more like hunched back of a sleeping giant then the slopes I've oft slid down after the snow. Close-mouthed buildings glower at me as I walk past, their intangible eyes lingering on the back of the intruder. After all, where there is no light, humans have no business to be.

Even walking past the picket-fenced territories of men, with their garden-gnomes and petunias, something feels wrong.

There are footsteps close by. Some primordial part of me notices. Then I start to hear an ominous thudding in my ears. I pick up my pace. So do the the footsteps. A hollow howl sounds somewhere, but where I cannot tell. As the ominous thudding increases I become all to aware of my disinterest in sport and sedentary life style.

A sensation coils around my mind and sparks at my skin. I'm actually scared.

I'm afraid.

My mind, my ever faithful companion, starts to offer a wondrous, hideous display of the fates that come to humans silly enough to walk alone in the dark. It offers glimpses of newspaper headlines: 'Ginger Teen found Mauled to Death in KM.'. Each death it offers up is more intricate a painful than the last, and I really start to wish I wasn't as aware of old ghost stories as I am. Would I be killed by an ancient foe? Or just the every day evil of my fellow man?

But I am not unarmed. I scramble deeper into my brain and I find my favourite weapon still in it's sheath. Drawing out the Razor of Occam, I (metaphorically mind) clinch it with all my strength and furiously wield it at my surroundings.

The footsteps? My own echo.

The thudding? My blood in my ears.

The howling? The wind in the hills.

With each label I feel calmer. That's what humans do. Label stuff. The unknown is terrifying so we label it. Science is the art of labelling. We categorise and name. According to some beliefs, the first thing humans did was to name. And with the names came peace. I knew them. The roads, the hills, the twists, the turns. I knew them.

And then I looked up.

And I knew what I would see. The stars. The beautiful, cold, twinkling stars. I don't care if you believe they're fireflies stuck on a blue sticky thing, or the spirits of dead kings, or great balls of gas burning billions and billions of miles away: they are beautiful.

And that's the thing really. The safe lights and barriers that keep us feeling secure are great. But sometimes you need to turn them off and accept the fear, push past it and find the beauty. Sometimes it's what keep you safe that stops you from looking up.

And as I clutched Occam's Razor, the smallest, quietest, theistic corner of my mind whispered a prayer of thanks. Thank god I'm an atheist.