In solidarity with Mark I watched an Amazon film whilst at work last night, because it was very quiet.
It wasn’t really a film. It appeared to be a TV series, only I could only bear to watch one episode, so as far as I am concerned it was a film, but really it was the most shocking twaddle.
It was called The Rig, and was about some people having a crisis on an oil rig.
It was an unusual oil rig in that easily half of the crew were young women, all of whose job descriptions seemed to include the phrase: Be as annoying and patronising as possible.
None of them talked about welding or cutting or bolting or any of the things that people on oil rigs generally talk about. They seemed to occupy most of their conversational time giving little gems of motivational encouragement to one another. None of them minded that the oil rig was going to be closed down, except the ones who were obviously designated baddies. The rest felt that it was a Good Thing For The Sake Of The Planet, and worth the sacrifice of their entire lives and careers for the Greater Benefit. No alternative view was presented.
There was no doctor on the rig, so nobody could treat the injured, health and safety was dysfunctional and rubbish, presumably as a plot device for facilitating accidents to show up the absence of healthcare, and when they started to run out of food nobody suggested going fishing. Actually, that isn’t true. Somebody suggested it but was told that due to globally reprehensible overfishing there were no fish handily available, so perhaps it must have been somewhere else because fish absolutely cluster around any oil rig Mark has ever been on, perhaps we had better not speculate about why.
I am not going to watch it any more. It is a story of what an oil rig might be like if it were occupied entirely by a group of scriptwriters from North London.
The very worst part about it was that it had been recommended to me by some idiot who said that it was a scary film and an insight. The scariest thing about it was the lack of research one is obviously allowed to get away with before putting a script into rehearsal, if this was so poorly informed, I was mildly troubled to contemplate the rest of the output from the mighty media.
I would rather read my book. I don’t think I trust our great broadcasting elite very much.
Mark has not got on to his oil rig after all. There are helicopter problems in the North Sea, and he has been sent back to his hotel to wait until tomorrow. This is not a very exciting way of spending a day but he is at least getting paid for it. He has got to be back at the airport for six o’clock tomorrow morning, I hope his alarm goes off.
I have been piecing my life back together now that everybody has gone. Of course, it was Clean Sheets Day, and I have been busily occupied by laundry. Partly this was because Mark’s legacy for the last few weeks turned out to be a pile of filthy overalls, none of which have come very clean, and some of which I foolishly washed with a shirt of my own, which has been transformed to an oily grey colour.
After that I baked a cake, the usual sort without sugar, butter or flour, which is surprisingly edible and guilt free for fat people, except this one might not be because I was not concentrating and absent-mindedly left the oven on Really Hot, so probably it will be a Guilt Free Crisp when I manage to dig it out of its tin.
The weather is really horrible. Everywhere is still frozen, but it is raining, and there was a nasty, biting wind on the fells. Mark says that it is worse in Norway. The dogs were very keen to get back home this morning, and I can’t say that I blame them.
It is Number Two Daughter’s birthday today. She is thirty seven.
That is really, really old.
Oh dear.
