A few rants...

1. Charity Collectors - bloody hell these people irritate me. Cardiff city centre seems to be thick with them (and hundreds of big issue sellars who are less irritating). Most of them bloody students, what irritates me is their insistence on accosting me the whole damn time and refusing to believe I am skint. I usually skirt them or tell them I already contribute, but recently they seem to be getting more persistant. My message to them: FUCK OFF - if I want to give to charity I will, and not to some prick in the street. Guilt trips annoy me not make me want to part with yet more cash for the terminally stupid.

2. Archangel on BBC - what the FUCK was that all about! Why take a good novel and think "I know, we'll change the plot to make it more exciting" when you aren't the author! How BBC managed to totally bollocks it up I have no idea. WHY did they feel the need to kill off O'Brien? Why did Zinaida have to go to Archangel and then they had to conceive some ludicroud plot line to lose her and bring O'Brien in later on when the original plot was better. The feeble attempt to create more sexual tension was pointless and Kelso, a podgy, middle aged, middle of the road Oxford historian, was suddenly transformed into a dashing young adventurer who didn't smoke - to the point of lecturing Zinaida about it. What was most irritating however, was the ability of the BBC to foget that Kelso speaks Russian at numerous intervals!!! What good is a Historian of Russia who can't speak Russian! (unless you are American and therefore stupid anyway). ther annoyances, like the insistance that Kelso was in fact a Professor, the ignoring of his sacrifics of family for career, and the fact that the programme made his out as a total idiot with little knowledge or objective opinio of the true Stalin, made the programme itself not only uncreditable, but little more than a Western vehicle for anti-communist propaganda. And they failed to characterise ANY of the characters properly.

All in all - DON'T bother with it!