No man is an island

Kenny is in charge of my stag night. I'm worried. My brother, being the best man, is now taking email addresses to try and get some suggestions off folk for my stag night, weekend, or week. A while back Chaz suggested Las Vegas. Other suggestions have been Estonia (Uncle Jim) and Magalluf (Kenny himself). I think most of these have been ruled out due to budget constraints. On mentioning a stag night at teabreak, DVD Andy came up with a cheaper suggestion. A pub at the end of his road. It does a good pint apparently. Not wishing to cause offence I nodded politely and said I'd suggest it to my brother. Gareth came up with a rather novel idea. He'd heard of a friends friend doing this. Basically you hire a dwarf for £800 and handcuff him to the groom. The dwarf will then, inevitably, have to follow the groom around everywhere he goes on that night. It's difficult to believe such a hiring service exists but he assures me it's true.
Degrading, strange and surely uncomfortable for the parties involved. But then so is the horribly traditional hiring of a stripper. I've just googled it and apparently, in some cases, the dwarf is painted blue and dressed as a smurf. I've heard of being handcuffed to a lamp post, but a dwarf..? Very odd.
Talking of odd, Lost is back on our tv screens! At last. I've missed it. A lot of people got fed up after half a season but I honestly reckon it's the best thing on tv. It's definately veering into science fiction territory now though which I suspect a lot of the more 'normal' or casual viewers may get a little inpatient and disappointed about. I was quite surprised when there was a bit of a backlash a few seasons ago when it dawned on the viewing public this may not be a normal tale of a bunch of survivors on a desert island. In what way had the viewers not suspected as much after watching the first few episodes. Polar bears in the jungle, dead people getting out their coffins, smoke monsters chasing survivors. Not exactly straight laced drama was it? Always veering on the crazy with some of these incidents, the show has always kept its feet on the ground with the performances of the brilliant cast members. Interesting, troubled,
tortured, human characters brought to life by the likes of Matthew Fox, Terry O'Quinn, Dominic Monaghan, Naveen Andrews and Michael Emerson to mention only a few. All great actors who, along with the great writers, have created and shaped these characters, fleshing them out with very different yet sometimes interweaving stories, constantly haunted by aspects of their past, present, and future, as they struggle to get free of the island and it's strange powers.
Not entirely unlike the old sixties show 'The Prisoner' which was another favourite of mine in the nineties when I watched it all on DVD around 27 years after its original transmission. Starring Patrick McGoohan, who sadly died two weeks ago week, the show was about a man who had resigned in his position as spy or agent of some kind in london and was almost immediately kidnapped and held captive in a strange and mysterious location known enigmatically as the Village. Many of the themes are very similar to Lost. The psychological drama that the characters go through together with the science fiction elements of each of the shows' which are different, but still deal with strange, seemingly other worldly forces, mysterious leaders and scrutinized, controlled locations. It will be interesting to see how the new, modern, version of The Prisoner, in production at the moment, will work. The Prisoner awakens in a strange place, wearing odd clothes,
being asked countless questions by a unsympathetic authority figure, all the time looking for some kind of an escape. Not unlike the day following a stag night, I suspect.