Blog Post – News – TYTD Reviews

Partially Reformed Content …#6 (Upto and including) (More than) (Over) One Year On…

Well…this years been a fun one hasnt it? Honestly; i’ve been kind of reluctant towards writing what is quickly becoming my version of The annual ‘Kings Christmas Speech’. Usually writing these is a kind of cathartic release, a way of sitting down, taking stock of the good and the bad from across the year, summing up my feelings on where I am now and what i’d like the next 12 months to hold…I usually try to be optimistic, but realistic about circumstances…But this year?..Well; honestly its probably been the worst year i’ve had in a VERY long time, and continues a somewhat worrying trend of each progressive year being either worse than the last, or neutral.

Because so much has happened this year, and because i’ve only really talked in dribs and drabs about it across multiple different social media sites. Im hoping that in writing this years blog, i’ll now have a single place I can refer people to in trying to explain exactly whats been going on with me for the last year, and equally; im hoping this will draw a line under everything so that I don’t really have to explain 12 months of lore to people who’ve been asking me ‘where I went to’ or ‘How come i’ve not done any new reviews recently’?

So kicking things off, around the time I was writing last years ‘end of year’ blog, I had just come off the back of a huge recording session for episodes of the show that made up season 13. And; as has generally been the case previously when I’d sit and record 8 scripts, non stop, back to back, over a 2 day window. I had a bit of a sore throat. This was actually kind of normal given the amount of recording i’d do in a single sitting, but heres the kicker; about a week after my last script recording…My throat was still sore…and if anything, getting worse.

Being a big dumb idiot bloke, I assumed i’d maybe just picked up a cold from somewhere and that my already raw throat was just experiencing amplified pain as a result of it…but 3 weeks after THAT not only had I realised that it wasnt a bug, but i’d gotten to the point where I could only softly talk for about 5-10 minutes conversationally, or sing or speak at room level for between 2-5 minutes before i’d be in such tremendous pain that I had to basically go mute for up to 2 days in order to just about recover back to the point where I could speak softly for 5-10 minutes again.

After a while (and my partner nagging me to go and get seen because my moaning was annoying her) I went to the doctors who, within 2 minutes of seeing me, diagnosed me with having a throat infection. They put me on antibiotics for a week, I took them, felt a little bit better, and booked in a follow up appointment to say ‘they worked a little bit…but not really’. So they gave me another weeks worth. I took those, they did nothing.

A week or so after completing that round, my throat got significantly worse…It turned out that on top of the throat pain, I now ACTUALLY DID have a throat infection, it was so bad I ended up at the hospital, where they gave me some significantly stronger antibiotics and wrote a note to my doctors asking them to investigate further.

I went back to my local doctors again about 2 weeks after that incident and this time they changed tact. Telling me I’d got oral thrush and THAT was why my throat was sore. So they gave me some anti thrush medication. That LITERALLY did nothing, but they were adamant I 100% had oral thrush and couldnt be budged on it, so they gave me a stronger version of the thrush medication. I took it, it did NOTHING. I went back again, and rather than them try something different, they doubled down AGAIN on the thrush diagnosis, instead telling me that because Im fat, I must be diabetic and thats why I couldnt get rid of the thrush. I told them I absolutely wasnt diabetic as my partner IS diabetic and she checks my blood sugars semi regularly (because when you’ve been in a relationship for 12 years…it helps to pass the time) which have always been a *tiny* bit elevated, but well within safe levels, if not pretty bang on.

Still, they insisted I HAD to have diabetus. There was literally just no other explanation (bearing in mind, I went in for a chronically bad sore throat) So…because they wouldnt budge. I took their blood test, waited another week or two, got the results back, my blood sugars were perfect. And the doctor I was assigned basically washed his hands of me. No further testing, no further explanation. He was literally just like; “Your not diabetic, you DEFINITELY have thrush, the medication isnt helping…I don’t know what to do with you…if it gets any worse than it is now…call back in, otherwise you’re just going to have to live with it.” Which…y’know…great job there NHS…

I left things for about a fortnight after that before ending up back at the hospital again for more industrial strength anti biotics for the throat, when I told them the thrush incident they checked me out and told me that they thought it just looked like something called ‘Geographic Tongue’ and advised I go back to them again, they also wrote another note basically saying ‘Dear mr. doctor…YOU’RE A DOCTOR…dont fucking abandon your patient just because the results you wanted didnt magically turn up’.

A week or two after that I went back AGAIN, I was given a different doctor, this one wanted to put me on antibiotics again, By this point i’d probably been dealing with this issue collectively for about 4-5 months it was coming into spring. I’d been on antibiotics or thrush medication of one kind of another for over 2 months at this point. And when this lot didnt work, I went back again and basically said bluntly ‘I’ve now had over 6 different courses of antibiotics. Non of them have worked. Other than checking my throat with a torch, I havent properly been investigated by ANYONE. Could I maybe please be investigated a little more thoroughly, because im concerned about antibiotic resistance. And I don’t believe this is the only treatment for a chronic sore throat.‘

By this point, I was pretty solidly convinced I had chronic tonsilitis, or tonsil stones and that, basically I needed my tonsils out if I was going to see any kind of improvement. The doctors eventually relented. And booked me in for an appointment with the Ear, nose and throat specialists at the hospital…with a 2 month wait…and in that waiting period, they wouldnt prescribe me anything. They instead advised a throat numbing spray as a temporary workaround…which did kind of work…but that then created the problem that I could talk for longer, but my recovery time was STUPIDLY longer…if I talked for 15 minutes and felt fine on the spray, it’d be a week before I could talk again.

So…I waited, and I was finally seen by ENT. Who told me they were going to ‘scope’ me (basically a long thin camera was going up my nose and down the back of my throat) I later found out that in the states they anaesthetise you before they do that because of the discomfort it can cause…Not in the UK! Over here I was just told to breath very slowly and while they didnt advise closing your eyes, I found it kind of essential to keeping calm. Y’see, if you don’t keep calm and breath slowly and deeply, your body suddenly realises theres a foot long camera LITERALLY half way down your oesophagus and decides it doesnt like that, in short…choking, contractions, and in some cases vomiting.

I will say this, it isnt painful, it does feel weird though…kind of like you’ve got phlegm at the back of your throat thats slowly dripping down, but you cant cough to clear it, unpleasant, but not painful. I luckily managed to get through my scoping with no major issues, right up until literally the point where the nurse pulled the scope out at the very very end. She was slowly retracting it, and it must have hit my uvula or something, because It triggered my gag reflex, and THEN my body realised ‘oh shit! Theres something in his throat!’ Which led to contractions and retching. But all that was over a 2 second window as the nurse basically yanked the camera out of my face to get it gone ASAP.

Anyway, she told me the results would be in in about a fortnight or so and to call the doctors to get the results…so I waited…2 weeks passed, I called up…No results…I waited to 4 weeks, called again, no results…I waited to 6 weeks. Called again, no results…at 7 weeks I booked in another appointment with my doctor because nothing had come back. He told me this definitely wasnt right and called the hospital to chase…10 weeks after the scope happened they FINALLY sent something through…and it said that ‘because of my chronic migraine pain, an ear operation was the only answer’…these were not my results. These were someone elses…they’d messed up.My doctor called them back, they apologised and said they’d get my ACTUAL results to me asap.

4 weeks on from THAT. My results were in! I didnt have cancer!..That was it. It turns out that that was the only thing they were checking for… they didnt bother to investigate anything else from the scoping, noone at ANY point told me they were ONLY running a cancer screening. I had been led to believe they were doing this to check for a range of things. But apparently not!

They basically just came back saying ‘its not cancer’ and then my doctor was like ‘Well…its not cancer! So…we’ve done everything now!’ I was bereft.

I took a month off the cycle and just lived with the pain for a bit, but it was too much, and in either case I couldnt really live, because by this point my communication had basically slowed to monosylabic quiet grunts and very little else. By this point we were coming into June/July time. And I booked back in at my local surgery and had arguably the worst experience of all the visits i’d done up to this point.

At this point I was about 99% certain I was going to need my tonsils out, they were riddled with tonsil stones, swollen, I did the the thing of asking Dr. Google my symptoms and all of them aligned near perfectly with chronic tonsillitis and having now at this point been on 7-8 lots of antibiotics across an at least 6 month window, I was starting to get to the stage where I felt that a tonsillectomy could be something reasonably discussed.

The doctor I spoke to, first of all told me tonsil stones don’t exist (you can google the term ‘tonsil stone’ and you’ll find plenty of articles about them…) this guy told me they were ‘calcium build up’s’ and said it in such a way that made me feel like I was an idiot for even BEGINNING to suggest you could get stones in your throat (I…I don’t really give a shit what they’re called. We were both describing the same thing.)

He told me my tonsils literally had to be black and touching for it to be ‘tonsilitis’, so I couldnt be in THAT much pain. Mine were a little swollen, but not THAT bad. He told me that he didnt think I had ANYTHING wrong with my tonsils/throat, he said he thought it was ‘Oral Thrush’. When I told him to check my notes because, we’d already danced this dance about a month or two ago and they’d confirmed not only was it NOT oral thrush, but I definitely didnt have diabetes either. He said that his diagnosis was Oral thrush fed by diabetes, and told me he’d only be willing to give me more oral thrush medication and another blood test for diabetes.

I held my ground, arguing that I really didnt think that was appropriate and that, realistically, I wanted one more bout of antibiotics (because you have to have had 7 documented interactions with a doctor about repeated throat infections in the last 12 months, before a tonsillectomy would be discussed, and I had 6 cases.

He eventually relented, issued me with oral thrush medication, antibiotics and a blood test.

Surprise surprise, a week later, I felt as shit as ever and my blood tests confirmed ONCE AGAIN that I wasnt diabetic. I went back and saw the same doctor, who this time told me that I was basically making the throat pain up. And that ‘Thrush doesnt cause that much pain.’

…im ashamed to say I lost my temper a little bit at him after that, I *politely* told him that i’d now been on antibiotics for over 6 months, id had 2 doctors tell me I had thrush, and 4 doctors (INCLUDING this doctors BOSS) tell me I definitely DIDNT have thrush. I told them I believed I needed to have my tonsils out, that i’d now met the minimum threshold to have that conversation with a specialist and that i’d like to speak to that specialist now please.

He resisted. But when I told him that i’d rather the opportunity to be told im wrong, than to risk completely destroying my immune system with an 8th or 9th batch of antibiotics (this same doctor told me that taking 1 batch of antibiotics was theoretically enough to make me immunocompromised) he eventually relented and re-referred me back into the ENT team but only on the condition I did one more week of thrush treatment. Which…I’ll tell you now, did fuck all.

SO! It’s now early August, i’ve been in horrific pain for coming up to 9 months. I’ve been on antibiotics for *at least* 5 of those. My ENT appointment lands, and its a week from when I spoke to the doctor, August 10th. Which is MUCH better than the 2-3 month wait i’d had previously. I head over, the first thing I say to the specialist is ‘I felt a bit duped honestly, because I came to you guys in April/May time and was told I was going to be thoroughly examined, but they basically just did a cancer screening and nothing else. We now know it isnt cancer, I’d like a bit more of an involved check, because I think im going to need my tonsils out based on what i’ve read online’

The specialist was honestly one of the nicest doctors i’d dealt with up to this point, he apologised that things hadnt quite gone to plan, and told me he’d do a full inspection of my tonsils, nasal cavity and throat right there and then…via scope. Which…was unexpected because they normally give you a bit of prep warning…but I wasnt complaining.

He scoped me, this time it was a bit more difficult to keep my composure. But within 30 seconds of the ‘scoping’ beginning, he pretty much immediately identified a problem…’You have Chronic Allergic Rhinitis…I don’t know how this wasnt picked up sooner.’

Yes! Boys and girls, it turns out that due to several boobs on behalf of over 10 doctors across a doctors surgery, a hospital and a specialist facility. They’d all overlooked a particularly common issue that was causing a particularly problematic side effect.

Rhinitis is basically an inflammation of the nasal cavity and throat. Sometimes theres a trigger, other times it can just be your body mis-reacting to environmental stuff. Hay fever is apparently seen as a very acute form of rhinitis. And can usually be treated and resolved within 4 weeks of antihistamine treatment.

I was diagnosed with very chronic allergic Rhinitis. Basically an extreme form of the acute side of things. Where SOMETHING either externally is irritating my sinuses, or my body is fucking up and self inflaming my nasal cavity and throat REALLY badly and causing them to swell and feel discomfort. Theres no cure for this, the specialist basically told me to try and find out what may be triggering it, but that realistically; given how long i’ve been dealing with it for, it could be an internal issue with my body just badly reacting to the world around me. So he prescribed me a nasal spray, told me to try it for a couple of months and see how I got on.

Within 2 weeks I could talk again at room level. Within 2 months I could hold long conversations again, and as of the time of writing, While im not 100% better, im around 90% and feeling so much better for it. I had a follow up with the doctors around the end of september/october time where they basically told me, this is a permanent thing, if I stopped taking the meds, it’d go back to being as bad as it was before, and that, how it was by the end of the year, would pretty much be how it’d be for the rest of my life. I can live with this, its manageable. But I do wonder just how much time was wasted by the 8 months of being dicked around…This is the best outcome I could have hoped for. But I regret the lost time on multiple levels.

For me personally; that was the BIG issue of the year for me, i’ve never been in chronic pain before…it’s not fun. Would not recommend. 1 out of 10 experience honestly. But this one issue ended up being compounded by other awful awful shit that this year seemingly decided to shoot me in the face with.

In early May, right around the time my throat was at its worst and I was fresh off being ‘Scoped’ My grandma fell over, broke her hip and passed away in hospital due to a complication arising from an infection. That whole event happened over the space of 2 weeks in May. It devastated the family who were totally blindsided. Shit was cruel honestly. It was bordering on the surreal at times because, not only could I not mentally articulate my feelings about it, but I couldn’t PHYSICALLY do anything because of my throat.

My grandma was a much loved member of the community and a devout elder of the church, her funeral was a bit like a ‘who’s who’ of the UK christian circuit. It was a grand celebration of her life, and because I have a degree in film and worked as an editor for over 5 years. It was decided to turn her funeral into a mixed media event showcasing her life. I was put onto editing some videos for the event and organising the running order of stuff. The funeral went about as well as it could have, but understandably my mum and her brothers, even now, are still very upset about it.

That was bad enough, but then the real slug in the gut happened. Since December of 2022, my dads quality of life had slowly begun to decline…seemingly without reason. My dads health had always been shite, he had chronic COPD, they were debating putting him on oxygen for the longest time because he could never quite catch his breath and struggled with even gentle walking. He lost an eye as a kid, and in his 20s (being a big blokey bloke that he was) he shattered his kneecap and broke his leg hopping a fence on a shortcut home…and DIDNT go to get it looked at…so it healed wrong, leaving him with chronic leg pain and making him use a walking stick whenever he stood up for the rest of his life.

In the last 10-15 years, he ruptured a nerve in his back (picking up a cushion off the floor of all things) which left him in severe pain 24/7, he had 2 operations on it which were unsuccessful and resulted in permanent nerve damage and was on a cocktail of pain killers throughout that time. Add to that chronic arthritis, severe depression, PTSD and I firmly believe he was autistic and in burnout (he refused to get checked)… He wasnt a well man.

For a couple of years leading up to December, my dad had developed 2 new issues, he’d started falling over a lot, and he’d started slurring his words. My mum thought he might have had a mini stroke. By December 2022 however, the falling over had become much more commonplace, the slurring had gotten pretty bad and he’d started having random bouts of personality changes. One of the most memorable I can recall happened at christmas of last year when he was adamant there were some decorations we’d not bought down from the attic…and…SOMEHOW, he managed to climb into the attic by himself, trash the place and then got confused and couldnt get back down without help.

Anyway; we took him to the doctors on and off across early 2023, but he didnt like going and quite often just point blank refused because he thought it was a waste of time. In either case, they advised that it could be oxygen starvation effects on the brain (which reopened the ‘putting him on oxygen tanks’ discussion) they argued it could be early onset dementia or it could be something as simple as a urine infection.

There was a lot of words exchanged…but not a lot of action. In april 2023, my dad was really REALLY unwell, and ended up in the hospital for a few days, where they told us that it was an enflamed pancreas. they gave him some antibiotics and sent him home.

In early June, pretty much immediately after my grandmas funeral, my dads speech had more or less ground down to nothing. We’d find him on the floor more than we’d find him stood up or sat down. He looked white as a sheet and clearly wasnt all there After a particularly bad weekend, my mum made the decision to call an ambulance for him…he passed away 2 weeks later. As of the time of writing, we’re still waiting to find out EXACTLY what it was that killed him, all we know at this point is he had a high level of toxins in his body and his liver was particularly damaged. The best answer we have at this time was that the painkillers he was on wernt *supposed* to be long term permanent medications as they could cause liver damage. But the doctors never checked in with him, and my dad wouldnt willingly go to the doctors for medication reviews, he also wasn’t supposed to take them with alcohol, which he did irregularly.

This was both absolutely devastating and totally unexpected. I mean, his health wasnt great, but…and I say this with sincerity…he was driving 2 weeks before he ended up in hospital. He was able to have complex conversations a week before that. To see him essentially crash out over the course of a fortnight was heartbreaking. Im still lost for words on how I feel about the situation because of how unexpected it really was. Its now been over 5 months since he passed and there isnt a day that goes by where I don’t think about him, where I don’t miss him and wonder what he’d make of the world even so soon after he left.

Somewhat hilariously (and morbidly) 3 things happened in the space of 3 months of my dad passing that held significance for me:

*The ‘Caramac’ bar got discontinued (literally his favourite chocolate bar)

*Top Gear and the grand tour got cancelled (literally his favourite TV shows of all time)

*The Israel/Palestine war kicked off big time (My dad was a lifelong supporter of Palestine…I know for a fact he’d have had extra TV’s wheeled in to the living room to see as much of the news as possible had he lived to see it)

I’ve quipped that my dad didnt want to live in a world without Jeremy Clarkson and Caramac…its dark, but you’ve got to find light where you can honestly.

My biggest regret through all of this was that I wasnt really able to have those final conversations with either my Dad or my Grandma, apart from the fact that both of them passed in states where conversation would have been impossible realistically. But the throat pain made even light conversation impossible. I hadnt properly spoken to my dad in months because of my throat. And while I had no baggage with either of them, things ended with no unresolved issues, I had healthy and happy relationships with both of them. I do just wish that I’d been able to not have had one more conversation with them where I didnt have to keep stopping or think very carefully about what I was saying because of how much I could talk.

Obviously; the side of this that you dear reader are likely to be aware of is the news that came out of my youtube channel around the time. That i’d lost a couple of family members and that I was struggling with throat pain, so I had to pause the channel. Initially that wasnt going to be the case. Initially the plan was to do a ‘long play’ on production. Write up all the scripts, record a script a week starting WAY earlier than I normally do, and the plan was that hopefully i’d have a diagnosis on the throat stuff in by May/June time. I was hoping to be be on the mend by August (bearing in mind I started planning for the September season in January) meaning I could have SOME episodes ready for September and October, AND be ready to batch record again in September/October for November/December episodes.

Then, when my grandma passed in May, I figured…’Okay. Im going to have to stop channel work for about a month. Not the end of the world, but I may have to drop a couple weeks in september ASSUMING I get a diagnosis on my throat soon’. Then when the results came back messed up, I was like ‘Fuck…right…Okay, no, I can still make this work, I’ll drop September completely, we’ll come back in October and go straight into Halloween episodes and I’ll pool the september scripts over into Feb 2024 for season 15.

Then my dad went into hospital, and a week after that the prognosis was NOT good. My throat was still like razor blades and i’d basically been told I was a lost cause by the doctors and put back on antibiotics… It began to become glaringly apparent that I absolutely wasnt going to be good for a September launch and October was looking about as unlikely too. I really wanted to make it work, but…I was at a very low point by late July. the last straw on things surprisingly was something totally unrelated.

I craved summer this year, I desperately wanted that time to sit in the garden, enjoy the heat and maybe even do some daytrips to make the most of the weather…Then we had one of the wettest, dankest, darkest summers on record. We had approximately 1 week of sunshine in a 12 week window, with the other 11 weeks were mild, grey, overcast, and around the time of my dads passing we were going through the bizarre circumstance of it being mid july with 3 ‘weather warning’ level storms battering the UK for the better part of a month. It was tropical floods, thunder and lightning for almost the entirety of summer, you couldnt go anywhere, you couldnt do anything. It was miserable.

That was the last straw, i’d lost a lot of good people this year, my voice was fucked so I couldnt record even if I wanted to, and with the weather being SO god awful, it meant I didnt really get to do anything I wanted over the summer vacation other than sit in doors with a lot of mourning people, while I myself was mourning too. It was at that point I realised i’d basically be busting a gut, bottling up my own feelings and possibly doing myself some physical damage to try and force the show out to meet what was becoming and increasingly improbable deadline. So…I made the decision to pause the show till the new year. Both because, at the time I made the announcement I still wasnt entirely sure how long it was going to be before I got a diagnosis for the throat stuff, but also I didnt know how long recovery would take, AND I was feeling very low.

I took 3 months out from mid july, I watched some movies, tried to make the best of an awful situation…I may have done a livestream or two around this time. But that was the top end of my channel stuff. By mid to late september, my voice had started to recover thanks to the medications, and I was able to go from recording 1 script a week broken down to a page a day with several days recovery after the fact, To doing a script a day. Through september and October, I began to pick things back up again. I slowly started to record all the scripts I’d written in Feb/March that SHOULD have been for September. By the end of October, i’d recorded 12 scripts. And had started writing the last few scripts that I’d not gotten around to.

It was in late October/Early November that, after speaking with some of my fellow content creators, I decided things needed to change. The amount of content i’d been making for the channel was widely considered to be a LOT more than I needed to make. I’ve been running weekly uploads since 2017 and as time had gone on, more and more time was being required to make these videos, alongside all the live stream appearances, podcasts…all that good stuff. It was putting a strain on my partner who would go days without seeing me, it was putting a strain on my personal life, and it was straining my health.

So I made the decision to roll back the number of episodes I made in a year. Starting with the next season. Season 13, including the September special totalled 23 episodes, its commonplace on the channel that the Feb-July schedule is usually between 21 and 23 videos depending on how the days fall. With Sept-Dec generally being between 16 and 19 videos. Add in the (now annual) audio only CD releases which are another 7-8 audio reviews a year, and your looking at the max end of 50 reviews a year…not to mention letterboxd or having to run social media accounts like twitter, discord, insta…Its a LOT of time.

So, because my voice isnt as strong as it was, Im still really working through the deaths and for the benefit of my relationship with my partner AND helping her deal with her chronic health problems. Season 14 is currently going to run for 16 episodes. With a 17th being debated depending on how quick I work. Im not going to lie…its a big drop. But I feel like doing this is going to help keep my voice in check and give me some time back to work through things and help better support my partner. Season 15 (Sept-Dec 2024) is currently looking to run for 14 or 15 episodes, and we have an audio release planned for the summer of 7 more reviews there…bringing the total down from 50 to 38 or 39 videos for 2024. A reduction of around 11 or 12 videos…which I estimate *should* in theory give me back almost 2 months worth of afternoons and evenings across the year.

I am also hoping to bring back game streams next year. How regular they’ll be I cant say for certain at this point, but im looking At Feb as being a starting point. AND im equally hoping to get back into collaborations, podcasts and appearing on other peoples streams…so if you want a weird cult film guy on your stuff. Reach out, I AM very much interested. I’ll be scaling back on some of my other social media presences too, insta is probably going to be scaled down because…well, meta have screwed the pooch on this one and you now see more adverts than you do ACTUAL content on the site. so…I don’t see much point there, Letterboxd has been going quite well in recent months, so im going to be continuing to write reviews on there. (seriously; if somehow you havent had enough of me, head over there. I usually manage to write 2-3 additional reviews a week at minimum on there)

Theres an official TYTD facebook page, thats been automated for years and wil continue to be so. Im basically waiting now on Bluesky adding DM’s so that I can leave the hellscape of Twitter (Or, at the very least, im hoping Twitter gets bought out next year by someone who ISNT a total dickhead so I can be on there without having to see so much awfulness)

I’d like to try and continue to grow the TYTD discord server, which has been arguably one of the best things to happen to me over the last 18 months. Theres some wonderful people on there who quite honestly have been BEYOND supportive.

What else has been going on in my really fucked up bad year? Well…when we last parted ways, work was on a downward turn, I’d been part of a rather successful (but slightly imperfect) team that had just been dissolved and I was now with a first time manager, in a part of the business I didnt like, and I was being told (not asked) that my role was going to be changing and to expect a bigger workload.

12 months on, i’ve changed managers AGAIN, my previous manager (the first timer) is now a coworker with me in this bigger team, and things are about as shit as they’ve possibly been in my entire 6 years with the company. This is because, while I was on bereavement leave. The company decided that EVERYONE needs to be standardised. That means everyone needs to do the same training, everyone needs to be able to do everyone elses job (no matter how far removed it is from the ACTUAL job I do)…its a mess, my boss, my bosses boss and my bosses bosses boss are all ladder climbers, who have no interest in the staff they manage, they just want to do big changes that look good on paper, but don’t work in the real world. I currently have a weeks worth of time every month wasted on stuff thats been deemed ‘mandatory’ even though it has ZERO relevance to my job.

I’ve moved from an environment where we were encouraged to speak up about ‘low/no value’ time killers and to have open and frank discussions with managers about ways we could improve efficiency, to a model where theres no room for discussion, no option to push back. Everything is dropped on us WAY after the fact, when its all been pre agreed and theres no way to challenge it. And if you do raise a query about how useful it is to your day to day job, you’ll either be met with ‘Its not fair for everyone else to do it, and not you…so do it.’ (casually overlooking there that 90% of ‘everyone’ ALSO don’t need to do it really…Or you’ll get greeted with a ‘Its mandatory, not doing it will get you a disciplinary or worse’…again with no context or reasoning

I’ve also been told in the new year that they’re going to start loading me up with work Im really not keen to do because one of my co-workers is the bosses friend and he wants to ladder climb too…so they’re basically going to take all his shit work, give it to me so that he can do something grandstanding. But non of that matters because theres also the VERY real possibility that I wont even HAVE a job by March/April time next year because of various ongoing company issues…Put it this way, if I go in March/April/May time…I wont be surprised…if I manage to hang on till October/November, I’ll actually be kind of glad because the payout will be a bit larger.

Theres also some rumblings about me returning to the office…which is literally the worst thing I can think of right now on multiple levels that I wont go into here, mainly because it hasnt happened yet, but also because we’re already 10 pages in to this blog…So yeh…works about as bad as it can be right now…not as bad as the last place I worked where my boss literally called me ‘Slime’ for having a union rep…but yeh…this year has not been my finest hour…its not great right now…

What else, what else…OH! My very elderly cat passed away in August after developing a neurological condition…he was 19. Very old boy…that kind of got lost in the whole ‘death of my father/grandmother’/’work is literally a bag of dicks’/’I cant talk anymore’ part of things…but yeh…

Politically? Not much has changed. Last year I lamented that I felt politically homeless with a tory party creeping ever closer towards outright fascism, and a labour party that was essentially promising to just ‘be the tories, but one click back on the evil scale’ This year? Its still much of the same, the tories are now literally just ramming through as much shit as they think they can get away with without causing an outright civil war (basically scoffing down the cookies before they’re pulled away for a spanking) and Labour have somehow become more cuntish and are actually out-torying the tories on some issues.

Theres rumour swirling of a May general election next year. And at this point (as has been the case now for the last couple of years) im basically staring down the barrel of spoiling my ballot on the day unless theres a green candidate…and even then, it would depend on the green candidate…. I cant in good faith vote for any of them. The UK kind of have it easy in some regards with this upcoming election…choosing between a right wing government thats going to fuck us over or a REALLY right wing government thats REALLY going to fuck us over isnt really a complex issue.

The US by contrast is looking at Trump/Biden round 2…thats…thats a hornets nest I don’t wanna play with. Realistically Biden is the lesser of two evils. But we’re at the stage now in american politics (and UK politics really) where constantly picking the least shit option isnt acceptable anymore. Both the US democrats and UK Labour have rigged their internal systems now to the point that NOONE with a shred of integrity or a slight leftward lean can get anywhere near frontline politics.

We’re currently in a system where people are voting for politicians who are aware of the public interests. But have ZERO interest in voting in favour of them. We have representatives who now actively not only don’t represent their constituents. But actively work AGAINST them, largely in negative ways for lobbying money. And I don’t know how you fix that because they arnt going to regulate themselves and you better believe they’re going to be co-dependent on the other political parties using fear tactics to keep them in power…so I can only really offer the unconstructive approach of ‘spoil your ballots’ and try to dismantle the system with every opportunity you get.

We’re now over 11 pages into this ‘end of year’ blog and its been a bit bleak…so I am going to end on the LITERAL SHREDS of light that landed on me this year, Stopping me from going to the nearest bridge and tossing myself off (careful). I hit 1k subscribers at the start of the year! That was a hell of a milestone and I want to thank each and every single person who joined me on the journey so far and supported the channel, you guys have been utterly amazing to me over the years and ‘thank you’ is honestly too small a word. I only hope I continue to improve as time goes by.

My relationship with my partner has become more sturdy this year than it has been for a good while, after 12 years routines tend to set in, but given all the awfulness thats happened this year, and all the downtime i’ve had, i’ve really had chance to spend a lot more quality time with the missus, and I think we’re in a place thats the best its been in a couple of years at least. I should stress we wernt in a BAD place before hand…but its like we’ve gone from an 8 out of 10 to a 9 out of 10 recently…which has been lovely.

I had a wonderful day with her at an Aquarium for her birthday, which is a much treasured memory of this year, and one thats really got me through a lot of the harder times. I also achieved the goal I most wanted to do this year, I WENT TO THE BEACH! After 3 years of longing to go back to the seaside, in august, I packed the car up and took the missus and my mum on a daytrip. YES it rained and blew gale force winds for almost the entire time we were there…BUT I DID IT!

Me and the missus have also started the VERY early work of looking to buy a house together. Nothing will be happening till the summer at the absolute earliest…but its a start! We also started work on a project to turn my Dads old tool shed (which…in the nicest possible way…was a rat infested, hoarders shit tip) into a fulyl functional workshop. So far plans have stalled a bit as we keep having electricians bail on the project (we’ve been ghosted now 3 times) but hopefully next year that’ll finally get its grand opening!

And obviously the continued outpouring of everyone around all the awfulness this year has been honestly more helpful to me than words could ever say…SO many people have reached out to check in on me, Trivial Theater in particular needs special thanks, not only for checking in on me almost every day, but for sending me goodies in the mail which honestly made my year. All of you have been so supportive and caring, and it really helped restore some of my faith in humanity…so from the bottom of my heart..thank you. Even small acts of kindness have been immeasurable. You really don’t know the good you guys have done here.

OH! and because I usually write a little bit about christmas here too…Im writing this now on the 29th of December, having had my christmas vacation split in half (I had from the 15th to the 26th of December off, I was back at work for 3 days, and today was my last day in…im now off again from the 30th till the 10th of January) thanks to another ‘improvement’ from my new boss and management…Christmas 2023 was, i’d say, above average. Given everything thats gone on, my mum and my sister were adamant that this christmas was going to be rather ‘bleak house’ but I went and stopped with them (along with my partner) from the 22nd till the 27th and whenever the mood took a turn, we made a point to try and pull it back. Which we did rather successfully.

In a break from tradition, we decided this year to have Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve instead of the day itself. Which I actually think worked rather well all things considered. It meant that Christmas Day wasnt quite the mammoth marathon it has been in previous years…everything felt a lot more chilled out, spread out and we could actually enjoy the days more fully…

After last years mini disaster of winding up 3 days before christmas missing MOST of the christmas food, this year me and my partner got onto my mum in late September to start planning now to avoid a repeat of previous years…Which god bless her she did! we had it budgeted and a list made by early November, we started buying bits and pieces in from the first week of December and, barring literally 1 item (a big pork pie) we managed to get ALL our christmas shopping done with 3 days to spare! No fuss, No muss, it was lovely.

So yeh…on the whole, while It was a bit of a brief one (normally I take a full 2 weeks of at christmas and get the full benefit of that weird 23rd December – 31st December ‘No mans land’) This christmas was actually one of the better ones i’ve had, AND it turned out a LOT better than it could have.

And…I think thats about it for 2023. A shit fucking year thats EASILY the worst one i’ve experienced in 15 years (and im including 2009, the year I genuinely considered killing myself in that ranking) It cannot fuck off harder or fast enough, I want nothing more to do with it, and im glad its in the bin.

But what does 2024 bring??? well…At this point my expectations are through the floor quite frankly. I feel like my jobs going to get worse before it gets better. Two HUGE elections with awful outcomes no matter how you square it (varying degrees of pain)…But I do have some positive stuff to look forward to. With a bit of luck, we’ll open the workshop in time for summer. Theres obviously the start of house hunting, which will (hopefully) be fun and not a nightmare. The channel will be back up and running from January which im PROPERLY looking forward to getting back into that…

The summer of 2024 frankly cant be any worse, short of some kind of mass extinction event and more tropical storms…So…theres that…I’d like to try and hit the beach again…but in better weather…and im hoping this year that the channel will continue its upward momentum as we hit 1.2k subs as of a few days ago..so getting to 1.4 or even 1.5 by this time next year would be astounding honestly…

I suppose thats really the mantra im carrying going into 2024…’Lifes what you make it’ im really hoping for smooth sailing (or at least…a calmer year than 2023) but who can honestly say? Personally i’ve craved stability now for the last 2 years…if I can manage that as a base note for 2024…I’ll be happy.

To 2024, a year of the unknown. I wish you all the best, the safest and the brightest of futures.

TYTDan x

Jan 2, 2024Dec 29, 2023 by tytdreviews

Partially Reformed Content #4 – (Over) one year on.

Its been a while. Just over a year or so in fact since my last blog (whats a couple of months between friends eh?) The honest answer is I promised I was going to try and do at least quarterly blogs after publishing the last one. I wrote at least a couple around the renovation project I had on at the time involving my work room. But despite writing at least 3 different versions of the same blog none of them really felt suitable for the blog or interesting “Man decorates room” could be fun. but it just didn’t really sit right with me. Then life gets in the way (as it often does) and because I spent so long writing those blogs that never got published I was left with the feeling that I’d only recently updated the blog (even though I hadn’t) so I decided to focus on Channel stuff over updating the website.

Then I forgot the blog existed entirely at some point around November as home life, work life and personal life took over and it was only really around June this year that I remembered “Oh Shit! I have a blog on my site that I haven’t updated since I did my Room renovation blog!” then I actually checked the blog section of my site and went “OH SHIT! I NEVER ACTUALLY PUBLISHED MY ROOM RENOVATION BLOG!” and; since June every few days or so I’ll be hit with a mini pang of guilt that I haven’t given you guys that sweet sweet 1-2-1 time that I really should.

So to newcomers who’re maybe reading these for the first time. the “Partially reformed content” blogs are basically personal blogs, just mainly focussed around stuff that’s going on in my life, or been going on in my life. thoughts. Feelings. Its kind of the “Spam” of blog types. It’s everything from tail to snout with Now’t taken out.

So; whats happened over the last 15 months or so? well; If we’re filling in gaps I finished the renovations on my property around September time last year, had a catastrophic hard drive failure that almost wiped Season 8 of my reviews clean off the face of the earth. My partner got quite unwell again and ended up in hospital a couple of times. I ended up more or less looking after her property for a good portion of time while she was in the hospital, which led to a massive backlog on the review front. Which all culminated in a mad Christmas dash in which I simultaneously lost my voice JUST before a big recording session where I had to nail 12-15 scripts in 5 days. which was fun…Basically I sounded like Tom Carvel for most of Christmas as a result.

The Family had its first Covid Christmas. Which; surprisingly, was much MUCH more enjoyable than the usual Christmas routine. Both me and my partner have VERY large families and I always try to book 2 weeks off at Christmas. which generally means week 1 is spent visiting all her relatives, half of week 2 is spent visiting all of mine, 2-3 days are spent cleaning and if i’m lucky I get a day to actually relax before im due back at work. It’s pretty intense and honestly, for quite a while it was basically kind of an enforced thing rather than an enjoyable thing. Don’t get me wrong. I like my family and I like my partner’s family. But there’s something about “Annual Get togethers” that just kind of irks me. it feels enforced, with the expectation being that you MUST go and you MUST have a good time and if you don’t pretend that your having the best time of your life you’ve ruined Christmas, and if you say your not going half the family won’t turn up and you’ll be responsible for ruining Christmas. basically; the option is go and fein interest or I’ve ruined Christmas. The only reassuring level of comradeship being that my partner feels exactly the same. Only she has anxiety so the feelings I’ve listed above are 10 times worse for her than me.

But last Christmas? that all changed; instead of mass cleaning operations in expectation of “The family”, Instead of travelling up and down the country ticking people off our list and trying to be civil when uncivil opinions presented themselves, instead of spending hours adrift in other people’s houses not really having much to say, getting overheated and watching that precious leave time slowly ebb away. Instead. There was nothing. Silence. peace. Oh don’t get me wrong some members of both of our families kicked up in a “Covid or no Covid! It’s Christmas!!!” Kind of way. But I’m not even going out now. I’m double vaccinated. I certainly wasn’t about to go and sit in other people’s houses unvaccinated with 16-20 people who all have varying morals on what is and isn’t okay to do during a pandemic.

Instead; last Christmas we had a bit of a general clear out which lasted about a day. My partner and I went to my parents house on Christmas Eve and stayed there till the new year. just us, them and my sister for a week of pigging out in front of Christmas films, drinking various flavours of booze and the occasional party game. On Christmas Eve me and my partner agreed to visit her grandparents for a “Garden Visit” (Basically we stood in the garden and they talked to us through the conservatory while my partner collected some home bakes and presents that all her family had dropped off at the house) we stayed for about an hour and caught up before letting them crack on. and on our side we had a rather successful Christmas zoom call with all of our households online for about 2 hours, where we did a secret santa, some party games and just chilled. In total what was previously a two week endurance marathon of cleaning and catching up became collectively about 3 days of light housework and distanced meetings with a handful of relatives with the rest of the time being an absolute breeze. I think it’s probably the best Christmas I’ve had in at least the last decade, and equally one that’s given me some of my most fondest memories.

At the start of the year we launched season 9 of our reviews! Which was really good fun and around the same time as the launch my workplace got in touch to tell me that I would be working from home now on a full time basis. Essentially; working from home had proven so effective to work/life balance and morale that they decided that about 2/3rds of the workforce could do it permanently. Now I work from home full time and Im required to go into the office twice a year to both make sure my work equipment is as up to date as possible and to speak to my team manager face to face (basically to double check I haven’t outsourced my job) this was probably the best outcome I could have asked for.

I’m generally quite an introvert around people i’m not too familiar with (im happy to be a weird and crazy dickhead with people I care about and people who’re in my “Scene” but strangers? Normal people? they give me the fear) I was in the rather unfortunate position when I used to work in an office where my entire team barring me got made redundant which meant, in an open plan office space where people hot desked. I’d quite frequently be with people who I didn’t know, who didn’t really care to know me either. I don’t miss the hustle and bustle of office culture, I don’t miss the morning or evening commute where I would spend 50 minutes travelling 2 miles. I certainly don’t miss having to defrost my car all through the winter at 7:30am every day from November through to February. In fact. the only thing I really miss is there was a goats cheese and Beet sandwich they’d sometimes sell in the office canteen that was just…*mwa* perfection. And…being honest. While the office itself was actually a really nice place to be. I’d take working from home and having the freedom and flexibility to work how I want hands down every single time.

And that really was the last big change in my life, and that happened way back in February. Being absolutely honest, during the pandemic has kind of fundamentally changed my relationship with time. This year has frankly evaporated. And I know before the pandemic I was prone to saying that. no. this shits not normal. I literally can’t believe we’re only roughly 3 months away from it being the end of the year. Summer was non-existent (collectively 5 weeks or so of blisteringly unbearable heat in high humidity. 4 of which happened between May and June and 1 of which happened in September) and a spring I literally can’t remember it was that uninteresting. I just…this years vanished. But it kind of goes a bit deeper than that.

I have no evidence to back this up other than anecdotal ones but it feels like everyone’s aged about 10 years as a result of the lockdowns, the being stuck indoors, the uncertainty. My grandparents were thriving outdoorsy types who used to go on long walks semi regularly and there was barely a weekend that went by where they weren’t in some part of the UK exploring the towns and cities. In 18 months they’ve gone from up and attem sluggers to needing canes to walk any further than the bottom of the garden, unable to hold long conversations and irritable. My own parents have softened a bit themselves. from the “Can do” any job any time type to being trapped at home for the most part with weak joints, and just simply, a lot less able to do stuff. this isn’t just old age. And if it is then it’s positively collapsed on most of my family in the space of 12-18 months. these were fully functioning, sharp members of society and now; well…they look weathered. They look tired. And it’s quite upsetting to see honestly.

I thought lockdown was going to be harder on me than it has been. I mean; I was an introvert shut in before the lockdowns happened. So when they came into effect I wasn’t exactly affected all the much. Basically the only thing that changed in terms of my lifestyle was that I ended up wearing a mask outside, I already washed my hands TONS before the pandemic (because people are dirty) but now I just wash them a little bit longer and a little bit more, and pre-pandemic I’d rarely (probably every other month) treat myself to either a trip to the cinema, a trip to the theatre, a meal out with the missus or in the summer a weekend getaway. And that’s really the only thing I miss genuinely is that freedom to just go “Right; Im taking my partner out for a nice dinner” or “Ooh! That films playing! I can’t wait to go watch it!” even now im fully vaccinated I STILL don’t feel comfortable going to these places. Because; if it isn’t the risk of catching covid from wherever i’m going that bothers me, it’s the idiots who won’t get vaccinated who continue to put everyone else at risk who do.

Evil comes in all shapes and beardy sizes…

For me? Being vaccinated means I can go to the supermarket and not feel the need to bring a cattle prod to zap people getting too close away, it means I actually feel comfortable attending doctors, dentists and hairdressers appointments. It means I don’t feel *Quite* as fearful of killing my elderly relatives who’re also fully vaccinated. That doesn’t mean i’m hugging and kissing them you understand, it just means that I feel comfortable enough to be inside their house without it being a massive risk.

But restaurants? Gigs? The cinema? Actual holidays? As long as the cases and deaths continue to climb steadily and idiots continue to protest their right to not mask up, to not get vaccinated and to not bother being responsible for their kids safety, I can’t engage in that part of society anymore…and that does upset me somewhat. So…for the most part I remain indoors, hoping that either cases start coming down or we finally hit a level of vaccine coverage that makes it less risky to do more public driven events.

I mean; I say that like I hate being indoors. I do need to clarify. I am VERY happy to be a shut in! All this extra free time has saved me a nice amount of money, introduced me to some wonderful people online and it has allowed me to really focus on the channel and this website in a much more meaningful way than I did before. I now actually have a production schedule. a roadmap and projected plans. None of this would have happened pre-pandemic…hell this new blog wouldn’t exist if the pandemic hadn’t happened. So in that regard I’ve flourished.

And on that front, if we’re looking for positives with my co-host, partner in crime and best buddy Ben being vaccinated not too long after I was, it meant that in August we were able to meet up and record commentaries for the first time since November 2020. And that was a quite wonderful moment. We’d dabbled with remote recording as early as May 2020 but it was a difficult job due to ropey internet connections and lack of kit. In November, Lockdown lifted briefly so we were able to get together for a one off session to record 3 commentaries back to back. And in January 2021 we finally sorted out a way for us to remote record in decent quality with *minimal* interruption. We recorded regularly from Jan to Jul and in August we met up to record 2 new commentaries, have a catch up, play some Mario kart and drink a few beers. It really was quite lovely! I don’t know how often we’ll be doing face to face meet ups but I’d like to think irregularly regular would work for me!

Over the summer I worked hard on our newest season of the show, I set myself a summer checklist and I achieved all but 1 of them which was put on hold. Basically with this being our 5^th anniversary year (This is the 5^th year of us uploading content and the 6^th year of the channel’s existence) I wanted to try and do something a bit commemorative. So I decided I wanted to publish a book in an INCREDIBLY limited number compiling some of my favourite reviews from the last 5 years, with updated thoughts, extra behind the scene info, a few new exclusive reviews and all that good stuff. and that book is pretty much all but finished. Like; literally barring proofreading I reckon there’s probably about another 3-4 weeks work there just in putting the last few touches to it and adding in a new review or two more than the ones that are already there and it’d be good to go. I scoped out the cost of publishing and found a decent enough looking publisher within my price range, but then, just before reaching out to them to inquire about getting a short run on these books, they hiked their prices. And my “Expensive but understandable” initial quote suddenly became JUST out of my price range. So…the projects on hold. I have a few other things on the boil at the minute anyway so I’m not exactly desperate to get this done. it may come out soon, it may be another couple of years. But for now at least. It’s paused while I rethink my options.

And that pretty much takes you to the present day. the new seasons been running for about 2 weeks at this point and has had quite positive feedback (thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to subscribe to the channel, comment and like my videos. It genuinely is very much appreciated and helps me keep the lights on and the fire burning) and hopefully you’ll enjoy the rest of the run as we go on! Im hoping this half of the year will be relatively quiet, Halloweens just around the corner and I genuinely can’t wait to do what we do every year there (Drink, get diabetes, watch horror films till the sun comes up) and i’m equally hoping for a quite quiet and chilled out Christmas! there’s a few irons in the fire that’ll be announced in good time around other projects I worked on over the summer, but for now lifes pretty reasonable.

In terms of this site? It’s almost always a source of “Oh God I should update this” type facepalming. So, while I do try my best to keep things up to date. Don’t be surprised if the next blog isn’t a million years from now! I really hope to get the time to pick up my alternate history of cinema articles again at some point and of course I do enjoy a good politics grumble. But for now at least; all I can say is. I hope you all have a very safe rest of the year. I hope you’re all keeping well and I wish you all the very best.

See you in time x

Sep 12, 2021Sep 12, 2021 by tytdreviews

Partially Reformed Content #3

So…It’s been a quiet year so far eh?…alright alright; it was an obvious gag but fuck me if we dont need SOMETHING a bit lighter going on around here…Jeez. between a worldwide pandemic, riots in the streets, murder hornets, waves of cicada’s, an almost super majority Tory government, the rise of white nationalism and the complete collapse of the economy. I find a lot of us are on the verge of a full blown Clark Griswold style meltdown…and at this point frankly; I dont blame anyone who does. We are quite literally the closest to the threshold of hell than almost any other generation currently alive. We’re a pressurised tank of pain and anger and at the time of writing (the 3rd of June 2020) and we’re on the verge of a full blown explosive outburst (If that hasnt happened already by the time this actually gets published.)

(VENT! BY GOD IT’S SO HEALTHY!!!)

So given that my last Blog was in February, a rosier time when the pandemic was barely on the radar (If it was on the radar at all) I thought now would be as good a time as any to flip my chair around, grab a beer and catch up with you guys via a good old fashioned “Partially reformed content” blog. To new comers (As I realise my site has had a bit of a spike in viewers of late) these blogs are a little bit of everything. Just a verbal stream of consciousness where I let you know where we’re up to with the show, whats going on in my life, a little bit of politics, a little bit of film making stuff…it’s the SPAM of blog posts, a bunch of shredded up loose threads compressed together into a solid slab of meat.

(It’s rich in mystery meat goodness…)

So! Kicking things off! Channel News! And Season 7 is almost over! Assuming this blog goes live when I intend it to then our newest review of “Sleepaway Camp” should have gone live on Friday! It was one I was particularly happy with and I think we’ve had a really solid run of Red Triangle episodes this season. In fact looking at the analytics this season has arguably been the most successful season I’ve made since I launched the channel back in 2017 and we’ve still got another 3 weeks or so to go! So thank you so much to everyone who’s supported me through the good times and the bad. I really genuinely could have done non of this without your continues support and love. It helps make every difficult edit, every multi day recording session, every stagnated upload totally worth it.

(And I really genuinely and sincerely mean that!)

The season is set to end at the end of June at which point we’ll enter a 2 month hiatus while I continue to work on new material and for other reasons I’ll get into shortly. In the mean time work on Season 8 continues to pick up pace it’s looking like a 17 week run at this point (With scope for a couple of collaborative “off channel” reviews also scheduled in pending the current global crisis.) running from September to December. At the time of writing I’ve completed 15 of 17 scripts (Plus 2 collab scripts) and im hoping to write one of the final 2 scripts over the next fortnight. The 17th script is a bit of a bigger scoped project than usual…but it isnt due until the end of November so for now. That ones on hold while I work on other things.

Of the 15 scripts I have completed 14 have been recorded and of the 14 recorded 10 at the time of writing (15 by the time of publication) will have been fully audio edited and processed. Meaning I’ll be spending a good chunk of June and July video editing September and early Octobers content. Honestly? This seasons been one of the hardest to write for. It’s been quite ruthless and relentless just purely for the amounts of “Fixed” content I’ve had to work on. With the March to June run the whole things on me; I can choose what I want to watch, when I want to watch and how. September to Decembers a bit different as we have Halloween and Christmas demanding fixed content, thats 8-10 weeks worth of episodes (10 out of 17) that I had very little say over in terms of film selection or genre. Its arguably the only truely hard part of doing this channel, having to watch movies of a specific genre that you just arnt “Feeling” at that time, while also trying to maintain a level of professional critique.

(Not feeling the movies you need to review IS SO NOT A VIBE!!!)

Watching Christmas films in June or freebasing 5 Halloween themed movies one after the other can be seriously draining at times, but it’s a necessary evil, doing them now gives me time to make sure they’re super polished for release. PLUS it means I greatly appreciate the chance to talk about the genre movies I want to when the opportunity arrives. So while at times writing the newest season has been hard. I hope ultimately it was worth it as there are some absolutely KILLER titles coming up!

(Spoilers)

In terms of the Comedy Dining experience; Lockdown has been both a blessing and curse to it. On the one hand we’ve been able to record more commentaries during this lockdown than at any other point since we began working on the show (We now have commentaries lined up right the way up to December). The downside is that Ben (My cohost) is unfortunately a 70s bohemian by nature and as such doesnt really have/use a lot of technology. He has a laptop that by his own admission is over 10 years old at this point and overheats/switches off after 30 or so minutes use…he has a smart phone…thats about 5-7 years old with minimal to no features and the biggest issue? His internets shocking in terms of connectivity.

(Like this…but MUCH less Hipster-ey and MUCH more in tune with 70’s Dayglo)

As such while we’ve been able to record around 6 commentaries together over the last month, only 3-4 have actually been usable. Mainly because of drop out, bad mic quality and the fact that I’ve had to rig up a seperate machine on my end to record both mine and Bens conversations as He cant record any of his audio on his side. So as of the time of writing we’ve kind of put a bit of an unspoken hold on recording anymore until we can find a more solid work around. Though we’ve been talking about some new film ideas while this hold has been going on so as soon as we’re back up and running we’ll be hitting the road with wheelspin! Also; to close. Even though the latest Season of TYTD finishes at the end of this month, The Comedy dining experiences (Amongst other goodies) will continue to be published throughout July and August to help tide you guys over! So keep an eye out for them!

So thats the formalities out of the way; Dan! What have you been up to since the last time you spoke to us properly on December 31st 2019!? Well; Im glad you didnt ask! Home life’s honestly been a bit dull really; I was told by my place of employment to stay at home and to “Stay the fuck away from the office” in early March and about 2 weeks after that the country entered lockdown meaning other than shops and pharmacies everywhere is shut. As my parents and my partner are all classed as “Vulnerable persons” I’ve been spending most of the lockdown juggling work, the youtube channel and making sure they’ve got food, medicine and anything else essential they may need. That hasnt stopped my Dad (who’s arguably the most vulnerable of all my family) from regularly flouting lockdown to go to the shop himself…but I’ve warned him as much as I can and he’s chosen to take the risks. There isnt much more I can do there.

I’ve been trying to help out the wider community also while all this has been going on, helping provide shopping to the elderly and making sure that vulnerable people are not suffering in isolation. While I havent done as much as I’d have liked. I’ve done what I can. And now that the governments botched the lifting of lockdown restrictions my help is seemingly no longer needed…well not until the next wave flares up inevitably…

(He’s been warned…They’ve all been warned…ahhh…Goddamnit.)

Anyway! In terms of other events in my life, as regular readers may recall my partner is unfortunately not in the best of health. This was one of the reasons season 6 and 2019 ended up the way it did as I spent a large chunk of that year in hospital waiting rooms. Well so far this year she’s been holding relatively steady. There have definitely been ups and downs and right now we’re definitely in a down. But the extremes have definitely narrowed and she seems to be managing things at least a little bit better…which im incredibly thankful for. While we’re nowhere near getting her back to her old self at this point and the lockdown has definitely been quite detrimental to her progress in some regards. Theres a distinct feeling right now that things are moving in the right direction. Equally! We have a hamster now! His name is Newt and he joins our cat Zelda as being the joint 2nd cutest thing in our house (just behind me obvs.)

90263335_10156669644196650_4911334505005973504_n

(Just look at his lil face!)

Apart from DESPERATELY wanting a haircut (Seriously; I only have a few things that make me feel uncomfortable and during this lockdown i’ve learnt that long hair is one of them) everything else has been relatively stable. I’ve spent a lot of time catching up on my “To Watch” pile and working on the show. It’s been a bit like a mini vacation really as I havent had nearly as many people trying to drag me away from the things I love! In fact i’ve finally had such an abundance of free time I’ve finally been able to pull the trigger on a massive project that’s been at least 3-4 years in the making. My media room is getting upgraded.

(And Sweet merciful Jesus it’s about time!)

Im going to do a separate blog at some point documenting the transformation (And Im even hoping to stream some of the sorting through my films, records and books when It comes to repopulating the room) but the long and short of it is the room itself hasnt been totally ground up renovated since the 1970’s and hasnt been redecorated (Repainted) since 1998 because of the 70’s aesthetic I’ve always kind of been reluctant to do anything major with the place (As…well it’s 70’s aesthetic design…why on EARTH would I want to) but having now spent the majority of 2020 in here, It’s become clear to see that the place REALLY needs to have something done to it, faded wallpaper, holes in the wall, mould, burn marks, dust, dirt and cobwebs are just. EVERYWHERE. And the current layout and tech choices in here are dated to say the least. So from the middle of July I’ll be completely stripping the room back to the brickwork and over July and August we’ll be completely renovating the place both to modernise it and to make the place more film and media friendly. Im SUPER excited about getting started on this project as it’ll mean I’ll finally be able to pull out a good chunk of my stuff from storage and after 5 years of false starts and umming and ahhing I’ll finally have a room thats a bit more “Me”. I have no idea how long it’ll take to TOTALLY turn the room around and have it finished but the bare elements should all be in place by the end of the first week in August, Im ETA’ing that everything should be totally finished by early October. 2nd pandemic and lockdown permitting.

So thats everything personally relevant to me, what else….hmm! Well politically im starting to feel evermore homeless! Thats always a good feeling (Aside; it’s not) after nearly 5 years as leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn finally stood down as the leader of the Labour party in December 2019 after an election defeat so monumental it pretty much handed the keys to the country to a load of alt-right fascists for the next 4 years…seriously; they were just shy of a super majority based on the results and at this time there is NOTHING that anyone can do. Even if all the opposition parties united against the conservatives all it would result in is a comfortable victory to the tories…thats how fucked we are collectively right now. At the time of the defeat a majority of the reports claimed it was Corbyn himself and his radical lefty ideas of treating everyone as fairly as possible and not letting people literally die in the streets that led to the monumental defeat. Though it’s clear at this point that Xenophobia and Brexit were the main things that led to this defeat. In the interim while a new leader of the opposition was being selected a report was released into the antisemitism claims that have plagued the labour party since 2016, and while the report itself was kind of “Meh” in terms of actually saying anything we didnt already know. What WAS absolutely damning was that between 2016 and 2019 it was revealed right leaning members of UK Labour worked against the leader and the left wing of the party to purposfully throw the vote. This includes ringfencing members membership fees in order to run anti Corbyn propaganda and purposefully throwing the local and general elections in areas they had control in order to try and shake Corbyn off.

(…)

Yes. you heard me right; one side of the labour party, tried to purposefully ensure the other half lost and guaranteed a Boris Johnson victory because they didnt like the idea of a socialist government. When this document was released I was apoplectic. Blinded by rage and this hasnt been resolved even now nearly 3 months after it was initially revealed. And thats partially due to the fact that the new leader of the labour party was Keir Starmer. A member of the more right wing side of the labour party who CERTAINLY wasnt going to rock the boat over this because: A: He won and B:he needed to keep the people who got Corbyn out on side or else they’d do the same to him. As such we’ve now got a limp labour party that seems to be agreeing with the conservative party more than opposing it. Which at any other time would be horrendous. But NOW…JUMPING JESUS ON A POGOSTICK…its a wonder I havent become an alcoholic.

1476

(Pictured: Sir Keir Starmer QC)

At the moment theres been a lot of people banding about the idea that because of the lockdown Starmer hasnt really begun to flex his muscles…and some even bigger cretins who are actually trying to make out that he’s an effective leader of the opposition (Despite not getting his own house in order yet OR doing anything to actually oppose the current government charnel house.) I promised I’d give him a fair crack of the whip before giving up my membership. He’s got till September for me personally…so far. Im going to be saving quite a bit of money year on year if he carries on the way he has been. I certainly wont be voting for my local labour MP in the next election if he’s standing as the leader. Fuck that noise.

And that pretty much leads us back here to June 3rd 2020. The worlds on fire. Racism has been unbottled and we’re on the brink of a civil war which may or may not have gotten underway at the time of this publication. The whole situation is tragic, awful and barbaric. But ultimately not surprising. 400+ years of systemic oppression was eventually going to boil over at some point. People can only be held back, degraded and kicked for so long. And under a Trump presidency 4 years was the perfect catalyst and combination of elements to lead to these riots. To my US readers. I say support the protestors where possible. Donate money if you can, and do ANYTHING you can to take down the fash. Here in the UK I’ve resigned myself to the fact we’re a lost cause. 50k+ deaths, a know lying, philandering, racist, homophobic PM and 300+ MPs’s who are nothing but wadding to support the unsupportable have shown me over the last 12 months that the UK population is either too dense to accept change or too malicious to want it. But you guys in the US, with this act you’ve just rolled the dice. And I REALLY hope that meaningful proactive and positive change is born from the ashes of this horrible moment. Until then the world continues to burn, I continue to work…and well…im hoping that by December SOMETHING good will have come from all this.

Till Next time.

(The 12″ Mix of this has been stuck in my head now for the best part of 3 months…if I have to suffer; so do you…enjoy the middle 8.)

Jun 9, 2020Jun 4, 2020 by tytdreviews