Now what was the first thought through your head when you read that title? I bet it wasn’t positive. Now imagine it’s the name of a club night. Hmmmm.

OK, keep the imagination going. It’s a club night for singles in Manchester. Good grief. Is it just me, or is the word “totty” not a bit, well, inappropriate given the circumstances? I mean, what single woman over 30 would be happy to class herself as “totty”? And just how “over 30″ do you have to be to want to have a “good boogie”? There’s a Jeremy Hardy skit about having “a bit of a bop” that’s just the thing here - it’s the nightclub equivalent of a cardigan and a tube of Preparation H. Whether it’s for your Johnny Giles or your crow’s feet is between you and the Woman’s Weekly.

But sneering aside (ha!) the biggest obstacle is left till last: you must be single but you must be able to drag a similarly-minded person of the opposite sex to this thing. If I could persuade single women to go out with me to a club where there will not only be boogie but there will be a few drinks, I wouldn’t need to go to a singles club, would I? Um, I mean, “one”. One wouldn’t, would one?

Maybe it’s all an elaborate double-bluff. Perhaps the idea is to cop off with the very person you dragged along, after showing what a pathetic shower the other boogie-havers really are. Clever…

When I was first asked if I wanted to see Mike Leigh’s film about a 1950’s backstreet abortionist, I have to say I wasn’t keen. It’s not what you might call a cheery subject - not even something you can just sit there and let it wash over you, either. Knowing Leigh’s previous work means that you expect a certain approach which forces the audience to engage with the characters; usually this engagement involves thankfulness that your life is not theirs. I’m sure if Mr. Leigh had a penny for every time a review of his work had the word “gritty” in it, he’d be a rich man. He probably is anyway: he certainly deserves to be, if you compare the craft and the humanity of his films to some of the abject dross coming out of Hollywood.

If you’re still thinking in terms of Leigh stereotypes, at least one goes out of the window at the start of Vera Drake. It might be gritty, but this one’s not Northern. It’s a false stereotype anyway. While the subject matter is undoubtedly weighty, there is plenty to raise a smile, too, and to draw the audience into the story without ever having them feel that’s what’s happening. The joy and comfort of a nice pot of tea subsumes every existence, it seems, and that might at first appear strange until you remember that in the setting of post-war London a pot of tea says so many things: you’re alive to drink it, for a start, and you have tea! Rationing’s still in force, so there’s no taking small luxuries for granted.

A film on this subject could fall into one (or more) of several traps. It could take a hard and fast moral stance, or it could take pains clinically to ensure that there is perfect neutrality at every turn. Somehow this film for me does none of these things, but instead follows a natural path through the issues and observes the characters with a detachment that reflects humanity and respect rather than being over-analytical. I didn’t feel like any particular point of view was being shoe-horned into the narrative, which in any story is an achievement, but with something as emotionally charged as abortion is practically miraculous. As I write this, I wonder if Leigh, like me, actually does not have a hard and fast opinion about the rights and wrongs here. Maybe the only way honestly to portray subject this is to admit that when you get right down to it, “rights and wrongs” are exactly what we don’t have. Moral absolutes aren’t too useful in the real world. Hell, even the Police characters here are portrayed with enormous sympathy!

A techy aside: IMDB are a pain in the arse to link to! Have they never heard of clean URIs?

Can such a descriptive word as “oomerblatters” have slipped out of common usage?

Two odd things.

First, why, when I ran for a whole hour last night (did I mention that? :->) is the only thing that hurt this morning my right elbow? Very curious. Shins, knees, everything’s fine, except the elbow. It’s just odd; odd, I tell you!

Second, why is it that people who drive to a gym, presumably in order to work out, fight tooth and nail to get the parking space closest to the door of the place? Are they scared of a drop of rain? Nesh to the point of neurosis? Answers on a postcard.

Please don’t email me with a list of nasty diseases the symptoms of which start with a hurty right elbow.

One whole hour on the treadmill. I’m seeing little pixies flittering around my eyes and I was leaning pretty hard on the handrail going down the stairs, but by thunder I did it. If that Edie chappy can do it, why can’t I? Mind you, he ran for almost 2 hours. I’ve got a way to go. Also on the weight front: the little printout I got from the machine at the gym wasn’t good news. Put it this way: according to that, I definitely need a much bigger snowboard :->

All you new bands struggling for a name out there, I give you a suggestion: Alan and The Worktops. There, you go, Internet Community. You’re welcome.

I swear I just saw Christopher Ryan - the bloke who played Mike in The Young Ones, advertising life insurance. Makes a change from June Whitfield, I suppose…

Working on code for the site tonight, so there won’t be any clever fluff for today. I’m sure y’all are devastated.

Oh yeah; a bit disappointed with the NFL Championship games - both favourites got through without too much trouble. My British natural support for the underdog didn’t do me much good. Not sure I know who I want to win the Superbowl. Mind you, that McNabb seems like a nice bloke…

I actually noticed a difference between the speed I was running on the treadmill and the first minute of the cooldown. Woo hoo! Small steps. It’s not like I’m running as fast as Paula Radcliffe, but I’d like to see her try running at all carrying the kind of weight I do. Let’s have you run carrying a seven stone sack of badly dressed tripe. Not so fast now, eh, speedy? :->

Well I meant to write this yesterday and then just got so tired I was early to bed. Saw a programme on my beloved History Channel which included stuff about the St. Francis Dam Disaster. So the song by Frank Black was based on truth! Great song. It characterises the water as a person: “She had a desire to flow” which gives it a hard edge which no number of superlatives could. It doesn’t stop there, though; now I know what Ole Mulholland on Teenager of the Year is about, too. He really likes his L.A. history.