I Am A Swede

Happy 99th birthday to the Grande Dame of Emmerdale, Sheila Mercier. Let's hope she'll make it to 100, if her health permits.

Who could possibly think that people would want to see something like that? This show has become so dark and depressing.

I do hope that the rumour about a new twist is true, because right now that story is going from bad to worse. Cain emotionally blackmailing Adam into taking the blame for Emma's death is really disgusting. And you have to wonder if he's really thought it through. If Moira is having this much trouble coping with the fact that she caused Emma's death, I doubt that she will find it any easier to cope with the knowledge that her own son is being blamed for something she's done. It will eat away at her mind all the time. If they had to go this way it would have been better to have Moira turn up and try to stop Emma from killing herself, Emma insisting and during a struggle between them Emma losing her footing, falling to her death. Then have Adam turn up and take Moira away from the scene while trying to remove any evidence she was ever there.

Beautiful music from a BBC adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" from the 1980s.

I have a feeling that the viewers would have been more accepting than expected. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I feel that if the writing was good enough the majority would go along with much more than anticipated. The networks and the sponsors were probably more nervous than what was necessary, and most likely pulled the plug on a lot of stories too soon.

Yes, that was one of the absolute best of the many disasters that has befallen this little village after the plane crash, and the Kings remain the best inhabitants of Home Farm since the Tates. Subsequent families have failed miserably to live up to them. I wish they would have kept on releasing the early years on DVD. The show only aired twice a week back then and regularly took long seasonal breaks so it wouldn't have been that difficult to continue, at least up to 1979. But maybe the sales figures were disappointing and that's why they didn't continue.

I don't think anyone has denied that this has happened in the past, but what people then seem to forget to address is the power imbalance which caused this in the first place. And this only applies to Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry. What about all the women from other professions who have reported similar claims? I don't know how it is in the US, but here we've had reports of sexual harassment and abuse from virtually every aspect of society. I'd like to see men try to justify that. To start blaming women for these horrible stories by bringing up the casting couch system is something that I expected would happen, but I for one hope that this will not succeed and that the blame for this is put where it belongs, on the men. This is not simply a Hollywood problem, this is a problem permeating the whole society and it's time to deal with it, openly and honestly. We've had massive problems here in recent years with women being sexually harassed and even raped right in the middle of a crowd on music festivals, and when one female artist, Zara Larsson, spoke out about this many men immediately tried to shift the focus by attacking her and calling her man-hater and other, non-printable words. Until we men, as a group, start to accept responsiblity for this behaviour, nothing is going to change. Naturally the majority of us men haven't done anything, but we still have a very important part to play. Now we must do our bit to ensure that this kind of behaviour is stopped, by speaking out against it, and calling out those men who have committed these crimes.

Yes, all throughout the 1970s they only had a small group of core characters and other characters would come in for a story and then leave, never to be heard of again. It was one of the few downsides of those early years. Alison did last longer than most of these characters, but there was definitely untapped potential in the character. On a sad note, Carolyn Moody, who played Alison, passed away as early as 1989, only 49 years old.

Oh, the memories.....

Here's a beautiful version of one of my favourite Swedish Christmas carols.

Yes, some women have almost certainly behaved badly, but I seriously doubt that it's on a scale even remotely comparable to what men have done, and still do. So let's not try to shift focus from the heinous behaviour of these men, because it is almost overwhelmingly men. And while some behaviour is more despicable than other I don't think it's entirely wrong to lump them all together, because they're symptoms of the same disease in our society. At the end of the day all these actions are wrong, whether it's pinching someone's butt against their will or something more serious. It's all sexual abuse, and it's all wrong, and it should not be tolerated in any shape or form.

I didn't mean that the stories were alike, just that once again it seems like a murderer will get off without punishment on this show. They will probably use Moira's post-partum depression as reason. Another option is that Adam takes the blame for his mother and no-one finds out that Moira is actually the guilty one.

So is Natalie Robb leaving or are they gonna let Moira get away with it, just like they did with Carl King when he murdered his father? And I agree that it was such a shame to turn this story into a murder mystery.