Better than the Movies II - The Sequel

So just like the best Hollywood thriller, our emotional need plot just had to have a few final twists and turns. And this one reads like something from a teenage Rom-Com.

Wink and Candy couldn't both go to the ball-game because one of them had to sit in the porch with Baby-Bubba and Jim-Bob until the start of the fall semester.  They toss a coin and decided Candy should go with her BFFs Mary-Beth and Aleesha.
This left Wink's homie Ross floundering. "I don't wanna let my buddy down, and do I really wanna sit behind Coach in the in-zone in all that bad weather?"
"Well I ain't going to no ball game with no girls" said Bud "Suki-Lou won't like it none"
Meanwhile Zeke, Billy-Ray and Shania adopt the frontier spirit and proceed to get their pitching arms in shape. After all the show must go on.
A dark cloud descends on Smallstown Arizona and time passes .... slowly.
Finally, Candy says:"Hellz-a-boppin', we could have more fun going to the next ball-game"
"Yeah" says Mary-Beth and Aleesha "With no boys to ruin things with their a-farting and a-snoring!"
"Well waddya know!" thinks Wink. "If they ain't a-going, I guess I can go to the game after all"
"In which case Suki-Lou won't be giving it no never-mind neither" said Bud.
"And if my best bosom buddy can go, then I guess I can too" said Ross.
"You're the best wing-man in the whole wide world" says Wink
"Well that's decided" they all declare in unison "We will go the the ball game after all. Go team! Go team! Go team!"

Cue life-affirming power ballad. Roll credits.

Wow - this is better than the movies!

Ever noticed how every Hollywood movie is essentially the same scraggy old lump of meat mouldering under a slightly different gravy? They consist of two plot lines: emotional need and material goal. The emotional need is often the rediscovery of a relationship (e.g. a long lost love, the pet dinosaur you thought had perished as an egg, or your old school mates aged 49). The material goal is a conscious action undertaken by the players (e.g. to rob a bank, to defend your planet against an evil genius, to climb Kilimanjaro aged 50)

Usually, the two plots are cleverly integrated, climaxing at the same moment (heaven help us).

Invariably Act One reveals two or three initiating events, to introduce characters and plot (the boys have a lunch, they decide to climb a mountain to mark their 50ths, A Charidee will benefit).

 But Act One always closes with a complicating event.

“I can’t make the climb, but my partner and some of her friends are coming in my place” says JK a little awkwardly.

“That’s cool” says The Ageing Hipster, having missed the first bit.

“Child care issue” says Bobby Backspin

“The good news is there’s women there to keep Gooner D company” says JK  

(Not sure if he's trying to sell it to us, or make himself feel better, but Gooner D’s not worried one way or the other).

“Did he really say he’s not coming to his own 50^th birthday event, so that his partner and some of her mates can come?”  I ask off camera.

“That’s about the long and short of it.” says Gooner D

Hang on a second! Family and friends coming with us is great. Family and friends coming instead of us is just a bit odd. Not even Hollywood’s lowest budgeted, "B"-est of "B" movies would have thought of that one. End of Act One!

Act Two sees the ensemble adjust to these new problems. The emotional need plot reaches its climax, altering the material goal plot (e.g. the little furry animals get lost in the woods as night starts to fall, a distant roll of thunder is heard and it starts to get all scary, they spend the night in a cave and discover a secret world of tiny people, where they are treated as deities.  Or the supporting cast decide it won’t be the same without JK, and if he feels he can’t take the time away from the family, which is fair enough, we should find some other way of marking our half century).

By the end of Act Two, the Hollywood plot takes an unexpected twist in order for the material goal to be resolved. (e.g. Earth’s been destroyed by the Lizard Men, but it’s OK, we’ll find a new planet to colonise. Or, Jodie will be a cheerleader, despite having to live in an Oxygen bubble. We’ll just play the match in her hospital ward!). 
And then there's the British version. (JK not being there fundamentally misses the point, but sod it, if he can't get this cleared by HQ, we'll just have to go without him! )

It would be good to get Act Two resolved sooner rather than later, so we can get into Act Three (Will the crime get solved?  Will the aliens take over?  Will JG manage to sleep in a tent?)  Hollywood dictates a secret will be revealed, or some other twist will complicate the material plot one last time. Personally I hope not. In porn parlance, I prefer money shots.  I just want to get to the epilogue, that’s the bit where the characters ride off into the sunset, half way up a mountain in Africa.

Punky Paul and his MOT

Punky's much vaunted MOT was delayed by a few nerve-wracking days, because "the Professor's had to attend an emergency." I wonder what that was? Has Jordan snagged a fingernail? Did The Queen's have a touch of the vapours after seeing the guest list for the Royal Wedding? Or maybe Professor CBE is doing something useful for a change,  like attending to his NHS pro-bono work (although quite what dog biscuits have to do with it is beyond me. Perhaps he feeds them to the poor and needy at his TB clinic in the East End).

And what is Punky supposed to do now his old MOT's expired? Take himself off the road because his insurance is invalid? Who knows.

Thankfully the days go by quickly enough, and the news finally arrives. The nation can breathe a sigh of relief. Jordan has had an extension glued on. Her Majesty has had the wedding list ethnically cleansed. The oikier element have been put in their place (i.e outside the palace gates), leaving a cathederal-load of pure inbreds who all know their whats from their pardons.

And Prof CBE has given Punky the all clear - in fact he passed with flying colours. We're in!