Tempus fugit...

Time – there’s never enough of it, especially at this time of year as we dash around looking for gifts that won’t further break the bank, and juggle social engagements.
But actually it’s all relative – I mean, my very kind bank manager in the UK called me today to help me out with a problem but forgot about the 8 hour time difference and that it was 3am my time. Apologies to him if I sounded like a gibbering idiot. From his point of view it was just another busy afternoon in the old coastal town of Poole in Dorset – the high street packed with shoppers bundled up against the freezing cold.
A friend of mine just went home to Sydney for the holidays and where he is now, it’s already tomorrow – they are 19 hours ahead of Los Angeles, where I am. When his plane was in the air I was trying to figure out what time it was for him but I gave up.
My point, if there is one here, is that we’re all living out our lives all the time, whatever time is, and it boggles my mind sometimes to think about it, about this never sleeping planet.
And if we believe in the idea of parallel universes, it’s even more brain busting – I just hope it doesn’t mean my bank manager is waking me up 3am somewhere else in the universe.
So if the Holiday Season starts to make you feel crazy because you feel you’re running out of time, don’t worry, there’s plenty of it – it’s just somewhere else.

Too much information?

Now I'm the first to admit I like cop shows - CSI, Law and Order, The Closer, The Bill (for those reading this in the UK) - who doesn't like to watch the suspect squirm and lie their way out of a tricky situation in the interview room? But do I want to watch it for real?
There seems to be a disturbing new trend for watching genuine police interviews. These videos are released to the media by the police and posted on websites including MSN and the BBC.
Today on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ you can watch British mother Karen Matthews being 'grilled' by police over the kidnapping of her daughter. Matthews has just been found guilty of the kidnap, drugging and concealment of her own daughter in order to claim a £50,000 reward after a nationwide hunt for the 'missing' child.
It's an aerial view of the interview, with a grainy picture, shot in the dingy back office of some cop shop, with the interviewing officers' faces blanked out and the suspect mumbling almost incoherently. Frankly, it's pretty dull, but the public appetite for crime is almost as great as that for celebrity it seems.
Can someone tell me the real value of putting this stuff up? Don't tell me it's freedom of information. I really don't need that kind of information. Is it the kind of entertainment value we get from watching reality TV? I'm serious - someone tell me.
I for one, would prefer to watch Horatio beat down his suspects in the neon colours of CSI Miami, than the grim reality of some sad woman in a grubby police station who I can't even see or hear properly.