Sandra Harris Writes

  AND NOW FOR SANDRA HARRIS’S DIARY… BY SANDRA HARRIS. © One of the inescapable things about being a writer is the urge to unburden yourself of your doings, thoughts and feelings on a regular basis to your public, by which I mean the handful of people who might be kind enough to read your blog. Enjoy my free unbosomings pertaining to the month of February of which we are, thankfully, about to take our leave. I hate February, and normally view it with the distaste which one might normally reserve for, say, a persistent itch on the sweaty underside of Satan’s ball-bag, or something equally odious. (And I’m not even gonna mention Valentine’s Day  and the Bridget Jones’s Diary film series coming to an end forever.) For one thing, the weather was diabolical, or Dia-bollock-le, if we keep with the theme of the Devil’s genitals. For about ten days, there wasn’t so much as a ray of sunshine. Now, I normally consider myself a Goth who lives only for the short, dark days of wint...

  ‘BYE ‘BYE, BRIDGET JONES…? BY SANDRA HARRIS. © It’s always sad when something good ends. It’s even sadder when it’s something like the Bridget Jones’s Diary series of films, based on the books by British author, Helen Fielding. The film series kicked off in the year 2000 with the wonderful BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY , starring the American (odd choice?) actress Renee Zellweger as British thirty-something, Bridget Jones. Bridget’s fed up of being single, of drinking, smoking and eating too much and being less than perfect overall. She buys a new diary to document her attempt to attain perfection and a zen-like state of calm contentedness in everything. The problem is that Bridget is endearingly funny, one hundred percent human and as far from perfect as you can get, which is why people love her. She’s a lovable mess, rather than a prim and proper Little Miss Perfect type, which would be unbearable. No-one likes a po-faced saint, lol. Her adventures as she goes in search of her ...

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW, IS LOVE, SWEET LOVE... BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Well, another Valentine’s Day is here and yet another postman is laid up in bed, possibly for days if not weeks, after humping all my cards, flowers, boxes of chocolates and other tokens and tributes of love and esteem to my front door from the postal van. The poor fella. I must remember to write him a card and drop it round to his house later. If it’s anything like last year, however, I expect his distraught wife will come to the front door and cry buckets about how Harry- that’s his name, Harry- won’t be able to work for weeks with his ruined back thanks to my post-load and what are they supposed to live on and how do I live with myself knowing that my beauty, charm, intelligence and sex appeal has broken yet another poor postman who, after all, was only doing his job…? It can get very trying, being so charismatic and sexually irresistible all the time. It’s not like how you guys think it is. It’s really not...

  JERRY SPRINGER: FIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! BY SANDRA HARRIS. © ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry…!’ I remember one time late in the ‘Nineties, my then boyfriend said to me: ‘You’ll never believe what I saw on television last night. It was this American talk show, right, but the guests were knocking seven bells out of each other and the audience members were going wild, meanwhile, the host was just standing there grinning and letting it all happen…! You have to watch this with me when it’s on again!’ And of course I did, and of course the programme was the Jerry Springer Show, and the laid-back host who fiddled while Rome burned was the eponymous Jerry Springer, the man who more or less single-handedly invented what we now call ‘trash TV.’ This was TV that concentrated on the more controversial or sensationalist topics out there rather than the boring or sensible ones, and, from 1991 to 2018, Jerry Springer was the undisputed king of trash TV. The guests were often of the ‘poor w...

  MISSING YOU ALREADY, STRICTLY! BY SANDRA HARRIS. © STRICTLY COME DANCING held its twentieth final the other night, and peel my tangerines if it wasn’t a total glamour-fest! My kids and I have been watching it for about twelve or thirteen years now and it’s been the highlight of our winter televisual viewing season ever since. This year they celebrated their twentieth anniversary and this added an extra element of nostalgia and excitement to the whole thing. Back in the days of X FACTOR, when the two shows would clash on rival stations, we’d have to make do with watching STRICTLY during the breaks of Simon Cowell’s massive brainchild (that’s kind of an odd image, isn’t it?) , but, with the demise of X FACTOR, it’s been STRICTLY all the way ever since on a Saturday night. It's a dancing talent competition show with ‘celebrities’ as the contestants, as opposed to the ‘ordinary’ folks utilised in regular talent shows. I put ‘celebrities’ in inverted commas because, sometimes,...

  WORLD AIDS DAY: LOOKING BACK ON THE START OF HIV AND AIDS IN IRELAND. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Sunday the first of December was World AIDS Day, and our national broadcaster aired a programme a few days earlier to mark it: MEMORIAL: HIV AND AIDS IN IRELAND. A physical memorial to all the Irish people who died of AIDS stands now in the Phoenix Park, a gorgeous sculpture using the little red AIDS support ribbon people wear on their lapels as inspiration for its shape. I haven’t been out to visit it yet myself, but I hope there are seats provided so that people who want to reflect about times gone by and people who’ve passed can do so in peace, tranquility and comfort.   I was only a young one myself when AIDS first began to be talked about and noticed in America. That first little headline from 1981 in an American newspaper, RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS, was something I had no clue of until much later. Young gay men began to present to doctors in their droves with the ...

NOVEMBER BLUES... AND BROWNS, REDS AND ORANGES TOO… BY SANDRA HARRIS. © I have the November Blues. It happens every year at the same time. Yes, November, lol. I know some people who love November because they’re looking forward to Christmas so much, but, to me, November is kind of a ‘meh’ month. I’m usually tired, for one thing, after all the effort I put into making Halloween the best time of the year. I love September and October, with the brown and red and orange foliage and falling leaves and glorious early sunsets. Also, there are the films…! HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN 3, THE THING, THE FOG, THE SHINING, THE CHANGELING, THE HAUNTING, PSYCHO, THE BIRDS, these are all on my regular Halloween go-to list and they literally just improve with age. I never get tired of watching these classics by terrific directors such as John Carpenter, Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock. Then there’s the best film Hammer never made, the superb horror comedy CARRY ON SCREAMING , with the gorgeousl...