Mum, Heroin and Me (C4)

Two things I hate: the English upper-classes and junkies. As an Edinburgh Uni student living in Leith, I'm subjected to a bit of both every day, often swinging wildly from one end of the social spectrum to the other in the space it takes for the Number 14 bus to drive me from university to home.
Still, never did I expect to see the two spectacularly combined as I did in the extravaganza that was Mum, Heroin and Me last Thursday night.

Naturally Channel 4 were eager to commission a documentary about posh junkies: it's so much more palatable than their previous efforts. Anyone who remembers Krishnan Guru-Murthy's horrific presentation of a live detox - an unsavoury cross between Big Brother and America's Toughest Prisons - will understand why.

Irrespective of Jane Treays's merits as a documentary maker, this was never going to be the most heart-rending of subject matters. Because if you had grown up in Niddrie, with a life resembling a montage of the worst of Jeremy Kyle, heroin addiction as a lifestyle choice would be easier to understand. Somehow, telling us that it got so bad your mum had to sell the Conran sofa doesn't quite have the same ring of tragedy to it.

Consequently, I felt it necessary to illustrate my point with a list entitled "Why being a posh junkie is hard (but not that hard)":

1) You have to tie off the circulation in your arm before injecting (with a vintage Hermes scarf).

2) You cook up your fix in a spoon (a silver one).

3) You were once rattling so bad for a fix that you couldn't move. Mum sent Agnieska (the Polish maid) to pay the dealer.

4) You go through the chilling effects of cold turkey. Luckily, you can do this in the East Wing of the house, thus limiting any mess.

5) While detoxing, you have to puke and shit into buckets. Buckets made of gold.

6) Mummy and Daddy raid their ISA account and send you to rehab. In South Africa. Which is fabulous as your friends Freddie and Georgina are doing their gap year over there.

The Guardian Awards

I have no recollection of this picture being taken as I decided to get as drunk as possible in the hour preceding the awards in order to prepare myself for rejection. Luckily, they gave me some money, which I used to pay my rent. The guy on the left wasn't keen on me.

Doctors (BBC 1)

For screenwriters, Doctors often acts as the first rung on the ladder to bigger things. It's always frustrating starting a career in the creative industries and being forced to do things that aren't really within your sphere of interest. Take me, for example. My true passion is for investigative journalism that goes to the very heart of the matter but until my talent for cutting socio-political commentary is recognised, I'm stuck doing frivolous TV columns.
A build-up of unspent creative inspiration could explain Doctors' continual edging away from anything to do with a medical practice. It may well reach the point that, while saving a group of schoolchildren from a mineshaft, the heroine is a woman who once lived two doors down from a doctor. Often, I find I'm only reminded of the programme's main focus on seeing the opening credits which consist solely of the words 'DOCTORS DOCTORS DOCTORS' flying madly across the screen.

On initial inspection, Doctors may appear normal but, as anyone who's ever watched it knows, it is the least realistic depiction of NHS general practitioners ever shown. Anywhere. In the real world your GP, being pushed for time, will hurriedly respond to your throat infection by printing off a prescription for Calpol and shoving you out the door. In the world of Doctors, your GP will read your throat infection as signs you're being mentally abused at home by your bed-ridden elderly mother. Not only will they give you penicillin, they will do a home visit! (I last witnessed a home visit in 1991 when the family had chicken pox and GPs a stronger work ethic).
They will then arrange counselling for you and your mother.

If, in the real world, you require an emergency appointment the misanthropic receptionist will still tell you to come back in Open Access hour. In the world of Doctors they will say this at first but, upon seeing your pain, soften and immediately find a doctor willing to treat you.

Consider those who constitute the majority of viewers in this daytime slot - the elderly, the bed-ridden and people who are in hospital and can't find a nurse to change neither channel nor bedpan - and a second, alternative explanation for the parallel world of this BBC soap is in evidence. This rose-tinted show reflects the NHS in an ideal world, so much so that in my more paranoid moments I've decided it's probably commissioned by them as an ongoing PR exercise. To those who say TV has no duty to mirror the tedious realities of real life, I'd like to remind them of the sadly-missed No Angels, which conveyed the NHS at its chaotic, blundering best. Coincidentally, it was also an infinitely better show.

UPDATE: I naively thought I had neatly summarised all that is wrong with Doctors but no; this man - who is very possibly crazier than those folk who take pics of rabbits with cakes on their heads - has went further than I ever could: http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/life/Something_Rotten_In_SoapLand/31261/p1/

Luke Toulson review

Have managed to retrieve a review written for the Evening News Festival guide. The piece (about an unbearably smug comedian) has since mysteriously disappeared off the face of the Scotsman website and, indeed, the rest of the internet.
So, apologies to Mr Toulson:

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Luke Toulson: There are many things I can't do (*)

There is an important distinction to be made between bad comedy and simply dying on stage. At best, Luke Toulson is a bad comedian: tonight however, he falls into the latter category.
Despite holding a Hackney Empire Award - an accolade that kick-started Russell Brand's comedy career - it is near impossible to pick out a single redeeming feature to this act.
Aside from Toulson's rugged good looks, the only appeal in watching him lies in an element of sick fascination as you witness his car-crash act go from bad to worse.
On top of a couple of unimaginative and painfully stereotypical jibes at the Scots, Toulson bitterly laments losing out on the Perrier Award in between looking at his watch and expressing frustration that the show isn't yet over.
With an act that is devoid of talent or even enthusiasm, it seems unfair to gift Toulson with the oxygen of publicity but it is vital to alert festival-goers that there really are many things Luke Toulson can't do. Stand-up comedy is one of them.

Celebrity Scissorhands (BBC 1)

This week's Student column, pre-edit. I've also (very crudely) put the pic above in as the need to illustrate my mad hair was fairly essential for the purposes of this piece.

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It's 2am and as the credits of the Celebrity Scissorhands finale roll down the screen, I'm struck with the appalling realisation that, like a dog returning to its own vomit, I've watched the entire series for three weeks. How did this happen?

Much as I love Charlie Brooker (though his work is somewhat derivative of my own), I thought he was going a bit far when he made the point that reality TV is turning us all into zombies. I quickly changed my view on witnessing the finale of this show which consisted of dead-eyed people clapping numbly in time to music while Steadman from Five Star (a kind of Tesco Value version of Michael Jackson) danced around a haircut. This process was repeated several times over with the other non-entities while my eyes rolled back into my head and drool spilled from my mouth.

Nonetheless, it would be kind of hypocritical to deride the haircuts produced, primarily because I appear to be smugly wearing a sort of Legoman's helmet of hair in my column picture. But for fuck's sake, three weeks spent doing a slighly modified graduated bob?

Celebrity Scissorhands is like a lot of TV that interests me: to the average viewer, it's pointless shite that shouldn't be broadcast; to the discerning TV critic, it raises numberless issues, each more complex than the last.

There's Lee "I'M NOT GAY" Stafford, who proved a constant source of fascination with his aggressively heterosexual similes regarding hairdressing: "Oi, mate, cutting hair's like playing Premiership football, innit" and other variations of that sort (boxing, making love to a beautiful woman, etc).

Then there was the problem of Zammo from Grange Hill who, despite having reached the twilight of his life, has remained trapped in a permanent childlike state. His face has lost none of the youthful enthusiasm or openness that made the 'Just Say No' campaign an international success. On a middle-aged visage however, this had the consequence of making him look like a friendly retard.

And of course, the same thing happened that happens every time I get too involved in a second-rate TV show. Like the time I had confusing feelings for Jeremy Kyle, or the tragic period when I started emailing the panel at Loose Women, I began to feel a powerful attraction towards Lee Stafford, a feeling rendered even more conflicted by the fact that I bought a pair of his hair-straighteners recently and they were fucking atrocious.

Loose Women (ITV)

Published in 'Student' in February 08, this is the unedited version:

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Watching Loose Women proves disturbing viewing for me, but not for the reasons most
people would cite, i.e. the pseudo-feminist-tone-masking-a-desperate-need-to-be porked;
the irritating 'Carry-On' style innuendo that only the 50-something audience members find
risqué or even the mysterious, somewhat exploitative reappearances of a visibly unhinged
Su Pollard as a guest on the show.

No, the thing that upsets me the most is the relentless and daily victimization of Carol
McGiffin (aka Bulldog Chewing Wasp/Chris Evans' first ex-wife).
Despite being the only presenter who ever comes close to espousing rational and
comparatively intelligent views (that is, comparative to endless euphemisms for Coleen
Nolan's tits) each day brings fresh torture for poor Carol. Bitching and bullying is an
undesirable quality in adolescent schoolgirls, but to witness it amongst a group of adult
women is nothing short of embarrassing.

The sheer injustice of The Passion of McGiffin is only compounded further by the fact
that she's not even the most dysfunctional presenter out of all of them. No, that award
most definitely goes to cruise-ship/karaoke singer Jayne MacDonald. Now, call me a
conspiracy theorist, but I have a suspicion. A while back I spent a month in bed and in
that month I watched Loose Women from start to finish, every day. This was when I began
to notice Jayne's 'peculiarity', if you will. Notice the number of times she mentions her
mother. Nothing wrong there, you're thinking, some people simply love their parents.
Except Jayne is in her 50s and lives with her mother. Goes on cruises with her. Nights
out. Nights in. To put it clearly, they spend almost every waking moment together. Is it so far-fetched to suggest there's something of a Norman Bates dynamic at
work here? You're cynical, and so was I, initially, until Jayne started talking directly
into the camera to tell Mummy MacDonald how much she loved her.
I also spent my time as an invalid coming up with the following Loose Women drinking game, which is pretty standardised as drinking games go, and works in the following way:

Take a drink each time: - Jayne MacDonald looks into the camera and speaks to her mother
- Jayne MacDonald says she's "just a lass from Yorkshire" as if it's some sort of
hallmark for no-nonsense straight-talking
- Su Pollard is a guest on the show
- Carol's alcohol problem is brought up and she tries to deny it until the other women
tear at her like vultures
- the one that was in the Bisto adverts talks in a luvvie voice about doing 'theatah'
- like a little dog, Coleen Nolan will eagerly jump onto any male guest, attractive or
otherwise, and dry-hump his leg, until one of the other women reminds her of her husband
and she slides off, panting and slightly flushed.

Vanity Lair (C4, published February 25th 08)

I've gradually come to accept that Channel 4 has ditched home-grown quality drama and
comedy in favour of American-style imports. What I don't appreciate is their utilisation
of pretentious psycho-babble as a smokescreen for the programme's shallow intentions.
Which brings me to Vanity Lair, a show which the formerly respectable Alexa Chung reminds
us before and after every commercial break is "a sociological experiment designed to make
the contestants question what's really attractive". To which I contest "Is it fuck,
Alexa! Get back on Popworld with your passable attempts at Simon Amstell-esque dry wit."
Vanity Lair features everything I find despicable in American reality shows, including
the filming in a large mansion (Why? Why?!), the dramatic slow-motion camera shots of
doors opening to reveal a serious-looking presenter and all that pausing for 30 seconds
before announcing anything. Adding up all the suspenseful pauses employed in reality TV
brings you to the woeful realisation that you spend around a quarter of your viewing time
watching nothing at all.

Having ditched my TV as an ingenious solution to the niggling problem of actually paying
for my TV licence, I've found the 4OD player is ideally fitted to my viewing needs.
Specifically, when watching Vanity Lair, I can skip the token 'scientific experiment'
segment of the episode to the parts that - let's not deny it - the show is all about.
Like the bitchy Geordie model crying and vomiting because his face was the least
symmetrical. You read the last sentence correctly - VOMITING because he was
'scientifically' the least attractive housemate.

Though the puke scene was a spectacular demonstration of the depths of human narcissism,
the most grating contestant is the guy that's continually criticising his fellow cretins
for being "too into how they look". Did I miss something here? This is in spite of the
fact that he at some point responded to an ad in Heat that said "Are you a self-obsessed
twat? Wanna be on telly? Then call us now!"

When are reality TV shows going to drop the facade of being anything other than
televised bearbaiting? That's not a moral judgement, it's just that if they cut out all
the intelligence tests and pretend-science bits, it'd leave a greater amount of time to
put all of the contestants in a giant maze and track their gradual degeneration week by
week. The finale would see them hauled out by the scruff of the neck and thrust back into
a cold, unforgiving world, in which even employment with Tesco (never mind glamour
modelling) is but a distant dream. Now that would be Vanity Lair living up to its name.

Fringe 2008 reviews

Links to my comedy reviews, all badly-written as I was hungover/drunk throughout August.

Wil Hodgson: http://www.scotsman.com/reviews/Dour-alright-but-not-convincing.4360684.jp

Andrew Maxwell: http://www.scotsman.com/theguide/Funny-side-of-life-on.4389349.jp

Matt Kirshen: http://news.scotsman.com/theguide/You-can39t-help-smiling-along.4400454.jp

The Limmy Interview

This originally appeared in Student newspaper last October, waaay before the Skinny and Herald picked up on Limmy's impending fame.

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"See these people who are on the telly, how the fuck do they get on the telly? They start somewhere...I mean, they're no just born intae fuckin telly aristocracy or that"

According to Brian Limond - more commonly referred to as Limmy - it was this thought that compelled him to start making the videos that earned him a loyal YouTube following, two Edinburgh Fringe shows and now his very own TV programme.

It was in 2000 while working as a web designer that he registered his own website, limmy.com. Boredom led to the creation of numerous Flash toys, including a swearing xylophone that gained cult status as far south as London.

In 2002, the purchase of a camcorder led to the creation of videos like 'What Would You Do?' which sees a sinister moral debate take place between Limmy and a toy snowman. By 2005 his job led him to travel, a period during which he resolved to make it in comedy on his return to Glasgow. Shortly after his arrival back home, an idea to represent the varied characters of his native city was turned into the 'World of Glasgow' podcasts, a series which went to Number 10 in the UK iTunes chart and earned him national press attention as one of the rising stars of new media.

While the English press praise the 32 year old for his innovative use of the Net as a vehicle for comedic success, his popularity in Scotland seems to derive from the fact that his work is markedly different to other successful Glaswegian sketch shows. Programmes such as 'Chewing the Fat' and 'Still Game' offered up painfully unfunny concoctions of tired Scots stereotypes and jokes about schemies. While Limmy undoubtedly draws from this heritage, his work represents the darker underbelly of Scots identity, often depicting pessimism, mental illness, and social alienation.

Additionally, you get the sense that he doesn't confine himself to only writing material relating to Scottishness. Subsequently, this has allowed his Fringe and TV material to become funnier than ever, most memorably in a piece where he concludes a bizarre email correspondence with Dave Gorman by calling him a 'patronising fucking wank'.

As he talks me through each stage of his career, a pattern becomes evident, one in which Limmy alternately courts and then rejects success. This year's Fringe saw a second hit show yet the prevailing gossip on Edinburgh's comedy scene was that Limmy detested live performance and was only coaxed into it with the offer of healthy amounts of cash. "I said 'aye'...well, I mean after I said 'no'. Then I said 'Fuck it, I'll do it'" This is a recurring mantra in our interview and is always mentioned at the point where his career took unprecedented steps up the ladder. It is difficult to distinguish which of two contradictory statements to believe: did he set out with the express intention of becoming famous or was his past aversion to live shows a shying away from unexpected success?

For the most part, it is the latter that's frequently rings true as he expresses surprise at the relative rapidity of his success.

"See Jet, you know the band Jet?" I know them, yes. "The tour manager of Jet is from Scotland and he said 'Jet have seen your stuff, I've showed Jet your videos and that'" At this point he pauses nervously. "You know the band Jet? They've got a few hits, their main one was that 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl'" Once he's assured I've heard of them, he continues with an anecdote that involved clambering on stage at the Carling Academy to introduce the band only to be booed off by hundreds of disgruntled Jet fans following a cringe-inducing air guitar performance.

Curiously, he describes the experience as "exhilarating: it was like a dream where you couldn't get hurt." In a way, you can see what he means; having gone from a small legion of devoted online fans to 2000 people who had no idea who he was came as an inevitable shock to a man who has admitted, both in his live material as well as in past interviews, to harbour a dread of heckling. Surviving the heckle of a lifetime however, turned out to be ideal preparation for a stint at the Glasgow Comedy Festival (a gig where the chances of getting booed were unlikely: the tickets sold out within the first hour of going on sale).

For the sake of long-time Limmy fans, I need to ask him about one of his most popular videos, 'Beatboy', an inexplicably funny piece in which a clip of Limmy dancing is played on an endless loop opposite an image of a man in a suit.

"The [company I used to work for] had an office in St Vincent Street" [in Glasgow] and it backed onto a lane next to a restaurant. I was just watching all the people passing down the lane and I got my video camera out. There was this guy walking - no pure camp but kinda like 'Look at me' and I thought 'Check the state of him, man'"

Has he had any accusations of homophobia in his work (his site also features a Photoshopped image of naked Limmy having sex with multiple other naked Limmys)? "Some of the stuff I dae, it does kinda look like I'm taking the piss out of gay folk but it's cause I like it, I like gay things and I've always liked stuff like that."

He explains this with such sincerity that it would be unfair and somewhat reactionary to say that his work is biased, particularly when so much of it focuses on people who live in the margins of society.

"I've got a certain personality where I kinda come out with stuff in front of other people and I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm no saying I'm all unique and weird and special. I've got a kinda sadistic side."

I ask if he's been at all influenced by Chris Morris' work in 'The Day Today' and 'Brasseye' as his more recent material has displayed the same unusual combination of childish mischief with a razor-sharp intelligence. While he can see the similarities and confesses to watching Brasseye a few nights ago, he also says that "I like Laurel and Hardy. Some people are intae all this intellectual fucking comedy but I just like to see somebody standing on a nail. That's fucking hysterical."

While it's true that many Limmy videos contain elements of slapstick, they almost always have a pervasive sense of melancholy running through them. He admits that "I like things like fights and things going wrong and madness. It just all comes from myself and the fact that I like uneasy situations".

It seems important to point out that the heavy Glaswegian accent you hear in Limmy's material is in no way performative or exaggerated. This comes as something of a surprise and I wonder if he's encountered any difficulties with TV execs during the negotiations over the forthcoming 'Limmy's Show'. "I'd been kinda waiting for something like that to happen. With BBC Scotland I thought whoever gies us a telly thing - if it ever happens - is gonna say 'Well, we like your stuff but obviously we haven't got a clue what you're saying and you're too violent and it's just too horrible'

But the guy at BBC Scotland's pure brand new so I've not came up against any kind of bullshit. There was another production company down in London that were a wee bit shite but not for any pure wanky reason."

Seeing my look of disappointment, he laughs. "I'd like that to happen so I could give you an interesting answer."

Limmy worried that he's no longer entertaining? He needn't be. With his name popping up in various 'coolest people' lists (he is number 37 of '200 coolest things' in this month's edition of Arena magazine) and the move to TV making him a household name, restricting Limmy's success to the margin of 'internet phenomenon' will soon be a thing of the past.

Limmy's Show will be broadcast in January on BBC Scotland

Embarrassing Teen Bodies (C4)

"...So I've been getting the headaches for three months and that's why I think I have brain cancer."

The doctor stared back at me with a cold, reptilian gaze.

"And this worries you...?" He smirked while still managing to look incredibly weary.

I skulked out, humiliated. Then I went home and switched on 'Embarrassing Teenage Bodies', another TV show that promotes a Disney-esque dreamland in which general practitioners are positively eager to work tirelessly with a sick general public..

And the doctors are so cool! They get on stage at music festivals! They have names like Pixie! They take to the streets dressed as Bond and distribute condoms to youths while making flippant penis jokes!

Most of all, they want to see your repulsive, hormonally-charged body. Every single aspect of it. This is done partly out of concern for today's teens, of course, who we're led to believe are now shagging at such a frantic rate that they're creating new STDs, all by themselves (Gonophylis, Syphorrea). Largely however, its appeal lies in the 'freakshow disguised as health programme' genre, spawned by Gillian McKeith's laugh-at-the-obese-shitting-in-a-hat shows.

For all the gag-inducing close inspections that went on, it became increasingly disturbing to note the heavy use of euphemisms when referring to people's genitals. Surely, once the TV screen is filled with images of a fanny resembling war-torn Rwanda, it's time to dispense with tentatively asking to peer "down below".

It's weird when one considers that the people on this show go on an entirely voluntary basis, as most of the participants now face lives devoid of the prospect of sex.

So, this week's list is called "Becoming Celibate (And Staying That Way!)":

1) Cover yourself in fake menstrual blood while throwing it across paper. Think ‘Carrie’ meets Jackson Pollock. (It’s called a 'Period Painting', apparently).

2) Tell the whole country that you, your three brothers and your mum are unable to stop wetting the bed. Hammer the point home visually by cutting to repeated shots of your mum changing soggy sheets with a look of grim resignation.

3) Reveal to all (in gloriously technicoloured close-up) that you have a vagina which looks like [delete as applicable] a crime-scene/a dog sticking its tongue out/the Google Images result when you type in "genital herpes"

Dispatches: The Hidden World of Lapdancing (C4)

Sometimes if I’m too busy or I can’t be bothered properly researching an article I’ll use a tactic called Making Things Up. “But Fern,” you cry, “you’re not a real journalist so it doesn’t matter”. And you’d be right. Dispatches, on the other hand, is made by respected documentary-makers who lead you to believe that they’re getting to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, The Hidden World of Lapdancing had more holes in it than a pair of crotchless knickers. And yes, I see the flaw in that metaphor as crotchless knickers have only one hole.

As investigative journalism goes, this was one in a long, long line of badly-researched pieces on sex work in which the programme makers, having already decided what their viewpoint is (namely, that all strippers are whores), reveal nothing new whatsoever.

Instead, we were subjected to an hours’ worth of a man expressing amazement at the fact that the girls didn’t stand three feet away from him interspersed with shots of lapdances as absurd ‘high-jinks’ music played (let’s face it, they may as well have played the fucking Benny Hill theme tune). Consequently, the tone alternated confusingly between one of moral outrage and pointless titillation.

Annoyingly, in an attempt to distract viewers from the fact that there was very little content, they would repeatedly play what appeared to be the opening titles of a James Bond movie, in which a silhouetted lady gyrates around appealingly. It was the adult equivalent of trying to distract a screaming toddler by saying “Look! Look at the pretty lights!”

On the upside, the programme unwittingly provided excellent publicity for the strip clubs featured, as I can’t envision many stag parties watching in horror when they discover that for £20 a pop you can see live lesbian action (“Did you SEE the tits on the women in Secrets nightclub? Let’s go there!”)

“Many of the lapdancers we spoke to were reluctant to be interviewed on camera” said the smugly judgemental narrator, sounding confused. What? You mean, ex-lapdancers refused to be interviewed for a programme that would be heavily biased against them, destroy their present careers and reputations and ultimately blame them as part of the problem and not a society which constantly renders women’s bodies as objects for purchase?

How strange.

The Baby Mind-Reader (Channel 5)

Have you ever seen that film with Russell Crowe? This genius mathematician is asked to carry out top-secret codebreaking work for the US government. There’s a mysterious spy popping up randomly to give him his instructions. He’s played by Ed Harris. The twist is that the whole thing was a creation of Russell Crowe’s delusional mind.

As I watched Channel 5’s ‘Extraordinary People: The Million Dollar Mind Reader’ the parallels with ‘A Beautiful Mind’ were startling. Derek Ogilvie, a guy from Paisley who believes he can read the minds of infants, was just an ordinary charlatan psychic. One day, while immersed in ‘Cold Reading for Dummies’ a tiny figure clad in a black trenchcoat shuffled into his office.

“I gotta mission for ya, Ogilvie” the figure said in a husky Brooklyn accent.

“Wh-who are you?” asked Derek shakily.

The figure peered up from under his black panama hat. Chewing on a fat cigar, the baby growled through clenched teeth “Ya don’t need to know who I am. I represent babies from all over the world. Babies desperate to articulate their innermost thoughts. You’re the only one who can help us, Derek. You must be the spokesperson for babies everywhere!”

“I can’t!” cried Derek. “No one would ever believe me! They’d think I was mad, exploitative – maybe even a bit of a paedo.”

The baby chuckled softly before exhaling a long wisp of cigar smoke.

“They’ve fallen for Derek Acorah, Sally Morgan and Mystic Meg – why wouldn’t they believe you?”

And so it was that Derek set off around the world in his unlikely quest. Success came quickly yet it was only when challenged by James Randi, a skeptic who fittingly resembled Charles Darwin, that things began to go wrong.

“Derek, you have no psychic abilities. You can’t communicate with babies.”

Tears streamed down Derek’s face. “You’re wrong! I’ll prove it to you!”

Turning to the spy-baby, he cried “Ed, tell him!”

The child gurgled nonsensically. The skeptic gently pulled Ogilvie away from the child.

“Derek, calm yourself. Your belief is called a delusion. You are a very sick man.”

Howling in anguish and disbelief, Derek allowed himself to be enveloped in Randi’s strong arms, his tears becoming gradually quieter.

“There, there” said the skeptic, patting his back, “we’re going to give you the help you need.”