Bowie Bowie - !!!NEW!!!

8 years ago today we lost one of the greatest ever British singer-songwriters - a leading figure in the music industry - and his memory, and using one of his own songs, I've created this:

Rebel Rebel Bowie Bowie not by David Bowie
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo 

A man with such worldwide appeal
His skill in changing faces was unreal
One day, (a) Starman from space
One day, a Thin White face
We like it, yeah we like it all
Under pressure there are no Changes
The Jean Genie has us in a trance
So Let’s Dance to The Magic Dance
You cannot hate, you can’t despise
The music man with special eyes

Bowie, Bowie, he’s just the best
Bowie, Bowie, better than the rest
Bowie, Bowie, but did he know?
Just how we love him so!

Don't ya?
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo

A man with such worldwide appeal
His skill in changing faces was unreal
One day, (a) Starman from space
One day, a Thin White face
We like it, yeah we like it all
Under pressure there are no Changes
The Jean Genie has us in a trance
So Let’s Dance to The Magic Dance
You cannot hate, you can’t despise
The music man with special eyes

Bowie, Bowie, he’s just the best
Bowie, Bowie, better than the rest
Bowie, Bowie, but did he know?
Just how we love him so!

Don't ya?
Oh?
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo

Bowie, Bowie, he’s just the best
Bowie, Bowie, better than the rest
Bowie, Bowie, but did he know?
Just how we love him so!

He was the best, more than all the rest
You can't get enough, and we’re so impressed
Because you’ve also got his work in film
Like Thomas Newton the man who to earth fell
Not forgetting the Goblin King as well
That’s why he’s the best
He’s a global success
Better than all of the rest
We hope he did know
Yes we hope he did know

What else is there to say?
Yes Ziggy Stardust, ziggy, ziggy
Had us in his sway
We know you know it’s true
Looks like you like him too
'Cause he was the best
Better than all the rest
Ooh, better than the rest
Ooh, ooh, we hope he did know
Eh, eh, hope he did know
Eh, eh

Life in Ashes - Mercorabilia

Alternative Life On Mars sequel

I am firmly of the belief that Life On Mars should have just been one amazing series – instead of being stretched to make two – and, while I understand the route the writers went down in giving Gene Hunt a female sidekick in the sequel Ashes to Ashes, I can’t help but feel they missed a trick as they could so easily have flipped the show on its head.

Imagine Gene Hunt inexplicably finding himself in modern day London faced with the politically correct, multi-cultural,diversified society we have now. You can just hear the intro:

Better still – what if the prejudiced, loud-mouthed Gene Hunt had a female superior, one sidekick who was black and another who was gay – oh, the possibilities! 

Come on BBC Commissioners – get this one in the pipeline.

From The Mind of Merc - Ashes to Ashes

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today’s topic is the Ashes to Ashes series finale.

Is it me or does the ‘plot twist’ at the end of Ashes to Ashes render the entire two shows as incredibly depressing?

In Life on Mars, Sam Tyler is ‘sent back in time’ when he’s involved in a car accident and we’re led to believe that his brain has perhaps constructed this world while his body recovers from the coma he’s in in the future – in a place where he’s able to affect events in the future by altering them in the past (absolutely fab – no problem with that)

However, not only (having succeeded in returning to the present world) does he then kill himself by jumping off a building – implying that he believes he was better off dead (how depressing is that?) – but at the end of Ashes to Ashes it’s revealed that he never time travelled at all and that both he and Alex were effectively dead from the moment of their accidents and their ‘journey’ to Gene’s world was merely to pass the time until they accepted this – which negates all their efforts, all their hopes and all their achievements. (Not to mention that it’s surely a Herculean task when a) you don’t know about it and b) you keep getting flashbacks implying you stand a chance of getting out of here.) All of which suggests that a) there was no point in them fighting it, b) their actions in Gene’s world have absolutely no effect whatsoever on any time period and c) Gene was ‘helping’ them by giving them false hope of survival – what kind of sadistic person does that?

This incredibly negative message for me ruined the entire optimism and possibility that the series had presented and also was completely unnecessary as they could just as easily have had the Ashes to Ashes sequel while maintaining the travelled in time to recover and change history plot and without everyone being killed off.

I’m not denying that (the majority of) the stories and acting were first rate but I just hate that they seemingly had to spoil it in their desperation to stretch it out a bit. Presumably the premise was only extended when the first series was a success and the network wanted to make more money out of it. (I’m convinced that if you watch the last episode of series 1 of Life on Mars, there’s a point at which it seems to change ever so subtly as if it was reshot and the ‘Pub’ sequence at the end feels incredibly tacked on – as if they recalled the cast to film it so they could continue the series.)

It should have been one fab series – Sam Tyler solving crimes in the past while in a coma and makes his way back to the future (excuse the pun) in the last episode – boom! – done. Ashes to Ashes could then have continued on from that following the same successful (which after all is the whole point anything changed at all) plot line.

Also in the twisted convoluted way they’ve found to ‘resolve’ the series – leaving a few gaping plot holes in the process – they’ve slammed the door on any possible sequels which again could have continued along the same (successful) path.

The writers also must have found themselves in a quandary as a result of having to extend the Sam-Annie relationship which meant that Sam’s happy-ever-after could only presumably be in the afterlife. So once Sam achieved his main goal of waking up from his coma (which he’d spent two series trying to do) he felt he had little choice but to kill himself. Thus negating all his efforts, all his hard work, everything just so the writers could continue the series.

And Alex –all the messages she received from Molly and all the updates as to her condition in the modern world were just prolonging her inevitable demise – what kind of sick joke is that and what kind of message does it give out when the overall conclusion appears to be if you’re in a coma or facing impossible odds give up because you’re already or as good as dead?

Would it have been that terrible to have a happy (un-Shakespearean-tragedy style) ending? We have enough doom and gloom in our lives without the writers crushing what little exists in the show for the sake of continuing the series.  (And don’t get me started on the whole ‘the devil in the form of Daniel Mays trying to win souls from Gene in the manner of Dr Parnassus’ bit) Personally, I think it would have been just as effective (and a lot nicer)  if the hope that the characters had carried throughout and the efforts that they went to had proven to be well-founded and worthwhile and not pointless, baseless and utterly utterly futile.