Humans are stupid, you know.
There's a great scene in Monty Python and The Holy Grail, which is a far better 'hunt for the Grail' story than Dan Brown's latest tediousness. Seriously, I finally got around to reading The Book Everyone Is Talking About while gently frying by the pool in Tuscany and I have to confess... its a bit rubbish.
Its one of those books where you really need to wear a plastic raincoat as you turn the pages to avoid being splashed by the author's semen. Every page has Mr Brown working himself into an orgasm of self congratulatory smugness: "Ooooh - look at me - look at all my research and cleverness - ooooh" Splurge.
And all this hides a tale more suited to the short story section of a Sunday magazine, with characters with motives so obvious that they resemble those East-European chaps you see on Oxford Street holding signs saying "Massive Golf Sale", except in this case the sign-post would have "Bad Guy" or "Good Guy" written in large letters.
Yes, I am marginally bitter about wasting a couple of days of my life on that book. Like the viewer of any recent Jude Law film, I want that portion of my life refunded. With every page I kept hoping it would improve and was always disappointed. Bit of a metaphor for life there.
Don't get me wrong, I like pulp fiction as much as the next person. What I really don't like is pulp fiction masquerading as serious writing.
But back to the that scene from Monty Python. Its the one where Michael Palin is defending his decision to build a castle on a marsh, in spite of the fact that it keeps sinking.
I suspect the same mentality makes humans build cities on swamps or skyscrapers on geological fault lines.
Me, I'm moving to the mountains. Thanks to global warming, there won't be enough snow for avalanches...
