What we have here, is a failure to communicate.

It's not very often that a frankly trashy film has a good lesson... Not a 'If you want it hard enough, it'll happen.' thing or 'It all turns out OK in the end if you're a good person.'

S'boring, films have things like that in to make you feel good, after all, the movie people think, quite rightly in most cases, that once you've spent £10 on a ticket, then another £10 on drinks, popcorn, nachos (with salsa & cheese, thank you very much), a further £10 on pick 'n' mix (at £475 per kilo) You're so bloody depressed, that you need a happy ending or an uplifting message to stop you slashing your wrists.

So, you've got 'Bill & Ted' - Which had the supremely talented George Carlin telling us to 'Be Excellent to each other'.

The great Ferris Bueller imparted the wisdom that 'Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.'

And Yoda, in 'The Empire Strikes Back.' taught us that we should either 'Do, or do not. There is no try.'

But one of my favourite quotes, the one that I like to take as read and agree with wholeheartedly is from Agent Kay, played by one of my favourite actors, Tommy Lee Jones in 'Men in Black' - He says that 'A "person" is smart. "people" are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.' And he (well, technically the writer who came up with the line) is right, you get enough people together and they turn into a herd, there's no reasoning with them... Best you can do is give them two options... Get milked or get slaughtered.

Actually, thinking about it, there's another scene in Men in Black that is surprisingly insightful too.  It's where Will Smith's character is on a shooting range and shoots the cardboard cutout of poor Tiffany right between the glazzies - Then gives the following explanation:

'Well, first I was gonna pop this guy hanging from the streetlight, and I realised, y'know, he's just working out.  I mean, how would I feel if someone come runnin' in the gym and bust me in my ass while I'm on the treadmill?  Then I saw this snarling beast guy, and I noticed ha had a tissue in his hand, and I'm realising, y'know, he's not snarling, he's sneezing. Y'know, ain't no real threat there.  Then I saw little Tiffany.  I'm thinking, y'know, eight year old white girl, middle of the ghetto, bunch of monsters, this time of night with quantum physics books? She about to start some sh*t.'

It's all about the motivation... That's probably the single most important thing you can know about someone, what's their motivation? why are they doing what they're doing?  It's seldom obvious you know.

A lot of people get angry when they're scared, or embarrassed, or drunk, or confused - Anger's a pretty go-to emotion really, it's a lot of peoples' default setting - Especially those people who have limited options communication-wise, they lash out, you need to watch out for that.

Another personality trait you can get for odd reasons is unconditional agreeing, what we used to call 'Toadying', you see it a lot in the sidekicks of bad guys.  My older readers would immediately think of the many characters played by Peter Lorre, the archetypal toady (or toadie, whatevs...) The person who does this usually sees themselves as physically weaker, but cleverer than, the person they are agreeing with. Odd types usually... dangerous in a (sometimes quite literally) backstabby way.  They don't care who they're standing behind, as long as they're standing behind someone - (See the backstabby thing again) - Tends to attract the borderline schizophrenic, who think they're both not good enough and too good at the same time.

Then you get the slutty girls (Sorry ladies, that's not me being sexist, they're predominantly girls) who attach themselves to men that are currently described in modern parlance as, I believe, Douches.  Vacuously bronzed, spiky haired, skin-jobs who take any opportunity to divest themselves of their shirts and wander around the place inviting the world to stare at their oddly tiny nipples. Why are they attracted to these men?  Well, there's something of the Trophy Hunter there for some I guess, if they'd been born in the 19th century and had fewer breasts, more beards and a light sprinkling of pith helmet, they would probably have a tiger skin rug in front of the fire and a tapir head with sad, glass, eyes hanging dejectedly in the toilet.  It's also a possibility that they have crushingly low self esteem and believe that they can't do any better, they confuse 'intimate physical contact behind the bins at the local take-away' with 'Everlasting love and self-fulfillment' once every day and twice on Sundays.  Or... on the other hand, they could just come from an abusive household where sexual physicality has been reduced to a currency.

I don't know, and neither do you - It's easy to judge though isn't it? I do it all the time.

I've lost count of the number of Pikies and Druggies and Dole-Scroungers that walk past my house when I'm in the garage.  The number of Asylum seekers, terrorists, sex-trafficers and Eastern European non-carded plumbers that drive past me in rusty vans every day.  The number of once-pretty, Blonde-haired teenagers with crowds of mixed-race kids living off the Child Benefit that my Income Tax pays for in a house twice the size of the one I can't really afford to rent myself.

Then I think to myself (No, not "What a wonderful World") that actually, 99% of these people are just going about their every-day lives, trying to make ends meet, struggling just as much, if not more, than I am.

It's a commonly held belief that you only have seven or so seconds to make a first impression - and they're usually wrong, people who you pass in the street don't even get that - What chance do they have?

I guess what I'm saying is, don't Judge, it's really not nice - Unless you catch them trying to nick your bike out of the garage, feel free to judge them with extreme prejudice (and a bat... either / or)

But going back to where we started, I think the one film quote that epitomises the entire sentiment that I've talked about, the final explanation to the massive question of the ongoing bleakness of the human condition, the proof to Einstein's Grand Unified Field Theorem and the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything are the solemn words of one amnesiac female Royal Tang, who once opined: 'I shall call him Squishy, and he shall be mine.  He shall be my Squishy, come here Squishy!'

A lesson for us all there, I think you'll agree.

The Catholic church does not make mistakes

OK, the title is a quote from Dogma, a great movie by Kevin Smith, it was said by the character Cardinal Glick, played by George Carlin, an even greater person who is sadly no longer with us.

If you've not seen Dogma, or heard of George Carlin, then go and do some research now - In fact, go and watch as many of Kevin Smith's films as you can - They're all great, sweary, but great. When you've gone that, Google George Carlin... I'll wait, it's worth it, believe me.

Done? Good weren't they? - You know the stocky chap in the long coat and the backwards baseball cap in the films? That was your actual Kevin Smith! - Hardly a Hitchcock style cameo - But if you're gonna make great films, then I say why not star in 'em too?

Anyway, enough frivolity, I'd like to talk to you about God (was that the sound of a hundred *back* buttons being pressed?). I don't neccessarily mean your actual Judeo-Christian, Monotheistic, Capital G type god, it could be your multi armed, blue coloured one, or your elephant headed one, or any one of a thousand different deities that people have blamed stuff on for the past few thousand years.

As the more eagle-eyed of you will have spotted, I am a regular church-goer and I believe in a supreme being, I have Faith. What I don't got is Religion.

"But if that's true, why do you go to church?" I hear the four people who are still reading this say.

There are a number of reasons really, Mrs Dandy is a confirmed Anglican Religionite, and there are some nice, friendly and most of all odd people there, but mainly it's because I enjoy running the mixing desk (this is the 21st. Century people, it's not all massive organs and people going Ah-ah-aaaahhhhh in a angelic fashion now) it makes me feel like Rick Wakeman - It also gives me the chance to poke fun at the fundamentalists...

OK - That will have made some hackles rise, so let me explain what I mean by fundamentalists - I take the word to mean, someone who believes that the Bible (or any religious text pertaining to a particular belief system) is infallible, an historic record rather than a book of moral stories and hints and tips on how to live a better life.

This becomes so all-consuming to some people that they forget all about the 'Be Excellent to each Other' stuff (See, Bill & Ted, George Carlin again - Isn't it amazing how this stuff all fits together - I don't just throw this down on the page you know?) and concentrate on the 'Thou shalt not' and 'Righteous smiting of the unbeliever' stuff. In short, they get caught up in the Dogma (Oh my Gods it's like I've got a plan for this thing, right?) - The words of the text themselves rather than the meaning.

There're also people who just go to church because they want to be seen to be important, the kind of people who like to slip into everyday conversation 'So, I said to the Vicar....' They really ruffle my cassock - These are the people for whom I really hope there is an afterlife, 'cos they got a big old shock coming to them with the whole rapid downwards motion and the fire and the pitchforks and the 'Oh no it burns - freunlaven!'

On a different note, if you'll pardon the pun, there was a song sung a couple of weeks ago called 'Our God is greater' - Inoffensive little song, quite jolly and stuff. But it got me thinking, greater than what? Is it kind of a religious football chant? Should religion be so confrontational?

So what do I actually believe? Do you really care? Do I care if you care?

I believe that the state of the world we live in is not ALL down to chance - That there's a guiding influence. I'm not a creationist, I believe in evolution, but I have no problem with the idea that the evolutionary system has been pushed in a particular direction at different points in history.

I don't believe that there's neccessarily a plan for everyone, or anyone for that matter. But I do believe that there's something greater than us that on occasion, helps out - I don't mean in the 'God bless Mummy & Daddy and please can I have a Pony' way. I mean in the 'Holy Crap my brakes aren't working, we're all gonna die!' way - Although they do say that everyone becomes a believer in situations like that.

It could all be luck, I don't profess to know - It could be Aliens, Gods, Goddesses, a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs reaching down with his Noodley Appendages.

But as far as I'm concerned, there's something there... After all, if there wasn't there'd be times when I was just sat in the car talking to myself - And that would mean I was mad.