Tax on 4x4s vs The cancelling of 'Arrested Development'

Seeing as this is my first Good Thing, Bad Thing post, let's establish a few ground rules. There is no theme to these things, many will be annoyingly trivial, and they aren't necessarily related to each other (which would require too much effort) - this blog just aims to highlight some of the great things in (my) world and some of the things that make the little vein on my temple pulsate. (But seriously, whatever the following blog entries suggest, I am not a bitter person - I just enjoy sarcasm as a hobby.)

Yes, it is self-indulgent time-wasting, but look up 'blog' in any dictionary and that should be the definition you find. Okay, so without further a do, welcome to the first Good Thing, Bad Thing....

GOOD THING: TAX ON 4x4S

Always good to start with something topical and controversial (such current affairs awareness will not continue, don't worry.) SUVs are an easy and fasionable target for criticism, but their owners just seem to think that the rest of us are jealous of their money and the fact that they drive a tank to the school gates. Er, no. There are two principal reasons why 4x4s in cities are stupid - pollution and congestion. I drive a crap car with a 900cc engine, which means that anything more powerful than a milk float could take me in a drag-race, but at least - relatively speaking - I'm not stinking up the planet. Ah, say the Chelsea Tractor owners, but my car is actually less polluting than other cars. Yes, less polluting than a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow - and seeing as Sir Alan Sugar is the only person in the UK to be travelling in one, we're probably okay. Which leads seamlessly on to the second point - there are too many of the damn things, and everyone knows it. Landrovers and Jeeps are fine for farmers and American GIs, but yummy mummies and pensioners living in suburbia have little need to either scale rocky outcrops or defend themselves from hostile fire. I seem to remember that I had to walk to school (though not 9 miles barefoot, as previous generations claim), and even the ones who did get a lift managed to get safely to the playground in a Ford Fiesta or Vauxhall Astra. Another gripe is the amount of space that these behemoths take up in the car park at Asda - if they park opposite you, your car ends up sticking out into the road, just waiting for a boy-racer to take off your bumper. Lucky for them that my car is the size of a fridge on wheels. Anyway, this is sounding very much like a Bad Thing, but it is in fact a Good Thing - for once, I actually agree with a tax. I want to stand back, nod sagely and wax philosophical about climate change - but actually, I just think "Ha! Justice!"

BAD THING: CANCELLING OF 'ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT'
It's a rare thing when you come across an intelligent American comedy. Frasier was a great example, and Arrested Development is another series that deserves serious kudos. It's surreal, off-beat and stars the guy from Teen Wolf Too, but it's also brilliant and original. Which means of course that it's been given the chop after 2 and a half series. Like other great American series (see The West Wing), Arrested Development has been buried in the post-11pm Sunday slot, which means that the only people who see it are insomniacs and people on shift work. Which is a shame, because the antics of the Bluth family deserve better treatment. The UK schedules are full of comedies that should have been put down humanely several years ago (My Family, My Hero, Two Pints of Lager & a Packet of Crisps, Last of the Summer's Wine - the latter of which seems to feature a runaway bath-tub every episode), but still manage to limp on. There's no accounting for taste, that's for sure.