Everything's OK

At some point in the late '90s I went to the newly-reopened Cambridge Arts Theatre to see Mark Ravenhill's wildly successful shock-fest "Shopping and F***ing". That's literally how it was spelt on the posters, and on the front page of the program, though once you turned over to the half-title page it spelt it out in full, which I thought was a missed opportunity for it really to be called Shopping and Forking, or Shopping and Feeling, or something. Explicit sex in films is usually pretty naff, but explicit sex being acted out on stage is really no way for a grown person to make a living. (I did learn a good way to put a bra on in a hurry though.)

Wikipedia summarises the point of the play thus:

everything, including sex, violence and drugs, is reduced to a mere transaction in an age where shopping centres are the new cathedrals of Western consumerism... The hyper-consumerist tone of the play echoes the Capitalisme sauvage of Thatcherist ideology.

It had one particularly painful bit where someone says he would like to offer someone some food, but can't because he only has a microwave meal for one -- it was a pretty laboured metaphor.

Yesterday a friend offered me some food and just split a single microwave meal in two, and we each ate half from plates. I think this is very cool, and it just goes to show that it's all alright really.