Clean

Isn’t it lovely when orphans are reunited? In this case, it's the filmic duo of Stephen McCole and Gary Lewis, last seen together in Peter Mullan’s debut feature and now starring in a half-hour drama as part of Channel 4’s Acts Of Passion series. Directed by Jim Twaddle, this segment is set in a Glasgow public lavatory and is nothing less than a disturbing love/murder story as Bobby (Lewis) saves rent boy Denny (lvlcColel from a vicious attack. As the two become friends, Bobby is drawn into Denny’s world of sex, drugs and pots of cash before developing an unhealthy obsession with spotlessness. Pure dead brilliant.

Clean is broadcast on Channel 4, Wed 7 Sep, 77.30pm.

Legacy Of Kain: SoulReaver

The most delayed game of the year has finally arrived. A tale of bloodsucking terror, VlClOUS combat and undead revenge, Soul Reaver combines 3D action and otherworldly adventuring in one neat, horror-filled package. After being banished by Lord Kain to a thousand years in The Lake Of The Dead, the winged vampire Raziel burns for revenge. You can understand why. His quest is a beautifully crafted piece of gothic nonsense With ruined Citadels casting many a long black shadow at every turn. And not a cruofix in Sight.

Legacy Of Kain; Soul Reaver for the PlayStation is released on Fri 27 Aug, priced £39.99.

117 THE llST 26 Aug—9 Sep 1999

Scientists. Don’t you just love ’em? Not content with introducmg the world to the delights of mustard gas and cloning, they've now deCIded that love isn’t a many splendoured thing at all. It’s merely a complex strain of obsessive compulsive disorder up there With excessive cleansing and over-zealous CD cataloguing.

Apparently you need the serotonin levels of a chronically depressed gerbil in order for Cupid’s arrow to find its invariably ill-advised mark. Even then it’ll only stick for a maximum of eighteen months before it falls out and leaves a gaping hole that can only be

G I L goes crazy over mad love

ILLS

has been illogical since Adam wouldn't order out and Eve had to fend for herself. If the scientists are to be believed, love is a form of temporary insanity, put into play merely to enable reproduction (and, of course, to furnish desperate writers With storylines for the soaps).

Unfortunately this latest revelation leaves me asking a simple question. If it was just about being a bit moody then dropping a sprog, where do gay people fit in? I had the bizarre honour of being blessed With a gay cat and, while he dutifully performed his hetero duties, he remained devoted to Samson for the duration and their nightly humpings were the talk of the cat community.

The scientists may have identified love as a form of short-term madness, but they give no liberal reason for why we seek it. Luckily my bar-room philosophising seems to have

If God had meant us to spend our lives with one person, why did he give us the rutting capacity of a musk-addled deer?

filled by the birth of a child. After that, it’s downhill all the way, folks, as the flighty minx has to buzz off to find another partner for Darren Day, leaving you quite literally holding the baby. Yet again the last laugh is on the tubby prankster and the laws of society that insist the great mismatched should stick together to labour a love that was lost roughly around the same time you discovered he had more hair on his back than his head.

So why are we such Willing accomplices in our own destruction? The words of a thousand Carpenters songs c0uld be Cited in defence of this ridiculous emotional tSunami, but the same dizzying effect can be achieved through the JUdlCIOUS mixture of alcohol and a minor blow to the head.

Yeah, yeah. Don't tell me about the basic human need to 'lifeshare’. If God had meant us to spend Our lives With one person, why did he give us the rutting capaCIty of a musk- addled deer? By nature, soentists are logical peOple,‘ so what on earth are they domg stumbling around in the undergrowth of a Situation that

provided the answer. For centuries now, love has been Cited in the courts as a valid motivation for all kinds of shenanigans. Gunned down your lover with an elephant rifle? Tough love, baby. Caused £150,000 worth of damage to Frasers mens department? Put the blame on Mame. Kept 'My Heart Will Go On' at Number One for 76 years? Crime passionnelle.

Since time immemorial, love has been the whipping bOy for our self-indulgent impulses. Love is blind by careful construction, and when the narCis5istic shades are removed, the less-than-perfect image of ourselves reflected back from Our lover's eyes is too much to bear. The blame for our imperfections is transferred from our parents to Our paramour, and emotional control relinqwshed. It's their problem. Now that’s amore. Gill Mills co-presents Radio 1’s Evening Session opt-out, Session In Scotland, every Thu, 8-10pm; co-hosts The Loafers on BBC Choice, Tue-Fri, 10pm; and presents Hot Pursuits on BBC Knowledge, Radio Scotland.