What Atticus said...

A friend of mine told me that a bar we were going to had changed it's name from Plan B to Atticus Finch.

I thought, "Well of course. It's the same thing".

Atticus Finch - or some divine intervention like him - is the Plan B for all of us.

Plan A is to act like a tool, ignore any advice or help, dive headlong in on assumptions and half-truths, pre-emptively parade around like king shit while everything invariably fucks up behind us. We don't mean it - sometimes we're even deliberately lead astray by malign forces - but the mess doesn't care for justification or excuse. It just ripples around, poisonous.

Then we desperately hope for a transcendent someone to save the situation and our pride. A knight in shining armour; a superman; an Atticus. And as he passionately, defiantly cries "In the name of God! Do your duty", we might be tempted to believe in a deity, an omniscient being with Finch as it's messenger. But only for a moment. Because Atticus was played by Gregory Peck. And Gregory Peck prided himself played good courageous men who conquered evil in the face of impossible odds. Gregory Peck was a celluloid God. And Gregory Peck died of pneumonia. So much for God. So much for Atticus. There goes Plan B...