NO LONGER GLUED TO THE BOX.
I become more aware by the week that the description "tele addict" does not apply to me.
To be a total square eyes one has to be addicted to the lot: the reality rubbish, the relentless soaps, the cheaply produced property programmes, the antiques-that-we-used-to-call-junk junk, the cookery crap and, I suppose, the plethora of police repeats, much of it gunhappy gungho stuff from America.
Put it down to age, but I sometimes find myself very bored with it all.
Trouble is, it's a bit late for anything else.
Bonekickers (BBC1)
It will be said over and over but I might as well say it anyway. This hilarious tosh badly needed Tony Robinson and his professor mate from Time Team; you know, the one with the Aussie hat who says: "That en't a pebble, Tone, tha's a arrer 'ead."
Thomas Sutcliffe of The Independent reported that he watched it with his teenage sons and they had "a whale of a time hooting at the silliness of the dialogue and the wild improbabilities of the plotting." He went on to question whether they would have quite as much fun the second time around.
My Leader watched it in desultory fashion while reading her book.
I think she'll stick to Time Team in future.
Me too.
More Soccer Chat With The Cat.
"Good football competition, the Euro 2008," said the cat Shadow. "Right team won, too."
I replied in the affirmative and added: "I think it was just as well we weren't in it."
"Yeah, from our point of view the qualifying rules for players in international teams need to be changed,"he opined.
"Really? How?"
"Place of birth shouldn't come into it. The country where a player earns his living should be the only country entitled to call on him for international duty."
"You're off your head," I said.
"Why? Aren't you always saying that businesses expect total loyalty nowadays? That workers are expected to put firm before family?"
"England's not the firm they work for," I said. "They're employed by football clubs, not the country."
"But the clubs are English,"he maintained doggedly.
"Mostly owned by foreigners," I reminded him. "Who don't all make a fortune out of it."
"That's their concern. Thing is, England's the country in whose Premier League they all want a share. "
"So England should just be able to call on their services? Players like Cristino Renaldo and Fernando Torres?"
"Why not? They're both earning a very good living over here."
"Y'know," I said,"you could be the cause of World War Three."
Question Time.(BBC1)
My Leader never watches this programme.
It's not that she dislikes David Dimbleby. On the contrary, after we had seen him travel the country in the BBC television series How We Built Britain she decided that he was really quite a fun person.
But she intensely dislikes political talk shows.
On political talk shows, she avers, nobody listens to anybody: they just talk at each other.
She's right, y'know.
Question Time panels are mostly composed of politicians. They come complete with personal agendas that take no account of any opinion but their own.
In parliament, when they bother to attend (e.g. when their expenses are under review), they are childish and vociferous. Think of a nonstop audition for Lord of the Flies.
On television they now present a solid front.
The women have been trained at the Margaret Thatcher Patronising Voice school and the men have been taught the "If I may just be allowed to finish, Jeremy..."technique designed to allay any attempt to curtail their nonstop flow of bullshit.
Why anybody would want to watch them, listen to them or, most of all, vote for them, is entirely beyond my comprehension.
But I do listen to the panellists who are not politicians.
There has to be at least one oasis of sense in every desert of parliamentary cant.
Wimbledon 2008 (Tennis)
The fleeting shadow, Shadow, appeared again.
"It's poetry time," he announced. "We've been busy up there on the roof."
I eyed him without enthusiasm: "Go on then."
He adopted a poetic pose.
"Poem one: Another Year's Wimbledon."
Wimbledon's been here again,
No sliding roof
To beat the rain;
Just strawberries and cream,
At prices insane,
And Rafael Nadal,
A man from Spain.
(I mention Spain to scotch your belief
that he's an Apache Indian Chief.)
Who, on Sunday last -
Without looking for help -
Expunged the past
And took Federer's scalp;
Setting the seal
On the Swiss man's fate
When rain - and the
Cavalry - came too late.
He looked at me: I grunted my best off-putting grunt.
"Poem two: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
No more two-for-the-price-of-one
Says responsible Gordon Brown.
When you're only halfway destitute
You might as well be right down.
If you give your get one free items
To a struggling old person or friend,
They will harbour them ad infinitum,
Just to throw them away in the end.
So no more three-for-the-price-of-two
It's really not saving, it's costing you.
And your excessive gasses, so destructive I fear,
Are flatulently killing the world's atmosphere.
What, no more tea parties
On the Queen's pristine lawns?
No huge civic dinners
For huge civic prawns?
And no more cheap restaurants
In the great Commons House
To feed overweight MP's
On goujons of grouse?
Oh, I treat with the utmost suspicion
Anything that ol' Gordon may say
Trust not a goddamned politician.
Every one of them has feet of clay.
He had a quick wash, then said: "What d' ya think?"
"I think you are becoming a very cynical cat," I replied. "I think you have probably cost me any chance of being invited to tea at Buckingham Palace, let alone the much coveted knighthood."
"You don't want a bloody knighthood," he said. "They're all film and showbiz people and brown-nosed civil servants. Anyway, you wouldn't kneel. If you did you'd have to be lifted back onto your feet."
He's right, y'know.
Doctor Who (BBC1)
The last episode of this series was pure Russell T. Davies. His Dalek story to end all Dalek stories contained action, a convoluted plot, and every opportunity for the actors to show their worth. The climax was fascinating, the finale was intriguing, and the denouement, particularly Bernard Cribbins's scene with David Tennant, was surprisingly moving.
I do hope Mr. Davies will stay with it: he has given it a Time Lord's new life.
New Tricks (BBC 1)
That nice son of the late Patrick Troughton, David, was the detestable villain in this follow on from the last series.
James Fox figured large in the wildly improbable, mainly court scenes plot and the whole kit and caboodle was, as usual, rescued by Ms Amanda Redman and Messrs Armstrong, Bolam and Waterman.
I think the story is to be continued; but perhaps not.
Either way, I don't really care.
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