Ricky does it again

TV SUPPLEMENT: LIFE'S TOO SHORT

Ricky Gervais's rise to megastardom has been little short of miraculous. The success of "The Office" on both sides of the Atlantic placed him above so many artistes who have swept all before them in Britain, but still failed to crack the much harder American market. But then a few unkind remarks about American celebs, like John Lennon's intemperate comment about being more popular than Jesus 4 decades earlier, threatened to nullify the effect of all his brilliant comedic skills.

Ricky has had his detractors over here too, not least my friend Pat Graham, who through his Smileofthedecade blog has raised questions about his apparently growing obsession with the cult of celebrity. Pat cites his Twitter pronouncements, which have passed me by as I am not yet initiated into the arcane world of Mr Tweet. In which case I doubt if Pat will have been too impressed with Gervais/Merchant's latest offering, "Life's too Short" which features talent from the Glitterati in every episode: Johnny Depp, Trevor Nunn, Cat Deeley et al put in appearances, all foils to the quite outstanding performance of Warwick Davies as the Dwarf who would be King of stage and screen, but under the sheer weight of his own unpleasantness fails spectacularly every time.

Ricky has got himself in hot water in Britain too with his unashamed comments about "Mongs" and other disabilities, but in this series he has cocked a triumphant snook at those in the PC brigade (and here I do not refer to Pat) who would like to claim you shouldn't make jokes about "difference". Ricky has shown that nothing is taboo, as long as it's funny- which every episode of Life's too Short so is: wickedly, sqirmingly, riotously funny.

Good on you Ricky- you're one of our best men- keep it up!

pissing christmas

I write at around 9.30 on Christmas Night. We have just settled down and thoroughly enjoyed "The Ladykillers" on Film4. We were both a little shell shocked, however, having had our father who art in insanity over for the big day. All went well for the first few hours; Christmas lunch (carefully designed for a man with few teeth- him, not me by the way- I can almost eat anything now though I've actually forgotten how to eat food that requires any chewing)was fine. Then we settled down to watch "The Divorcee", a DVD from my "Forbidden Hollywood" collection, but maybe he took the title to heart, for at one point I went out into the kitchen and found him relieving himself on the floor in one corner, the same corner, interestingly, that one of our cats used to favour for the same purpose. Before I could stop myself I exploded with:
"What are you doing? What the hell's wrong with you?"
but immediately felt bad, because the answer to the question "what's wrong with you" came to me with vivid force: a lot...

As for you and yours- happy Christmas and a great new year to you all- just don't let me find you pissing in the kitchen, all right?

Pelagius takes the piss

Apologies for missing my last posting deadline, but I was busy, tasting my own urine, as it happens. The anarchists have a rule (yes, I know, that's an oxymoron) that at least once a week you should do something you've never done before. This can prove quite difficult in practice, but on the weekend I did it. This was the first time I have tasted my own urine, though not the fist time I have tasted urine. The first time was at the insistence of a teaching consultant at medical school, who wanted us to perform this special test on the urine of a diabetic. It did indeed have a noticeable sweetness about it; hence the Latin term that has been applied to the main kind of diabetes since Roman physicians identified the disease in precisely this way: diabetes MELLITUS.

My own alarmed me a little with its pronounced salty taste: was I taking too much salt in my diet? Perhaps it was related to the meal of mackerel I had had earlier in the day, or perhaps the cannelloni and chips I ate later on. It is of course well known that urine's taste and smell is influenced by what has been taken into the body over the previous few hours, meat especially giving it the strongest smell and flavour. I do not, however, intend to repeat the test after eating different foods. The fact is that as well as being salty, it was also extremely unpleasant. Even after repeated mouthwashes with fresh water, the taste lingered in my mouth for over an hour. So I don't necessarily recommend the practice...

Praying for fair weather

I'm calling this "The Great Depression". A vast area of low pressure has engulfed North-Western Europe, and as huge wafts of polar and warmer, wetter Atlantic air sweep round it in an anti-clockwise manner, our weather flips between the usual murky and damp conditions we expect in December and much more active conditions, such as hail, thunder and snow.

All of which gives rise to concern about my mum, living in isolation in her lovely home by the coast, deprived of her car and now, it seems, her food as well. A local cafe, half a mile distant and formerly provider of much of her staple diet, is about to close. Moreover, a minor fault in the kitchen that prepares her meals-on-wheels has caused that also to shut down for a month. She has been given an alternative, a private company that will deliver frozen meals enough for a week, but all this demands more organising skills on her part, skills she simply does not possess. And what if, like last December, the weather closes in, blocking her road for days at a time? Please God we can be lucky enough to miss that this year. If not, she will be in deep trouble...

What the hell is wrong with us?

So Britain has shied away from an EU treaty designed to ease some of the terrible pain caused since the collapse of Lehman Bros and everything that has gone down since then. 26 countries thought it was a plan, but DC thought not, not enough protection for our financial services apparently. At one level you can see why. Finance wheeling and dealing forms a bigger part of our economy than that of any other European country, and, so the argument goes, if we don't suck up to the money men they will fly away and set up in Singapore or some other place that really lets capitalism rip. So we fall over ourselves to make it nice for them.

In 2007, just after Gordon Brown came to office (I say office, rather than power, echoing Norman Lamont's famous aside) the leaders of every EU country met in Lisbon to sign the treaty. Except Gordon, who for some reason couldn't bring himself to attend and sent his foreign secretary instead. What I'm saying here is that it isn't just DC and his rabidly anti-EU cronies like Bill Cash (and what a nice weekend he must be having) who are suspicious of all things European. If the public opinion surveys are anything to go by (and they are) DC has taken a substantial fraction of the British population with him. It seems most of us are afraid of throwing in our lot with our neighbours, at almost any level.

Why? I fear the answer is not pretty. It has to do with the innate xenophobia we feel for anyone different from ourselves, from slitty-eyed Asians to darkies of almost any hue other than pure pink, extending all the way to the Welsh and Irish. We're better than them, and we'd rather have as little to do with them as possible, secure in our green and (not so) pleasant land

Let us now praise famous men

It began with a 1950s American sitcom about family life called "The Honeymooners". Then in the 60s the idea was lifted directly into an animation show so popular it became the first cartoon-format show to be broadcast at primetime: "The Flintstones". Two decades later a jobbing cartoonist called Matt Groening developed a very similar idea into "The Simpsons", quite deservedly the most successful cartoon series, and indeed one of the most popular TV shows ever made.

It has made wealthy men out of Groening and his fellow producers as well as the supremely talented cast, and literally billions for the Fox Network who distribute it. I have seen it dubbed into most European languages as well as Arabic and even Mandarin while on my travels abroad, showing its universal penetration.
The Simpsons has achieved its spectacular success, not by luck or clever marketing (though these are always factors in television) but by the skill of its writing (some of the best in American television) and of the voice actors, chief among them the quite wonderful Dan Castellenata. He plays Homer, as well as Apu, Krusty and a host of others. His colleagues, especially Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer underline the depth of quality involved in its production.

Now a new luminary has appeared on the scene, latest in this illustrious line of brilliantly written and voiced animated series: Seth McFarlane. Around the turn of the Millennium he began to produce, write and star in "Family Guy", which has been consistently the funniest thing on British TV since it was introduced here a few years ago. And young master Seth turns out to be almost as talented as Matt Groening and Dan Castellenata put together. A dazzlingly inventive writer, he is also the possessor of a fine baritone singing voice and an amazing ability with voice characterisation that challenges anything to be found in its grand daddy, the Simpsons. I hope he acknowledges his debt to that show. Without its wickedly irreverent take on American life breaking the ground, Family Guy would not have been possible. The Simpsons is suitable for all ages, but Family Guy is aimed at a more adult audience, taking the plot lines and dialogue closer to the edge than ever before, to the dismay of Fox who actually cancelled the show after 3 series, only to be forced to bring it back by popular demand. I doubt if they have regretted their decision. Family Guy, and its successors, "American Dad" and "The Cleveland Show" are now sold around the world.

Shows like the Simpsons and Family Guy usually have only 1 writer credited, but the fact is they are written by a team of some of the best writers in America, and the result is shows packed with one liners, visual gags and sheer cleverness from first frame to last. Never mind a laugh a minute: in these marvellous shows there's a laugh, a smile, a murmur of appreciation every three seconds, sometimes more than that. As the yanks themselves say: what's not to like?

If it's nearly working, don't fix it

After some prompting from friends and loved ones, I contacted the ophthalmologist I saw a couple of weeks ago to ask some follow-up questions. Uppermost in my mind was whether it might be worth goig to see some renowned expert at the Moorfield's Eye Hospital in London. Surely my eyes were worth it weren't they? After all, I've spent getting on for 10 grand on the gnashers this year- my sight must be worth twice, three times that or more. Right? So, I asked him, if it were him, or his mum, what would he do?

It was then he corrected something of a misapprehension regarding my general prognosis that I had gathered through not listening properly before. Fuch's dystrophy is a slowly progressive condition. However, any interference in the cornea runs a significant risk of making it worse. A 15-20% risk, in fact. So it is a waiting game, he explained.
"So you wouldn't even be thinking about surgery until you can't pass the driving test for vision".

As it happened, I had pulled off the road to take his call, and at that moment,
explaining what I was doing, I jumped out of my car and took 20 long strides away from the car parked next to mine. I looked back: I could read the number plate easily.

And there we are. With any luck I am years away from failing that test, and at that point the stakes would have risen sufficiently to warrant the risk of operation. Easy! Plus it won't cost a cent. Even better!

I feel greatly relieved now I know the score, but there is also a grimmer reality waiting for me out there. If my lifetime of smoking doesn't kill me, and it doesn't kill everyone, then I stand a significant chance of living out my late Autumn years a freakin blindy. Oh well, they the say the other senses become more acute when one is lost. I look forward to seeing how that works out...

Pelagius spreads the word

A couple of weeks ago I wrote to our local rag reporting my recycling project. In it I explained what I was doing and why, namely that the street cleaners, according to a number that I have spoken while on my "rounds", simply do not have the time to recycle anything they find on the street. "If it isn't in a green sack it goes straight to landfill" appears to be their rule. Finally I asked what was so difficult about taking recyclable rubbish home to recycle it, and why so many people go for the chucking it into the gutter option. I also suggested some ways street cleaners could recycle material they pick up without taking up much time or expense.


They printed my letter, awarding it "letter of the week" status, but if I am to make a difference I need more column inches. So I have contacted someone on their features desk and they have said they will get back to me. So far zip. But the project continues.

This morning, I took a 3 km walk along a busy trunk road to our local supermarket in order to secure 6 months supply of aspirin and a bottle of whisky (14 year old "old oak" matured Glenfiddich: £25; £6 off) thereby ensuring the health of my arteries well into the future. En route I filled a large plastic bag with cans, glass and plastic bottles no less than 4 times, emptying it along the way in other people's green sacks, uncollected from the yesterday owing to the Public Services strike. This constitutes the better part of 2 completely filled green sacks.

This is how I like to operate now: making less specific collecting forays and more collecting while on other missions, like shopping. And as for my quest for publicity, it ain't over.