Laurence Inman likes a good moan from time to time. He’s on form here.
There’s a new Pope. He seems excellent so far: humility, touching people, mentioning the poor. The important thing is he looks the part. The one who resigned never really appeared at ease to me. Much rather be at home with his books. And that’s where he’s gone. Only a few days after Francis was elected Birmingham City scored a goal, which isn’t like them at all. They went through the whole reign of a Pope, in 1978, without scoring at all, still a unique football record. Well done chaps!
We also have a fairly new Archbishop of Canterbury. He has told his wife to watch his drinking; one teeny sherry after dinner and that’s it. Could have been a good pre-Leveson headline: Top Sky-Pilot’s Missus Locks Up The Booze Cabinet. Now we shall never know.
There was a two-hour show about what the Q, or Mrs Gluckberg as I have come to think of her, gets up to all the year round. These toff-fests are always good value for what they let slip accidentally. I mean, who would have thought it took three grown men to towel down the corgis every time they come in smeared with Scottish stag-cack at Balmoral? I hope one of these isn’t also responsible for measuring out Charles’ toothpaste of a morning. I don’t really like the old whiner, but I wouldn’t wish dog-shit poisoning on anyone. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be good if William could take over straightaway? He looks a jolly sort, with his big face and his teeth and his stick-of-celery young wife and her sister with the nice bum. I’m sure he’ll be great at kinging. So, all in all, the sooner his dad keels over clutching his gut the better. That’s what I think anyway. Today the Q is discovering that those tunnels all over London lead to little train stations.
I watched some motor racing with my son. Little men in tiny cars go whizzing round a circuit until they stop. They sound like wasps with their arses on fire. I was just about to end it all by strangling myself to death, when it occurred to me that it could be made more interesting by having one car racing in the opposite direction to all the rest. That would be Formula One. Formula Two….oh you know the rest.
Then we watched Broadchurch. In this, someone is murdered, but it’s okay, because later on they find out who did it. We had to pause it for a while because my wife was on the phone, but that was all right in the end; you can cut out the adverts and eventually get back to the present moment. I was convinced that the coming back to the present went on a little too far and the momentum carried us a second into the future. My son pooh-poohed this, but I still think it should be possible, using this method, to store up enough time to know the result of the Grand National, before the race actually starts. My son is still laughing, but we shall see what we shall see.
Yesterday I watched St Tony of Blair still blathering on about how he is right and everybody else is wrong, about everything. I like watching him with the phrase grinning bug-eyed nutter running in my head, like a Blair backing track. It has a tidy rhythm to it. If you close your eyes, he sounds exactly like Sir Simon Rattle. Have you noticed that?
Which brings me to the funniest thing I’ve seen telly-wise in the last few years – Kevin Eldon as Hitler explaining the annexation of Austria in the voice of Sir George Martin. I know it’s a very well-explored comedy trope, but this really did it credit!