bring back mr stokes

terrestrial tv is a wasteland at the moment. actually, it's been that way for some time. ever since the viewer was caught in a gruesome 'reality' pincers move between "survivor" and "big brother". programming hasn't been the same since. i'm inclined to give up on the medium altogether, except for these last 3 vestiges of entertainment:

"the simpsons" (more new episodes please)

"foyles war" (an tea-soaked elegy to bygone english stiff-upper-lipedness and emotional restraint)

"the great houses of britain" (a swell architectural history of england up until pevsner, le corbusier and mies van der rohe cast their evil, darth vaderish influence over the cities).

lovely manchester

the native genius of the english people

a small item appeared in the "times" today (here) describing the horrified impressions of luisa de carvajal on arriving in london in 1605, one year after the composition of the seedy "measure for measure". naturally she was appalled by what she saw—especially the noise, filth, and bad food. but the fun really starts with the "have your say" comments. instead of taking offense "times" readers generally responded in a characteristically english fashion:

"it's dirty and lawless. the food's terrible. glad to see that nothing's changed." (jessica, london)

"yes, yes, but what was london like in 1605?" (slade wallis, retford)

i remember a slow moment during the guardian's over-by-over commentary of the 2003 world cup when the description of play was momentarily abandoned for a discussion of the ugliest conurbation in england. there were dozens of nominations. i think it was reading wot won it. but, crucially, only the english would take pleasure in this kind of amused self-mortification. it's a handy attitude to have. especially if you live in hull.

quite by accident, you understand

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making spells

as we know the proper place to learn the language is on the fridge door, pushing magnetic letters around, just like the infant shakespeare did. it's also where the nephew, zoom, currently two-and-a-half, will soon be deploying letters to form important sentence structures like "nanna smells" and "cabbage is gross".

to kick things off i cleaned out the local "toys r us" of their magnetised alphabets and introduced zoom to these three, high-scrabble-scoring, word concepts. "haruspicy": the divination of future events through the examination of animal entrails. "quadroon": persons of one quarter negro blood. and "dropsy": a disease often mentioned in eighteenth century literature, though sadly now called œdema (where's the fun in that?)

unfortunately the manufacturers are stingy with the vowels so "homunculus" will have to wait. otherwise, avuncular responsibilities discharged.

overheard outside a commercial depilatorium

mother to daughter: "you wait here while mummy gets her minge done".