Television
There's always something
Wendy Cope
m depressed', said Michael in last week's thirtysomething (Channel 4) 'about the impossibility of ever having anything in, your life the way it's supposed to be.' Michael was worried about work, even more worried about the redecoration of the breakfast-room, and also found time for some retrospective jealousy about 'an extended physical encounter' (handy ex- pression) his wife had with another man several years before she met him.
There is, indeed, always something. One of my current preoccupations is the impos- sibility of ever spending an uninterrupted morning at my desk. There was a morning last week that looked promising until I remembered, just as I was unplugging the telephone, that I had to go to the sorting office before one p.m. to fetch a parcel. Due to parking restrictions, this office can only be reached on fdot. On arrival one rings a bell and waits a very very long time for a postperson to answer it. Neophytes occasionally make the mistake of ringing the bell more than once. This causes 3 postman to come and shout at everybody before disappearing again. Above the hatch through which parcels are eventually handed out, someone has written, 'Please do not feed the animals'. The expedition takes between 20 and 30 minutes out of the working day. When the parcel turns out — as it did on this occasion — to be an unsolicited video from a
television company, I succumb to helpless rage. How dare they do this to me? How dare they put in a note asking me to return the damned thing at my own expense? The press release was instantly shredded and put in the dustbin. Afterwards it occurred to me that the company in question had a better excuse than the rest for sending out videos. For this was Sky Television, attempting to show the dishless what we are missing. The tape is sitting on a shelf. I Probably ought to find the time to watch it. Every time it catches my eye, I curse the broadcasting revolution and feel depressed about the impossibility of doing all the things that ought to be done.
Hope, the wife of the aforementioned Michael, has been worrying about her appearance. She had a baby a few months ago and now she thinks she is fat. This is depressing for the viewer. If Hope is fat, most of us are well on the way to obesity. The BBC Diet Programme (BBC 1) aims to help. It has a simple message, repeated over and over again. Eat less fat. Eat less sugar. If you already know that eating less fat and sugar is the way to lose weight, there is no point in watching it. One of the guests in last week's programme was Valerie Singleton, who confessed a fond- ness for chocolate, and gamely pretended to be surprised when they told her it was extremely high in calories. The studio audience, all wearing 'I'm on the BBC diet' T-shirts, gamely chorused 'Yes, Roy' when presenter Roy Noble gave a cue. The only useful tip I picked up is that tandoori chicken is a good thing to choose if you're eating out. Low in fat, presumably. And in sugar.
The comedy show Roseanne (Channel 4) is about a working-class American couple, very different from Hope and Michael. Roseanne and her husband are really fat and don't seem at all worried about it. In an American context, this may be highly original. I didn't quite know what to make of the programme. There is something odd about the actors' timing — it's either stylishly different or very bad. Since The Tracey Ullman Show (BBC 2), which I now think brilliant, bewildered me at first, I hesitate to rush to judgment.
Roseanne is broadcast on Friday even- ings, in tandem with another American Comedy, Cheers. This didn't strike me as Particularly funny either. It is set in a bar and the main joke seems to be that the barman is very keen on sex. In last week's episode he was trying to give it up but luscious young women kept throwing themselves at him. The programme was recommended to me by a young male Spectator-reader. Other young male read- ers — and perhaps some old ones too may find that it is just their cup of tea.
Wendy Cope will be reading love poems, her own and other people's, in the Voice Box, Royal Festival Hall, at 7.30 p.m. on St Valentine's Day.
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