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_Readers will be sorry to learn of the death of nty television set. Acquired in 1962, it had give aft n good service until recently; shortly cl'er began to write this column in fact, it tsveloped its curious habit of squeezing the Picture into a thinner and thinner segment over oPper portion of the screen. Finally befthe weekend when asked to transmit ga"tnal episode of Lillie the old thing at last ve uP the ghost arid refused to supply any all. Picrture at p is related that when the great cellist :uto Casals damaged a hand while climba,mountain in America his immediate iactIon was to thank God that he would ever have to play the cello ever again — such was the strain he endured in fulfilling his vocation. I must' say I experienced a similar feeling of relief when it became clear that the screen was going to remain blank, in spite of frantic fiddling with the knobs at the back. Usually, I spend Sunday nights lounging around in front of the wretched thing in the vague hope that something interesting might occur on Read All About It. It was very pleasant to retire to bed early for once in the happy knowledge that even if it did I couldn't possibly see it, anti what the hell, anyway, I thought as I switched my bed side light out at approximately 2200 hrs. The next night there was a strike, so that even if my set had been working all that I would have seen would have been a notice informing me of this fact.
As a special Christmas treat I was able to watch The Muppets in full colour in the rather unlikely environs of the television room of the Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall. This rare excursion was made possible by the efforts of our greatest living Englishman, Nigel Dempster, who smuggled me onto the premises last Friday. At one point it seemed as if we might have to repel boarders when some fellow members burst in looking as if they were Test Match Highlights types. But it turned out that they too were keen Muppet fans and from then on the GLE and myself were left undisturbed.
I find it inevitable that after a good thing has been going on for about two years, voices will be raised to the effect that what ever it is has 'gone off, that it is nothing like as good as it was; that the person concerned liked it tremendously when it first started but that, well, they couldn't be expected to keep it up, could they? Usually the speaker only intends to convey that he personally was among the first to recognise a trend and has long since moved on to pastures new, now that everyone else is saying the same thing. Even before the new Muppets series began I heard these fashion-conscious voices telling me that they had gone right off. But I was not discomfited. What did annoy me was that once again the inconsiderate ITV moguls had changed the time — back from Sunday evening when all we 'working men' could be sure of being at home, to the very inconvenient Friday evening slot.
For this reason alone I had seen only one performance prior to my seasonal excursion to the Royal Automobile Club. But I can report that, contrary to what you may hear, nothing has changed. The Muppets are as good as ever, if not better. Last week's show featured a highly charged and original plot by Miss Piggy to trap Kermit into marriage by making him take the bridegroom's part in a 'wedding sketch' which was in fact a real ceremony complete with authentic pig priest. Only at the last tense and desperate moment when given his cue to speak his one and only line — 'I do' — did the Frog tumble to this dastardly conspiracy which he sabotaged by introducing a Boomerang Fish Artiste who soon filled the church with flying mackerel.
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