Telly, Telly, Telly

There will be a new short story serial coming soon so make like an astronomer and watch this space (ho ho). I’ve had a bit of a sending-things-off frenzy this week and a clutch of poems and a slew of stories are now waiting outside the headmistress’s door to make their presentation.

Last night OH and I finished watching Us, the dramedy or comma I mentioned yesterday – and I have to say I found it a tad disappointing. It seemed to be ramping up for an interesting climax but in the end I found the denouement unsatisfying and a little didactic. Things did not seem to get resolved so much as to drift apart; the husband learned his lesson but they split up anyway, and his getting together with the woman he’d met in Italy seemed not so much the ending-that-was-meant-to-be as a stand-in for it; as though someone had told the writer they couldn’t have a happy ending so must make do with the next best thing. The writer was David Nicholls who also did Patrick Melrose – but there the plot was already laid out for him. He did Far From the Madding Crowd as well, so maybe he’s better at adaptations than original work? Anyway…

We are becoming addicted – in the absence of Casualty but also in its presence – to real-life emergency programmes, and our latest discovery has the added advantage of being set in Scotland. Paramedics on Scene has not only the usual delights of watching real-life emergencies but also of seeing the differences between the ambulance services in England and Scotland; chiefly the pleasure of noting that the ambulances have merely the words ‘Ambulance Scotland’ as opposed to the mass of logos that appear on ours, presumably to soften us up to the privatisation of the NHS. This is already happening, by the way – but don’t get me started.

Deep breaths…

Of course the biggest news is the return of the series that never went away, namely C19. Yes, like Casualty this dire drama never really takes a break and now it’s back for a second, blockbuster series which promises to be far more devastating than the first. Unfortunately the government have taken the free licences away from the most vulnerable so they’ll have to go round and watch it on someone else’s set – which they’re not allowed to do, so they’ll just have to set up their armchair by the window and hope the neighbours put the subtitles on. The rest of us’ll be staying indoors and closing the curtains..

I have to make jokes about all this because otherwise there’ll be wailing and gnashing of teeth. A lot of it.

That’s enough rambling for one day. Happy Friday and stay safe.

Kirk out