Maybe Some Small Amusement

Michael Jackson boarded the tube next to me today. He has been late for his court appearances twice already but this took the piss... I looked again and saw that it was not Jackson but a white woman dressed in what appeared to be a Salvation Army uniform. It was uncanny... The fact that she was accompanying a young boy is neither here nor there.

This followed a similar unlikely look-alike recently; a photograph of Tony Blair giving a speech was in the papers the other day and his head looked like a cartoon avocado from the ancient computer game Wiz ‘N’ Liz. I will admit that this has little significance to anyone but me but what the hell...the average working day is made up of small amusements bobbing like apples in a bucket of water, and you have to take a bite whenever you get the chance otherwise you will slowly drown.

Yesterday in the office we took amusement in another suspect package...and not because of the danger to the public. True, there may be evil riding the tracks here, but sadism is a rare beast. The actual amusement came in a moment of self-realisation as we stood at the window watching a heavily protected policeman investigate the package.

“Okay,” said one colleague. ”So the front of the station has been evacuated, then.”

“Yup,” said another.

“And Starbucks.”

“Yup.”

“All the shutters on those shops have gone down too.”

“Yup.”

There was a short moment of thoughtful silence. “So, er, how come we’re standing here about twenty foot from the bomb, then? If it goes off, we’re fucked.”

“Yup.”

“They always forget about us. Oh well...a bit of excitement, isn’t it?”

Some amusements are greater than others and they tend to happen outside the workplace. Desperate Housewives has become one of the most enjoyable shows on television...and I will not become defensive about this because, despite the show appearing to be targeted at pretty much anyone but me, it is brilliantly written and great fun. And it comes complete with an excellent theme tune written by Danny Elfman, who has spun many threads in Hollywood as well as being responsible for The Simpsons’ theme tune. What’s not to like?

Even so, when I tell people I like the show they give me a Look; their eyes pop out on stalks to the sound of an ancient car horn being enthusiastically parped. All I can tell them is to watch the damn thing and judge for themselves.

This kind of fulsome praise for the show has been all over the Internet like a rash over the last six months. Many people see the praise and are instantly put off and this included me at first. I am suspicious of anything described as water-cooler television, but the show has crossed every divide in terms of audience and I am happy to beat the drum for it for people who are still reluctant to dispel comparisons with the awful Sex and the City.

Nevertheless, this initial reluctance on my behalf resulted in me missing the first episode when the premise of the show was set up. The show’s narrator is a character who commits suicide in the first episode, and I would have been confused for weeks over that if there had not been so much press about the show. This is betting without the “previously on” section that many American shows have tacked on to the beginning, but I always find those things confusing when I first start watching a show and do not know which character is which.

But I have done this before. I saw American Beauty at the cinema in Coventry and the sound was missing for the first five minutes. Despite the screamingly obvious references throughout, I had absolutely no idea that Kevin Spacey was going to shoot himself at the end...which, of course, is what initially kicks the film off. It certainly put a new spin on the film.

American Beauty was the baby of Alan Ball, who went on to create Six Feet Under, the only show at the moment that puts Desperate Housewives to shame. I could write about Six Feet Under for pages but I will spare you the tedium and instead come to a close by saying these are precious amusements that must be cherished. I am willing to try anything once, even if the omens are poor...before Six Feet Under, the idea of watching a serial drama – any serial drama – was tedium itself.

Well...the obvious Moral of the Day would be to say something terribly humourless about open-mindedness and such, but this would be so insulting to all of our intelligences that it would probably blow up the Internet, so I won’t. Instead I will point out that elephants can mimic sounds just like birds and then, enigmatically, leave it at that.