I’ve just been to the Cafe over the road for my lunchtime ration of soup and toast, as a man of routine I have the same every day and today it is Potato and Leek. There is a bloke in there who is eating a burger with a fork, not only that but he is holding the fork like one would if consuming a cake or gateaux.
With behaviour like that he almost definitely works in Television.
Talking of which I peered over someone’s dandruff on the tube this morning at an article about Ronnie Barker in The Daily Hate Mail. Basically it was about how he stood for the decency in British comedy and his parting highlights a demise in blah blah blah, you know how it works, any excuse to demonstrate how anything from the Grammar School era upheld all that we hold dear.
Anyway I don’t think that Ronnie Barker was that funny, I’ll concede that some episodes of porridge were amusing, but apart from that I don’t see what all the fuss is about. His jokes that they printed in the paper yesterday sounded like they’d come from a Christmas cracker, or worse still from Fat Colin after a pint of V&O.
We never watched The Two Ronnies when I was younger, Dad used to turn it straight off as soon as Ronnie Corbett’s Twat like face appeared, this was because it was stupid and basically not very funny. I mean, “And it’s goodnight from him and goodnight from me”. Not funny, stupid.
What the Hate Mail can’t get to grips with is the fact that like it’s readership, it is getting old, and the golden years of slap stick simplicity, manners and affability are literally dying with it.