Telly Like It Is

Cailean had his monthly flea and tick treatment earlier today - Advantix, a Bayer product - and is feeling poorly. This has happened each time for the last four months: a few hours after the dab on the back of his neck he becomes restless, then listless, and insists on getting as near to me as possible. Clearly, the poor boy is unwell. A day later, he's back to normal.

I managed to get some of the chemical on my fingertips. Nervous creature that I am, I chew my fingertips unconsciously. No telling if a residue of imidacloprid and permethrin gets into my system as well. If so, I'm coping better than Cailean does. I haven't had any fleas since May either!

Cailean is, in his misery, trying to coil himself on my lap. He's a very small dog, but just a tad too big to comfortably do that these days. Typing here is a circus act in early rehearsals.

As it is raining quite heavily outside (it rained inside once when the people upstairs replaced some plumbing pipes in their floor without benefit of someone from Poland), we are not going far today.

I spent most of yesterday reading. I finished off Julian Clary. At least his autobiography, A Young Man's Passage, which was rather a good read, and I actually was breathless from laughing out loud a number of times. If outrageous stories about buggery don't bother you, look for this book.

After that, I picked up The Lodger by Charles Nicholl, which is sub-titled Shakespeare on Silver Street. This is a study of William Shakespeare and his world when he was about forty and lodging with the Mountjoy family in Cripplegate. In 1612, Shakespeare gave evidence for a lawsuit, a family dispute, over an unpaid dowry that Christopher Mountjoy's son-in-law was claiming. There is a statement, dictated by the Bard, and signed by him: Shakespeare's personal words, not those of one of his many characters. That statement is not great art, quite perfunctory, he sounds to have been bored by the whole business. However, Charles Nicholl then uses his research to reconstruct post-Tudor England, London in particular, and to give us glimpses of the Great Man through the eyes of his contemporaries. Not a lot of buggery in this book, but still a very good history, and in easy language.

Rather than read today, I thought I might have a look at the television.

I will say upfront that I've been both annoyed and bamboozled by the BBC coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games which are being aired at this time. There seems very little enthusiasm here in Great Britain for these Olympics. I expected the media guides to have detailed information, but not even the magazine covers are mentioning the Games or showing pictures of our hopefuls (much less those from other countries!) and one wit said: "The only people who are watching these Olympics are those who are too fucking lazy to reach for the remote…"

Beggin' yer pardon, me luds, over the choice of words, which I have quoted exactly, but on our television we have no censorship.

Could I find the times that I might see some gymnastics (another wit: "Something to keep the paedophiles happy …") or diving events? Not a chance.

One magazine on the rack in the newsagents had a cover announcing that Jordan is having her "5th Boob Job". How many boobs does the woman have? Remember the opening sequence in Fellini's Satyricon? Jordan must be aiming for that, or better.

Another magazine has the story on Big Brother 9 contestants, Luke and Bex, who, now that they have been given the boot, are supposed to have consummated their relationship. On our version of Big Brother, the boys and girls are encouraged to bed down together, and stick-insect, retiring, virginal and whingeing Luke from Wigan wound up sharing a duvet with the awfully buxom and outgoing Rebecca from Coventry. Well, Bex's buxom bosoms were certainly outgoing: they were out for all to see every day, every night. Poor Luke, lost somewhere in Coventry! A euphemism.

I picked up the Radio Times with a non-Olympics cover featuring Sir Terry Wogan, a BBC Radio 2 presenter that I just cannot abide. He may be 70, he says, but he feels like 15 at heart. He's overpaid and getting crabby: qualities that do not endear him to me. He also complains that young people these days just wouldn't have the good fortune that he had in even getting into broadcasting. Sir Terry earns in excess of £800,000 as an aging rock DJ, and is actually paid by the BBC for hosting the Children in Need charity fundraiser each year (and has been since 1980). Perhaps, if he retired, all that money might go to raise up some new blood that the Beeb simply cannot afford to take on right now?

To watch some television this afternoon then?

It is still raining steadily. The postie just poured my post through the letterbox. Apparently, my Clifford James catalogue has spent the weekend in the River: ordinary rain could not have soaked it so thoroughly. It cannot be peeled open, which is a shame. I think there might be a Solar Cherub on page 5 for under £20. Its three fountain basins charge in the sun and glow at night, while a plump female cherub has her way with a smaller boy. Bex and Luke! How camp is that?

I could watch Gok's Fashion Fix on Channel 4, but could you watch a bloke with a name that sounds like a cat hawking up a hairball?

On Medical Investigation a man is spreading a flesh-eating virus through a hospital. Before my dinner? I think not.

There's a game show called Golden Balls, and that makes me blush to think on, knowing that just about anything goes on the telly here. Pass.

Flog It! From Windsor, it says, sounds promising. No doubt it's Prince Harry in Nazi gear. At the very least, it could be Princess Anne dealing with a dead horse. Maybe.

The CSI franchise has just about filled up an entire channel's schedule. I like the opening sequences with the theme music from The Who. I'd like to write a play, CSI: Amble by the Sea, and feature Pete Townsend's Rough Boys. I could skip the television this afternoon and fantasise about that.

Or, I could just gather up Cailean and settle back and watch the Olympics, it is Women's Trampolining. Bex from Big Brother could certainly bring a little zing to that event!

You know, aching eyes or not, I'm going back to Shakespeare in The Lodger.