Life In the Flat Lane

Another wet, cold and altogether dreary day in London. I did venture out to the Apple store to buy a U.K. suitable converter plug-in for my charger. This became an immediate and necessary chore for today after my experiences of last night. The laptop battery went dead early in the evening, and since I had no book to read, I foolishly decided to turn on the televsion, which the landlord had proudly told me had over 300 cable channels. With over 300 selections, one would think there would exist a number of choices, which was literally true but practically speaking is a myth.

For example, the Simpsons seem to have a channel dedicated entirely to their reruns, hour after hour, day after day. There is a channel called Nuts TV which seems to be boxing reruns. Also channel after channel of American TV re-runs. Walker the Texas Ranger guy was on four channels simultaneously, Fraiser on two, with more to come later. The channel named Ape TV had a show on called Ape Music, but the satellite was out for that show. Judge Judy was on, hour after hour. The nurse from Guyana had asked me about Judge Judy after I explained court reporting to her. I initially intimated that Judge Judy was not a typical example of American jurisprudence, but after hearing her praise JJ for an extended period of time, and being keenly aware with what skepticism American judgment is regarded in Europe these days, I weakly allowed that she was indeed a no-nonsense judge, even if possibly affected a wee bit by the television cameras in her courtroom. There was a channel devoted entirely to Madonna videos, and one with an endless loop of Madonna, Prince, and six others.

"Oh to be in England when April's there" nowadays must mean not only the rain but also the cricket championships, rugby championships, and even more importantly, soccer championships, covered by all thirty or so sports channels. Indeed, I think there was more ink used editorializing about Ronaldo's missed penalty kick versus Barcelona than discussing our new president the day after election day.

At any rate, I turned to the many movie channels--the free ones. I passed on Fast Times At Ridgmont High; even though I've never seen it, it has been the butt of enough jokes that I didn't feel I would be doing my cultural education any harm by missing it. The Magnificent Seven and offspring are either popular here or they're so cheap cable companies can run them continuously.

I settled on something called Black Dahlia, or maybe Black Orchid, I can't remember. A black flower. The one with Hillary Swank. I thought that since I liked Million Dollar Baby it would be okay. I thought wrong.

So basically I feel like I spent the evening being punished. Laying on my side being punished. If television had been around in Dante's time, I'm sure there would have been a separate circle in hell devoted to forcing sinners to watch TV for eternity. Can you imagine being forced to watch the Simpsons day after day, month after month, for eternity?

But now I have a book, and I'll be reading Broken April by Ismail Kadare, and then The Concert, by the same author. And now I have a black patch to wear over my eye when I read, so I look like a retired pirate laying down reading. The patch really helps, though, because without it I can see the bubble bouncing around and it can sort of make one feel a bit disoriented. (Please no jokes about me being half a bubble off plumb).

My wasted evening last night reminds me of my favorite Spoonerism:

You have hissed my mystery lessons and completely tasted two whole worms.

So being thankful I wasted only one night, and not a whole term, with that, I'll close. Talk to you later.

dave