T.V.

Oh, das ist immer typisch. I stick a vacuum cleaner to my ear, remove my brain, plug the cleaner into my shiny new vacuum cleaner/brain drain input/output port on the computer, download the results into a letter to you, then as I go to post it I realise a million and one more things which must have been stapled onto the backs of my eyebrows, and hence didn't make it out of my ears or into your letter. Well, you know I was telling you about all that tube business which I missed out on, I forgot to tell you the major reason I would have liked to have been there. Apart from the fact that I could have been two hours late for work (which wouldn't have meant much as I haven't done any work) and I would have read lots, and had the company of the other 99,999 people stuck down there, the main thingy doo-dah is that everyone had to be led out along the tunnels by the fire brigade. I've always wanted to walk along a tube tunnel & see what they're like without windows in the way and at a leisurely place. I got so jealous watching the films Jacob's Ladder and The Warriors and that Superman one where they walk along the tube lines, but now I've missed my chance to do it myself. My other exciting story is that I was thinking about how, despite describing intimate details of my recent existence, I've never told you about the one key event in my life right now - going to the Post Office, which, as you may notice, I do quite frequently. Well, you know they have those TVs with loads of really crap adverts on. There's one that's on everytime I go there, I still don't know what it's for (I have "known" at various times in the past, but its not one of those things that sticks in your head). Anyway, in this advert it's all done in charades or give-us-a-clue style, trying to act our whatever it is that the adverts for, with all of these "sounds like" things and stuff & doobry (except they never do "sound like"). Anyway, the whole thing's just such an icon of ineffective crap naffness & stuff that I could ramble about it for hours, but what I had intended to say is that there's this one bloke in it who I could swear is Jay. He looks like a total beatnik - skinny, polo-neck black jumper, black-framed glasses and Jay's little beard & moustache thingies. I'm always so certain that it's him, but I never want to look too directly at the screen, in case anyone thinks that I'm sad enough to be actually paying any attention to it. Well, when you're back in England, remember to pop into a post office & have a look. Oh yes, there were lots of antipodeans there sending off their Christmas giftlings today. Also, another exciting advert is for Hits of the Sixties, and it shows a really exciting party where everyone is dancing to Hits of the Sixties and generally grooving. Fucking hell, the acting - there's this couple in the foreground, and he is sort of gently swaying in fractal-randomised directions at a beat which is determined not by the music but by a cunning algorithm derived from the level of unemployment in Moldavia. His partner is trying so hard that at any time she may explode, making the pattern on his shirt appear a little more tasteful. When the music switches to lets twist again we see a forty-something gladly complying with this request before feigning some type of strain injury which prevents him from untwisting. He casts a longing glance at the camera, carefully perfected though hours of freeze-framing Bambi at the moment Bambi is about to be shot. It's fun this TV criticism business - I've been reading lots of Victor Lewis Smith in the Standard - he's my hero. I'll try to remember to send you some with this letter. Note: This comes from a letter to Gill in India. I have reams of shit like this that somehow appeared in my head as I was writing