Indeed, what would you say.
In a time when both sides of any argument seem to be unconditional truisms, like a whole generation are obese and dying early of heart attacks while the London Marathon, cycling and gyms are oversubscribed, it is at one moment a period of classic television if you like gritty, arty drama like Scandinavian Noir or The Wire, all as far as I can tell full of people scowling at cameras on publicity shoots or you can have 200 channels and still find nothing to watch.
Well, you won't do any better than Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw, among a litany of great others, in A Very British Scandal. There's going to need to be something very impressive among live events I see this year to prevent it from being the Event of the Year for me, despite television hardly constituting an event at all. Chic at Glastonbury on telly won it a few years ago when I'd not seen anything that was better in the flesh.
Hugh Grant did a marvellous Thorpe, Whishaw too beautiful to be Scott but otherwise tremendous; they got Bessell, Emlyn Hooson was good, some not quite as one might have expected but absolutely brilliant work by Frears and Davies creating the thing and, eye for any detail in such a gift of a story, there was a good Jo Grimond on the bench behind Jeremy in the Commons, a delightful Auberon Waugh as defeated candidate in North Devon in the General Election of 1979 and, yes, that was Patrick Marber, counsel for the prosecution in court.
It was a masterpiece. I'm not sure we will see the like of it again. Not the dramatization or the real thing.
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Meanwhile, on a smaller scale but a round of applause is sometimes due to a crossword clue.
3 Down in the Times on Saturday, Important instruction to deputy about outgoing mail (11).
SIGNIFICANT
That is a gorgeous piece of work and a good crossword for me can be like a good poem, not least in the way that some of us write poems, trying to fit words into a line that scans or at least counts syllables. Like Larkin, asking Monica across the room for a word to do with heraldry, two syllables.
Blazon
Yes, that's it. Thanks.
Crosswords might be the future for a word person who can't see where to go next in poetry. It certainly wouldn't equate to poetry for those who like poems to be profound and meaningful but if you like them to be both evocative and smartarse, I can't see much difference.
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And meanwhile that. Sport.
What of it. And what of all those years from school until quite recently, obsessed and unable to see beyond it and wondering what was wrong with blokes- mainly blokes for most of that time although it has now belatedly been accepted that ladies can like and even do sport as well- who didn't like it. I wonder if I can equally belatedly join them.
10 days into horse racing abstention reminds me of the sugar shortage in the 1970's. You only have to go for a few days without sugar/horse racing and suddenly you don't miss it or even want it back. Most gratifying was watching The Derby because one plan had been an all-time biggest bet on Saxon Warrior to retrieve my position. Luckily, I'd rather not lose than win. I don't need to win, it just feels good. And so the horse gets stuck in behind traffic, probably wouldn't have won anyway and the odds-on favourite comes fourth, Aidan O'Brien's best placed of five runners. He should be warned off for that, not least for employing Ryan Moore who seems unaware of how Lester Piggott racked up so many Derbies. That is, not by getting stuck on the inside.
Top marks to Chris Froome for winning the Giro but if ever there was a better way of doing it to arouse suspicion, I can't think of one. Apparently off the pace throughout, he goes for a long one, from 80km out, with only a few days to go and nails it. i didn't see it but it brought to mind the very pumped-up Floyd Landis going from the start of a Tour stage and raising all eyebrows.
I like Chris Froome a lot. I hope his tenure in possession of the three grand tours is valid and I believe him until it is proved otherwise but one doesn't believe anything one sees anymore. He doesn't have quite the panache of Wiggins but he is surely the better grand tour rider, and very much a specialist at that, but we like winners with panache and were bored by the likes of Indurain. Sports fans demand a great deal. Winning's not enough, you need to win splendidly. A few years ago I was told Christiano Ronaldo was no good because he wasn't as good as Lionel Messi. I bridled at that, having been passable at the age of 15 and hearing it from someone unlikely to cover 100 metres in under a minute.
And then the Test matches v. Pakistan. The Big Test. The ultimate measure of serious cricket over a proper distance between tyhe very finest players. Or does it really matter. Does anybody care. Theresa May shows up at Lords, probably for long enough to get her photograph taken there before getting back to her job. England fold up in the first match and Pakistan fold up in the second non-event. Nothing interesting happens.
I dare you to explain to me why it will be worth watching any football during the summer. Are you hoping to see Morocco v. Peru.
Once you've lost something it's very hard to get it back.