That Bloke on Ally McBeal

That bloke on Ally McBeal. The little fella. I don’t know his name, but he’s always flushing toilets with a remote control and taking “a moment”.

And that’s another point. As hard as I try I just can’t imagine any corporate office having mixed bogs, can you? I mean you’d be sitting in there with the newspaper, the birds would come in to put on their make-up, or whatever girls do in toilets, and you’d hear one of them say, “Cor, yeah, ‘tis a bit, isn’t it?” and you’d just know they were talking about you. And besides all that, what female lawyer is going to want the male members of the office being party to her private moments, even if it is behind a partition? Strange.

Anyway, that bloke. Well, before we discuss him, there’s a few other points I’d like to raise here. First of all, Lucy Liu is brilliant! She should have her own show. And secondly, Lisa Nicole Carson is a fox, man! Does she have the best cleavage on TV, or what? She just seems so cuddly. You could just imagine crawling under the covers with her and snuggling up, couldn’t you?

Anyway, that bloke. Well, before we discuss him, how come not a single one of these lawyers has a home life? They’re all on the piss every night. And not just having a quick one in a low life bar like you or I would do, but clubbing it as well. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, you understand, but how do they find time to prepare their cases for the next day if they’re three sheets to the wind by the time they get home? And secondly, how come they never, ever have hangovers?

When I was selling TimeShare back in the late eighties, we were on the piss every night …. and most of the day as well. And we were always fucking rotten in the morning. Living on extra strong mints, under the impression they took the stench of booze away so our Ups wouldn’t know we were either pissed or hungover. Actually, I got most of my deals when I was either pissed or hungover. But I’ll tell you something for nothing, booze and curry laughs in the face of extra strong mints.

We used a pub called The Imperial, just off Leicester Square. It was full of gangs of Chinese Triads, Scottish alcoholics, drugged up prostitutes and optimistic TimeShare salesmen. We would shoot over there for a quick one while the Ups were watching the video. My point here, though, is that we were pissed up when we selling and pretty useless the next day as well. Ally McBeal and all her mates stroll into work fit as butcher’s dogs. In reality, they’d be dropping their papers all over the floor, trying to focus on the judge when she’s rabbiting away, dropping their pen on the floor, taking a quick peek at the jury and going, “@!#$ this.”

And talking of all this, how come everyone in EastEnders isn’t a bunch of lushes, as well? Well, they are, aren’t they? They’re in the Vic every lunchtime and every evening. But nothing’s ever mentioned of it. No one says, “Mark? Right old pisshead, he is? Always on the sauce. Leaves his stall and gets legless every lunchtime.”

Anyway, that bloke. Here’s my question. He’s in his forties, right? But like all those actors in the early films, he’s trying to play a bloke who’s about 25. Remember the early films. You’d get a geezer of about 50 trying to make out he’s some kind of suave guy about town, chatting all the birds up and everything. Well this guy in Ally McBeal’s the same. Couldn’t they find someone about 25 to play his part.

And secondly, have you ever listened to his voice. Close your eyes and try it sometime. He sounds like a cartoon character. No, really, he does. Try it.

Mind you, if you ever go to Boston (or Bworston as they call it) you’ll find that everyone talks like Donald Duck.

Still, Lisa Nicole Carson makes it all worthwhile.