Week One

It's been a slow fortnight. Just the usual global corruption, crime
and violence, mount Etna oozing lava, Trojan Horse viruses threatening
my hard-drive, and the most powerful man on the planet spending half of
his time as US President playing golf in Texas. And there's still no
sign of the stray asteroid that is about to hit the Earth and wipe out
mankind.

Then I read a story in one of the nationals on how to survive the
forthcoming recession. It seems I'm at risk due to my being a) over 50,
b) the holder of several worn-out credit cards, and c) given to
spending sprees on Havana cigars and single Malts. The next page quoted
an article from the New Scientist that says an American university has
just devised a program that could replace most of my skills as a
freelance journalist.

What do I care. The world could end before I finish this
sentence.

Still with me?

My cat, Toffee, has the right idea. She just lounges around the house,
like a cushion with a tail, oblivious to the news screaming out of the
digital TV, while I flick from Sky News to BBC 24 Hour News via CNN and
ITN News to Euro News. Same unimaginative headlines on all of them.
You'd think that nothing else was happening in the world, aside from
the deja vu news that this coterie of editors have decided between
themselves (no doubt in a bar, somewhere) to bang on about.

The trouble is, as I said to the Beloved Wife, no decent actors have
died since Jack Lemmon. And it's the one thing we do look forward to,
catching up with old movies that they drag out of the archives as a
half-hearted celebration of some Hollywood icon's career.

Been flicking through my library of film reference books, trying to
think who's still alive, made some really good films that haven't been
broadcast for a while, and is likely to join all those other stars in
MGM heaven. The Beloved Wife says she spotted Gregory Peck at Jack
Lemmon's funeral on TV, and he had a strange bandage round his head.
Does this mean he has some dreadful face cancer, or cut himself
shaving? If it's the former, I guess we'll be time-shifting To Kill a
Mockingbird, again.

It's a pity that some actors can't die twice. Then maybe they'd show
some of Buster Keaton's silent comedies on Channel Four.

Out of desperation, I've just scanned several gloomy websites. It seems
nuclear winter is well overdue, and that Black Death is about to
re-emerge and wipe out most of the Third World. That's if AIDS, TB,
Global Warming, the Men in Black from Sirius, or the Wrath of God
doesn't get the job done sooner.

The odds of my making it to the next column are currently 3 to 1.
Hardly worth writing the next column then, as I said to the editor. But
he's an optimist.