Saturday, October 10, 2009

A Quarter of Beyond the Fringe Please


To be had in the Oxfam shop in the village today was Jonathan Miller's epic companion to his TV documentary series The Body in Question, the first show of which nearly put my dad under the table with its shock introduction to DIY autopsy. Dr. Miller is of course a member of the fruity-voiced fraternity of the presenters of heavy 13-parters, a man whose resonant tones radiate from any tie-in of their work you might read. At £1.49 this was very good value and I can't quite remember why I didn't request it for Christmas. Perhaps it turned up the same year as The Ascent of Man or Einstein's Universe and so was vetoed under the strict budgetary conditions pertaining in the late 70s. Anyway, in return I have to parcel up a significant number of books to return to various charity shops as we are rapidly approaching book-criticality, the point at which the house folds in on itself and we all end up as characters in some cheap pot boiler.

The children have been glued to Hole in The Wall while I have been writing this and it is such a struggle not to turn round to watch. I suppose you could look at it as z-listers being pushed into water which sounds like fun to me.

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