Damp Squib
5 November

Well, I gave up.

After a number of weeks of Costa del Cloggie with a woolly head, bunged up sinuses, watery eyes and cloth ears, I obviously wasn't going to shake off my congestion under my own steam. So, I went round to the local chemist's and asked if they could recommend something.

They said, "Would you like to try Mr Short's mixture?"

Well, my experience of using preparations that come from the chemist's own skillful hand is that they taste foul, they are cheaper that branded products and they are most efficacious in every way. So, I agreed.

There was a general muttering of assent from the gathered queue. I'd obviously passed some local initiation test. Old ladies positively clucked their appreciation. There was jollity reminiscing on the way in which grandmothers always said that if it tasted bad it must be doing you good. There was ribaldry about how the mixture was also good for cleaning tarnished spoons. For a while, it was pure comedy gold in there.

Anyhow, I bought it and dosed myself with it which is why we didn't go to the Lowry to see The History Boys on Saturday night. I had asked whether or not it would make me feel drowsy and was told that the only way it would make me feel drowsy would be if I hit myself over the head with the bottle - see I told you it was comedy gold.

This was a great disappointment to us. Ross has been reading a lot of Alan Bennett's stuff of late and I was up for some good live theatre. But it was not to be. So sleepy was I that I would have been a menace on the roads.

So, instead, we snuggled up with the second in the Harry Potter series of films as a preparation for the forthcoming release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Earlier in the week, we had watched 9 Dead Gay Guys which Colin had handed over to us when we visited him in August. Frankly, it was the comedy hit of the year. I've not laughed so much in a long time. It was totally tasteless, outrageous and wild, wild fun. Four stars for cheek.

There's also a build up of good television now that the hour has changed and the season of dark is fully under way.

Lost trundles on being good without ever being excellent. Part of what puts me off is the thought that it is all old hat and that I could, should I want, simply download not only the remainder of season one's episodes but also all of the season two episodes which have been shown in The States so far. You can see why Microsoft are keen to launch Windows TV - premier global TV Networks for the having.

Elsewhere Spooks is reaching the end of an excellent ten week season with sharp scripts that have kept me guessing each week as to outcomes and endeavours. The new cable station More Four is showing season six of The West Wing and it is good to touch base again with this excellent drama series after Channel Four banished it to scheduling and ratings oblivion.

Big news though is the onset of Bleak House - the BBC's major classic drama for the autumn season.

Taking their cue from the oft quoted sentiment that, if Charles Dickens were alive today, he would be writing soap operas, the production has leant in the direction of that genre with some twelve half hour episodes spread over six weeks and positioned immediately after Eastenders in the schedules.

Frankly, whatever the hook they've used, it is quite excellent and, after The Secret of Drawing and Dr Who makes me quite glad to have paid my license fee this year.

The cast is a roll call of the great and the good of the greater British repertory company. Apart from meaning that you can play, spot the star, it does mean that each character arrives with a sense of presence and back history onto the screen. I, for one, am going to be going the distance right up until Christmas.

The other big budget drama is Rome. This is I, Claudius with sex and violence and no literary pretensions. I imagine that we'll all follow it because it is history made fun and easy. So far, we've had two bits of sex and a public flogging. We've still got the slave with the enormous penis yet to come - as it were.