Like most of the UK's 30-something, telly-watching populace the prospect of This Life + 10 was simply too intriguing. A symptom of the Friends Reunited syndrome. Yes, the characters still hadn't changed much and could swear and bitch for England but surely that's the deep-seated fear that we all have within us. That life and life lessons have taught us nothing, that we repeat the same mistake unable to escape our own demons and weaknesses. This Life was groundbreaking in the 90s for its content and style. I was a little too young to completely identify with the characters then but I suspected then that this is how we were headed, that we'd be a disaffected, unhappy, navel-gazing lot caught up in the trite minutaie of trivial anxieties. It was never 'real' or edgy (for that 'Shameless' pushes more buttons), you never believed that they were really lawyers, just young people in LA Law style pretending and blagging their way through their jobs much like what we all do. In any case, my post-uni life was more 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' than anything else!
What followed 'This Life' was 'The Thick of it' - what a sublime show, the blinking politician on Paxman was hilarious. This programme and Radio 4 justifies the BBC's license fee - I just wished the Beeb would produce more programmes of this calibre.
Have also become a BookCrosser and it's strange how I'm so thrilled. It feels slightly subversive as well, like we're secret book spies passing on intelligence to fellow reading counterparts. Dropped off 'Dracula' and 'The Beach' both of which should give the new readers some joy and entertainment. Hope that they provide a bit of a surprise to someone's day and that they don't end up in TfL's 'Lost and Found' section! Was planning on dropping off a whole loads of books to the local charity shop but I suspect they'll just languish there for ages waiting to be picked up by a browser.
I'm making it my mission this year to read all the untouched books on my shelf so hopefully this will prompt me to get through them quicker so that I can BC them.
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