11th January

Urgh. Why did I take this on again? I suppose I thought I might have some more topics of interest to talk about or that I might go over some of the topics and events that I neglected to cover last year. I may just relegate random short thoughts about 2016 to footnotes*. But all my life is at the moment is numbers, formulas and struggling to remember numbers and formulas.

BBC4 showed Dawn French's one woman show "Thirty Million Minutes" on New Year's Eve (the title referencing the length of her life to date) and I've been catching up with it over the past couple of days. It's the entertainment equivalent of a warm hug, a relatively genteel couple of hours with a much loved friend with a few hokey jokes along the way. Truly laugh out loud moments are few and far between (footage of French meeting the Queen Mother being a notable exception) but French's affability is undeniable and it's a pleasure to spend time in her company. This is essentially a love letter to her family, and as a mostly uplifting piece of feel good TV it ticks a lot of boxes in this grim miserable month.




*Bruce Springsteen at Wembley with the E Street Band last June was one of the most life affirming events I can recall.

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