London Colin

Just wasted an hour of my life watching Undercover Boss on Channel 4.

I can't remember the last time I saw something with such a fatally flawed concept.  The Chief Executive of Tower Hamlets, the catastrophically deprived East London borough, goes literally undercover to spy on unsuspecting departments to experience life on the front line of council services provision.  We see lots of shots of him in a suit, in meetings, looking out of a window while frotting his blackberry - he's a man in an ivory tower.  He needs to get out there and see what's really going down.

All he needs is a way of getting a realistic view of the coal face.  One that won't make people behave unnaturally around him.  The Channel 4 execs convene an emergency mind shower  before emerging triumphantly for an early lunch ten minutes later.  He will pose as a trainee trying out various council jobs and be mentored by a member of staff in each.  A 50 year old trainee who reads with glasses that cost more than the annual salary of his mentor and looks exactly like the Chief Executive wearing a week's growth of stubble, and who takes a camera crew everywhere with him.

The sheer pointlessness and artifice is demonstrated by the choice of mentors, heart of gold diamonds in the rough one and all.  Because if you need to choose someone to be on telly representing your department, you choose the most presentable.  After all, the Chief Executive might watch it.  That is if he wasn't shuffling around onscreen dressed as Colin the Hollywood Hobo and remembering to put on his northern accent every time someone asks where he's from.

He gets shown meals on wheels, pest control, a homeless advice centre, community coppers etc etc.  'Colin' can't believe his luck - every department of his council is staffed by professionals burning with zeal, compassion and unrealised potential.  The creak of the door to the storeroom containing all the sewer-mouthed tattooed mutants who failed the telly test can be occasionally heard as it groans against its padlocks.

So 'Colin' shaves off his bumfluff, has an erotic reunion with his blackberry and goes back to playing Sir Alan, albeit with a renewed sense of perspective.  But wait - there's one last twist.  He needs to reveal his true identity to his mentors.  The best of these meetings goes as follows:

Chief Exec: "Do you know who I am?"
Underling: "Yeah Chief Exec seen you on the internet innit."
Chief Exec: "So, I hear you had an interesting day yesterday?"
Underling: "Yeah showed a geezer round the market yeah?"
Chief Exec: [leans forward, slowly removes designer glasss]
Underling: "NOOOOOO! You is Colin!"

He tells them they're wonderful and gives them unpaid jobs on vague and uninspiring committees.  Well, except Malechi, a gentle young black man working in the homeless advisory service.  He's on a temporary contract.  The Chief Executive offers to become his permanent career mentor.  We learn during the voiceover that he "hopes to have a permanent job soon".  Shit mentor.

Just wasted 20 minutes of my life whinging about Undercover Boss on Channel 4.

The old plates of meat

As an old woman in an Alan Bennett play might say, I'm a martyr to my feet.  They give me all sorts of gyp.  They go through phases of throbbing agony which can only be dealt with by replacing a pair of shoes, except the shoes I have to replace never seem to have any similarities.

It's not so much Right Foot - that's quite stoic.  Left Foot is the big grizzly girl.  Things got so bad after a weekend stomping around a festival that I hobbled into the GP today to see what could be done.  One of the few perks of being a bottom feeder at a massive company is the private healthcare, so rather than an overworked Dr Whatever in the 64th hour of his shift I was greeted by a man who looked like Moss from the IT Crowd, if Moss was also in Vampire Weekend.

I assumed (hoped) he was a doctor as he only introduced himself as Nathan.  Nathan was a bit too cool for my liking, and didn't look at all enthusiastic when I whipped off my sock.  I gave my toes a little waggle to try to entice him but he was content to analyse the situation from a distance.  Anti-inflammatory pills plus an appointment to see a foot expert, who will conduct a 'gait analysis'.  Obviously I'm very excited about that bit, which I assume will involve walking up and down a catwalk while Louie Spence from Pineapple Dance Studios yells at me to work my hips.  I will keep you posted.  The letter that Nathan wrote to Louie on my behalf described me as "this pleasant gentleman".  If any doctors are reading, could you please let me know if this is accepted medical terminology for "this massive tool"?

On a related medical note, I saw a businessman reading a dieting book on the tube home today.  Sob Yourself Thin or similar.  I admired his commitment to reading around the issue, although feared for his resolve when I notice his bookmark was a menu for Yeung's Express takeaway.

The Piano of Temptation

Phew, long week.  Had to organise a work event on Friday/Saturday which meant the days before were grizzly.  I am not designed to work long hours.  My brain acts like a mobile phone - at peak capacity when I wake up and unplug it from the power supply of snores, it then depletes in power steadily throughout the day.  By 4pm I'm on two bars, and by 7pm can only make emergency calls.

Which means when I get home around 10pm, as I did on Thursday, I am in a burned out and uncommunicative state.  I beached myself on the sofa and turned on Big Brother.  I was just thinking what a shame it is that Shabby is so pretty and yet so utterly deranged when the front door slammed open.  A lady-shaped shadow loomed over me and leaned in for a boozy hello.  "How much have you drunk?" I asked nervously.  "Beer AND a wine!" she announced with slurry pride.  "And I was too busy to have lunch and I didn't eat dinner either!"

Code Red.  A mixture of drinks on an empty stomach.  As she crashed onto the sofa I could hear a faint crackling sound.  Sure enough, there were sparks shooting out of her nostrils and ears.  Complete lady brain malfunction.

Under usual circumstances this sort of situation requires immediate preventative action, such as finding an episode of Gok Wan's Fashion Fix for her to watch.  I was feeling foolishly obstinant, however.  Man work hard.  Man tired.  Man not need to deal with loopy lady.  So I focussed hard on Big Brother while she tottered off to make some tea.

The Tree of Temptation was involved, which I always enjoy.  The Tree is a dismembodied voice in the bathroom that doles out unpleasant secret tasks and is very rude to the housemates (to posh layabout Ben - "Oi, Brideshead!").  As I was considering the witty retorts I'd have up my sleeve to counter the Tree if I was on the show, a gruff voice growled up at me from floor level in the gap between the back of the sofa and the landlady's piano.

"Hello!  I am the Piano of Temptation!"  The Piano of Temptation sounded far more feminine than the Tree of Temptation.  "I have a secret task for you!"  Appalling news - I was much too tired for a task.  I grabbed a nearby towel and swatted it in the direction of the Piano, which yelped and was silenced.

A short time after my girlfriend re-appeared.  I considered telling her about the Piano of Temptation but her mood seemed to have taken a turn for the worse.  My lack of general chit chat then only worsened it.  Time for bed.

I emerged from the bathroom to find my girlfriend sitting up in bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, frowning hard.  If a cartoonist had drawn the scene, he would have found it difficult not to add a small storm cloud above her head.  I opined that she might be in a mood.

Several minutes later, as her footsteps stomped down the stairs and the spare room door crashed shut, the point had been forcefully made that she was not in a mood.  I lay in bed, trickles of blood seeping from my ears, and considered the theory that often the best approach is to do nothing at all.  The short term benefits were compelling, but experience suggested that this would not be the best overall strategy.  I went downstairs to retrieve her and found that the volcano, whilst still spitting out the occasional lump of burning lava, had largely burned itself out.

I got home yesterday to find the flat cleaned from top to bottom to a standard unprecedented in three years of co-habitation.  She knows how to appeal to my innner Kryten.  How long this contrition will last for is unsure, and I suspect it may have evaporated at about paragraph 2 of this blog.  Maybe the whole thing was a task from the Piano of Temptation.  Maybe I'll have to pretend to be drunk next week.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this, which iTunes tells me I've played 28 times in the last three weeks.