May is some month, right? I mean, you’re sitting out in a beer garden1, and maybe you’re a little gone from the heat and possibly some other seasonal factors that don’t require discussion, and suddenly anyway someone happens by to see how you are and have a chat about property rights, and one thing leads to another and they decide you actually on closer inspection are the spit of Someone’s Nephew because of whatever, the look in your eyes, and how yes he’s realised you are in fact That Guy’s Nephew, and then there’s some swift apologies for the harsh tone and an episode of back-slapping that kind of jogs your senses out of sync a bit and next thing you’re in a boardroom in the national broadcaster with someone offering you a fat sum of cash to become “the Irish Noel Edmonds”.
And though that may sound like the most brutal of chimeras to someone in your delicate position, the diamond core of your brain holds off on the retching long enough to force a thoughtful nod and a counter-offer, and said counter-offer must be ridiculous enough to further cement the impression of precocity that apparently landed you there in the first place because while there’s an audible intake of breath there is no discernable frantic tapping on sub-deskular buttons and no sudden rush of thick-necked security, and the diamond core presses forward and starts dictating terms and before you know it your brain is seizing your hand and you’re watching your fingers start to dribble out what looks for all the world like your signature on a piece of paper.
… but the diamond core takes a fatal moment to congratulate itself, which lets the more mushy and belligerent hinterlands of your brain out for the party, and the kinetic energy of the fingers somehow transfers into the lips. And you hear things like, how about we go for a bit more specificity here, how about we not take verbal shortcuts? Let’s not patronise the viewer, and when you think about it wouldn’t it be more accurate to ask Are You More Knowledgeable About Certain Things Than These Particular Privately-Educated Ten-Year-Olds? And let’s make some bold leaps re: merchandising/promotion; let’s, for instance, up the punchability of both t-y-o’s and contestants, up the irritation and baffling illogicality and sheer lack of thought by all parties and make a show that will if there is any sense in the world be well and truly buried inside the first season? But hear me out not without attracting the goggle-eyed attention of a certain sub-section of the college-aged demographic, such attention as may be enhanced through the airing of re-runs in the post-2am witching/insomniac/ironic appreciation window, and which may be capitalised upon in any number of ways by a savvy production/marketing team.
… which is a discussion that no doubt seems lucid and excellent at the outset, but which if you think about it will probably end up being something the diamond core will be vocal about later on. Something about which it will, in fact, take pains to communicate an almost viscous displeasure. And maybe yeah when people start to cough and stand up and avoid eye contact you kind of regret, to some degree, what has pretty evidently become a lost opportunity.
But on the other hand, you walk out and realise it’s not even past lunchtime yet, and the sun is out, and there are licenced premises every way you look, and to be honest who ever listens to that part of their brain anyway.
- Or, I suppose, more kind of lurking at the edges of a beer garden. Perhaps reclining in some bushes. And to clarify, there’s only beer in this garden because it happened to be in your hand when you got lost coming off the N11 at 7 in the morning. [↩]
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