As well as malt loaf, baby animals, shopping and taramasalata, I love television. When I was a teenager, it was my lifeline to what I thought was the Real World. When I was in my early twenties, I used it to escape the Real World. When I was in my late twenties, I used it to learn about the Real World. Now I'm in my thirties and I know it's not real, but I still think it's useful and fun and a vital window into the culture that is being fed to our nation and the rest of the globe.
Tonight when I got home, I watched the final of Maestro, having missed the rest of this BBC reality series that has shown celebrities learning to conduct a full orchestra. And although the classical music tradition is elitist and difficult, this was absolutely brilliant. A handful of normal people, famous in the main for something completely unmusical (from cake making to comedy), standing on a podium in front of a stage full of professional musicians, showing the skill, knowledge, coordination, talent, passion and love it takes to make this most complex and valuable of art forms come to life.
Sorry, that wasn't at all funny. Clearly my life isn't all tripping upstairs and becoming entangled in coiffuring equipment. To provide a potential smirk, here is an extract from The Mitfords - a letter Nancy (then 59) wrote to her younger sister Deborah (then 43) in March 1963:
"Dear Miss,
Quelle horrible surprise - a photograph of the Q [Queen] accompanied by a hideous eskimo. I imagine she is in some dread Soviet land, look again, & find that it is Princess Anne."
Made my commute home a little less awful.
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