FraserWords

Is Bono some kind of quantum answer to life, the universe and anything, an answer that adds up to more than 42? Is Bono everywhere?

I was enjoying BBC4’s documentary on the very, very great BB King last week and suddenly, there he was. Bono. Pontificating.

On all the websites this morning there are pictures of last night’s Oscars, and there, among the Steve McQueens and the Angelina Blanchetts and the Brad McConnaugheys, there he is. Bono. Bono.

The comedian Mark Steel was watching the ceremony because a close friend was up for an award. Then he Tweeted: “Right, that’s it. Bono. I’m off to bed.” Not even for a mate could he stand it.

I used to like U2 when they and I were young. There. I’ve said it. I liked Boy and October, I loved the blast that introduced Angel of Harlem, I loved songs like Red Hill Mining Town and Bad.

And who can not admire the fact that Bono tries to do good with his status and money? He doesn’t shove it all up his nose or down his trousers, he tries to publicise good causes and help the needy.

So given all that, why is the man so bloody irritating? Why? Is it the hectoring? The smugness? The bombast? I sometimes think my worst nightmare would be the announcement that Bono and Annie Lennox had delivered a lovechild, and were going to call it Sanctimonious.

I shall leave the subject with the no doubt apocryphal tale of U2 coming on to a Glasgow stage, Bono clapping his hands slowly. “Every toime I clap my hands,” he said, portentously, “A choild in Africa dies.”

A Scottish voice yelled back: “Well stop fucking doing it!”

Off switch

The BBC is reported to be thinking of scrapping one of its TV channels to play its part in the age of austerity that’s helping the economy so much.

Let us all hope and pray it’s BBC1 that goes, with its EastEnders and The Voice, its ballroom dancing and endless, endless police thrillers, its re-re-remakes of the musketeers and PG Wodehouse, its antiques shows, its ‘news’ in which Oxbridge graduates tell us what they think about what’s happening, rather than what’s happening.

But it won’t be, will it? It will be BBC3 or BBC4, Cbeebies or CBBC.

Well, the two children’s channels are beyond excellent for their mix of education and entertainment, just like BBC1 used to be. BBC4 is utterly, utterly superb in its breadth and quality of documentary and drama and music. There are only three channels worth watching if you are an adult with a brain, BBC2, Channel 4 and BBC4, and even Channel 4 is on the edge with its reality midwives and embarrassing bodies. If they try to bullet BBC4 I shall insist Vladimir Putin invades whatever shiny new headquarters it is the Beeb has just wasted a channel’s entire budget upon.

So it looks like goodbye to BBC3, which is probably the right decision – its yoof culture panders to a yoof that’s streaming its entertainment on a million other devices, that’s living a life that doesn’t really include gathering round the telly. Yes, Family Guy and American Dad are funny, but do we need to see the same episodes more than a dozen times in a row? I think not. And can’t Jack Whitehall survive without BBC3? Do we care if Jack Whitehall can’t survive without BBC3?

Of course, the Beeb could stop making expensive rubbish employing the same old names, buy better but much cheaper scripts from hitherto unknown yet talented and sexually magnetic new writers, and keep all its channels on the go.

On switch

To sell a script, I might have to solve the conundrum of the evening. I wish I could. For a househusband, the evening is prime time: the chores are done, the food cooked, the dishes cleared, the children read to and kissed, the gin sizzling nicely in its tonic beneath its sparkly crown of ice. There is nothing – obviously – to distract us on the television. The dog is asleep. It is not Tuesday, and therefore Brother Fiddle, The Dark Lord and El Dread cannot lead me astray at evensong.

The laptop awaits, the computer’s little chips bursting with an array of wonderful Spotified music, stories waiting on its gleaming screen for my fingers to continue them. Yes, publishers will reject them again, being fools and poltroons. Yes, producers would rather make the world’s 3,452^nd version of the story of the three musketeers, or another Casualty, than buy a new script. But they are there, living their lives on my screen, and if I don’t help my stories along what will happen to the people in them?

If it is a day when the Coconut Eating Crab, the malevolent deity that rules our fates, smiles upon me, then I will already have flown these two stumpy fingers over the keys; all it takes is another hour or two in the peaceful evening.

It’s not as if I am not used to working in the evenings – years of working for newspapers made me very used to it.

But somehow, somewhy, I cannot do it. I sit and try to type and try to force a story or a line, and it just doesn’t work. The night time isn’t the right time. Actually, late night can be. Sometimes, drink-fuelled, I can pump out thousands of words late at night. But not the evening. The eyes cry out for rest, the brain does not respond. Isn’t it strange? I wish I could solve the puzzle.

A wheel puzzle

One of the wheels of my four-wheel-drive lies in a litter of oily rags at the garage. After last Thursday’s instalment of this winter-long storm of misery, I discovered a massive dent in its rim which had torn a gash in the tyre. So it awaits either cheap (may it please the Crab) repair or expensive replacement, and you can imagine how much chance there is of that.

How did it happen? I have not hit anything; I have bounced in flood-hidden ruts, yes, but the dent in the wheel can only have been caused by a pretty fierce smack. And I know I have not struck anything with that fierce a smack. Management rarely drives my car, and she has not hit anything either. It was a mystery.

Until…

Our house is on a steep hill; the car is parked with the wheel in question nearest the lane. With rain of the ferocity we have endured this winter, the lane turns into a raging torrent of water pouring off the moor and the fields. Such is the force of the water that it has literally ripped great chunks of the lane out; parts of it now have no surface at all. With the torrent tumble rocks of quite some size – and that’s what I think has happened. I think the water has driven a rock into the wheel rim and left me staring down the barrel of yet another bloody bill I don’t need. Pah.

Which makes me think: we all know the stories of the poor people who have had to cope with terrible floods causing thousands of pounds of damage, and we must be grateful we have not suffered thus.

But I bet the country is full of people, like me, who face bills that are very unwelcome, yet are too small to make insurance claims worthwhile, given the excesses we all have on our policies. I wonder what that bill for the winter’s damage adds up to? I bet it’s a very significant sum.

Badgered

And finally, given last night’s deluge and this morning’s torrential hellishness, I do hope you all enjoyed Brother Badger’s weather forecast on Twitter yesterday. Here is that historic Tweet, in full:

“Just seen the weather forecast for tomorrow on BBC Countryfile. Doesn’t look bad to me. Rest of week looks OK too.”

In next week’s column, we’ll be asking Brother Badger to choose our lottery numbers.