.. months older than I am. I’ll have to do some work on my avuncularity.
Nigella Lawson is slightly more problematic. I find her simpering to the camera lens a little disconcerting, but if I’m so dog-tired I can’t even manipulate the remote, I’ll hang in to Nigella’s show till the family arrives with the credits and starts tasting her chocolate spaghetti or whatever.
Jaimie Oliver makes me a little suspicious. It’s not just his enthusiasm or even his girly lisp, gawd bless ‘im. He’s ravingly evangelical about his quick recipes and I’m slightly suspicious that he’s dumbing it all down. I only suspect, mind you, because I’m no cook and I’m even less inclined to attempt cooking when I live with such a very fine practitioner of the art. Anyway, a couple of Jaimie’s recipes have been tried and the ingredients’ balances seemed a bit out of whack to our taste. Just sayin'.
The most hilarious cooking show without a doubt is Come Dine with Me. Well, it’s barely a cooking show at all, with only the barest mention given to how the food is prepared, but it’s highly entertaining – or highly annoying depending on the mood you’re in. There are regional spin-offs and other variations running now, the formula is so successful, but the idea is to throw a group of five strangers together to host dinner parties which are judged by the guests and given points accordingly. The winner gets a cash prize, but it’s just as often the hosts are judged on their personalities as the meals and the narration is pun-ridden and subversive to boot so you really do have to be in the mood. It’s educational though, because quite a few of the hosts get the menu and/or the cooking excruciatingly wrong.
My personal favourite is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s (I looked it up) River Cottage cookery show. Hugh’s modest style belies some fiercely held beliefs and principles, not the least of which is using seasonally and otherwise readily available ingredients, home or locally grown where possible. There is a local franchise. They’ve got the wrong bloke by a country mile.
The cooking show that really annoys and dismays me, and her, however, is Ten’s MasterChef Australia. I’ve seen it perhaps three or four times now and my only possible excuse to repeat this demoralising exercise is that there’s absolutely fuck-nothing on any other channel.
This so-called cooking show on steroids and liquid nitrogen (it’s so photogenic, darling!) with the annoyingly portentous music track, highlights the competitive aspects to the total detriment of anything vaguely recognisable as cooking. It and The Voice are thoroughly interchangeable. I wouldn’t notice the difference.

Of course, we’re all alone in this life. By which I mean I’m all alone in my life, just as you are all alone in your life. There’s no other me and there’s no other you, which is statistically amazing when you think about it. All that aside, there are a few occasions in our lives when we interface with the society we live in and we have to do it totally solo, such as jury service. Or voting.
You were probably wondering when I was going to get around to that. Well, we’re here. As I write it’s the eve of the election we’re pissed off we had to have. Well, one reason we had to have it now is because the present term of office is patently too short. I know nobody talks about that sort of stuff these days, but I am. Talking anyway. It should be four years. No discussion.
For what it’s worth, (which will be nothing by the time you read this), I’m pegging a hung parliament. I think that so many of us are sick of having to appear to take notice of these power-crazy fucks that we’re going to vote for anybody else first (I’m for the Arts party) and then let the pencil do the talking and walking.
Incidentally, I’ve mentioned the compulsory voting thing to a few Americans over the years. Their eyes bug and they are incredulous. ‘But that isn’t democracy’ they inevitably say. I’m beginning to think they’ve got a point.

I was going to write about there being too many people on the planet. There’s a link in this remaining shard that may have you collapsing into the foetal position if you look at it for too long.
In so many ways we’re slaves to our inherited genes, which seems to suggest the predestinationites' team might have a point, and as we move towards our unarguably predestined ends, we find that certain genes passed down the line by our forebears can be detrimental to our quality of life, if not annoyingly fatal on occasions.
The way medicine’s heading though, a lot of those feeble or downright toxic genes will be eliminated in the upcoming Brave New World, and children formerly destined to be afflicted with hereditary diseases will be able to live complete and healthy cycles for the first time in their family histories.
And that would be perfectly fine, except that the world’s heading for the largest population of humans in, well, human history. If you want to freak yourself out, check out the world population clock http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/