IS IT NOW ALREADY ? SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY EDITORS CHOICE JOKE

      "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there"  (L.P.Hartley)

      "The past is a foreign country & the bastards won't renew my visa" ( J.M.Browett)


So there I was sipping chamomile tea watching "Lewis" while balancing a heat-pack over a strained lower arm muscle ( Don't ask. All right I'll tell you. Scrabble injury. I was reaching for the dictionary to challenge "Quijxong". Bugger me it's a real  word. A kind of philosophical dilemma involving a Chinese canoe. Who knew) and I'm thinking I'm not old, I'm still a wild man, just the other night I stayed up till after ten-thirty writing angry letters to the Green guide about the sudden and tragic disappearance of Antiques Roadshow from the late Sunday afternoon timeslot. Don't call me old. I'll show you - I'll grow a ponytail and buy a Harley. Oh wait. Oh shit. Anyway, I'm not old, I'm still a wild man - guess what I did the other night? ... after-dinner mints before dinner!(*)

But enough of my youthful insanity, what, I hear you ask, is Lewis ? "Lewis" is a detective mystery set in the serenely gorgeous university town of Oxford, where it is forever summer, attractive young persons boat on the river, and murder mysteries are solved like cryptic crosswords - one clue at a time and always with a fountain pen. "Lewis" is what you watch when you're starting to find Midsomer Murders a bit hardcore. Beside, seriously, there can't be that many people left in Midsomer. One day some day one day soon some adulterous cocaine-addict tennis pro will murder his lover (& last-inhabitant-of-the-village) because of a dispute over the ownership of a treasure trove of roman coins buried in the rose garden of the Vicarage, and that'll be that. And we'll all flip over to watch "Lewis" where some adulterous cocaine-addict philosopher tutor will murder his lover over the ownership of a treasure trove of Roman coins buried in the rose garden at Balliol College. While quoting a bit of Shakespeare. Which will contain a vital clue. Because doesn't it always.

Here's another handy hint: always check the bookshelf at the crime scene. Someone will have rifled through the books looking for a map and if they've put "Bleak House" back on the shelf besides A Guide to Victorian Architecture you know you're dealing with the kind of moral turpitude found in your average murderer. I thought you should know this in case you ever find yourself in charge of a murder inquiry in a university town. No. Thank me later. I'm off to work on a new detective show called "Nothing Unpleasant To Be Seen Here Just Wise & Witty Deductions Made By A Nice Man Driving A Daimler". Our hero will spend a great deal of time bemoaning the good old days when crims knew their place and you'd just hand them a telephone book and leave the room while they beat themselves up. About a better world when petrol was so cheap they gave it away with every pack of cigarettes. A flawed hero forever trying to hide his growing addiction to danish recliner chairs (**), he will be brilliant but brusque and hardly ever shoot bad guys unless they are complete bastards. He moonlights as an alt-country singer writing songs like "I sent my heart out of town on a greyhound bus to keep it safe from you". We're hoping to cast Helen Mirren.

 Until this new and unchallenging show hits your airwaves, please take two "Poirot" and call me in the morning. They tell me as you get older you start to lose the plot and become more obsessed with television. I'm glad this hasn't happened to

(*)  I stole this joke from Mark Neal, a fine actor and comedian

(**) I stole this joke from myself because I am a lazy bastard