Read Online Desperate Husbands by Richard Glover - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard Glover
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do they test these things? How good is the evidence? I imagine the rats sitting in their cages with a tiny miniature tea service. ‘Milk?’ asks one rat of the other, its little pinkie held aloft as it pours. ‘Yes,’ says his companion rat, ‘and a couple of sugars, if you don’t mind.’
I idly open a beer, wondering how they test the level of intellectual impairment in tea-drinking rats. Perhaps they screen repeated episodes of Supernanny and see how long it takes to drive them insane with boredom.
Batboy is still staring at the TV in a glum sort of way. ‘I just knew there was some reason I found it so hard to settle down and study. Mum’s right. I don’t why you’d buy such a thing. I’m almost certain to fail however hard I study.’
At this point he is struck by an idea, and his mood suddenly lifts. ‘Perhaps I could apply for some sort of special dispensation.’
For somebody poisoned by his parents’ teapot, the boy is not as stupid as you might think. He’s onto something. Perhaps we should all apply for some sort of special dispensation. Surely you, too, have some sort of excuse.
Title fight
‘We should watch Dad’s Army ,’ I say, holding up the DVD I bought three months ago. ‘It’s crap,’ chorus Batboy and The Space Cadet, using the English language with all their usual skill and precision. I know they love the Blackadder series, so I try a fresh tack. ‘Ben Elton, who wrote Blackadder , says that Dad’s Army is great,’ I tell them. ‘I once heard him say that it was his favourite comedy ever.’
‘You said that last time you tried to make us watch it,’ says The Space Cadet, shaking his head. He turns to his mother: ‘Dad’s now on some sort of endless loop.’
Owning a small collection of DVDs is a wonderful thing, but it creates new conflicts. Before DVD, you’d all agree to watch television and confront a choice of five shows. Two would be too violent, one would be an Albanian dog-poisoning movie on SBS, and the other would be hosted byEddie McGuire. Result: you watch the creaky pommy drama on the ABC and no one’s in a position to complain.
Now there’s the shelf of DVDs and videos: thirty choices, all the time. But here’s the problem: buy a new DVD movie, and Batboy and his brother will watch it twenty-four times in the first three days. Later, having owned the thing for three months, I suggest I might like to watch the movie for a second time and they stare at me in mute disbelief. By now, they’ve watched it 137 times, know the whole script by heart and are arguing over the dolly track placement in scenes ten through to fifteen.
They’ve even tried to inject some interest by watching it with the Polish subtitles, so often they could probably now order coffee for two in a Gdansk shipyard cafe. Worse, they behave as if somehow the movies are going to breed, right there on the DVD shelf, and that new choices will suddenly appear. Why else do they keep scanning the row ‘just to see if there’s something really good’?
I try to talk sense into them: ‘There’s nothing we haven’t watched a million times. The only thing left is Dad’s Army. ’
‘It’s crap.’
‘Well, Ben Elton says…’
And so it’s back to scanning the shelves. And here’s the other problem with the DVD. A person—say, for instance, me—makes a single purchasing error and it just sits there, ready to draw comment during every scan of the DVD shelf.
‘Ah, great,’ says The Space Cadet, with a level of sarcasm only possible if you are a thirteen-year-old boy. ‘Here’s Woody Allen’s Curse of the Jade Scorpion . We could watch that. Or we could hit ourselves over the head with a chair, which might be more fun. Good one, Dad.’
‘Yeah,’ agrees Batboy. ‘Good one, Dad’.
They say exactly these words, in exactly this tone of voice, every time they look through the shelf and come across The Curse of the Jade Scorpion , which, it must be admitted, is crap. I turn to
I idly open a beer, wondering how they test the level of intellectual impairment in tea-drinking rats. Perhaps they screen repeated episodes of Supernanny and see how long it takes to drive them insane with boredom.
Batboy is still staring at the TV in a glum sort of way. ‘I just knew there was some reason I found it so hard to settle down and study. Mum’s right. I don’t why you’d buy such a thing. I’m almost certain to fail however hard I study.’
At this point he is struck by an idea, and his mood suddenly lifts. ‘Perhaps I could apply for some sort of special dispensation.’
For somebody poisoned by his parents’ teapot, the boy is not as stupid as you might think. He’s onto something. Perhaps we should all apply for some sort of special dispensation. Surely you, too, have some sort of excuse.
Title fight
‘We should watch Dad’s Army ,’ I say, holding up the DVD I bought three months ago. ‘It’s crap,’ chorus Batboy and The Space Cadet, using the English language with all their usual skill and precision. I know they love the Blackadder series, so I try a fresh tack. ‘Ben Elton, who wrote Blackadder , says that Dad’s Army is great,’ I tell them. ‘I once heard him say that it was his favourite comedy ever.’
‘You said that last time you tried to make us watch it,’ says The Space Cadet, shaking his head. He turns to his mother: ‘Dad’s now on some sort of endless loop.’
Owning a small collection of DVDs is a wonderful thing, but it creates new conflicts. Before DVD, you’d all agree to watch television and confront a choice of five shows. Two would be too violent, one would be an Albanian dog-poisoning movie on SBS, and the other would be hosted byEddie McGuire. Result: you watch the creaky pommy drama on the ABC and no one’s in a position to complain.
Now there’s the shelf of DVDs and videos: thirty choices, all the time. But here’s the problem: buy a new DVD movie, and Batboy and his brother will watch it twenty-four times in the first three days. Later, having owned the thing for three months, I suggest I might like to watch the movie for a second time and they stare at me in mute disbelief. By now, they’ve watched it 137 times, know the whole script by heart and are arguing over the dolly track placement in scenes ten through to fifteen.
They’ve even tried to inject some interest by watching it with the Polish subtitles, so often they could probably now order coffee for two in a Gdansk shipyard cafe. Worse, they behave as if somehow the movies are going to breed, right there on the DVD shelf, and that new choices will suddenly appear. Why else do they keep scanning the row ‘just to see if there’s something really good’?
I try to talk sense into them: ‘There’s nothing we haven’t watched a million times. The only thing left is Dad’s Army. ’
‘It’s crap.’
‘Well, Ben Elton says…’
And so it’s back to scanning the shelves. And here’s the other problem with the DVD. A person—say, for instance, me—makes a single purchasing error and it just sits there, ready to draw comment during every scan of the DVD shelf.
‘Ah, great,’ says The Space Cadet, with a level of sarcasm only possible if you are a thirteen-year-old boy. ‘Here’s Woody Allen’s Curse of the Jade Scorpion . We could watch that. Or we could hit ourselves over the head with a chair, which might be more fun. Good one, Dad.’
‘Yeah,’ agrees Batboy. ‘Good one, Dad’.
They say exactly these words, in exactly this tone of voice, every time they look through the shelf and come across The Curse of the Jade Scorpion , which, it must be admitted, is crap. I turn to
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