Bless you Rosenthal...

A much better frame of mind today. Jack Rosenthal (not to be confused with ITV Sport's Jim Rosenthal. At all) made me laugh out loud on the train a couple of times. Now, if I could write something that would leave people laughing long after I'd died, that would make me happy. Or it would, if I wasn't dead. The book's giving me the urge to seek out some Rosenthal. Wait there...

Ooh, you can get a five disc set from play.com for £34.99. I have strong memories of P'Tang Yang Kipperbang from the first week of Channel 4. And the Viv Nicholson tv drama based on her book, Spend, Spend, Spend. And The Knowledge, of course. But it seems a lot of Jack's other stuff passed me by, I'm afraid. So I might have to buy the complete The Dustbin Men too (hang about. How did Common As Muck ever get made??). The first laugh out loud came in a bit when Jack was staying round at Maureen Lipman's parents' house in Hull. Unbeknownst to Jack, who was sleeping in the spare room, there'd been some musical chairs business going on with the sleeping arrangements in the house and Maureen's dad Maurice had ended up in his daughter's bed. So, when Jack crept into Maureen's bed early the next morning, he got a bit more than he bargained for, especially after kissing his future father-in-law on the nape of the neck. "What the hell are you playing at?" screamed Maurice. Jack replied: "I was just wondering if you'd like a cup of tea?"

Prior to picking up the Rosenthal I'd even managed to get a giggle out of this Big Brother-related apology in Metro:

"In yesterday's Metro, we said Charley was born in jail to a prostitute who
was later strangled. In fact, it was BB housemate Chanelle. Sorry for the
confusion."

No, no, Metro, the confusion's all yours, surely? And you call that an apology? Cripes. Next to that there was a par about a woman who's quit her job to watch Big Brother full-time - Hannah Clarkson, who's left her £15,000-a-year show on Portsmouth radio station The Quay because watching telly's much better than work. She's right, of course, but unless you're Charlie Brooker or Harry Hill it ain't gonna pay. Anyway, her ex-boss's quote is priceless: "I do not understand why anyone would give up their career to watch a load of mindless idiots on TV for three months." His name? Sam Matterface.