Midsomer Murd.....argh, splat

We like living in Knotty End.  We have no intention of upping sticks and moving to any of the Midsomer parishes, where average life expectancy is, according to reliable statistics from eminently trustworthy government sources, about 13.7 seconds, so we just keep tabs on the place from afar, by means of the Electric Television.


And tonight's Midsomer was a cracker.  Stiffs all over the place, as usual, and an increasingly asthmatic Barnaby still rushing around and raising his eyebrows interrogatively at every other member of the cast (the director doesn't tell him whodunnit, you know - you can tell by the look of surprise on his face when a 15-year-old PWC slips him the vital last piece of the jigsaw. It keeps him on his toes.)


Barnaby really should watch more telly.  It was obvious who The Creeper was in the first reel (as we used to say in the days of celluloid), but we mustn't let that spoil the fun.  Plot is irrelevant in a Midsomer episode, for Midsomer has become a soap, and like the best soaps it is much better watched with your eyes closed, so you can concentrate on lines like "rough as a bag o' scratchin's" (courtesy Corrers), or, tonight, "The cat has a phobia.  She won't use the cat-flap" (mouthed by the Chief Constable's wife under relentless cross-examination.)


The script-writers for the Midsomer soap are really getting into their stride.  They have realised that Barnaby will never progress in the police service until something is done about his daughter Cully, named after a 16th kitchen-cleaning servant and a failure at everything she tries, except perhaps getting stuck down potholes, and who has now disappeared, thank the Lord, but next in line will have to be the dimwit he married who,  on the evidence of tonight's drama, has difficulty knowing which way up to hold her fork at dinner.  And when your husband is mixing with the nobs, the least you can do is learn how to balance a pea on the back of your fork in case you are ever required to deal with one of your Chief Constable's balls.