A funny thing happened

as 24 came on last Sunday night. The title came up - the flashy/bleepy "24" legend - and a plummy English voice narrated soberly over the top, "Yellow LEDs flash, resolving into the number 24".

What is this? I thought as I cracked open a beer, is Sky attempting some kind of forcible injection of poetry into the mundanity of Sunday night cable telly? Or have the voices come for me at last? The narration cut in whenever the dialogue stopped, and we realised that for some reason we were listening to the audio subtitles. We fiddled with the cable box, switching both it and the subtitles on and off a couple of times and yet still this chap continued to describe the action to us with great gravity and seriousness.

"Thomas Lennox skulks circumspectly through the corridors of the White House, eyes darting furtively as if a plotter in a Jacobean tragedy," he intoned gravely. I'd love to be able to say I'm paraphrasing. At the words "Jacobean tragedy", beer jetted from my nostrils.

Jacobean tragedy. 24. Jacobean tragedy.

I was simultaneously amused and bemused by the voice-over, which seemed to pounce on minutae at the least provocation. ("Jack waits tensely for the kettle to boil. Steam is emitted silently from its spout, clouding the glossy metal surface with an ever-changing patina of condensing moisture. With an air of pregnant finality, the kettle clicks off.") After about half an hour of this ("Jack makes a phone call, eyes flitting idly over his CTU colleagues as he silently evaluates their chances of having a freakish, terminal 'accident' before the day is out"), the box just gave up and freeze-framed during an advert. I gave up too.

Now, of course, I find out that Virgin Media is having a hissy fit that Sky is totally charging too much for its channels, and so I won't ever get to find out just who does meet a surprising, ratings-boosting death. Sigh.

* * *
It was Ruth's birthday on Thursday, and Ash and I met up with Ruth and Andy for some food at the Tapas Tree. They seated us at a bijou table in the back and left us alone to look over the menus. Having not spoken to Ruth for ages, of course, we blethered at length and entirely failed to pick anything. The waitress came back.

"Hi - I'm really sorry, but we haven't chosen yet. Can we have a few more minutes?" I asked.
She placed a hand on dropped hip and said: "What?"
"Can we have a few more minutes?"

She flounced off.

We hurriedly chose some food, and this time a waiter came through to furnish us with a (rather nice) bottle of house white and to take our order. The tapas began to arrive in batches, as is its wont, and we tucked in. A bowl of potatoes drowning in some sort of off-white substance arrived. "Does anyone remember ordering potatoes and sludge?" I asked jocularly.

"Uh, excuse me?" I said as the waitress stalked by, carrying another returned order from a different table. Oh God, I thought. We're going to get it in the neck. "Um, I don't think we ordered these. I think we asked for patatas bravas," I said, trying desperately to append a question mark to the end of the statement to make it less direct.

Hellfire burned in her eyes, which rolled towards the ceiling, and she uttered a magnificently fiery Latin tut, laden with exasperation. "So if you could...uh..." I flailed. "Si," she sighed, and ripped the dish off the table.

"Wow," said Ash, once the waitress had stormed off, "what a cow."

We finished our food (which I really can't complain about - top stuff all in all) and Andy turned into the full blast of the waitress's gaze one last time.

"Could we have the bill, please?" he asked.
"The bill?" she snorted, as if this was absolutely the last thing he might have wanted. "You don't want the desserts or the coffee?" she asked incredulously.
"No, just the bill," he continued hopelessly, writing on an imaginary cheque.

We got the bill. We got out. I'd highly recommend the Tapas Tree - the food's great, and the service is nothing if not bracing.