Escapism

I have ten minutes until I need to run for my train to head for home.

This morning I caught the train to work as usual. Standing on the train, waiting to get off, I used the Starbucks App on my phone to order a latte ahead so that it would be waiting for me when I walked into the cafe. I love doing this. I walked into the cafe and the barista plus one of the customers looked at me and said “Stuart?” I said yes and was given my drink which was waiting for me. It made me think “I like to go where everybody knows my name”. And that set me to thinking about American TV comedy series. Why? Because that’s the mis-quote of a line from the theme tune to “Cheers”. Every episode when the character Norm walked into the bar, everyone shouted out his name.

And as my thoughts drifted whilst walking to the office, I remembered how I used to love watching “Cheers” on a Friday night on Channel Four at the end of a busy week. It was beautiful escapism. I loved singing along to the theme tune (out of tune, of course). Even before that, I used to love “Rhoda” and “Taxi”. When “Cheers” finally came to an end after launching many great acting careers, it was a  relief to find out that “Frasier” would have his own series. I loved that too. Then came “Friends”. All ten series of it!

Escapism at the end of the week. A marvellous way to drop into a chair with a glass of wine and laugh away the troubles of the week.

I can’t help thinking that Channel 4 made a big mistake for my viewing habits when they stopped showing these kinds of programmes on Fridays and switched them to a Thursday night. “How I Met your Mother” and “Big Bang Theory” are wonderful, but Thursday night just doesn’t do it for me!

But then maybe I am just being too linear watching TV when it is actually broadcast. How very 20th Century of me!

(This is the last of the November Challenge. I set out to write a blog post every day in November, scheduling them ahead to avoid overwhelming my readers. I managed 20 in 31 days – not quite one a day, but then it’s helpful to have weekends off!)

Also published on Medium.