I'm on tablets for me nerves

. . . the same combination of tablets that Kerry Ketona was on when she had all that trouble with Brian McFadden. And so would you be if you inhabited the world portrayed in the sketch comedy show Titty Bang Bang. The show is described on the blurbs as a "female Little Britain", and there are recurring characters, among them:

*the "shy" foreign maid, doing her best to get attention from groups touring the stately home where she works

*the Scorton Ladies' Darts Team, who never score a point

*Maxine, the plastic surgery addict who must always contend with "just a little seepage"

*Leslie Marie, the sweet teenager whose mother is desperate to go on television to talk about raising a delinquent child

*the bottomless middle-aged ladies' sewing circle

*the SHUT UP family, who subsist on duck and chips

*the lesbian Australian dance teacher of children

*Ruth Baxter, who picks "fights" with tour guides, gardeners, vicars, etc.

*Melody, the magician who inflicts various tortures on her rabbit assistant

*Don, the odd man who hires escort after escort, only to have them leave when he reveals what he really wants to do with them

There are plenty of laughs, but just as many times when you're left scratching your head at the strange characters and situations. The same characters reappear in each of the 6 episodes, and their behavior never varies. It's funny to watch an episode or two, but more than that at once and it gets a bit tiresome.

On another note: YAY! I finally won an iPod. I have an mp3 player, but it's worse than useless. The flimsy manual goes on for about 3 of its 5 pages on how to change the AAA battery. I would think that anyone who has been alive in the past 50 or so years would have been able to figure that one out. I wouldn't mind so much, but there is absolutely nothing in the rest of the manual about how to use the stupid thing -- how to navigate through the menus, what all the little icons mean, how to move between items you've downloaded, etc. I like to listen to audio books and podcasts, and occasionally I have wanted to stop listening to an audio book after, oh listening for 30 minutes or so, and move on to something else for a while. This is apparently impossible. Also, in attempting to figure our how to find something else on the player, I would inevitably press the wrong button and start my audio book back at the beginning again. AAARRRRGGGGHHH! It was beyond frustrating. So I hope the Apple people have made things a bit more user friendly. However, I was less than impressed to see this notice from my local library concerning iPods and downloadable audio books. {sigh}

Final Verdict for Titty Bang Bang: Three Gherkins, for zany, sometimes bizarre British comedy

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This will keep me busy for a while

Uncharacteristically for me, I didn't have any audio books on hold at the library a few weeks ago, so I started browsing the shelves at my local branch library. Since I was in need of *something* to listen to, I decided to try a book I'd passed over many times before, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. Since it wasn't set in London, or anywhere else in the British isles, I really wasn't interested in it. I'm glad that I was at a loose end so that I had to give it a chance. It's a wonderful series about Mma Ramotswe and her friends solving mysteries large and small in the African country of Botswana. The characters are all so warm and respectful, and the stories so heartwarming, that I didn't notice the time (or the miles!) rushing by. I simply allowed myself to get lost in a world where people address each other with, "Did you sleep well?" and the greatest delicacy is cooked pumpkin. My local library had several other audio books in the series, but they were unfortunately not in order, but I was so eager to hear more about Mma Ramotswe's adventures that I had to listen to them anyway. I'm now going back and listening to them in order, with The Tears of the Giraffe (second in the series) currently entertaining me. The actress who does the reading, Lisette Lecat, is really wonderful with all the various accents, even managing some words in a clicking African language.

I was thrilled to see that The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency was shown recently on British TV. I'm anxiously waiting for it to be shown in the U.S. , or else for the DVD to become available.

Since I have been listening to audio books for many years, I can go on record with my preference for cassettes over CDs any day! If you are buying an audio book on CD for yourself, and are careful, I suppose that would be one thing. However, I check audio books out of the library very frequently, and nothing is so frustrating as to get to the end (or anywhere, really) of the story and have the CD skip, stop or otherwise refuse to play. Cassettes may misbehave sometimes, but there is an extreme satisfaction to be had in ejecting the cassette and, as some audio books instruct us to do, "slapping it smartly" against the dashboard. Even if this doesn't fix the problem, you at least feel better! Even so, the problems I've had over the years with cassettes are nearly non-existent, compared to the continual frustration of CDs. I recently went to great personal expense to have a cassette player installed in my new car, so I hope the audio book people will continue to release books in this format. There really is no contest.

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