What about a nice documentary about Ducks?

There is a small Bee in one of these pictures.

Our lounge room ceiling has 28 down lights – and 2 have died.

So I have to change some light globes. This is not as simple as it sounds as I don’t have a ladder and the ceiling in some places is 7 metres high.

Mrs Schlumberger has a ladder but it is only 2 metres high. So for this to be successful I would have to teach Muffin how to change the globes. Then I could tie Muffin to the end of a broomstick and stand on the ladder – which would be on top of the table.

Well that’s not going to work because Muffin just wouldn’t go for it so I guess I am going to have to buy a ladder. It will have to be one of those ladders that folds up otherwise I will not get it into the car or elevator.

I am not enthusiastic about this because climbing on ladders is one of my least favourite things and I can foresee all sorts of gruesome consequences.

I have had a number of nasty experiences with ladders in the past – many of them involved paint.

We are also going to have to get a bike rack so that we can beetle around Austria – and other places - trying the many different cycling tours. This means attaching a tow bar to Billy which will detract a bit from his appearance but he will just have to suck it up.

There are a few American shows on TV here – mainly on the MTV Channel – that are not dubbed in German but which have German subtitles. I watch these - when I can stand it - to improve my German.

I might add that MTV (which used to be an acronym for Music Television) has not shown other that a smattering of music for a very long time. It is ENTIRELY infested with some of the worst drivel that can be found on the planet. MTV has started other music channels – which I suppose will also become drivel.

When I say drivel – I mean drivel to me – apparently it is endlessly fascinating to the average teenager otherwise they wouldn’t show it. Me – I just want to see some quality documentaries about Bees or Ducks.

Anyway, one of these dreadful pieces of gruesome schlock is Called ‘Paris Hilton’s my new BFF’. This a really scary show in which a number of sad bastards compete with each other to see who will become the new BFF (Best Friend Forever) of Paris.

Yes, that’s right, they COMPETE for this. I know this is a difficult concept for you to grip. You - like me - can imagine entering a contest to avoid being within 1,000 kilometers of Paris Hilton but these poor sods are desperate to get close.

The concept makes my ears sweat – but when I watch the show I squirm with embarrassment.

At the end of this fiasco one of the bedraggled wretches was chosen by Paris but (and you will be amazed to learn this) they did not remain BFFs or even Fs. In fact I think they told each other to F off (A rare show of good taste by both parties).

I certainly hope that in the next series (or the many that will follow) Paris is able to rustle up at least one new BFF.

There is another show much like this where a number of seemingly sane women compete to get bedded by a very Ugly Thug who is probably famous but who I do not recognise.

This is not surprising as the sources of most of my information in Australia were the ghastly crappy magazines in cafes and at the supermarket checkouts. Here they are in German and are too hard to read so there are many famous people now who were not famous then and I have missed.

The problem is that it takes so little time these days for people to become famous.

In my day you had to invent the aeroplane or climb Mt Everest to become famous but now you just have to get on TV in a reality show – even if you can’t actually do anything except get drunk and expose yourself or urinate into the fountain.

There are so many different talent and reality shows going on that new winners are popping up all the time and are infesting the air waves and the magazines.

I just can’t keep track because the Financial Times has absolutely nothing about any of this stuff and just keeps twittering on about the recession and Afghanistan and boring stuff like that.

And it’s not just the people who win talent shows. In Australia people who came second and third in singing contests were given recording contracts.

And some of them don’t go away when the shows end. They still want to be famous so go around opening fetes and singing in shopping centres – or worse still – write books ‘Brenda Midge reveals the true story behind Survivor 676 – Ouagadougou’.

And I imagine the all those who missed out on being Paris Hilton’s new BFF will be appearing on TV or in magazines telling their stories – and probably developing their own TV shows.

I should check to see if I can get an application for my iPhone that gives me an hourly update on people who have become famous. Not that I mind these people being stars or being famous – but the ones who are already there don’t step down – they just keep on being famous.

Scarlett Johansson for example is only 24 and has years and years of famousness in front of her. She will probably live to be 80 so we have another 56 years just of Scarlett.

Well pretty soon if we keep this up there is simply not going to be enough room on TV or in the tabloids for all these people. I would introduce a roster system to try and reduce the overcrowding. Perhaps we could vote each year for the 10,000 people we want to remain famous. The others could just sod off.

Ugly Thug’s show is not as bad as one called Flavor of Love which stars someone called Flavor Flav who is apparently a member of the Rap group Public Enemy. Flavor wears giant time pieces around his neck to remind people how precious time is. As far as I can tell he has nothing else going for him.

This should mean to the contestants ‘time to get the hell out of here’ but they actually compete to be with the silly twerp.

To no avail I’m afraid. I quote from Wikipedia:

“After 3 seasons, Flavor Flav chose to not marry or date any of the winners from any of the three seasons. Instead, it was revealed that he would marry Liz, the mother of his seventh baby, on the Season 3 reunion show”.

Holy Toledo Flav, you weren’t pulling our chain were you?

Anyway, these are the depths to which I have sunk to learn German. Everything worth watching is dubbed.