TV Week

We're nearing the end of the second series of Teachers: in fact, I feared that last weeks episode was the last of the series, because it provided a logical stopping point, what with the loss of its central character and all. I guess in TV land they want to build up momentum again so that viewers are hooked in to the next series. It was a pretty tough episode for me to watch, because of its correspondence to stuff going on in my life. No, not the bit where Jenny decides that she's really bored with Alec, gets absolutely plastered, falls out of bed and dumps him. But the conversations that Susan and Simon were having, about circling about people, staying single so a good match can be had but then getting increasingly desperate, to the point that you just settle for whatever happens to be left, now they got to me. It might be my future: sure, my imagination and heart are currently pretty much taken over by someone completely out of my reach and that insulates me from any kind of desperate action, but what happens when the spell wears off? And being what someone else settles for doesn't sound like a recipe for happiness either. Grant me the strength to hold out against the pain.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Simon looks around him, at his job and the thought of doing that for ever. He can't handle it. (Hello!) His reaction was rather extreme, and naive: he simply bought a ticket to South America for the following day, without any thought for giving notice, how his colleagues might cope, the fact that Claire had taken a chance on him only a matter of months earlier by giving him a permanent job. Good on him for getting out of the rut, that whole idea of just buying a one way ticket out of here hasn't exactly gone away for me either, but he could have been a little more caring - what was the urgency? He's going to have an experience and a half if he actually gets to South America (I have this strange memory of him being back at School and not having been anywhere at all). Thoughts of cutting and running haven't been helped by the Australasian Bus & Coach magazine information that the common bus driver is paid not a whole lot less than I am, and I get to keep any intellectual ability I mightm have to myself.

Moving along, I had to laugh at Pio's "intrepid" journey to India - it looked pretty cushy to me, and he only went to the highly touristy areas in the North West. His finishing philosophical statement about India being a life changing experience seemed like a load of bollocks, what with him only being there 12 days and looked after by a camera crew and guides all the way. Still, it was interesting, as he went mostly to places I didn't get to, and the places he did go to, had the same reaction as me. His only comment on Allehabad was that it was the oldest city in India, then he was out of there so obviously he had trouble finding anytihing interesting about the place too. What did look very good was his trip down the river to Varanasi, two days in a tiny boat. Watching him eat the curry on the river bank made me long to return. So too did Pushkar: he found it to be the first place where he could get some peace and quiet, something that was not easy to find in India.

Three things struck me about this week's Amazing Race, which went from Corsica to Ethiopia. Despite all their screaming and horrible antics throughout the race, John and Victoria actually accepted their departure with grace (and, it must be said, they were over the top stupid when it came to reading their instructions so badly they didn't realise they had to take two donkeys - maybe it was their way of bowing out?). St George's Church looks really interesting - it is carved out of a huge underground rock, so that its roof is at ground level. Hayden struck me as both very cool and cute.