One of the best things about working from home is daytime television. No really. I’m amazingly easily sidetracked. The fact that there is a fridge in the kitchen is a big problem. It talks to me. “Come on. Open me. Have a little ice-cream. Perhaps an orange, that’s healthy you know.” It cajoles and whispers sweet everythings until I crack. I stop writing and open the fridge and I’m doomed to go visit the internet while I’m eating because I can’t concentrate now and all of a sudden an hour or two has passed non-productively.
So thanks heavens for daytime television. It’s so staggeringly dire that it’s impossible to watch. Soap operas where all the actors only went to the acting classes on expressing sadness. Quiz shows. Judge shows. “I slept with my grandmother’s girlfriend” shows. Daytime TV is impossible to watch.
Until Ellen. There, I said it. Ellen DeGeneris. The woman is a genius. Unashamedly upbeat and joyous, she infects her audience and her viewers with happiness. If I don’t turn the TV off before she starts, I’m captured for the next hour.
But there is a downside to her show for me, and it’s whooping. The audience goes crazy when she comes on, but they don’t just stand up and applaud and cheer, they whoop. “WWOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH.” “WWOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH.” And it’s not just at the opening of the show. She only has to ask an innocent question. “Is anyone here from Podunk?” “WWOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH,” goes the complete audience.
I guess I’m a little jealous of this ability to whoop, because I can’t. I think it’s because I’m British. We are not genetically equipped to whoop. It was actually pointed out to me once in a spinning class when every other person in the class was letting out shrieks of joy at regular intervals but I was just thrashing away silently at the pedals. I did actually try a whoop, but it sounded like that pathetic little “yee-hah” uttered by Billy Crystal in City Slickers. I’m glad no-one heard it.
