BBC Three

there is a fascinating couple of children's entertainer/panto types of some kind who live down the road from me. Sometimes they are doing gardening still in their working costumes. The bloke always says hello to my kid with a big hearty wave and a HHHEEELLLO! His partner has a polka dot car and even paints silver polka dots on the lower overhanging leaves in the garden! Although sadly I have not seen that much of them during the lockdowns - it must have been tough on them.

I think that post of Cam's is going to haunt my thoughts for a while now!

sorry about that calz

we called this guy "Mad Mart" because we were a houseshare full of heavy drug users, half of us as-yet-undiagnosed schizophrenics, and he was the only regular bloke we knew who actually had a job and who could not get beaten up in all bar one, he would come to our house to "get blazed up" and announce his arrival with a "wazzzzzup" from the budwiser ad, we used to stare at him in wonder, he was like some kind of exotic animal we didn't usually get to see up close. none of this excuses the grotbags incident of course.

when I lived at my mum's I often had wanker mates turning up wanting to use it as a fuck-pad because my mum hardly ever was there and mostly at her boyfriend's pad. I wasn't judging your post, my response was more like a lol of recognition!

CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS arrived at last on BBC3 and iPlayer.

I felt like there was a word for this kind of material - something about something you know is bad yet still watch despite yourself. The ill-starred phrase 'guilty pleasure' will have to do.

The simple thought occurred to me that from a culture historically famed for eloquence, Rooney has made characters most notable for ineloquence.

You can pull that apart one way or another - arguing that other cultures have their own traditions of eloquence; that Ireland also has some famous traditions of taciturnity; that some of its great literature has been deliberately costive or minimal; that this is an adaptation not the book, which may be quite different; and certainly add that it's the characters, not necessarily Rooney herself, who are so feeble at talking. And half the main characters aren't Irish. With all that said I think it's true enough.

I really loved Normal People, one ep down on this and it feels dead and dull

The actor boyf seems an APPALLING actor

Does he? I don't see that. He seems no worse to me than anyone else in this, or indeed in NORMAL PEOPLE. But not much to go on yet.

when is BBC3 bringing back Snog Marry Avoid, Freaky Eaters, and Sun Sex & Suspicious Parents?

I'll admit I am mystified by what a TV adaptation of Normal People could possibly bring to the table; literary fiction based around the inner lives of its characters seems a very bad fit for adaptation unless you go experimental with it.

I thought Normal People worked really well, but I hadn't read the novel.