James finds himself unable to speak. Can we blame him?

He has been busy. No doubt he keeps many projects gently simmering away, demanding his attention and sapping his might. The excellent ‘Gladiatrix’, which I had the pleasure of watching on Tuesday night, is an example. Who would not be drained by the pressure of performing dressed only in a daringly ripped Roman slave’s outfit? And the prospect of manhandling the delightful Lucy Montgomery’s breast at least twice per performance is clearly enervating. However, were he oppressed only by the pace and pressure of his work we might still feel free to quietly chide him for his indolence.

Yet he, like the rest of us, has had his reserves of urbane wit and mental fortitude drained by the state of the world. There was a brief period, ‘the end of history’, that lasted from about 1988 to 1991, when all seemed well with the world. The Berlin wall came down, the oppressive hand of Communism began to lift from the world, Israel and Northern Ireland seemed to be edging towards peace and finally it seemed as if we all might get along - or at worst agree to disagree. Since then degeneration into misery - a catalogue of horrors: intolerance, bigotry, and oppression - Rwanda, Yugoslavia and now the attack on the US. It would take the most drug addled of mental patients to retain the former optimism for the future.

It does not seem to me too extreme to say that our generation is amongst the unluckiest ever. Unlike our parents we will know the horrors of war directly. We will see the benefits of modern technology but never have them fully realised in our lifetime. Modern medicine will let our children live for 200 years but will come to late to save us from encroaching cancerous death. Worst of all we will suffer all this but know how it could have been. We can look back to our parent’s generation and feel bitter jealousy that they should have lived without having to fight a war, have been able to fuck without fear of terminal illness and have felt thrilled by destruction of smallpox without worrying that it may return. We can envy our children, who will be blessed with the drugs and medical techniques that our generation were the guinea pigs for and who will retire on pensions adequately funded because those of us working now agreed to take the double hit of paying for the previous generation as well as preparing for our own retirements.

In the context of such unrelenting misery can we blame James for turning his face from the world? Who would not prefer to indulge in some semi-naked sword and sandal pastiche rather than be forced to record the passage of days filled with ever less successful attempts to divert the mind from the horror that surrounds us? Instead of blame should we not offer understanding?

The answer must be NO. People like James have a duty, a sacred duty, to enable people like myself to be amusingly diverted. Their gift for comedy must be dedicated to providing me with ways to save myself from the ennui that surrounds me. If in the course of fulfilling this destiny they should be crushed by the weight of the task, so be it. As the saying goes: ‘Life is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.’ By providing me with occasional interludes of web-based procrastination James creates in me the strength to continue with existence. His weakness in failing to produce these regular snippets should be, and I believe is, a source of considerable shame.

But even Homer sometimes nods; ‘errare humanum est’ and so forth. It may be that this is but a temporary weakness - we must pray so. I have therefore chosen to step in, albeit briefly, to cover James’ folly. Like Hercules I shall shoulder the weight of the world for a short while until Atlas takes up his burden again. Accordingly I humbly offer to provide you with some mindless frippery, light and frothy, to keep you going.

In particular, regular readers of this weblog will be familiar with the game Six Degrees of Tom Hulce. Sadly this game is now defunct, but I wish to revive it one last time. Perusing IMDb I entered my own name and discovered that a non-speaking bit part I had played in a movie when I was nine years old was recorded. The task was obvious - could one get from Benet Brandreth to Tom Hulce in six steps or less? I pass this challenge on to you. I hope that it keeps you occupied until James pulls his shit together and produces some more banter to keep us going when all seems bleak.