Dear Diary: Lewis
A couple of hours ago, while I was doodling at the computer in an intermezzo sort of way, there flashed a Facebook update from Andy Towle: “What are you doing tonight?” I’d tell you why I found this flabbergasting if I weren’t sick of talking about me, so we’ll just pass on to my replying comment. “I was asking myself what you are doing asking the question,” or words to that effect. I meant this to sound avuncular — what’s a nice kid like you doing polling your friends on a Friday night, when you ought to be out having fun. But I could see that my reply was open to many other constructions, so I deleted it and replaced it with the comment that’s still there: “I’m thinking that you’re too young to be asking such a question on a Friday night.” It’s still hopeless, but if I change it again I’ll look like a perfectionist.
If I were to change it again, I’d say that I was watching the last episode of Season Three of Lewis. Mad as I am for Mad Men, I’m madder for Lewis — the Oxford procedural that follows Inspector Morse. Robbie Lewis (Kevin Whately) used to be the sergeant attached to Inspector Morse (John Thaw), but now he’s an inspector himself, and his sergeant is James Hathaway (Laurence Fox). The great joke is that, having been bossed around by an Oxford-grad boss, Lewis is now bossed around by a Cambridge-grad underling (a theology student to boot!). As this series has progressed, however, Hathaway has become less prim and more assertive, principally in the swing of his shoulders. He is about a million times more buttoned-down than his father, James Fox, but only about ten times more repressed than his uncle, Edward. You almost dream of his remaking The Day of the Jackal. But you don’t really, because, self-controlled as he is, Laurence Fox projects no bitterness. Edward Fox couldn’t say “I love you” without sneering.
In the episode that we watched tonight, “Counter Culture Blues,” the magnificent Simon Callow, who was fished out of the Isis in the nude in the Morse episode, “The Wolvercote Tongue,” returns at the top of his game — perhaps even over the top. A delicious old queen who’s querulous about the wherabouts of the Randolph’s prettier bellhops, Vernon Oxe is determined to reconstitute a great Sixties band, the Midnight Addiction. Great fun! Much as I love Joanna Lumley, I knew that her Esme Ford was a fake.  (She was really the late Esme’s sister, Kathleen.) I also knew (as who did not) that someone would be thrown into the “macerator,” a toothy septic composter, but I assumed that the person would be dead, or too drugged to care. I certainly didn’t imagine that Hathaway would jump into it, or that Lewis would have an appalled moment of wondering if the man dragged out of it would require mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
As it has been a while since I have made this spiel, I’ll indulge: I’m very proud that Andy Towle is a Facebook friend. As chance would have it, his was the first blog to strike me as handsome, and worthy of emulation; if nothing else, it taught me that links needn’t be underlined. (Remind me to tell you why underlining is one of the ten things that I hate most about life on Earth.) Maybe it wasn’t chance after all — because I can’t think of any blogs that look better than Towleroad, and precious few that look half way as good. You wouldn’t be reading this — because there would be nothing here to read — if it weren’t for the inspiration of a very smart young man who, come to think of it, isn’t so young that he can’t appreciate the pleasures of a quiet night at home.