Bridgerton: This lewd television series is a Bridgerton too far

If you are similarly out of the l. or behind the c., let me explain that Bridgerton is not to be confused with Bridgeton, the fragrant and genteel Glasgow suburb. The name is fake, which is why it rankles. It’s the setting for, and title of, a Netflix television series set among the English aristocracy in the Regency period. How many of my buttons is it pressing so far? Correct: zero.

Yet, otherwise decent ratepayers, even allegedly in Scotland, are fans of this powdery yarn. It says here that the series was watched by 63 million households in its first 28 days, which must be an international figure, otherwise it means I’m the only person in Britain who hasn’t seen it, which wouldn’t be a first.

I feel uncomfortable now. I’m not proud of being above the fray, as it were, someone too snooty to watch what the hoi polloi are watching. It’s just that I can’t keep up any more. The plethora of channels and platforms has left me lost. I don’t subscribe to them anyway.

Bear in mind, too, that I really have no interest in Regency England. It was the same with that Something Hall programme, set in Tudor England. Many of my friends watched it, despite my strictures.

Why would I watch such a thing? I have no interest in Tudor England. I don’t go to the public library (in normal times) and loudly demand they supply me with their best books on Tudor England. I don’t go down the pub (in normal times) and say: “Moving this discussion on from the Hibs midfield, what do you all think of Tudor England?”

Bridgeton Cross

I realise that programmes need not necessarily reflect my interests and that, arguably, I should widen my horizons. It’s not about me. I live on the planet Earth, and none of my sabres have light for blades, but I still watch Star Wars.

I should stress too that it’s not just periods of English history that fail to push my buttons. Nearly everyone I know says The Godfather is one of their favourite films. Lord knows, I’ve tried to watch it. But it’s about the Mafia in New York. There’s some kind of mumbling fellow. And that’s it. No elves or anything. Load of nonsense.

So what is it about Bridgerton that has folk congregating round the water coolers in their homes? I’m getting a message in my earpiece. I see. It’s about coitus.

Well, there you have it. Indeed, the series has been nicknamed “Bonkerton”. It’s not buttons that are being pressed but other parts of the anatomy. Should have known.

One history professor told the Radio Times that he was consulted about the morés of the time by the show’s creator who, on learning that morals were shoogly, went away dancing with delight. Quoth the prof: “The knowlege that they were naughty was manna from heaven”.

Thus modern television. All plots lead to the same place: the bedroom. In Tellyland, that’s not the same place as it is for you and me: a place to listen to audiobooks of The Lord of the Rings before falling asleep. No, it is a lascivious palaestra, the last place you’d go for a kip, which I admit would make boring television.

Stills from the series show ladies with extravagant protuberances. Plus ça change. If you’ve ever met any ladies, you’ll know they hate being stared at and so wear clothes that ensure they get stared at. Bewildering.

Indeed, everything is getting bewildering. I was born at the wrong time on the wrong planet. If Scotty were a real person, and not some fictional character from Regency or Tudor England, I would implore him to beam me up.

Went the game well?

WHY can Scottish footballers, managers and match analysts never get their tenses right? “He’s came into the box and he’s went across, and the ball’s came tae his heid.”

They all do this. But where do they learn to do it? You don’t hear other lower class people doing it. Do they just pick it up from each other, reinforcing the repeated errors?

Foreign players come here and speak near-perfect English for the most part. It’s just the Scottish ones. Not the English, Welsh or Irish ones. Just the Scottish ones.

It’s particularly embarrassing when they’re addressing a normally educated Englishman.

“He’s went over then he’s came back. Then the ball’s went up and it’s came doon and I’ve went to masell: ‘I can sense a goal had came here soon’.”

“So, you’re saying that he has been and he will go again shortly?”

“Eh? Aye. He’s went and he’s came.”

Doesn’t Scottish football have some famously blazer-wearing fellows in charge of all aspects of the game? If so, it’s about time they had went and issued a memo about this ongoing disgrace.

Bin and gone a little Stasi

LET’S talk rubbish. Putting out the bins is probably my biggest engagement with society in any given week. What to put in them has become more complex, and tales abound of councils spying on ratepayers and trying to catch them out.

One Tory council in Mother England was accused of “creepy and outrageous behaviour” after private contractors rooted through recycling bins and photographed not just the contents but the owners’ front doors. It was likened to “something you’d expect from the Stasi”.

But it’s nothing new. Back in the 1960s, my dad incurred a criminal record when he was fined for putting his bin out before midnight. In those days, you’d to stay up beyond that time or get up gey early to put out your bins. Now you see people doing it in the afternoon.

Incidentally, did you tip your binmen at Christmas? I appreciate mine but I’ve never met them, and I worry, as with the postie’s tip, that I wouldn’t be able to afford it next year. Would a tenner between three suffice? Do they only accept contactless? Life is so complicated now.

Snow joking

AT the time of composing, snow lies on the ground still. I use the word “still” with unusual pertinence. For nothing is moving. Everything around is (nearly) quiet. Quiet, that most elusive of environmental qualities. That’s why I love the snow. It shuts people up.

Desperately hungry animals come closer. Deer tracks in the garden remind me that I need to look to my fences again. Birds are less flighty in our presence. Normally, they fear even those of us who feed them. Their coming near would be like us approaching friendly-seeming tigers.

But snow is also a hazard, particularly on the road. One time, when driving too cockily and fast, my wee red van skidded and tumbled across the road, coming to rest on its roof. That was on another island.

As I awaited a lift from a mate, I went down to the nearby village pub, where a bloke at the bar said: “I see some pillock has come off the road up there.” And I said: “Hi, yes. I am that pillock.” Such quick-thinking repartee put his gas at a peep.

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