Dude Sounds Like a Lady

Well, it's confirmed - I officially sound like a woman. On the telephone anyway.

After what must surely be the 500th complete stranger I've spoken to on the phone who has continually referred to me as 'Mrs.' throughout the duration of the call, I feel I must reluctantly admit that my manly tones are perhaps not best served by Mr. Bell's wonderful invention. After all, there's only so many times I can put it down to a bad connection, or the fact that the person at the other end of the line is a feckless dullard.

This is not a problem I've ever had to broach in a face-to-face situation however, presumably because being confronted by my overtly masculine frame would nullify any doubts anybody may have about my true gender. Either that, or they're so bemused by the spectacle of a lady's voice coming from the shambling wreck of a man stood before them, that they dare not raise the issue, lest I bring some unholy curse upon them.

Whenever I've tried to explain this away to myself, I sometimes wondered if perhaps some people just had a funny way of saying 'Mr.' or something, which, in combination with a useless telephone, might just sound like they were saying 'Mrs.' Which works fine as a bit of ad hoc self-esteem boosting, but rather falls apart on the occasions I've had to give my (real) name over the phone, and they automatically assume it's the feminine equivalent. Particularly troubling when I'd already been speaking to them for some time before that point.

I wouldn't care, but if people aren't used to speaking to someone who hasn't wrecked their voice smoking 8 billion fags a day, or drowned their vocal chords in moonshine since the day they could open their mouth it isn't my fault.

I probably shouldn't be so bothered about it though. Even though I wouldn't exactly think of myself as an eyeliner-wearing metrosexual with my hair crafted into some kind of fin, I'm not really sure how this occasional annoyance impacts my life in any real way.

Apart from the fact that the person I was speaking to is the man who's coming to service our boiler, which means I now have to keep well out of sight for the rest of the afternoon, in order to avoid any number of awkward situations with no good outcome.

The Sketch Show is... Only Sleeping?

I wasn't sure what to expect from The Peter Serafinowicz Show (Thursday, 9.30pm BBC2), and having seen the first episode, I'm not entirely sure what to expect next week either.

It's been heavily trailed over the past few weeks, but all I could glean from the fast-cut promos was that it appeared to be some kind of Dead Ringers-esque impressions-based sketch show, which meant my anticipation levels weren't exactly sky-high at the prospect.

Serafinowicz has been around the comedy scene for ages, in fact name almost any half-decent British comedy from the last 10 years or so and he's probably popped up in it somewhere. He's perhaps best known however, for the almost-too-good educational programme spoof Look Around You, which, like this series he also co-wrote with Robert Popper, so there's a good pedigree here at least.

It is slightly worrying though, the way that the BBC keeps referring to him as 'the next big star' or whatever, because not only is such self-assured cockiness on the part of the corporation rather unappealing, it slightly devalues all the stuff he's done before. Not only that, it puts an incredible amount of pressure on this particular show, rather than just putting it out there and letting people find it, which is usually the best route looking at most successful comedies of recent times.

Anyway, the show itself is sort of like Dead Ringers, except not all of the sketches featured caricatures of famous people - and at least some of it was funny.

By implication of course, some of it wasn't, and when sketches fell flat they really did, and when presented with yet another Big Brother spoof, my heart truly sank like a stone.

It was refreshingly pacey though - the sketches came thick and fast, not quite Fast Show levels, but just about the right speed in order to get the joke across, or conversely move on quickly if a sketch didn't work.

I can't say I remember laughing out loud at all, but throughout the show there was an endearing nuttiness underlying much of it, namely the robotic talk show host Michael-6 and the Michael Caine acting masterclass.

I'll probably keep watching, if only because it's quite nice to see a programme where I suspect the star is genuinely enjoying himself making it.

Actually, it was almost worth it just for the scarily accurate impression of Alan Alda.