Becoming Bertie.

I’ve started watching episodes of an old British TV comedy series called Jeeves and Wooster on YouTube. Jeeves is the infinitely resourceful butler to Bertie Wooster, a doyen of the upper middle class in 1930s England. Bertie is Eton educated, smartly dressed, regaled in a luxurious lifestyle with no need to work, brimful of confidence but hopelessly naïve, and living a life devoid of point or purpose but pleasurable at every turn. Tonight’s episode began with Jeeves entering Bertie’s bedroom to wake him up.

‘What time is it, Jeeves?’ asks Bertie

‘Ten past nine, sir.’

‘Ten past nine?!’ Bertie is clearly outraged at being woken so early. ‘Is the house on fire or something?’

So now I have the clue as to why I feel I don’t belong here. I should really be living in Bertie’s world where the concept of ‘morning’ is a matter of perception, and alarm clocks are instruments of torture. It seems I’m one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind as usual.

(It’s interesting that one of my short stories is called Being Bertie, but  that’s a humorous little tale based on shape shifting.)