I'm not getting at you in particular, Grant, but this interests me. Why is farce used as an insult? Why, when people want to say something disparaging about comedy, do they always say that sometimes it leans towards farce? As if farce were the worst, lowest form of comedy known to humanity. Frasier was sometimes farcical. God knows Fawlty Towers was. Here's the thing though. I think it may have been deliberate.

Sorry, but it's a real bugbear of mine. I've spent pretty much the whole year doing a play which had strong elements of farce in it. Because that was the way it was written. And yet, when reviewers or bloggers wanted to be negative, they would always say "sometimes it leans towards farce" as if that was the most insulting thing they could muster.

In all seriousness, I don't get it. The episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil is trying to hide a dead body, or the one where Sybil storms out and he has to pretend to all his friends that she's ill upstairs, are about as close to textbook farce as television gets. They concern a central character who is obsessed with keeping and protecting a secret, and will do anything to keep that secret intact; and that's where the comedy comes from. And that's what farce is. I wonder if critics were snobbish enough in the 70s to deride the show on the grounds that it came close to farce.

Anyway, sorry about that. Don't mean to sound antagonistic. Yes, last night's Curb was really good, wasn't it? Much stronger than the one where he killed a swan at the golf club.

I'm so glad you didn't take that badly. I read it back and didn't much like the sound of my own pomposity! There's a clear logic to what you say; sorry, I just used it as a springboard to have a bit of a rant about other people. Sorry 'bout that.

I have a confession. I love Curb and have them all on DVD, and I've never properly watched Seinfeld. Does that make me a bad person? Is that like someone who has John Lennon's collected solo works but has never really given any time to The Beatles?