So happy so'appy soapy soap

Was surprised when I opened a new bar of soap this morning - I don't remember little messages imprinted on Dove soap before - obviously we need uplifting as well as cleansing; can't argue with that!

And now I'll come clean: after 55 years I've stopped watching what was my favourite (and only) soap: Coronation Street. It's just not what it was. I began watching it with my mother a couple of years into its life. (At the time it started we couldn't get a signal for ITV. In those exclusive BBC years I watched Auntie Beeb's short-lasting early-1960s soap, Compact. Remember that?) I wonder if former poet laureate, John Betjeman, would still be watching if he were alive. I know he was a fan.

I watch very little TV nowadays, so resent the licence fee. What I do watch, I record - Gardeners' World, Only Connect, Strictly (of course!) and the odd film or drama series. Sometimes Pointless. And Would I Lie to You (the funniest thing on UK TV, AFAIC). Used to watch QI but the raucous audience volume blots out the panel's voices, so I've given up on that, too. Am I getting old? Surely not...!

At least we have all 11 seasons of Frasier on DVD, so I'll get off my soap-box now.