Chronologically confused

This has been a chronologically confusing week. First, discovering that James Bond is much younger than me made me feel old; but by midweek, a TV show which seemed to me to have been off the air for longer than it actually has (Hey Hey It's Saturday) reappeared, except on a Wednesday night. Furthermore, its host looked like he had just stepped out of the deep freeze, with nary a wrinkle to be added to his face over the last 10 years. (I heard a Brisbane radio announcer saying the next day that "he's had work, no doubt about it.") But really, few of the crew looked as further aged as I had imagined they would.

The success of the Hey Hey reunion show is no doubt annoying Catherine Deveny, which is always a good thing. But it clearly was a winner: the comments of the mid to high brow readers of the ABC news website are overwhelmingly positive. An often repeated theme is that it was a pleasure to have back on TV something other than crime shows or reality TV.

I didn't see all of it, but was pleased enough with what I did see. (If, however, they do come back on some sort of permanent basis, they really do have to stop featuring the never-retiring John Farnham.) But overall, I was never too cool for the show.

It was always lightweight, friendly TV made by a fairly quick-witted bunch of people, even if you could tell that you wouldn't want to spend any time with Somers in person. You didn't need to sit down and watch from start to end, but as something on in the background that you could dip into while getting ready to go out somewhere; or on a dateless night, while having a few glasses of wine and a meal of some just cooked new recipe, it was just right.

Yes, here's to the return of daggy TV.