Confession Conundrum

None of us are cool. There's no such thing, to paraphrase Barthes again - we just all exist in a constantly shifting lake of codes. However, there are things we all do which don't fit our self-images, or the image we'd like others to have of us. Guilty pleasures, I guess. So now's your chance to 'fess up.

Cynical Ben is banned. He has three trillion opinions, and specialises in being contrary anyway. He expresses contempt for my music, my clothes (especially my woolly hat and my favourite DM shoes: 'amazing what you can get on the NHS' was his latest witticism) and pretty much anything else, even though we know that he'll change his mind in a week. He's also banned because he bought a copy of Space Jam. That's the kind of contrariness in which he specialises. Tease him and he'll get even more aggressive in his defence. That said, he does have magnificent taste in literature and cheese. OK, he's not banned. Just don't take him too seriously, that's all I'm saying.

My confession. Despite my well-documented objections to policing methods, and to soap operas, and my love of high-concept drama, I also love watching The Bill. I know it's often very poor, and little better than any number of cheap soaps, but there's still something compelling about it. They react to current stories very quickly and rarely take the easy dramatic or narrative option. It depends on the writers in any particular week of course, and it's definitely less political than when it started, but it's still more than a rest home for ex-soap actors. I particularly enjoyed the special episodes done jointly with SOKO Leipzig, the German equivalent, though it was embarrassing that all the Germans had flawless English while the UK actors couldn't manage a word of German.

So there we are. I'm not nearly so suave and sophisticated as you might have thought (if you've had a lobotomy recently). Your turn!