Commercial break

When I passed the living room just now The Man was watching WOWOW TV. A woman with scraggly hair and dressed like a dominatrix was prancing around a stage singing badly with lots of electronic distortion to hide the fact that she was singing badly.

"What's that?" I asked. "That's not the kind of music you usually enjoy."

"That's Britney Spears," he told me. "Are you surprised? I've never seen her before."

"Did you know she has a magically changing boob size?" I asked. "I saw it on the web. There were pictures and everything. She goes from a 32B to a 38C, and back again. But I've never heard her sing before either. For a long time I thought she was a porn star."

"You can't hear her now," he said. "It's all electronics." He leaned forward, frowning.

"Look at that," he said, pointing. "Look at the audience. Nobody is enjoying the music. They're just watching her and sort of dancing. It's like it's not music, just something you watch and move around a little bit to the beat. Nobody is involved."

"Actually, maybe that was someone else with the magically changing boob size," I said. "I can't remember now."

"I must be getting old," said The Man, and changed the channel back to a boxing match.

The commercial break had finished.