Expertease

There is an old Bob Newhart sketch, called I think the Bus Driver.

It's a classic. A real classic. If you haven't heard the album, you should get it. There are other classics on there and even when I bought it as a youngster on LP, it had already been a classic for 30 years. (I know, I'm younger than I look. At least that's what they used to say... thinking about it now, nobody's said it in years, and my dental hygienist this week had the perfect opportunity. Twice she's hurt me. Twice!). 

It shares the same album as classics such as "An Infinite Number of Monkeys"... ring any bells? Or the Discovery of Tobacco? No?? Philistine!

Anyway.

It is a bus driving training school. The instructor trains the new driver to drive jerkily to make it as difficult as humanly possible for a pensioner to navigate her bones to and from her seat, and, needless to say, there's other unhelpful jiggery-pokery along the way, typifying the public servant. (These were the days before privatisation cured the world with a hefty dose of distracting corruption!)

It is, to use an overused cliche....hilarious. More than that, Newhart is utterly brilliant.

The end of the sketch – not so much a punchline but an end – is a summary of the salient points of the driving school. At least I think it is, I haven't heard it for a decade or two. "So remember", says the instructor, "it's accelerator – brake, accelerator – brake".

Due to Newhart's brilliance, you imagine the old lady careering backwards and forwards to the punching of the pedals. And there's nothing like thinking of anything or anyone falling over to raise a chuckle. 

Some things have to sit with you for a while, sometimes a short while, sometimes the longest time, sometimes a New York Minute. (I thought I might as well go for that, I was already sounding like Billy Joel).

And I stumbled across a new thought just now. Based on an echo (aren't they all?), a combination of words that my brain reminded me of. A second glass of Vin de Table Rouge may have played an essential part (although frankly it takes a bit more like Vim de Table).

It was simply this

That's what life is.

Its accelerator – brake, accelerator – brake.

And now...shucks... I fancy a Kitkat.