Feed Me Melbourne

It's been a long dark winter but fortunately I have survived. I can attribute this to central heating, kindly donated downloads of the season 4 of Mad Men and the warmth and comforts of eateries Melbourne wide. I thought it was time to repay the favour, so thank you Ancient Romans for inventing hypocaust, thank you Matthew Weiner for giving us Sterling Cooper et al and thanks to the following fine establishments for keeping my belly full and my tootsies warm.

Felices, 141 Greeves Street (Smith Street end), Fitzroy

We went to Felices the morning after the general election, looking for something to take away the sour taste of the night before. Fortunately this decidedly european cafe (plain timber walls, fussball, large mirrors) with its beautifully uncomplicated menu was able to deliver more than Julia and Tony. We ordered croissants and toast with our coffees, and both came accompanied with generous serves of marscapone cheese, fresh marmalade and one of the nicest strawberry jams I've tasted. Recommended to people who don't want eggs with every breakfast as well as anyone who likes to eat under a giant aeroplane; there's one attached to the roof. If you'd like to see it check out these great pictures at Fitzroyalty, a blog dedicated to all things Fitzroy.

Tabet's Bakery, 607 Sydney Road, Brunswick
There's been a lot of coverage of the hidden delights of Sydney Road in the local press this year, probably as more and more journalists are forced away from the increasingly expensive inner city and head towards the 'burbs. It's true that there are a great many outlets on the main road north out of melbourne, covering a wide range of cuisines and an even broader range of quality. Always reliable however is Tabet's - a lebanese bakery with an exceptionally cheap yet delicious range of bready cheesey products. Both the haloumi pies (essentially a lebanese pastie) and spinach and cheese pies are amazing and for just $2.80 you can eat like royalty even on a budget. Heartily recommended smothered in Masterfoods Hot Chilli sauce.

Salford Lads Club, 1 Fennell Street, Port Melbourne As an indie tragic it's hard to go past a cafe that takes it's name from a place in Greater Manchester made famous by Morrissey and the Smiths. Before you Mozophiles get too excited this isn't a Smiths tribute cafe and there was nothing beyond the name and the This Charming Man ringtone of the owner's phone to link it to Steven, Johnny and the other two.


Having done the pilgrimage to actual SLC and been hassled by actual Salford lads I am pleased to report that this relatively new cafe in Port Melbourne was far more welcoming. The decor inside this industrial setting is an homage to cycling, and there were several old racing bikes and jerseys around the place - as well as a Huddersfield Town banner. Sadly I'm unable to provide much comment on the highly interesting and varied dinner menu as we only went for breakfast. I am happy to report though that the coffee, eggs and homemade baked beans were top drawer and the Northern Breakfast (replete with black pudding) looked good enough to turn Morrissey himself back to meat.

Zingara, 875 High Street, Thornbury

I have double praise for Zingara in Thornbury. Firstly for not making a fuss when our dog started going crazy and almost upended our table when he saw pigeons for the first time. Secondly (and most importantly) for turning out the finest caesar salad I've ever had. Not eating meat makes a good caesar hard to find. Some places do a salmon version but they're few and far between. Thankfully Zingara have thought outside the chicken box and offer a delicious charred king prawns alternative every bit as good if not better as anything I ate back in the meat days. A great choice for these warm spring afternoons, with or without crazy puppy as a dinner guest.

Mamasita, 11 Collins Street, Melbourne

I haven't seen this kind of buzz about a food outlet since Speedy Peppers finally brought take-away pizza to East Yorkshire in the late 80s. Every bloody newspaper and magazine has been crapping on about Mamasita for months now, as if they were serving up Michael Jackson steaks. Sadly the main thing people have to say is 'boo hoo me, I had to queue for hours to get in.' Well here's a couple of suggestions. Firstly don't go the same week as there is a newspaper or magazine feature about it; there's more people can read than just you. Secondly, try avoiding going along at 7pm on a Friday. Everything is busy at 7pm on a Friday cretins. I've been twice, had awesome times, lush modern twists on mexican food (the corn is particularly recommended, as are the soft fish tacos and chilli chocolate), been well looked after by the helpful staff who protected me from the most vicious chillis and hey, never had to queue once. Yay Mamsita.

Hendricks: Electric Lady, And...

So Mad Men Season 4 is upon us and thanks to a fellow enthusiast I have a copy of episode 1 in my elegantly manicured hands, ready to watch this weekend. Free-to-air episodes stalled before Season 2 in Australia so there is unlikely to be much brouhaha around these parts about the comings and goings at Sterling Cooper (and now Draper Pryce). Still this hasn’t stopped those opportunists at Fairfax Media cashing in on the imagery of the show to sell their own tatty wares.

January Jones’ sculpted features can be found illustrating a syndicated but slightly pointless article about Mad Men on the Age website today. This is a slight improvement on the weekend when her face was used on the same website next to a random article about beauty products. Still this is small fry compared to the way that dear Joanie (actress Christina Hendricks) has been misappropriated by Fairfax of late.

Not only did the Age perpetuate a magnificently pointless story from the UK about an MP citing Hendricks as a “fabulous role model” for young women (way to go politician…replace unrealistic female body shape aspirations with… more unrealistic ideas of perfection!) they used it as an excuse to show yet another photo montage of actress Hendricks and the Mad Men crew (in case you missed this one or this one or don’t understand Google Images).

Sex sells of course, and Mad Men is sexy as all hell, but I’m sure that as the actress portraying one of modern television’s best characters you’d hope to be known for more than having a pair of breasts. Best not to read this piece then, taken from Fairfax’ vapid waste of trees: the Sunday Life magazine.

For people who actually care about Mad Men dear Joan is a mess of contradictions; an independent free spirit who gives up being wined and dined for the practical securities of marriage because she sees her shelf life running out; a dedicated wife who stands by her man even after he rapes her and bungles up their financial future; someone savvy enough to command the middle ground between the typing pool and the ‘professionals’ and be simultaneously in both and neither world; a woman significantly smarter than the men she serves and whose secrets she protects, but who never gets the chance to be more than ‘Red’ – a bosom and bottom constantly tying to escape out of her sculpted dresses. Quite some undertaking for any actor.

Yet to Sunday Life Ms Hendricks is ‘voluptuous’, ‘curvy’ and proof that ‘women’s breasts are larger than ever!’ How do we know this? The average bra size in Australia is ‘six to seven sizes up in a comparatively few number of years’ according to the general manager of Berlei, who are coincidentally about to launch a new “super-sized” (their words, way to go challenging those stereotypes Fairfax) range of bras.

Aside from the obvious fact that this expanding collective Australian bosom might be in some way related to the fact that people are on average much fatter these days (buried deep in the article as an inconvenience), I’m not sure what poor Christina Hendricks has to do with any of it. Despite her face and boobs featuring on the front page of the magazine, filling another full page inside and once appearing once again on the front page of the paper proper the article restricts her involvement to half a paragraph out of 32 others. Perhaps they realised after getting the rights for the pictures that her marvellous but actually rather average sized 36C boobs didn’t quite support their tenuous point. Or perhaps they just put her on the cover of Sunday Life without having a reason because it sold lots of papers when they did it before last January…

Just to be clear, I think that Christina Hendricks is beautiful. I definitely would. If I was a woman I’m sure I’d be very happy to look like her. And maybe I still would. I understand why her image is used in countless magazines and newspapers, known to millions around the world who have no idea what Mad Men is. I just think that both Christina Hendricks and Joan (created and lovingly written by Mad Men head honcho Matthew Wiener) offer more to talk about than boobs. Splendorous they may be – Hendricks and the crew demonstrate how much they understand that with every filmed wiggle and pointy bra Joan wears – but Mad Men is more than high class Benny Hill.

Need proof? Check out A Night to Remember (Season 2, Episode 8) in which Joan helps bring some new work into Sterling Cooper by reading TV scripts. She is rewarded by seeing the new position created to manage the work handed to an inexperienced young male graduate. The show ends with a shot of Joan undressing at home, tenderly rubbing the indents in her shoulders where her bra straps have cut into her. A fabulous role model? Absolutely. But for many more reasons than the Age can be bothered to think of.

Oh and for anyone who arrived here by typing Christina Hendricks Breasts into Google and hoping for something a little less earnest, sorry about that. Maybe do some good while you're here...

Hello Dolly

It’s wrong on so many levels but I couldn’t help but chuckle at the news that Mattel has launched a deluxe range of Barbie dolls featuring characters from Mad Men. Yes, for a mere $75 US a pop you can score your very own Joan Holloway, Roger Sterling, Betty or Don Draper, replete with bespoke outfits and accessories. Looking at the publicity photo it’s a shame that they’ve made January Jones look like she’s been licking piss off a nettle, and strangely for Barbie they seem to have underplayed Christina Hendricks’ boobs, but hey.


Setting aside the evil of Barbie, there’s something car-crash appealing about watching the mainstream grapple with the overground in this way. Marketing people throwing lots of money at something they don’t quite understand often results in hilarious but strangely desirable curios. I have a nice stock of strange Twin Peaks-related paraphernalia made available for that short period in 1990-91 when everybody wanted to know who killed Laura Palmer.

As for who will buy these mini-Mad Men, well, please leave your Frankie-readers and Waylon Smithers-stereotypes at the pink Barbie Dream House door. Anyone who has been near a comic store in the past twenty years will tell you collectible replica figurines (they’re not dolls…) are big business; a Franklin Mint souvenir plate for the X and Y generations.

Building on momentum started by Star Wars and DC/Marvel superheroes, the majority of lovingly packaged plastic figures are sci-fi or comic book related. However we’ve also seen sports stars (notably WWF) and musicians (Jacko, the Spice Girls, KISS, Slipknot, Metallica and the Beatles) rendered in plastic, happily sharing shelf space with characters from movies with culty-type followings like Clerks, Nightmare on Elm Street and even Shaun of the Dead.

Mostly these figures stay in their packaging in the hope that one day – Toy Story 2 style - they might prove valuable. This is largely hokum. I still have all my original Star Wars toys (less a formal collection, more evidence that I didn’t really have any other interests in 1981) many of them in their original boxes. For a while in the mid-1990s (when I finally got hold of the R5-D4 figure I’d been tracking down for over 15 years) it seemed like these dust-collectors in the loft might pay for a small deposit on a house. That was until e-bay came along and created a generation of kids who could get anything anytime from anywhere. Now even my most prized item (a boxed Imperial Troop Transporter) can be picked up for mere $30.

Mattel has previously dabbled with TV and movie tie-ins with a Wizard of Oz range (a chance to buy some actual friends of Dorothy), I Love Lucy dolls and even Mulder and Scully from The X-Files so they must be confident that they can shift the Sterling Cooper crew. Just to be sure they’ve only made a limited run (10,000 of each) so it’s likely that people will snap them up. My advice to people buying them is simple… GIVE THEM TO YOUR CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH. You won’t make any money out of them in your lifetime but the idea of watching your kids, nieces and nephews creating a whole new world for Don, Betty, Joan and Roger involving trains, dinosaurs and teddy bears could be priceless.

Antici....... pation

In March last year I posted this rambling piece, in which I professed an unexpectedly deep love for Mad Men and Dexter, given my generally shallow knowledge of non-comedy related television. A year on and – five rapid-fire seasons of Lost aside - little has changed. Mad Men is still the best damn show since Twin Peaks - casting a spell over every magazine and style supplement in the western world despite reportedly low audience figures. Meanwhile, I remain compelled to watch Dexter going about his grisly business, even though every single episode reduces me to a nervous, quivering mess.

The reason for this is simple; I do not, if you’ll pardon the phrase, like having the willies put up me. Not, as is known, that there is anything wrong with that, but still the act of being unnecessarily scared is not something I seek.

I have no problem doing things that are scary if there is something to be gained. I have asked pretty girls to dance, learned to drive a car, hitched for lifts on dark country roads; all things that set the heart racing to differing degrees. Several years combating vertigo also saw me jump from an aeroplane, off a very high bridge and – with the aid of an insane French hang-glider enthusiast – off a 2000 metre mountain top. Still, with a skewed logic informing this madness it was something I felt able to justify on pseudo-scientific grounds. In short, there was a point.

What I cannot embrace is the idea of deliberately terrifying yourself for fun; fear as an end goal rather than something unpleasant to be endured. In practice this has added to my own deep uncool, meaning as it has a lifetime avoiding fairground rides, theme parks, non-vertigo related extreme sports and – most of all - the entire oeuvre of horror cinema.

I should clarify that when I say horror I mean all films designed to make you go “arrrrrrgggh!”; whether in surprise, fear or genuine revulsion. I include 1980s schlock-horror (your Freddies and Jasons as nicely deconstructed by the Scream franchise), splatter, gore, vampires, anything with zombies ( living, dead and/or undead), anything with a one word title and basic premise of ‘coming to get her’ (Jaws, Saw, Poltergeist, Deliverance, Predator, Piranha, Swarm, Anaconda, Arachnophobia… erm … Snakes on a Plane etc) and all films about brutally violent psychopaths, murderers and serial killers. Especially ones with saws and knives…

It’s possible that this is an enduring legacy of watching two of the very best of these films too young. I distinctly remember being terrified by Jaws aged seven as well as my horror as I watched the Alien alone in the dark at midnight on my tenth birthday, slowly realising that this space adventure was not much like Star Wars at all. From then on I understood that I had enough of an imagination to terrify myself without adding to it with warped visions of Hollywood directors.

I dabbled here and there to try and keep in with the cool kids. Consequently I have seen the likes of Chucky, Aliens (to impress a girl), an Evil Dead (more comedy than horror I was surprised to find), Scream (ditto), Silence of the Lambs (but not Hannibal after I accidentally saw the brain eating bit), Jacob’s Ladder, Starship Troopers and The Blair Witch Project (its power lessened by adverts provided every five minutes by Channel 7). Whilst these filled some pop culture gaps (and the better the film the harder it is to say no - I’ll gladly put myself through anything creepy David Lynch has to offer) they mostly reaffirmed that for me enjoyment and fear are not good bedfellows.

All of which I found myself considering recently, half-way through my fourth season of Dexter, after spending yet another 50 minutes pale, sick to the stomach, worried half to death, hoping - praying – that Dexter Morgan’s murderous dark passenger would stay hidden away for another episode. ’Look out Dexter... no, don’t kill her... oh, you... no... but someone will see... oh... but what if someone finds that and... Dexter (in my best Joyce Grenfell voice) oh Dexter... don’t do that...’ It was only as the credits rolled, when anticipation had no more grip over me and with a pavlovian slackening of the tightness in my stomach that I realised the folly in watching a show about a serial killer... and hoping no one gets killed.

So whilst Mad Men may be the coolest show around, and Lost is the one that appeals to my post-Lynchian need for interpretation and clue-gathering, I feel I should salute the cast and crew of Dexter for being the only ones ever who could get me to endure and enjoy at the same time. I may be watching from behind hands and cushions - immobilised by anticipation of the worst, like one of Dexter’s victims cellophaned onto his butcher’s table – but at least, for once, for now, I am watching.

There’s More to Life Than Books, You Know (But Not Much More)

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it but 2009 marked a new cultural low for me; in twelve months I only managed to read two books from cover to cover. To further my shame let me add that I read both of these in December.

In my underwhelming defence I did start a number of books this year. I got about halfway through Bill Drummond’s The 17, and was enjoying Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road before it went missing in the move. I also finished another book this year – a beautifully dog-eared 1960s Livre de Poche copy of Albert Camus’ L’Etranger that Mrs Custard bought for me off the internet. Sadly I started that in August 2008 so can’t add it to last year’s tally either.

Anyone bored enough to scan through the favourite books on my profile will notice that fiction doesn’t rank too highly in my list of pleasures. There are one or two things on there that I really love (especially Donna Tartt) but most were read years ago. Prior to L’Etranger (which most people read when they are about 16) I can’t actually remember what the last piece of fiction I read was. Maybe the Life of Pi or Tom Robbins’ Villa Incognito (“Pla-bonga pla-bonga!”) - whenever they came out… This has been a cause of great distress for many of my book-loving chums who insist that one cannot live on non-fiction alone.

Ever one for grand empty gestures I have decided to redress the balance in 2010. Not only do I pledge to read more books (though reading three books would be no more impressive really) but I promise that almost all of them will be fiction. I say almost because I’ve already started on Michael Palin’s latest book of diaries and can’t wait to get stuck into Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis (which has possibly the finest cover to grace a book since Pooh and Piglet Go Visiting and Nearly Catch a Woozle).

To prove that I mean it, not only were my two December books both fiction (Stephen Fry’s debut The Liar and Truman Capote’s original novella of Breakfast at Tiffany’s) but I’ve already gone back and finished the brilliant Revolutionary Road (Frank Wheeler as model for Mad Men’s Pete Campbell anyone?) Just so I don’t get stuck in the 1950s I’ve turned to Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. And before you ask no, I’m not just reading books that have been turned into films – I haven’t seen any of the adaptations either.

One outcome of my return to fiction has been experiencing anew the transportation effect that a truly great story can have. The ability of good writers to send readers on out of body experiences to other times, places, ages and genders can be somewhat disconcerting when the train pulls into the station of a morning and the book covers are temporarily closed. Real life tends to lose a bit of gloss in comparison. When I raised this with one fiction worshipper she suggested that the opposite were true, and that without that 30 minutes of escape ‘how else do you think we’d get through the day?’

So I publically swear to do better in 2010 and I may make the odd reference to my reading habits in this corner of the internet. I shan’t try and review any of the books I read but if anyone would like to start a virtual Mint Custard book club then feel free leave suggestions below. It would be lovely to hear from you. Now if you'll excuse me I must get back to Victorian England; there’s a church to build and cards to play.

Madmen Me

It’s the first of August which rather excitingly means it’s only two weeks until the new season of Madmen starts in the US. The AMCTV website has a 30 second trailer but far more fun is to be had elsewhere on the site thanks to our friend, Dyna Moe. You may recall from earlier this year that the glamorous Ms Moe produced unique illustrations for every episode of the first two seasons, as well as a range of paper dolls and outfits so fans could live out their weirdest dressing/undressing Christina Hendricks fantasies.

Rightfully instated as the official artist for Madmen she’s now gone one step further and developed this rather fantastic Madmen-Yourself Interactive Flash Player game. Now you too can be part of the sharp suited, neatly coiffed and pointy bosomed world of Sterling Cooper. One word of warning: this can take away hours of your life. After turning myself into a blue-suited Pete Campbell I decided to try being a glamorous suburban housewife a la Betty Draper and now I think I fancy myself…

Remember to check out Dyna’s own website at Nobody’s Sweetheart where you can see her non-Madmen work, read her blog and buy stuff. Do. It’s great.

Mad Men as Muse

Mad Men finally got a showing on terrestrial TV in Australia last night and I’ve been doing my bit to spread the word at work. It unearthed a few closet fans, including one lovely person who sent me a link to these incredible Mad Men homages by Ms Dyna Moe at Nobody’s Sweetheart. She's done a new design based on each episode of the two series so far, which is above and beyond the call of any muse. And they're all ace. I think I want them all.

All images copyright Ms Dyna Moe and can be purchased from Dyna herself here.

Television "Not Always Rubbish" Shocker

I’m not sure when I joined the ranks of people who watch telly and then talk about it all the time. I’ve always liked ploughing through comedy shows and quite enjoy finding things that make me laugh other than fart gags, but very rarely proper telly – you know, with plots and actors and the like. Yet having recently over-enthusiastically discussed at least two of these proper TV shows with work colleagues, friends and random strangers I have realised that I’m now part of that boring group of people who wank on about how good telly is these days.

I should share a couple of things. Firstly, apart from the news, I don’t watch regular telly. Adverts on Australian television are beyond a joke; some shows can get interrupted for up to 4 minutes some five times an hour and it drives me crazy. Quite how the writers and directors feel about seeing their shows ripped to pieces is beyond me. I tried watching Heroes on cable and I’d have been better off watching it on You Tube than in the five minute chunks I was served. So mostly I’m watching shows on DVD long after the hoo-hah. This actually suits me, because I can avoid finding things out from other people before they happen.

Secondly, I have watched almost none of the ‘must-see-TV’ of the past two decades. Despite being implored by friends and colleagues with myriad tastes and levels of televisual sophistication, I have never seen a single episode of (deep breath) the West Wing, Alias, Desperate Housewives, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or Angel), the OC, Beverly Hills 90210, LA Law, ER, the Sopranos, Prime Suspect, Ally McBeal, the Wire, Inspector Morse, NCIS, CSI, Grey’s Anatomy, Six Feet Under, 24, Sex and the City or any science fiction shows since Star Trek the Next Generation finished in 1994. I’m sure there are many others but I’ve probably just never heard of them. I have seen one episode each of Friends and the X-Files and, after being literally forced to sit in front of the telly I have now watched the first few episodes of Lost. All things considered this may be why I’m crap at trivia quizzes these days.

The observant among you will note that most of the programs I have mentioned are American. This might suggest that maybe I just don’t like American TV. After all, I’ve sat through hours of Eastenders and the Bill and despite their dowdy charms even I know that some of the above series are probably better shows. Maybe my expat tastes are tragically and parochially anchored in the United Kingdom, quality be damned. I don’t think so though because my favourite TV show ever is Twin Peaks and despite its qualities it wouldn’t have been quite the same show had it been set in, say, Birmingham.

Others will note that my non-list contains lots of police dramas, science fiction and the TV equivalent of chick-lit. Maybe I just don’t like certain genres? Well, maybe, but I did nerd-out on Star Trek as a youth and I’ve spent many hours watching the revamped Dr Who so I’m not immune to a sci-fi show – just seemingly the new crop of American ones. As for cops and robbers, I would probably agree that it’s not my thing, although I did love the original Manchester-based Life on Mars. All the more interesting then that of the two shows that have so floated my boat of late, both are American and one is so cops and robbers that the hero is serial-killer-catching serial killer who works for the police.

I am of course talking about Dexter, Jeff Lindsay’s “neat little monster” played with charm and the right amount of faux-naivety by Michael C Hall. From the first time I saw the opening credits montage of Dexter Morgan’s morning shower, shit, shave and breakfast routine portrayed as a murderous ritual I was hooked. I can’t deny the possibility that maybe it’s because I’ve avoided all the other cop shows that I love Dexter so much. I don’t know any of the clichés of police drama, and Dexter might be riddled with them but I wouldn’t know. I do know that every episode of seasons one and two left me almost sick with nerves and anticipation that Dexter might be five seconds away from being caught and exposed to his trusting and unknowing colleagues, including his doting sister Deborah, not to mention his slightly insipid girlfriend, Rita. I do know that Dexter made me want to go to Miami and drink tequila and eat lobster on the beach at night whilst people salsa around me. I do know that Dexter got me hooked on Chopin. I do know that there was no need for a season three, despite Jimmy Smits’ rewarding turn.

I doubt I’ll be so enthusiastic about season four. But Dexter has proved to be my gateway to a brave new television world. As I enthused about the show and encouraged others to watch however they could, I heard echoing calls of ‘oh you like Dexter? You’ll love this’ or ‘you should try so-and-so.’ And apart from the West Wing, which everyone seems to love, everyone had a different recommendation. It made me realise the possibility that - for a short while- you could probably get addicted to just about any show on Earth if you had the time. Watching TV shows in isolation, either on DVD or downloaded from Bit Torrent sites, with the ability to zoom through a season at your own pace, can make you feel like you’re in on some marvellous secret. If you venture online you’ll find hoards of people just like you, all obsessing about the important minutiae of their chosen shows as if they’d discovered the cure for cancer but didn’t want anyone to know. I’d like to think that I’m above all that, of course. It’s not the secret addiction aspect of watching Dexter that makes me watch more. Is it? It’s just damn fine TV. Isn’t it? I was happy to believe that Dexter was a one-off in television history, a show that knowing people will refer to knowingly in 20 years time like an early Coen Brothers movie.

Only then I discovered Mad Men, a show so clever and grown up it makes Dexter look like early evening light entertainment (with knives and chainsaws, of course). Gazing dreamily at the picture perfect sets, the sculpted hairdos and tailored outfits, listening to the snappy one liners and settling into the somnambulant pace (the first time I noticed that something had actually happened I was midway through the second season) I realised I was addicted again. My secret obsession had moved from modern day Miami to early 1960’s New York, but still I wanted to know everything about my new show.

Now, I’m prepared to go out on a limb here and say that Mad Men is special. I’ll probably never watch any of the shows I mentioned earlier but I just have a feeling that Mad Men is better than any of them. The acting is perfect across the board; the characters deep as the Marianas Trench. Each of them is as distinct and isolated as each other, all of their time yet on the verge of a 1960s which will change the world beyond even their creative imaginations. Feminism, multiculturalism, civil rights, gay rights, technology and globalisation are all just around the corner from where we are observing them.

The show is unashamedly smart too; the dialogue bristles with clever lines and observations that make you realise that some of the characters will do better than others as the sixties unfold. Secretary-turned-junior-copywriter Peggy Olsen’s dual with her own sense of morality, as projected through a young and passionate Catholic priest, is as vibrant an examination of the beginning of the end of religion’s grip on everyday youth as you’ll read in any textbook. Coupled with lead man Don Draper’s existential internal battle spelt out through the words of New York poet and writer Frank O'Hara, you see a show unafraid to wear its brain on its sleeve.

Mad Men lives against but not for the big moments in American history. The historic nature of the Kennedy v Nixon election is portrayed as another day’s work for those working on the campaign, most indifferent to the possible winner. Staff in the office are equally affected by the Cuban Missile Crisis and the death of Marilyn Monroe depending on what they’re into – like people who were more interested in the life and death of Jade Goody than the collapse of the world economy.

The show looks like a dream; Lynchian retro yet as alive as a beat poem in a late night Manhattan bar. The costumes and hairstyles are so wonderful that it makes you feel rather dowdy just watching it, and yet they never shy away from the reality of maintaining such a look (in one wonderful scene, office siren Joan – known for her pert wiggle and gravity-defying bosom is shown undressing at home, tenderly rubbing her shoulders where her industrial strength bra has almost sliced grooves into her perfect porcelain skin). January Jones’ Betty looks like a movie star as she sashays around her suburban home (they cut to the chase with everyman and his dog telling her she looks like Grace Kelly) but you know that she’s not doing the cleaning in those skirts.

There are so many articles out there right now about Mad Men and why it’s so good that it’s pointless to go on (my favourite is this one from last year by Chicago Tribune journalist Mo Ryan) other than to reinforce my already apparent enthusiasm. But in the context of my hopeless addiction and wrapped up in the excitement of someone who has basically caught up to the rest of the world and realised that in front of the television can be a nice place to be sometimes, my advice is twofold and simple: be who you is, and watch Mad Men. It’s ace. Now, where’s that Desperate Housewives box set…