I used to hate The Simpsons. I don't really know why but I did. All my friends were perplexed at this as they felt my sense of humour would tie in perfectly with that of the Springfield Satirists.
However, I detested the show; found it unfunny and overrated. Then I began watching it. Not out of choice, but duty. My wife loved (and still does) the show and so I would insist to her that I actually quite liked it and encouraged her to watch it whenever she wanted. This is known as 'above and beyond the call of duty'. I watched show after show. Each time hating the characters and the weird storylines more and more.
Then, one day I laughed at something Homer said. From that point I began to look forward to seeing the fat, balding, mid-life-crisis-ridden, white, middle class bloke ... hold on. I was looking at myself! I realised that Homer was my spiritual twin, my Obi Wan Kenobi, my towering lighthouse, illuminating my passage through a dark, wild and storm-tossed sea. Joy unlimited. Homer was and is the key to why I now love the Simpsons and all it stands for.
So I proved to myself that you can change your mind and your opinions about anything if you just give it a chance. Anything at all.
Apart from beetroot. And Pontius Pilate.
Twenty years! Twenty bleedin' years without so much as sniff of trouble with the Rozzers. And then - 2 speeding tickets on the same day. On the same stretch of road. By the same Rozzers. I can speak no more, (for legal reasons) other than to say that I'm totally and utterly gutted.
