Remembering a sitcom episode…

I remembered an episode of “’Allo ‘allo”, which ended with a cliffhanger, which was to be resolved not in the next episode, but in the next season. The character René was cheating on his wife with one of his waitresses (and in turn he cheating on that one with another waitress). Somehow or other, the waitress thought René just told his wife he’ll leave her for the waitress, which of course came as a complete surprise to the wife. When she confronted René about this, he managed to get out of the situation by feigning a heart attack. That’s where the episode, and thus the season, ended. How was it resolved in the next episode? It wasn’t. Or more accurately, we see a conversation taking place between René and his waitress, wherein it is explained that they were lucky to convince his wife that it was all a joke. In other words, the problem, the very thing for which people tuned in to see, was resolved off-screen. I can imagine a lot of people were disappointed about this, but thinking about it, maybe there is a very good reason why this was resolved off-screen. Maybe the writers wanted to spend an entire episode on René trying to make amends with his wife, but they couldn’t come up with anything that they thought was funny, or that the audience might have liked. So this resolution was a product of lazy writing. While I may not like how they resolved the situation, I now understand why they did it the way they did.

What is my first language?

I’ve been told that the first words you ever spoke in your life, whatever language that was in, that is your first language. In my case… that’s a little confusing. I grew up in an area wherein people spoke anything but English, and yet despite that (if I’m to believe my cousin) my first words were in English. So despite my growing up in an area where people barely spoke English, English is technically speaking my first language. In a way it shouldn’t surprise me. Throughout the years, I felt more comfortable in speaking English than I did in any other language. They tried teaching me French, but apart from the one or two words, I can’t say that I know enough French (at least not enough to converse with anyone in French). Even now that I’m residing in an area that speaks mostly English, I somehow feel more comfortable speaking to people around here. Anyone who knows me should not be surprised that it comes that easily to me, and… to be honest, I don’t fully understand it either, but it’s a fact that I can converse better with others in English than I ever could in my native language. I suppose it would explain why I have no problems whatsoever to write most of my stories in English, or for that matter to make my videos in English. Not to mention that I seem to know more English than anyone who actually grew up with the language. I know, I’m starting to sound arrogant this way, but if I actually know the difference between “whose” and “who’s”, which my professor didn’t even notice until I pointed it out… that about sums it all up, doesn’t it?