The Broom Cupboard

I was caught by the Children’s TV Society, officially called the Broom Cupboard, at the school fair. Their booth was pathetically crayoned together and their spokeswoman was entirely amiable. I gave them my email address. I showed up to the first meeting.

I’d like to give you an account of what I saw there, and what I heard, and indeed what I felt, but I my immediate vocabulary does not contain the necessary describers to accurately convey the entity of British children television shows. The night was capped with an episode of Thundercats, which felt to be a sort of documentary, grounded in a completely solid reality of thunderous cat people and their swords, relative to the hootenanny tripfest of nonsense that preceded. I watched a show about a man made of pots and pans and spoons, who flew to the moon on a rocket. I watched a show about an empowered teddy bear that befriended leprous cyborgs and battled an evil cowboy. I watched, I tell you sir, or madam, a purple potato man and his hairball friend ride their insectoid companion to a picnic. Indeed, I am a greater man for having seen these things, these wonders of a foreign culture. Dare I return on Monday the next? It is not necessarily an effective venue for meeting Oxford students, for only awkward freshmen, freshers, as they say, were drawn to the prospect of late night cartoons. But there is allure.