Two Bathetic Tales

We were distinctly underwhelmed – in fact we were thrown into a frenzy of apathy as the actress went under the top and ran the gamut of the emotions from A to B. We could barely contain our boredom. Her performance would have brought tears to a glass eye. It had to be seen to be disbelieved. Was there no start to her talents? And the production plumbed new shallows. Written by a figure of towering obscurity with a following of glittering nobodies, it was the kind of show you came out of whistling the scenery. The public stayed away in droves. Offstage the star had a heart of pure tin and her life, in a mansion with all modern inconveniences, was as as private as a postcard. Hollywood - scrape off the sham tinsel and you find the real tinsel underneath.

During weeks of low drama, and office don'ts where the wine flowed like cement and the fun never started, he wondered if his performance would ever rise above the overwhelmingly average. His trendy marketing strategy had been a howling failure. He had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. He engaged in uncivil wars with his colleagues. Would he be kicked upstairs, or compete in a race to the bottom? Or was there less to this than met the eye? After exchanging a few unpleasantries, his boss sneered: “You’re a mine of misinformation. Your ignorance is encyclopaedic. You have a great future behind you. That’ll wipe the snarl off your face!” “I’m going!” he snapped back. “I plead temporary sanity!”

More bathos here.