Gripping First Lines, by Ben Jeapes
Photo by cottonbro studio . (Gripping line, get it?) We are (again) working our way through streamed episodes of Frasier , which remains one of the best sitcoms ever written – always fresh, never mean or smutty, and doing an amazingly good job at not becoming dated despite being over 30 years old. And we just watched the first series episode in which Frasier and his brother Niles, who both love each other dearly but will drop into pointless one-upmanship at the drop of a hat, decide to write a book together on the psychiatry of sibling relationships . (Follow the link to watch the first part on YouTube.) They rent a hotel suite, lock themselves away … And by the time the sun comes up the next day, they have worked up a $232 bill in the minibar and are still arguing over the first line. Pity my poor wife, whose husband was all but screaming at the screen: “JUST WRITE THE BLASTED THING!” A subject I have touched on before . Text is fluid; text on a compute...