"Housewives Is An Existentialism."

Existentialism is an old–fashioned thing to get worked up over. 

To have existential crises is a modern–day nostalgic luxury. It's a willfully "retro" stance. 

Still the Housewives of Atlanta seem to have transcended mere postmodernism and rediscovered the authentic existentialism, "in good faith".

The funny things they do––!

I was watching some old episodes I'd missed in 2015, because I was in England. This was when the Housewives went to the Philippines, while NeNe Leakes was on Broadway. 

(There were scenes where "Greeg" Leakes would ferry NeNe about midtown Manhattan and take her to one place or another and act like he was her benefactor, when in fact he was just holding the door for her with his hand out. Like the homeless people at Los Feliz Post Office. Either NeNe or Bravo was paying for everything. Creepy crazy opportunism of the man called "Greeg".)

They climbed a mountain on the backs of shetland ponies and then they pitched golf balls off the peak into a lake far below.

It was not explained why or wherefore they did it. 

And now, in the new series, as a signal that her anger management psychotherapy was working Porsha invited all the characters to a mall where they went into these two rooms and tried to solve pre-set mysteries in a limited amount of time.

Phaedra was with Kandi and Sheree in one room, donning deerstalkers and wielding magnifying glasses. If they were struggling with one of the puzzles, they could incur a time penalty to receive a clue to help solve the puzzle. 

Phaedra said, "Shall we just get a clue on this because I'm super–confused with this one."

Kandi said, "I hate to waste clues. "

She said it in an odd voice, but that was only half of the fun. She also said it like it was a general maxim she followed for life. "I always hate to waste clues." Like she was always in situations in day-to-day existence where she had clues, and she hated to waste them.

These are grown women who have run out of conventional things to do. They have exhausted the bounds of normal human relations. They have also plumbed thoroughly the mysteries of abnormal and abhorrent social behaviours. They have hollered, cried and laughed with each other. They have "read" each other and "cast shade". They have thrown canapés and cheap plonk at each other on numerous occasions. They have accused each others' husbands of being homosexual on numerous occasions. They have run the gamut as far as social norms and extremes go.

The following week they were playing lazer tag and strafing each other in the face with virtual pulses of ultra–mutually–assured–psychic–destruction.

"Mary's Spitting Out Teeth." Or, "Mary Berry Biscotti."

Every time Paul Hollywood gives Mary Berry a biscotti to try and she bites down on it and you hear this tremendous crunch, I expect in the next moment to see Mary spitting out all her teeth.

This grand old woman is very decrepit. Don't be deluded. People think, "Mary only popped up on the scene in the last few years. She's going to be around for years." People think, "Mary's on TV. She cannot die." Nice thought but wrong. She's old and she's going to go quite suddenly. Old man Death is like God in the Bible, who "cometh like a thief in the night."

Mary will pine and keen and sicken and go down hard and fast. People will be looking at their newspapers in disbelief. "But she was only on TV last year, eating biscotti! Admittedly her teeth all fell out live on air, but I thought there were years in the old girl."

Like Spiderman's Aunt May. When Spider-Man first appeared (1962) Aunt May was a timorous old Civil War widow ("hard-boiled dog-faced Civil War jarhead veteran"). Now they've reinvented her as a semi-sexy GILF. Awful creepy move. 

Marvel readers, like viewers of Bake-Off, hate to accept that even the well-oiled body ("the well-tempered clavichord") is mortal, does wither and sicken on the vine, and begad and begob verily it shall croak.

Please. As you go about your banal day to day activities do me a favor would you and REMEMBER YOU MUST DIE.

Update, 2017.

We complain about globalism, but in phone calls home I am refreshed to realise that the British and the Americans remain supremely uninterested in 98% of each other's business or "news." We were told that "the UK" was collectively livid about Trump claiming that the British bugged Trump Tower on Obama's behalf. Apparently this went by with minimal comment in the UK.

Also, I would get updates on Bruce Forsyth's death vigil from MSNUK on my Hotmail account. Was Britain uninterested in the mad doings of Old King Trump but wringing its hands over the noble battle between Brucey and the Reaper? 

My only remark was, predictably, a facetious one, and it serves as an addendum to the "Mary Berry Biscotti" remarks.

I said: "Come children. Come diddums come. Bruce is not to be uniquely exempted from the rough handling and bad mistreatment that is to come for all of us from Mistress Death. Bruce must die! In fact it could be argued by the Sophists that nobody deserves to die more than... Bruce Forsyth!"

[Reader:  "So, you're not unduly upset by the news then, Fabian?"]