You know, she was in that TV series...

It was a typical Friday night at the bar last night with both beer and conversation flowing freely.

It really winds me up when you reach the point where the alcohol intake slowly starts chipping away at the old memory cells and you struggle to remember even your own name, let alone someone from a TV series broadcast over 12 years ago.

However, the conversation had started and we were already spiralling downwards well out of control. It had all started with someone mentioning one of the worst sit-coms they had ever seen.

"Surely it can't be any worse than that one with the three birds sharing a flat in London across the corridor from the bloke in the Flash ads", I suggested.

I should have kept quiet, we were doomed from that point onwards.

"Oh yeah, I remember that. Didn't it have Denise Van Outen in it? Yeah, and Samantha Janus, I think that was the only reason I ever watched it in the first place. What was it called?"

"It was something do do with where they lived in London, something wood. Northwood? St John's Wood? Three birds? Babes in the Wood! That was it. Yes, it was truly terrible"

Leaping to it's defence (difficult task ahead) I remembered two funny lines from the whole two series. The first took place in the corridor outside the flat the morning after a heavy night before:
"How's your head?" asked Charlie, to which Carolyn replied "I've had no complaints so far"

The other one was where Carolyn was trying to remember the names of the McGann Brothers:
"There's Paul, Joe, Mark and... Renault"

I should have let the conversation lie there, but no, I had to go on:

"I used to like the other thing that Karl Howman was in. Not, Brush Strokes, what was it? Mulberry."
"Oh I remember that one, didn't he play death, or an angel or something?"
"Yeah that was it. He had been sent down to collect an old woman and ended up working for her. Oh God, what was she called?"
"Geraldine something", I added confidently, without the slightest clue of her second name.
"Wasn't it Geraldine James?"
"No, that was the really tall bird from Band of Gold"
[Everyone at the bar] "Oh I remember that"
"I think it was Geraldine McEwan, the same one who played Miss Jean Brodie on telly"

Strange how we all immediately remembered a drama series about prosititutes but couldn't recall the details of a prime-time family sitcom...