At any given moment in an office full of people, a large percentage of employees will not be carrying out the job they are paid to do But it doesn't matter. If it is 6.30pm, and you are shopping online or playing solitaire, and the boss looks out and sees you tapping away, you create the appropriate impression: "Hmm, young so-and-so from sales and marketing is really putting in the hours."Spending more time in the office has contracted the amount of free time we have so much that we have had to find other ways in which to unwind. For some, that involves doing yoga, shopping, or visiting galleries For everyone else, it involves the consumption of alcohol. Widely available, relatively cheap and hugely effective, a couple of glasses of wine now act as a life-support system for the brain-dead, Microsoft chimps that we have all become.In general, the working week follows a fairly predictable pattern of alcohol consumption. It starts on Wednesday - the hump of the week - which begins the slide towards the weekend. Thursday is now "the new Friday", according to publicans and restaurateurs, and Friday is not always something you can remember Obviously, Saturday is written off simply because it can be And the singer Craig David is so wrong. On Sunday we don't chill; we cram in all the stuff we were too hung-over to do on Saturday.
And since everything is open - including the pub - everyone, bar the five people watching Songs of Praise, can usher in the start of another working week over a couple of pints.Naturally, by the time we 21st-century wage slaves get into the office on Monday morning, we are exhausted. Kept going by caffeine, pain-killers and the promise of a double bill of Coronation Street when we finally assume the recovery position on the sofa armed with a remote control and a takeaway pizza, we can at least look forward to some top telly.For years programme schedulers have been playing their best cards on a Monday night. Big draws such as Martin Bashir's interview with Michael Jackson and a documentary about the Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? fraud were screened then. The biggest shows - Coronation Street, EastEnders and Spooks - all get given that slot. It's rich pickings, and who's complaining? Anyone dumb enough to watch TV on a Saturday night ought to get a life Or a DVD.. Villains are always attractive to the dramatist. There is an intense pleasure in being able to invest a character with ruthless ambition.
The writer can even find himself becoming quite fond of his monster Something similar happens with audiences. They may find the character repugnant, but they greatly enjoy witnessing wickedness in action. When the character wields enormous power, the fascination is all the greater Villains are always attractive to the dramatist. This was not the case, though I certainly intended the play to nail New Labour and the politics of spin.As fascinating as power itself is the idea of power behind the throne. From Rasputin to Carole Caplin, we somehow like the idea of a sinister shadowy figure skulking in the background. I remember standing on the floor of the Winter Gardens in Blackpool in 1994, watching the Labour Party leader, Tony Blair, deliver his big conference speech.
