How the wheel might turn

There's a show on TV, a kind of reality show called Death Unexplained. It tracks the daily activities of the West London coroner's office. Each episode follows a number of cases and we might get to hear from the pathologist, Olaf Biedrzycki, or the deputy mortuary manager, Lenny Browse. What comes across mostly, from these people who deal daily with sad death, is unending sympathy. 'No one goes out naked,' says Lenny Browse, 'they are never judged and always treated well.'

One case last night for example looked at the case of a recent Polish immigrant who had fallen under a train. CCTV footage showed him legless-drunk and yet his liver was unaffected by alcohol. Could he have just become disoriented by unfamiliar levels of intoxication?

The coroner is Alison Thompson. She is professional, rational, empathetic. An episode will end with one of her findings. In this case she found there was insufficient evidence to suggest suicide. (Yet, one of the other staff members does say that there was a recent spate of hangings among male Polish immigrants; their new life in the UK doesn't turn out as well as they expected.)

But Alison Thompson is so good at her job and has such poise that you'd think this was what she always wanted to do. It's her vocation; her calling. And that's what the questioner asks her at the end of the episode: 'Is this what you always wanted to do?' No, she says. She always wanted to be an actress and dancer. 'And that still holds.'

'And that still holds'? I felt crestfallen for a while.

Then I realised, 'She's on TV. She's got her own show.'