POLLY VERNON

WHAT DID YOU think of the new Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper version of A Star Is Born?

I thought it was – y’know… OK. I didn’t mind it. I wouldn’t have spent my own money on it, but I didn’t, a mate took me as her plus one, which freed me up to semi-snooze through, then stroll out as the credits rolled, thinking, ‘ Well, at least the songs were nice…’ At which point I discovered the rest of the audience – in keeping with the rest of the world, in keeping with you, probably – thinks A Star Is Born is a work of purest genius.

‘I wept through the last 45 minutes!’ said my friend, wiping her eyes and blinking in the light of the cinema lobby.

‘Really?’ I said. ‘ Why?’ But my voice was drowned out by everyone else, competing with each other to attest to the film’s brilliance more cleverly. ‘Gaga’s got Oscar buzz for it!’ said the film critic. ‘I think I’ve cried all the tears that are in me!’ said the influencer. ‘I believe in true love!’ said the celebrity feminist activist.

What kind of a pervert am I, I wondered, that I am untouched by a film that so moved my peers (NB not all of whom I view with bottomless contempt)?

I’d wonder again, that Sunday night, when I settled down to watch episode one of the new Doctor Who, starring Jodie Whittaker, aka the first female Doctor.

‘She seems jolly,’ I thought, then switched over, because I’d re-remembered Doctor Who is a kids’ TV show, whereas I’m an adult who hasn’t finished a Netflix documentary on Mormon plural marriage.

But, hang on: ‘JODIE IS THE BEST DOCTOR EVER OH MY GOD I CAN’T EVEN #doctorwho,’ screamed a senior editor from Twitter.

‘ YESSSSSS TO THE FEMALE DOCTOR! SHOVING YOUR SONIC SCREWDRIVER UP THE PATRIARCHY’S ARSE!’ yelled a colleague on Facebook.

‘FINALLY MY LITTLE GIRL HAS THE ROLE MODEL SHE’S WANTED FOR SO LONG! #doctorwho,’ said someone significant on Mumsnet.

I’ve done it again, I thought, reacted with take-it-or-leave-it meh-ness to a thing that’s setting the rest of the world on fire! Why can’t I at least pretend to love the thing everyone else seems to love, at the same time they love it, which is to say: shortly before they move on to getting extremely cross about something else? Why? Oh, because I just can’t, that’s why. The very best I can do is guilt-like some pro- Doctor Who tweet as penance for not being able to turn off the Mormons.