Bernard! Or should I say, Bernharður!

Look what the kids found in a box somewhere! Such memories brought back by that gap-toothed smile and creepy, black-hole eyes. I never even knew this was a book, let alone a book that had been translated into Icelandic.

Ever since I first started watching this programme after school, I have been tormented by a longing for Bernard's watch. If I had Bernard's watch, everything in my life would be amazing. Probably.

For those of you not familiar with Bernard's Watch (losers), it basically means that you can freeze time for everything and everyone except yourself. You can then move around and do whatever you please until you choose to restart time. The actual quality of the programme was pretty low, but the concept! The more you think about it, the more you realise that this watch is absolutely the most desirable object in the universe. And the more troubling flaws you discover - like, did Bernard age whilst time was frozen? But then you sweep those under the carpet and go back to fantasising about the end of all the countless irritations in your life caused by the finite nature of time. In pub conversations, I've heard a lot of people mention theft and perving as the main attractions,* but I would totally use it mostly to catch up on sleep.

The boy who played Bernard (as pictured on the front of this book) went to the same university as me. He was either one or two years ahead of me, studying medicine. I never met him, but rumour has it he once punched someone in a nightclub for calling him Bernard.

* Obviously in the fantasy, that weird cosmic postman who used to berate Bernard if he used the watch for evil wouldn't be around. Although the postman did actually let him get away with some pretty dickish behaviour - cheating at football, 'borrowing' his neighbour's games console for days on end, etc.