By now I'm sure all of you who are even remotely interested have seen the video of Susan Boyle "surprising" the judges and the audience of Britain's "reality" television show, Britain's Got Talent.

Boyle is, shall we say, not conventionally attractive, small-town, unemployed and — horrors! — at 47, of an age when our culture expects women to gracefully disappear from view.

Of course, the video has been spreading through the blogosphere and beyond like wildfire, because it turned out that Boyle can, in fact, really sing.

Now, to tell you the truth, I have been pretty good at avoiding "reality" teevee shows; a brief sampling early on convinced me they were exactly what I had expected them to be, freak shows more often than not, and I've never had much interest in such sort of degrading entertainment, thank you very much.

Anyway, the Boyle video was emailed to me, and a couple of you posted about it, and so I too have seen it (and yes, she can sing). I was appalled by the sexist, classist, ageist and — yes — lookist presumptions of both the audience and the judges and, with just everybody else, cheered Boyle's success at turning a theatre full of freak-show gawkers into fans.

DANDRUFF The ANSWER is usually vinegar. To some problems there are solutions.

What we call dandruff is often the result of a PH imbalance on the skin, which shampoo exacerbates. Wash your hair with a simple non-detergent shampoo, soap, olive oil, beer, almost anything. Rinse. Then close your eyes and pour on some vinegar. The extremely cheap but natural sort — apple cider, for example — is probably best. The smell will stimulate interesting conversations in changing-room showers and your explanation will win you friends. Wait thirty to sixty seconds. Rinse it off. The smell will go away. So will your dandruff.

All dermatologists, pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies know this simple secret. They don't tell you because they make money by converting dandruff into a complex medical and social problem. By most professional standards this would amount to legally defined incompetence or mis-representation.

Dandruff shampoos that promise to keep your shoulders and even your head clear are harsh detergents and may promote baldness, which ought to constitute malpractice.

Not with a bang: The end of Battlestar Galactica
through the mother of all SF cliches

Giving oneself over to an episodic drama, produced over years, is always a gamble on the part of the reader or viewer. Unlike a novel or a feature film, the reader or viewer must take a leap of faith and trust that the creator or creators, essentially know what they are doing, that — even if they are open to making changes as things move along, organically evolving as they are surprised by their own creation — they at least have the ultimate end-point, the climax, always in view.

Sometime in April of 2007, I sent the Globe a copy of my review of Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Sixty Days and Counting, thinking I just might find a paying market for my ever-so-humble opinions.