My phone has been feeding me footage of Steve Carell in a suspicious way. And I couldn't be happier

On Tuesday this week, my Instagram feed started throwing me footage of the comedian Steve Carell dancing round a stadium in a billowing purple gown.
On closer inspection, it turned out that Steve Carell had been giving the commencement address to graduating students of Northwestern University, Illinois, where one of his children is a student, another is a graduate and Steve Carell himself was receiving an honorary doctorate. As a youngster, he attended a summer school at Northwestern, which he credits with sparking his interest in improvisational comedy; he then moved to Chicago to perform at its illustrious Second City club, beginning a career so successful that he now stars in TV series and films where he doesn't even have to be funny. Imagine how easy that must be! Although he's usually funny anyway.
At the graduation ceremony, he gave a keynote speech about the importance of kindness – or, as he defines it, 'basic human decency' – before breaking into a dance routine across the stage and out into the crowd.
But why did my Instagram feed think I would want to see this? The previous day, I'd been talking about how I'm a massive fan of Steve Carell – did it know? I don't mean that I'd been texting or WhatsApping about it from my mobile phone, never mind posting on Insta itself (which I never do, because I've forgotten my password so can't get in; my profile is frozen to a handful of half-amusing old photos which are going to look so damn pitiful when I'm dead), I mean I'd been talking out loud. To a friend. In a room. Was my phone eavesdropping?
I've also been watching a new Netflix series called The Four Seasons, featuring Steve Carell, which dropped in May. Is my Instagram aware of that? It shouldn't be! Dinosaur that I am, I watch TV on a TV. Not a phone. I don't have Instagram on the TV. I'm never logged on to Instagram and Netflix at the same time.
Do you have these worries? Do you wonder why you've been sent certain adverts or messages, and what, in your house, is listening closely to everything you're saying? (God knows it's not your husband.)
I don't worry too much. I suspect we don't yet need to be too intimidated by the idea of 'smart appliances'. We're told that AI is about to phase out human endeavour entirely, but my laptop can't even find my printer. Are these gadgets really ready to take over the world? My mobile doesn't work in the kitchen!
Perhaps this eruption of Steve Carell dancing on my phone is evidence of sinister controlling influences at work. If so, THE JOKE'S ON INSTAGRAM because I enjoyed the footage! I love Steve Carell! I'd watch him do anything!
The Four Seasons is an eight-part TV adaptation of Alan Alda's 1981 film of the same name, about a group of college friends who meet for regular holidays. In the first episode, one of the friends (Steve Carell) confides that he's planning to leave his wife, while his wife (Kerri Kenney-Silver) reveals that she's planning a surprise vow renewal to mark their 25th wedding anniversary. And we watch the fallout from there.
So it's a copy of an old film, it's broken into a simplistic four-season structure and it hasn't been tremendously well received (60 per cent on the 'popcornometer' at Rotten Tomatoes, a review site I find reliable and trustworthy). And yet I loved it, I loved it. I watched it quickly, one episode at a time but near-nightly over a fortnight, and looked forward with such delight to each evening's instalment. You know the kind of show where you plan your dinner with a bit of celebratory flair, to go with the programme? It was like that. I remember popping to the butcher's for a rack of lamb to accompany episode seven (roasted pink with a garlic and rosemary crumb, Greek salad on the side: perfect for the hot weather) and thinking, 'This is like lockdown all over again.'
A lot of the joy is down to the performers. I was familiar with only three of them in advance, but those three were Steve Carell, Tina Fey and (in a cameo) Alan Alda. I could probably come up with 10 actors currently alive whom I'd find equally likeable and watchable as those three, but maybe none that I find more so. The sheer pleasure of slipping into these people's company bought enough time to get used to the ones who were unknown to me and, by the end, I loved them all.
If you're happily married, as I think I am, there's additional glee in being reminded how awful divorce must be. If your marriage is wobbly, this might buy you a few more years together, as the view from the parapet is not a pretty one. Steve Carell's character is besotted with his new young girlfriend, but he's required to go skiing with her mindless young chums, can't mention Woody Allen for fear of offence, and has to eat vegan paella. I watched the programme with an anonymous media source whose mind I wouldn't seek to read but, if I did, I would bet that the whole thing acted as a salutary reminder to eat your rack of lamb and be grateful for it. There's no such thing as a free lunch, even a vegan one; as Tina Fey observes, 'Even in a throuple, somebody's got to clean the air fryer.' I can't read your mind either, and I'm probably not even as smart as a smartphone, but I enjoyed this series as much as anything I've seen all year.

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