Life in the Slow Lane

Welcome to late-noughties Britain (as defined by Certain Newspapers)

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:57:44 GMT

Picture the scene. You bravely set foot outside your front door and start walking down the street, stepping over the reams of homeless junkies and avoiding eye contact with the surly youths in hoodies who are congregated on the corner comparing asbos, as a teenage single mother hands her child a spliff to keep him quiet.

Some way down the street, a police officer is shaking money out of a motorist, oblivious to the asylum seeker in his state-funded Mercedes-Benz who speeds by on the way to his luxury council house. His colleague watches two ten-year-olds smashing up a parked car, waiting patiently for them to come of age before he can arrest them. A politically-correct social worker peers over his Guardian from a nearby doorway, ensuring the police aren’t breaking any laws.

Spotting a gang of alcopop-swilling schoolgirls approaching, you avoid a probable mugging by crossing the street and decide to catch the bus, except there’s an Asian youth sat at the back fiddling with his rucksack. He may be about to trigger a bomb, or he may be looking for his college books, but you’d rather not take the risk, so you carry on walking, past the school full of feral children and paedophilic teachers, past the community centre where a lottery-funded gay and lesbian theatre group are busy rehearsing for their revival of Oh! Calcutta, soon to be premiered before an audience of OAPs and children in a controversial double bill with The Romans In Britain, and past the pub full of round-the-clock unemployed binge-drinkers, all of whom have been cruelly deprived of their livelihoods by the Eastern European immigrants who are currently swamping the building site next door, where a twelve-storey 24-hour brothel and mega-casino will soon be replacing a recently-demolished cathedral, proving once and for all that this country has abandoned its traditional values and any notion of morality.

And so on, ad nauseam, repeat until blue in the face, etc…

You’ve probably read the above, or something very much like it, many times. It’s the kind of screeching hyperbole which often appears in Certain Newspapers when they want to scare their readership into believing this country is spiralling uncontrollably into an abyss of crime and misrule, or that we are being swamped by malevolent foreign types who want to destroy not only us but everything we believe in, or even that Boris Johnson, in an uncharacteristic fit of multicultural madness, has backed a proposal for all London boroughs to adopt Sharia Law.

Or you may have heard it in the pub or the workplace, because all of the above is, after all, “common knowledge”. You may even have heard it so many times, you’ve started to believe yourself the often-repeated claim that "we" are becoming marginalized in "our" country and can’t do anything about it unless we vote for one of those straight-up far-right parties who aren’t afraid to tell us the “truth”.

Except, of course, that the “truth” is nothing like the above.

Not that Britain today is necessarily a crime-free, all-inclusive utopia of green, green grass and wide smiles. In fact, of course it isn’t. It certainly has its fair share of social problems. But is it really anything like the lawless, anarchic, mismanaged hellhole Certain Newspapers and their commentators would, for whatever reason, like us to believe?

It’s true that lawless, anarchic hellholes do exist in the world. It’s equally true that Britain almost certainly isn’t one of them, despite the many isolated pockets of social strife which pock-mark the land. But ultimately, and rather boringly, Britain, like most of the world’s developed societies, seems to be sat somewhere very comfortably between utopia and anarchy, which is probably the best we can ever hope for.

How comfortably midway between the two you perceive Britain to be probably depends upon your age, race, class, education and possibly even your choice of newspaper. Not to mention your postcode. It’s reasonable to assume that you are more likely to have experienced at least some serious social problems first-hand if you live in L8 as opposed to, say, KT19. Perception is everything. It is also very individual and entirely dependent on circumstance. Someone from Toxteth is unlikely to have the same values, experiences or social outlook as someone who lives in Epsom.

With this in mind, the suggestion that we should all be striving for one vague common purpose seems a bit daft. One such vague common purpose seems to be the preservation of something called “our Britishness”, “British traditions” or “British values”.

I've often wondered what people actually mean when they talk of “Britishness”, “traditional British values”, “family values”, “traditional moral codes” and other such meaningless generalisations. Is “Britishness” really a tangible quality that we can clearly define in black-and-white terms? Who, after all, is to judge that “traditional British values” are any different from, let alone superior to, traditional French, Japanese or Venezuelan values?

To my mind, the only national characteristic that can be irretrievably associated with the British is probably contradiction. Britain is, if anything, a nation of contradictions: around 75% of British people describe themselves as “Christian”, but only 2% attend church on a regular basis; year on year, our children achieve more high grade GCSEs and A-Levels than previous years, yet employers and universities continue to express alarm at the perceived lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills in school leavers; we want the BBC to be independent, competitive and maintain high production and editorial standards, but we don’t want to give it public money to do this; we bemoan the rising number of teenage pregnancies, but don’t want sex education in our schools… oh, where does it end? Just what the hell do we want?!

Well, while we’re pondering that, perhaps we should consider the biggest contradiction of all: that some of the Certain Newspapers which endlessly espouse the defence of “traditional British values” are owned by an Australian-born American citizen who arguably holds more direct influence over the political direction of this country - a country he neither identifies with nor lives in - than any of the so-called unelected Eurocrats his newspapers so vehemently decry at his behest.

Maybe they’re right, maybe we do need to take this country back. But first, we need to identify the real enemy.

Railing against the zeitgeist... well, someone has to do it!

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:36:51 GMT

Perversely for someone with my left-tilting sensibilities, I'm rather looking forward to the prospect of a Conservative government next year.

Not because I believe for a moment that the Tories have changed into a new, all-inclusive, eminently electable political entity - Christ, I'm not that dumb - nor because I think David Cameron is just the chap to lead Britain into a new strutting era of total Tory dominance. I happen not to think that, which might make me very unfashionable, but there you go.

It's just that, when the Tories are elected back into government next year - as they surely will be, barring some spectacular disaster, like the electorate suddenly waking the fuck up, which doesn't seem likely - it'll be OK for me to hate the government again. And that's something I have so missed over the past 12 years.

I still have very fond memories of that wonderful night in 1997 when Labour swept aside 18 years of Tory rule with one flash of Tony Blair's grin. It was a truly momentous occasion, especially for those of us partial to a bit of schadenfreude. I watched transfixed through the night as government minister after government minister was swept away by the great Blair tsunami, culminating in the still glorious sight of Michael Portillo's smirk remaining firmly fixed on his face, while every other molecule in his body fell on its side like a grandfather clock with an elephant nailed to it. It made the preceding 18 years of hell almost worthwhile.

And next year, we're probably going to see exactly the same thing in reverse. The political map will turn blue, and Labour might not even be returned as the official opposition. Which is sad. But they've only themselves to blame. They promised us so much, and although they initially delivered, they became fatally sidetracked by Iraq and a little too willing to kiss America's arse than was palatable. I'm all for a strong pan-Atlantic alliance, but the Blair-Bush relationship was harrowing to behold. Blair was Waylon Smithers to George W. Bush's Mr Burns, and it embarrassed the nation. Gordon Brown, to his credit, was a little more assertive in his dealings with Bush.

In 1997, I was a Labour supporter, and had been since I was old enough to vote. I'm not any more. But I still don't hate Labour, even though they've long crossed the political centre line, headed rightwards and disappointed the hell out of me. I'm still, I suppose, sympathetic towards them to an extent, even though they haven't had my vote since the invasion of Iraq, like some people continue to follow an old rock band even though it's years since they did anything good and all the dynamic, creative members have long since buggered off.

Likewise, I've always carried a healthy dislike for the Tories. Not because they're posh - Labour's front bench is hardly an advert for social mobility - but because they have always had, along with the poshness, an unpleasant hint of arrogance about them, a sense of entitlement coupled with a total lack of humility. They're the political equivalent of the Australian cricket team - bad losers and even worse winners.

True, Labour have also been very arrogant over the past 12 years, but that's just the arrogance that comes with being in power. When the power is lost, so will the arrogance be. With the Tories, it's inborn. They just don't know how to behave any other way. And the closer they come to being in power, the more unapologetically smug and sneery they become.

David Cameron bleats on about how his new cuddly, touchy-feely Tory party is a world away from the "nasty" party of old. The Tories, he repeatedly insists, have changed. But they haven't, not really. Neither have they needed to; Labour has done the job for them. When the Tories win a landslide victory next year, it won't be because the electorate has any particular faith in them, it will just be because they want to see the back of Labour so much, they will even sup with the same devil who has betrayed them time and time again in the past.

But at least non-Tories like me will once again have a government they can actively despise. I really can't wait, it's too wonderful!

The Accidental Racist?

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:43:54 GMT

Oh lore, here we go again, another hyper-sensitive "BBC Thought Police" row for the Daily Mail to get its belly-warmers in a twist about.

Notwithstanding that, as a journalist and as the daughter of a once-prominent and often controversial politician, Carol Thatcher should know much better than to describe a black tennis player as a "golliwog" under any circumstances, it is the fact that she said it all, irrespective of whether or not it was said "in private", which bothers me. It says a great deal about the woman's upbringing, doesn't it?

In a nutshell, white, middle class and conservative.

And by the time her evil hag of a mother had become Prime Minister, Carol was already an adult and fully socialised within her social stratum. But even so, has her life really been so sheltered that she hasn't learned anything during the last 30 years? Doesn't she watch TV or read newspapers? Hasn't she felt the prevailing winds of change which have shaped social attitudes irrevocably during that time - the sort of social attitudes which have rightly made describing a person of colour as a "golliwog", whether in jest or otherwise, a big no-no?

If she isn't a racist - and I'm perfectly prepared to accept that she isn't - then she must be either very naive or a total bloody idiot. That she said such a crass thing in the green room at Television Centre in front of educated, intelligent people would suggest the latter. And the fact that she still refuses to apologise publicly shows that she has certainly inherited her mother's pig-headed stubbornness.

The golliwog isn't just some harmless anachronism from the recent past which has merely fallen victim to changing fashions and over-sensitive political correctness. It is a very unflattering caricature of black people which has historical connections to minstrelsy and slavery.  That paragon of social equality, Enid Blyton, made the golliwog the villain in her Noddy books - a dark-hearted interloper which would cause trouble and steal at every opportunity. A pretty unambigious metaphor if ever there was one. Thankfully, we've moved on a bit since the 1950s.  Well, some of us have.

The right-wing press is falling over itself to defend Carol Thatcher whilst railing against the BBC's decision to drop her from The One Show (although they are still using her on "other projects"), whining about the "insidious PC culture" and shouting down anyone who dares to suggest that freedom of speech and thought shouldn't extend to casual racism, privately or otherwise.  Which really says everything you need to know about the right-wing press.

The BBC didn't over-react.  Ms Thatcher's remarks were made on BBC property, a workplace, by an employee. The BBC took the same action any other responsible employer would have taken. In the event, I think the BBC has been fairly even-handed.

And if Carol Thatcher hadn't learned anything about modern social attitudes before, she certainly has now.

Politics and Triskaidekaphobia... or the real reason why Gordon Brown is doomed!

Thu, 22 May 2008 11:32:57 GMT

And to think he started off so well, riding on that wonderful wave of post-Blair euphoria which gripped the nation - "Yes, we're finally shot of the grinning lunatic!".  And nobody was more euphoric than Gordon Brown himself. Although we wouldn't have known it, as Gordon doesn't express himself emotionally in quite that way. Or indeed, in any way.

It's nearly a year now since Gordon Brown took the Labour Party leadership unopposed, and thereby the reins of the country, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, surged ahead in the polls, solely on account of his not being Tony Blair and not having a wife with "opinions" and an unfortunate rictus grin.

Against all predictions, the public welcomed Brown as an antidote to a decade of Blairite control freakery and soundbite politics. We knew he was the archetypal "dour" Scotsman, a little lacking in personality, perhaps, and a little cold and aloof - the anti-Blair, in every sense - but on the face of it, a decent bloke and a serious, hard-working politician. It was what we needed after the glitz and showbiz of the Blair years - a return to serious, dull, bread-and-butter politics; we were certain of it. A year down the line, this serious, intellectual side of Brown is now seen as one of his biggest liabilities. How fickle we are...

So Labour is now trailing the Tories by at least 15% in most polls, even those produced by Labour-friendly pollsters.  Labour has been utterly decimated in its heartlands in the recent council elections, the redoubtable Ken Livingstone has lost control of London to a mop-haired fop with no mute button on his gob, and the Tories now look set to win, for the first time in aeons, the former Labour stronghold of Crewe & Nantwich, made vacant by the recent death of Gwyneth Dunwoody, who was a fine example of everything a Labour politician should be if ever there was one. The once fiercely loyal Labour voters of Crewe are so sick of Labour now, even parachuting in Dunwoody's daughter as a candidate won't help them win this formerly safe seat.  It has all gone, to be blunt, tits up, and leaves us facing the very real and depressing prospect of a Conservative government being elected in 2010.

And worst of all, now they have had a sniff of the possibility of power, the Tories now feel confident enough to once again wear that egregious perma-smirk on their faces (think Michael Portillo, circa 1992) which made us despise them so much during the 80s and 90s. Look at David Cameron now, compared to a year ago. A year ago, he looked benign and concerned, now he looks like the cat who not only got the cream, but also stole the milk float. It's unbearable.

It's all very easy to blame Gordon Brown for all of this - in fact, it's the obvious thing to do - but I don't blame him entirely; he's just been unfortunate. The world economic downturn has finally hit these shores, as it was always going to eventually. It just happened on his watch, that's all, so it's "his fault". He's made a few key misjudgments, of course: abolishing the 10p tax band being a particular howler, and, tragically, completely avoidable, and allowing speculation to rise to fever point that he was about to call a snap election last autumn, when he clearly had no intention of doing so. Yes, it was fun watching the Tories squirm and he did panic them into playing all their aces at their party conference, but it was always going to come back and bite Labour in the backside if the public quite liked those aces. Which it did. Now it's David Cameron who is laughing, probably all the way to Downing Street.

But overall, I couldn't honestly say that Brown has been completely useless, although this is indeed the public perception thanks to a mostly hostile press - and even the Guardian has been sticking the boot in recently, so the Labour Party knows it is deeply in the shit. But it's also a case, I think, of a political cycle coming to an inevitable end. Brown is just the innocent victim of an inescapable historical trend. It's the 13 year curse.

In June 2010, the final possible date for the next General Election, Labour will have been in power for 13 years, and 13 years is an absolute eternity in politics. It also generally marks the point where long-serving ruling parties finally run out of steam. Take the Tories of the 1950s and 1960s.  Swept back into power in 1951, by 1964 they were a joke, and not even a very good one. Or more recently, the Thatcher/Major era, 18 years in all. 18 long, hard, depressing years... but remember, Major wasn't meant to win in 1992. The polls told us so. But he did win - just - and presided over another five, fairly ineffectual years as a lame duck, his authority routinely undermined by his own cabinet.  Is this really what Gordon Brown wants? Is it what Labour wants? Might it not actually be beneficial for them to lose in 2010, rather than win narrowly and be emphatically hammered in 2015?  Better to have a few years out of power to regroup and refocus, than spend another 18 years as political pariahs.

Eventually, all ruling parties lose elections, and the longer that party remains in power, then, often, the more decisive the defeat will be. This is why Labour has no chance. They've run out of useful ideas - hell, they used up most of their good ones in their first one-and-a-half Parliaments, before they became fatally distracted by Iraq and gave up benevolent social democracy for rampant authoritarianism. Even in 2003, the tide was starting to turn against them. It doesn't really matter what they do now, public fatigue is Labour's real enemy, and at the moment, the public is just totally, inexorably pissed off with them. It doesn't even matter that the Tories don't have any real alternative policies to offer. Or indeed anything to offer except a smug leader who has read Tony Blair's Big Book of Making Yourself Palatable to the Electorate.

Brown is fucked, Labour is fucked, and so are we. But that's politics.

An inconsequential gripe... but hell, that's what life's all about!

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:25:08 GMT

At the risk of sounding like Charlie Brooker, this week I will be mostly having a pop at television channel branding.

My problem is this: on a Saturday evening, if I'm able to resist the lure of the pub, which these days I increasingly am, as my local has gone down the toilet to such an extent that I now consider it a personal triumph if I emerge with most of my teeth and both ears still attached, I usually just order a pizza, open a bottle of red and stare at something on the telly like UKTV G2, which is really just like UKTV Gold, but with more bad language and less Only Fools And Horses. It's like BBC2 on a Friday night from about three years ago, as that seems to be where it plucks most of its programmes from. Which, if you like the sort of TV shows I do, is by and large a Good Thing.

From Monday, G2 will be called "Dave". Not "UKTV Dave", or "DaveTV" (which I'm sure is only because David Lee Roth had it copyrighted), but just "Dave". I find this a little worrying.

UKTV's reasoning behind this bizarre nomenclature is that "everybody knows someone called Dave". They claim it will be more palatable to the 16-34 male demographic which, they claim, is not catered for very well on the digital platform. Well quite... I mean, there's only BBC3, Bravo, Men & Motors, Movies 4 Men and similar fare for the Nuts-reading members of society.

The last thing I thought was required on digital TV was another lads channel. Heigh ho. But UKTV insists there is a need here, and so have affirmed their desire to cater for this demographic, with the alluring promise of more re-runs of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps in order to create a really strong brand. And part of that brand creation apparently involves renaming the channel "Dave".

So, "Dave", eh?

Which (hopefully soon-to-be-collecting-their-P45) creative genius came up with that one? It all seems a bit 90s to me, not to mention a little desperate, and wreaks of trying a little too hard to say, 'Hey, we're all bonkers mad, we are! Look, we've called our channel "Dave", hur hur!'

The point being, if you have to tell people you're a bit wacky, zany and offbeat, then you are probably anything but wacky, zany and offbeat, and more likely to be deathly dull and saner than a pair of carpet slippers.

"The home of witty banter" indeed.

Not that I want to judge the channel before it begins. G2 is currently one of my favourite digital channels, but as it seems that the programme line-up is going to be broadly similar to what it is now, I doubt that I or many other viewers will be fleeing in horror, despite the stupid name.

But just for the record, the "16-34 male demographic" needs more re-runs of Two Pints... like it needs nails up its backside - and BBC3 already seems to have that particular base covered anyway. The re-runs of Two Pints..., that is, not nails up the backside... anyway...

UKTV says it needs to create a "strong brand", which suggests that they don't think G2 is, but I thought the UKTV family was already a very strong brand. They're certainly among the most watched channels on the digital platform, anyway, and with the pick of the cream of recent BBC programmes, why shouldn't they be? It's a dreadful cliché, but I think the old adage of "If it ain't broke..." is particularly apt here. The whole concept of "Dave" screams "gimmick" to me, and rather than suggest a strong brand, is more like a throwaway gag that will wear very thin, very quickly.

Another thing I don't think UKTV have considered is what happens when/if David "Call Me Dave" Cameron becomes Prime Minister and Dave becomes the least cool name on the planet... after all, nobody is queueing up to call their TV channel "Tony" or "Gordon"... Also, will other UKTV channels be changing their names to suit their supposed demographics? Will Gold be renamed "Barbara", for example? Or will we see Documentary become "Bob"? I mean, where will it all end?!

It's good to see that the channel is going on Freeview, though. It's just a shame that UKTV has decided to shoot itself in the foot to celebrate...

And it's just a thought, but history has shown that when niche channels like this get a dramatic revamp, they usually end up on the scrapheap within a year...

But hey - prove me wrong, guys, prove me wrong!

Satire - gone but not forgotten

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:34:21 GMT

I'm wondering this merry morning what has happened to satire. In an age when we have any number of juicy targets just ripe for a satirical plucking, there seems to be little desire to attack. Where the British used to be defined by their rude, anarchic and seditious sense of humour, they now seem to be increasingly defined by their vapid timidity and unwillingness to take the bull by the horns, wrestle it to the ground and give it a good buggering. Is this what ten years of the Blair-Brown hegemony has done to us?

There are some who believe the British have lost their satirical edge because modern comedians have lost their balls. I don't know if that's really the case - maybe they just don't see the point in satire any more. Part of the problem, as I see it, is that our society has actually gone beyond satire. It's just impossible to take the piss, because so much in modern society simply defies belief - the Blair years have just drained us of all resistance! Satire is no longer effective as a critical tool because so much of it is just stating the bleedin' obvious.

The satire boom of the 80s did help create a political culture where it was harder to "get away with it", but all this ultimately did was give us a defiantly hard-nosed breed of politician who doesn't really care if he gets away with it or not, so long as he makes a few quid in the process. But it isn't just politics. Popular culture has also gone beyond the pale.

The sort of TV and news programmes we get today are eerily similar to those Chris Morris was making some 10-12 years ago. It seems that somebody in TV realised that the most effective way to undermine satire is to actually make TV which confirms the worst fears of the satirists. Although with that said, with the current problems at the BBC and other broadcasters regarding honesty, the chickens might finally be coming home to roost. I won't hold my breath, though.

20 years ago, when Spitting Image was at its most brutal, the public actually took an interest in politics and current affairs - due in part to shows like Spitting Image, which was not only funny and entertaining, but also made the audience think. The ordinary Joe in the street at least knew who the main political players were, even if they didn't have an interest in politics. This isn't the case today. The public at large has become increasingly disengaged from politics which, as far as most politicans are concerned, is all well and dandy, as public apathy helps preserve the status quo and keeps the gravy train on the rails.

Meanwhile, we have sleepwalked into a new puritan age where our nannies in Westminster pass legislation to regulate our behaviour in every way. Because it's for our own good, naturally. Yes, these are the things that satirists should attacking, but frankly, in today's political climate, who is going to listen?

All we have now is Private Eye, which for years has been as smug and complacent as those it purports to mock.

It all makes me want to stand outside the Houses of Parliament and moon furiously. Except these days, I'd probably get a bullet up my arse for my trouble.

The obligatory and sadly predictable "Room 101" entry

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 08:12:27 GMT

There comes a time in every blog when, usually because the blogger is utterly bereft of intelligent or original ideas, there has to be an entry like this. I apologize in advance. But it is a jolly cathartic process. To the uninitiated, in George Orwell's 1984, "Room 101" is the place where "the worst thing in the world" is kept. And with that being the case, I'd like to nominate the following:

Mayonnaise: This is, without a doubt, the most repulsive substance known to humankind, and releasing the stench of it near me is still the most effective way of getting me to leave the room. It has the look, texture, smell and taste of baby's vomit (and yes, I have tasted baby's vomit) and does absolutely nothing for any food you care to drown in it. But what I hate most is, when I order a sandwich in a cafe or snack bar, they insist on squirting a huge dollop of the stuff on it, even when I specifically ask them not to. Evidently, there's some huge mayo mountain in the world which needs to be depleted asap...

The films of John Hughes: Does this really need an explanation?

Cornwall: Or more specifically, the Cornish people. Nothing wrong with a little local prejudice. Especially against this bunch of inbred malcontents who think they're a country just because they have their own language (a dead tongue, spoken by about three people, which is actually just a bastardised version of Welsh with a Cornish accent). And I fail to see why a county should be celebrated just because it can't make pies properly. Enough of this seditious "independence" talk - send in the troops!

The Daily Mail: This psychopathic snotrag which masquerades as a "newspaper" really only hates three things: the working class, The BBC and "The Left", an apparently omniscient and shadowy collective which encompasses anything or anyone who believes in racial and/or sexual equality, inclusivity, diversity, multiculturalism, progressive or social democratic values, tolerance and compassion, and will find any excuse, no matter how tenuous, to attack them all. Often at the same time. Basically, if you're not a white middle class conservative, you're the Enemy and on a cynical crusade to undermine Traditional British Values, whatever the yellow buggery flip they are. Makes Fox News look fair and balanced.

Celebrity offspring becoming famous: There should be a UN resolution banning the children of celebrities from becoming celebrities themselves. If you disagree, I have only this to say: Kelly Osbourne. There. You see? Not very nice is it? In the old days, celebrity offspring used to just live happily on their parents' wealth and stay the hell out of the limelight, aside from a few innocuous tabloid stories when they inevitably went into rehab in their teens. But that was all, and it rarely got too out of hand. Now, as well as going into rehab, which I suppose is their god-given right as spoilt brats, they feel it necessary to inflict themselves on the public as actors, pop-stars, artists, fashion designers or anything else that doesn't actually involve getting a proper job. I suppose the only positive thing that comes of this is that they prove conclusively that talent is very rarely hereditary. It's a tragic fact, but for every Liza Minnelli, you get 250,000 Lily Allens. Go figure.

OK, that's it. I'm all better now.

Splitters!

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 09:00:16 GMT

The Cornish National Liberation Army. Sounds like something out of Monty Python, doesn't it? I suppose because we generally view the Cornish as being quite a jolly, welcoming and, above all, unthreatening bunch, we can't imagine that there might be some malcontents down there who resent "foreign" investments in their "country" to the extent that they will make threats to destroy such interloping enterprises.

I know I shouldn't really poke fun, and I know the police take these threats very seriously, whether they are made by some crackpot fringe group or by bona fide terrorists, but I couldn't help laughing when I heard about the CNLA's threats to burn down Rick Stein's restaurant and attack anyone displaying the "imperialist and tainted" St George flag.

I just can't, for the life of me, imagine a Cornish terrorist. I mean, what can we expect from this committed band of lunatics... sorry, nationalists? Will we be checking our Ginsters pasties for suspect devices? Should we anticipate the prospect of suicide morris dancers at our village fetes? I mean, where will it all end?

I must confess to a slight prejudice here as I am Devon born and bred and, as you might imagine, we proud Devonians don't enjoy the best of relations with our bolshy neighbours from across the Tamar. Indeed, living as I do in Plymouth, we have a large amount of Cornish immigrants who cross the Tamar Bridge in their droves in search of work, new-fangled electronic gadgetry and other brightly-coloured trinkets, or just a good night out. I've always considered it significant that, when crossing the Tamar Bridge, you have to pay get into Devon, but not the other way around.

Having visited Cornwall on many occasions, frankly, I don't like the place at all, and will always avoid going there if at all possible.  There's nothing they have that we don't have here in Devon (apart from some insane belief that they're not part of England): sandy beaches, rugged moorland, tranquil countryside, picturesque working harbours, fine real ales, cream teas, effeminate blacksmiths waving hankies about in village squares, rampant property prices, we've got the lot.

In fact, I've always been of the opinion that Cornwall should have been towed out into the Atlantic and left to its own devices years ago. If you're coming down this way on your hols, save your petrol and give Cornwall a miss. It's a dump.

But enough of my blatant racism.

The CNLA are, I think, in their dangerously haphazard manner, attempting to make a serious point about locals being priced out of the area by no-good townies. I know, because we have exactly the same problem in Devon. In fact, the problem is rife in picturesque regions up and down the country.  The only difference is that we in Devon haven't threatened to torch local businesses owned by "outsiders". There is a fine line to be drawn here. Outside investment in any area's economy should be welcomed, but we should also protect, where necessary, our local product and heritage. And as for property prices, it seems unfair that in an area that has some of the lowest wages in the country, coupled with the highest council tax and water charges, property prices are being kept unfairly high by wealthy townies who buy up charming little cottages in picturesque villages up and down the region, and leave them standing empty for most of the year.

What's happening in Cornwall and Devon, in fact, is a microcosm of a problem that the whole country is facing. The problem being that, in modern Britain, everything is for sale to the highest bidder, wherever they may come from, and when you establish that kind of free market economy, you will find very quickly that the local product, once cheap and widely available, has become prohibitively expensive and rarer than a wrinkle on Joan Collins' arse. Hence, we start relying more and more on cheap imports, while the indigenous producers, unable to compete, all go down the pan one by one.

While the CNLA may well be a bunch of single-agenda fringe loonies, the point they are making needs to be seriously addressed.

I don't care if Nanny does know best, she can still fuck off and mind her own bloody business!

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:15:06 GMT

I'll be 35 in four days. And as such, I feel I am now old enough to make certain decisions on my own and preferably without governmental interference: if I want to fill my body with various poisons, carcinogens and saturated fats, then why in the sacred name of Keith Richards shouldn't I? I may, in future, become a burden on the NHS as a result, but as a payer of income tax and national insurance, I consider that my right. Although, obviously, that's far from my intention.

These days we all have the information at our fingertips to make an intelligent and mature decision, we all know what's good for us and what's bad for us, we all know exactly what we should have more of and what we should ease off a bit. Most people, I think, are like me in that they spend their lives trying to perform a complex balancing act between doing what's good for them and what they enjoy.

Some don't manage it and end up going too far one way or the other: the lazy, obese, chain-smoking alcoholics among us are really the flip-side of the same coin as the ultra-obsessive teetotaller who eats nothing but carrots and sesame seeds and jogs to work. We can all sometimes go too far one way or the other. The trick is catching ourselves before we topple into ill-health and insanity.

I'd normally applaud the fact that we have a government which takes public health seriously. Hike up taxes on ciggies, alcohol and fatty foods and I, for one, wouldn't complain too bitterly. Accepting that what they were trying to achieve was for the common good, I would pay the extra tax on my guilty pleasures good naturedly (albeit through gritted teeth). It's no biggy. It seems that this, however, is no longer enough. We appear to have sleepwalked into a new puritan age, where every such pleasure is frowned upon with a disapproving cluck from our nannies in Westminster.

Take the smoking ban in public places. I, for one reason or another, have never smoked in my life. Now this, you might think, would give me cause to be a little smug about smoking being verboten in pubs from July 1st. But no, I'm totally opposed to the ban. I'm not one of those odious non-smokers who, if someone lights up nearby, sighs, tuts and wafts the smoke away in an overly-histrionic manner that would put Larry Olivier to shame.  Cigarette smoke has never bothered me. Probably because almost everyone I know and care about smokes like a chimney.

I may be odd, but I like a pub to have a smoky atmosphere. It gives a pub an intangible quality of pubness that makes one proud to be a British drunkard.  I like walking into that yellowy-grey gloom and taking a deep breath. That thick hum of fags and beer - it's what pubs are all about. OK, there are downsides.  It makes your clothes smell like, well, a pub. But I do wash my clothes from time to time. I advise others to do so - it really makes a difference. And passive smoking is, I suppose, a potentially serious problem, but then so is inhaling traffic fumes every time I walk down the street. Everywhere you go, some selfish bastard is trying to poison you. At least in the pub, you can enjoy yourself while they do it.

But not any more, alas. The Nanny-General, our illustrious health secretary Patricia Hewitt - who strikes me as a woman who probably hasn't set foot in a pub since she was a student - has seen to that.  Thanks to her, English pubs will now smell, if reports from Scotland and Ireland are to be believed, like body odour and farts. Mmm, lovely.

And on the subject of alcohol, just where the fuck does this government get off warning those of us who drink wine in, I might add, the privacy of our own homes, that we may be damaging our health and that we really should consider cutting down, as more than two bottles of wine a week might exceed the government's recommended ingestion of alcohol units, which is, I think, 21.  21 units of alcohol a week?!  Do I look like a fucking monk?! If I want a couple of glasses of the old vino when I get home from a hard day's taxpaying, then that's what I will jolly well have, with or without the express approval of Her Majesty's government.

Look, just fuck off guys, OK? I know you mean well, and that's very sweet of you, but just fuck the fuck off, you fucking fuckers. You should focus your do-gooding goggles towards the more immediate problem of those 18-24 year olds who feel they can't have a good night out without downing 37 Red Bull and vodkas and kicking someone's head in. I've half a mind to join them, just to piss Nanny Hewitt off. And it's a long time since I felt solidarity with an 18-24 year old.

But for all our government's obsessive nannying, we've still got a long way to go before we match our American cousins, who have turned this neo-puritanism into an artform. In Virginia last week, a mother was given two years in prison for giving her 20-year-old son and some of his friends a few beers (in the USA, you have to be 21 to drink alcohol). I mean, what?!!

Honestly, it's enough to turn you to heroin.

Another Eurovision post-mortem!

Mon, 14 May 2007 10:17:26 GMT

Another year, another British Eurovision disaster! I know it's only Eurovision, and we all claim not to take it very seriously, but as the nation that gave the world the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zep, et al, a defeat as bad as this one - joint second last, for fuck's sake! - still smarts a bit.

There are lots of possible reasons for the failure of Scooch, a bunch of desperately camp 1990s also-rans who weren't particularly popular in their day, to win over the hearts and minds of Europe.

Was it because the rest of Europe hates the UK? Possibly, but for some reason they hated Ireland - indisputably Europe's favourite nation - even more.

Was it the former Eastern Bloc nations voting for each other? Undoubtedly, but that still doesn't explain such a poor points tally.

Was it a particularly bad song? Yes, but no worse than many of its rivals, to be honest. Including the winner, which was unspeakable.

No, the blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of the great British public, as it was they who decided which song should represent the UK in the first place. I mean, they could have had Justin Hawkins. OK, so he probably wouldn't have won either - even the Beatles themselves wouldn't have been able to penetrate the muddle of prejudice and politics that is the Eurovision Song Contest - but at least it would have given us a laugh. And, as we saw with Finland's victory with that bizarre goth-metal act last year, stranger things have happened.

The trouble with letting the British public decide these things is that the British public can sometimes be a little bit naughty when it comes to phone-in polls. We Brits have a very keen sense of irony, and will often vote for the funniest/stupidest/campest act, rather than the best. Which is fine, as long as we don't expect the song to win.

It was the British public, remember, who voted for Michelle McManus as the winner of Pop Idol a few years back. They didn't vote for her because they particularly liked her, they voted for her because she weighed about forty stone and they wanted to see just how the hell self-proclaimed pop genius Simon Cowell was going to market that one! You see, that's what we're like. A bit naughty.

A new strategy is called for. Firstly, we should enter without the expectation of winning - that sort of snooty arrogance has always been our problem in the past.

Secondly, don't let the British public decide on the song. That way defeat lies. Just get a panel of music writers, journalists, producers and respected musicians to choose a song. So whatever happens, we'll know it's a good 'un.

Finally, get an artist who actually understands the concept of Eurovision to perform the song.  Justin Hawkins gets it. So does Morrissey. I'd also like to suggest someone like Right Said Fred, who are both camp and funny, and have never been so vain as to take themselves seriously. Or maybe some long-forgotten chart star like Adam Ant or Shakin' Stevens. Failing that, we should just go for the jugular with Iron Maiden or Motorhead.

Yeah, that'd show 'em!

I didn't know blogs were such high maintenance!

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:11:48 GMT

10 months. A long time. I mean, who would have thought ten months ago that we'd be on the verge of war with Iran... oh, yeah, right. Sorry. But you get the point.

I've decided to get back into the habit. Writers' block, you see. Maybe if I write periodic drivel on this blog thing of mine, I can get back into the flow. Thankfully, blogging has now become a much scorned and derided pastime, so I don't feel quite so bad about doing it. I've never been one for following fashion. Late adopter, that's me. I didn't even get on t'internet at home until 2001.

It had been on my "to do" list from about 1994, but what with being at university (where web access was gratis and unchecked) and battling that apparently normal twentysomething urge to destroy myself with alcohol and saturated fats, it wasn't until 2001 that I finally decided to make use of one of those millions of AOL discs that had been falling through my letterbox with much regularity.

After the initial buzz of having oodles of pornography at my fingertips had worn off, and the novelty value of email had turned into an irritation thanks to the army of spammers who still haven't realised that nobody wants to buy their knocked off Viagra, or allow their bank account to be used to shift the mysterious fortune of some fallen Nigerian nobleman in return for a handsome cut of the proceeds, I quickly settled into the lull of trawling message boards and blogs for some sign of life.

And so here I am.

Again.

So, farewell then, TOTP...

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:44:14 GMT

So it's official then. Top Of The Pops is no more.

Hardly a surprise, really. The BBC has been looking for an excuse to quietly axe TOTP for years. So they did the only thing they could do. They moved it from its still moderately successful BBC1 Thursday evening pre-Eastenders slot to a Friday evening slot directly opposite Coronation Street, where it would naturally be trounced in the ratings and allow the Beeb to claim that the show was "failing".

Having done this, they stick the knife in further by putting Andi Peters in charge of the show (this was always going to be the kiss of death - it's like putting the school geek in charge of the end-of-term disco), and give it the dreaded "relaunch" treatment.

Finally, they move it to some dead Sunday evening slot on BBC2. It's a classic example of how to successfully kill a long-running programme with as little fuss as possible.

But realistically, it probably had to go. TOTP as an institution only really has any resonance with those people who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, which was a time when music was, for the most part, actually quite interesting, and music on TV was itself quite hard to come by. But in an age when most teenagers can access any type of music they wish on any number of dedicated TV channels or via the internet, there's no real role for TOTP anymore.

The whole notion of the Top 40 singles chart (or "Hit Parade" as my dad still calls it) is also out-of-date. And because the record companies have shown time and time again that the charts can be very easily manipulated, any value they once may have held as a reliable indicator of the public's music taste has long since dissipated. The only thing the charts indicate today is which record company has the most effective marketing department.

Even in its "golden" era, despite the occasional token venture outside the mainstream, most of the acts featured on TOTP were safe and bland, while the presenters were generally goofy and clueless, like embarrassing dads trying to "get down" with the kids. And, good god, the audience - where did they get them from? TOTP's biggest problem was that, despite numerous, increasingly desperate facelifts, it never really changed.

OK, so the eternal teenager in me is maybe a little sad to see TOTP go, but my 34-year-old present self can see why the BBC has made the decision it has. Nothing lasts forever - and in pop music, a medium which by its nature is very NOW, that has always, painfully, been the case.

Enough with the remakes already!

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 03:14:45 GMT

I’m not an expert on cinema by any means, but I know what I hate. The movies of Tom Hanks, for example. “Zany” comedies starring Steve Guttenburg. Cute movies with cute kids doing cute things in a really cute way. The sort of self-conscious, self-referential bile that Woody Allen spews up every couple of years. Anything directed by John Hughes.

All of these are, I’m sure you’ll agree, thoroughly unpleasant and best avoided at all times. But they all pale into insignificance next to my main Hollywood gripe: remakes. Oh yes, remakes. With the obvious exception of Hugh Grant, there is nothing in the world of cinema which is more lazy, more insulting to the intelligence, more one-dimensional, more market-led and more utterly pointless.

For many years now, Hollywood has established itself as the place where good ideas go to die. But times have changed. In the Hollywood of old, good ideas were generally Hilti-gunned to the floor, buggered senseless, skinned, gutted, buggered again and left for dead by a succession of feckless producers who were convinced that this was what the public wanted.

But that’s not enough for the current generation of vile movie-making monsters, oh no.

In today’s more brutal, more cynical and more shallow Hollywood, many of these already-ravaged ideas are being resurrected and put through the process again. It doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s cruel, it’s heartless, it should probably be illegal. But what can you do?

I’m somewhat lost as to the actual point of remakes, other than the obvious financial advantages, and the relative ease of presenting the audience with a text it usually already knows inside out.

I’ve always believed that if a film is good, then surely that’s it, job done - a remake is unnecessary. If a film is bad, then it would be a very cocksure producer who would commission a remake. Who, after all, wants to see another version of a film that was crap in the first place? If it was based on a reasonable idea that was just badly executed, then a remake could, perhaps, be justified, but in those rare cases, such films are generally given completely new titles, settings and storylines and generally evolve into something which only the most obsessive film-buff would recognise as being in anyway related to the original disaster.

Remakes bother me. Not because I'm some prissy film buff who believes the "classics" should be left untampered with (although most of them should), but simply because they convince me that more interesting and creative ideas are being shoved aside in favour of the easy money. Nothing new there, of course - movies are expensive to make, and studios want a return on their investment. But how long can this go on for? Until every film ever made has a new version, when the cycle will start all over again?

OK, rant over... I'm going to bed now.

The Facility of Slebdom

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 02:25:42 GMT

As we edge ever further towards our self-dug cultural chasm, with grades of celebrity now having exceeded the number of letters in the alphabet, and with Andy Warhol’s off-hand prophecy seemingly about to prove itself true, I have recently been forced to wonder where there is left to go but over the edge, into the pit of our own ignorance, our own laziness and our own sad obsession with mindless trivia: “Lifestyles of the rich and pointless”.

Whatever happened to the concept of dedication plus hard work equals success? Why is nobody toiling in the mines of creativity trying to hack out nuggets of that commodity we used to call “talent” until Jade Goody came along and proved to the world that it was no longer required? Result: any complete arse with half a brain-cell can now become famous with the minimum of effort, talent, charisma and similar criteria which used to be the basic requirements of fame, but which are now redundant.

More than three years after her appearance on Big Brother, that ultimate showcase for the terminal attention-seeker (and which she didn’t even win, for god’s sake), Jade is still making a decent living as a “celebrity” - opening supermarkets, attending premieres, appearing on chat shows and all the media-whoring rest of it. And what did she do to deserve this lifestyle? Simple: she made herself a national laughing stock, and had us all falling about at the sheer breadth of her ignorance, as she spewed out the kind of crass remarks which should stand as a damning indictment of the state education system.

Of course, it would be immensely unfair to blame Jade entirely for this state of affairs. In fact, it’s difficult not to feel sorry for the poor lass. She is but a mere cog in the whole infernal celebrity machine. In fact, not even a cog, more a ball-bearing. But she still remains the most potent example we have of how “celebrities” with nothing to offer the world but their mere desire for fame and adulation can succeed.

Fame used to be a by-product of possessing a talent. And while there have always been those who have sought it at any price, most people who achieve fame generally accept it more as an occupational hazard, rather than the pinnacle of their ambition. Recognition from their peers or those few critics who know their onions is more than enough. If that recognition comes with a little bit of money, then all the better. But for such people, fame or great financial reward is not the point.

Sadly, people who do what they do for the sheer love of it are becoming increasingly rare. The pursuit of fame is more aggressive today than it has ever been. Neither can I ever remember a time when celebrities have been treated with such reverence by the public. Nothing massages a celeb’s ego more than being made to feel important. I’m certain that the only reason some people want fame is to be able to have a hissy fit in Sainsbury’s. I imagine they practice every day in the mirror; demanding “Don’t you know who I am, peasant?!” is a skill that must be finely honed. But once they get there, they know there is a vibrant marketplace just waiting to follow their every move and report it to the adoring hordes.

Celebrity mags such as Heat sell by the bucketload, as people eagerly devour every aspect of their favourite celeb’s private life. Tabloid newspapers will happily devote two pages to a few blurred, long-range photos of some minor TV actress sunbathing with her tits out. Last Christmas in the USA, the marriage split of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston took the Asian tsunami off the front pages. Nothing like putting things in perspective, huh? I mean, sure, the tsunami was a terrible thing, but Brad and Jenny splitting up was a disaster of truly global proportions. I’m not sure if we’ll ever recover.

The fact that we live in such an arse-paralysingly shallow society is, of course, the root of the problem. People want status, and, in their eyes, there is no greater status than fame, with which can come recognition and adulation. But, unlike in the past, while people have such aspirations, they don’t necessarily want to spend too much time and effort realising them. Luckily for them, the current celebrity culture does most of the work for them. Anyone can become famous if they’re superficial and shameless enough. TV is currently saturated with reality shows, talent shows and even morbid combinations of the two.

Talent shows are hardly a recent phenomenon, of course. For Pop Idol and The X-Factor, read New Faces and Opportunity Knocks. There really is very little difference, apart from the sort of person who appears on them. I called them talent shows, but of course, they are really non-talent shows, as talent doesn’t appear to be the dominant factor when deciding on a winner. And of course, irritatingly, even the losers can become famous. But that’s just the British way - Eddie Edwards, anyone?

Yes, it’s very easy to become famous. Whether you appear on a reality TV show or simply shag a failing TV presenter and sell your story to the tabloids, fame, that holy grail of modern society, is within the grasp of everyone who wants it. The real trick - one which catches out a great many people - is remaining famous once your allotted 15 minutes is up and the cruelly fickle public tires of your antics. With fame being so easily obtainable these days, inevitably, careers are much shorter, and there really is nothing sadder than somebody who has outstayed their time in the limelight.

But even fading celebs get a break occasionally, and the number of reality shows featuring has-beens is increasing rapidly, as they desperately try to rekindle their flagging careers. Curiously enough, many of these has-beens are themselves former reality show contestants. But these shows are very revealing: basically, they operate on the premise that these are desperate people who will do anything to retain their slight celebrity status, even if it means wanking off a pig, eating a kangaroo’s bollock or being endlessly insulted by a foul-mouthed chef. Ah, dignity, the great leveller…

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly the moment when popular culture finally went tits-up - or should that be tits out? - but not entirely impossible. Of course, we’ve all become so accustomed to this fervent worship at the altar of celebrity that nothing in these post-ironic times is surprising anymore. But I think I have successfully isolated the moment where our obsession with celebrity reached its nadir.

Sometime in 2004, ITV commissioned what I view as a landmark programme in the relationship between celebs and those who encourage them. This programme was called, I kid you not, The Celebrity of the Year Awards, sponsored by, if you will, OK! Magazine. And no, I didn’t dream it, this programme did actually exist. Here’s a link to prove it. To be honest, I wish I had dreamt it, I’d feel a lot less queasy than I do at the moment. Yes, I know we’ve all sat back and laughed at the Oscars, BAFTAS, Grammys, etc, denouncing them as the exercises in public mutual masturbation that they assuredly are, but this one really knocked me for six. I mean, giving people awards simply for being famous? Voted for, of course, by those evil collaborators known as the Great British Public, a group from which I wish to disassociate myself forthwith.

Do you recall, I wonder, that cheesy, but strangely watchable 1980s TV drama Fame, set in a stage school, where an impromptu song-and-dance number was just around the corner, even if it meant messing up the dining hall, holding up the traffic or disrupting the relative calm of a musical instrument store? In the opening titles of said televisual atrocity, the students are seen being haughtily warned by a teacher that “fame costs, and right here’s where you start paying.” Sage counsel indeed. Because, yes, fame does cost. But I fear it is we, in a cultural sense, who are paying.

Fifty Years of the Light Channel

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 01:29:53 GMT

I wonder if you’ve been watching, as I have, ITV’s self-congratulatory documentary series celebrating its 50^th birthday, called, if you have a sedative handy, The Story Of ITV: The People’s Channel? Probably not, it is on rather late on a Sunday evening after all, and I know that Sunday is by far the busiest night for brothels.

If you have, by virtue of some fortunate accident (or pressing engagement with a prostitute), missed this televisual delight, I’ll fill you in. Every week, a very unconvinced-looking Melvyn Bragg waffles on about how important, innovative, unique, creative and pretty damn brilliant ITV is. Or actually that should be was, because there is curiously little about ITV’s recent years, and barely a mention of Ultimate Force or Celebrity Wrestling. But then I suppose a retrospective programme about a TV network should celebrate past glories, especially when the network in question hasn’t made anything remotely worth watching for the best part of 15 years.

Watching broadcasting luminaries like Michael Grade and Greg Dyke waffle on about the “merits” of shows like Game For A Laugh and Blind Date is an oddly disturbing experience, because they tend to skirt around the obvious fact that, although these shows, and others like them, were utterly awful, they were nevertheless immensely popular and made the network lots of money which, for ITV, is the whole point of its existence: it’s a commercial network, so the more viewers it pulls in, the more it can charge advertisers. It’s not complicated. Get to the point, gents.

However, once you’ve sifted through all the self-promoting bullshit, the thinly veiled sideswipes against the stuffy old BBC, the sycophantic talking heads (including, naturally, that ultimate champion of the lowest common denominator, a London cabbie) and similarly egregious masturbatory waffle, there is definitely something approaching a useful and interesting documentary series here. Obviously, the presence of Lord Bragg, the sole face of ITV’s minimal arts coverage for nearly 30 years, adds a little gravitas, so it’s a lot less hideous than it could have been - it could, after all, have been presented by Ant and Dec instead. And ITV’s history is pretty much the history of British TV itself, which, if we’re honest, didn’t really come to life until 1955, when this new-fangled commercial network challenged the BBC’s monopoly. Even though its days of creativity and innovation are long gone, for good or ill, ITV has done much to define the shape, look and tone of mainstream British broadcasting over the past 50 years.

But the series is also very contradictory in that, when it correctly identifies some of ITV’s former strengths, such as its strong commitment to regional and public service broadcasting, and the high quality of much-missed current affairs strands like World In Action and This Week, it neglects to mention that, a) ITV doesn’t do this sort of thing any more, and b) the present management at ITV has been given enough concessions regarding its regional, public service and current affairs commitments by its friends at Ofcom to ensure that ITV won’t be doing this sort of thing ever again. Yes folks, from now on it’s nothing but lowbrow, high-revenue barrel-scraping all the way. And you thought that ITV was cheap and nasty before…

When ITV began, it was something akin to the BBC’s younger, sluttish, illegitimate half-sister; trashy, popular and a good bet for cheap and easy entertainment, the television equivalent of a quick knee-trembler in an alleyway. It was unashamedly populist, not to mention flashy, vulgar and wealthy. But that’s really all ITV was created to do: entertain the masses and make a shedload of cash in the process, much to the disdain of the government and broadcasting authorities, which began to wonder about the true nature of this monster they had created. By the time the full network had been established in the early 1960s, ITV programmes were dominating the ratings and most of the ITV companies were making almost embarrassing profits, despite the occasional windfall tax. ITV was a veritable golden goose, a licence to print money, as one early ITV boss sagely described it. It was therefore inevitable that the more sensible, publicly-funded BBC would eventually have to imitate ITV in order to justify its annual dividend from the public purse, which is why ITV and BBC1 have been virtually indistinguishable since the mid-1960s.

ITV’s strident populism worked for the network for a very long time. ITV recognised that viewers wanted to be entertained, rather than educated or informed (contrary to the BBC‘s rather pompous Reithian ethos), and this certainly played a part in forcing the BBC to take tentative and often embarrassing steps towards more popular programming. And let’s be honest, even those who like to snootily dismiss ITV as shameless purveyors of worthless tat can’t deny that they produced some pretty damn classic TV in the 1960s and early 1970s, much of which was produced by Lew Grade’s big-budget production arm, ITC, which made pretty much all the programmes that ITV sold for worldwide syndication back in its heyday, including The Avengers, The Saint, The Prisoner, Thunderbirds, Space 1999, The Muppet Show and several billion others. Many of these series have a worldwide cult following to this day, unlike ITV’s more recent output, much of which history has rightly forgotten. And it is interesting to note that, astonishingly, despite its great wealth and success in the fields of drama and light entertainment, ITV has never been able to produce a remotely watchable comedy series. Well, no more than two a decade, tops.

Where ITV has consistently gone wrong over the past 25 years or so, however, is that it has systematically gone about destroying those things that made it strong in the first place. And, clearly, it has been guilty of insulting the intelligence of its viewers for many years. Of course, television as a whole has dumbed down considerably over the past 25 years or so, and it would be uncharitable to accuse ITV alone of this sin. But somehow, every time it looked like the barrel was finally empty, ITV has always somehow managed to scrape out another spoonful of shit. And things don’t look like improving for as long as they insist on allowing Ant and Dec and Cat Deeley to front their prime-time entertainment. It’s the old Anthea Turner conundrum: do people watch the programme for the format or the presenter? Popular shows like Stars In Their Eyes could be presented by a puddle of creosote and people would watch it.

Or would they? ITV has always boasted, and continues to boast, that it knows its audience better than any other channel, and knows the sort of programmes its audience wants to see. But it’s clear that ITV’s faithful audience is finding its entertainment elsewhere at present, that elsewhere very often being the BBC, which in contrast, has had a pretty good few years, the Hutton Whitewash aside. In its 50^th year, for perhaps the first time since its early years, ITV is struggling to attract the very audience it has always relied upon. And while the big-budget shows are still there, the big names are still there and that bold, brassy ITV cockiness is still there, something doesn’t seem quite right. So what’s happened?

What’s happened, simply, is that ITV finally has everything its own way: since 2004, it has been one unified corporation, rather than fifteen independent companies; it has a much-reduced regional identity and a single corporate on-screen image; it has reduced public service, current affairs and arts obligations, allowing room for more popular and profitable programming; it has wangled reduced restrictions and responsibilities from both the government and broadcasting regulators. The problem is that these elements that ITV has tried so hard to shed over the years, are exactly what used to make the network strong. ITV may, in fact, have slaughtered its golden goose. What the ITV management wrongly believed were restrictive practices were, in fact, a little quality assurance for its viewers. And now, it would appear, the people are voting with their thumbs and deserting their self-appointed channel in droves.

Someone ought to make a documentary about that.

That's Entertainment?

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 01:17:23 GMT

I’m no fan of Tom Cruise. I’ve nothing against the truncated little runt in particular, you understand. I just regard him as a very average actor who has appeared in a lot of very average films. But that’s hardly a crime (although The Last Samurai was sailing pretty close to illegality), and he’s made a reasonably decent living out of it. Good luck to him. There are worse actors than him around and, it would appear, there are plenty of people who are more than happy to part with their money in order to see his films, and why shouldn’t they? If that’s what they regard as entertainment, then in a free market economy, they should be able to entertain themselves in any way they wish.

But you can hardly blame Little Tom for his somewhat pissed-off reaction at the recent premiere for his latest very average film, when a bunch of media studies graduates now inexplicably employed by Channel 4, having lured him into an “interview”, proceeded to squirt water in his face. So it’s come to this, has it? Has Channel 4 really sunk as low as drenching Hollywood stars for a cheap laugh? Well, Chris Morris must be living in mortal terror of his crown being snatched away.

This, if I may opine, is precisely what’s wrong with comedy at the moment: too many smug, middle-class fuckwits, most of whom have clearly worshipped at the altar of Chris Morris and Dom Joly and erroneously regarded Nathan Barley as an instruction manual, are being given precious TV airtime in order to produce what effectively amounts to a televisual version of a student rag-mag, only without the subtle wit and original jokes.

Generally, I’m all for taking the piss out of celebrities - or indeed anyone else - if they deserve it. That’s all well and good, and, on the whole, quite healthy. It’s a road that has already been well travelled by Chris Morris (aka “Our Greatest Living Satirist”) in Brass Eye, in which he conclusively proved that a certain type of publicity-hungry celebrity can be made to say or do pretty much anything in the name of free TV exposure. Just give them a script full of gibberish and point them towards a camera. But I think even Chris Morris stopped short of actual physical assault.

I, for one, would have been greatly amused if Tom Cruise had leapt over the barriers and proceeded to chin the smug little bastards who squirted him. As it is, he merely informed them about how rude he thought that sort of behaviour was, and then proceeded to shout “Jerks!” at them a lot. Ah, our American cousins, so polite and restrained. One wonders if the film crew would have tried a similar trick on somebody a bit more sparky than Tom… John Prescott, perhaps? As it is, they did the same thing to Sharon Osbourne a week earlier, and she responded in kind by chucking an ice-bucket over them. One can only wonder what Prezza would have done.

I’ve never been a great lover of this sort of prank humour, if truth be told. There’s something I find very mean-spirited and malicious about it. Particularly when it targets ordinary people who are just minding their own business. I think it just serves to bring out the playground bully in those who perpetrate it. It’s really only a small step up from a stand-up comedian who mocks his audience in order to get a cheap laugh - and even then, if that happens to be part of his act (yes, some comics are that desperate), the audience attends the show with that expectation in mind. A joke, after all, is only a joke when both parties understand it as such. But that’s just my opinion.

It could be argued - only could, mind - that celebrities are viable targets for this sort of thing, just by being in the public eye. Well, possibly, but some celebs go more out of their way to attract the attention of the public eye than others. And generations of comedians and satirists have gone equally out of their way to bring such creatures down a peg or two and, on occasion, have greatly entertained us in doing so. But a prank interview on a spoof TV show is one thing. What amounts to an actual physical attack, however harmlessly intended, is quite another. And even the most publicity-hungry, attention-seeking celebs can surely expect to walk from their limo into a building without being molested in some way. Apart from Geri Halliwell, obviously, who should be punched on sight. But we all know that.

Another problem I have with prank humour is that it’s just deeply unimaginative. From Candid Camera to Trigger Happy TV, via the demonic bearded duo that is Jeremy Beadle and Noel Edmonds, prank humour really has been done to death. I suppose assaulting unsuspecting celebrities - or “happy-slapping” for grown-ups, if you’d rather - is the last unexplored avenue for this type of gag. So what’s next on the agenda, then? Celebrity car-bombs, perhaps? I expect Dom Joly is already working on such a project in time for E4’s Christmas Celebrity Execution Extravaganza.

I said earlier that I found prank humour mean-spirited and malicious, but I also wonder if, maybe, it is merely reflecting the direction in which our society is moving. After all, I have also noticed an increase in meanness of spirit and malice in people in general over the past few years. Tolerance and compassion seem to be in very short supply. Indeed, they appear to be rather unfashionable commodities these days. And TV companies continue to make not only this sort of programme, but also other similarly mean-spirited shows like Pop Idol and Big Brother, because people evidently find it amusing and entertaining to watch ordinary people like themselves being humiliated and generally shat on. So what does that say about us? A great deal, it would seem, and none of it positive.

Not that I believe all entertainment shows should be happy and positive, either - that would be far too revolting to contemplate. This is, after all, Britain, and we really don’t do happy very well. But I think TV producers, particularly those in charge of comedy programmes, should take a long, hard look at what “entertainment” actually means. And if they continue to have trouble defining what is admittedly a very hazy and subjective concept, I suggest they sit in a dark room and watch a dozen Tom Cruise films from start to finish. It’s the opposite of that.

Writing: The Thinking Man's Masturbation

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 00:44:02 GMT

Yes, I know. Wretched, isn’t it? It’s the sort of title Will Self would excrete after a hard night’s drugging. Most sane and responsible people despise articles with titles like that, and with much justification. So, if you are wrinkling your nose in disgust, I empathise completely. But do bear with me, there is a method in my gibberish. It was important for me to grab your attention, and I apologise for the offence caused. Let’s just move on and discuss this sorry episode no more.

Everyone, it seems, wants to be a writer these days. Creative writing courses are springing up everywhere, and most of the people signing up to them appear to be professional types bored with accountancy or public relations. So now they’re taking up pen and paper (or laptop) and muscling in on the patches of the millions of struggling writers already out there, in the mistaken belief that a creative writing course can give them some sort of head start or make up for a complete lack of talent or inspiration, which is surely why they went into dull careers like accountancy and public relations in the first place.

This is an intolerable situation, and clearly can’t go on. The marketplace is crowded as it is, without over-zealous fuckwits who took a wrong turn in their lives thinking that they have some god-given right to inflict another chunk of lad-lit on the world. Nick Hornby has a bloody lot to answer for, that’s all I can say.

Then there is the phenomenon of the internet blogger, many of whom insist on letting us in on the excruciatingly dull details (notice I didn’t use the word “minutiae”, which they almost certainly would have) of their worthless lives, in the mistaken belief that people are actually interested in their trip to the corner shop, or their pompous and interminable reflections on the long littleness of life, as if we needed an emotionally-retarded middle class teenager to point that out to us. A little tip, guys: all the truly great diarists in history generally had quite interesting lives and didn’t spew out quasi-intellectual dribblings about how life is just so very, very hard when nobody understands you. You can use all the long words you like, my dears, but as long as you have nothing to say, your words will continue to say nothing. Incidentally, I am aware of the irony and brazen hypocrisy in that last paragraph. But do continue to bear with me.

We inhabit, then, a world full of would-be writers, and the tools readily available which enable them to fuel their futile hope that someone, somewhere might be the slightest bit interested in anything they might have to say.

But I’m in a benevolent mood, you lucky, lucky people. I can save you from shelling out hundreds - yes, HUNDREDS! - of pounds on stupid creative writing courses that don’t work, or from polluting the internet with thousands of blogs which say nothing apart from, “I’ve got no life”, thereby freeing up extra web space for more porn, which is what people really want on the internet. Because today, I can EXCLUSIVELY reveal EVERYTHING you REALLY need to know to become a writer. Ten simple tips which will not only get your foot in the door, but will enable you to kick it down and ride roughshod over those vapid and complacent parasites we call publishers. And best of all, it’s all FREE! FREI! LIBERO! LIBRE! GRATIS! FOR NO CHARGE, ME OLD MUCKER!

So you want to be a writer? You don’t? Oh. You seem to have stumbled into the wrong blog entry. Well, should you change your mind, follow these ten simple tips for guaranteed success:

1. Befriend a load of pretentious, pseudy wankers and steal their ideas. You're better than them anyway. Particularly the one with the glasses and terminal scurf called Phil who, because he had a short sci-fi story published in the Reader’s Digest back in 1995, thinks he’s Isaac fucking Asimov. If you’re not sure where pretentious, pseudy wankers hang out, they’re the ones in grey trench-coats who sit huddled in a very precious group in one corner of most real ale pubs, loudly namedropping authors nobody has ever heard of (because they make most of them up).

2. Develop a drink problem. This will give you the dark, sullen and brooding charisma that is becoming of the struggling artist. True, it will also lead to an early death, but so long as people remember you and your genius, that's OK. Also, alcohol gets you laid. Although not by particularly desirable people, it has to be said.

3. On no account should you die before you are published, as this will severely limit your career options. The only person that ever worked for was Anne Frank. Be patient. It’s all about what publishers call the “catching the wave”. And what your pseudy wanker friends would no doubt refer to as the “zeitgeist”.

4. Develop some sort of mental health disorder, which will make you seem very exotic to middle class arty types. If your drink problem is up and running, then this shouldn't be a problem. This will, of course, lead to a mid-career lull during which you'll start writing self-indulgent, self-pitying drivel, as well as angry articles for the Guardian about what a bunch of talentless tosspots these new writers are, but that's about 20 years away, so don't worry about it now.

5. Avoid clichés like the plague.

6. If you know any agents or publishers who find you sexually attractive, that would be a big help.

7. Failing that, have a tempestuous love-affair with another writer, preferably one whose star is on the wane. Make sure they feel threatened by your talent to the point of psychotic jealousy, by which time they should either have committed suicide or murdered you. If you are the one who ends up dead, bear in mind Step 3.

8. Remind yourself every day that if the mostly talentless fuckwits who get books published these days can become successful, it should be a doddle for someone with real talent like you (always bearing in mind Step 6). However, never get bitter. While planting a bomb at JK Rowling’s next signing session might seem like an attractive idea, it will just create a vacuum for some other hawker of derivative and inferior Ursula Le Guin knock-offs. And that won’t be you, will it, because you’ve already read Step 5.

9. If you’re still struggling, become a journalist and wangle your own column (see Step 6 and discard Step 5). Then, after a few years of inflicting your facile opinions on the public and putting your face about on TV shows like Question Time or Newsnight Review, most publishers would give you a large advance for your shopping list if it had your name on it.

10. If all else fails, sign up for a creative writing course.

So there you have it. Ten easy steps to ensure you get the edge over the rest of the mugs out there in what is a very competitive market. Sadly, I can’t confirm whether or not these steps actually work, as after nearly 20 years of writing, I’ve only got as far as Step 2 myself, but I’m assured by most professional cynics that they do.

Good luck!

Intellectualising coolness

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 01:58:34 GMT

There have been some shocking revelations in the press recently. Apparently, Victoria Beckham has never read a book in her life. Her busy lifestyle, it transpires, only leaves her time to flick through glossy magazines with lots of pictures. And presumably, being as frantically busy as she is, she only remains on a page for any length of time if there happens to be a picture of her on it. Or, perhaps, that anonymous and reclusive husband of hers.

I must say, to be perfectly honest, if she hadn’t bravely made that snippet of information public, I would never have guessed. I mean, you just look at the woman and think “bookworm”, don’t you? She exudes intelligence. I’d always assumed she was the sort of person who never left the house without a volume of Tolstoy under her arm. Well, that’s that illusion shattered. Next thing, she’ll be stunning the world by doing a Princess Di and claiming she was a bit of a thicky in school. How will we cope knowing our favourite - erm, sorry, what does she actually do again? - is less than fully functioning in the intellect department? The world may never be the same again…

This, of course, is little more than a PR stunt to publicise - oh, the irony! - Posh’s new autobiography, which I’m sure is an absolutely riveting read. (Although I wonder if she’s actually read it herself yet?) But what the hell. She isn’t the first vacuous celeb to have “written” an autobiography, and obviously won’t be the last, unless some fortuitous celebrity plague suddenly grips the world and wipes them all out. This isn’t what bothers me, though. What bothers me is the fact that certain celebrities deem ignorance and stupidity as desirable traits, and indeed are actively encouraged in this belief by their PR acolytes.

It’s astonishing to think that these people are actually paid to make their employers look stupid, especially as most celebs seem to do that themselves with very little effort. It’s rather like a decorator employing someone to wallpaper their living room, isn’t it? Which, I suppose, confirms their stupidity. Ah, excellent. I see it all very clearly now: “Everyone loves a thicky”, the only acceptable PR line in this pulsating new century of ours. Without wanting to sound all precious and pseudy, and rattling off the usual “books are the cornerstone of civilisation” bollocks, it is a sad state of affairs, it is not? It’s certainly a mindset that baffles the hell out of me.

I was actively encouraged to read from an early age. True, I was fortunate enough to have been brought up in a household in which books were in plentiful supply, rather than haughtily locked away in glass-fronted teak display cases, destined to remain untouched, unopened and unread, which was certainly an advantage. A vast selection of books, some worthy, others mere pulp, was always accessible to me in a large MFI bookcase which sat at the back of the living room, the cheaply-veneered chipboard shelves bending under the weight of a load they were never designed to bear. There was never any pressure - they were just there if I, or anybody else in the family, wanted to read them. So I did. We all did. Since then, reading has been an important part of my life, whether it be for recreational or educational purposes. And, of course, it gives me something to do on the toilet other than stare at my knees.

But there are many people who have yet to have their imaginations tickled by the lure of the printed word, people who have yet to be exposed to the infinite universe of ideas that literature has to offer. Some people might possess the wit to amusingly claim that literature is a “closed book” to them, har har, but that’s as far as their creativity goes. This is something of a human tragedy, because reading, ultimately, begets writers, thinkers, doers and, most importantly of all, achievers.

But reading, especially among the young, just isn’t cool, and to the young, being cool is the crux of existence. Being uncool means social death, ostracism and phlegm in your hair. The culture of cool, aided and abetted by its bastard, propagandist half-brother, dumbing-down, is as close to fascism as you can get without actually reading the Daily Mail. Those who adhere to it are all dupes, but fail to realise this until they get older, if they ever do at all. Unfortunately, as older people are also uncool, trying to explain this to young people is a fruitless undertaking.

Part of the problem is that books don’t sit in the corner of the room and glow hypnotically, which means their appeal to young people is limited. Young people are sold the idea in any number of teen-orientated television shows and glossy magazines that to show any form of intelligence or independence of thought is uncool, creating one of those pointless non-opinions which forge their way into the realms of urban myth: only nerds study, only nerds revise for exams, only nerds read - unless, of course, the reading matter in question happens to be a glossy youth-orientated publication or a ubiquitous celeb's ghost-written autobiography. And this is all compounded by having openly ignorant and shallow role models like the Beckhams, whose children, while they may have all the financial and material security they’ll ever need, will never experience the priceless joy of having their parents read stories to them.

Cool, huh?

Democracy: a sonnet

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:34:39 GMT

The straight face of hyprocrisy will preach
To us his own twisted doctrines, and make
Sincere and pious promises to each
Devout believer, all of which he'll break.
Persuasion and evasion is his trade,
With sidelines in oppression and control;
An honest man might call a spade a spade,
But honesty is far from this man's goal.
Lost in a self-important void, he plays
With peoples' lives, a game he always wins;
We fund his deeds with our hard-working days
While he commits a multitude of sins.
This is "democracy", a common word
These days, so rarely seen but often heard.

Exoticising the Mundane, #1: Finding God in the Fridge

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 01:08:29 GMT

The fridge, to most sane and responsible people, is a useful household appliance which, by the employment of inert gases, keeps anything put inside it at a steady temperature of around two or three degrees centigrade. Because of this damned ingenious and very useful feature, the fridge is generally used for keeping perishable foodstuffs, in particular meat, vegetables and dairy products fresh and edible. It is also useful, as a certain Mr Dahmer in the USA discovered, for delaying the decomposition of dismembered heads and various human internal organs. An indispensable appliance indeed.

My own fridge, at first glance, is no different from any other. It's an old Electrolux model, circa 1997, and looks quite unremarkable; mostly white, covered in several amusing magnets shaped like exotic fruit and a generous amount of blackening baked beans in even blacker tomato sauce. But this is no ordinary fridge. You see, I believe it to be some sort of a "fridge god". This can be substantiated by its uncanny ability to create fascinating new lifeforms at will. Indeed, it is a fridge like no other - a fridge of fridges, if you will.

Like most fridges, it is nearly always half-empty, but never totally empty, although there is rarely anything useful inside, apart from the occasional can of Ruddles which may find its way in there en route from the off-licence to my grateful throat. It has, like many other fridges, an inside light, a curious device which is supposed to switch on when the door is opened, enabling whoever opens the door to see that they haven't got any sausages left. The light in my fridge is faulty. It doesn't work until the door is closed. When the door is closed, the light pops on and the fridge begins to unleash its mystical powers of creation.

My fridge is teeming with a range of mind-boggling lifeforms, rather like the Kop End at Elland Road; cheese with ears (and accompanying ear-hair), the terrifying Liquid Beast of the Salad Bowl and the sausages that bite back. The health risk, as you might imagine, is appalling. Before even attempting to consume anything from within, I usually have to remove the desired object using non-corrosive tongs. I then place it on the worktop, prod it a few times with a fork and leave it for precisely one minute, watching very closely. If it doesn't wriggle about too much, or at least makes no attempt to bite me, then I'm usually perfectly happy to eat it, food hygiene not being one of my primary concerns when I'm hungry. But I still have to be careful - it might be sleeping, which could make eating it tantamount to cannibalism, and the last thing I want to do is enrage the Almighty Fridge, lest it makes my beer warm.

The ice-making compartment is a whole universe in itself. It is like a Tardis, in that no matter how many Findus Crispy Pancakes I stuff in there, there is always room for more. This can only be because the fridge eats them itself, to give it enough energy to create the many interesting species that lurk below. The general purpose of the ice-making compartment is to freeze certain products and keep them in a state of cryogenic limbo. However, this particular one has an annoying habit of thawing out at random, drenching everything below in greasy water. It is almost as if the ice-maker acts as a provisional rainmaker, to aid the photosynthetic process going on below. Also, as part of the ice-making compartment's erratic nature, after it has finished soaking everything in the fridge, it immediately renders itself inaccessible by covering the door in an inch-thick sheet of ice. The only way in after it has done this is by way of a hot screwdriver and a large hammer.

Another fascinating feature of my fridge is what I call its "evolutionary accelerator", a quite extraordinary process. If, for example, a fresh bottle of milk is placed in the fridge with, say, four days until the use-by date expires, as soon as the door is shut, the fridge accelerates the milk's evolutionary process by six months, meaning that when the bottle is removed a couple of hours later, the milk has metamorphosized into the finest bottled cheddar. The same happens with tinned tomatoes. If a newly opened tin of plum tomatoes is placed in the fridge, the evolutionary process of the contents accelerates to such a point that, when the tin is removed, the tomatoes have turned into ketchup (and not even a very good brand, to be honest). This strange occurrence has baffled some of the world's finest minds; even Stephen Hawking had to have a little lie down.

Yet, despite its niggling little habits, and the fact that it doesn't serve its proper purpose, preferring instead to create its own personal rain-forest (I found Sting in there once), I quite like my fridge. It may be old, smelly, erratic and incompetent but, like Boris Johnson, it has character, a quality so rare in many modern fridges, most of which are huge, faceless white monoliths stuck in the corner of the kitchen. They do their job and they do it well. But if I got rid of my fridge and replaced it with one that actually worked, I'd have nothing to whinge about, especially in the mornings, when all I have to pour on my cornflakes is a bottle of cheese.

Besides, it could make me a lot of money. I'm currently trying to condition it to instigate the Second Coming. With odds of 25,000-1 at Ladbrokes, I'd be mad not to bung at least a fiver on it.

I never wanted to be a blogger...

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 05:11:22 GMT

I wanted to be... a lumberjack! Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the rivers of British Columbia... etc.

Am I, I'm drunkenly wondering this morning, somehow unique? I mean, am I the only Englishman (albeit one with a good helping of Welsh blood in him) who can get drunk without becoming involved in some chaotic fracas or other? What is it about the English male which compels him to inflict physical harm on another English male (or indeed female, hermaphrodite or gaysexualist) who spills his pint/looks at him funny/gets lippy? I grow weary of these simple-minded gorillas and their leaking testosterone. Luckily, most the pubs I drink in are generally laid back and groovy, but you still get the occasional isolated instance of arseholery. You just can't escape it these days.

The scene is the same on any Friday or Saturday night in any city or town centre: total carnage. People fall out of pubs and clubs and suddenly stop getting along. Fights happen in pubs, sure, but more happen outside and beyond. And then there's the takeaway at 4am... ever heard that Streets song, "Geezers Need Excitement"? Sums it up perfectly:

"Out the club about three to the takeaway
The shit-in-a-tray merchants
Shop's got a special perchant for the disorderly
Geezers looking ordinary and a few looking lairy
Chips fly round tothe sound of the latest chart entry
An incendiary waiting to blast
No harm with the contest, who can throw the furthest
Behind the counter they look nervous
But carry on cutting the finest cuts of chicken from the big spinning stick
Then over flies a chip, flips, and hits you on the back
You spin round on the attack
'Fuck you playing at?'
He looks like a Cheshire cat, almost falls down
Your frowns and Superman eye-lasers don't even register
By now you want to leather this twat
And forever you're gonna regret that, your choice of path
So mash his head up and your girl's now fed up
But stop to think and it's never gonna be the Jackie Chan scene it could have been to end up."

I've never been that much of a twat myself, thankfully, although I've witnessed such scenes many times. I'm an amiable drunk and, oddly, when I'm around and things start getting rowdy, I can spread peace and tranquility to those around me. It's true. Gift of the gab, I suppose. A natural negotiator. I try not to get involved in too much shit as a rule, but when you've had a few you can't help it, can you? Your judgment goes and suddenly you're arbitrating for a pair of sad, pissed-up wankers you've never met and have nothing in common with. The mind boggles.

Drink, I suppose, enhances your emotions and any dominant personality traits you may have. So, if you're a bit of a tosspot when sober, when drunk you'll be a lot of a tosspot. Or, if you're generally laid back and groovy, under the influence of fermented vegetable fluids, you'll be even more so. It also releases any latent traits. So if you're shy in a sober state, after a few bevvies you'll be chipper and talkative. If you have a violent side but manage to keep it under wraps in a sober state, when you're pissed, it resurfaces with a vengeance. Alcohol is one mean fucker of a drug.

But soft, it's 8am, daylight is streaming through the blinds, and I've just finished another bottle of Merlot. Never mind being too drunk to fuck, I'm too fucked to drink. Or indeed think, type or make any pretence at sitting up straight. Although that could be fatigue as well as drunkeness. I'm happier not knowing.

So, beddy-byes would seem the logical course of action pour petit moi.

Ban This Filth! (Part 3,426)

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 10:55:44 GMT

There's an interesting row going on in the States at the moment. Apparently, concern has been raised by the usual suspects (parents, politicians and other interfering so-and-sos) about a downloadable "mod" for Rockstar's uber-cool game GTA: San Andreas, which allows the player access to lewd and explicit sexual content.

A couple of points worth making. Firstly, the game is intended for adults anyway, and is clearly marked as such, so quite what parents are doing buying their kids the game in the first place is a question worth asking, no? Secondly, progress through the game involves murdering, robbing, carjacking and pimping amongst other violent and anti-social acts, and these people are getting their knickers in a twist over a little bit of pixellated flesh and consensual coupling? So, brutal random violence is OK, but sex is definitely out? This says rather too much about these people than perhaps they realise... I mean, talk about warped priorities.

This big fuss over nothing has yet to cross the pond. There's only been the smallest amount of coverage in the UK so far, and most of that has been generally disinterested. But I guess it's only a matter of time before some over-zealous MP gets their hands on the story and decides to get themselves some easy publicity in time for the summer "silly season". (It's a fucking great game, incidentally. Much harder than Vice City, but well worth the effort.)

Sex in computer games is hardly a new thing, though. I remember about 20 years ago there was a very saucy French game on the Spectrum, Chicken Chase, in which the object was for a cock to couple up with lots of hens. OK, so the actual coupling act took place in a chicken coop, out of sight of the impressionable young player, but from the rocking of the coop and the excited clucking noises, it was pretty damn clear what was going on. Sex has been used to sell computer games for years. I mean, what about Lara Croft? Any real woman with those sort of proportions would have severe trouble remaining upright. But of course, her tits were covered up, so that's OK.

Luckily, I've never been that turned on by pixels anyway. Although I did have a thing for Wilma in Everyone's A Wally. But then, who wouldn't? [adopts Leslie Phillips voice] Well, hello!

Lists. They're So Anal.

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 00:44:37 GMT

As I'm still in introductory mode, it's time for a list. I know, I'm sorry. Just bear with me. At the very least, you'll find out a bit more about what makes me tick. And indeed tic.

Things I Dislike (in no order):

1. Mayonnaise.

2. Cornwall.

3. War, hatred and wank like that.

4. People being beastly to others (see 3).

5. ITV.

6. KFC (see 1).

7. Tories.

8. Those stupid lists in which people waffle on about what they dislike.

9. Friends. (That's the TV show, not the people I associate with!)

10. Portsmouth.

11. Portsmouth FC.

12. The bastardisation of the Labour Party. "New Labour" indeed. Cuh, I ask you! And we were so optimistic, too...

13. Arse-kissers, lickspittles and swots. All the bloody same to me (see 12).

14. Petty officialdom (see 13).

15. Radio 2.

16. The Daily Mail (see 7).

17. Jeremy Clarkson (see 7).

18. American neo-con hawks.

19. People who call their children things like "Molly".

20. Coldplay.

To be continued.

And so, with one deft click of a mouse button, Glynniepoos, the incorrigibly sneery old cynicky-boots, becomes a "blogger". This is most alarming, and indeed makes me something of a hypocrite, but let's not worry about that now. I'm still a very nice person with a charming collection of Leyland Atlantean buses cluttering up my back garden. OK, so I lied about the buses. But nice, hypocritical blogger seems an accurate description at this time.

These modern words, eh? I mean, "blogger". If you had said that in a public place 20 years ago, you could hardly be surprised at the sympathetic looks and natural assumption that you were some sort of harmless lunatic out on day release. If you had said "blogger" on the telephone, the person on the other end of the line could be forgiven for thinking you were saying "bugger" whilst administering fellatio which, when it comes to telephone etiquette, is not quite the thing. But that won't really be a problem until Graham Norton fulfils his destiny and invents time travel.

The world was a much less complicated place 20 years ago, of course. We didn't have too much to worry about in those heady days, apart from the prospect of nuclear obliteration by the Soviet Union, football hooligans, the IRA and Jeremy Beadle. People now tend to look upon this as some sort of golden age. Nostalgia does that sort of thing to you.

"Do you remember the Communists, Doris? Nice chaps, they were. Smart uniforms. Very big on socialist dogma and shiny tanks."

No doubt 20 years from now, when all the current shit is over and Tony Blair's impeachment and resultant televised buggering on the woolsack are just a distant and happy memory, we will probably be looking back and reminiscing about the golden age of Islamic fundamentalism, and stridently asserting that Chris Martin is actually a misunderstood genius, rather than an inspid, unimaginative, warbly-voiced tosspot who wouldn't know a decent song if it stripped off and sat on his face.

Or perhaps not.

For advocates of Coldplay and their dreary ilk, I will just offer this warning: people once bought Eagles albums in their millions, and history has proved them wrong. Much like Communists, I suppose.