We’re Thick. And Everybody Else Is a Tosser.

We watched Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe last week. I like CB. particualarly when he makes caustic comments about TV that I watch (his deconstruction of Heroes was hilarious). I also enjoyed the fortnightly tvgohome, apart from the peculiarly male scatological obsession. Comediennes make one tampon joke and are forever after known as only talking about menstruation, but male comics go on about wee and poo and semen all the time forever without comment.

Anyway, this episode was devoted to discussing the recent wave of dishonesty in telly, including the Blue Peter Socks/Cookie scandal. Brooker went out of his way to explain that TV Isn’t True, citing noddy shots, documentaries with the POV shot twice, the faked caravan on fire in Top Gear and the fact that a different Inuit was filmed as Mrs Nanook back in the days of Nanook of the North. I thought he might mention White Wilderness, but no.

His comments on the X Factor “The Nuremberg rallies for the terminally stupid” was amusing but I did wonder if he was underestimating his audience somewhat. Anyone with a centimetre of common sense knows that reality shows are edited to make A Story, that Simon Fuller doesn’t sit through every no-hoper at the auditions, that if you ring an 0871 number you’re going to be charged more than 4p to make the call. I remember watching a David Attenborough nature show about a day in the life of lion in Africa and the accompanying perils and hardships and whatnots. Aged 14 or so, I realised that they’d shot a few weeks of footage and then made up a story to go with said footage. But that didn’t stop me being entertained and a little bit educated by the film. People know telly isn’t real, don’t they? Mr Brooker doesn’t seem to realise that people who believe the X Factor are not the ones who are going to be watching his programme. Late night BBC4 doesn’t really get the same ratings as prime time ITV. To be honest, just as I prefer Peter Kay to Ricky Gervais, I like Harry Hill’s TV Burp better than Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe. Gentle piss taking rather than attempted scornful satire. Charlie Brooker seems to be on my list of clever men (always men) who are vastly intelligent but fail to realise that other people may be as well.

Talking of modern culture: Andrew O’Hagan on lads’ mags: However, once again, I suspect that the crossover between LRB and Nuts readers is reasonably small.

And it turns out that I was wrong about Pretty Woman: it’s actually the best film ever made.

Whilst I’m on an O’Hagan tip: brilliant essay on la Moz.

We’re Thick. And Everybody Else Is a Tosser.

We watched Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe last week. I like CB. particualarly when he makes caustic comments about TV that I watch (his deconstruction of Heroes was hilarious). I also enjoyed the fortnightly tvgohome, apart from the peculiarly male scatological obsession. Comediennes make one tampon joke and are forever after known as only talking about menstruation, but male comics go on about wee and poo and semen all the time forever without comment.

Anyway, this episode was devoted to discussing the recent wave of dishonesty in telly, including the Blue Peter Socks/Cookie scandal. Brooker went out of his way to explain that TV Isn’t True, citing noddy shots, documentaries with the POV shot twice, the faked caravan on fire in Top Gear and the fact that a different Inuit was filmed as Mrs Nanook back in the days of Nanook of the North. I thought he might mention White Wilderness, but no.

His comments on the X Factor “The Nuremberg rallies for the terminally stupid” was amusing but I did wonder if he was underestimating his audience somewhat. Anyone with a centimetre of common sense knows that reality shows are edited to make A Story, that Simon Fuller doesn’t sit through every no-hoper at the auditions, that if you ring an 0871 number you’re going to be charged more than 4p to make the call. I remember watching a David Attenborough nature show about a day in the life of lion in Africa and the accompanying perils and hardships and whatnots. Aged 14 or so, I realised that they’d shot a few weeks of footage and then made up a story to go with said footage. But that didn’t stop me being entertained and a little bit educated by the film. People know telly isn’t real, don’t they? Mr Brooker doesn’t seem to realise that people who believe the X Factor are not the ones who are going to be watching his programme. Late night BBC4 doesn’t really get the same ratings as prime time ITV. To be honest, just as I prefer Peter Kay to Ricky Gervais, I like Harry Hill’s TV Burp better than Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe. Gentle piss taking rather than attempted scornful satire. Charlie Brooker seems to be on my list of clever men (always men) who are vastly intelligent but fail to realise that other people may be as well.

Talking of modern culture: Andrew O’Hagan on lads’ mags: However, once again, I suspect that the crossover between LRB and Nuts readers is reasonably small.

And it turns out that I was wrong about Pretty Woman: it’s actually the best film ever made.

Whilst I’m on an O’Hagan tip: brilliant essay on la Moz.

Those Cummerbund Years

"The Autumn always gets me badly, as it breaks into colours. I want to go south, where there is no autumn, where the cold doesn't crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting to pounce." (DH Lawrence)

Leaving work on Friday, weighed down by weather and the lingering on of a malady that hung around my head like a chart topping, but irritating, song, I felt less like enjoying a busy weekend and more in the mood for curling up in front of the telly for the next 48 hours. On Thursday, I walked all the way to Finsbury Park Lidl because I'd heard from a source that there was a cheap supply of St Johns Wort; my previous supplier (Wilkos) having dried up. The source was wrong and I plunged further into pre-Autumnal gloom. I like to pretend that I love Autumn, the colour of nature, the sunsets, the purifying dark, the soft feeling in the air - the mellow mistiness - but really I fucking hate it. The warm stodgy clothes and food to make up for lack of warmth. The end of September and beginning of October is when synapses fizz and fail, I think about ECT with longing and finally, I turn to either drink or Scanda-style angst, introspection and a terrible fear of death.

But anyway, I went down to Balham on Friday and secured a supply of the Wort from Sainsbury's and saw my ex-colleagues, all of whom were very kind and invited me for school Xmas dinner, before scooting up to Elephant to see Heike perform in The Heard. Usually when one sees one's friends bands, one is there for moral support, but I would go to see this choral pop even if the Heikester left. A a choir who sing songs by chart bands that I have no interest in (The Klaxons, the Arcade Fire) would seem to be a novelty, but the sweet chorus of altos and sopranos mixed with beatboxing and rapping from Ty works astonishingly well. They do a version of Love Will Tear Us Apart with handclaps and freestyling (the disco-remix that should have been recorded) but the best song is the one the conductoress, Becky, wrote herself ("I'm about you"). She is a charismatic person who looks a little like Karen from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but instead of fronting an art-rocking band, she formed her own choir.

Saturday, we took the Oxford tube (aircon, free wifi, room for those of us with legs) over to, um, Oxford. I always try to like Oxford and I do dig the hidden corners and corridors, but the town is always always stuffed with tourists and traffic and horrible chain shops and expensive cafes. We walk down the Iffley road, passing Amelia's old house, where David and I met (how very indiepop), and find a slice of alterna-Oxford on Maudlin Magdalen Road; no posh people in gowns on bicycles here. Eat at the hippy-ish Magic Cafe and then carry on down to Iffley Village where we are attending a wedding at the Hawkswell hotel. The ceremony took place on the Friday and this is the party for the friends. Black tie was the stipulated dress code and I realise that I have rips in both legs of my tights, but really no-one looks at ankles do they? There is cake and cava and a buffet and Swedish people and dancing to music for people who are between 30 and 35 (A-ha, Nirvana, Chesney Hawkes, Transvision Vamp) and Dave's university friends to talk to about growing beans in the back garden. I decide that I want to be Swedish (although I would obviously need a permanent St Johns Wort and Prozac drip): they are modest yet unapolagetic, strangely straight forward whilst at the same time having a playful imaginative sense, answering questions literally but talking about eskimos and reindeer and elk whilst doing so.

We get an on-time cab from City Cars back to the Oxford Tube stop where, as luck would have it, the previous bus is a coupla minutes late, so we hop on and are back to London in no time, or at least in time for the last 73 from Marble Arch.

Sunday over to Highbury for, after the last wedding of the year, the last barbecue of the summer at Alice and Steve's house, featuring the usual suspects, plus a Lancet survivors support group. I tried to tell a Madeline McCann joke that I’m not sure people got and drank most of DJ’s cava before starting on the rum and cokes, cheated at jenga, helped in the virtual construction of engineering works, ate a lot of burgers and mini-eclairs and persuaded a pregnant person to drink a tot of rum. I am a terrible person. But I have cheered up.

*

I thought the other day that I have never seen a convincing transvestite. And then I realised that I wouldn’t notice if I did see a convincing transvestite.

Other random thought: Caribbean cafes often sell goat curry and jerk chicken. But never chicken curry and jerk goat. In fact I’ve only seen goat on offer in a curry. Where is the roast goat, the fried goat, the braised goat? I think that I need to know.

Those Cummerbund Years

"The Autumn always gets me badly, as it breaks into colours. I want to go south, where there is no autumn, where the cold doesn't crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting to pounce." (DH Lawrence)

Leaving work on Friday, weighed down by weather and the lingering on of a malady that hung around my head like a chart topping, but irritating, song, I felt less like enjoying a busy weekend and more in the mood for curling up in front of the telly for the next 48 hours. On Thursday, I walked all the way to Finsbury Park Lidl because I'd heard from a source that there was a cheap supply of St Johns Wort; my previous supplier (Wilkos) having dried up. The source was wrong and I plunged further into pre-Autumnal gloom. I like to pretend that I love Autumn, the colour of nature, the sunsets, the purifying dark, the soft feeling in the air - the mellow mistiness - but really I fucking hate it. The warm stodgy clothes and food to make up for lack of warmth. The end of September and beginning of October is when synapses fizz and fail, I think about ECT with longing and finally, I turn to either drink or Scanda-style angst, introspection and a terrible fear of death.

But anyway, I went down to Balham on Friday and secured a supply of the Wort from Sainsbury's and saw my ex-colleagues, all of whom were very kind and invited me for school Xmas dinner, before scooting up to Elephant to see Heike perform in The Heard. Usually when one sees one's friends bands, one is there for moral support, but I would go to see this choral pop even if the Heikester left. A a choir who sing songs by chart bands that I have no interest in (The Klaxons, the Arcade Fire) would seem to be a novelty, but the sweet chorus of altos and sopranos mixed with beatboxing and rapping from Ty works astonishingly well. They do a version of Love Will Tear Us Apart with handclaps and freestyling (the disco-remix that should have been recorded) but the best song is the one the conductoress, Becky, wrote herself ("I'm about you"). She is a charismatic person who looks a little like Karen from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but instead of fronting an art-rocking band, she formed her own choir.

Saturday, we took the Oxford tube (aircon, free wifi, room for those of us with legs) over to, um, Oxford. I always try to like Oxford and I do dig the hidden corners and corridors, but the town is always always stuffed with tourists and traffic and horrible chain shops and expensive cafes. We walk down the Iffley road, passing Amelia's old house, where David and I met (how very indiepop), and find a slice of alterna-Oxford on Maudlin Magdalen Road; no posh people in gowns on bicycles here. Eat at the hippy-ish Magic Cafe and then carry on down to Iffley Village where we are attending a wedding at the Hawkswell hotel. The ceremony took place on the Friday and this is the party for the friends. Black tie was the stipulated dress code and I realise that I have rips in both legs of my tights, but really no-one looks at ankles do they? There is cake and cava and a buffet and Swedish people and dancing to music for people who are between 30 and 35 (A-ha, Nirvana, Chesney Hawkes, Transvision Vamp) and Dave's university friends to talk to about growing beans in the back garden. I decide that I want to be Swedish (although I would obviously need a permanent St Johns Wort and Prozac drip): they are modest yet unapolagetic, strangely straight forward whilst at the same time having a playful imaginative sense, answering questions literally but talking about eskimos and reindeer and elk whilst doing so.

We get an on-time cab from City Cars back to the Oxford Tube stop where, as luck would have it, the previous bus is a coupla minutes late, so we hop on and are back to London in no time, or at least in time for the last 73 from Marble Arch.

Sunday over to Highbury for, after the last wedding of the year, the last barbecue of the summer at Alice and Steve's house, featuring the usual suspects, plus a Lancet survivors support group. I tried to tell a Madeline McCann joke that I’m not sure people got and drank most of DJ’s cava before starting on the rum and cokes, cheated at jenga, helped in the virtual construction of engineering works, ate a lot of burgers and mini-eclairs and persuaded a pregnant person to drink a tot of rum. I am a terrible person. But I have cheered up.

*

I thought the other day that I have never seen a convincing transvestite. And then I realised that I wouldn’t notice if I did see a convincing transvestite.

Other random thought: Caribbean cafes often sell goat curry and jerk chicken. But never chicken curry and jerk goat. In fact I’ve only seen goat on offer in a curry. Where is the roast goat, the fried goat, the braised goat? I think that I need to know.