Come with me...

Something has bugged me about that Sky+HD Supertelly advert since I first saw it. At first I just thought it was because it's had me doing a Gene Wilder impersonation and singing Pure Imagination at the most inappropriate times. It's a sad song, mainly because, in Willy Wonka's colourful, hallucinogenic environment, if you want to view paradise all you have to do is simply look around and view it. "Anything you want to," sings Willy, "do it. Want to change the world? There's nothing to it." If only, eh?

Things came into some kind of focus last night, when I went to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 3D, and the Sky ad came on while I was trying to concentrate on eating all the food and drinking all the drinks I'd bought before the film started*. I turned to eldest son Scott and suggested to him that there's nothing imaginative about subscribing to a Sky package. Indeed, you don't really need an imagination at all to watch the tellybox, do you, it is a passive medium. And imagination is even less of a requirement in the high definition world, where, as I seem to remember a salesman telling me when I was having a slow day once, every blade of grass can be picked out individually. Why, it's more realistic than life itself (at which point I thought I better shut up, as the "put on your 3D glasses NOW!" notice had appeared on screen).

The advert is set amid a Huxleyan Fordesque assembly line - a factory - which, I imagine, is very much the environment that Murdoch has created within his many Sky-related call centres. As such, the ad itself is a post-modern, unimaginative parody of all of those car adverts featuring robots and also Monsters Inc. The problem being that, for the most part, Sky are at the most unimaginative end of the TV business - they buy their imaginative products and creativity from elsewhere. "Your TV, with a Sky+ box, is Supertelly," we're told. But pure imagination? I don't think. Unless, when you're watching Pineapple Dance Studios or endless repeats of American Gladiators, what is going through your mind is...

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You'll be free
If you truly
Wish to be

I dunno. Maybe listen to the radio once in a while? Read a book? Experience a live event by actually going to it?

If you must, you can view the Sky+HD Supertelly advert on youtube here

*Slightly hampered by two latecomers knocking son Sam's skateboard flying in the air, which propelled a drink into the row in front.

Monkey business...

"We want to create a new model rights creation business developing Noel [Edmonds]'s ideas. That is where the real value is." - Charles Garland, Crystal Entertainment on plans for several new shows that could be hosted by the former House Party whizz. They include Beat the Monkey, a quizshow in which questions are asked but are chosen at random for contestants by a monkey picking up stones. More at the Guardian.

Duff sport report...

It's not just local/regional news organisations that make mistakes. It would appear that BBC Sport's webmasters consider the Premier League's Hull City AFC a rugby union club and have christened chairman Paul Duffen 'Duffy' on three occasions (they should be begging him for Mercy, ho hum). Hear the BBC Radio 5 Live interview with Paul Duffen here.

Second coming...

Very amused when I landed on uk.msn.com today to see the above headline above the Stone Roses legendary monkey man. Not a tale of a crackhead so out of it that he took Ian Brown in hand. Rather, just the work of someone who'd decided to omit the word 'stage' from proceedings. Mr B is enough of a visual feast without witnessing that. This was all part of MSN's efforts to chart the Worst Onstage Mishaps - the King Monkey was pulled off stage at Sheffield in June 2008. Good work. You can find the rest here.

Two game players...

Jonathan Ross's reappearance on the airwaves has seen a lot more newsprint wasted on the matter - hardly surprisingly, print media have adopted the high moral ground over their television and radio rivals. Again hardly surprisingly was JR's modus operandi, which was pretty much as was but without any mention of Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter. All of the hacks in the audience for Friday Night With Jonathan Ross - of which there were many - have had a field day reporting how the studio version differed from the edited, broadcast effort, as if the whole process and concept of editing is a dark and dirty secret. Again, a waste of everyone's time and effort. But journalists are notoriously lazy, sensationalist bastards, aren't they?

Russell Brand has, of course, just knuckled down and got on with his life and is only concerned with moving ever onwards. His Guardian columns have continued to elevate football chat above the level of the tired old cliche that generally plagues any commentary on the game. This week's effort was an especially dashing piece and his closing words re money, talent and time left me all goosepimply and choked...

Kaka is well into the ol' Christianity and therefore is attuned to ideas beyond acquisition, and decided that as a footballer his priority must be football. It is a magical thing to be a professional footballer and the gift does not alight for long before departing and leaving bland mortality where once its sheen did linger. The deficit that excellence-departed exposes is almost impossible to grieve. Paul Gascoigne daily does battle with the torturous abyss left by his fleeting talent.

None of us then should be seduced by the transient glow of money and superficial splendour, as for all of us the presence of wonder is all too brief. Burnley for a while were level with Spurs in Wednesday's Carling Cup semi-final, ahead on the away goals rule. All they had to do was hold on through extra time, to reach the final against Manchester United. But the glory proved impermanent, Roman Pavlyuchenko scored and then Jermain Defoe, and the dream was all undone. Like the end of Bagpuss, when the sprightly mice are once more ornaments, the haughty professor a bookend and even Bagpuss, so full of slovenly vitality, becomes again a stuffed cat.

Don't. Waste. A. Second.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/jan/24/russell-brand-robinho-manchester-city

Exercising my free speech...

Newspapers still outraged by Ross/Brand/Sachsgate. BBC despising the evil internet's 'suicide rooms'. Local newspapers smug about BBC not being allowed to roll out its local online video coverage. Telly feeling superior to radio. Every media outlet outraged by John Sargeant's flat-footed efforts and judges' criticism of same. Print media outraged by John Gaunt calling a councillor a Nazi. We are outraged. We will censor it for you. We're right, they're wrong. And all in the name of you, dear reader/listener/viewer. Jeez, why don't these Nazi, fascist, self-preserving, self-appointed arbiters of taste and decency fuck off and concentrate on providing some decent programmes and/or stories and give the "ooh, let's not have any more controversy" agenda a bleedin' rest?

Que?...

Well, Georgina is holding her head up high and doing the right thing, I see. Did you see the front page of today's The Sun? Brand yelled 'Que' in bed went the headline. Brand was a "disappointment" in bed, apparently. Doing an impersonation of Manuel would, one assumes, somewhat hamper sexual performance. Brand, says the Satanic Slut, "makes you shower five times a day and use mouthwash before you kiss him.” Deary me. Can we get her sacked or suspended or encourage her to resign from public life? Incidentally, today I'm coming in seventh on Google for Voluptua and welcome new readers, even though they're probably bouncing straight out of here!

I do have a solution for the BBC's latest conundrum - Russell Brand for the next Dr Who!

I apologise in advance to Jeremy Hunt and will resist the temptation to make a rhyming slang joke...

In light of WussellWossgate, Conservative shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that it is "wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour". Surely sex is the most positive social behaviour that exists? This man, like many a Tory, is a misguided lunatic with an extremely scant grasp of contemporary culture.

As for Mr Brand, I think his apology is superb - a real two fingered but heartfelt salute to those that are up in arms about something that amounts to relatively nothing and those that are more concerned with the public funding of the BBC than they are about which member of the Satanic Sluts Brand has had sex with and the possible offence that the discussion of said sex down Andrew Sachs' telephone line may or may not cause them (and, let's be straight talking about this, none of them are really concerned about Andrew Sachs, nor Georgina Baillie, only about the outrage that they feel about the silly comments Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made). What have we become? A nation of Mary Whitehouses? A bunch of people with so little going on in our lives that we have to complain about what insignificant, self-important broadcasters say? As Brand points out, "he didn't want to be seen to be apologising for the reaction to the situation, rather than the situation itself". And what a reaction. Note that the BBC-despising Tory press is having a field day, note that the Daily Telegraph is describing Russell Brand's apology as a "bizarre response", note that 4,000 Daily Mail readers have complained, note that the Daily Express (The Greatest Newspaper in the World!) has stated that Brand and Ross "displayed breathtaking arrogance yesterday as they tried to shrug off the furore over their sick phone stunt." Also note that Georgina Baillie's response to being unwillingly thrust into the limelight was to employ the services of opportunist publicist Max Clifford and flog her story of Brand's betrayal of her and "what happened between us" to The Sun. All so very entertaining! Well worth the licence fee!

Voluptua...

An hour with performing arts students down at Hull College, followed by a few short hours trialling my new little netbook on the road (well, in a pub). I wrote a short film, the combination of an 'almost full-size keyboard', decent surroundings and a couple of lagers (optional). I am very enamoured with my netbook - it's the cheapest on the market but, as a portable writing device with wi-fi enabled, it's a damn fine thing.

As for Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, well, their recent phone calls to Manuel (don't call him that!) are nothing short of what I'd expect of those two. The bulk of the complaints all appear to have followed somewhat after the fact, prompted by the rage from a host of (Tory, BBC-knocking) media outlets who don't usually pay too much service to self censorship and self regulation. I wonder how many people have heard said audio? I have. At the time of writing it's available here. It's not very funny. It's pretty peurile. And they go on far, far too long with a tired and dull idea. But it's not, as the reports suggest, just Brand and Ross repeatedly stating that Brand has f***ed Manuel's (don't call him that!) granddaughter. At one point, Russell sings the news! Extremely upsetting to read on the outraged Daily Mail's website that the woman at the centre of all the fuss - Andrew Sachs' (yes! Call him that!) granddaughter Georgina Baillie - has cut short a European tour because of the public humiliation she has been subjected to. Poor thing. Georgina, who goes by the name Voluptua, was touring with a burlesque dance troupe that goes by the name of the Satanic Sluts performing, according to her myspace today, violent, horrific and sexy shows. Cripes. I might phone Manuel (don't call him that!) about that...

A case of the DTs...

Tomorrow the Daily Telegraph promises a guide to photographing 'absolutely everything'. Now, I don't have an enormous amount of free time, 7 month old son and all that, so I won't get round to it myself but I would imagine that even the most dedicated of photographers would be hard pushed to take on this mammoth task. Taking photographs of absolutely everything? Cripes. If you are following the DT's guide, good luck! And apologies in advance if I don't have the time to view the results.

Welcome to the blank charade...

I had the misfortune to read a comp copy of the Daily Mail today, and found, within its tightly packed, appallingly designed and scaremongeringly sensationalist pages a warning headed: Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo that built a case against teenagers wearing dark clothes, wrist bands from Claire's Accessories and long fringes and listening to Blink 182 (!!!) on the grounds that they may commit suicide like Hannah Bond, who, the Mail suggests, would have been alive now if she hadn't discovered emo and become addicted to the internet's evil Bebo. A tragic case indeed but the Mail does Hannah's memory no favours. The only thing they get right is the sentence: "No doubt many adults would ask: 'So what?'" I must remember to have a chat with my skinny jean fixated teenage son, if I can get to him through his lengthy fringe, in order to demonstrate my new Mail-inlfuenced knowledge, without which I would never have known that "Emos like guitar-based rock with emotional lyrics". Dear oh dear.

A thousand trees...

More press clippings sort of sorted, cut out, transferred to plastic transparent wallets and snapped inside ring binders, in no particular order, original publications sliced to smithereens and hurled into a box for later disposal. Obscure, defunct publications, far-flung newspapers, dodgy trade magazine, print outs of long-since collapsed websites, even bizarre pitches to magazine editors sneaking in here and there (one to Total Football: "Let me write a feature for you about what it is to follow a perennial loser - Hull City - instead of you wasting more print on those top flight bastards that fill your pages." I don't recall ever having read Total Football, don't really feel strongly about Premiership sides getting coverage in what is, after all, a wholly appropriate publication, and hadn't followed City closely since 1982). Some memories revived and stirred along the way and a lot of newsprint on the hands. Catherine Cooper from The Stage welcomed me to the fold by telling me that the said publication rarely published a review that dared to damn a show. I got in there because my predecessor in the region, Barbara Theakston, had gone deaf but also, bizarrely, was increasingly complaining that the productions she was watching were too 'loud'.

I realised, as I got busy with my craft knife, that I miss writing for newspapers and magazines, although I'm happy to no longer be a critic and reviewer. I enjoyed working for Artscene and its editor, Vic Allen, who had, maybe even still has, the finest head of hair in journalism. Vic's briefs (no, I don't mean his pants) were truly great - if they had been written down they would have been several thousand words over the required word count. I didn't do that much for Artscene over the course of eight-ish years - little bits here, little bits there - but I always felt that the mag was important and I was honoured to be a part of it right up to its untimely demise, a victim of some brave new electronic, interactive world perceived by Arts Council England that hasn't really materialised. The Big Issue In The North, first place that paid me for the privilege of publishing my words. I remember buying a copy and running around town, bumping into people I knew and showing them the piece I'd written, with a great big grin on my face, as if I'd won the Booker prize or something. But I had always remained so excited about seeing my name between front and back covers and hadn't got so cynical and weary. The HDM, bless it. I haven't salvaged a lot from five years of hack work. But there were three columns that I'm proud of and several little bits of me that sneaked through that should have been stopped in their tracks. I loved the Mail when I turned up there, all excited to have bagged a job that meant I'd get paid for writing full-time. Then I spent all my time shunning and running from responsibility. I could have done a lot more for them if they'd let me but, well, sometimes it doesn't work out like that, does it? And the end might, when it came, not have been for such exciting reasons.

Missing presumed buried under a mound of media attention...

Am I wrong not to be getting heated under the collar about Canoe Man and his wife? If I were to take the police-orchestrated media coverage to heart, I should surely despise John and Anne Darwin, shouldn’t I? They have deceived people, they have defrauded, they have driven up insurance premiums. Why, then, am I feeling a tendency to side with the Darwins? Why do I wish them good luck? Why do I hope, against hope, that if it comes to the crunch, they get a fair trial?

Does the crime fit the media attention? I think not. There’s been something odd about this whole circus since the day John turned up and Anne withdrew a bit more coin from her under-scrutiny bulging Panamanian account. There are, are there not, ‘good’ crimes and ‘bad’ crimes? A bit of fraud never hurt anyone, did it? These people aren’t rapists, child murderers or gangsters. Yet they’re being portrayed as a 21^st century money-molesting version of Fred & Rose West (A Daily Mail report revealed that Darwin paved a concrete floor to muffle the creakings of the floorboards in the couple’s family home).

There are no greater criminals in the world than the insurance companies and mortgage lenders that want the Darwins hung, drawn and quartered for their need to get by in life by taking the extreme step of “doing a Reggie Perrin”. The insurance company and mortgage lender would sooner John had kept going through the motions of living his dull old fucking teacher’s life paying those regular instalments until the policy had reached its full term and they’d made a mint out of this couple. When the boot’s on the other foot, they don’t appreciate the big rip-off, do they? Yet my own experience of the insurance industry and financial sector would suggest that there’s only one bunch of serious, good for nuthin’ robbing bastards at work out there, and it ain’t Anne and John.

I jump the gun, though, don’t I? The Darwin’s have only been charged, not convicted. Although it’s impossible to see this through the treacle of media attention and the onslaught of self-righteous reporting by people who wish they’d had the guts to rip a corporation off for £162,000 (some of it, sadly, fuelled by Anne herself, but I think we can excuse her for not quite thinking straight, can’t we?). There doesn’t appear to be any concern that all of these splashes and repeated allegations and insights into the dull as ditchwater lives of the Darwins are, well, a tad prejudicial.

And the poor blighters can’t get bail. What, scared they’ll get through passport control using fraudulent documents, are you? The only danger these two pose is to themselves.

Fuck me, my levels of debt are heading towards the amount that these two didn’t, allegedly, get away with. And, hey, I can’t service the debts, so maybe I’ll end up ‘disappearing’. Is that the great fear, as consumerism and capitalism spiral towards an inevitable collapse, that we’ll all end up saying “fuck you” to those in control of the purse strings and try and snatch a few bob back? Is that why this couple of dullards are being made an example of? For heaven’s sake, Hitler’s had an easier ride over the last 62 years. When will it end? When they’ve actually gone and killed themselves? And then what? Will the insurance co just claw back their money? Of course they will. And watch for the “this policy does not cover canoeing in the North Sea” caveat appearing amid the many other clauses in the small print.

*I’ve not really thought any of this through. It may not make sense.

Tags: Darwin, fraud, Canoe Man, media, police