Dawn of the Dumb (9 page)

Anyway, one week I was supposed to arrive at TV Centre around 9
PM
, until they called to say the slot was being pushed back because of a big developing story. God knows what that was—the news was always nice back then—probably a teddy bear falling over, something like that.

Anyway, since I was delayed, I decided to sit down and read a paper. In a pub. First mistake. Then I bumped into some people I knew, and had a pint with them. Second mistake. I soon forgot all about the news and concentrated firmly on making mistakes until closing time, when the news people rang to say the big story was over and could I be there in 30 minutes.

I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t even walk straight. But disappointingly enough, the anecdote fizzles out right here, because I got away with it. I didn’t wee on the desk, punch the presenter or have sex with the weatherman’s leg. I just yabbered away like a dullard. Which is why I don’t appear in
Rowland Rivroris TV Drinking Club
(C4), a cheery scamper through television’s most degrading alcohol-induced disintegrations.

Obviously, the late Oliver Reed features heavily. We see him drunk on
The Word
, drunk on
After Dark
, drunk on
Saturday Night at the Mill
, drunk on
Aspel
…wherever you look, Ollie’s there—wrestling invisible bears, barking, growling, boggling his eyes, ripping his shirt open and almost certainly soiling himself: an out-of-control cross between the Hulk and an entire chimps’ tea party. Rivron calls him a ‘hero’, but the wisest words come, impossibly, from the mouth of Michael Winner, who calmly explains that while drunken Ollie was an appalling bully, sober Ollie was a genteel and thoughtful man who’d have been horrified to see his antics on tape.

Undeterred by this strong whiff of tragedy, the programme steams on, coughing up clips of George Best, Lynne Perrie, Tracey Emin and Shane MacGowan (whose face, following years of hardcore glugging, now resembles a puff-pastry model of the moon, speckled with broken teeth).

So far, so predictable, although along the way we’re also offered more unusual and well-researched clips than you might expect. There’s some great footage of monkeys getting drunk and falling from trees, and an astonishing snippet from a 19608 booze experiment in which a clean-cut middle-ager explains that he drinks very little—‘just a couple of beers in the morning, maybe an aperitif, wine with every meal, and cognac in the evening…’

We even get to see Sir Robert Winston smashed out of his mind during an episode of
The Human Body
(although sadly he’s simply illustrating a point about the effect alcohol has on the brain—he doesn’t get pissed and fight a conjoined twin in a bid to prove fists work better when you’re drunk, more’s the pity).

The overall effect is pretty weird. On the one hand, the show is offering a snickering ironic ‘hurrah’ to acts of public self-destruction, and on the other…well, the clips ARE funny.

But that’s alcoholic abandon through and through. It’s funny watching someone twirl round with a traffic cone on their head. It’s less funny when they shit themselves and punch you. And it’s miserably unfunny when they continue to do it until their liver conks out and they turn yellow and die. Unless they do it on a chat show. Then it’s hilarious.

London’s village idiot

[6 August 2005]

F
oul and unsettling? Yes siree! As per tradition, let’s put all human decency to one side, hold a pistol to our collective temple and celebrate the approaching finale
of Big Brother 6
(C4) with a pointless little awards ceremony, coming to you live from an As piece of newspaper held in front of your eyes right now.

First up, the prestigious Most Sickening Housemate award, which this year goes to a couple: Maxwell (London’s village idiot) and Saskia (burly, wrathful harridan with a face that could advertise war). Their daily routine consisted of bullying, bellowing, cackling at their own dismal non-jokes, glaring, sniping and discussing their imminent ascent to the topmost peaks of stardom—until the last week, when, faced with eviction, they settled for sulkily rutting like doomed livestock. The latter surely ranks as the least sexy thing ever broadcast on television. I’d get more aroused watching a dog drown in petrol.

Next, it’s the Stupidest Single Statement award. This year’s show contained dumber utterings than ever before. There was an early classic from Anthony, who, while frolicking semi-naked in the pool, carped ‘What’s the matter with youse, you’re sitting there like you’re watching a television show’ to a disapproving Science. Sadly, that’s ineligible because it was immediately followed by the year’s wisest rejoinder (Science: ‘I am.’)

Which means it’s a race between Craig’s frank admission that ‘I aren’t too familiar with the rules of the English language’ and Anthony’s claim that he’s ‘more developed than a plant’—both of which are beaten by Saskia’s jaw-dropping assertion that the Second World War started in 1966.

The award for Most Alarming Behaviour goes, inevitably, to Craig—a high-risk FBI profile made flesh. When he wasn’t proclaiming his own brilliance, weeping, masturbating, or shrieking uninformed opinions at a uninterested world, he was mindfucking his beloved Anthony—a man so profoundly thick you could sell him a pair of his own socks for £500, even if he was already wearing them.

Their relationship reached its nadir the night Anthony got paralytic and Craig sensed an opportunity. A bleak farce ensued—Anthony vomiting and crying for his gran, Craig frantically cuddling him while shouting, ‘I’m your only friend in here.’ It felt more like an extended out-take from
Deliverance
than a reality show. How Craig passed the psychological vetting process, and why he wasn’t quietly removed from the house and given some gentle guidance, is a deeply worrying mystery.

The Cheated Winner award is a close call between two acquired-taste housemates. Only a heartless warlord couldn’t warm to Eugene, a well-meaning human pylon whose ineptitude and timidity meant he was out of his depth from the off. But he’s narrowly pipped by Science, a bull-headed, one-man belligerence engine who delighted in provoking Maxwell and Derek to breaking point. For services to torture alone, Science should’ve won.

Just time for a few parting gongs. The award for Snidest Conniving Prick goes to Derek, a man so devious he probably pisses cobra venom; the Ugliest Body award is split between Sam and Orlaith, for poking their fake, motionless tits in the viewer’s face (presumably to attract the sort of person who’d like to screw their way through the plastinated corpses at Professor von Hagens’
Body-worlds
exhibition).

Finally, the award for Unprecedented Dignitycide goes to Kinga, who, just when you genuinely believed TV couldn’t possibly shock you from your jaded, end-of-the-world ironic detachment bubble, celebrated her second night in the house by masturbating with a wine bottle in the middle of the lawn—an act of such gruesome self-abasement, even the other housemates were appalled. Considering they’re the most undignified people in Britain, that’s an astounding achievement. Mark my words, we’ll be celebrating it on commemorative stamps before the decade’s out. Preferably self-adhesive ones.

CHAPTER TWO

In which children are despised, King Kong’s toilet habits are discussed, and colourful lies about Robbie Williams are gleefully spread across the page.

New, improved reality

[23 September 2005]

T
hey say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. They’re wrong. It’s in the hands of the retoucher. These days, almost every photograph you see has been Photoshopped to perfection, just for you, because you’re so bloody special.

Celebrities aren’t beautiful until someone rearranges their pixels. You should see the original snapshots. Johnny Depp looks about ninety years old. Angelina Jolie’s eyelids are spattered with warts. Keira Knightley? Face like a Rotherham coroner.

But a few swipes here and there with an electronic pencil, and bingo: they’re gorgeous. It’s not fair, because real life can’t compete. Retouching techniques are constantly improving. Real life isn’t. The aesthetic gulf between the two widens by the day. Drag your face away from the magazine covers for a moment, walk down the street, and what do you see? Muck. Greyness. Bored pedestrians. A dog being sick You live on the shit side of the chasm, and Keira Knighdey lives way over there.

But what if you could Photoshop real life? The technology can’t be far off. Ten years from now, you’ll be able to stick a chip in your brain that retouches all the images flowing into your eyes, improving them on the fly.

Imagine. You wake up and look in the mirror. The bags under your eyes are invisible. And you appear to have lost weight. The postman knocks on the door—as you open it, the chip removes his stubble, sucks his paunch in, and replaces his uniform with a butler’s outfit. Your partner joins you in the kitchen. They’re the most beautiful person on Earth. And they’re naked.

You go outside. Blue skies. Blazing sunshine. There’s a solitary cloud up above, and it’s shaped like a cuddly sausage dog. The tramp begging by the cashpoint machine isn’t a tramp—he’s Joey from
Friendsl
And thanks to another chip in another part of your brain, instead of hearing him whine about change, you’re hearing him belt out your favourite show tunes. In Dolby Surround. You wave and walk past; instead of seeing him scowl, you watch him give a cheeky thumbs-up. Your world’s a nicer place, and it costs less than usual to boot! Everybody wins! Except the tramp.

Additional chips would go to work on the other senses. You could eat a polystyrene roof tile and your brain would claim it was made of chocolate. And when you spewed it up, the bile wouldn’t sting—it’d be so delicious you’d spend an hour gargling with it for fun. If a burglar broke into your house and started thrashing you with a broom, you could replace the sensation of terror with the sensation of ironic amusement, and the sensation of pain with one of having a nice sit-down. And then another chip would kick in, and your memory would wipe the entire incident and replace it with a delightful pastel sketch of a butterfly instead.

These chips are set to revolutionise our lives. Once they arrive, you need never undergo a negative experience again. You’ll be lolling blissfully on the sofa 24 hours a day, transfixed by an endless string of shimmering delusions while your carcass gently bloats to the size of a waterbed. A bit like you do already. Assuming you’ve got Sky Plus.

I hate kids

[30 September 2005]

I
hate kids. Hate them all without exception. Even yours. Especially yours. Especially if it’s a boy and you named it Jake. And if you’ve ever written a chummy diary article about Jake for a Sunday supplement, I wish nothing short of death upon you. Death by wasps and bombs and razor wire. In a thunderstorm. While Jake looks on in horror. Because I hate parents too.

As luck wouldn’t have it, I live slap-bang in the centre of Nappy Valley, a wedge of South London with one of the heaviest kiddy-wink-and-parent populations in the universe. It’s a sickeningly self-satisfied place where the high street heaves with aromatherapy centres, organic-honey shops and cosy little cafds with cutesy lower-case names like ‘munch’, ‘toast’, ‘smug’, ‘twee’ and ‘bum’. And the pavement heaves with buggy prams.

Naturally, I’m so riven with confused rage, I don’t really belong in Pretty Pretty Niceland—but oh, how I’d love to. I dream of being able to relax awhile in the cafe’; to ruffle my
Berliner
, sup a tea, chew a wholewheat tofu crumpet or whatever. I wish I could do that.

But I can’t. Because wherever I go, there’s a repugnant Jake nearby, shrieking, kicking the table, bellowing its hot little face off. And sitting beside Jake is Jake’s moron parent, doting on his every noise, dribble and splurt, as though he’s somehow special or charming.

Well, he isn’t. Jake is a selfish, dot-eyed shouting machine hellbent on sabotaging whatever scraps of tranquillity remain in this pitiful world, and every right-thinking person within earshot despises him with a coal-black intensity that would make your head spin like a centrifuge if you ever got wind of it.

But as a horrified onlooker—one who genuinely believes children should be seen and not heard, and preferably neither—what can you do? I’ve tried glaring at the parents, but their minds are so hopelessly warped by 24-hour brood-worship they mistake my consternation for admiration. I’ve tried glaring at Jake, which isn’t entirely bad, since it usually causes him to shut up and start gazing back with a sort of affronted blankness for a few moments, but also makes the waitresses regard me with open suspicion.

I’ve contemplated having an ‘I HATE CHILDREN’ T-shirt made up, in the hope that it might shock attendant parents into scurrying away with Jake in tow, but in today’s kiddie-reverent times I’d be sectioned in minutes. As for the most obvious solution—leaning forward and politely asking the parent to curb Jake’s noisier excesses—that’d end in a fistfight.

I’ve come to realise that what’s required is a distress flare—a smaller, indoor version of a trawlerman’s distress flare, one you can fire over your head at the point when Jake’s incessant babbling is starting to turn you homicidal. A distress flare solves two problems at once: it warns Jake’s parents you’re about to lob a plate at his head, while simultaneously rendering Jake himself dumb, as he stares at the glittering firework like a particularly stupid jackdaw with half-eaten beans round its gob. Oh, and if it sets the cafe roof on fire, killing everyone inside, that’s another bonus.

Hey, don’t blame me. Blame Jake and his mummy.

Dying of boredom

[7 October 2005]

S
o the other day someone’s talking to me about something important to them, and I feel their grip on my attention start to loosen and my mind drifts away from the conscious reality of sitting there listening to them, gently rises like a hot-air balloon ascending the heavens and glides across a landscape of idle thoughts, while back on Earth my face sits beside them saying ‘mmm’ and ‘ooh’ and ‘really?’ and occasionally arching its eyebrows like an actor in a commercial who’s been asked to wordlessly indicate that hey, these cough sweets really work.