Moranthology (14 page)

 

I write a lot about the internet. There are two reasons for this. The first is because it is, quite clearly, the greatest invention of the twentieth century: the equivalent of the wheel, or fire, but for the mind.

With mass communication no longer limited to newspapers or TV companies—to which access was previously and jealously guarded by professional writers and broadcasters—the nearest thing to a meritocracy of opinion and experience has now come about, thanks to Tumblr, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Some teenage kid in Buttfuck, Idaho, can come up with a joke, campaign or picture of a funny raccoon, and, if it catches people's imagination, it can be (ironically) making old-fashioned newspaper headlines by sundown. Ideas and thoughts and experiences can spread like pollen in the air, blood in water. For good or bad, of course: the unsayable becomes the unstoppable just as easily as some beautiful attempt for a better world. There are people whose lives have literally been ruined by a bad picture on Facebook, or an email being sent to the wrong address—then being passed on across the world.

But the sheer, awesome, exhilarating power of the internet is absolutely captivating: it is the biggest game on Earth. The twenty-first century equivalent of the birth of rock 'n' roll. For those who don't work in it—who are merely customers, rather than Mark Zuckerberg—having access to it is like standing on a rocky ledge, halfway down Victoria Falls, in the middle of an all-enveloping monsoon. The roar and the spray—the constant motion and hydrating mist—are intoxicating. Thousands of new things tumbling past you every second—swept into the river above in the flood—that you can just reach out and grab. Maps and shops and faces and friends from 1987 and that clip from that show that time, and snowflakes, and explosions, and Crosby, Stills and Nash singing “Helplessly Hoping” in three part harmony, as many times as you want.

The idea of moving away from it—back inland, back off-line—seems wholly desolate and mean. Dry. Silent. How would you know . . .
anything,
without the internet? How could you make things happen? What would be left of you? Just some jumped-up hapless monkey in a dress, trying to buy a train ticket to Nottingham by being put on hold by another jumped-up yet hapless monkey in a dress.

No, no—every time I am off-line, I am half-off. I can't get anything done. I love the internet. It is where I live.

And the second reason I love it is because pissing around on Twitter is an
excellent
substitute for smoking. I think I'm on 120 Twitter a day. I am
chaining
that shit.

In the following piece, I explore—with another smoooooooth segue from the last column—the lack of chivalry on the internet.

D
ON'T
F
EED THE
T
ROLL

T
he thing I like most about the internet is that it's just humans, interacting with other humans—but in a sufficiently novel manner for new guidelines to be needed. Because there's no one in charge—no, despite the claims of thousands of teenage boys, “King of the Internet”—online is a world where billions of people are trying to get through another day of posting amusing pictures of cats, typing in capital letters and lying slightly about how amazing they are—all while not getting in each other's way, or offending each other.

By and large, it works so well as to stir the heart. Observed from above, the internet must look like the Magic Roundabout gyratory system in Swindon: trillions of opinion-cars from all over the world, ploughing into what seems like certain fatality—only for everyone to, at the last moment, avoid each other, and seamlessly continue their journey to Bristol/some pornography. No international wars have
ever
been declared on the internet. It is a remarkably amiable place.

But there are exceptions. “Trolls”: anonymous posters whose kink is making deliberately inflammatory comments—then getting visibly high off others' subsequent outrage. Imagine an adolescent boy breaking wind at the breakfast table—then smirking as everyone shouts, “Jesus, that smell has irradiated my Weetos. Why? WHY would you DO that Julian, WHY?”

Typical troll behavior would be, say, going on a Beyoncé fansite, observing the conversation for a few minutes, and then saying, “Yeah—but she's got a fat arse, hasn't she?” As more inexperienced fans castigate the troll for sexism, possible racism and stupidity, older hands utter one of the internet's most used catchphrases: “Don't feed the troll.” In other words: if some anonymous armchair cowboy pitches up and deliberately provokes a fight, don't satisfy his need for attention. Ignore him. Don't feed the troll.

Until recently, I, too, would intone, “Don't feed the troll.” Firstly, it's a waste of time that could be spent engaging in a pleasant early summer stroll, searching out the first buds of pussy willow. And, secondly, there's always the undeniable feeling that, as you castigate a troll, he's rubbing his
Red Dwarf
mouse pad against his crotch and sighing, “Angry liberal women typing at me. Oh yah. That's how I like it.”

But then I started to notice that, as a phenomenon, trolling isn't just confined to pseudonymous IT workers hanging around Justin Bieber fansites, making fourteen-year-old girls furious. When, a few weeks ago, on
Top Gear,
Jeremy Clarkson made his “amusing” remark about Katie Price having a “pink whore's box”—“I meant PINK HORSE BOX!” he corrected, knowingly—it occurred to me that Clarkson's entire career is essentially an exercise in trolling: gleefully vexatious comments on Mexicans, homosexuals and women, thrown out with the “Ho ho! Our ‘PC' friends won't like THIS!” expression that is the carat mark of the true troll.

Clarkson isn't the only professional troll on the block: consider his friend, the
Sunday Times
columnist A. A. Gill, with his liberal sprinkling of references to “dykes,” “ferret-faced Albanians” and the “ugly Welsh.” Both Clarkson and Gill know that these kinds of comments provoke massive reactions—in their cases, to the point where ambassadors from other countries get involved. Essentially, they're trolling the entire concepts of diplomacy and civilization for a reaction. This is something to which some hopelessly small-town troll, flaming for kicks on the breastfeeding boards of Mumsnet, can only sighingly aspire.

If there is one thing that defines the troll worldview, it's a sour, disatissfied sense that the world is disappointing. Trolls never troll enthusiasm. The default troll attitude is one of inexplicably vituperative disapproval for something millions find joy in. The first time I thought that sentence, I went, “Oh my God—you know what this means? The
Daily Mail
is the fucking LODESTONE of trolldom! It's the Magna Carta of Trolldom! It's the Dead Sea Trolls!”

Because if you look at the
Mail
's website, your presumption that
Daily Mail
readers actually like bitchy headlines about female celebrities putting on weight (“Fuller-Faced Cheryl Cole”), is blown out of the water. All the comments are actually from reasonable people baffled by the
Mail
's tactic (“Can't celebrities put on an ounce without it being news?” Ivy, Barking)—making you realize that the
Mail
is, in practice, trolling its entire readership. Amazing.

So this is why I can't agree with the internet's first rule: “Don't feed the trolls.” It's
fine
when it's just some spenk on a message board, with only five users. Ignoring provocative nonsense is only right and sensible. But when millionaire celebrity broadcasters, and entire publications, start trolling, ignoring them isn't really an option anymore. They are gradually making trolling normative. We have to start feeding the trolls: feeding them with achingly polite emails and comments, reminding them of how billions of people prefer to communicate with each other, every day, in the most unregulated arena of all: courteously.

 

Throughout this book, a few recurring themes will make themselves apparent: a fear of the sixteenth century; continuing enjoyment over the Moon Landings; the bangingness of
Sherlock
; an irresponsible love of alcohol and loud pop music; and a deep, beyond primal adoration of the BBC series
Doctor Who
.

In this feature, the BBC let me go around the
Doctor Who
studios, where I found the Face of Boe in a warehouse and sat on him. For two years, a picture of me doing so was the screensaver on my laptop. There is no doubt in my mind that, when I'm dying, and my life flashes before my eyes, that particular picture will get a longer slot than many other pivotal life moments, with a caption saying “WINNING!” flashing over it.

O
N THE
S
ET OF
D
OCTOR
W
HO

C
ardiff train station, 10
AM
. The cab driver is unsure as to where, exactly, we are going. He pulls to a halt at the end of the rank, and hails the cab opposite.

“I've got passengers for
Doctor Who
,” he says, with an expansive gesture at us in the back. “Where do I turn off?”

“For
Doctor Who
?” the other cab driver says. “For
Doctor Who
?”

There's a huge pause, where a more overexcited cab passenger might begin to speculate as to whether
Doctor Who
is actually shot on Earth at all. Maybe it's only accessible via a closely guarded magnetic anomaly, in a disused bronze mine, guarded by the Sontarans!

“You go right at the BP petrol station, mate.”

D
octor Who
and
Doctor Who
's spin-offs—
Torchwood
,
The Sarah Jane Adventures
,
Doctor Who Confidential
and
Totally Doctor Who
—occupy Cardiff, in much the same manner an army barracks occupies a small town. With a crew of 200, 180 special FX technicians, 200 prosthetics technicians, 2,000 extras and 200 guest stars, the population of the city is divided into civilians and non-civilians;
Who
and non-
Who
. The pivotal question in Cardaffian nightlife is “You on
Who
, then?”

“Some of them act a bit cliquey, like they've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion,” a friend who lives in Cardiff said. “When, in actual fact, they've just spent all day waving a foam rubber leg around.”

But much like the army, this clannishness is understandable—
Doctor Who
is both a huge, and a hugely secretive, operation. Having made the decision to try and keep the plots a surprise—extremely rare in television, where tabloid pre-publicity is key in getting ratings-spikes—phenomenal amounts of thought and energy are put into keeping details from the public. On the way to Cardiff, the show's press officer, Lesley, has a wary weather eye out for possible leaks.

“We can't discuss the show on the train,” she says, firmly, as soon as we sit down. “People have done it before, and had passengers who've overheard ring the tabloids. Everyone knows what you're talking about as soon as you say ‘The Doctor,' you see.”

So an hour later, when I am standing in a dark, otherwise deserted warehouse, with the TARDIS looming over me like the monolith in
2001
, I feel genuine frissons of both privilege, and slight fear. Privilege, because I am in a place where thousands of fans of the show would love to be. After all, a mere twenty feet away, there's a top secret spaceship being referred to as “the James Bond set,” which will tittivate the spod-glands of any western adult between the ages of seventeen and fifty.

And fear, because the TARDIS—despite sitting on top of a pallet—looks unexpectedly legendary. It has the aura of something that has bounced off comets, arced over nebulae and oscillated through the furthest reaches of spacetime. Even though, when I knock on its door, it's clearly made of wood.

The
Doctor Who
warehouse is a surreal place. Despite our last sighting over the Cybermen being during Season Two, when an impassively muscular army of millions tried to take over the Earth, there are, in fact, only ten Cybermen in existence. Well, four now, due to breakages. I can see three of their legs poking out of a large cardboard box, at right angles. The Daleks, meanwhile, are—contrary to all lores of celebrity—actually
bigger
than they seem on TV.

Being quite common, my first instinct it to steal something cool. I cannot be alone in this impulse. These warehouses are, presumably, an open invitation for cast and crew to take “mementos.” Everyone wants a Cyberman codpiece on their mantlepiece, surely?

“To be honest, no,” says our tour guide, Edward Russell, Brand Executive of
Doctor Who
. “It's like a family. It just wouldn't be worth their while to steal anything, because, if they got caught, they'd never work again. Everyone on this show is very protective.”

He makes it sound as if, in the event of any possible transgression of trust, a hit squad of Daleks can be seen trundling into a local pub, and emerging again, minutes later, with smoking plungers.

Of course, an operation this big and, indeed, a universe this vast would all be pretty pointless were we to venture into it without a charismatic galactic chaperone. As we all know by now, the resurrection of
Doctor Who
is down to one man—the joyous, expansive and prodigiously talented Russell T. Davies, the man who traded all his success with
Queer As Folk
,
Bob & Rose
and
Casanova
in order to do what the BBC had thought impossible for sixteen years—regenerate the abandoned
Who
into the BBC's flagship. It is he, above all others, who is responsible for the best program in Britain in the twenty-first century being, against all the laws of probability, a children's show, made on a miniscule budget, in Wales, by gays.

But it is, perhaps, in Davies's choice of the Doctor that he made his most crucial decision. For while, in the first season, Christopher Ecclestone's leather-jacketed, slightly demented hard-nut Doctor was the right person to make a full break from the show's heritage of frock coats, frilly cuffs and hammery, it is in David Tennant, the tenth and current Doctor, that the show has found its most appealing emissary. While Ecclestone approached the role prosaically, as a difficult job to be done well, Tennant has taken on the role with, well, to be frank, love. A fan of the show since childhood, he has been voted “The Best Doctor Ever” in acknowledgment that it is his performance, above all others, that has best embodied the show's values: anarchy, vigor, moral rigor, silliness, and a reverential awe at how big, scary, complex, beautiful and full of bipedal aliens made of foam rubber the universe is.

Meeting with him—in the tea rooms of the Landmark Hotel in Marylebone—it's clear to see why Davies cast him in the role. He has quick wit, excess energy, and self-deprecates at every available opportunity (“Look at my mobile! It's really boring! It's about as intergalactic as a brick!”) He is, also, let's be frank, the first hot Doctor. He is the primary Timephwoard. He has been voted “Hottest Man in the Universe” by
The Pink Paper
, while
New Woman Magazine
placed him at Number 13 in its poll of 10,000 women's crushes—just below Brad Pitt.

Tennant, however, disputes his assignation as the First Hot Doctor.

“Tom Baker!” he says, with a Bakerish roar. “Come on! He was a huge hit with the ladies.”

He was more of a specialist taste, I offer, primly. Something WHSmith would keep behind the counter, and you'd have to ask for.

“I'm sure Peter Davidson was in polls at the time,” he continues, gallantly. Perhaps aware that he is seconds away from attempting to mount a defense of the sexual allure of Sylvester McCoy, Tennant changes the conversation with a confidence that just, to be honest, proves how hot he is.

“This is a terrible anecdote, so I must tell it,” he says, settling into a chair with a coffee. “Last year, Bille [Piper] and I kept getting invited to guest at award ceremonies but we could never go—we were either filming in Cardiff, or because we would be presenting Best Wig or something, and what's the point of that? But when the Brit Awards rolled around, we let it be known, through our ‘people,' that we'd love to present a Brit for Best Drunkard, or something. But—pleasingly for the laws of hubris—they said ‘No, we'll be fine, thank you.' They turned down the Doctor and Rose! Famous across the universe!”

Tennant does a self-deprecating boggle.

Talking to him is an experience of mild surreality. On the one hand—it's the Doctor! You're talking to the Doctor! On the other hand, he's as obsessive and passionate about the show as any fan. This is a man who can talk about the Gravitic Anomalyser without any protective layer of irony.

Dismissing the possibility that, paradoxically, becoming the Doctor could ultimately ruin the show for a him—“I know what you mean, because all the surprises are gone, but I'd have gone mad if I'd turned it down and watched someone else do it”—Tennant, instead, spends the next hour discussing the show with all the enthusiasm and mild geekery of a fan, albeit a very privileged one. Discussing certain titillating morsels that Russell T. Davies has thrown into previous episodes and then not returned to—such as the intriguing news that the Doctor has, at some point, been a father—Tennant yelps, and then says, “I know! I'll be reading these things, going ‘When are you coming back to that?' Often he does. But sometimes,” he says, leaning forward, “he just drops them in for wickedness. There's something he's done in the next season, and I said, ‘What's that all about?' and he replied, ‘Oh, I've just put it in because it's funny.' The internet forums will go into meltdown.”

He beams. “But you know—he knows what he wants as a fan. You want to be discussing it all the next week. You want to float your different theories on what will happen next. That's part of the pleasure.”

Together with Russell T. Davies, he comes across like a steam enthusiast who's taken over an old rail line. Every detail of the show thrills him—even the clothes. Indeed, perhaps the most surprising moment comes when he explains how the image of his Doctor was, fairly unguessably, based on the savior of our fat school children, Jamie Oliver.

“I'd always wanted a long coat, because you've kind of got to. You've got to
swish
. Then when Billie was on
Parkie
, she was on the same week as Jamie Oliver, who was looking rather cool in a funky suit with sneakers were the one thing I did go to the wall on.” Tennant bashes his hand down on the table, and then laughs.

“Although,” he adds, “I have to say, I do regret it when I'm doing a night shoot in a quarry of stinking mud, and they're putting plastic bags on my feet.”

The big news for the forthcoming season, of course, is that Billie Piper, who played the Doctor's assistant, Rose, has left. As well as being phenomenally popular in the role—she was credited with bringing a young, female audience to a show that had previously lacked one—she and Tennant formed a famously matey duo. They always emanated the vibe of having spent their down time in Cardiff Nandos, eating huge amounts of fried chicken with their hands and laughing with their mouths open. When discussing her departure, Tennant becomes quite tender.

“The last scene we shot was for [the episode called] ‘The Satan Pit.' Our very last line was someone saying, ‘Who are you two?', and we reply ‘The stuff of legend,' and then zap off in the TARDIS. We just could not get a take where we weren't crying. If you look very carefully, you can still see us starting to go ‘Wah!' ”

Tennant, however, is stalwart in his enthusiasm for the new assistant, Freema Agyeman.

“It's a totally different energy—she comes from a totally different starting place. She's very upfront about fancying [the Doctor], and so he has to be very upfront about not being into it. It's a completely new dynamic. She's a completely new girl.”

It's
Who
—2.1, perhaps, I suggest.

“Yes!” Tennant beams. “
Who
2.1!”

B
reaking for lunch, the whole crew travels down the hill to the “base station”—a line of location buses and Portakabins. When David Tennant turns up, dandy and wire-thin in his new, electric-blue suit and precipitous quiff, the effect is roughly equivalent to the advent of the Fonz in Al's Diner. He is clearly lord of this domain—he manages to simultaneously hail, chat to and tease three crewmembers at once.

By contrast, John Simm's entrance onto the set is intense and lowkey. As the pivotally evil Mr. Saxon, Simm is in a black suit, wearing an ominous-looking ring, and eschewing the buffet in favor of a quiet lunch in his trailer.

“I can't tell you anything,” he says, sighing. “I don't think I'm even officially here, am I?” he shrugs.

L
ater on, in a waterfront bar back in Cardiff, Simm starts an admirably brisk line of whisky ordering, and explains exactly why he left a three-week-old baby to spend a month in Wales, on the side of a windy hill.

“It's
Doctor Who
, innit?” he says, with admirable succinctness. “You've got to do it. And Christ, the energy they all put into it. Julie Gardner [producer] and Russell T. Davies were getting on midnight trains up to Manchester, to the set of
Life on Mars
, to ask me to do it.”

The deciding vote, though, was cast by Simm's five-year-old son, Ryan. “He's
Doctor Who
mad. He's got the lunchbox, the dolls, the screwdriver. As a dad of a small boy, you kind of have a moral duty to be a baddie on
Doctor Who
if you can, don't you?”