A little too thick and not enough depth

Naturally, beloved readers, you will have been far too self-consciously intelligent to even learn a couple of names of X-factor contestants over the past few months, for fear that an ill-timed Freudian slip of 'Jedward' might slip out when you are furiously engaged in a debate over the extent to which Less Economically Developed Countries should influence talks at the Copenhagen summit. Picture it now, as you passionately beaver away in discourse regarding rising sea-levels and the immediate dangers posed to the 125 million Bangladeshis residing in the Ganges Delta, before suddenly two Something About Mary-quiffed Irishmen rear their unfathomably triangular heads in between the lines of stilted houses and submerged paddy fields that constitute the visual force of your argument.

Of course, the one thing worse than being seen to watch reality television, is to imply snobbishly that you don't watch television at all, berating it as a prime example of Adorno and Horkheimer's Culture Industry, while pursuing a one-man-battle against becoming a fetishized commodity. This wouldn't do at all - at least not publicly - such an attitude would diminish any intellectual aura coupled with down-to-earth approachability: the gold standard of us all...

Of course the shrewd social entrepreneurs among you will recognize a glaring gap in the market here: television which is simultaneously popular but which somehow reaffirms one's own sense of intellectual superiority. Such shows typically come along once in a generation: Chris Morris did his best at exploiting this niche in the mid '90s, while other notable attempts include Larry David's wonderful Curb Your Enthusiasm (which, it must be said, is justly popular in the States) and Stewart Lee's recent 'Comedy Vehicle', which had the dual benefit of showing the public just how brilliant Stewart Lee actually is, while simultaneously alienating any Top Gear fans (see his inspired rant about Richard Hammond's car accident) who might have bizarrely stumbled across an episode while high on the intoxicating fumes of radiator oil and rampant misogyny.

Overall though, there is one reigning king of the smart-arse-yet-popular-sacrilidge to-voice-disapproval-of genre of comedy, Armando Ianucci's 'The Thick of It'. To criticise The Thick of It is a bit like agreeing with Sarah Palin's view on Global Warming or buying a caravan: You immediately lose all your existing friends, and find them replaced with people who you really don't want to be hanging around with, and I will say now that I have no intention of doing such a thing. It is easily one of the funniest things on television since the turn of the Millenium, it achieves the rare feat of being genuinely topical (an election was called in the final episode of the most recent series, and barely a week later a General Election in March is being mooted), and even the spin-off Hollywood cross-over film was inspired. In fact it is exactly these merits which make it such a dangerous proposition.

The real core of this trouble is its ubiquitous anti-hero Malcom Tucker, an inspired role played by Peter Capaldi that has managed to single-handedly restore any old stereotypes of Glaswegians which may have been laid dormant through Billy Connolly, rebranding and endless talk of cultural legacies, while providing a beautiful satire of Alastair Campbell which even the man himself could not contrive. Tucker dominates each episode (and the film In the Loop). He is the the one stable presence of inspired "fuck"-based invective around which everyone else - hapless Cabinet Ministers, egocentric junior advisors, clueless civil servants - circulates. Even the handful of scenes involving 'The Opposition' are dominated by the Spectre of Tucker, threatening to rip out particular bodily organs and perform higly dubious sexual acts on their previous owners with them.

The thing about this (and it makes for great viewing), is that Tucker becomes less of an anti-hero - someone who is morally dubious, but captivating in the process: think Milton's Satan, Bronte's Heathcliff or Living TV's Jade Goody - and more of a superhero. A caped fucking crusader cleaning up all the mess left behind by a bunch of inept elected officials who are continually doing their best to lose the next election, whenever it may be. We come quickly to admire the guy: he's witty, he's clever, he's knowledgable and he's powerful. When he got sacked in the penultimate episode of the recent series, I came close to cyring the sort of sit-com tears reserved solely for the final scene of Blackadder goes forth. In the Loop is so astounding as it makes us actively root for Tucker as he manipulates evidence to sanction an otherwise illegal war. We want him to succeed, and come the end there is this bizarre feeling of euphoria as war is declared and Tucker stands triumphant.

Of course, maybe this is the point. Like the best satire, it treads the knife-edge of sympathy and cynicism: we have to keep checking ourselves, re-evaluating our allegiances, questioning good and bad in the murky and labyrinthine worlds of politics and beauracracy. The problem is, The Thick of It is just too watchable for that - it takes the universal truth that politicians are idiots and that spin-doctors are the real masterminds, and simply runs with it. This makes for hilarious, compelling viewing, but it always seems a little too far from the truth for it to really hit home.

Alastair Campbell - the Tucker prototype himself - perhaps puts it best in this interview where he is subjected to In the Loop. Despite the absolute joy in watching his discomfort at harpoons of satire aimed pretty much squarely at his slimy fins, and the even greater joy as he tries to justify which bits he found funniest (essentially the only unfunny bits in the whole movie), you can't help but feel - as much as you may loathe yourself for it - that Campbell has a point when he says "What there isn't in any of those characters is a kind of belief system... most people who go into it [politics] they kind of believe something". We love Tucker, because in the land of the Wankers, the biggest, most articulate Wanker is king. But he is still a wanker. The Thick of It just needs that little bit of a heart - even (perhaps especially) if it is roundly ripped out and shat upon - then we will have a truly brutal satire on our hands. And more importantly, it should still be intellectually approachable enough for any right thinking folk to think that the X factor is merely a solution on an A level maths paper...

Why news should be more like a bottle of Stella and less like Tesco Value Vodka

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Rupert Murdoch is an evil, evil man. Naturally, it comes with the territory of controlling a vast media empire which - as we are all too frequently reminded - can influence elections at the drop of a hat (or, more accurately, a giant headline and an editorial questioning an unfavoured politician's sexuality/sanity/age/prediliction for addictive substances/whether he or she likes cats or not). Indeed, among clear-minded, moderate and considered circles, the Dirty Digger is afforded a degree of cultural hatred which falls somewhere between Kanye West circa MTV-awards-incident and Adolf Hitler.

This week, it seems that the Fuhrer of the Front Page is up to his usual dastardly tricks, actually trying to hide news from us unless we - SHOCK HORROR - pay for it. At first glance, this does seem news indeed (news, one might tuttingly add, we might have to fork out a monthly subscription for in the future): not content with single-handedly orchestrating the rise of Barack Obama, the fall of New Labour and the death of Jade Goody, Murdoch is turning into a hypercapitalist Big Brother, controlling what we know and don't know by means of PayPal and an irritating pop-up advert telling you exactly to what degree it intends to screw you over financially.

When you really think about it, though, free access news - at least in the form of 'quality' journalism - is a thoroughly recent concept. Up until around 15 years ago, the only in depth reportage and analysis of current events you could get hold of was through a physical newspaper or on Television at certain hours and in certain areas. The prospect of the Murdoch's Times or Sun, or even the BBC's news broadcasts being completely free to all was an alien notion. It is only in the world of the Information Super Highway (complete with gridlocked traffic, frequent accidents and a fair amount of dogging) that we feel an absolute right to specialist knowledge, and as such we feel violated when it is restricted.

All of this is, of course, besides the point. The fact is that we have the world at our fingertips and that to block this access would be both unethical and unworkable. By making his publications exclusive, Murdoch would be effectively strangling his position of considerable power: readers would simply opt for a free access alternative.

But while the Digger's comment increasingly sounds like the misguided ranting of a physically and mentally decaying, power-mad 78 year old (which to give him his due credit, is true), it does raise the question of how much we value free, professional news journalism. Now that news is free, we bizarrely don't have the same demand for it. Consider this:

When you fork out a hard earned pound for the Independent or Guardian (readers of this blog would naturally settle for nothing else), you make a tacit investment in the paper: you have paid for it, and bearing in mind it will be out of date in 24 hours, you had better damn read it to get your money's worth. The shiny gold coin handed breezily over the counter (complete with all the smug satisfaction that comes with buying the Independent or Guardian)impels you to savour every last detail of Tower Hamlets' new scheme to empower Bangladeshi youth; to devour hungrily the Shadow Immigration Minister's claims that labour shortages in key tertiary sectors are marginally overstated. Hell, you'll probably even devote a cursory slice of attention to the latest piece of fawning bollocks explaining just how Lily Cole manages to combine acting, modelling, studying and yet remains 'refreshingly girlish and down to Earth'. The point is, that having paid for our news, we value it, sqeezing out every fragment of a penny from every last column inch, satisfied in the knowledge that our hard graft is being rewarded with some slightly more advanced knowledge of the world around us.

With the Internet, things are different. We don't read the news out of this vague notion of duty to investment, but we scan it out of convenience, taking a quick and indiscriminate hit of information before moving on to the more pressing concerns of Facebook and emails. A quick glance at the lead articles on Guardian.co.uk (incidentally, my trendy-lefty homepage)should demonstrate this fact:

Headline 1: "Labour hails landslide in Glasgow byelection"
News digested:: 'So Labour are showing a belated bit of fight in a traditionally strong area. Still it's too little to late'

Headline 2: "NATO urged to share Afghan burden"
News digested: 'A conflict in a Middle Eastern country shows no sign of abating'

Headline 3: "I was bottled up says Sarah Palin"
News digested: 'Former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate is just as bonkers as she was a year ago'

Of course, as I surf on into the hyperspace, attending to the regular deletions of Waterstones' weekly newsletter and the best student offers available this month, I take these digested newsbites as given in themeselves, ignoring any pretence to depth or subtlety these various stories might have had. As it happens the election landslide also saw the BNP's highest polling in a Scottish vote, while the NATO article also focussed on Brown's recent 'friendly conversation' with none other than Rupert Murdoch himself (you quite literally can't keep him out of the news...). While I didn't bother reading Story #3, it's a safe bet that the article portrayed Sarah Palin in a considered, intellectual light, and announced her genuine grievances over highly complicated political matters.

It seems that like Stella Artois (or actually, like Stella's adverts: the real drink is cirrhosis-inducingly cheap) news should be reassuringly expensive. While it's free, we'll always do a few shots on the house, but consider the infinitely more pleasurable experience of a mammoth 12 pint session, in which you genuinely put the world to rights, before forgetting it all and doing exactly the same the next day.

Heaven is the absence of a half-pipe, or that difficult second blog...

For me, the summer of 2001 was all about skateboarding. I never actually got on one of the things, nor have I since, but they signified everything that was cool about the world to an impressionable 13 year old: There was the slightly edgy but non-threatening slacker-stoner appeal (not that I knew what a stoner was, mind you); then there was the sun-drenched Southern Californian whine-pop of Blink 182 and OPM; the baggy T shirts with the obscure logos of skateboard manufacturers on; and finally there were the endless hours devoted to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. In short, to be a professional skateboarder was the single most awesomely radical thing any one could ever be. Dude.

Of course, much like the American Pie films, organized youth activities and wet dreams, skateboarding is one of those things which really should remain peculiar to that strange period of early teens: the intoxicating mix of grown men and women behaving so utterly childishly - with blissful earnestness - captures perfectly the almost-pubescent desire to appear grown up, while safely clinging on to everything that makes childhood so comfortable. Unfortunately, like 'American Pie: The Naked Mile', the Scouting movement and nocturnal emissions, there are isolated pockets where skateboarding has left the realm of squeaky-voiced innocence, and permeated into the unrelentingly real world of everyday, adult life.

It is with these verbose and somewhat self-indulgent thoughts in mind that I sharpened my satirical typing finger in readiness for a precision dissection of the skateboarding students of Southern California. The sight of a philosophy major breezing past my designedly bedraggled form (finely sculpted to say "Approachable, British and literary") on a wooden plank with 4 rubber wheels loosely attached, Plato's Republic under one arm, and a total ignorance of just how ridiculous this sight might look to an opinionated European had become so common that I felt a civic duty to tell the rational world about it (or at least the three readers of Flown the Coop).

But when I actually sat down to lay into these Jean-Paul Satre/Bucky Lasek mongrel breeds, I found myself with (uncharacteristically) very little to say. Pondering on it for a moment, I realized that what I actually dislike about skateboarding is not the act itself: it's just standing on a plank with wheels, but the whole culture of idiocy that appears to come freely packaged and delivered alongside it. If you are not quite sure what I mean, I suggest an hour-and-a half's viewing of MTV: this should give ample opportunity for the enjoyment of several TV episodes devoted entirely to idiots fracturing fibulae and tearing cruciate ligaments as they (proudly) describe their heroic efforts to achieve 'sick air' off the roof of the public toilets at their local playground. It is this pathetic attempt to reconcile a vague notion of 'extreme sports' with the mediocrity of suburban middle class youth that I feel draws my spite more than anything else: The essentially immature and artificial belief that being able to perform a kickflip outside a municipal leisure centre somehow signifies someone as a member of a radical underclass who live by no-one's rules (but still make it home for tea, lovingly prepared by doting mothers across the Western world). While we should bear it in mind that Avril Lavigne's evident dyslexia and outright tunelessness made it difficult to pen her lyrics coherently, her claim that "He was a sk8er boi, she said see you later boy", and as such was rejected by a prim and proper girl, is ultimately misleading: In fact, most likely, he was a boy who owned a skateboard, and was probably more concerned with the correct angle at which to rip his outrageously baggy jeans, than to pay the girl in question any attention.

But the Southern Californian, Plato-reading skateboarder is a different breed. He or she has no claims to the culture of idiocy: the notion of a student-skateboarder evidently undermines this. Instead, the skateboard proves a quick and cost effective means of making one's way around the expanses of concrete and pedestrian-unfriendly street layouts of Orange County. Unlike a bike, a skateboard is portable (and crucially less nickable), and traveling from A to B on one actually looks quite fun.

I am almost tempted to get one myself. But then I realized that the one thing more ridiculous than a sk8er boi at his local park is a clueless English boy trying to balance on a skateboard in a public place.

Until later Duuudes...

Because I like the sound of my own typing...

I really hate blogs, bloggers and blogging. These narcissistic excuses for pseudo-journalism embody my biggest frustration with the internet, namely that too many people with too little intelligence are given too much of an opportunity to make their too ill-informed opinions (or worse, feelings) heard. Gone are the days when the journalist would sit around in London coffee shops with his fellow wits-about-town, urbanely dissecting the intricacies of the Prince Regent's latest folly, or railing against substandard theatrical performances, preferably through the medium of a freshly translated Horatian Ode. Gone too are the days when your discerning reader would sit with the Times of London over his marmalade on toast, perusing the latest humanitarian exploits of the East India Company, while his children and wife are remain mercifully silent and repressed. It seems that even the cosy world where obedient Oxbridge educated hacks trot out quasi-Fascist articles under enormous punning headlines to the barks of a foul-mouthed editor is similarly staring extinction in the face. Instead we are left with the blog: a briefly warm and quickly dissipated urination of opinion in a sea of useless information.

Your typical blog opens with a suitably pretentious title. It needs to be at once profound and meaningless, witty and absent of any humour, and most importantly, needs to bear no relation to the subject being 'blogged' about. Song titles and lyrics are particularly good in this regard, as are ham-fistedly altered figures of speech. Presuming your reader (or 'bloggee' as I will now disdainfully call him or her) bothers to click on the half-chorus of a Morrissey song in front of her, she will most likely be faced with an inchoate mass of cliché, stale rhetoric and a generous helping of self-aggrandizing nothingness.

The opening line will probably be a bold, eye-catching statement. The kind of thing that GCSE creative writing students produce on cue for any assignment which requires writing 'persuasively'. It will be neither funny, nor shocking, nor remotely relevant. What it will be, is a short, arrogant precursor to a much longer, equally bland second sentence, with the overall effect being to show just how seamlessly the blogger can move from one mode of sanctimonious bullshit to the next.

What follows is, inevitably, more of the same. As Alexander Pope once said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing", and half-hearted displays of both general and esoteric knowledge are common, as are implied political attitudes and broad historical generalizations. Bloggers also love quotations: preferably literary or philosophical (but ideally literary which masquerades as the philosophical), but always employed with the religious conviction that any quotation, no matter how tautological or otherwise pointless it may be, immediately raises the intellectual legitimacy of the piece. Watch out too for cooler-than-thou (or sometimes even smarter-than-thou) namedropping, usually of bands, literature or Wes Anderson films, as well as unintelligent neologisms, typically based on techno-words such as 'tweet' or 'blog' or 'technology'. Keep your eyes open for a preponderance of needlessly long words, too.

Essentially the blog is a medium for those kinds of people who always seem to have something to say, believe that they have a divine right to say it, and even when they are acutely aware of the ostentatious ridiculousness of what they are saying (which is rarely), they go ahead and say it anyway. With this in mind, I present to you my first blog. What I want to do, if this experiment/whim goes ahead at all, is just to write pieces of amateur journalism ranging over pretty much anything from music to sport to politics to whatever, and hopefully entertain people a little on the way. Any feedback, ideas or questions will be welcomed, and I would be more than happy to publish anything people want to write (heavily edited of course).

Let me know what you think, and watch this space....