Inspiration deserted me when it came to the title

[alexsarll]

In spite of having attended every Black Plastic to date, and having one of the promoters for a flatmate, I somehow managed to get the start time wrong and turn up half an hour early on Friday, which is quite special. In spite of that, and being fairly tired to begin with, I made it to the end - and beyond, even when the afterparty relocated. Admittedly I didn't last too long beyond that, but I still think this is a win for my new club strategy of having a banana in my pocket for midnight. And I'm glad I was around for it all, because it was a great night - perhaps in part because, as the usual postmortem conversations about who was incredibly drunk soon had us realising, pretty much everyone was incredibly drunk.
I wasn't about for most of Saturday, and even when I made it along in body, I was half-absent in spirit. Not that this was any impediment to continued boozing, of course, but once I hit Sunday and the Hangover Swish (a clothes-swapping event, incidentally, rather than some peculiar toxicological complication), one pint almost did for me so I bowed out early, and even then needed to take a break in Highbury Fields on my way home, and ended up having deeply peculiar fever dreams in which I was the one constant point in a universe which had been destroyed and recreated around me. Twice.

I don't normally link to Charlie Brooker's column, because by now I assume that everyone is aware of him and those who want to read it know to do so without my help. Furthermore, this Saturday's piece wasn't even one of his best. But I'm linking to it because, if you read it online, you got a censored version, and indeed one censored in such a way as to ruin the pacing. The penultimate paragraph carries on after 'incendiary':
"Take Jews. Step one: identify the stereotype (neurotic, big-nosed skinflints). Step two: collect the most neurotic, biggest-nosed, skinflintiest Jews you can find. Step three: film them calling each other "Yids". Step four: put them in a house with a huge Star of David on one wall and a framed picture of a circumcised penis on the other. Step five: dub the Fiddler On The Roof soundtrack over the top. Step six: before you can go home and count the proceeds, you've got to think of a title. How about Oy, Vey?"
Properly placed in the piece, this thought experiment is clearly intended to demonstrate just what a grubby little exercise Jersey Shore is. Anyone reading it in that context and failing to understand that it is satire rather than anti-Semitism is too stupid for their opinion to be worthy of consideration. But the 'Corrections and Clarifications' column says that while the piece was "intended to be satirical", it "should not hae appeared in the Guardian, before dragging Brooker himself on for a little Maoist self-criticism session. The Guardian: officially the paper for people too retarded or permanently offended to recognise satire.

Initially I had the same problem with Lizzie and Sarah that I have with a lot of Julia Davis projects; while I like dark comedy, she has the balance slightly skewed, and just having horrible things happen to your characters is not in and of itself funny. But because Jessica Hynes was also involved (and in spite of her last effort being that godawful drivel with David Tennant as her driving instructor), I persevered. And yes, come the twist it became rather entertaining, but given the nature of that twist, I now don't quite know how they'd get a whole series out of this pilot.

Comments

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

ended up having deeply peculiar fever dreams in which I was the one constant point in a universe which had been destroyed and recreated around me. Twice.

Ok, who's surprised by this? Anyone?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

(It may have been more, but fever dreams are hard enough to remember, let alone translate into English)

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Also, I love Charlie Brooker.

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty skeptical about the Guardian opinion columns, and practice almost blanket dismissal of their reviews - we don't seem to agree on things, and yet I'm told we should. The elevation of being offended into a lifestyle is very tiresome. The elevation of being ironically offensive is being British. I suspect people who complain to the Guardian of being immigrants. Thanks for posting the missing bit.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It's not even that. It's people who are mostly white and British but believe in blanket deference to the presumed opinions of hypothetically offended minorities.

The tragedy is that for all the terrible cringe of the paper and most of their political columnists in particular, they have several writers I like, and two I adore (Brooker and Ben Goldacre), and all the other papers are worse, so I have to keep getting the damn thing once a week because I find it really hard to cope with TV schedules online.

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

I *told* you the universe keeps on changing when nobodies looking, but no so efficiently that nobody at all notices! Obviously, being drunk is the gateway to understanding this.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

You know that thing when you hear that a famous person has died and you are sure that they had already died? My friend Shira and I have come to the conclusion that this is a symptom of that very thing that you just said. As is Covent Garden, which is never the same twice (and I am pretty good at finding my way around places etc).

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I have known things which were definite evidence of this (Monkey was retconned into our childhoods somewhere in the late nineties) but would dispute those two examples. The people who aren't dead when you think are just a function of how hard it is to believe that something so thoroughly of an earlier era could survive into this one - it would be like keeping the same guest star for more episodes of a series than you'd think affordable given their minimal use. Except, the universe has a very big budget.

And London streets, in some areas at least, simply wander. They don't need the world to change to let them move around, any more than the city's other wild animals do.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Generally, yes, but there have been times when we've both had concrete memories of reading/hearing about a specific person's death. On your other point though, IHTSTBIAWBS.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Ah, well then that is a different matter, aye.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I had Cherry Coke for breakfast, apparently it does not assist with my usual AMAZING levels of clarity and good-point-making skills.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I misread that as 'had Cheryl Cole for breakfast', which even if it did mess with your syntax, would get you a pretty much permanent pass.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Unf!

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Poor old Cheryl hasn't kept my attention for long, not with Beyoncé around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSCHSD1Ink

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

And the time Clairey had a nose piercing? I just think you are a bit special in this instance though because clairey never had a nose piercing. Not even in one of the infinte parallel universes. No.

Also it is a bit trampy to fall asleep on Highbury Fields.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

NB You are correct about Monkey. I am not even sure I believe it exists now.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

*Eyebrow* piercing, not nose!

And in this context 'take a break' does not mean fall asleep or have a w@nk. I sat on a bench and read a couple of issues of the underwhelming Green Lantern Corps collection I had got out of the library on the way down.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Ah I see. I am glad you did not fall asleep like a tramp. Or have a w@nk like a deeply unpleasant person.

I think my oven is about to explode. For a day tidying this is proving to be quite a lot more exciting than I had planned.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Is the fat cat inside it?

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

weirdly enough i was pondering this too.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I never disagreed with you, except to say that some of us notice, sometimes.

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

I thought you said that if the world changed in such a way, nobody *should* notice, because it would have always been that way. Or maybe I'm mixing you up with my Philosophy tutor? I think I was falling asleep both times I've discussed this, both with you and said tutor.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You were a bit. The specific change you suggested - that everything had moved slightly to the left - would functionally be no change at all. But even in instances where something has changed, while you'd think nobody should remember, there is ample material from which to deduce the suggestion that some records somehow survive. John Crowley's Aegypt books being my personal favorite on this, though Grant Morrison and Alan Moore have both also had fun with it.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I think the Brooker piece holds together better without that paragraph, it seems needlessly "DO YOU SEE" in a piece which has already made its point well.

I think if he had put "racist stereotype" that would have made it perfectly acceptable but still totally unnecessary on an editorial basis.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

D'you reckon? I think it helps in so far as a lot of Brits might not realise that there still exists much stereotyping of Italian-Americans. Aside from an occasional comedy subplot about the anti-defamation lot in The Sopranos, there's not much reason for people over here to have encountered it as a big deal.
(Even while most of us, asked to name an Italian-American, would go with a) someone from The Sopranos, b) someone else largely known for gangster roles or at a pinch c) Gaga)