It'll never catch on…

(No, not my former opinion of Twitter). So said the Manchester Guardian when faced with a new medium. 'No good will come of it', he said - he must be spinning in his grave every time a Guardian journalist types yet another breathless paean of praise to The Wire and The Killing. It would destroy the social fabric, said others - people would retreat to their individual homes rather than congregate gregariously.

Here's the song commissioned for the first UK public demonstration of television in 1936. 10,000 homes got TV before service was suspended for the duration of the war.

Paying Lip Service

I got back from fencing late last night and ended sprawled on the couch watching Lip Service, despite it being on BBC3 (it was on after Family Guy and I was too lazy to change channel).

I learned several things about contemporary lesbianism.

1. Lesbians have sex.
2. Almost all lesbians are deliciously middle class.
3. All lesbians work in the creative industries (architecture, photography, acting, TV).
4. All lesbians live in delightful loft apartments.
5. All lesbians conform to magazine definitions of attractiveness. This applies to their straight male friends too. They have no straight female friends.
5. All lesbians live out their lives with a Delgados soundtrack.

Hold on a second. Either I'm one too, or Lip Service is just another soap opera with all the realism of Dallas. Obviously there are caveats - I'm clearly not the target demographic (hip young lesbians and fat dads).

If you listen to the boasting of TV executives, this is a ground-breaking piece of experimental drama. On the other hand, if you've seen The L Word or any glossy drama with heterosexuals, you're on very familiar territory.

It's This Life with very little added. I won't be going back.

Lost in a cultural void

Trapped between election depression and marking hell, I feel my 'hinterland' is disappearing rapidly. I'm reading dissertations and non-fiction (still The Spirit Level, I'm afraid), and my research is gathering dust. Plashing Vole is becoming a wasteland of politics: buttock-faced Cameron is taking over my life.

One dissertation reminded me of a brilliant example of Daily Mail evil. The UK edition campaigned against giving teenage girls the cervical cancer vaccine, because of 'health fears'. Meanwhile, the Irish edition (usually a different front page and nothing else) campaigned, er, for giving the vaccine to teenage girls. Full coverage here.

So come on, readers, distract me. Recommend books, music and TV for the moments I snatch between awarding F grades. I get home after 10 and gormlessly stare at whatever's on. Soon I won't be able to tell the difference between Newsnight and Mitchell and Webb, or whatever else is on 'Dave'. Catching celebrity polluter Clarkson on an old QI yesterday made me apoplectically angry. But that takes me back to BumFace: they're mates.

Heeeeeeeeelllllllpppppp mmmmmeeeeeeee…

Nerd news

Did you all watch Doctor Who on Saturday? I was stunned: the new direction is scary but full of comic turns: it is, after all, for kids. WW2 British Army Daleks menacingly asking 'Would. You. Care. For. A. Cup. Of. Tea?' and cameos from all sorts of quality classically-trained actors. The new assistant is dreamy and the new Doctor is settling in brilliantly. Next week's episode looks amazing - the Blink angels and River Song are back, back, BACK.

If you can't access the BBC iplayer outside the UK, you might be interested in this helpful page.

Perhaps it's the high point of British TV at the moment. It can't seem to do serious drama at the moment - I miss GBH, Boys From the Blackstuff, State of Play to name just a few: the US does those now (e.g. The Wire), but the BBC in particular is brilliant at sheer entertainment. Shame the Tories want to give it to Murdoch.

Political Gladiators

Morning comrades. Or afternoon. Whatever.

The big debate here, or what would be the big debate had I seen or spoken to anyone so far this morning, is who won the party leaders' face-off last night. It's the first of three, this one being home affairs.

Did anyone watch it? Emma came round and we consumed (and I spilled) wine and pizza, while shouting obscenities at the television. I like to think we're ideal citizens.

Instant polling gave it to the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, with Cameron leading Brown by a few points. Not the way I saw it: Brown's been the most unpopular prime minister in decades, presiding over an illegal war and economic collapse. It should have been an open goal for Cameron - and he missed. All three managed to spout their pre-prepared lines, but Brown managed to avoid his usual habit of listing reams of statistics and was even light-hearted now and then. We expect him to be largely dour and solid, and he was.

Cameron seemed to waver between weirdo American small state stuff, even weirder optimism and the most appalling fearmongering, spiced with anecdotes presumably added to make him look 'in touch'. Odd moments really exposed him, such as when he called for more drug rehabilitation, despite promising a smaller state and massive cuts in healthcare: who's going pay for it. Weirder still was his argument that we need bigger nuclear weapons in case of Iran and China: is he planning to declare war? He even edged close to saying 'some of my best friends are black'.He was dicy on state education too; kept mentioning that his kids go to state primary schools. If I were Brown, I'd have asked what his experience of state and mixed education was (Eton, currently £35,000 per year, all-male, all rich). And when he last went hunting.

Brown won't have lost any seats by this debate. Cameron may have. Clegg had it easy - he can range the philosophical prairie because he's not going to be in government. He'll pick up a few seats from this and be happy.

Next week it's the foreign affairs debate - I'd expect Clegg and Brown to score heavily here, given that Cameron's sweetness and light doesn't extend to foreigners.

Worst moments: Brown using 'less' instead of 'fewer', and David Cameron twice bringing up his dead child to prove that he loves the NHS. Brown had a child die too, and didn't sink that low.

Ewarwoowar live blogged the whole thing, wittily and largely accurately.

Update: oh look, Gary Barlow's a Tory (11.50 summary and 11.03). Who loses most credibility from that? Brown's been talking about the economy. Clegg's talking about nuclear weapons. Cameron and Barlow are talking about a national school talent show called 'School Stars'. What a dick, eh, readers?

Doorway, sleeps 2, no mod cons

The BBC is terrified of the incoming Tory government, but I think it's partly responsible for the public's greed and selfishness. Whatever crusty Tory MPs say about liberal bias, daytime BBC TV (and the other channels) consists of property greed, encouraging people to flog their family heirlooms, and talk shows where anything from joblessness to obesity or child abuse are considered to be purely personal failings, with no reference to society at all.

So I was idly daydreaming about a new show…

Opening scene. Man in patched designer suit and designer spectacles held together with sellotape:

"Hello, and welcome to our new show. In the last series, Location Location Location we encouraged smug bourgeois young couples to treat their homes as piggy banks and get into massive debt by speculating on the property market without any regard for fiscal or moral probity. Now, in Repossession Repossession Repossession we're revisiting those couples to see how they've got on in the crash".

Woman in cracked sunglasses trying to yank Primark label off her jacket:
"Yes Jools. We'll be showing them how to hide things from the bailiffs, how to crack the electricity metre, checking out the best homeless shelters in the area, scouting the best restaurant bins, and giving them top tips for building chic, compact homes out of cardboard".

"Thanks Kirsty. And if that's not enough, we'll be inviting our special guests, Tam and Mabel, who've been on the streets since the Tory recession of 1987, to judge our couples on their street skills: bin-picking, skip-diving, shank-making, cider-drinking and self-defence. After all, we don't want them to get a kicking from their former banking colleagues on bonus night, do we?"

"Ha ha, no, we certainly don't Jools. Now, let's meet our teams. In the Salvation Army clothes, it's the Farquhars, who lived in Surrey until yesterday. Team, how are you faring in Peckham?"

And so on. Could be a winner.

Square Eyes

Thanks to Emma, who passes me a book which caught her eye: Michael Darlow's Independents Struggle: The Programme Makers Who Took On The Establishment - an insider's account of the cultural wars in British TV in a period in which production liberalisation could have led to a thousand flowers blooming, but instead led to cynical, patronising, cheap and reactionary television (see the BBC daytime schedule if you don't believe me).

The game's up

I'm very sad. You probably knew that. I'm actually sad tonight, on reading that The Bill is to receive the death sentence for crimes against acting.

In case you're not familiar with this show (and let's face it, only Brits and Australians are), it's a police drama which faded into soapdom. A successor to ground-breaking realist shows like Z Cars, its strengths were tight scripting, a refusal to end with neat conclusions and a clear-eyed view of policing: the characters were complex and often unsympathetic. There were usually many sides to each story, and the producers were extremely quick to pick up on big news from the real world.

Those were the glory days - it gradually became a home for actors whose characters in other soaps had been killed off, and so it became filled with beefcake and totty who wouldn't (or couldn't) do moral complexity: bent coppers don't look great on the CVs of buffed narcissists looking for charidee work.

I'll miss The Bill. Perhaps it will get time off for good behaviour and inhabit the twilight world of repeats channels. You naysayers: leave it aht.

Feckless proletarian scum: Orinoco

I've been watching The Wombles (for professional reasons, obviously). I once thought that the Wombles were lovely eco-minded creatures cleaning up after wasteful humans so that we learn the error of our ways. I now realise that they're nothing but furry indoctrination, designed to condition unsuspecting children in preparation for a life of slavery.

Hegemony in action

Orinoco is the central Womble character: he's feckless, greedy and lazy - lovable, but his proletarian antics are always punished, as we will be if we don't work hard. His boss is Great Uncle Bulgaria, a demanding autocrat constantly demanding copies of The Times (traditional paper of the élite) who almost always foils Orinoco's reasonable requirement for adequate food and rest. The boy needs a union!

The downtrodden proletariat

The heartless bourgeois exploiter of free labour

The books are great, the animations are heartwarming - that's how capitalism works, kids. Gramsci would recognise the evil genius that is The Wombles. I prefer these Wombles.

Vorderman: the sums don't add up

Who caused the recession? Carol Vorderman. Now, she's being used by the Tories as some kind of maths whiz. Let's review her career:

First, she put magnetic letters on a board and did mental arithmetic, not always successfully:



Then, she put the trust of a nation into the hands of some loan sharks:


Meanwhile, the Tories say they're ending 'dumbing down'. Er…
Update: Kim McGowan points out that the Tories are demanding a minimum 2.2 degree for teachers (fair enough by itself) but clearly believe that it only requires a 3rd to become a Tory 'education expert adviser'. The morons.

Save the BBC

Like the Open University, the NHS, the Royal Mail and other British public services, the BBC is an absolute star, proof that government works. Like these other institutions, it has problems, and like them, it's under attack by the forces of capitalism which say that only profit should inform our thinking (despite the global demonstration of capitalism's rapacity and appetite for destruction we're currently enduring).

The BBC is terrified of the incoming Conservative Party government.

If there's a single reason to vote Labour, it's that the Tories are going to cut everything that impedes the power of their friends. Usually, parties stand on a ticket of what they think is good for the citizens: with the Tories, they stand for whatever is good for their friends, and screw the voter (whom they construct as a bundle of greed, fear and selfishness anyway). They need to remember this: the market is a tool, not an end in itself. If we don't want it, it should go. The people like the BBC. Only tawdry commercial rivals, driven by greed and an outdated ideology, want to destroy it. Unfortunately, our political leaders listen only to such people.

In particular, this means that the BBC is going to be stripped bare because Murdoch's News International wants advert-funded, biased, hysterical and profitable TV to replace publicly-funded provision.

If you're a pop music fan, imagine a world in which you only ever hear top-ten, major label, reality-TV derived stuff. No Lady Gaga, no weird novelty hits, no Joy Divisions or bedroom tinkerers or odd commentators on life as it's lived now. Just an endless succession of manufactured, demographically calculated mimers or fake rebels advertising hair wax. If you like classical music, prepare yourself for a world in which the only tracks played have been sanitised by appearing on adverts (ClassicFMworld).

If you like news, imagine a world in which corporate activity is always presented as saintly. One in which newscasters tell you that the Prime Minister is a communist, or a reverse racist or a Nazi (i.e. watch Fox News now). Investigative journalism - dead. Speaking truth to power - gone. Boring but important investigations - abolished.

If you like comedy, imagine a world without Chris Morris, Alan Partridge, The League of Gentlemen and a host of others. Nothing weird, innovative or worthy - just programs tailored by the demands of advertisers. I doubt that the Tories will tolerate The Thick of It.

There are programs made by and for Tories which will go to the wall too. Songs of Praise: brought to you by some televangelist. Antiques Roadshow, sponsored by Cash4Gold. Last of the Summer Wine, full of Sanatogen product placement. Points of View? Not any more: f**k you. Kids' TV sponsored by McDonald's and a host of tatty toy manufacturers. Soaps advertising soap once more… Normal Tories like the BBC as much as anyone else: it's only the corporate shills at the top of the party who hate the idea that the public sphere should give any space to noncorporate voices.

And imagine this schlock punctuated (indeed, suffused with) adverts, product placements and hectoring. A shrunken public sphere in which only consumption has value.

Who wrote this BBC proposal?

It was drawn up by the corporation’s director of policy and strategy, John Tate, a former head of the Conservative policy unit, who co-wrote the party’s 2005 manifesto with David Cameron.

All becomes clear. The Tories have captured the BBC already. It's a hostage: bound, gagged, whimpering and developing Stockholm Syndrome. Why else would you employ someone who is ideologically opposed to your very existence. John Tate should be sacked, then tarred and feathered by the viewers.

This is hell. And it's coming to your living room in 2 months' time.

Enter the nerdzone

Cynical Ben didn't like the first episode of the two-part finale to David Tennant's tenancy of Doctor Who, objecting to the two-part set-up, amongst other things I can't be bothered to go and check.

I do like the scope achieved by taking the time and (relative dimensions in) space to explore the nuances. Ben's a short story fan though, so I understand his point. However, I did enjoy these episodes. Yes, the first one was preparatory, but they both worked. I agree with Ben that Russell T. Davies has probably run out of steam, but he, and Tennant, deserved their indulgent, emotion-wringing farewell.

The last episode was backed with nods to the canon, flashbacks to previous episodes, and constant references to Hamlet, a play which has exerted considerable influence on this incarnation of the Doctor, faced as he has so often been by difficult choices - and in which Tennant has been performing to great acclaim recently.

I've enjoyed Davies's nerdy but passionate take on Who - but Stephen Moffat's got the dramatic skills needed to keep each episode gripping: he wrote my favourite one of all, Blink. The future's bright. Though so is the past, given that a time machine is involved.

Licence fee: vindicated.

Morning! Slightly delayed

I started with a boring Friday and ended up having an interesting one. After the usual horrible swim, I went to buy… bedding. Very exciting. Then I bumped into a friend who required a little medical help. I am a Dr., but not that kind, so off we went.

I did get to see the air ambulance land (not for us), which was exciting. Strangely, one of the crew was filming the patient being hauled out of the 'copter. Is there a sign somewhere inside saying 'this life and death mercy dash will be filmed for training purposes'? Or do they film all trips in case ITV3 needs another cheap 'documentary'? It must be quite a moneyspinner. Major accidents must have competing crews from different TV stations trying to keep each  other out of shot ('John is filming for Britain's Twattiest Drivers. Will he get to the body before Neil, who collects flanges and dislikes mayonnaise, working for Crash Cops? Find out… after the break').

I wonder what constitutes informed consent when you're being airlifted in an emergency. Do they do make-up? 'More blood, now!'.

PS. Just to make the Americans jealous, emergency care and an ambulance call cost precisely £0. Good, isn't it?

PPS. This morning's excitement reminded me how kind and friendly the Great British Public are. All sorts of people of various ages, classes and subcultures stopped to help without a thought for where they should be or what they might be late for.

World's worst: an occasional series. 1: Kirstie Allsopp

Kirstie is a horrible Tory speculator who made a career on TV encouraging everyone to play the property market.

Last night, slipping in and out of consciousness, I dimly took in Kirstie's Homemade Christmas.

Her recipe: apparently, it's traditional to have a tree in your home at Christmas. Kitchens are popular places for people to congregate. Baubles go on Christmas trees (especially if you shop at Liberty or hand-blow your own glass. The rest of her tips were similarly either hugely patronisingly obvious, or astoshingly smug/expensive/impractical.

My perfect Christmas involves a fire, some real ales, and a wall of books cutting me off from humanity. Balls to Kirstie's glass balls.

Another brilliant pronouncement

I don't watch The Apprentice. I can't stand Tories or yuppies, and despise its brand of capitalism. However, Alan Sugar seems to have soaked into the fabric of society like some kind of ineradicable pollution. His announcement today:

Women are their own worst enemies

calls for the simple rejoinder 'Not while you're around Alan'.

Remind me again why everyone from the BBC to the government think he's some kind of genius rather than a shameless and rather dim self-promoter with a mouth bigger than his brain. The Clarkson of business, without the charm or self-awareness.

TV on the radio

I bought a TV licence for the first time, a few days ago. I'm a big fan - £142 to cover many channels, more radio stations than one could ever listen to, and the transmission network for all the other stations. Most wonderfully, BBC services are wonderfully ad-free. Compared to the cost of Sky (for which you need a TV licence too), it's an utter bargain. 

So why do I feel slightly annoyed? Because since setting up the telly, I've only listened to Radios 3 and 4, and Nancy Elizabeth's Wrought Iron, which is hypnotic, late-night loveliness. 

Conundrum corner

This is an excerpt from The Clangers, which I didn't see until I was in my twenties, though I was familiar with Ivor the Engine. Oliver Postgate was special - a raging lefty but also a kind, bucolic kind of man who did children the service of taking them seriously - and thus producing intelligent work which is watchable over and again.



So the conundrum is: what children's popular culture will survive, despite the speed of technological and social change? CS Lewis seems to have survived so far, but I'm not convinced he'll hang on much longer. I haven't seen kids' TV for a long time, so can't really comment, though I do have a soft spot for My Parents Are Aliens.

What do you think? No nostalgia! Make a case.

Farewell, Melyvn Barg

Over at the Guardian, Mark Lawson laments the end of Melvyn Bragg's South Bank Show. Personally, I'm overjoyed that this preening bighead is off the screens. How I wish Radio 4 would do the decent thing and put down In Our Time, his radio show in which he pretends simultaneously to be as ignorant as us and as clever as the scientists and intellectuals he has as guests. Let's leave him alone with his endless novels about clever, misunderstood northern grammar school boys coming down to Oxbridge and becoming clever, misunderstood novelists etc. etc. etc.

That said, old Melvyn's ITV show is their last figleaf against accusations that the channel is an insulting, steaming turd of naked commercialism. This decision essentially says 'we know what you're like, viewers. You're all lazy, stupid slobs who want Jade'n'Ant'n'Dec'n'policecamerapropaganda'n'nonews'n'nothingyou'renotalreadyfamiliarwith and if that's too highbrow for you, we've got ITV4 waiting, you scum.

Or, as Lawson puts it:

Twenty five years ago, ITV scheduled a two-part special about the French modernist composer Olivier Messiaen in peak-time on Good Friday. Nowadays, there would be more chance of a second coming of Christ.

Are people more stupid, less curious, less interested in the outside world? I refuse to believe it, even of my students (joke). But they are given fewer and fewer chances to develop interests outside the dullard mainstream. Schools and universities can't, because they've got targets to meet. The WEA and their ilk are all but dead. 'High' culture is expensive, and TV executives have decided that cheap TV is 'what the people want' - so that's what we're getting. The future is Davina, stamping on your face, over and over and over and over.

Election Results

Arianna Huffington declares the election winner: the Internet, declaring TV coverage tonight will solely be for entertainment. She also provides a useful list of all the sites and blogs (is there a difference any more?) which will provide a composite picture of events.