Category Archives: Culture

Fifteen Million Merits: Part Three

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But alas, it was not to be. I would go as far as saying that you could pick any single episode of X Factor/BGT and you’d see something uglier and more brutal than what Brooker depicted. Ok, so the contestants aren’t being offered a porn deal (not on screen, anyway), but what about when the researchers send through a person with clear mental illnesses for us to laugh at? That happens EVERY. SINGLE. SERIES. Think how many times you’ve laughed at a completely deluded contestant only to stop yourself after a while and go ‘wait, this isn’t right’. People with psychological difficulties are put through round after round by researchers with no scruples, told endlessly how talented they are until they confront the judges. The judges then tell them something like ‘the dream ends here, today’, and they either protest or shuffle off.

Of course they protest! The process by which they gain access to the stage is one in which they are told how fantastic they are! This is not my guesswork, by the way, that’s really what happens behind the scenes. People JEERED Susan Boyle when she came on, purely because of how she looked. That poor girl Jesy from Little Mix has suffered endless torments about her looks and weight. Even last night on Twitter people were passing round photos of animals and saying it was her, or capturing her at ugly angles. That poor, poor kid. She might have won the show with her band last night, but the psychological scars won’t be as short-lived as the fame she’ll probably experience.

There is SO MUCH to be said about X Factor. How we treat people as villains for no reason, how it’s the 21st century equivalent of the Victorian freakshow, how the judges will say anything to sell records. And that’s before you even consider all the scandals about fixing, the bad press stories that the show itself propagates just to gain column inches, and the fact that the pile of nobodies who have won the show in previous years is getting higher and higher. And let me ask you this – can anybody tell me exactly what it is that Little Mix have won? Yes, I know they’ve won ‘The X Factor’, but what are the details here? Have they got a contract? Nothing was mentioned, I’m pretty sure. This is a week when scandal after scandal has hit British X Factor, but the events over at US X Factor are even weirder. Rachel Crow, a girl of 13 or 14, I believe, was voted off the competition this week. Her reaction? She sank to the floor, called for her mum, sobbed her heart out and yelled ‘mama! You PROMISED me!’

These programmes are ugly, and I think most of us have begun to see that. We are no longer in the thrall of them, we’ve had too many vote fixing scandals and insincere comments from the judges to actually take them seriously any more. Brooker portrayed the judges as being the ultimate authority. Actually, this year, we’ve seen the judges criticised as much as (if not more than) the contestants. When ‘reality’ is so ugly in 2011, I would have liked to have seen a really scathing, merciless take down of X Factor. Considering Konnie Huq co-wrote it, and she worked on the programme in 2010, I felt it lacked any insider info. People have claimed that after the axe had fallen on her job, she wrote this to get back at the show. Really? It would have been more effective to paint ‘You suck’ onto the side of a pig and send it on the X Factor stage. I just don’t think the programme was put under the microscope at ALL. It all felt a bit….well, GCSE Drama, really.

There is one more thing, though. I felt disappointed by the postscript in TNA, but in FMM the last 20 minutes were the best bit. Bing worked his way up to the credits needed, tucked a shard of glass into his pants (or was he just pleased to see me?) and proceeded onto the stage. Unfortunately, he didn’t stab Aussie George Michael in the sunglasses, but held it to his own throat and just yelled at everybody. The judges pretended to listen. Aussie George Michael leaned forwards and said something like ‘that was….without a doubt….BRILLIANT’, and got him to speak more. Bing’s anger became sanitised and as a result, he was given his own show, twice a week, half an hour each. He did the whole show with the shard of glass pressed up to his throat, yelling at the system but ultimately becoming increasingly inauthentic, the same as everything else.

Say…here’s a question, kids. Can we think of another angry man who has become a very cog in the thing he hates so much? Who is wheeled out to just yell at things until we all laugh? No, not Konnie Huq. No, not the pig from TNA, now you’re just being stupid. Yes! Charlie Brooker. Spot on. Charlie Brooker is the man who has to hold a shard of glass up to his throat for the rest of eternity, spitting bile and garnering viewers, hating the system but earning money for that very system. Quite a nice touch.

So, that was Fifteen Million Merits. I wonder if I do better with things that look more like our own world, as in TNA? Perhaps it was a little too futuristic for me (although as we speak Google are developing interactive rooms like Bing’s.) I didn’t wake up scarred for life this morning. It was a bit limp. Maybe The Xtra Factor wanted Konnie back to host, and she had to tone down her criticism of the programme. Who knows/cares. I’m off to download the Little Mix single and read the Daily Mail for all the latest X Factor scandals. Ta ra for now.

**Mulling it over, there is one more point I feel I’ve missed. When Bing goes to enter the competition, he’s let through the scanner with no questions asked, even though I’m fairly sure it’s obvious that he’s…erm…got something down his trousers. The security guard sort of gives him a look. It’s been bothering me, that little bit. I wonder if that in itself is a comment on the kind of people they let through to these shows – i.e. as long as they’ll provide entertainment, it doesn’t matter whether they’re a terrible performer, mentally challenged, or carrying a weapon. Just a thought. Another one. **

X Factor not-so-live blog: Part 1

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Ah, the momentous not-quite-X Factor-final that is the Saturday night show. So far I’ve heard that: 1. One contestant will go, 2. The contestants will be forced at gunpoint into a duet with their mentor, and 3. We get to pick one judge to be sent away to the icy lands of Siberia, never to be seen again. Also, WAGNER was talking to The Guardian’s Stu Heritage for their liveblog last night! So what the hell are you doing reading my coverage??!

I’m only going to talk about the important points, because quite frankly, we all know they’ll be visiting home towns, weeping into the camera and coughing up whatever traumatic experiences have blighted their young years so far. I care not for this kind of rubbish. Anyway, the programme is predicted to last around 17 days, and I can’t possibly sit and blog for that long. As you can see, this isn’t even a live blog – it’s Sunday morning. Missing the boat. Anyway, don’t just stand there, let’s get to it, strike a pose there’s nothing to it, as Johnny Robinson would have said. Oh, Johnny. You should be there, at Wembley. This show is NOTHING without you.

Admit it, you just Googled ‘Johnny Robinson’, didn’t you? How soon we forget.

00.02 And the flashing lights, cut to’s and general loudness has started. Can epileptics watch this programme? Anybody? Actually, can people with good taste watch this programme? is probably a better question. All the contestants are excited (shrieky), grateful (sob-y), or nervous (an ugly combination of the two.)

00.03 Wow. WOW. I usually die a bit inside when Dermot dances, but this is probably the best thing I’ve ever seen. He’s grooving all over the city, and what – there’s GOLDIE. Remember her? No need for Google on that one, eh? And suddenly he’s in the studio, hopping about in a manner I like to call ‘small bug does Austin Powers impersonation’.

00.07 Judges have been introduced. Gary Barlow is sucking fun from the audience like a dementor sucks life from Harry Potter. Was that their MO? It’s been ages since I read Potter.

00.07 I’M MISSING THE ARCHERS FOR THIS. Right, onto Amelia Lily. Now, they say she’s 17, but she has the air of a creature some 200 years old, who wanders the Venice canals eating souls and changing her appearance to avoid capture. Anyone else with me on that?

And then I fast forwarded it a bit because I couldn’t BEAR all the sob stories.

The Daily Mail is running a story tomorrow on how Amelia Lily has not opened her eyes since she was 10.

00.11 I honestly don’t think I’m going to make this one, guys. The contestants are singing ‘Greatest Day of Our Lives’, there are people at the back holding up torches, and the crowd WILL NOT SHUT UP. I’m already feeling more traumatised than last Sunday, when I watched Rory Kinnear having sex with a pig. That was peachy compared with this. Rory said he’s bringing a goat over tonight, just for a bit of variation. We like to mix it up, you know.

AD BREAK: Unremarkable except for the fact that it had a BEAUTIFUL Marc Jacobs ad in it.

Read part two here: https://ameliaflorencesimmons.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/x-factor-not-so-live-blog-part-2/

X Factor not-so-live blog: Part 2

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00.18 More utter dross as the contestants visit their respective home towns. I can’t write about this, chaps. I’ve got some integrity. No, wait, I’ve misspelt that. I meant I’ve got some grit in my eye, from watching this awful parade of lunacy.

00.19 Gaz has popped in with Marcus to meet his fam. He looks a woman (Marcus’ mum?!) right in the eye with the smouldering charm of the old bloke in the Werther’s Original ad, and says ‘it’s a bit hot in here….can I take my coat off?’ He’s turned away from the camera and I’m convinced he’s wearing a t shirt with the face of Marcus on, just to show he’s game for a laugh. But…no, turns out he’s just wearing a shirt with EVERY SINGLE BUTTON DONE UP ON IT. Has anyone watched the Amish programme? Because Gary makes the Amish people look like backing dancers for Lady Gaga compared with his austere wardrobe.

Now we’re literally just watching Gary sitting down and nearly having an orgasm over a cup of tea. My mother insists on calling him ‘Grandad Barlow’, and for once I don’t think she’s being utterly insane. He’s the oldest person in the world (bar Amelia Lily, which I have already addressed.)

00.20 Gary has been talking to Marcus’s grandpa. He clearly feels right at home. There’s a “touching” scene between Marcus and his mum. I do love Marcus, he’s got an unbelievably perfect face. But my hate for the X Factor overwhelms everything.

00.21 Marcus is singing with what looks like the cast of the porno version of ‘Pan Am’. Christ on a stick, Marcus has just SUNG something like ‘X Factooooorrrr finaaaal, wooooo yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhh’. That’s a bit like when I’m pottering around the kitchen going ‘cup of coffeeeeee, oh yeeeeeah, making myseeelf some coffeeeeee’. Which I, erm, do actually do. So shoot me!

He’s doing an actually rather good version of ‘Hey Ya’. And WHAT? Some blokes in high vis jackets just hopped on the stage. I like to think they’re some random flash mob. But really, whoever styles these things has no aesthetic taste whatsoever. I am not looking at a stylised, elegant image of an airport, I’m genuinely looking at the set of a cheap porno. Any minute, the high vis jacket guys are going to start saying things like ‘I hear you need your propellers rotated, wink wink’, or ‘Want to see what I’ve got in MY overhead storage compartment?’

Oh, ok. So I could never write a cheap porno script. I think we’ve all learnt something here today.

00.24 Prime example of why I hate X Factor right here: Tulisa leans over the desk, eyes Marcus and says ‘YOU DID IT!’ The crowd go nuts. WHY? Isn’t that like saying ‘well, you turned up’? Because you quite literally have nothing better to say? Surely that’s the comment equivalent of a certificate of attendance?

00.28 Little Mix now. I do like these girls, but I don’t like Tulisa making them out to be the saviour of womankind, or a fourth wave of feminism. I might be wrong. Maybe in a few years at uni people will be studying Helen Cixous, Andrea Dworkin, and Little Mix.

00.32 Little Mix are doing ‘You got the love’. A rare treat, to hear this song. It’s so nice because it’s so underperformed, I find. They’re doing ok, though. Sweet enough girls. That’s…really all I’ve got to say on it. Except for that fact that they look like freaking B*witched. ALL DENIM? ALL DENIM???????? X Factor stylist, you’re on crack, right? It’s cool, you can tell me. Come to mention it, ‘Little Mix’ sort of sounds like a drug some utterly dubious type would press into your hand at a party, intoning ‘here….have some Little Mix.’

00.35 Gazza says he’s been in a band for years, and that ‘friendship’ is really important. Yeah, let’s ask Robbie what he thinks, shall we?

00.42 Time for the other Amelia, aka the Lily variety. I can’t work out why she makes me so cross. I think she has the face of a girl who would give you death stares all night in a bar/club for no reason whatsoever, then say rude things very loudly about one of your friends. Just pure conjecture.

00.46 Yes, let’s quell any ideas that she looks/sounds like a third rate Christina Aguilera by giving her a Christina Aguilera song to sing, shall we? She can sing, for sure, but…oh, I can’t be bothered. I’m going to go and order a dress online.

00.47 Right, that’s all done. Now, this is interesting. I do know the result of who goes out, and I know it to be SPOILER ALERT BUT WHO CARES ANYWAY: Amelia Lily. I suspect this is nothing to do with singing but damage limitation. HMV and M&S both seemingly saying she’ll win, then of course the suspicious comeback, and the fact that it was announced she’d be back in an hour before voting closed. She had to go tonight, because otherwise the X Factor’s “reputation” (haaaaaa!) would be damaged irreparably.

There’s a man supporting Amelia called ‘Mr Pink’. He’s just covered in pink paint. Amelia admits to knowing him. Ok, I think that’s ultimately what scuppered her chances.

00.52 They’re already doing a recap. AN HOUR IN. Actually, it’s good, because I was so blacked out on despair, self-loathing and that ‘Little Mix’ that someone at a party gave me that I missed most of it.

00.53 JLS are performing. Lovely chaps. I can’t be bothered to write about it. I’m kind of just looking forward to seeing the disappointment on Amelia Lily’s face when she doesn’t get through. Damn, everything Charlie Brooker said about me was true. I would totally tune in if the PM had to have sex with a pig. I’m awful. But again, enough about my personal life.

Read part 3 here: https://ameliaflorencesimmons.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/x-factor-not-so-live-blog-part-3/

X Factor not-so-live blog: part 3

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1.02 AN HOUR IN! I can do this, I can do this. AN HOUR TO GO?? No, I can’t do this.

Absolutely brilliantly, the judges have all gone to prepare, apart from Louis, who is sitting on his own looking like a happy puppy. Louise* just mimed playing the bongos, and rambled a bit about what he would have sung, given half the chance. Damn, imagine if Wagner was in this year, and Louis and Wagner did a duet of ‘King of the Bongo’? With Louis and Wagner both PLAYING the bongos and grinning at each other? Oh my god. Just the sheer thought has made me so overwhelmingly happy I know that I can keep going with this programme. I’m happier than Gary Barlow with a cup of tea. I am restored.

*This was a genuine typo, but I’m going to leave it in.

1.04 Marcus is saying how he’s ‘never met anyone as talented, sexy, and with such a penchant for velvet as Gary Barlow’. Mere weeks ago, I would have agreed. But it’s all gone so, so wrong for Gary and me. I think it’s probably because I keep watching Rory Kinnear have sex with animals. (I’m sorry about all the refs, but I’m still so disturbed by Black Mirror that humour is my only way of coping.)

Wow. Gary does sound…velvety smooth. And I love this song. ‘Always a woman’ by Billy Joel from the ‘Music John Lewis has ruined’ album. Marcus is kind of going for it a bit too much though, which ruins the sleek vocals of Gary, who I’ve suddenly started fancying again.

To give him his due, Gary is taking a back seat and really letting Marcus go for it. And giving Marcus the mildly saucy eyebrow. It’s all faintly homoerotic. But I’d rather just watch Gary do this. It was very sweet though, very retro. They even did a delightful little laugh afterwards.

Now Gary has spoilt it all by talking. Going on about how great Marcus is, when we know full well Gaz spent the first couple of months pawing over Frankie Cocozza and revelling in his filthy, filthy hair.

Sneaky fast forward.

1.10 Little Mix time! Don’t do Little Mix kids, it’s bad. For this particular look, the X Factor stylist robbed the Swarovski crystal store at gunpoint and took them for all they had. Singing wise, it’s….ok. I hope I’m getting across a point here, that the X Factor isn’t remotely about singing prowess. Oh NO! They’ve done that whole ‘REEEEE-MIX’ thing. Only Missy Elliot can do that. Her, and T.S. Eliot. If you don’t believe me, check out ‘J Alfred Prufrock: the Death Monkey remix’.

1.14 BLOODY HELL! Some complete idiot has got a Little Mix tattoo on their arm. A genuine tattoo! FOR LIFE. What an idiot. I mean, don’t get it on your ARM. My Johnny Robinson tattoo is on my bottom.

1.15 Uh oh, after the break it’s Amelia Lily and Kelly. I’ll be back soon, I’ve just got to remove all the glass from the room. This is going to get shrieky, isn’t it?

1.20 Apparently the competition is about to get ‘raging’, according to Dermot. Raging like my headache.

He’s now pimping out the atrocious bit of tomfoolery that is the ‘tap to clap app’. TAP TO CLAP. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Thank god there’s finally some technology to make the labour intensive business of clapping much easier for me. Phew!

1.21 Kelly says she knew from the start Amelia ‘had something’. No STD jokes. No STD jokes. Aaaargh, this is killing me. They’re doing ‘River Deep, Mountain High’. Gawd bless America. I don’t hate this. Well, I do and I don’t.

Ten hours later, and they’re hitting a note that only insane chipmunks can hear. Also, Kelly is super duper out of breath after that. Yo! Kelly! Try doing 10 minutes of a Tracy Anderson workout if you think THAT’S tough!

1.24 Kids, I’ve got to leave you here. I’m deadly serious, I think my mental health will be compromised if I watch anymore of this freakshow. Yep, I’m picking up the remote to turn off, and – OH HOLY JEBUS. A woman has made an ‘Amelia Lily cocktail’. She names the ingredients as ‘cherry, pina colada, pineapple’ or something like that. PINA COLADA IS NOT AN INGREDIENT. Oh, hang on. I can’t turn off. I’m about to see Amelia Lily have sex with a pig, live on national TV. Right? That was the deal, wasn’t it? Charlie Brooker has broken me. Finally.

1.46 I’ve fast forwarded Leona Lewis, a million ad breaks, and Michael Buble. I went off Buble after seeing footage of him in concert, swearing all over the place and being generally inappropriate. I’m not even putting the accent on the ‘e’, just to annoy him. There was an ad with Kasabian, a group of utterly beautiful men who produce proper music. It brought me back to earth.

1.52 Nearly time for the moment when I get to see disappointment and fury etched on the face of Amelia Lily. Hooray! And a happy Christmas to one and all.

It’s a beautiful moment. Actually, Amelia handles it very, very well. She does a kind of head nod, smiles widely, hugs Marcus, and all without opening her eyes. That was actually very, very classy. Good for her.

So, we made it. WE MADE IT! Now excuse me, because I’ve got to go and have a shower, and erase my memory. Still, at least we’ll always have this not-quite-live blog.

Black Mirror: The reaction

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I felt like I should write a proper review, after listing all my reactions but not really making sense of it. The programme has really affected me. I sat up until 4am last night, wired, and unable to stop running it through my head. I woke up again now, at 6.30am, and it was the first thing I thought of. It’s really, really disturbed me. I suppose I don’t watch enough horror films these days – I’m very easily appalled.

Back in the ‘Screenwipe’ days, I was a big fan of Charlie Brooker. I saw him as a sort of cerebral Harry Hill. I’m surprised by his move into what I consider to be ‘Mark Gatiss territory’. Anyway, the more I saw of him, the more I heard him rant and ramble, the more he reminded me of a nasal, whiny teenage boy. The kind who thinks he knows everything about politics, literature, life…all at the age of 18. You don’t have a discussion with him, he just talks at you, and if you make a point, you are swiftly crushed. The more interviews with him I read, the more I can’t shake that image, and I get faintly irritated by his huge wave of firm beliefs on life and all the disappointments it brings, according to him. I didn’t think a great deal of Dead Set, so I’ve got no idea why I decided to watch Black Mirror.

From the start, you could see the threads he was trying to pull together. Obviously, Britain’s embracing of royalty again, after the Royal Wedding, here reflected in Princess Suzanne, a Kate-a-like. Then obviously there’s the shifting unease with Cameron, any optimistic ideas about the coalition long dead. (Many of the more unfortunate  Tweets have revolved around the following: @NickCleggsfair: David’s just texted. He’s watching something called Black Mirror. Apparently ‘I’m the pig’. Whatever that means.)

So there was that, a squirming feeling for some that they’d been left a bit….*beep*ed over by the Conservatives. Then the incident with Gordon Brown and that woman whose name escapes me – the one who overheard his rude comments, and the public bayed for his blood. The focus was on what happens when the public determine outcomes, but a public who are working together as more of a mob than a democracy. I have to say, Derren Brown managed rather well to convey this to us without any need for porcine ‘love-making’. Then the riots – the way comment spread across Twitter. First the mobs ruled us, and then we became the mob, linking the police with profiles of offenders who were boasting about their new TVs, etc.

Then there’s our inability to empathise with what we see on screen. We’re removed, most of us ‘dual or triple screening’, sitting there and Tweeting what we see, the crueller the comment, the more chance of a retweet. I for one am rude enough about X Factor, but I’ve never watched ‘I’m a Celeb’. I think the concept is vile. It’s not ‘a laugh’, it’s not ‘entertainment’. It’s a bunch of ‘celebrities’ so keen to revive their fame they’ll humiliate themselves on television. Just think of the TV deals! This time around, Freddie Starr went home, I read, with heart problems. This is it, we’re just laughing and laughing, and voting for people we don’t like to eat bugs, or testicles, or…Anyway. Given my inability to watch the above, I’m not sure I should have felt ready for Black Mirror, but I watched it anyway.

People have zeroed in on the story, isolating the pig sex component and have instantly gone ‘how horrible, what a disgusting programme, I’m not watching someone have sex with a pig’. That’s not the point. Brooker hasn’t made an hour long show about how great having sex with animals is. The whole point is that it’s unthinkable. It’s a completely unnatural desire, not just a dark fetish. If it had been softer, the PM’s dilemma at the crux of the show would have fallen apart. What if the demands had said a man? Or a prostitute? Still the humiliation of being seen at your most vulnerable moment on live national TV, but with less of a chance of you vomiting when Countryfile comes on TV. No, the ransom demands had to be so utterly obscene that there was no question that it couldn’t be done. No way. The aides and advisors were calm, the PM merely concerned with handling all of it.

I mention in my minute by minute reactions how my feelings keep shifting. One minute I’m laughing and the idea has become ridiculous, the next minute I’m staring into the broken face of the PM’s wife and seeing how it will destroy her marriage. It’s clever, because 60 minutes of pure outrage and nauseated shock would have been too much for the viewer. It’s played utterly straight, you’re reminded again and again that this isn’t ‘The thick of it’. But as all the chances fall away, we’re driven towards the unthinkable, yet inevitable conclusion.

I read forums and reviews and Twitter last night, trying to gauge public reaction. People thought it was ‘rubbish’, ‘disturbing’, ‘sick’. People can’t seem to unpick the storyline from the point Brooker is trying to make. We’re not supposed to be ok with this. We’re supposed to feel alarmed, and yet, we keep watching. People named a plothole: that the government would have simply said, ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’. Agreed, but I think they show this as a dilemma completely off the book. It’s the beloved ‘Facebook Princess’ at stake, and the stages the PM and his team go through are fairly well realised.

Another plot hole: the severed finger would clearly not have been the finger of a size 6 Princess. Yes, I also agree, but I think it was only the studio crew who got a hold of it, i.e. people more likely to recoil and put the links together, not to forensically test it. So, after 45 minutes of grappling with the concept, we were finally faced with it. I found it very tough to watch, because like the general public, I swiftly moved on from the Private Eye style haw-hawing at the sight of the PM with his trousers down, and looked at the human aspect of it. That is, a man having to do an unthinkable, unspeakable thing, in front of the eyes of the nation.

Try as we might, we still have our visions of England. We trust in England and long held traditions, beliefs and a shred of national pride. An act like this would mean everything was broken. I don’t know, I felt Brooker was actually saying something positive about the Great British Public. They laughed, jeered and tweeted at first, but that stopped. They quietened. They looked upset. Some cried. See! Not entirely without redeeming features!

Actually, those shots of the faces was something itself. Not only are we a culture who love to watch, we also love to watch people watching. Youtube had tonnes of those ‘Reaction to 2 girls 1 cup’ type videos, and probably for things like The Human Centipede too. Voyeurism has become a way of life.

The ending is where my real issue is. Oh, and SPOILER ALERT.

So as the programme ends, visions of Rory Kinnear vomiting and ignoring the phone calls of his wife still dancing like sugarplums in our heads, we think it’s over. The credits roll. Then…what’s this? Oh! It was a TURNER PRIZE WINNING ARTIST WHODUNNIT. As I said in my play by play review, I kind of saw this coming. Not because I’m any sort of genius/Derren Brown type, but because of my drama degree. The rule is always that you include no ‘flab’ in any good performance. That meant that the news segment on the art exhibition at the beginning was bound to bear some importance. And the slightly creepy looking guy who’s pottering about in his workshop too, he wouldn’t be given screen time for no reason.

But it wasn’t just that I saw it coming. It was the silliness of it. Sorry, but do we really think of art like that now? I feel like at the moment, we’ve moved on from being shocked by Tracey Emin or the Chapman brothers. I just think the ‘what is art?’ debate is hackneyed and not something I’ve heard Brooker express an interest in. Although that said, I read about an artist who is LIVING with pigs for four days, behind glass, naked. No bestiality there, though, chaps. She was waaay too thin, pigs hate that, they like a bit of meat. BADOOM TISH. Etc. Then there was the man who starved his dog, I believe? But really, unless you’re a) a listener of Front Row, or b) a Daily Mail reader who gets outraged by the articles they publish on the louche lives of artists, I don’t think this debate is probably central to your life.

Is that what he’s saying, though? That we overlook art. We don’t understand it, until it’s pushed in our faces? I don’t know, I’d just spent 10 minutes watching Rory Kinnear have sex with a pig, I couldn’t make sense of a ‘state of modern art’ debate that had sprung in out of nowhere.

Couldn’t we just have kept it at being rude about social media? To me, this felt like that total cop out ending that you wrote when you were 8, when you didn’t know how to finish a story: ‘and it was aaall a dream’. So, English teachers. You may well be due a spate of stories which end ‘and it was aaall a Turner prize-winning work by an avant-garde artist’. As for the ‘opinion polls are 3 points higher’…oh, come on. Again, a naff ending. The only bit of merit was seeing that behind the sheen of the politician, the PM had a totally destroyed marriage.

And that folks, is that.

And then I woke up, and it was all a Turner-prize winning work by an avant-garde artist.

The National Anthem: Part Three

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00.42 And we’re back. The crowds are gathering in front of the TV sets. The PM is making the worst car journey of his life. Sam Cam would be wringing her hands if RADA still taught you to do that to signify ‘distress’.

00.44 Like the PM, I’ve remembered again what we’re dealing with here. The nasty details are clicking in. Lindsay has checked, the pig has been ‘sedated’, and she’s now opening the door for a horrified looking PM.

00.45 Cut to people in a pub watching TV, where an official announcement comments that ‘the PM will shortly be performing an indecent act on your screens’. A cheer goes up. And isn’t that exactly what would happen? By the time this information has filtered down through Youtube, through Twitter and Facebook, haven’t we become so utterly desensitized to it that we make no personal connection to it anymore?

Cripes. People are setting their recorders. ‘All viewers are advised to turn off their sets’, etc etc.

Jesus.

I feel…not too hot.

Do you know what, social media has got us in a horrible mess, hasn’t it?

I am honestly experiencing physical pain.

PM is slow mo-ing down a corridor. Lindsay runs through the rules, her voice unbearably slow. She’s a class act, that Lindsay. I’m glad I didn’t come up with a nickname for her. I sat next to her at the theatre once. She’s very pretty in real life.

Oh, ok. I’m just writing so I won’t have to focus on what she’s saying. It’s not pretty. You can have all the advisors under the sun, but when it comes  to having sex with a pig on live TV, you’re on your own. I think that’s the message we’re coming away with, anyway.

00.46 I can’t actually look at the PM’s face. It’s too horrible.

00.47 I wish I hadn’t watched that programme about teacup pigs. It was narrated by Jane Horrocks. Great show. I’M DOING IT AGAIN.

He’s faced with his destiny. A big pink pig. I have a feeling I’m not going to the South of England show next year.

He says he loves his wife, and may God forgive him.

This is it. We can see how rapidly all talk of porn stars, high tech trickery, opinion polls, and ‘just not doing it’ has been left behind. All the time spent considering other options, and he hasn’t thought until now about what ‘it’ will actually involve. He’s got to ‘see it through’, Lindsay informs him. This is the worst – in a situation where we’re grasping at very thin straws, just sort of mucking along with it would have been better than having to ‘complete the act’, which implies a certain degree of arousal and complicity in the act.

00.48 Just when it becomes too unbearable, he’s dropped his trousers, and we cut to the faces of the punters in the pub. They’re jeering. Then a few start looking troubled. Harrowed. Silence begins to fall. We’re staying on their faces. PLEASE LET US STAY ON THEIR FACES. People are crying, shaking heads. Sam Cam is…well, you know. No need for birth control in that household anymore, eh folks?

00.49 We’ve got a princess, falling over on a bridge.

00.50 And just as I’d got detached again, we’re back on the PM’s face, and noises, and it’s horrible. It’s pretty horrific. Really.

00.50 I’m not sure how much to give away here, in case you haven’t watched it. Something has happened, but I won’t say what.

00.51 PM’s throwing up over a toilet bowl. You and me both, sonny. You and me both.

Do you know, I really never thought we’d go there. I really didn’t think it’d happen.

So, after this, I’m now no longer ok to look at: pigs, Sam Cam, David Cameron, Lindsay Duncan, and Rory Kinnear. Most of all Rory Kinnear.

And do you know what? That’s the really clever part. The Camerons are implicit in this, and our brains have been constantly making associations over the course of the hour. We may not have actually seen Cameron having sex with a pig on live TV, but we’ve been there, because we’ve HAD to think about it. It would have been impossible not to.

I think there’s a big chance most of you will see the postscript coming. It’s all there when you watch it, even before you know what you’re looking for, but it’s ok. It’s not what’s important.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m about to lose the battle with supper.

Tatty bye xx

p.s. Here’s a creepy fact: before this postscript, this blog post had 666 words. I was far too alarmed to leave it like that, so I’ve come back in to write this. Superstitious.

p.p.s There’s one more thing that’s bothering me. I just can’t help wondering if it was deliberate that SamCam was dressed in a particularly pale shade of pink dress at the very end of the show? You know, that soft, muted looking pink….why, it almost reminds me of the skin of……No. I’m being silly. Time for bed.