Strike Clarkson dead!

Morning

So anyway, I saw this clip on youtube of Jeremy Clarkson - the laddish drivy man who amuses us all by driving somewhere stupid every Christmas and filming himself breaking down.  He's talking about Wednesday's public sector strikes.



Copyright BBC1.



Unbelievably, he appears to be calling for the execution of people who went on strike last Wednesday! On national television! Actually advocating murder! Unbelievable. This man is a monster, and should be fired. Or, better yet, killed. Yes, killed. In front of *his* family. That would show him. And them. And everyone who ever dares to...

Oh, hang on.

Turns out, if you do even the slightest bit of research into this whatsoever, that there's more to what he said. Turns out he didn't just rock up to the One Show, plonk himself down on a sofa and shout "Kill the strikers!" before bouncing up again and driving away in a reasonably priced car. Turns out it was part of a longer peice, where Clarkson both praised the strike and then, claiming that the BBC had to give balanced views, gave an exaggerated, jokey counterpoint.

Now, it's obvious from looking at what he said that he probably isn't a big fan of the strikers. The pro-strike jokes were about him being able to drive his car fast down empty streets, whereas the anti-strike joke was rather more enthusiastic. But they were still jokes, and they don't actually amount to anything. And, most importantly, he's allowed to have an opinion, and he's allowed to make a joke.

The huge amount of panic and anger in the face of Clarkson's joke makes me ashamed to be British / human / a biped. Unions are calling for his sacking, otherwise intelligent people are demonsing him... everywhere you look someone is pointing at that 15 second clip and going "OHMYGODTHATMANISA M O N S T E R!" But look, intelligent people, look...

1. You've just watched a 15 second clip. Out of context. And you are basing your opinion on that. Or, worse, you have watched it all and chosen to focus on that 15 seconds to make your point. And your point is "I don't like Clarkson." Which is a fair enough point on its own - he does seem to be a variety of stupid things - but it's not a political point, and there are better ways of making it.

2. Your anger at him is distracting you, me, and everyone from the place our real anger should be focused: the government. This strike was about a set of terrible decisions and ideologies that have been put in place by a bunch of millionaires. Millionaires who think that everyone will be fine as long as they are rich, and since everyone they know is rich, everyone will be fine. They are using a financial crisis to push through ruinous policies that will widen the gap between the super-rich and the poor to unbelievable proportions. They deserve our anger, and our condemnation, and we should not be wasting our time with Clarkson.

3. The people I have met at protests have been good humoured, intelligent and warmly compassionate. This kind of cold, snarky bleating misrepresents them completely. Stop it.

So there. I've defended Clarkson. Sort of. Sorry. I defended Bernard Manning for a bit, once. I'm sure I'll get over it.

Happy Birthday, Doctor Who!

Morning everyone! And a happy Doctor Who day to you all.


48 years ago today, on a dark November Saturday evening, the best television show in the world broadcast its first episode. It was the day after JFK was shot, so the correct response to 'Where were you when you heard about the assassination" is probably
"I was bouncing up and down with excitement, shouting "Doctor Who is on tomorrow!""

Even though I was not alive yet, I was vey excited, and longed for the day when I had corporeal form and could enjoy the spectacle for myself. If I was a Mormon, and believed that all souls pre-exist their time on earth in some kind of extra dimensional limbo, I would imagine that I spent the late sixties in this limbo, willing myself into existence so I could catch episode three of Terror of the Autons.

48 years is a long time for anything (eating a pie, having a haircut, lots of things) and so the life of Doctor Who is, for me, the life of time itself. I love it with a silliness that most people seem to shed with adolescence; it is all consuming and defining, and at the same time daft and inconsequential. My enjoyment of the show exists in a tension between, on one hand appreciating the programme as a cultural artefact indicative of the time it was made, and on the other, totally believing it is all true and that one day I will meet K9.

Why is it so great? Well apart from the obvious answer (it just is), it's hard to define. But here are my attempts to do so anyway. If you don't like Doctor Who, you may find the following list incomprehensible. But that is because you are wrong about everything. Also your head is asymmetrical.

Why is Doctor Who Ace?

1. It just is! Sorry, I said that already.



2. It has the best theme tune in the world, born in the never-bettered spookiness of 60s sonic experimentation, but still alive in the mad synthesised frenzy of the 80s and the bombastic orchestration of the 21st century. When I was a kid, I used to think the announcer's voice turned into the first notes: "And now on BBC 1, another adventure for Doctor Whooooooo -eeeeeeeeeeee - ooooooooooo..." In retrospect, it didn't.

3. It allows creative people to do huge, mental exciting things in ways that other shows probably don't. Writers must relish the opportunity to bring stone circles to murderous life, or pit Charles Dickens against evil gas-ghost-zombies. Designers get to play with giant ants, killer dolls and spaceships made of human organs. Best of all, actors get to play a man who has lived a dozen lifetimes, with all the contradictions and joy that would bring. Given how wide the possibilities of fiction are, why is this the only show that really goes to town in this way?

 

4. It is flawed, and fragile, and thus much more beautiful than something perfect and smooth. Doctor Who does not get 7 seasons of 24 episodes, all unified by consistent design and scripted story-arcs. It gets randomly assembled, unevenly structured series, veering wildly in content and tone and written by dozens people with wildly different ideas as to what the series is even about. It gets cancelled, renewed, changed beyond recognition, praised to the heavens and villified as if it has kicked a spaniel. Put two episodes next to one another and you'd often be hard pressed to tell they were part of the same series. Except, no, you wouldn't, because there'd be something about them both that told you otherwise. Some strange, gorgeous vein running through them both, be they about aliens invading earth on a £5 budget, or gods battling demons in the realms of the imagination, or a bunch of friends enjoying each others company in the most absurd domesticity - something that is irrefutably and brilliantly Doctor Who.

5. Ever since I was a weird little kid, with limited social skills and a fear of everything that moved, I've needed Doctor Who. Someone who is an absolute weirdo, never fitting in, always at odds with the way things work. Someone who doesn't tend to fight his way out of situations, but is funny, and clever, and brave. Someone who takes the scary and frustrating things in life and shows them up for what they are: idiots, bullies and fools. I needed it when I was that scared little child, and I need it now, when I am frustrated by the greedy, and stupid, and selfish.

6. I fancy Leela.

7. And Zoe.

 

 

She wasn't even doing her homework!

So did you see the Inbetweeners movie? Of course you did. Everyone did. It says so on the internet, in numbers. I saw it, and I liked it. It's one of the funniest thing I've seen this year - and I've seen Drive! (They could put that on the posters - "Funnier than Drive! But not as gut wrenchingly violent.")

Unusually for a big screen adaptation of a British sitcom, it truly resembles its progenitor. It's heroically inventive in the foul mouthed debauchery of its characters, terrifyingly accurate in its depiction of male adolescence and - occasionaly - surprisingly touching.

The film offers its various protagonists - four young men with little understanding of the opposite sex - a shot at happiness; having them each encounter a girl who actually likes them and seem to understand what makes them tick. Of course, as is the nature of the show (and sitcom in general), each does their very best to make a pig's ear of it by becoming either possessive, sulky, ignorant or chronically incapable of just enjoying the good thing he has in front of him.

Now, I'm not trying to say any of this resonated with me. Anyone who knows me will be aware that sulking furiously and acting like a jerk are things I would never, ever do. I've certainly never started pointless arguments with people about imagined acts of betrayal, kicked a stool to pieces rather than have a sensible discussion, or imagined punching that dick Terry in the face repeatedly for pretending to be your friend when he clearly fancied you even though he knew you were my girlfriend. The gaylord.

But it must be said, there are moments in my life that I look back upon and go 'Ooooh..!' Not 'Oooh!' like you're watching some lovely fireworks or an amusing kitten, but 'Ooooh!' like you're watching a 'Funny home videos' programme and some child has just fallen off a chair and smacked its head into the fireplace. Bad 'Ooooh...!'

The 'Ooooh..!' moment that wandered pointlessly back into my head recently was an argument I had with a girlfriend when I was, indeed, a teenager. I wanted her to come over to my house, as was my boyfriendly right, so I could pray to Jesus/molest her. She said she couldn't, because she was doing her homework. We were doing our A-Levels at the time, and she had some kind of Home Economics rubbish to research. I graciously allowed her to do this, and at no point did I secretly call her a whore.

Anyhow, it turns out she was a whore, because - as I discovered later - she wasn't doing her homework at all! No. She was swimming! She'd gone swimming, with her family, in some water, using her arms and her legs. Arms and legs that I, by rights, should be stroking/nibbling/writing my name on in indelible ink. Property of Rob Reed. Get off. Unless you are some kind of cool, time-travelling future Rob, come back from 2011 to revisit the firm young flesh of his youth. Then you can have a go. But otherwise, no. Begone.

How I imagined my time-travelling future self might look.

(No copyright infringement intended. If you made this,

 frankly awesome, picture, please get in touch.)

Where was I? Oh yes, that's right. Furious. When I found out about this water based betrayal, I had a real old go at her. "You went swimming!" I screamed in fury, as if I was Charlton Heston, gazing at the shattered head of the Statue of Liberty and realising it had lied to me about its homework. "Swimming!"

Well, did she understand why I was cross? Did she hell. hadn't a clue. I may as well have been talking complete nonsense.

"You weren't even doing your homework!" I raged, angrier than anyone had ever been. She stared at me like some kind of idiot goldfish, totally unaware of the seriousness of her crimes. And then, still like a goldfish only much, much sadder, she started to cry. The weapon of woman! Tears in the face of irrefutable logic.

This went on for some time, until she mournfully accepted that whatever she had done, it was wrong, and I was unhappy. What could she do to make things better? Nothing, obviously. I was in a bad mood, and no longer sure why, and no way was I giving up now. I resolved to sulk myself into a black, swirling maelstrom of bitter unreason, only surfacing a few days later when I felt inexplicably better and demanded that we forget about the whole thing.

She got married to some Irish guy and went off to work in a bakery, having managed to fail every single one of her A-Levels. Upon hearing of her academic failure, my mother expressed surprise. "But you spent all that time revising in your room together," she said. She was either very naive, or possessed of a very, very dry wit.

Becca

Around a year ago my friend Becca was diagnosed with cancer, and a few weeks ago she died. She was a really good person, and I wrote a poem for her. This is that poem. It doesn't rhyme, much.


Becca

One day at the pub after church
There were three Beckys
Instead of the usual two

The third one was you

The others were Becky Smithson and Becky Stirrup

If they were threatened by this further reduction
Of their unique Beckiness
They didn't show it

And anyway
You weren't a Becky
You were Becca
With an 'a'

And yes, Rob, you had a boyfriend

You had delicate, translucent skin
A matter of fact voice
Glasses
And intelligent eyes

I grew to think you were quite brilliant
And although you never said it
I can only imagine you thought I was the coolest, tallest, handsomest and most interesting guy you'd ever met in your entire life

My old English teacher
Mrs Roschild
Used to hate the word 'nice'
"Throw it out of the window!" she used to say
In her mad and borderline violent way
So appreciate my effort as I break through childhood conditioning to say

You were nice

I saw you married in the rain
Looking weird and differently beautiful without your glasses
Slightly mischievous
You and Jim playing grownups
In a big stone church

I flirted ineffectually with your friends
Wished you the best
For the future

The future

Sitting by your hospital bed
Assuming this is just a blip

Hearing Bad News
Driving on the A642

Realsing I missed my last opportinity to see you
While watching the Bourne Ultimatum at Kev's

Last chance for now at least

And now there are
Two Beckys where there were three

Except we don't forget
Except we think, maybe
Somehow, in some mad, incomprehensible way
we'll meet again

In some celestial pub
With free wine
And thousands of Beckys

But only one Becca

How to Avoid Riots - an Idiot's Guide

So London is on fire and everyone's got their opinions on what is going on. I'm not going to pretend that my thoughts are the most enlightened, informed or intelligent, but I think I have a few ideas as to how such stuff might be stopped. Given the seriousness of the events, I have taken out number 7 (send for Thunderbirds),  19 (let's just all move somewhere nicer) and 23 (let's listen to what Nick Griffin thinks).

If you want to protest, aim in the right bloody direction

Yes, there are many things worth protesting about. Yes, you might feel like the normal channels of complaint will not get the attention of those in charge. The authorities do appear to be an ignorant bunch of bastards who don't listen to anyone unless they went to school together, so I get that you might want to make more noise than just complaining on facebook. But once you start burning houses and looting shops, you've kind of lost the coherence of your message. Now all anyone can hear is 'I'm a greedy, thoughtless prick'.

You'll notice I didn't complain when you smashed up government offices last year. Blame them - not poor bloody small businesses.

If you're simply a greedy, thoughtless prick, don't pretend you're anything else

As the rioting continues, it's pretty apparent that there's no political will behind most of the violence - just the desire to indulge in selfish, stupid behavior. If that's you, then grow the fuck up. You aren't making any kind of postitive change. 'Getting you tax back' are you? From whom? Curry's? They took tax from you, did they? Or, whoah - is it the whole capitalist system, man? Are you somehow attacking the underlying roots of the system by nicking a telly? Or are you just taking something you're too bloody lazy to work for?

I'd have a lot more respect for you if you just said 'I like breaking things and I want things for free because I'm incredibly selfish.' I understand that from when I was nine years old. Also, it would mean we could just set the hounds on you, and I wouldn't have to worry about having become a fascist.

If you're the Police, don't let your officers get away with murder

Watching the news last night I found myself torn when I saw armies of police marching up the street. Part of me thought 'Thank goodness - get to where you can protect people from this violence.' And part of me thought 'Oh dear, this sight is probably not going to calm anyone down.'

Sorry, The Police. I'm sure most of you are brilliant, and I'm glad you exist. But how many stories have we heard in recent years of you killing people and getting away with it? Fatal shootings on the tube, manslaughter at protests, unexplained deaths in custody - these are not things that make people look at your uniform and think, 'Phew - I'm safe now!'

It's not even the killing, really. Not quite. I get that things happen in high pressure situations. It's your lack of accountablity. It's the sense that nothing you do gets properly investigated. It's the fact that some of you are bullies, and don't respect our rights, and that you get away with this because of systems which protect you when you should be protecting us.

If you're the Government, wise up to the fact that this is your bloody fault

When I teach a class, there is nothing I can do should my students decide not to co-operate. There are loads of them and only one of me and, despite many times of asking, I'm not allowed a cattle prod. Yet somehow I get through the day, working with my classes, getting stuff done. I'm sure you'll find this is the case for most people working in most situations.

Systems only work when everyone understands that we all benefit. My students aren't scared of me, but they understand that I represent the potential for achieving a qualification . Employees of the worst boss in the world will resist punching him in his stupid face, knowing that the financial and career rewards are worth putting up with his bad tie and stupid jokes. We adhere to systems because we believe in them.

Do you understand, The Government, that this is how your country works? There are many more people than you can control with the police, the army, the courts and the prisons. Last night proved that. You can only possibly maintain order if people believe that order is reasonable and good. The hundreds of people who started burning things yesterday might be dickheads, but they've probably been dickheads for ages, and only now are they going mental.

And you have to take some responsiblity. You reward the rich and punish the poor, to an almost cartoon-like degree. You have made huge, idiotic cuts that attack the very soul of the country you are meant to be protecting. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the consequences of reducing provision to culture and recreation? Yes, you might save a little money not paying for youth workers. But that money - while not as exciting as the money that flies around the financial sector, making you wet your pants as your banker friends slap your back - that money works constantly and subtly to help people believe that the culture of this country isn't just for millionaire tossers like you.

In conclusion

It's everyone's fault. Except mine, obviously. And maybe yours. For now, take a look at this, and gasp at the irony.