I no longer watch the news. For the past twenty-one years (I assume I watched it upon birth) it has served as a never ending depressing soap opera of pain and misery. I ditched Eastenders for similar reasons.
I used to watch it as often as you could imagine. In the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evenings, and sometimes even at night. If I was having a really good week, I’d even watch ‘the Big Questions‘ with Nicky Campbell on Sunday mornings so I could get annoyed over each and every moral, ethical, and indeed religious issue that was raised.
“What do you do now?”, I hear you shout from behind your newspaper. Now, I bypass all news altogether. Once a day I will check online to see what’s going on – quickly concluding that I’m not bothered, and thus getting on with my life. The news is fucking miserable. I know it, you know it – even the newsreaders themselves know it. Nobody can ignore the look of pure joy and happiness that comes up on a newsreaders face as they begin the ‘And finally…’ story at the end of the bulletin.
“And finally… [smile] Smudge, a cheeky little cat from Dorset [bigger smile] caused havoc in his home town today when he escaped onto the roof of a local pub, eventually entering the building through it’s chimney! [joyful laugh]. Not to worry though, Smudge was soon rescued from the burning embers of his catastrophic[snorting laughter] adventure, and is set to make a full recovery [smiling down, at a monitor, most likely still featuring a photo of the cat - if another newsreader is present they will "Ahhh" in unison at this point]. Now, a reminder of tonight’s main headlines: [stern, emotionless, desperate sad face] We’re all going to die.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting the news should be filled with “And finally…” stories. For one, that would be impossible – as nothing can finally happen for the first time – but more importantly; it would be shit. There are hundreds of stories like Smudge’s out there, and thousands more containing all forms of mangled animals as the star. Of course these stories don’t even have to be about animals, they could be about absolutely anything – as long as it’s shit and you can imagine a loner telling you all about it in the queue at the post office in all it’s fine tedious detail – it will fit the news.
I will not go on for hours about how the news is designed to scare you, to make everyday tasks fill you with apprehension and nerves, as we all know this already. If you want to dig deeper into the subject of depressing manipulative news, look no further than miserable writer Charlie Brooker with his downright brilliant show Newswipe. A thirty-minute compilation of the past two series can be seen here.
Instead I will offer a simple solution. A solution I chose a couple of months ago and haven’t looked back on since:
STOP WATCHING THE NEWS.
The news shouldn’t have to stop for me, for you, or for anybody else. Some could argue that it’s important – I’ll have to meet them halfway on that one. The news is a necessity, and we are lucky to have it for what it is – something that, much like a long-term girlfriend, we can dip in and out of whenever we please. Rather than starting your day with the news, start your day with music, or the radio (though try not to resent the radio too much when it starts to read you the news).
Take my advice, ditch the news. One by one, we will all cheer the fuck up.
You know the drill. Here, for one last time, is what will be happening in the world in October – December, 2010.
October 2010
October saw the worst case of ‘mild’ throughout the country since records began. People up and down the UK have reported temperatures reaching mild conditions like they’ve never experienced. One London resident reported -
“What is this? Is this weather?”
While a Yorkshire MP was quoted to have said -
“It’s only a bit of mild, we can cope with it up here. It’s those Southern fairies that have to watch out, they can’t cope at the best of times”
Sky News ran with the story all week, reporting frantically under the subject “Isn’t it funny when the news is the weather and the weather is the news”. Further mild conditions have been forecast for November.
November 2010
In November Google launched the latest iPhone, the iPhone 3GSTi. Previous iPhone owners will notice many similarities to previous models, however the defining feature of the new model is it’s collection of exclusive in-build applications, built to live up to the name and power of the 3GSTi.
Need a pregnancy test after coming home in the small hours of the morning with your knickers around your ankles and the lingering sour smell of fags and regret? There’s an app for that. Simple open up the Pregnancy Test app, and when instructed, pee on your iPhone screen.
After leaving it a few minutes, your phone should give you a vaguely accurate reading – probably along the lines of “Stop pissing on me, you mental woman”.
December 2010
The 2010 X Factor finals came to a close in December with the winner, Roger McRacken from Bolton gaining the UK Christmas Number 1 after a 90’s band couldn’t be bothered to put the effort in to stop them this time around. Upon hearing the news Simon Cowell masturbated in time to the beat of the most likely terrible song, using pulped £100 notes as lubricant while wiping away his tears of joy with a golden handkerchief made from the hair of babies.
Cheryl Cole was once again the winning judge, gaining herself a couple of extra £K in the bag, and unlimited use of Cowell’s master suite whenever Ashley is being a dick.
Louis Walsh, once again, had the group category. He was reportedly furious, though wouldn’t let on. In an interview during the early stages of the show he exclamed -
“My acts are utterly appalling this year. Really bad. But the voting public are idiots, there’s always hope”
And hope there was, with one of Louis acts, Miss Hyde, coming in at second place. Upon being interviewed after the final, Dannii Minogue said something, we’re sure of it, but we just couldn’t see her face move.
Only Logical will return to regular broadcasting, next week.
Two months into this website comes the first ‘Sorry for taking it slowly recently’. They’re not bad odds, and I have genuinely been busy. Did everybody have a good new years? I was here -
To get the ‘full picture’ of my amazing view, imagine watching this video from the opposite side of the river with one hand over your left eye, and the other hand obscuring most of your vision on your right eye. We were stood under a bridge.
Still, it was a great night with some amazing people. at 12.10am it snowed solidly for ten minutes, prompting cries of “It’s magic, it’s beautiful, it’s 2010″. In the spirit of things I may have commended on the snow being the work of Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) thanks to our recent steep rise in transport charges, but this was met with stern looks by the British public – and so it should have been. 2010 is exciting. 2010 is everybody’s ‘best year yet’, and with good reason. Let’s see what April – June has in store for us…
April 2010
April saw heavy snowfall across the UK in what could only be described by the Daily Mail as “Completely down to immigrants”, by the Guardian as “SNOWBLOG, LIVE BLOG, ROUND TWO!” and by the Express as “Completely intolerable, Diana wouldn’t have stood for it”.
Massive idiots complained across popular social networking sites, Twatter, Facewank and the BBC’s Have Your Say forum, displaying disbelief that the country had once again gone into standstill due to a ‘tiny little bit of snow’. One such idiot, Chelsea from Hackney, said “BluhsdasdasdjKAD”, while this utter moron, Benjamin from Streatham Hill said -
Benjamin needs to learn that Narnia jokes haven't been funny for several years, if they ever really were at all
May 2010
A second series of Surgery Live on Channel 4, hosted by your friend and mine, Krishnan Guru-Murthy came onto our screens in May. Following on from last years successful first run, the second series of Surgery Live, subtitled ‘the Switch’ saw real life surgeons handing over the reigns to Guru-Murthy as he attempted to perform life-saving surgery on several unaware patients over the course of the series.
However don’t look over this series as a simple gore-fest. Each week the surgeon involved in the programme has to present the show while Guru-Murthy works, creating just as many amusing moments as they mess up their auto-cues, as Guru-Murthy makes when he accidentally cuts the blue wire. Compelling viewing.
June 2010
In June Gordon Ramsay returned to our screens with his most controversial series yet, The C Word. Ramsay said the decision to ramp up the show (previously titled The F Word) came after it became apparent that the British public had become desensitised to regular levels of swearing.
“It’s all “Fuck this, fuck you, I fucked your mum, she fucked me back” nowadays, said Ramsay in a statement. “It’s no longer shocking, it’s no longer hip. If I ask my son if he’s done his homework he tells me to fuck off – not as an act of rebellion, that’s just the way the world speaks now. The little cunt”.
Completely by coincidence, last week the book I’m currently reading – The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – went several chapters deep into what a fantastic and ground breaking show Sesame Street was, and still is today. And rightly so.
Although airing it’s first episode on 10 November 1969, Sesame Street was conceived several years earlier. A television producer by the name of Joan Ganz Cooney set out to use television in a way not even seen as conceivable to the people around her – she wanted to used television to teach children.
Up until this point television was seen purely as an entertainment device – the idea that it could be used to teach anybody, let along the most vulnerable, was seen as simply ludicrous.
But Cooney did not let this put her off. She had dreams to reduce inner-city poverty and illiteracy by creating a ‘real’ kids show. A show kids whereby kids would learn to love and love to learn.
After joining up with Gerald Lesser (a psychologist as Harvard) and Lloyd Morrisett (of the Markle Foundation) they set to work building a show designed to teach literacy and numeracy to children based on advertising techniques. Sesame Street was born.
Sesame Street was subjected to more academic tests than any other television show in history. Cooney, Lesser and Morrisett did not rest, and indeed did not air the show, until it could be seen that Sesame Street increased the learning and reading skills of its viewers. As Gladwell put it in the Tipping Point; “The creators of Sesame Street accomplished something extraordinary… they discovered that by making small but critical adjustments in how they presented ideas to preschoolers, they could overcome television’s weakness as a teaching tool and make what they had to say memorable” (Gladwell, 2000).
Sesame Street’s main achievement, if you could only pick one, was being the first television show to pick up and run with the philosophy “If you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them”. Countless other children’s television shows, in the forty years since Sesame Street, have ran on the same principle with varying degrees of success, but it was Sesame Street that made this the standard for all to work up to.
Happy Birthday Sesame Street – here’s to another forty years.
Everybody younger than yourself is dreadful and careless in everything they do. Correct. Or at least that’s how the story should play out.
I’m at the age now whereby somebody can be a world famous athlete/singer/actor/x-factor contestant and not only be younger than myself, but their age isn’t even seen as an issue. No Fearne Cotton fanfair, no Emma Watson birthday countdown, nothing.
I recently found out that Rebecca Adlington, the Gold medal winning Olympic swimmer, is twenty years old – a year younger than myself. I have no issue with her winning a gold medal or two, well done to her, what I’ve got a problem with is the fact that it wasn’t reported as incredible that a girl of her young age (she would have been nineteen at the time) had been able to manage such a feat – how at this age we’re still children, and any success greater than going out without managing to be sick on ourselves more than once a week should be seen as a triumph.
But no, it was seen as a normal thing. Sure, she became the nations Diana for a couple of weeks, but by no means due to her age.
This brings me neatly on to School of Comedy – an E4 production that’s been airing for the best part of a month. If you haven’t seen it I’ll break it down for you: It’s a sketch show (sounds shit), where all the actors are about sixteen (sounds shitter).
The name alone, accompanied by flashbacks of a dreadful, dreadful film of a similar name is enough to force anybody to take the easy option by sticking their head into a techno-bucket tuned into re-runs of Live From Studio Five for the whole of eternity, but, due to the persistence of my flatmate, I gave in.
And am I glad I did.
Despite having everything against it and looking somewhat like a formula configured by adding letters together, Countdown style, to form an entire television show – it is fantastic.
You’re unconvinced, and you have every right to me. Sixteen years olds shouldn’t be fantastic comedians – they really shouldn’t. The last sixteen year old I saw asked on a crowded bus of adults, unashamedly and with no fear “Which one of you fuckers opened the window? It’s like the fuckin’ Arctic in here”. None of us fuckers owned up.
Obviously huge credit to the success of the show must go to the writers, but this should not overshadow the talent of these young actors, for making me totally eat my words and more significantly my preconceptions. School of Comedy is a incredibly funny comedy sketch show which uses ideas so simple yet so fantastically executed any thoughts of them being younger than yourself soon fade away, replaced by a view of pure professionalism and merit.
If you live in the UK you can watch the entire series here.
About
Benjamin Spall lives to laugh. He does little else. Only Logical compromises of commentaries and compositions written on a semi-regular basis. For further information, visit the about page.
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