So I have just joined Twitter. Now what do I do? I have found some people to follow, conspicuously Charlie Brooker who was the only famous person other than Stephen Fry that popped into my head to choose and my pal told me his tweets were boring.

Anyhow, my first tweet is on this page, but now I’m stuck. Looking at it I’m beginning to wish I’d written something about the squirrel I saw getting run over this morning and the way its tail twitched violently before it passed. But I probably wouldn’t have had enough categories and now I’ve mentioned it here it’s defunct, surely?

RIP quivery tailed squirrel with no roadsense.

Today is my birthday – I’m thirty nine years of age and struggling to embrace my first day on the road to forty. Yes I’m feeling sorry for myself (see earlier entries) and yes I know I shouldn’t be, but still . . .

Thankfully I feel a little less alien in the world thanks to the wonderful Charlie Brooker, who began his column today with the following paragraph (a paragraph which (were I a better writer) I could have written about myself).

“I am phenomenally stupid. Stupid in every conceivable way except one: I’m dimly aware that I’m stupid. This means I spend much of my time assuming the rest of the world knows better, that everyone else effortlessly comprehends things I struggle to understand. Things like long division, or which mobile phone tariff to go for. In many ways, this is a comforting thought, as it means there’s a limitless pool of people more intelligent than myself I can call on for advice.”

* “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” Albert Einstein

First day on tumblr;

I don’t taunt octopus…

I do taunt New Yorker…

I want old friends back…

I feel sad… … so I try to do something about it. 

Is Charlie Brooker good? Yes.

Is Peter Mandelson bad? Yes

Stop! Poem time. Thanks 1920s poet lady whose name I have forgotten.

You’re a hateful, socially-inept, charmless, morally spineless, cowardly, free-loading, Skeletor-faced, spunk-brained, king-sized loser of a limp dick. You’re a cock, you’re a tosser, you’re fat-arsed chair glosser. You make me sick.

Admit it. Reading that paragraph made you reflect on what an atrocious cunt you are. Experiment in cold-reading over. It’s ok. I’m not singling you out. The rest of us are scum too:  mankind is lots of tiny bits of scum floating towards other bigger clumps of scum to form a planet-sized ball of scum hurtling towards death, the biggest scum of them all, apart, perhaps, from life. One bloated rotten putrid scum together. Listen to Jeff Lewis’ East River song and this might somehow seem like a wonderful, magical thing. But it isn’t. It’s awful. And if you think differently you’re deceiving yourself like the self-deluding skin-sack of rotting scum that you are.

I’m especially scummy. I know this because I’m the target of a campaign of vicious bile-bombings by Charlie Brooker. Brooker has made my scummyness absolutely clear. The other day he verbally and physically assaulted me. Last night, he repeatedly kicked me in the face – I bled profusely, turning a snow-white pavement from the old Trebor Mr Soft adverts into the river of blood from the Shining. He didn’t say anything, mind – just raised an eyebrow, shook his head and walked off.

I’ve never spoken to Charlie Brooker. I don’t know him. Like every other respiring liberal, I love his column and Screenwipe and even the show he did on Channel 4 when it didn’t have Frankie Boyle and Josie Long on it making me want to fry slices of my own left-hemisphere, like a lonesome Hannibal Lecter, with the hope of making speech recognition an impossibility. But that’s as far as it goes.

See: Charlie Brooker is the Freddy Krueger of vicious satire. He’s terrorising my dreams. I’m not sure how he does it or why, but it appears he won’t stop until he’s successfully pummelled my self-esteem into submission.

So ok, it’s my sub-conscious doing a poor imitation of Brooker through a limited lens of uncreative swearing, with an eccentric bad vigilantism borrowed from The Punisher. But I’m convinced he’s got something to do with it. I walked past him in Clapham the other day, holding hands with a woman who looked like/was Konnie Huq, off of the new Aids adverts. It might not have been her, but the two are permanently associated in my mind after he made her do this. Whatever, she looked slightly ashamed. To be fair, we were gawping at them like drooling newborn infants unable to control our eye movements. But then CB looks like a grumpy Mount Rushmore president coming at you in real life: his head is all massive and granitey. With the added Huq-factor, there was plenty to involuntarily gawp at.

Mainly though, we were gawping cos we’d successfully, though accidentally, summoned Brooker like an evil comedy genie. Moments before he appeared, conversation had randomly turned to a loud discussion of his TV output. Coincidence? I’m pretty sure I said his name at least 3 times: anyone familiar with the Candyman films will know this is enough to invoke an evil spirit. Upon revealing himself, Brooker looked a bit angry (presumably because we’d rudely extracted him from the dark netherworld in which he usually dwells). I suspect it was at this point he used his nefarious powers to enter my subconscious, where he’s been stalking me ever since.

So: does anyone know how to stop a bilious dream satirist? Burying him in ground consecrated by Holy Water would seem like the obvious way to go, but I’m happy to consider other suggestions.

Microsoft’s new Windows 7 OS launched a month ago now, apparently it’s much better than Vista apart from a few minor bugs (I still rep the XP)… But that’s neither here nor there. The adverts are singularly the worst creations ever!

Since Apple publicised the ad campaign where they labelled PCs as ‘Office Drones’, Microsoft have gone well out of their way to show that they are hip and down with the kids yo! Most annoyingly though, they’ve done it through these bloody adverts where random members of the public claim that they ‘did’ something that somehow made them have the right to claim that they ‘created’ Windows 7…

Crystal is probably the worst offender out of the 4 I’ve seen so far (Frankly, I don’t want to see any more). She claims that she ‘told’ Mircosoft to put a taskbar in, which, if you look down now, you will see there’s one already there, and if you’re lucky enough to own Windows 7 you’ll see ‘her’ glorified version. But… she seems to think that single handedly sprucing up the taskbar, an element of an OS which is so minute (a lot of people just alt+tab there way through open programs), allows her to claim creation rights over Windows 7 when all it is, is a gimmick. What a self-obsessed berk. Here’s Crystal’s shot at stardom.

Crystal only just beat one of the other perpetrators of this advertising campaign. This particular one consists of a girl in a University library who mouths off about some new idea for Windows 7. Next, she has the audacity to ask Microsoft to pay her rent for the trouble of ‘thinking up’ an element to be used in the OS. Then to top it off, after being told to shut up by the library employee she decides to shout at the top of her (very weak) voice that she created Windows 7. Not only has she broken ALL the rules, she’s also a prize berk!

Whilst we’re on the subject, I’ll leave you with Charlie Brooker’s ‘Top 10 Cocks and She-Cocks of Advertising’

Berk.

As I buy all my books (and indeed pretty much everything else apart from food) from charity shops any review of the books I’m reading is unlikely to be characterised by theme or contemporaneity. However, the combination of being an exceptionally quick reader, a very brisk reviewer and not having much else to do with my time means that I should be able to provide quantity at least.

Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.

An intrinsically fascinating subject, but I found it hard work to get through. Partly because Diamond’s thesis – that environmental factors are the primary cause for  the differing pace and form of development around the world throughout history rather than being down to innate racial differences  – is basically a common sense one (well, at least it’s what I’d assumed working from basic ignorance). Partly because his writing style is rarely inspired and is unnecessarily verbose.

Charlie Brooker – Dawn of the Dumb

In one piece in this book (the second collection of Brooker’s Guardian journalism, particularly his TV column Screen Burn), Charlie offers advice as to what to do if no-one is talking to you at a party. “[S]tart saying the word ‘despair’ out loud. Begin the incantation at conversational level, then increase the volume incrementally until someone asks you to leave.” It kind of sums up what it’s like to read his work in book form.

In single segments, Screen Burn is refreshing, a caustic and witty assault on the banality, idiocy and small-minded cruelty of contemporary culture. His brutal hatchet jobs on those he dislikes (Psychics, Tories, Stupid People, TV Executives Who Are Convinced Their Audience Are Morons) really help raise the morale of people like me who think that these things are evil and must be stopped.

In book form however, it’s a bit like being hit by a sledgehammer of righteousness. And despair. Because Brooker is under no illusions that the enemy are winning, and his articles are no more capable of stopping them than Cnut was of stopping the waves. He approvingly quotes Kurt Vonnegut to the effect that television is contemporary society’s equivalent of the lead pipes that gradually drove the Romans mad – an unlikely view for a TV critic.

There is TV that Brooker likes: Dr Who, Deadwood, The Shield, The Thick of It, Peep Show; but then it’s back to some soul sucking horror like The Jeremy Kyle Show, Love Island, and so on ad nauseam.

Ultimately, Brooker’s journalism stands the test of time surprisingly well given that much of his material is the definition of ephemeral – Big Brother, X Factor, I’m a Celebrity… – but read too much of it at a time at your own peril.

Bill Bryson – A Short History of Nearly Everything

I think Bill Bryson is a genius, who can make almost any subject diverting. I’ve read, with pleasure, his work on grammar for God’s sake so with the considerable amount of material he has to play with here, an interesting read is basically guaranteed.

The book is basically a twin history, one of the physics, chemistry and biology that has led the Universe from its creation to the present state of the Earth, and one of the progress of human scientists in discovering all these secrets. The first part is clearly explained, generally easy to follow and often fascinating. The second part is where Bryson gets his laughs, poking gentle fun at the many foibles that accompanied the astonishing ingenuity of the leaders of scientific discovery.

Unfortunately, having read all of it, and been fairly sure I understood most of it at the time (I never really got to grips with protons and quarks and so on) I can barely remember a single concept that was explained. In fact, the only clear bit of knowledge that did stick with me is that if a meteor is heading directly for Earth a) we won’t see it in time to fire a nuclear weapon at it, and b) we’re screwed.

Twitter has had quite the month. Its ascension from mere social-network to a serious apparatus of democracy and free expression has been a slow one, but the last five weeks may prove catalytic in this transformation.

First there was the Trafigura incident. Carter-Ruck, the libel-law firm, imposed a super-injunction on The Guardian preventing the paper from reporting a parliamentary question – temporarily revoking this ancient right of freedom. The blogosphere lit up. Twitter, too, was soon alive with complaint. Carter-Ruck bucked; the injunction was lifted.  It was The Guardian who celebrated. But they too saw this as a victory for Twitter – and, more importantly, the masses on Twitter.

Continuing in this trend, attentions were turned to Jan Moir in The Daily Mail. Her – at best – questionable column concerning the death of Stephen Gately attracted a record 22,000 complaints to the PCC, after outrage spread across the net. Charlie Brooker, the ever-popular columnist, no doubt played a part in channelling this outrage into coherency, but Twitter and the blogosphere had once again played a crucial role in dictating the media’s agenda. The fact the PCC’s website crashed under the sheer volume of visitors is part-testimony to just where the mob came from.

Just this week, The Guardian was once again gagged and a case was brought against the Evening Standard. The latter had revealed the name of a former Mi5 agent who was set to release their memoirs. And the Standard’s defence? The information was already in the public domain – where it remains. It is too late not to report the details, they argued. Twitter and the blogosphere had hold of it, and they weren’t letting go.

On each occasion, Twitter and the blogosphere impacted massively on the media, and on politics. Yet the press too can manipulate. The Standard’s defence probably used Twitter, above all else, as an excuse. Twitter is being used by the press to gage public opinion: it’s the lazy-man’s poll. The question is, however, whether or not this poll is self-sufficient. If Twitter is starved of publicity by the mass media, and thus not in the public domain, does it become useless? Twitter made a ripple, the press made the wave.

Twitter’s ability to impact politics, or indeed society, can be overstated. Without sensible reporting on its trends in a widely-circulated newspaper, it can become a thousand voices shouting into nothingness. However, with the blogosphere, Twitter could succeed without the traditional mass-media. If the blogosphere analyses and reports what the masses on Twitter are saying, we’re essentially witnessing democracy at its purest.

The power of the blogosphere, after the past month of activity, has convinced the PCC, under Baroness Buscombe, to consider bringing it under their jurisdiction. The New Statesman was first to rebuff these suggestions, slamming the PCC. It isn’t fit to regulate the press, never mind the free and vibrant web, they argued.

Yet her considerations represent the power which the media perceives the blogosphere and Twitter to possess. It may too represent fears over their potential to render the traditional press redundant. Britain’s strict libel laws already mean the blogosphere must regulate itself, to extents, but if specific regulation is implemented, it may cease to be so special. Its raw, organic nature is its appeal.

And whilst there are already bloggers who have achieved fame – or infamy – the finest working in journalism will always work in a commercial sphere. As soon as the blogosphere becomes commercially driven, it will defeat itself. In an age of uncertainty surrounding the media and its future, the blogosphere and Twitter should be welcomed as a revolutionary way of circulating information.

This golden age of free comment should be celebrated, never feared.

I enjoy most of what Guardian TV critic Charlie Brooker writes, mainly because he’s able, with the ease of a fish to water, to make a complete mockery of the banal and empty-headed nonsense frequently thrust on the general public by ratings-hungry, money-grabbing television executives under the rubric of “entertainment”. He is also very witty. Very witty indeed. The article below is worth reading, though, for anyone who lives in Britain and owns a television, because I think, underneath the jokiness, Brooker’s actually made quite a serious point about our cultural impoverishment, as exemplified in prime-time TV shows like the X Factor:

<CLICK HERE>

(Not that I don’t often watch the X Factor; I do, though not every week… indeed, I sometimes even enjoy it. But if I enjoy it, I enjoy it like some people enjoy picking their nose and eating it, or like other people enjoy scratching themselves and having a sniff… you know, in a kind of debased way that reduces and empties life of its beauty/worth/wonder. Anything that goes by the name of art or culture should have the opposite effect, surely).

A couple of years ago, I wrote a short story for an academic scholarship prize. It made the short list, and the short list was then sent to Ian Rankin to decide a winner. I didn’t win, but I remain immensely proud that my weak attempt at fiction has been read by one of the UK’s top authors. So here it is:

The rise of

COSMIC GRAFFITI

Joe strummed lazily at his Gibson before trying out a few chords then the first few bars of Smoke on the Water. He was vaguely aware of the indistinct chatter of the 3 other members of Cosmic Graffiti behind him. He yawned, stretching out as far back as the cold plastic chair would allow. Joe hated these uncomfortable chairs, they reminded him of school. He looked around him. The room, apart from the three other members of the band and the hall’s caretaker, was empty.

John, the bassist, approached him tentatively knowing how bad a mood Joe would be in by now. The rubber of his trainers squeaked loudly on the varnished wood of the floor and the sound echoed around the desolate hall.

“’Mon mate, no one has shown up so far and I doubt they will now”

“Just five more minutes” Joe snapped “plenty of folk could still come and we’d be halfway to dismantling the rig, how would that look?”

“We’ve been here for two hours now as it is. If anyone was coming they’d be here already” John reasoned.

Joe gave a theatrical sigh and heaved his considerable frame from the seat. It creaked in protest. He ambled towards his amplifier, muttering oaths under his breath.

This was bad; this was the third gig in four weeks where no one had turned up. Last week, three old dears sat through the entire first set before asking, what had happened to the flower arranging class? Turns out they had come a week early and they went away grumbling about how they had wasted almost an entire hour of their night.

Like it mattered Joe thought to himself. What were they going to do instead? Sit in their own piss, surrounded by cats and watching crap TV game shows while smoking endless El Cheapo fags?

Joe’s disgust for the elderly stemmed from his own fear of growing old. He might be on the wrong side of 45 but he liked to think of himself as young and trendy. He still sported the same long hair as he had as a teenager, even if it was thinning a bit on top, and he could still fit in the same pair of jeans that he bought in 1974, that is if he left the button and fly undone. He still liked the same music too, which was why he had formed the band from a selection of old school friends. He didn’t think they were that bad but obviously the general public disagreed.

Joe made to remove his guitar lead from the amp. As his fingers closed round the end he knew something was wrong. His arms and hands spasmed and his fist clenched up on the maple neck of the guitar. He felt an excruciating pulling sensation that made him feel as if the back of his head was coming off and he was shaking violently. It felt as though some one had tried to ram a knitting needle up each nostril straight into his brain, without anaesthetic. It seemed to last an eternity, and then it was over. Joe was lying on his back, the faces of John, Jim and Jack swimming languidly in and out of focus. They were yelling something; Joe caught the word “ambulance”. He opened his mouth to say he didn’t need one but no sound came out. “Stop making such a fuss”, he thought grumpily. To his astonishment everyone started to ignore him and went back to dismantling their kit. Not only did that annoy Joe, it unnerved him as well; they had all done exactly as he had wanted them to do at the exact moment he had thought it.

“Coincidence. It must be.” he thought, but then they had left him on his own after a serious electric shock which is not something most sane people would do. Joe picked himself up, dusting himself off and feeling the sparks and hearing the crackle of static electricity under his fingertips as he did so. That would be excellent; if he really could influence other people and their actions. “World Domination, here we’d come! Wayhey.” he mused, “onward and upward, we’d all have it made.”

Cosmic Graffiti would rival The Spice Girls and Take That in the popularity stakes if Joe were to have his way, every gig would be sold out with touts reselling the tickets to the numptie who would pay the most. He mentally listed what he would put on his hospitality rider and started imagining a queue of birds a mile long waiting outside his dressing room. Good looking ones mind, absolutely no mingers allowed.

Joe indulged in his fantasy for a while; he was in no hurry to help with lifting the heavy gear out to the band’s waiting van but, eventually, he decided he’d better help out or, shock or no shock, there’d be hell to pay and to be frank he couldn’t really be arsed with that.

He began lugging his amp outside, wishing in the process that it had wheels, and huffed and puffed his way to the van. Jack was loading his last high hat into the back. He slammed the van door and made his way back towards the hall, ignoring Joe in the process. Joe was too red in the face to protest but he swore mentally. “You git! Open the bloody door again, or is that too much to ask”, he muttered. Jack suddenly did a pirouette that would have shamed even the most proficient Prima ballerina and rushed to the van door, holding it open like some sort of butler/hobo doorman. Joe grunted in acknowledgement and thanks while at the same time feeling rather scared. Twice, that was twice other people had done what he wanted them to do!

He had to make sure if his hunch was right. Across the road, he spotted an old biddy walking one of these awful shoe-brush style dogs they seem to adore so much, the ones done up with ribbons in their over-long, ratty fur. This was his chance; the woman had to be in her eighties at least. He watched as the woman picked up her dog, her handbag swinging wildly from her elbow, and drop kicked the mangy furball over the trees.

“Three points” thought Joe, a slow and evil smile creeping across his face; this was going to be fun.

Following in the footsteps of his previous Screenwipe and Newswipe BBC programs, Charlie Brooker recently set his caustic sites on the video gaming industry with the same delightfully scabrous sense of humour we’ve come to know and love over the years.

According to a recent study undertaken by Continental Research, consumers said that they would most likely pay to read digital content by Jeremy Clarkson, than any other columnist. Who in god’s name did they ask? I’m presuming just readers of The Sun.

The survey also found that three-quarters of consumers who would consider paying for digital content would only pay 10p or less per article.

The report argued that a micropayment system seemed more acceptable to consumers than proposed monthly or annual subscription fees. However the vast majoirty of consumers asked in the study would only pay 10 or less per article.

63% of consumers said they would not pay for any online content whatsoever.

21% of the remaining said that they would consider making small micropayments for content, leaving only 5% who would be happy to pay monthly or annual subscriptions.

In terms of the micropayments, 35% said they would be prepared to pay 2p per article, 22% would pay 5p, 13% 10p and only 6% would be prepared to pay 20p for each piece of online content.

Other columnists that consumers would pay to read online are:

1. Jeremy Clarkson, The Sun, Sunday Times

2. Charlie Brooker, the Guardian

3. Richard Littlejohn, Daily Mail

4. Giles Coren, the Times

5. Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph

6. Gordon Smart, the Sun

7. Lorraine Kelly, the Sun

8. Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday

9. Jane Moore, the Sun

10. Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail

I notice that Jan Moir isn’t on that list.

So the question, how much would you pay to read a newspaper article online? Answers on a postcard please

Original article can be found here.

Charlie Brooker has Achilles-level anger, and it often makes his writing impressive and entertaining.  The first sentence of his review of a new techno-game wins best line of the day.  Savor it.  Here it is: “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the Citizen Kane of repeatedly shooting people in the face.”

I appreciate that you may be growing tired of all the Modern Warfare 2 stories so I’ll keep this one short. Self proclaimed misery Charlie Brooker has offered his opinions on MW2 and unsurprisingly they’re a little morbid. Total Video Games have been keeping an eye on his Twitter account which begins positive but gradually grows more gloomy as the tweets went on:

“MW2 is fun, and brilliantly made, and spectacular, but it’s basically ‘Bond Goes to War’, but more pretentious…”

“A 9 for technical achievement. But the storyline only merits a 1. It’s daft, and ‘that bit’ is v much ‘unearned’.

And the airport scene?

“Naaah. Because the storyline is total rubbish. It just comes across as empty shock. It doesn’t ‘force’ anyone to ‘confront an issue’ any more than 24 does. It’s entertainment: total schlock at that.”

“In summary: it’s very good, but it’s not the flippin’ messiah or anything. And it has the intellectual depth of Die Hard 4″

“Finished MW2 last night after all. S’alright. More I think about that airport bit the more I think Infinity Ward have lost their minds…”

“… I mean, really: way to set the public image of videogaming back a decade.”

The pessimism seems to clash slightly with the perfect 5/5 score that Brooker awarded MW2 in his review for The Guardian. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion even if it does alter slightly and I respect Brooker for what hopefully is honesty and not the beginning of an expected backlash for a triple A game. PC gamers have that angle covered what with the removal of dedicated servers and other mistreatments from Activision…

You can find here a 33 minutes video of Marina Hyde interviewing  Charlie Brooker.

It’s definitely worth watching and gives a funny look into how people from the entertainment industry, interact with public’s criticism thanks to the internet.

Some people think we’re now more rude and stupid, but to be honest I think the internet is only doing what medicine has done for us.

Years ago you would have died of anything. Now thanks to medicine we can live longer, but that highlights problems that normally would have killed people without the treatment. So are we more sick? No, the people who get sick live to tell us about it, that’s all (probably, perhaps, maybe)

The same thing with stupidity, are we more stupid? No, the people who are stupid can demonstrate it on the internet.

Tonight I went to the recording of a new Radio Four panel game hosted by Charlie Brooker. Titled “So Wrong It’s Right”, it’s a celebration of Britain’s favourite subject – failure.

Charlie Brooker in his Matrix days

The format is a very simple one. Each week, three guests answer questions and Charlie awards points for the “worst” answer. The first round is about something from the panellests’ memories, for example the worst thing they’ve done to impress someone, allowing them to recall some funny and often embarrasing anecdotes, usually from when they were a child or in university. The next round where they pitch ideas, such as the worst reality show, allows them to come up with lots of very amusing ideas. Next is a round where they have free reign to rant about anything they particularly don’t like in the modern world, and then there’s a final quickfire round, with lots of “world’s worst…” questions.

As well as tonight’s recording, I also went to the pilot episode in March, where the guests were king of the panel shows David Mitchell, poker playing corner expert Victoria Coren and comedian Rufus Hound, who I have to admit I wasn’t a fan of before, but I really enjoyed his contributions, he stole the show alongside David Mitchell’s usual wit. Mitchell is often at his funniest when he rails against the modern world, and there were several occasions where this happened during the show. I don’t know whether the pilot will be broadcast as part of this series, but one very funny moment that won’t be aired was when Hound interrupted proceedings because he needed a “comfort break”. When a couple of audience members followed him in to the toilets, Brooker commented that they were probably going to have a peek and then post what they saw on Popbitch – a concept that had Mitchell both confused and outraged at the same time, leading to another of his wonderful rants.

The guests on tonight’s first show were Richard Herring, Lisa Tarbuck and Jack Whitehall. I was so thrilled to see Herring appear, having been a huge fan since I was a teenager listening to Fist of Fun on Radio 1. I’ve had plenty of chances to see him perform over the years (and was already planning to go to next week’s As It Occurs To Me before tonight) but for one reason or another, never got round to seeing his shows. Richard was great, as were Lisa and Jack, and Charlie Brooker was as chucklesome as ever. This series is apparently set for a 6:30pm slot, which would mean that a huge amount of material would need to be cut out, particularly in the current comedy climate where broadcasters are more watchful than ever about what goes out.

Laurence Fishburne in his comedy panel game days

Richard Herring returned for the second episode, alongside Holly Walsh and Iain Morris, writer of The Inbetweeners. All three were again very funny, I won’t spoil the show by letting you know any of the panelists’ answers, especially so far away from the broadcast date, but at one point Morris recounted a very embarrasing story that happened to him which will be very familiar to viewers of The Inbetweeners. The show was a lot of fun, with plenty of good stories, ideas and ad-libs.

Like most panel shows, the format simply exists to allow the panelists to relate anecdotes and bounce funny ideas off each other. To this extent, it works much better than many recent examples, giving plenty of time and space to explore their ideas, with Brooker chipping in with observations, as well as introducing each round by reading some scripted one-liners of varying quality, some of which were very good, although one didn’t raise a laugh at all, with him having to point out that it was supposed to be a joke.

If you’re looking for something like Screenwipe, Newswipe or Brooker’s Guardian writerings, you won’t get exactly what you’re looking for here. Just like his recent Channel Four series, You Have Been Watching, this show is much more about the panelists than Brooker, but his presence is definitely welcome and his contributions often take the conversation down some dark but very funny paths. As long as he continues with the ‘wipes, columns and gets on with that Chris Morris project, the more Charlie Brooker on TV and radio the better.

So Wrong It’s Right, Early 2010, BBC Radio Four

Reading a book consisting entirely of TV reviews from well over five years ago is odd, not least because I have very little interest on what’s on the box and I never watched, or have any attention of watching, what Charle Brooker is reviewing. But Screen Burn is an entertaining jaunt through through the world of crap TV. The book features all his Guardian TV review columns from 2001 up to 2005 and, to be honest, all it would be fine to read in a newspaper, reading about what was on last night while poring over your breakfast, but to read a whole collection of them in a book such as this is just a wee bit boring. The back of the book states that he is hilarious and made me laugh out loud and he’s one of the funniest men around. Nah Sure, I chuckled occasionally every hundred pages or so but maybe I’m just hard to please; Brooker’s humour comes from vie imagery and a general hatred for most of the people that he sees on the screen. I don’t find this particularly funny although some people might. Yeah, I smiled but did I laugh? About twice in the whole book.
An entertaining, if not exactly brilliant, book.

“I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful. Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it’s there, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” – Charlie Brooker
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/28/charlie-brooker-microsoft-mac-windows

As you may or may not know, bbc4  A highly underrated channel in my opinion.
Has currently been producing a series of programs relating to the development of games,
& Charlie brooker has done a small show called Gameswipe.

Much like his other shows Screenwipe & Newswipe. Gameswipe follows the same format, of talking in detail about a subject while taking the piss. He does a pretty good job Talking about video games and making us laugh. Definitely worth a watch. Also try and check out Mr Brooker’s awesome books here

This is part one of six find the other parts by following the video back to YouTube

Leave it to puppets more terrifying than Chucky to help lost souls find Jesus. They should know, since it looks like each doll just rose straight from the pits of Hell.

I’ve gotta go take a cold shower.

~Katie Allyn

I’m not a Luddite, but I simply didn’t understand Twitter. It’s not the first time I’ve been slow on the uptake. In fact if you were looking for a trend-setter you’d do well to look anywhere, no sorry everywhere else for a better person to follow. I’m rubbish at predicting the way the world will move. If it wasn’t for the certainty of the fact I knew time moved forward because it always has done, I would probably end up doubting even this staggeringly basic fundamental element of life.

I’m not adverse to change, I just need to understand it. Regarding Myspace – I couldn’t get to grips with it, Facebook – never saw the need and Twitter? I never saw the point. By the time I finally made a Facebook account I was one of the last of my social group and yet suddenly became a huge advocate of it. Same with Twitter. I’ve been a member for just 2 weeks, and wow, what a way to be brought up to date.

Twitter can be nothing more than innocent fun if that’s all you want it to be, it can also be malicious if you don’t know how to handle and use it, but one of the joys I have discovered this week was the way it can expose and demolish atrocious behavior. It’s a 21st Century tool of revolution if it needs to be, or a shameful way to spend a Friday afternoon watching funny you-tube videos.

In the time since I joined I have met some very funny, witty, kind people. I have also accumulated 28 followers, most of whom I have never spoken to. But that’s OK, that’s what Twitter is about – collecting followers like a junkie collects puncture marks. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate them. Every follower makes my pride swell a little. Sure some are probably just bots advertising jobs, health trips or Br1tney F.ck V1ds, but who cares? The rise in numbers makes my ego grow. It makes me feel like I must be a fairly normal, well adjusted and (reasonably) intelligent and likable person. The adverse effect, of course, being that when I look at another person’s profile and discover they have 1,267 followers I suddenly feel very small. Twitter can also be a very lonely place.

Even so, since joining I have discovered this – nothing spreads news faster than Twitter. It’s a basic fact. For those connected to the Twitter-verse news spreads quicker than the proverbial fire. It doesn’t need heat, it just needs to see the letter ‘H’ before it sparks up and roars off, screaming into the distance. Two examples have hit me already: The Trafigura/Guardian newspaper case, and the Jan Moir Daily Mail article following Stephen Gately’s death.

If I had not been following Graham Lineham, I would never have known that it existed. If Derren Brown and Stephen Fry had not commented I would have been unaware. Thank God I have some interest in these bright, intelligent, witty people otherwise I might never have gotten to this point.

I don’t follow the news regularly because other things get in the way, namely life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I’ve always considered myself a very passionate person about causes that matter. Throughout my life I’ve wanted to fight back against injustice and issues which strike me as morally wrong and/or dumb. I just don’t seem to be able to keep track of all wrong-doings that spew into the world. Twitter now keeps me informed. While detrimental to my stress levels and physical health, it’s fantastic to keep the mind alight and the passion burning.

Regarding Trafigura, I’d honestly never heard of them before. Then the story hit, I did some research and BOOM I had an opinion and a way to voice my anger. Twitterate people know we had a huge impact in the outcome of that scenario. We bombarded the site with links and updates regarding the injustice, and when it was fixed it was fantastic. A real victory. Now Jan Moir, not happy at writing one of the most shockingly inept articles to have been produced for some time, “apologises” with a statement while never acknowledging how wrong she was and seems surprised at the internet out-cry.

You can find the original heavily edited article here and the “apology” here.

I’m not going to write a critique of the piece. Far more intelligent people have done so already (Charlie Brooker’s fantastic article in the Guardian stands head and shoulders above the rest). But I am going to point to the following pictures. See if you can spot the difference between A) The original article and B) The edited article. Did you see it?

The shockingly altered headline does not actually cover up the sewage of the article. Note the description in the nav bar to the right too. To claim it was “sordid” and then attempt to make out everyone else was mis-reading the story is stupid enough to warrant an immediate arrest and possible expulsion to the nearest planet where life has barely managed to crawl out of the sea. I’m fairly sure Jan Moir would settle rather well in such a place with her bloated, pasty fish-face and single brain-cell.

Furthermore, claiming it was an “orchestration” shows how little grasp she has of the Internet, social networking or, indeed, the 21st Century. There was no orchestration, it was the voices of thousands of people who simply did not agree and took offense at what she wrote. Twitter and other social networking sites give people the power to voice their anger and expose this kind of backward thinking, pathetic excuse for a journalist instantly.

I found it amusing that she should question how many people fully read her article. Now come on, Jan, let’s be honest. It’s not exactly what you would clasify as high-brow literature is it? A few measley, one to two sentence paragraphs with enough pictures to space it out. It makes Spot The Dog’s Day At The Zoo look like Tolstoy in comparison. There really wasn’t much there to read, and even less to mis-interpret. So just admit it, we all read the scattering of sentances because honestly it wouldn’t have taken us any longer to finish then eating a digestive biscuit.

In an age where anyone can blog and say what they want, share stories and are granted the ability to respond instantly to whatever hits the web first, did she honestly think this narrow-minded piffle would go un-challenged? Did she learn nothing from what happened regarding the injustice of the Guardian being potentially blocked from Parliament just a few days before and how powerful the Internet had become? No, because she is, as I have said before, an utter idiot. A cretinous life-form who should be punished.

If I write here that I think all immigrants are filth and deserve to rot in their country of origin, I would expect people to make comments to such an outrageous statement. That is if anyone actually reads this, which I doubt very many people do. The troublesome side to the 21st Century is that nearly everyone can be a published writer and “philosopher” and they can spread whatever vile thoughts fill their mind. Even so, I’d be surprised if a neo-nazi writing a blog on why white is right didn’t imagine it would spark some outrage somewhere. It’s the way the internet works, so how did Jan Moir think she could get away with it? Because she is an idiot.

The Daily Mail’s self-righteous attitude caused Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand to be suspended after the media-storm they created. I don’t think what those two did was right, but for an offensive journalist to be so sanctimonious and smug after offending so many takes the proverbial slice of cake and then vomits it over the public who she apparently “writes” for. I am hoping this woman gets similar reprisals and judging by the astonishing response that the article provoked, I know I am not alone. It has been fascinating tracking the outcome of both this and Trafigura in context with the Twitterverse. I used to feel people couldn’t make a difference, my opinion now has completely changed and I urge others to do the same.

It’s staggering. It’s exciting. This is how the world is working. Justice served and bigotry exposed and potentially stamped out all within 5 days. It feels like now, more then ever, we have a voice.

All I can say is bring on the next week! Oh, and make sure you follow @serafinowicz, he’s a VERY funny guy.

I’ve been using Spotify for a few months now and I sort of love it. It’s a world of music at my fingertips; it’s the ability to find that song haunting your every thought in seconds. And it’s all above board and legal and lovely.

In an attempt to get more involved with Spotify I’ve decided to offer y’all a taste of what I’m listening to this weather in the form of an occasional playlist. (If Charlie Brooker can do it, so can I) Yes, some of you will have to pay to listen and for this, I do apologise. All the more reason to lobby for the free service though!

I’ll link every song listed below to somewhere else you can listen to it, if that helps.

Crazy Catching Playlist: Volume 1 (link to playlist contained therein)

1. ‘Us’, Regina Spektor from Soviet Kitsch
2. ‘Pearl’s Dream‘, Bat for Lashes from Two Suns
3. ‘A Truce’, Max Tundra from Worried Noodles
4. ‘Luddites and Lambs’, Everything Everything from Suffragette Suffragette
5. ‘Crying‘, Roy Orbison from The Essential Roy Orbison (Conor O’Brien/Villagers did a great acoustic version of this in the Stables last week)
6. ‘Come on Over (Turn Me On)‘, Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell from Sunday at Devil Dirt
7. ‘The Ice is Getting Thinner‘, Death Cab for Cutie from Narrow Stairs
8. ‘Walking After You‘, Foo Fighters from The Colour and the Shape
9. ‘Are You Ready For The Country?‘, Neil Young from Harvest
10. ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, Elvis Presley from Elvis Presley (1956)
11. ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’, Kate Bush from The Kick Inside
12. ‘Madame George‘, Van Morrison from Playlist: The Best of Van Morrison
13. ‘Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)’, Bob Dylan from Wonderland OST
14. ‘Mommy Complex’, Peaches from I Feel Cream
15. ‘The Chain‘, Fleetwood Mac from The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac (2009)
16. ‘Handle With Care’, Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins from Rabbit Fur Coat
17. ‘Rise Up With Fists’, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, from Rabbit Fur Coat
18. ‘Ben’, Michael Jackson from the Best of Michael Jackson 1995
19. ‘That’s Entertainment’, The Jam from The Sound of the Jam
20. ‘Lilac Breeze’, Eels, from Hombre Lobo

And that is that. As you can see my attempts to listen to new music are hampered by my voyage of ye olde music discovery. Next time the playlist will read like the Inbox at Pitchfork HQ. Promise.

My intent when starting this blog was to review a week’s TV viewing with a few other subjects thrown in. I was kind of going to assume that the reader would know about the TV shows and so a lot of background would not be necessary. The other stuff, like radio shows I listen to, might require more explanation as they are probably less familiar.

That’s still the plan. It hasn’t worked out so far because I wanted to do justice to Harper’s Island and felt that it needed a certain amount of detail. (No kidding, says anyone who actually managed to read all of that blog entry!) What I’ve come to realise while preparing this blog is that I seldom watch live television anymore. I record it on my Virgin Media V+ box, one of mankind’s greatest inventions, and watch it at my leisure, quite often days or weeks after original transmission. Then add in the time it takes to write these things and most of my comments could be completely out-of-date by the time they’re posted. The cultural zeitgeist waits for no man.

However, I have also realised that probably no one will ever read this stuff anyway. It is, in many ways, just a personal form of therapy and writing practice. My technical knowledge is limited and I don’t really have any ideas on how to publicise this blog and attract readers. So, I might as well indulge myself. That being the case, and as a form of preview, the shows I am currently watching, in no particular order are: House, Flash Forward, Have I Got News For You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Medium, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Bones, Life on Mars USA, Burn Notice, True Blood, Dollhouse (although I’m miles behind), Fringe, Stargate Universe (although I’m not convinced by this one, yet, and may choose to drop it), Merlin, Harry Hill’s TV Burp and The Apprentice USA (a guilty pleasure – don’t judge me). Spooks is starting soon and may well be airing by the time I post this so add that to the list. No doubt, there will be more to come. I’m eagerly awaiting Supernatural, any Doctor Who specials, am cautious about Smallville, Mock the Week’s a favourite, Survivors should be interesting, Hustle will return, early next year, I think, as will Desperate Housewives, another guilty pleasure. (No really, don’t judge me.) Is there anything else I should be watching? Please feel free to advise. Hopefully, dear fictitious reader, there’s something there that grabs your attention and might bring you back in the future.

I definitely want to highlight some radio stuff, although, again, I rarely listen live and usually catch them on podcast. These are the highlights of my week (sad, I know) often in preference to most of the above TV shows. I am referring to Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Review, broadcast on Friday afternoons on 5 Live, Fighting Talk, Saturdays from eleven until noon on the same station and finally, The Adam and Joe Show on BBC 6 Music, nine until noon on Saturday mornings, edited highlights on the podcast usually available on Monday evening. If you’re already a fan then you’ll know exactly how much joy is contained in each of these and if not, don’t worry, I’ll try to convert you over the coming weeks.

If I manage to catch any other one-offs on TV or radio then I’ll throw those into the mix, as well. Other transitory pleasures such as books, comics, dedicated podcasts, films, will get coverage as and when I can be bothered. (I realise this sounds quite brusque. Or is it blasé? It’s probably both brusque and blasé. Do I want to be brusque and blasé towards my fictitious readers? Yes. Yes, I think I do. It makes me seem edgy. In a sort of Charlie Brooker way*.) All subject to constraints of time, family and, indeed, sanity.

And yes, I meant weakly intentionally. It’s what passes for humour in these parts.

*Yay, me! Managed to get Charlie into this blog as well. Maybe this could develop into a running gag?

Charlie Brooker at Waterstone's.

Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker described his disastrous experience as a student at the University of Westminster, at a book signing event last night. 

Brooker studied Media Studies at Westminster between 1989 and 1992, but failed his BA because the subject of his dissertation was unacceptable.

‘I flunked it. I failed my degree because I wrote my dissertation about computer games without checking it with my teachers’, he told an audience at Waterstone’s, Piccadilly.

The columnist joked that computer games are now probably a standard part of the course.

Sonic the Hedgehog

‘They’re probably teaching whole modules on Sonic the fxxxing Hedgehog now’, he exclaimed.

But he also admitted that he had not been the most dedicated student.

‘I spent the whole time getting stoned’, he said of his time at Westminster.

Brooker does not remember much that he learned at Uni.

‘I probably learned a lot at the time, but I forgot it all in a couple of months’.

The writer and broadcaster was speaking at a book signing event to promote his latest collection of journalism, The Hell of It All.

Regrets

Brooker is well-known for the scathing tone of much of his work, but he said last night that he regrets some of the nasty things he has written about people.

He told the audience at Waterstone’s that he pulled a column from The Hell of It All because he thought it was ‘a bit unfair’.  The offensive column suggested that a family taking part in a reality TV show should be called  ’The Sxxxs’.

Brooker also said he feels ‘really bad’ about a column he wrote about the philosopher Alain de Button.

Brooker said that he only wrote the column so that he could joke at the end of it: ‘if you feel bad about slagging him [de Button] off, don’t worry. He’d be philosophical about it’.