I have spent the last few weeks watching all the good British television I can find on YouTube. I don’t have television here (I have a television but no cable or local stations so I only use it to watch my DVDs). I know people say that there are good American television shows being made, and these are people I trust, but since I can’t watch the shows, I don’t miss not being able to see them. However, I just think on the whole British television is better. I suppose the shows I miss most are the panel quizzes–to me they blend ideas/current events and comedy so well. I’ve gotten caught up on QI and Have I Got News for You, my two favourites. I’ve also been watching 8 out of 10 cats and Mock the Week (both sometimes hit or miss but I do love Sean Lock). However, my most exciting discovery was Charlie Brooker’s shows. I know some of these were on while I was there, but somehow I’ve missed them. I’ve managed to watch all of Newswipe and Screenwipe. I’ve even watched Gameswipe though I don’t have any interest in games. Charlie Brooker is something else–I really don’t think you’d ever see anything like this here.

Here’s a bit of Newswipe where he looks at US news shows. All of the episodes are available on YouTube; watch them if you’ve got time. A current season of Newswipe is running on BBC4 (I think Tuesdays at 22.30).

I love him a little bit.

Have I Got News For You

BBC1, Fridays, 9pm (ish), Extended Repeat on BBC2, Saturdays

Okay, so am I the only one that was shocked by last week’s show? Dominic West, tough guy Jimmy McNulty from The Wire, has a natural accent so posh it makes the Royal Family sound like members of N-Dubz? Actually, I did know this having heard him interviewed before but I bet it was a shock to many viewers used to his gruff American tones. I always knew he was English but I never suspected he was THAT English!

HIGNFY (work it out) has been going for years and years (I think they’re on Series 38 or something.). Originally presented by Angus Deayton, it has now been using guest hosts for about seven years. Some of these are naturals (Alexander Armstrong, Jack Dee), some are brilliant one-offs (Bruce Forsyth, Brian Blessed) but not suitable to a regular gig. A very few (Gordon Ramsay) have been dismal and I think it’s fair to say that Dominic was somewhere in the middle. Nervous at first he soon settled down but he didn’t seem capable of relaxing too much or improvising. But he read the autocue beautifully. An awkward appearance overall.

This was a good, solid edition of the show if perhaps lacking any great highlights. Ian Hislop was on form but his guest, Reginald D Hunter, was in one of his more subdued moods. This is a shame as he was really funny, as usual, when he did speak up. Top Gear’s James May partnered Paul Merton and was effortlessly good value for money. In fact it was quite a battle, if that’s the right word, to see which of the guests was the most laid-back.

Hislop’s political mockery remains the best bit of the show, for me. He’s become a master of sarcasm over the years and is frightened of nobody. The best editions are where he has a real political enemy opposite him, such as Piers Morgan. He’s equally at home with likeable people like May, however, and always prepared to give the guests room to shine.

Merton is the master of improvisation and surreal comedy. There have been a couple of episodes this series where he has looked distinctly bored, though, and has contributed little. Maybe he’s getting to that stage where he needs to take a break again as he has done once previously. That may be enough to recharge his batteries. There have been signs of life, though, when he’s partnered with the right guest, such as Ross Noble, and perhaps it’s just a matter of taking more care on bookings? If he did quit the show permanently, however, it would be interesting to see who they would replace him with and if the show could survive without him as it has done without Angus.

I don’t know if the guest presenter gimmick was always intended to be the new format or if there ever were any real hopes of finding a replacement for Angus. It’s a difficult choice to make. The freshness of a new host can be invigorating but you never know what you’re going to get. There must be a temptation to give it to one of the competent, regular hosts such as Armstrong but perhaps the producers are scared it will get stale.

Every new series is greeted with fans crying that it’s not as good as it used to be. I think that’s a fair point. If you watch one of the older shows repeated on Dave or one of the compilation DVDs there definitely seems to be a little more energy there, a bit more edge, more danger. But that may just be a sign of the times as much as anything and I don’t mind it feeling comfortable. Some shows are better than others but I always find the 30-minutes entertaining and, in fact, I usually watch the extended edition on BBC2 on Saturday evenings, which stretches to 40-odd minutes.

At any rate, the recent British Comedy Awards selected it as the best comedy panel show, beating out Mock The Week and QI, and the ratings are still holding up, so somebody out there is still watching it and enjoying it. I’m one of them.

The satirical news panel show Have I Got News For You has been cancelled by the BBC.

If you greeted that piece of information with hysteria, disappointment or perhaps a dribble of urine running down your corduroy chaffed thigh, then there is no need to worry.  The BBC have not cancelled HIGNFY, nor would they have plans to.  Nonetheless, the Death of Have I Got News For You is upon us, whether you like it or not, sitting there with your fetid Aussie wine and M&S nibbles, in your dressing gown.  Granted, it’s not a quick, painful and obvious death. But its been suffering for a while now, courtesy of a bout of flu, but no matter the current crop of in-vogue germs strutting their stuff about global aerospace, HIGNFY’s problems have been endemic.

In truth, it all began with the dismissal of Deaton.  Now, the dismissal of Deaton was done for the right reasons et cetera et cetera, no need to get into that, but HIGNFY has since become a bit of a circus.  Of course there’s an irrepressible joy at seeing Brian Blessed rolling out the vowels like the gravy train’s delayed at Yeovil Junction and there’s been many other enjoyable guest hosts, but the novelty factor devalues the content.  Ian Hislop remains a difficult man to like, a caricature of the old guard, public schoolboy whose idea of mischief is to recite newspaper stories with a false sense of righteousness, until he trails off somewhere half way through, lost under his own new found modesty.

Paul Merton remains Paul Merton, playing a maverick from a bygone Vaudevillian age, which is all nice and fun, but he isn’t a satirist, and his wandering streams of consciousness and lightning retorts only further detract from the content of the show.  One wonders whether the BBC, in an age of ever increasing scrutiny, has shifted its quota for satirical content silently to Mock the Week, that brilliant,  low rent, ghastlier stand-up vehicle of a show, and left HIGNFY hanging on the laurels of cheeky banter and desensitised caption competitions; I mean really, is mocking the way Gordon Brown’s foggy eyes drift listlessly like a zombie across the picture satire? Is that what it boils down to?

HIGNFY needs to galvanise.  After 12 years (is it twelve years?) of mocking Labour for inadequacy, the Tories for the size of their inheritance and the Lib Dems for trying too hard, this is all getting a bit much.  It’s become too reverent, and reverent satire must not exist, it can’t exist, and HIGNFY runs the risk of simply sending up the whole charade of government as some kind of invite only, nice-but-dim socialite club with its homegrown brand of expensive yet innocuous corruption, rather than cut to any kind of politicised discourse.  They need to reinstate a regular host.  Alexander Armstrong was touted.  He’ll do.  He’s smug enough.  And let’s be happy that when the Tories swing the election and deprive our fair, small and invariably miserable country of art funding and empowerment and pride, our consolation prize will be years of memorable comedy, art and culture.  And this, of course, will lead to the immediate resuscitation of HIGNFY as a spotlight of the primetime BBC schedule.  That is if it isn’t already dead.

Following on from his hilarious appearance on Question Time, the British National Party chairman, Nick Griffin has been invited to guest-host an episode of the satirical panel show, Have I got News for You.

The show’s producers claim that Griffin’s shambolic appearance, colourful past and propensity for verbal gaffes (he once referred to the Holocaust as the ‘Holohoax’) will make him an immediate hit with viewers.

The recording took place yesterday, and was said to have passed off relatively peacefully, apart from one incident where Ian Hislop received medical attention after accidentally sneering his entire face off. In keeping with tradition, Hislop made six “John Prescott is fat” jokes and  Paul Merton made a record twenty-three random references to Bagpuss.

Those of you, if anyone, who read this blog will notice that Iain Dale is on my blogroll, and admittedly, he is one of my favorite bloggers, third to Alix Mortimer and Daniel Hannan. His posts are usually interesting, thought provoking and at at times amusingly catty. However, watching Have I Got News For You last night his and Michael White’s bicker on Sky News was shown. For those of you who haven’t seen it you can view it here.

Whilst I tend to agree with Mr Dale on most things, I cannot help but disagree with him on White’s use of the term ‘hissy fit’. To describe it as sexist though is an incontestable argument: it is not a term used exclusively with men or women, and in all honesty I would associate it more with children than anything else. The only link that anyone could make between ‘hissy fit’ and gender is the preconception that resides within Mr Dale’s – or any other individuals – mind. We Tories are always arguing that it matters not what gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc. you are, only that you’re a half-decent human being. This form of identity politics, or at least affiliation with it is Leftist territory and is responsible for many of the perceived ‘PC’ problems that the public despise.

Are we not so civilised as a society that we can look beyond our predispositions of people and judge them solely on what they do, not what they are?

Apparently not…

I don’t normally discuss specific blogs – except when I want to point out something positive.

I usually stick to generalisations when I’m criticising them.

However, Iain Dale’s blog seems to be copping some flak recently regarding Mad Nad Dorries, Julie ‘fiddling for a roof’ Kirkbride and now Alan ‘expenses are great, innit’ Duncan.

Tomorrow I am going to be interviewing Alan Duncan for Total Politics. Feel free to suggest questions you’d like me to ask him.

And then the fun starts.

Here’s a selection of the questions I don’t think Dale will be asking Duncan…

Are the flowers planted by Pound Force still in your lawn?

Can he see any conflict between compassionate conservatism as espoused by David Cameron and the values sought by Marc Rich in employees of his oil trading organisation?

Do you regret your remarks about murdering Miss California?!

Why did he act like such a smug cock about his expenses on HIGNFY?

Do you think people believe your tan is real ?

Because she paid her taxes, my mother gets an old age pension of £95 a week. By dint of thrift she has a private income of just under £5,000 a year which means that her pension is clawed back by £45 a month. Why is my mother’s income taxed so that MPs earning £68,000 a year can have free groceries worth £100 a week?

“After your performance on ‘Have I Got News For You’ why do you think that David Cameron has not withdrawn the whip”

Given that pretty well all the questions posed so far severely challenge your morality and your judgement, please can you provide your justification for continuing in office as an MP and Shadow Leader of the House, and one good reason why you should not be voted out at the next election.

Blimey, it’s a long time since I was last a member of the library. I figure if I’m going to become a full time writer, then I need to be able to read a lot, and have access to lots of books. It’s easy to find virtually anything on the Internet these days, but there’s only so many books you can afford if you buy them all, and they start to take up a lot of room after a while.

So the local library is the obvious choice. I popped In the other day to sign up. It’s all very efficient these days. Not only do you get a card with the picture of your choice    (I went for Gormley’s Another Place), but also a fob for scanning, and a bookmark, all as one piece, which you just fold and take apart. Very nice indeed.

After I’d signed up, I just had a bit of a wander about. I was most interested in the biographies as a start point (particularly of actors and writers), but the languages section caught my eye too. They’ve got the fully packaged up book and tape jobs, so I’ll be back for one of them at some point.

I was also thinking about getting a play or two to get some practice in before joining the local drama group, but in the end I went for a book called ‘Made to Stick’. It’s one that I’d had on my amazon wishlist for ages, but it was never in stock. A little different from the Hitchhiker’s trilogy (in five parts) that I’ve been reading recently. I’m sure I read the first four years ago, and had to have a break after the third. I was going a bit loopy by then I think, but I’ve been hardened to surrealism by years of Paul Merton on HIGNFY (and a bit inside my own head here and there).

‘Made to Stick’ is by Chip and Dan Heath, and is about getting your message across to people. Making your messages sticky. A bit like the hook in a song I guess. I’m about a quarter of the way through, and it’s been very interesting so far. Like most books written to help you learn the best way of doing something, it turns out to be really simple, and common sense (once you know).

There’s a bit right up front where they compare a piece of vital safety information and an urban myth. It’s the kidney harvesting story, and the safety thing was…… some safety thing or other. Proving the point straight away, and giving the impression that the rest of the book is definitely going to provide some insight about making a message nice and sticky.

I might spend some time reading at the library itself too. I need to get a job though, so I’ll have to make the most of it before I do. Maybe use the library as my job search office with a bit of reading in my breaks.

They’ve got DVDs for hire these days too, very reasonable, but a fairly small selection. I’ll have a look through them next time I go.

I’m glad I joined again. I didn’t really make proper use of it as a kid, which is a shame. It’s such a great resource. I have to admit to a slight element of copying though. I was reading Richard Herring’s blog around that time, and he said something about going to the library every day! Crazy. But in a good way. Actually, I’ve got a seminar thing at the Job Centre tomorrow, so I’ll go on the way home.

I can’t seem to get my brain together enough to write a cogent post today, so instead I’ve posted, below, a compilation of clips of the appearance Brian Blessed made last year on the BBC comedy quiz show, Have I Got News for You.  My favorite part is the story he tells concerning John Gielgud, but it all makes me laugh.  Enjoy.

Turn on the TV these days and you are likely to discover yet another unwashed ”celebrity” trying to get out of wherever the hell they have been plonked – and it’s never a location far enough away from this planet for my liking. You may well discover a wannabe popstar having their dreams mercilessly crushed (deservedly or otherwise) or a wannabe West End star being yelled at (praise or abuse, who knows?) by John Barrowman. There is no shortage of home improvement programmes which will tell us the best colour to paint that pesky radiator cover or cookery programmes which will show us what the grey mush we have syringed from our saucepan ought to look like. And, of course, there are those searing exposé programmes: “Britain’s Worst Toilet”, “Can Fat Teens Hunt” and, my favourite, ”100 Greatest TV Ads” – all, including the last, interspersed, naturally, with ad breaks, those parasites upon the parasite.

Amidst the dross and the drivel, you do happen across the occasional gem. Channel 4’s “Shameless” is the one drama series that has held my attention over an extended period of time. The institution that is “Have I Got News For You?” with its institutions-within-the-institution, Ian Hislop and the brilliant Paul Merton, is nearly 20 years old and never ceases to make me laugh. The loss of Dermot Morgan ensures we treasure every “Father Ted” episode as a nugget of pure gold. RTE’s documentary and sports departments have a habit of surprising with consistently good productions. Golf with Peter Alliss and “Match Of The Day” are jewels in the BBC’s crown.

And just recently, I had the extreme joy and pleasure of following the beautifully-filmed and incomparably-presented “Stephen Fry In America”. This 6-part series, hosted by the man most deserving of the title “National Treasure”, took the viewer on a journey through each one of the 50 states that make up the USA. Fry steered his trusty black cab across the “Lower 48″ before flying to Alaska and Hawaii, trying to encapsulate the vastness and diversity of America in 6 hours.

The amazing thing is that he succeeds. The photography team behind the series deserve the highest of praise, as their pictures make the viewer ooh-and-ahh just as Fry does at the very “American” attitude of nature in the states - its unashamed brashness, grandeur and ceaseless ability to amaze and impress. He brings us into the depths of a coal mine and soaring over the evergreen national parks in a hot air balloon; he swims with sharks and walks among buffalo; he is not afraid to express his distaste for glitzy Miami or his sheer wonder at the bleak majesty of Hawaii’s newest island, new America literally emerging from the ocean every hour.

Fry’s Odyssey is somewhat Joycean - he attempts to capture the uncapturable by allowing us to sample the best and worst and everything in between, from the delight of a real chilli-dog to the sickliness of a body farm. Joyce bottled Dublin in Ulysses, saving its sights, sounds and smells to be sampled and rebuilt by readers for all eternity. Walt Whitman before him tried to record the tune of his country by singing the song of himself. Stephen Fry, an Englishman, an outsider, has recorded America’s past, present and future in a TV series, 6 hours which comprise a true work of art, a stunning televisual experience.

Television very often displays the ability to disgust and desensitise us. Thanks be to God who formed the vast variety of the United States for Stephen Fry and the team behind “Stephen Fry In America” who proved to us that television is not only a media outlet or a worldwide wall to be graffitied and pissed on, but it can be an artform, and one of extreme beauty too.

Oh, and the entire series is available on DVD. Now you know what I want for Christmas…

Saturday

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Sky Movies Premiere)
• Merlin (BBC One)

Sunday

• Top Gear (BBC Two)
• Fringe (Sky1)

Monday

• The Sarah Jane Adventures (BBC One)

Tuesday

• Prison Break (Sky1)

Wednesday

• Heroes (BBC Two)

Thursday

• The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Virgin 1)

Friday

• Have I Got News for You (BBC One)
• Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (BBC One) Damn the Pensioners & Daily Mail Readers who complained

Here they come, the informative ones

I have a confession - I’m in love with Ian Hislop. Please don’t cringe but it’s true. Despite his short body, nik nak head and smug facial expressions, I find him very sexy. He is the James Bond of brains. You know that he could talk his way out of any bad situation with his charisma, intellect and sense of humour. He is also committed, being the only person to appear in every single episode of Have I Got News for You. Anyway – gush over!

For those unfamiliar with the show, it’s another top British celebrity panel show. The format: a satirical look at current affairs. Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and Paul Merton, comedian are regular panelists whilst the host changes each week and has included everyone from Brian Blessed to Jeremy Clarkson.

Just ending its 35th series, our resident political mockers are partnered each week with a guest panelist from the world of journalism, politics or comedy. This is great because obviously these three schools offer a very different perspective on the world, so very episode is original.

One of the best rounds is The Odd One Out. This consists of four pictures that are all connected in some preposterous way, except one of them is (shockingly) the odd one out. For instance, you have the Cheeky girls, Sacha Baron Cohen, Prince Charles and Vlad the Impaler. The odd one out is Sacha Baron Cohen because he had rented property in Transylvania (to film Borat), the rest own property. Another great one is when all of them have been attacked by a dog except for one – he had been killed by his dog.

Have I Got News For You is one to watch with your partner with a nice cuppa tea. Grown out of Newsround? This is actually a great one if you want/need more know how on politics but just haven’t got the attention span for the news yet. So, if you’ve just got out of Uni and need to rear yourself off Teletubbies, flick on to Dave and give this a go.

For the slightly older members of the hard working tax-payers (in your 20s and 30s), this will lighten your news-filled anxious head. Or maybe you’ll merely appreciate the basic function: it’s hilarious. Here is a recent montage of Ann Widdecombe as guest host.

Trivia: HIGNFY is to be rebranded into the UK version of the US website the Onion.

More Trivia: The BBC has signed it up for 38 series.

Today’s lecture told me what I already knew – that lefties are fools, without exception. We read a chapter by one of G.A.Cohen’s proteges Michael Otsuka for today, which I already realised yesterday didn’t seem particularly groundbreaking, more confusing and thin on procedures for application. He’s a proponent of left-libertarianism (as opposed to Nozick, who’s right-libertarian, and thus more concerned about the individual), hardly surprising given that Cohen’s a krypto-Marxist, and he’s not happy with what Nozick concludes (namely that his principles allow for voluntary slavery). Great, nor are quite a few people – though I must say I like Nozick’s approach, putting the merits of the individual ahead of stringent equality between citizens, more than the others’, and it looks like I’ll be defending his stance in at least one essay in the exam. Unfortunately, all Otsuka actually does is slightly rephrase the ‘egalitarian proviso’ to make it slightly harder for voluntary slavery to take place, but he doesn’t really provide a satisfactory solution to the resourcist-welfarist conflict, nor does he give any indication as to how a left-libertarian system of government could be imposed on current society. All the libertarian theorists, as I pointed out near the end of the class, also assume that financial or resource lump-sums are adequate compensation for welfare deficits like physical disabilities instead of social services provided by other members of society, who would then indisputably be working for the benefit of the disabled rather than for themselves, which Nozick at least already objects to as ‘forced labour’. Oh, and left-libertarian society requires generations to be modelled as non-coexistent (as in, one dies out when the next one appears) and forbids inheritance. Really workable, isn’t it…

GRRR. And this is the stuff I will have to spend tomorrow writing an essay on, and Monday 11th August, 14:00-17:00, writing two more on (which I have to plan in advance next weekend) in the central exam venue of the U of T. I’m currently relating to the most recent additions to my knowledge of political philosophy in much the same way as I related to Rousseau at the start of last Hilary term – it’s so painfully wrong and misguided I have to force myself not to lose the will to shout “For god’s sake, these are HUMANS you’re dealing with, not SUPERMEN – you need a paternalist social policy and a liberal economic policy, so you stop the population doing stupid things and help out the market system when it fails consumers; those that deserve it get material reward from society, those that don’t get basic subsistence so that they don’t die of neglect; that is all“. Ungrh. Small wonder I’m racing through episode after episode of Would I lie to you?, QI, Mock the Week, Last Choir Standing, Top Gear, HIGNFY… the list is endless – I just need a lot of distraction. Also small wonder I’m reading obscene numbers of blogs and burying myself in puzzles – I’m even thinking of starting my arrangement of Take That’s Shine just to get some of the pent-up music drive out of my system… oh well…

Skimming through the latest TGO – they’ve gone and armed Crazy Eddy Meechan. Admittedly only with a water pistol, but believe me, you don’t want to know where he’s aiming. As always, Eddy tries out the options so that we don’t have to (and as always, some useful info).

A nice quotation on learning from Vladimir Nabokov, over at LanguageHat – link.

Randall Munroe at XKCD identifies a universal truth (at least for male non-vegetarians) – link.

Saw the Brian Blessed hosted episode of Have I Got News For You on TV the other day. If you feel in need of cheering up, turn down the volume, tune in and enjoy Pt1, Pt2 and Pt3.

And it’s onwards and upwards for the wild camping ePetition, reaching the dizzy heights of 1664 signatures at the latest count. The last week has seen a surge of support for the petition, making the 2000 mark a possibility. Of course, the interesting bit comes after 24 May.

Oh, and JH has launched the 2008 hip-pack competition, those looking for ideas could do worse than to crib from Tinny at Minibull Design.

I have been a huge fan of Have I Got News For You (or HIGNFY) for years now so I thought I’d pay hommage to the great programme with a blog.

I probably started watching it regularly on a Friday night with my parents when I was around 11 or 12. Too young to understand some of the jokes and I didn’t really know who most of the politicians or public figures were that they were referring to, but I just found the program funny. I think it’s mainly the chemistry between Paul and Ian and then Angus as well, that is an indispensable part of the show. I found the show – know as the scandal episode – after Angus was caught with a prostitute so funny with all the one-liners they threw at him. He had nowhere to hide. The few after that before he was sacked were a bit awkward I remember, because Paul and Ian were obviously now supposed to mention it but couldn’t stop themselves because otherwise the show wasn’t funny.

Since the guest presenters started, I think the show hasn’t lost its hilarity. Sometimes you really don’t know what is going to happen when you tune in on a Friday night. Especially when Boris Johnson turns up. This week’s episode for example, had the totally unique Brian Blessed. I have never seen a show so anarchic and mental. I loved the fact that Paul and Ian and also the other guests, Marcus Brigstocke and Alan Duncan were in hysterics but almost laughing with unease at the mayhem caused by this big man in the middle.

I know there are many people who always preferred Angus at host and despise the show since he was sacked but I think I have to agree with Paul in this video that it wasn’t funny and the shear amount of news stories they could cover and what they could say about them would have not worked or just bounced back on Angus so he had to go. Maybe it’s a hint at the fact that he was irreplaceable that they haven’t found another host yet and probably will never do. I like it, where there is a different host each week and that it brings a completely different aspect to the news stories about the government, to the stories about penguins in wetsuits. Some people are obviously better than others but it’s nice to experiment and then know who never to invite back on (Ann Widdecombe IMO)

Another thing on my mind at the moment is the Snooker World Championships. I usually tend to follow anything Ronnie O’Sullivan is doing and adore watching him play over anyone else. The man is incrediable but sometimes he just reminds us he is human and the pressure gets to him and he isnt on form which makes watching him more interesting because he is excellent without being completely reliable.

I watched most of the very close semi-final match between Ali Carter and Joe Perry. I seem to have a small crush on the former of those. I was glad that he won, because he seems a much more interesting player than Perry. I wouldn’t mind seeing him win the tournament because he’s a very talented player when on form. However, I’m wondering how he will outplay the Rocket as he’s on top form at the moment and unbeatable (even by Stephen Hendry). I’m looking forward to watching the final between these two players and may the best player win.

Jeg gjør som Brian Paddick og tar sjansen på å unngå en “Dewey defeats Truman”:

Londons innbyggere har talt: de vil ha den lett eksentriske og uhyre karisematiske Boris Johnson (som ikke er russer og som egentlig heter Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson) som sin borgermester. Det betyr at de etter åtte år hiver Ken Livingstone, Røde-Ken, mannen som etter sigende aldri har tapt et valg, ut av kontorene.

Dette har vært en underlig valgkamp å følge. Først var det mange som mente at det beste for de konservative (Johnsons parti) var om de så vidt tapte for Livingstone. Det ville sørge for at de slapp all den negative oppmerksomheten en Boris som borgermester ville medført, samtidig som de fikk vist at de kunne tukte Labours mangeårige dominans, også rikspolitisk. Dette forandret seg underveis, den tidligere Eton-eleven Boris ble plutselig seriøs og mange ble tydeligvis fullstendig tatt på sengen. Noen ble skuffet over komikeren som forsvant, andre viste ikke hvordan de skulle angripe nye Boris, andre så håpet om en som kunne ta tak i Londons mange utfordringer.

For mens Ken Livingstone ikke har hatt mye nytt å komme med i valgkampen, har Boris vært et oppkomme av idéer, så mange at han ikke helt har oversikten over hvor mye det koster. Han har gått knallhardt ut mot den økte kriminaliteten, spesielt blant ungdom, samtidig som mange har ment at Livingstone ikke tar kriminalitet alvorlig nok. Det har sågar vært snakk om at Livingstone selv har vært innblandet i tvilsomme affærer, der millioner av pund til byutvikling har forsvunnet sine helt egne veier, samt en etisk tvilsom avtale med Hugo Chavez.

I tillegg er det ikke til å komme fra at London-valget i stor grad er et protestvalg. Borgermesteren har begrenset makt og det er kanskje vel så mye symbolikk som makt som virkelig teller. Dette passer selvsagt en figur som Boris utmerket. For det første er han altså utrolig sjarmerende, de som har sett den engelske versjonen av Nytt på nytt (“Have I Got News For You” – HIGNFY) kan nikke bekreftende til det. For det andre er det han som har mest å protestere mot denne gang: for mens Livingstone tidligere har vunnet mye på å være i opposisjon til Blair og Irak-krigen (han er, på tross av å representere Labour, plassert svært langt til venstre), har han ikke en like god fiende denne gang. Denne gang er det kanskje han selv som er fienden.

Labour synes å ha gått på et knusende nederlag i lokalvalget rundt hele øyriket. Målt i total oppslutning blir de kanskje bare det tredje største partiet, også slått av liberaldemokratene. London er en viktig symbolby å vinne for David Cameron, som etter all sannsynlighet blir statsminister når dét valget er overstått senest om to år. For Gordon Brown lyser derimot alle varsellamper, han husker svært godt hvordan det gikk med John Major etter hans braktap i lokalvalget i 1995.

Én ting er i alle fall sikkert: det blir spennende å følge med på hva Boris foretar seg de neste årene. Kjedelig blir det antageligvis ikke.

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Avslutningsvis: under er en av Nytt på nytt-sendingene med Boris som programleder (som gjør en bedre jobb enn Jon Almaas). Vil du ha flere, bruk søkeordene Boris og HIGNFY på YouTube, og du vil finne det meste.

Wow. Go. Look. Gasp.

“It is just easier for Japanese to hide,” Ms Tsukioka explained to theage.co.au. “Making a scene would be too embarrassing.”

PS: I actually first saw this stuff on an episode of Have I Got News For You. The programme also did something amazing recently: made Jimmy Carr not hateable for once! Also, this is the Widdyweb.