Monthly Archives: August 2020

When Your Parents Read The Daily Mail

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The Daily Mail and its alternately salacious and harrumphing Sunday counterpart The Mail on Sunday are Orwell’s five minutes’ hate morphed and expanded into tabloid form.

They are to the brain what a mallet is, em, also to the brain – a big, sturdy mallet painted red, white and blue, with each side of its face carrying conservative slogans, ranging from ‘We should bally well help our own first’ to ‘Help our own? They should bally well help themselves, you know, like I had to, by God!’.

The people who read The Mail have been bashed with this hammer so many times they don’t even realise they’re concussed any more, nor that they’re in danger of their brains leaking out from their ears to be smushed underfoot by their own wingtips or fluffy tartan slippers. It’s a comfort to them, that hammer. If it ever stopped thudding they might have to think for themselves, or possibly even be forced to give a shit about someone out-with the green and pleasant lands of their own, nostalgia-flooded recollections.

I’m possibly judging readers of The Mail too harshly, especially since my own parents count among that much-maligned readership. My parents’ reason for buying the paper in the first place doesn’t appear to have been ideological, though long exposure to its contents inevitably has certainly helped to shape their ideology. Whether The Mail planted right-wing sentiments in the egalitarian gardens of their minds or merely provided the necessary nutrients to allow certain long-buried seeds to grow is a matter of conjecture. I do know that when I was a teenager ‘The Independent’ was the family newspaper. Then it was The Times. And now it’s The Mail. A sort of steady slide from left to right. What comes next? A subscription to Breitbart? A signed photo of Nigel Farage and Katie Hopkins?

Their reason for becoming Mail readers was simply this: price. They don’t like things like The Sun or The Star, and beyond those tub-thumping, shit-and-tit-covered dish-rags, it’s the cheapest newspaper option out there. Beautiful, right? Bargain bigotry.

Each time I visit them I never pass up the opportunity to offer withering comments on their choice of ‘news’ – remembering always to pronounce those inverted commas around the word ‘news’. My mum tends to get angry when I chastise her, claiming that her choice of newspaper in no way informs her outlook on life, even though for many years now her mouth has been filled only with false teeth and Daily Mail headlines.

On my last visit I gave her a guided tour of the edition she had sitting on her kitchen counter-top.

Page three was taken up by a full-page splash about Ewan McGregor’s divorce, complete with corny Star Wars headline. So far, so Express. Next up, the Royal Family. Whereas The Express is still hung up on the ghost of Princess Diana, the Mail is pursuing an endless, obsessive vendetta against Meghan and Harry.

Now, I’m no fan of The Royal Family – I’m  something of a republican in that regard – but the vitriol handed out to those two turns one’s stomach. Mail readers are a curious breed. Many of them like to get the bunting out, and buy cups and saucers emblazoned with the visage of old Lizzy Lizard. Most of them probably own a tonne-weight of commemorative coins encapsulating such epoch-defining moments as Prince Phillip scratching his arse with a gilded shoe-horn or the Queen staring witheringly at a foreign dignitary.

These people clearly harbour a desire to go back in time, not to the knees-up-Mother-Brown, Blitz-tinged days of the 40s and 50s, but way, way back – five or six hundred years back – to experience the sheer joy of living as serfs under the boot of some tyrannical, maid-murdering, family-fucking monarch of the true dynastic golden age. ‘Be a priv’lige to have you shit in my worfless dead mouff, m’am.’

Elsewhere in the ‘newspaper’ there was an attack on Devi Sridhar, Professor and Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, misrepresenting an interview she gave to the New York Times about the differences between how the Scottish and UK governments have handled the coronavirus outbreak, which they topped off with the disingenuous and inaccurate headline: SNP AIDE BLAMES ENGLISH FOR RISE IN CASES’.

Never one to miss a chance to stick it to Labour, there was a piece on Jack Straw’s son blacking up. And another one with a headline straight out of The Daily Mash: DID CORBYN’S MARXIST HENCHMAN GIVE BORIS AND CUMMINGS VIRUS? Good question. Once you’ve answered that, let’s find out if Jeremy Corbyn intercepted the Roswell aliens, stole the recipe for AIDS from them, and then used it to sink the Titanic.

I knew this next headline would be divisive, given that my mother and I have polar opposite positions on both the SNP and Independence: ‘£30M BILL FOR SWINNEY’S U-TURN ON EXAMS FIASCO’. I could almost hear my mother’s face tightening into a scowl as I read it aloud.

This was the story of the Scottish Government apologising for allowing geography and socio-economics to have a more impactful influence on post-COVID student grades than the measured predictions of their teachers. Not ideal, though can you imagine The Mail’s headlines in some alternate universe where the Scottish government hadn’t at least made a token effort to compensate for the teaching profession’s very human impulse to be nice to their kids during these troubling times: ‘EVERYONE’S A WINNER in SNP SCOTLAND: CLASS OF 2020 CERTIFICATES NOT WORTH THE PAPER THEY’RE WRITTEN ON.’

However, in the face of evidence and dissent the government was big enough to concede that its methods, reasonings and results had been flawed. They then issued a full and frank apology, and then promised to make the appeal process quick and pain-free. And literally free. Which they did.

I guess if you were being uncharitable you could characterise that as a U-Turn, but genuine political U-Turns usually come with less apologies (usually nearer zero) and a million per cent more obfuscation. So, again: disingenuous framing.

Mum, however, wouldn’t accept any defence of John Swinney or the SNP . ‘I’ve always hated Alex Salmond,’ she said. I just shook my head and kept flicking the pages.

The most unforgivable piece in that day’s hell-rag was probably the one carrying this head-line: ‘SO WHY IS BBC HANDING YOUR LICENCE FEE TO THIS SLEAZY PEDDLER OF PORNOGRAPHY?’

BBC The Social commissions online videos from contributors on a wide range of themes and topics, ranging from humour and health, to inspirational stories and educational vignettes. The fee for having a video accepted and featured isn’t huge.

One of these occasional contributors, Mandy Rose Jones, whose content is predominantly focused on mental health and body image, also sells pictures and videos of herself through an adult on-line portal called AdmireMe.

Both this site and the lady herself are unaffiliated with the BBC. Nevertheless, the poor girl was horse-whipped across two pages, as The Mail held her up as some sort of pervasive sexual deviant out to warp the nation’s kids. The article was nothing less than ritual humiliation, the modern equivalent of burning witches at the stake. A spurious, offensive diatribe. What this woman chooses to do online – as long as it’s legal – has no bearing whatsoever on the videos she produces for BBC The Social. And for all that it matters, which it doesn’t at all, no-one would’ve known about Mandy’s presence on AdmireMe had the Mail not chosen to turn her into collateral damage in their ongoing ideological war against the BBC.

The Mail is a hateful, gossip-filled tabloid that lends the illusion of a broadsheet. To make stupid people feel clever; and important. If this newspaper were a person it would be a dead donkey with the face of Katie Hopkins. It’s disingenuous, dirty, despicable, deceitful and disgusting. And I wish my parents wouldn’t buy it.

‘Come on, son,’ my mum said to me, with a proud and wounded look on her face. ‘What am I supposed to do? Buy The Daily Record?’

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just closed the newspaper and walked away.

COMPETITION: Pandemic-themed Limericks

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During lockdown I wrote Paper Mountain: a dystopian novella inspired by the coronavirus. I want you to write something inspired by the coronavirus, too. A limerick: as funny, foul, searing or serious as you like. Send them to me by the end of August, I’ll read them, judge them – boy will I judge them – and the best three will win a prize, and be published on this blog to be read by less than 25 people and a handful of automated Russian and Chinese sexbots. You lucky lot.

 

Prize pool is as follows:

 

  • An empty packet of Frazzles once enjoyed by Ant (ate 60 per cent) & Dec (ate 40 per cent)
  • A full set of ITV News at Ten action figures, including the rare ‘Helicopter-Attack Trevor MacDonald’
  • The complete box-set of ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ melted down and fashioned into the shape of a dog poo
  • A dog poo
  • A luxury VIP weekend at Butlins’ Skegness where you’ll share a chalet with Nigel Farage, the cast of Eldorado and a spaniel named Gary
  • A selection of Dot Cotton’s fag ends
  • A crown made entirely from McDonalds’ plastic cutlery, speckled with Jesus’ blood
  • A tiny top hat and tails suitable for a wasp
  • A scarecrow with the face of Katy Hopkins that’s been banned in 147 countries
  • Brian Blessed’s bruised and battered bicep
  • Brian Blessed’s bat and ball for the baseball building he built  
  • The book: “How to Use Alliteration Effectively,” by Brian Blessed
  • A signed photo of Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses (it’s been signed by Mr T)
  • A statue commemorating the moment a brave turkey ended the life of the cruel tyrant Bernard Matthews, which is due to be torn down next week because the turkey once said something problematic on Twitter
  • A haunted Emu puppet that comes to life at night to vanquish the last of Rod Hull’s mortal enemies  
  • Two squirrels that have been surgically altered to resemble Morecambe and Wise
  • A dead octopus that’s wearing a chef’s apron
  • A sample of my DNA
  • Half of one of the Krankies (your choice)
  • A signed photo of my local butcher
  • A signed copy of my novella plus a guaranteed free copy of my upcoming paperback compendium Dad or Alive: The Hell and Happiness of Parenting
  • A signed copy of my novella (signed under a false name)
  • Fuck all

Unfortunately for you, only the final three items in this list are the actual prizes. Entry details below.

 

Send your limericks to theotherjamie@hotmail.co.uk by the 31st of August, and let fate do the rest. 

Please share this far and wide, and do try your hand at a wee limerick or two.

If you don’t want to enter the competition and just want to check it out in paperback, or free with Kindle Unlimited, click the link here 

Happy rhyming, douchebags.

Jamie on the Box: Muppets Now

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Disney’s first stab at the muppets post-Henson, the 2011 feature film The Muppets, was almost immaculate. The character of Walter was a master-stroke, both an entry-level proxy for the new generation of kids encountering Jim Henson’s phantasmagoric creatures for the first time, and a reminder to old fogeys like me of how much the muppets meant to them and how excited we were to see them again.

The muppets themselves weren’t quite as anarchic or unpredictable as they’d been in their 70s/80s heyday – alluded to in the movie itself through Animal being constrained from indulging his destructive impulses by way of self-help therapy – but what the movie lacked in chaos it made up for in reverence, well-earned sweetness, a plethora of genuinely catchy musical numbers and laugh-out loud moments. Disney had captured lightning in a bottle, but didn’t appear to know what to do with it once they had it, as evidenced by 2014’s Muppets Most Wanted, a sequel that was watchable, though lacklustre and lacking in heart.

ABC’s The Muppets – the 2015 behind-the-scenes mockumentary that was cancelled after one season – showed staggered promise, but, again, the showrunners fatally misunderstood the property. The result was an ill-judged, frequently insipid, tonal mish-mash that alienated long-time admirers like me, and failed to ignite adoration in those coming to the muppets cold. Instead they were left cold. What I want to know is, who looked at the muppets and thought, ‘I know what’ll reinvigorate this franchise: multiple references to Kermit the Frog’s sex life.’ In the end, The Muppets new TV series wasn’t bold or edgy enough to work as an all-out, adults-only entry in the canon, but it was too adult to appeal to children. So who the hell was it for?

And now we have Disney’s Muppets Now, a show perhaps cynically designed to capitalise on the Zoom-era zeitgeist at a time when most TV shows have been crippled, cancelled or postponed by the creep of the coronavirus.

The show follows Scooter’s attempts to cobble together an online extravaganza from the filmed segments sent across to him by his co-stars, uploaded before our very eyes as we watch the episode, while Kermit frets and frowns.

The first of these segments is Life Sty, wherein Miss Piggy explores beauty, style and showbiz pizzazz, featuring guest appearances by actor/singer Taye Diggs and actress Linda Cardellini. Next comes little Walter’s showcase of his fellow muppet’s lesser-known talents, this week turning the spotlight on Kermit’s almost supernatural talent for photo-bombing. The Swedish chef is next, hurdy-gurdying through a cook-off with celebrity chef Carlina Will, before Kermit tops it off with a one-on-one (well, several-on-one) interview with Ru Paul.

And it was, you know… Okay. A bit flat. I watched it with my two young kids, 5 and 3, and they were bored for most of it. Things weren’t much better over on my side of the age divide; I sat stony-faced for the most part. I enjoyed bits of it, but again I was left wondering, ‘Who is this for? What is this for?’

The Piggy segment was one-note and predictable. The cooking segment – by far the worst – felt like exactly that: a cooking segment; an insipid piece of fluffery you might find on a magazine show like The One Show or Saturday Morning Kitchen, but without even those show’s intermittently successful attempts at good-natured humour. The Swedish chef seemed incidental to his own showcase. He was no longer the agent of chaos I’d enjoyed watching as a child (and an adult, I hasten to add). He Just seemed disgruntled and mean-spirited.  More inexcusably still, he just wasn’t funny. My kids agreed.

And what the hell has become of Kermit? I’m a Henson purist, but even still I came to appreciate and enjoy Steve Whitmire’s take on the world’s most famous amphibian. Matt Vogel is the latest actor to puppet and voice Kermit following Whitmire’s acrimonious departure from the franchise in 2017, and he’s just not Kermity enough. Vogel’s evocation/impression – whatever you want to call it – is poor to the point where I think I would be better at it, and his attempt to capture the character leaves Kermit’s green feeling distinctly grey.

Did Kermit turn to valium after his last show was cancelled? Is that the in-show explanation?

It’s telling that the strongest segment is the photo-bomb one; a segment containing two muppets and precisely zero humans. It’s very funny, and uses its characters well. Likewise, the interplay between Uncle Deadly and Miss Piggy is a genuine joy to behold. Again, it’s an interaction that doesn’t need a celebrity guest to make it work. It’s already there in the script.

Disney seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that it is the muppets’ celebrity guests that have always made the brand work; made people watch. Sure, the original Muppet Show had a different celebrity cameo every week – everyone from Elton John to Steve Martin to the cast of Star Wars – but the appearances never felt like celebrity-for-celebrity’s sake. While the show’s guest stars added a direction, a feel and a flavour to their particular episode, people would watch it whether they were there or not: there was never any doubt that the muppets had top billing. There’s something depressing and par-for-the-course about the modern iterations of the muppets trying to shoehorn in as many celebrity appearances as possible. Even when the original series featured a star that few people had heard of, the magic was still there. Not so now.

While I agree that change and re-contextualisation often can re-invigorate a long-running property, not every revived show needs I-Phones, shaky-cams, Zoom calls or numerous nods to contemporaneous social mores. Call me a cranky cultural conservative if you like. I suppose I am when it comes to the muppets, the first show I remember watching as a very small child.

I hope the next five episodes of Muppets Now contain something to make this old man and his own little muppets chuckle, or even smile. But if that turns out not to be the case, then let’s hope that someone at Disney works out that the best way to capture the energy and essence of these furry, fuzzy, fun-lovin’ little critters is to let them come home. Put them back in their theatre, re-cast a credible Kermit, and then, frankly, leave them the fuck alone to do their thing.