Flicky-clicky! The Art of Intolerance.

The last couple of posts have been very writer-centric. I may have already alienated folks. Now I reckon I'll alienate a couple more. Now, how can I do that?

Television!

It's a love/hate relationship I've had since I was young.  Like most people of my generation, I suppose, but being the introverted antisocial troll that I was, I took it a bit further.  I won't go into just how insular I was, you might cry and I don't want anyone getting their keyboard all soggy on my account.

As I've got older though, I haven't watched quite as much television.  Other diversions have vied for my attention: computer games, writing, reading, going out to (hey look at that, finally!) socialise and, of course, women.  But I always go back, quite often to disappointment and repeats.

My current deep disappointment is aimed at programmes like Jersey Shore and The Only Way is Essex.  These are programmes that I'm put off of the moment I see trailers for them, as they look like the most vapidly lazy programming.  They all centre around the worst that humanity has to offer, which wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the feeling that the characters (because let's all be honest here, that's what they are, there aren't any real people, just actors looking for an easy break) are being held up as role models.  Now, I can't say for certain (and I'm not some big city lawyer), but I'm sure that the original intent was to mock these orange caricatures.  Instead what we have is a world in which Snooki (urg, can't people see the producers are taking the piss?) has a lucrative book deal.  Yes, a woman who is supposed to look and act like she has trouble reciting the alphabet has a book deal, and I can't get la- er, published*.

Yeah.  It annoys me.  They clog up the airwaves with as much mediocrity as soap operas.  We all know the reason for it, smart arse.  I know why I don't like having my toe crushed by a mallet, doesn't change my opinion on it.

Another kind of 'reality' television that I have less intolerance for are cookery programmes (take a look at this for more on my cookery programme fascination).  I can hear you smirking, fucko.  Nothing wrong with enjoying cooking and eating.  It's life enriching.  You should think about that the next time you're choking down a sausage supper with enough cholesterol to clog the London Underground Central Line.

But, in this, dear reader I have my prejudices.  Let us take the sainted (or at least ordained) Nigella Lawson.  I used to quite like Nigella as a programme host, outside of the weird, fetishy sexualisation (and that her father is a Tory and she followed suit, boo!  Hiss!) of food she seemed quite personable.  Then I started noticing something, something that made me blink in slight confusion and now it makes me want to attack the TV with a fucking tenderising mallet: snobbishness.  There's always room for a bit of snobbishness in life, but not if it's presented as THE ONE TRUE PATH.  Ingredients that seem innocuous to the layman become a benighted spectre to Nigella Lawson.  Use the wrong (read: least expensive) kind of capers and pal you better have a good fuckin' excuse.  It's infuriating and quite often it's utterly arbitrary.  Use what you can use and fuck what some rich woman on the TV says.

Speaking of crazy women cooks.  My wife and I have been watching the The Little Paris Kitchen which involves woman-child eternastudent Rachel Khoo proving that she's almost mental enough to start throwing buckets of molten butter over her balcony onto any heathen who deviates a tenth of an iota from TRUE FRENCH PATISSERIE.  Seriously, this woman is bonkers.  She lives in a Paris flat that's barely large enough for an adult and runs a restaurant from her optimistically named front room.  A lot of her cooking looks rather nice, but her style gives an over-romanticised view of France and Paris in particular that doesn't quite match up to the living quarters she has.  Perhaps she's deluded or perhaps she really is happy there; all I know is I'd be gnawing my arms off because of the claustrophobia.

Or maybe I'm deluded and should step away from the remote, verrry slowly...

^*(Yes, yes, I understand that there's a demand for it.  I'm not ignorant of these things.  I'm still allowed to rail and have the opinion that it's peddling mediocrity and general human shittiness.)


Will