This is the last editorial of the millennium. And yes, I know it’s not really the millennium, but just tell any complaining pedant that Christ was actually born in 4 BC anyway. Failing that, a witty shout of “Fuck off, arsehole” usually does the trick. Regardless, this area will be update-free, since I’ll be busy getting into the Christmas spirit — not to mention the Christmas beer, and at least two helpings of the Christmas dead animal too. I thus won’t be able to reach the keyboard until about the first weekend in January.
We’ve come a long way in those thousand years. Back in 1000, the Internet consisted of a bunch of monks desperately trying to copy out illuminated manuscripts (of Ye Paemaela Andersonne, no doubt), and getting them donkey’d across for a squire to hold them up in front of the user. And you think lag-times are sometimes a bit bad now. But even a lot closer to our present era, the Internet arrived more or less unpredicted: even William Gibson reckoned cyberspace would be full of sleek data cubes, round which we would whizz at the speed of thought. Or at least, he never mentioned it would be full of people arguing about who would win if Buffy and Xena had a fight [the answer, incidentally, is that Buffy has superior martial arts skills, but Xena’s weapons give her the edge there]. I guess he’d forgotten that the street will find a use for technology…
Thus, where we’ll be in another thousand is anyone’s guess. Hell, where I’ll be in ten days is anyone’s guess: quite possibly reduced to my constituent atoms by an errant ex-Soviet ICBM. At least that’ll save me from having to go into work on New Year’s Day — yup, 0900 on 1/1/00, I’ll be at my desk, ensuring that no matter what chaos and anarchy may befall western civilisation, you’ll still be able to buy shares from HSBC, first thing on Tuesday morning. I trust you are all appropriately grateful. This will, of necessity, slightly limit my plans for seeing in the triple zero, though they were never exactly apocalyptic: Chris is coming over, so she and I have agreed it’ll be far better just to curl up on a comfy couch with champagne and watch it all on TV. Who could ask for anything more?
Especially when the alternatives are a) lining the pockets of greedy venues (99 quid? Get out of here!) or b) freezing your butt off down by the Thames watching a “river of fire”. Was disappointed to discover this is simply a bunch of fireworks, I was hoping they would pour ether over the river and toss a match onto it. Hey, what price a few singed eyebrows? It’s only once every thousand years! Much as the latent pyromaniac in me likes the idea of 39 tonnes of explosives going up (never mind the irony of its location within a rocket’s distance of where Guy Fawkes almost pulled off the best bang since the big one), it’s not enough to drag me out. Part of me hopes it rains — this is not quite as cynical and malicious as it sounds, because I know of precisely no local residents who are planning to go, so the drenching will be reserved for well-deserving tourists.
Part of me wishes the 39 tonnes of explosives to “accidentally” go off too, so if I do go out, I’ll be the one standing by the river, flicking lit matches at the barges. However, I can think of far better places to be: warm, comfortable, slightly alcoholic and cuddled up next to my one true love. That is how to finish a millennium.
Have a good festive season, enjoy the extra-long break, and I look forward to the pleasure of your company in 2000.
That sound you hear is a venerable institution stabbing itself in the heart, repeatedly. At least, this was the feeling I got from ‘Sex and Death’, a one-off drama screened last week on BBC2, concerned with the dumbing-down of TV, the quest for ratings and sensationalism. Viewers are referred to The Player, a Hollywood movie about how evil Hollywood is, for another example of what is either irony, or self-immolation. Mind you, any quest for the moral high ground was abandoned in the opening sequence, a fake programme, also titled ‘Sex and Death’ hosted by Ben Black, a presenter played by Martin Clunes of Men Behaving Badly fame. I was rapidly hooked, perhaps because I’ve always had way more time for Clunes than, say, Chris Evans or Terry Christian, but more likely because it had an entire week’s quota of nudity, blasphemy and swearing inside ten minutes.
But it’s alright, because it was being “ironic“, see? And, taken as individual elements, there probably wasn’t anything you couldn’t find elsewhere – though Ulrika Jonsson’s split beaver shot was a first. It was the intense concentration of it which was overpowering, TV for those whose attention span is measured in BPM. The opening sequence of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet had much the same kind of exhilirating, hallucinogenic effect, not so much in your face, as playing the bongos on your tonsils. Fortunately, it then settled down.
Or, perhaps, UNfortunately, as Black began the predictable angst about what he was doing, punctuated by walks in the rain or through London at night (he was, as you might expect, an insomniac — no-one purveying this kind of thing is allowed to sleep soundly, naturally), problems with his love life, etc, etc. Slightly less predictable were his battles with his rival, a slimy, Jeremy Beadle-like (yes, I realise “slimy” is redundant there) presenter, played by Martin Jarvis, who specialises in setting people up. Their fencing provided most of the highlights, leading to a stunningly poor taste sequence involving double-crossing jailbait and a very dubious religious fetish. You could tell that director/writer Guy Jenkin had made his name with Drop the Dead Donkey.
As Black teetered towards the edge of breakdown, this all builds towards the greatest episode of his show, opening with him hanging from a cross in a crown of thorns. Anyone familiar with religious iconography – or even the career of state treasurer Bud Dwyer, will have long been able to work out where this was going. The only question was, would they wimp out? Well, I ain’t gonna answer that, since I’m actually unsure. In some ways, it was a major-league cop, but thinking about it, there was a certain subversiveness, which also fitted in terribly well with the ongoing Christ metaphor. Though I freely admit the concept of Martin Clunes dying for our sins is frankly disturbing — whether he does or not…
“I don’t think it’s that far-fetched,” said Jenkin, and he’s right. So, how far would we go in the quest for entertainment? As far as we want to, I reckon: attempting to hold up the lowest common denominator is a futile exercise in a democratic state. “Sooner or later, we’re going to get blown away by some 15-year old who fucks his granny live on prime time,” laments Black at one point, and he’s right. But just because you don’t want to watch it, have you any right to stop it? Perhaps not, but what if it’s being paid for by your licence money? These are not easy questions, and credit to the BBC for at least posing them. And showing us Ulrika’s split beaver, too…
* It’s dead simple: name the following films. * No prizes, just glory, and immortality on the TC Site. * Entries by 2359 GMT, December 31st, 1999. * Answers to… Well, it doesn’t matter any more, does it? * Anyone suspected of using reference aids will be excommunicated. * The clue is partly in the question, partly in my film tastes i.e. no drippy chick flicks. Well, only a token one. 😉
1. We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound “fine”? 2. My mommy always said there were no monsters – no real ones – but there are… 3. Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future. 4. Kill him! A lot! 5. Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about your mother. 6. Until mankind is peaceful enough not to have violence on the news, there’s no point in taking it out of shows that need it for entertainment value. 7. Boys, you got to learn not to talk to nuns that way. 8. Nuns. No sense of humour. 9. Ehm, look. Sorry, sorry. I just, ehm, well, this is a very stupid question and…, particularly in view of our recent shopping excursion, but I just wondered, by any chance, ehm, eh, I mean obviously not because I guess I’ve only slept with 9 people, but-but I-I just wondered… ehh. I really feel, ehh, in short, to recap it slightly in a clearer version, eh, the words of David Cassidy in fact, eh, while he was still with the Partridge family, eh, “I think I love you,” and eh, I-I just wondered by any chance you wouldn’t like to… Eh… Eh… No, no, no of course not… I’m an idiot, he’s not… Excellent, excellent, fantastic, eh, I was gonna say lovely to see you, sorry to disturb… Better get on… 10. Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes? 11. I’m too old for this shit! 12. How sexy am I now, huh? Flirty boy! How sexy am I now? 13. Never take your eyes off your opponent — even when you bow. 14. Come quietly or there will be… trouble.
And finally, half a dozen imaginative uses of a certain word…
15. “Foul-mouthed”? Fuck you! 16. In two hundred years we’ve gone from “I regret but I have one life to give for my country” to “Fuck you!”? 17. Fuck like minks, raise rugrats, live happily ever after. 18. Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon! 19. To know death, Otto, you must first fuck life in the gall bladder! 20. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa to you?
Answers can now be found on the far side of this picture, which happens to be from one of the movies…
Christmas is dead, the New Year has arrived, and all that’s left of the festive season are a couple of freezer packs marked “T/key”, and a few stragglers still rying to get home from the millennium celebrations. Which means it must be time for the answers to the Xmas Xuote Xuiz…
1. We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound “fine”? Evil Dead 2. Though disturbing how many people put South Park…
2. My mommy always said there were no monsters – no real ones – but there ARE… Perhaps the best action pic of all time, Aliens.
3. Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future. Plan 9 from Outer Space, the movie which also gave us classic lines like “He’s dead. Murdered. And someone’s responsible!”, as well as Bela Lugosi being body-doubled by the director’s chiropractor.
4. Kill him! A lot! Back before it was a very popular TV show, there was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, with Kirsty Swanson (who she?) as the chosen one. The above line was delivered by Pee Wee Hermann. The film bombed.
5. Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about your mother. As everyone got, this was Blade Runner, though I’m tempted to dock half a point from the smarty-pants who put ‘Harrison Ford’, because it wasn’t.
6. Until mankind is peaceful enough not to have violence on the news, there’s no point in taking it out of shows that need it for entertainment value. One of the many great lines from Clueless (I was going to put the one which described the menstrual cycle as “surfing the crimson wave”…). The movie is based on Jane Austen’s Emma, not that you’d know it…
7. Boys, you got to learn not to talk to nuns that way. Another one hundred percenter here, The Blues Brothers. Obviously, an icon of popular culture…
8. Nuns. No sense of humour. I’m pleasantly surprised no-one suggested The Sound of Music. It was the best film ever, starring a Frenchman pretending to be Scottish and a Scot pretending to be Spanish/Egyptian: Highlander.
9. Ehm, look. Sorry, sorry. I just, ehm, well, this is a very stupid question and…, particularly in view of our recent shopping excursion, but I just wondered, by any chance, ehm, eh, I mean obviously not because I guess I’ve only slept with 9 people, but-but I-I just wondered… ehh. I really feel, ehh, in short, to recap it slightly in a clearer version, eh, the words of David Cassidy in fact, eh, while he was still with the Partridge family, eh, “I think I love you,” and eh, I-I just wondered by any chance you wouldn’t like to… Eh… Eh… No, no, no of course not… I’m an idiot, he’s not… Excellent, excellent, fantastic, eh, I was gonna say lovely to see you, sorry to disturb… Better get on… As one entrant would have it, Four Drippy Weddings and a Drippy Funeral. Pardon me while I ring the dampness out of my keyboard.
10. Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes? Der-de-duh-deh! It can only be, Raiders of the Lost Ark. And it is.
11. I’m too old for this shit! Interesting one: nominally, and frequently, in Lethal Weapon, but extra credit for those who came up with alternatives like The Rock.
12. How sexy am I now, huh? Flirty boy! How sexy am I now? Mallory’s approach to suitors (non-verbal violence also included), from the infamous (and still unavailable on video in the UK), Natural Born Killers.
13. Never take your eyes off your opponent — even when you bow. Ah, another pop culture icon (no, not The Karate Kid), with a funky 70’s score — Enter the Dragon.
14. Come quietly or there will be… trouble. Though Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Basic Instinct were both imaginative and interesting choices, they were also wildly inaccurate. Try RoboCop.
15. “Foul-mouthed”? Fuck you! Beverly Hills Cop. Whatever happened to Eddie Murphy?
16. In two hundred years we’ve gone from “I regret but I have one life to give for my country” to “Fuck you!”? The first of two from Dennis Hopper, the thinking man’s Scary Spice: Speed.
17. Fuck like minks, raise rugrats, live happily ever after. …not with Sharon Stone, you won’t. Michael Douglas gets overly optimistic in Basic Instinct.
18. Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon! It’s Dennis the Menace once more: Blue Velvet.
19. To know death, Otto, you must first fuck life in the gall bladder! Perhaps the most obscure of the films in the list, but far too good a line to waste: Flesh for Frankenstein. The original line had “death” and “life” the other way round — Udo Kier said it wrong, but the director preferred the fluffed version.
20. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa to you? The berserk and totally wonderful world of Heathers.
And now, the winners… Leading the pack was Chris Fata — though being my girlfriend might lead some to suggest favouritism is at work, she simply has a better knowledge of my video tastes than most! Plus, I’ve probably quoted most of the above lines to her at some point… Second was Nic Barbano, who got the first one wrong (but only just — his answer was The Evil Dead) then stormed back to an almost-perfect score. Mind you, as a journalist and author of the highly-acclaimed Danish book, The World’s 25 Hottest Porn Stars, he is a professional in this field. The rest were, understandably, a little way back, but here are the top five:
Chris Fata 20 Nicolas Barbano 19 Glenn Pringle 8 Keith Tweed 7.5 Phil Brown 7
Well done to all of them, better luck next time to everyone else…
This is a revised version of an editorial written on Friday afternoon which was total bollocks, even by the high “total bollocks” standards we have at TC. Mind you, it wasn’t totally my fault, since I was out of my head on caffeine, with an entire nutritional intake for the day of two large lattes, a Coffee Slimfast and some caffeine pills. This left my mental state somewhere between “wired” and “hyperactive”, with enough nervous energy to power a small Soviet submarine. When I spoke to people, they looked at me even more oddly than usual — I must have sounded like a modem questing for connectivity. It was as if they were scientists, trying to communicate with a dolphin; intelligence present on both sides, just an impenetrable barrier, sponsored by Starbucks.
I generally don’t drink much coffee, preferring to keep the effects of caffeine in reserve. If you have no immunity, then when you need to (all-night video shows), you can give your system a good seeing-to with the minimum of effort. When you’re used to six cups a day, the only option you have left for staying awake involves car-batteries and nipple clamps — which would have made my work colleagues look even more askance at me than my Flipper imitation.
Time also goes by extraordinarily slowly, which is another reason why it’s not good to be caffeined up at work. However, it’s ideal if you’re trying to cling onto every second of your leisure time, like a drowning man lunging for a supporting actress on ‘Baywatch’. Alcohol leads to lost weekends: caffeine finds them, admittedly down the back of the sofa and covered in crumbs. Oh, and speaking of food, at least alcohol is somewhat self-regulating: after a certain point, you want to eat, which helps diffuse the effect. But the more coffee you have, the less you want to eat, which leaves the caffeine to ravage your system in a way reminiscent of Godzilla touring Tokyo.
Like all drugs, however, its effects are partly illusory — not so much mind-expanding as world-shrinking. You give the impression of alertness, but just try and concentrate on something for more than five seconds. This is where caffeine parts company with, say, alcohol and its brethren, which give you the attention span of a Giant Redwood. Caffeine turns you into a living, snarling, spike. On the way home, I was irritated by a couple walking their freakin’ dog, slowly occupying the entire width of the pavement — I was about to push past, when I realised it was a guide-dog. Oops.
I think it was at that point I decided to go home and have a beer, in an effort to take the edge off my keenness, and leave this editorial for review in a less…intense state. Rather glad I did; it took me a good 24 hours for hunger to be other than a distant memory, It probably did help on one score though: the elusive goal of completing the Christmas shopping was nailed on Saturday afternoon, with the single-mindedness of the chemically-enhanced. So I am now at the point where I can sit back smugly and start flicking through the festive ‘Radio Times’, though my complete lack of Christmas spirit is unsurprising — decking the halls with boughs of holly is low on the list of priorities, and as for fa-la-la-ing…wild horses, mate, wild horses. Christmas is not caffeine-compatible!
Normally, this editorial gets written over the Friday “lunch hour” — quotes used advisely since a) lunch occupies about five minutes, and b) it’s usually possible to stretch it to two hours, since staring blankly at my screen and typing is about what I do during the rest of the day anyway, and besides, most people have headed off down the pub anyway. So make that “written over the Friday non-digestive extended break period”. Or, on second thoughts, don’t bother. Anyway, this week, I didn’t get the chance, but that’s no bad thing, since writing this allows me to put off, at least temporarily, one of the worst jobs of the year.
Yes, it’s Christmas shopping time again. I’ve been putting it off long enough, in the hope that maybe they’ll find the body, but even I have finally had to bite the bullet and admit that it’s going to happen again this year, so I’m just going to have to deal with it. Unfortunately, neither of the standard human “dealing with it” options i.e. flight and fight, are applicable. You can run, but you can’t hide from good tidings of comfort and joy. Even the final solution of incoholic altoxication is merely a reminder that there will be worse, far worse, to come. And while punching Father Christmas’s lights out would certainly be an immensely satisfying experience, it wouldn’t help in the long term, though being behind bars would certainly help you avoid Christmas shopping: “Oh, a mail bag — just what I always wanted!”.
I thought about getting on-line, and doing all my shopping over the Internet this year, but that never quite seemed to come off. Partly, the Amero-centric nature of the Web makes it less useful, and partly, the fact that I am really desperate for idea is a problem; if you know exactly what you want, it’s great, but for casual browsing, it’s even more slow and painful than pushing your way down Oxford Street, in conditions reminiscent of Schindler’s List. In the end, I was reduced to typing ‘Hello Kitty’ into Ebay’s search engine, and that was, I would have to admit, pushing the boundaries of Christmas presents further than they should really go, much as I feel sure my mother would appreciate a toaster that singes a picture of Hello Kitty onto each slice (as described in the last TC).
Thus, I now find myself desperately looking for ways to put off the ordeal of central London, three Saturdays before Christmas. I’ve tidied my room. I’ve been to the shops. I am now looking at the pile of shirts in the corner, and contemplating picking up an iron for the first time in years (hang ’em up when they’re damp, after shaking them, and then your body heat takes care of the rest. No-one will mistake you for 007, but it does for work). But I guess I’m going to have to bite the bullet and get on that train, armed only with a razor-sharp credit card — and elbows of steel for coping with the idiots who only come into London once a year, and haven’t grasped the principles of escalator etiquette. Stand on the right, walk up on the left: it’s not hard.
We’ll take the “It is a far, far better thing I do…” speech as read. But if you see someone in a blue leather jacket and a fixed expression, somewhere in Central London this afternoon, best not approach them.
