588: 3-day Weekend

Would it make much difference to the world if a normal working week was only four days long? This being a bank holiday everyone is having a great time. Facebook is full of people posting about the great time they've had. Lie-ins, afternoon drinking, days out, some football cup thing, the snooker World Championship, Sunday roast on a Monday night, the beautiful knowledge that Friday will seem like it has arrived a day early. A weekend is a precious thing, and a bank holiday weekend is perfect sparkling beauty.

Despite the two days off a week, fought for by our ancestors, labour unions, tough and resilient working men and women, we are increasingly losing our weekends. Shops are opening on Sundays, and a retail job not requiring weekend work is a rarity. Private profit for big business takes precedence over individual liberty and familial free-time. Past employers, long ago, whenever that was, didn't believe employees needed any time off, except what god gave them. The kids were up the chimneys and down the time tunnels; the elderly forty-year olds were mining praline and extracting uranium or iron ore, from five AM until 11 PM. From painful birth to inevitable chocking, pus-filled death. That was life.

Now we have two days off a week. Most of us do. Why not make it three? Who wants to spend over half their waking hours doing whatever it is that makes the numbers in their bank account rise ever-so slightly once a month? Before they plummet back to next to zero. Let's get the fictional Brussels Euro-crats working on it. I can't imagine it would effect the economy or whatever. That's because I know nothing about the economy and so am totally unqualified to make any predictions regarding it. But, never mind.

A three day weekend would make every single person in the country happier. We would all be more relaxed, less stressed, funner, happier, exploding with giggling glee and child-like wonder. Running around the parks, rolling on the grass, laughing at nothing, climbing trees, jumping, leaping, frolicking. Imagine all the frolicking you could get done. Just imagine it. Ahhh and mmm. Compound that with all the hobbying you could do, and all the work you could put in towards achieving your life's goals: dream job, bucket list, DVD box sets, etcetera, etc, &c.

This is a big issue; too big to cover here. What about all the flexi-time? Or all the people who have to drag themselves into an office every morning, filling up the trams, buses and trains all at once, just to sit beside a computer and telephone? What is stopping these people working from home at times more convenient for them? Often, depending on the type of business, nothing except tradition and management's lack of vision, compassion and foresight. Etcetera, etc, &c.

Three day weekend! Woohoo!

531: "And," he said.

I was talking to this bloke just before this something happened, just before the incident with the Ovaltine and the student production of Hamlet, just before that, and he said "You know what?" I said, "No, what?" "You'll never guess," he said. "Go on," I said. "No, you go on. Go on, guess," he said. "Is it toothpaste?" I wondered out loud. "Are you talking to me about toothpaste," he asked. "I was only asking," I said. "No, not toothpaste," he said. "Guess again." "Is it a light bulb," I said. "No, it's not a bloody light bulb, is it," he said. "Does it look like a bloody light bulb?"

"I can't see it," I said. "Just tell me what's what, what's happening , or whatever." "No, go on, guess again," he said. "You like guessing, don't you," he said. "You're having fun, aren't you." "If you say so," I said. "No, I didn't," he said. "Are you guessing?" "Is it tarpaulin," I said. "You're getting warm," he said. "Is it a ground sheet," I said. "No, it's not a bloody ground sheet," he said. "You're freezing." "Is it a helicopter?" "Warmer." "An 'elicopter?" "Warmer!" "A bee?" "WARMER!" "A mouse?" "No, it's not a bloody mouse, is it? Are you having a laugh?" "No," I said.

"You know what?" he said. "No, what?" I said. "I'm just going to tell you," he said. "OK," I said. "Right, I hope you're listening," he said. "Cos I haven't got long," he said. "This is milkshake, that is ketchup, and that is marmalade," he said, pointing at various stains and smudges on his otherwise immaculate tunic. "Oh?" I said. "Do you follow?" he said. "I'm not sure I do," I said. "It's bleeding obvious, isn't it," he said. "Right, I'll start at the bloody start, will I," he said. "OK," I said.

"You know John," he said. "No, wait, you're not John, are you?" he said. "I'm not John, no," I said. "No, I didn't not think you were not," he said. "Good, cos I'm not," I said. "I never said you were now, did I," he said. "Why would I be talking about John to you if you were John," he said. "I wouldn't be doing it, would I," he said. "I suppose not," I said. "Anyway, forget about John," he said. "John's got nothing to do with anything." So I forgot about John. "I got a new telephone," he said. "One of them new ones with buttons on and a curly wire," he said. "The man at the shop told me it was a good one," he said. "You know about these things, don't you," he said. "Does it sound like a good one to you," he said. "Sounds fine," I said.

"You've met Mary, yes," he said. "Which Mary?" I said. "You know, Mary," he said. "Mary Mary, you know the one, Mary," he said. "Which Mary?" I said. "Don't be so bloody stubborn," he said. "She was helping them out," he said. "I think it was her," he said. "OK," I said. "Mary whose old man has a van," I said. "Don't be daft," he said. "Not that bloody Mary. Aren't you even paying attention?" he said. "I'm trying," I said. "Good," he said. "Cos I've made myself perfectly bloody clear," he said.

426:

I need to stretch my brain and other bits before I can continue doing anything; this week has seen birthday and wedding parties and just general drinking here and there, and as much fun as that is, it isn't conducive to clear thoughts in the morning. When I wake up stressed out with self-doubt and stress and stuff it's more than a bacon sandwich can handle. Pray for a silent immobile day staring at the TV with one eye and the twitter feed with the other, before waking up at about 7pm and deciding I'm bored and had better do some writing or something. Maybe I'll get around to writing more novel, blogging about Ricky Gervais' stubborn addiction to an ugly word and Richard Herrings twitter stand against disablist language, a blog about a grand ol' Belfast pub and the mystery of its missing apostrophe, and a bunch of other stuff as yet to be pulled from my notebook and the dank oubliette of my memory; and maybe I'll get caught up with whatever other paperwork and form-filling that needs to be done (of which there is surely plenty, and I'm putting off writing that to-do list out of genuine dread and horror at what I might see before me). Rather than doing any of those things I'd much prefer to go back to bed and read the Captain Beefheart biography that has been reminding me about great music, and convincing me to listen to the most difficult stuff again. What with the recent hoohah about the Booker prize deciding that readability is the most important factor for judging literature (it isn't and shouldn't even factor in at all; literature should be a challenge to make you stronger as a reader, not a television programme in words), its great to be reminded that conventional 'listenability' is not a factor in genuinely valuable music. Great music as with great literature should make you work and think and wrestle with new ideas and difficult forms. Good comedy should too; but that doesn't mean you can just claim to have changed the meaning of an offensive disablist word, then repeat it over and over in a style that suggests you haven't changed it at all, eh Ricky Gervais? But less of that for now; it's a difficult issue and one that I am totally unqualified to discuss, but that doesn't mean I won't, I'm self destructive like that sometimes. Having said that I don't want to write about it at all, yet still have to, but don't need to but do want to, but can't or won't but probably will, ya get me? One long paragraph that will never be read by anyone is much more satisfying for me than writing a to-do list, and almost half as useless and ten-times as pointless.

324: Who will survive...

A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss has sent me straight for Misfits on spotify ; Return of the Fly, Mommy Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight, Where Eagles Dare, Die Die My Darling, Hollywood Babylon, Hybrid Moments, Night of the Living Dead, Braineaters, etcetera etc &c. Doubtful that was the lovely Mark's intent, but as far as I can see it's as good as any. Every new one-minute blast of Evil Elvis's evil warbling, quitely screeeching in the poorly mix, would make me scream chooon if I was anybody else. Certainly is a match for the melodious tones of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtrack ; the film with the best tagline ever (don't be a spazz, I'm talking about the original) Who will survive and what will be left of them?

Ed Gein and Charles Manson ; Leatherface and Damien .... Albert Fish liked nails and pins. Glen Danzig likes wolves and muscles. Kevin Bradshaw likes YouTube and Spotify. Erm, where was I? I don't know, something about eagles or reel-to-reels, craniophagy or mixology. No that wasn't it; I think I hadn't started yet, not yet penned-to-paper, clean sheet clean slate clean underwear. Under the sea, baby/darling it's better, down where it's wetter, under the sea. He stopped to look at the wall then the bookshelf then the sleeping person in the room and decided that stream-of-consiousness is more trouble than it's worth, more effort than it looks, more trouble with tribbles, more than meets the eye.

I missed episode one of A History of Horror ; where can I watch it ? – BBC iPlayer has no adverts that crash and waste time like ITVplayer or 4oD, but it rarely keeps programmes on display for more than a week. To the people of BBC: stop deleting stuff, have you not learnt your lesson from the days of deleting Dr. Who ; wiping tapes and starting afresh? Get a gigawigamegamintahyperbyte drive and archive that shit muther fucker. Archive that shit like a bitch. Drop it like it's hot. They don't make horror like they used too : They don't want the classic horror films anymore. Today it's all giant bugs. Giant spiders, giant grasshoppers – who will believe such nonsense?

The Man of a Thousand Faces – Lon Chaney – Laugh Clown Laugh ha ha he he deformed mutilated made-up dead ; he did all his own make-up head in a box, plastic eyes and wire (not sellotape) to pin back the nose. But he's dead now so he can't be all that smart can he. The Book of Imaginary Beings by Georgy Borgy cannot draw me in ; I pick it up and huff and puff and put it down again. I long for people; then again I loathe them. End of Autumn. End of Spring – Summer begins Murakami celebrates – I epalpebrate. Not really ; I've got mad eyebrows. Lon Chaney wouldn't know what to do with them.

284: In which I don't engage the conspiracists...

I hate it when stuff happens.  It just brings out the conspiracy theories.  The tedious nonsense about clandestine cloak and dagger conspiring and the evil empire of Western imperialism and blah blah blah; change the fucking record.  Yes, you understand the evidence when no one else does; woop-di-fucking-do for you; well done for lifting the veil and seeing what we mindless sheep don’t. 

We just eat our cereal and obey our government and never question anything except conspiracy theorists; of course we should be questioning anyone but conspiracy theorists.  Don’t question the 9/11-was-an-inside-job people, or the ­moon-landings-were-faked people, or any of the other ones, because they have seen the truth; read the right stuff; understand everything there is to know about forensics, socio/political/economic motivations, ballistics, building materials, structural architecture, and anything else the so-called experts claim.

Hopefully that will be the last of the anti-conspiracy outbursts I need to vent from my system for a while.  I don’t want to have to respond to the shit that flies about at times like this. It seems that, to some people, everything that Western powers do is a massive evil lie designed to enslave us in dumb happiness, and rebrand our imperial rule over the poor ign’ant people of non-European descent.  Conspiracy theories, like 9/11 was an inside job, patronise everyone in the world.

This really has turned into a mad ranting ramble.  I could easily be on the other side, stringing together random coincidences with made up ‘facts’, peppering it with retrospective significances and nitpicking at tiny irrelevant details; claiming uninformed statements as obvious truth, begging the question, and confusing opinion with evidence.  Let’s make up the world around us.  In the past people made up stories based on ignorance, a lack of understanding about evidence; now it’s the same thing happening with conspiracies.

I’m going to sign off now and go to sleep.  I have an early start in the morning, the laptop is overheating (possibly due to a CIA device of some unlikely construction), and I really don’t want to engage with conspiracy theorists.  Not that I will with this shamble of shite.  They have more pressing matters to attend to like Obama’s birth certificate and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Maybe if we leave them to it; give them their one private internet separate from ours; and just let them make up their stories in private without having to subject them to the rest of us.

271: Good morning, good mourning, Good Friday.

Got a bit of blogging to catch up with this morning.  The last two nights I have been out and about with Blank Media Collective; last night was at the opening of our current external exhibition, and Wednesday was at greenroom for the launch of Who’s Laughing Now (our final exhibition at greenroom).  As many of you probably know greenroom has been at the centre of arts innovation and promotion in Manchester for the last 28 years.  Following the cuts it is no longer part of ACE’s National Portfolio, and will be closing its doors in May.  We are all saddened by this news and I will soon be dedicating some posts to them.

My good buddy Mr. Ralph (of Bab Kubwa) came down to greenroom to film the building, and last night I interviewed John Leyland and Mark Devereux of BMC for their thoughts and feelings about greenroom.  We will be editing this together into a short video tribute to greenroom.  Also the unedited audio of John, Mark and myself might make a nice podcast/audio download.  John and Mark had some great memories about greenroom, and gave a touching insight into why it means so much to people.  There were tears.

So anyway, the last two nights of gallivanting have resulted in my returning home jolly, “exhausted” and jolly tired, and therefore not feeling particularly bloggilicious.  Now I’m feeling a tad rusty.  It’s a bank holiday (I think they are killing Jesus today), so there are no builders banging around to provide fuel for my scornful fire.  Why can I not think of anything to blog about?  What could I possibly write about today, the day when a billion blood-cultists celebrate the human sacrifice of a cocky magician, by having the day off work?  Fuck me, Christianity is a morbid, sordid little fetish club!

I think I’ve found the theme for at least one of today’s catch-up posts: coming soon (within the next hour or so), some thoughts on Good Friday and all that it entails.  I’ll speak no more about it for now, because I don’t want to waste any amusing turns of phrase, or vicious little rants.  I ought to be tidying the flat; we have visitors this weekend, and I want it to look nice, plus I have plans to cook a beef brisket on Sunday.  Blah blah blah.  Let’s call this post a day and get on with the rest of our lives.  Laterz.

193: O-M-G, sex and the city 2 is like the best film ever, carrie is so cool .................. ...........

Killing a boring Sunday afternoon by watching back-to-back Die Hard with a Vengeance and Die Hard 4.0 (also known by the stupid American title of Live Free or Die Hard), the two Die Hard films I have watched the least.  It’s the tunnel scene in 4.0 with the cars flying everywhere, and the improbably beautiful militant computer hackers controlling everything electrical from the hi-tech real-life God-simulation.  John McClane has just basically thrown a car into a helicopter.  I have nothing specifically sarcastic to say about this film (beyond my usual tone), as it is a more than competent late addition to the franchise.  With its fight scenes in apartments leading to adventures down the American-style fire escapes, and interactions with futuristic security systems, it makes me yearn to play Splinter Cell and Max Payne etc.  Lacking any gaming system though, I had no respite from the horrors I was about to face, he said changing tense.

My fiancée arrives home, and it’s her turn to choose the film.  Oh hell, I can barely bring myself to write the name... OK, here goes nothing... we watched Sex and the City 2.  As bad as my closed manly-mind could ever have imagined it to be in Fulfilled Stereotype World, its worse, so much worse.  Yes, of course it has the occasional bit of pretty good dialogue, but most of it is just shit, unashamedly so.  My namesake, Ms Bradshaw, wanders around the palatial Abu Dhabi hotel gawping her mouth wow, oh wow, wow, before exclaiming I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.  The entire film just seems to be a conveyor belt of lazy clichés designed to please gay stereotypes.  Plus that Carrie Bradshaw is just a dick; selfish, spoiled, overly-privileged, dick.  Thank god I won’t have to watch that again.

This was never meant to be a film review day; I actually had a proper article idea this morning, but can’t for the life of me remember what it was.  It must such a hot idea that it burnt my brain and fell.  Anyway as it turns out, I don’t think those two paragraphs of film related bleating could be considered ‘film reviews’ by any standards.  My comments on Sex in the City 2 wouldn’t even make a poorly written anonymous Amazon review, let alone something I will electronically publish in my own name, preserving online for the rest of time.

I was sure I had a Splinter Cell PC game somewhere about the flat, in a drawer or a box or something, but no amount of aimless rooting has unearthed it.  Perhaps I only imagined I had it. Ho-hum, finger twiddling is not so much fun without a control pad in my hands.  Let’s compose an ode to boredom.  No, let’s not.  I'll just add some pictures to make today's post seem more interesting than it really isn't.  Another lazy short cut: I'll just recycle some from elsewhere in the blog.

190: the weather, the football, some films

I’ve only just finished writing yesterday’s blog and now I’m writing today’s, and yesterday the fact that I had missed another day of blogging barely even warranted a mention, let alone a torturous numerical analogy.  Gone are the days of torturous numerical analogies.  I just pick myself off, brush dirt off my shoulder, and step back into the road without looking.

Today the house is freezing, and outside has been icy, yet the sky is blue and the light through the window has pleasant warmth.  Yesterday, as I painted the Blank Space logo onto the side of the building, my fingers and thumbs felt like they were being crushed slowly by glacial movement, and I had to boil the kettle and hold my hands in the steam.  And that is all for today’s weather report.  I watched Emma Thompson/Ang Lee’s 1995 adaption of Sense and Sensibility a couple of days ago and Mrs Dashwood chastises the little girl Margaret by saying “If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say will you please restrict your remarks to the weather”.  A good enough rule on occasion I suspect, but I would say that there are many occasions in life when saying the inappropriate must be the best thing.  Especially if it shuts someone up or gets a laugh.  But right now I don’t have anything appropriate to say, so... there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

Watching Sense and Sensibility just made me want to watch something funny; specifically either Blackadder the Third (episodes entitled Ink and Incapability, Nob and Nobility, etc), or The Importance of Being Earnest for its jolly-posho hilarity, and overly long-winded propriety.  “My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist.  It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn’t a dentist.  It produces a false impression.”  “I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing”.  (I desire to get married, but what do I know?)  Or; “Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else.  And that makes me so nervous.”

So when talking about the weather you and I mean something else, and are merely talking about the weather because we cannot think of anything proper to say.  Oh the trials and tribulations of society living (are something that this pauper doesn’t have to worry about).  Then there is football: the thing that men talk about when they mean something else.  Why else would anyone be so interested in football, if not to obscure their true meaning behind statto-nerdism and homoerotic fixations with the physical fitness of childish millionaires.  I wish I could talk about football.  The only problem is that it’s so fucking boring.  So boring in fact that even the weather is a more interesting subject.  I’d rather work at the Met Office than the Football Association.

If unlike me you love football (I actually think it’s OK, sometimes) and want to ‘unite against the ugly side of football’ go to Respect F.C. and show your support.  It’s some sort of FA thing saving the beautiful game from gobby morons (I know a few of them).  If you’re not bothered or are a gobby moron, then that’s fine too.  That’s enough football talk for now.  If I was to go on about it any longer I might have to start pretending to know which player is better than which other one, or screaming racist violent language at the telly, or any of the other pointless activities enjoyed by association football fanatics.

How did I end up here; deriding football and quoting from Sense and Sensibility?  To anyone questioning my manly credentials I just like to say in my defence that I have a tool box, there is a Black and Decker Workmate stowed away under my bed, I think Die Hard is the best Christmas film, and I’m getting married.  To a woman.  Proof if proof were needed, and all without any suspiciously vitriolic football-inspired homophobia.  That said, perhaps I should have just stuck to talking about the weather.

180: my polymorphic proboscis

Say what you see.  Write about what you know about.  Return to first principles.  OK, well, my laptop is making a racket again.  A couple of months back I completed the laborious task of dismantling (and re-mantling) the whole thing just to clean out a few specks of dusty-fluff and fluffy-dust from the fan.  It instantly became quiet as a fluff-fall, but now I can hear it whirring aggressively from the other side of the flat even with the door shut.  Perhaps instead of gently unscrewing all the components and neatly laying them down on sheets of paper, I should just smash a hole in the back and suck the dust out with my polymorphic proboscis, or dash it to itty-bitty-smithers and hoick  it out the window.  If only the idiots at HP could have just designed a simple panel into the back none of this would be necessary.  I honestly thought design was supposed to make things better and things generally improved accumulatively over time.

So I was saying what I see, not what I hear and at the moment all I see is that last paragraph.  I decided to change the layout of the blog as it felt like I needed a change.  I can’t really tell if this is an improvement (‘shock of the new’ and all that), but I certainly find it preferable to the old look.  Change is good (I’ll keep telling myself), change is good.  But the doctor tells me I have to live as a woman before the ethics board will approve the op needed for the change.  Or whatever.  So I hear a fan, see words, a new layout and a bad sex-change joke.  I also feel tired, thirsty and sneeze, optimistic for the future, and yet worried about how to pay next month’s rent.

Here’s an original thought; wouldn’t it be good if work did itself.  Like if I was a writer I could just create a word document, give it a name, close the document and go to sleep.  When I woke up in the morning the file was mysterious full of original and sparkling story matching the title.  Or if I was a shoemaker I could just leave a load of leather lying around and when I woke after a restful night, hey presto, freshly baked shoes!  Almost as though elves or fairies had been in and worked their nimble little magicks all over the place.  What an original thought.  Maybe I’ll write a story about it.  Or failing that create a word document and hope it fills itself.  Although I have tried that a few times already, and so far it doesn’t seem to be working.  Perhaps if I keep repeating the same mistakes I’ll eventually get a different outcome.  Never mind.

176: ..................................................

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!  To paraphrase George Orwell, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.  I’ll leave it at that, and get on with it; no specifics, but I’ve got the ARGH out so that should do for now.  I realise that last sentence has been both cryptic and illiterate and blah blah etc.  Right, where was I?

I was in the middle of trying to put off doing any writing today.  I could sleep for a week, and I could do with a bottle of whisky.  I walked into the kitchen before and felt a strange comforting feeling of being at home.  Of course I am at home, but I’d like to be spending more time here. Twelve hours a day behind a till, and no time to relax in the kitchen, or sit in front of the laptop in the office, or drinking in the pub with friends I never see anymore.  As it is I’m just going to finish watching Al Murray: The Pub Landlord.  This blog is like an annoying distracting chatterbox; I’m just trying to watch the telly and fall asleep, but this twittering little twat just keeps going on and on, clambering for my attention.  Well I can’t be doing with that.

Want to read something better that today’s half-arsed shit?

Only religious thugs love blasphemy laws – Blasphemy is not the protector of religious freedom, as the UN maintains, but its mortal enemy, by Nick Cohen

That’s my recommendation for the day.  I’m sure there must be other things to read on the internet, but I can’t point you to any; I’ve not read the whole thing yet.  There is a lot of internet out there.  Maybe even too much for one person to read, even if you don’t include all the comments left by racists, homophobes, and all the other idiots filling the internet with their unpleasant brain shit.  You wouldn’t catch me doing that.  All of my writings are well thought out, intelligent and serve a greater purpose.  You’ll need to follow the blog for the next 20 or 30 years in order to understand what that purpose is , and blah blah baa baa.

I’ve had all I can take and no doubt you have too.  It’s just one of those days where I am brain dead, depressed and tired, and unfortunately as a minimum wage scumbag I have no leeway to complain about anything; I am entirely disposable, and my boss wants me to know it.  Minimum wage and the legal minimum of breaks (20 minutes in 11 hours) says only one thing; I am not valued.  Oops, I’m talking about work...

Block Chop 81: Unfocused ramble about this and that

Oh my god; cutting it so fine it hurts, I got my BBC job application in twenty-five minutes before the midnight deadline.  I obviously a complete bell-end who should have completed it weeks ago, but that was all discussed and milked yesterday.  Now I can bask temporarily in the glory of receiving that thank you for your application email, until inevitably I hit the funk of the ...but unfortunately on this occasion your application was unsuccessful email.  How’s that for positive thinking?

The application included answering a great many (well four) difficult concise essay questions, which meant excising rolling mounds of fat in order dip below the word count.  I should have started this blog post with the word omg, but after the hideous fiasco of some bloke, named after an Edgar Allen Poe story, on X-Factor I’m sure I will never use that ridiculous abbreviation, but judging by this long and rambling sentence which has long strayed from any coherent point, I am no longer concerned with exceeding word counts and even if I was I am too tired and gazing lazily into the inviting infinite whiteness of the page below these words, and in a final flurry towards the end of the sentence I refer you back to the Poe allusion before and confirm to you that, yes, I was talking about The Fall of the House of Usher, a thematic masterpiece of interlocking detail, metaphor and consistency.

One question involved watching a twenty-six minute long clip of an old episode of the Ten O’Clock News from the day of the big Raoul Moat versus the police stand-off, in fact almost entirely about this prick and the non-story that was the last few moments of his pathetic despicable life, and then deigning to mention almost in passing, the greatest spy-swap since the Cold War, and the impending World Cup final, which being between Spain and Netherlands was excitingly going to yield first time champions.  I wasn’t aware of the content of the news episode before I started watching, and was worried that I would struggle to find meat to bite onto, but as the episode unfurled I became increasingly disgusted with the manner in which it was covered, and launched into a long and angry rant against the danger of glorifying psychos, creating a pornography of hysteria, the dumbing-down of the news with repetition ad infinitum.  I toned down the rant, aiming for ‘review’ (as the question requested) but possibly not arriving, and worked hard to bring it under 300 words.  For good measure, and other stuff, here is what I wrote:

Too much time is spent on the Moat story.  Despite the fact it is happening live there is very little newsworthy content.  There is a large amount of speculation, repetition, rephrasing of the same information, and unnecessary detail.

The story is promoted as entertainment, and almost seems as though it is intentionally trying to create hysteria.  The section where inconsequential still photographs are shown on screen and speculated about is not interesting, and has obviously just been included to drag out the coverage, and perhaps televise a violent end.

It is my understanding that the BBC has a remit to provide a public service, but I strongly feel this kind of presentation has a detrimental effect on society by promoting homicidal sociopaths as exciting rebel antiheroes.  Stories like this should be covered in the news, but to a minimal degree and not as a dramatic narrative.

There is not enough information to warrant such a long story.  Moat’s mental state and the factors leading up to his crimes are interesting; however no insight is provided. 

The story about the US/Russia spy exchange has many complex political aspects, and deserved a much more in depth coverage.  It will have repercussions lasting for years, compared to the Moat story and I think the BBC has made an error in judgement with regard to balance, information and public service.

The spy story focuses on planes landing and very little else.  No real attempt is made to explain the background to this story or the political and diplomatic ramifications.  Why is the swap happening?  There is no hint.

I enjoyed the World Cup coverage; the focus on Spain, and the detail about the hopeful young fans (potential future footballers, perhaps?) was positive.

I hope it doesn’t go down too badly.  I love the BBC but it is undeniably going through an extremely shitty period: poor quality comedy, crap adult drama (fuck Dr. Who; that doesn’t count), and idiotic rehashes of weird Japanese shows (what stupid cunt used license payers money to bring Hole in a Wall over here); and the last thing they need is yes men.  I can slag it off as much as I like, because I used the get out clause of mentioning I love it.  And I do.  I am also happy to pay my license fee, and don’t think any other broadcasters should get a share of it.  But I don’t think the BBC should be unaccountable for what it spends.  Only a bare minimum of its license income should go to entertainment (game shows, ‘documentaries’ that aren’t documentaries, buying foreign imports, etc), and the rest should be spent on developing proper world class comedy, drama, and documentaries... like the good old days.  There is nothing – NOTHING – on BBC3 which license payer’s money should be spent on.

And one last thing BBC, before I fall asleep hoping you will employ me: your sycophantic rimming of that evil old man Ratzinger, on his hello Britain, I’m a Pope holiday was despicable.  Fine, put it in the news, but he does not deserve hours and hours of pointless coverage on your two main channels for day after day.  Would you do the same for visiting heads of other weird microstates; or other obscenely wealthy homophobic, misogynistic, theocratic perpetuators of ignorance and misery?

So what have we learned today?  Not much, other than today’s sentences have been particularly long, with a slight flavour of rant, and a pinch of lack of focus.  That’s about it, and now my cheek is twitching uncontrollably due to exhaustion.  Night night, Blog.  “Night night, Kevin,” it replied.

P.S.  If you have read this blog post, you have read it once more than me.