I Predict A Riot

It was interesting on the Brit Awards the other night to see Tinie Tempah saying he wanted to 'big up God'. You wouldn't think God would need it, would you? I'm sure it must have down wonders for His self-esteem though, being 'bigged up' by 'Tinie'.

Later in the same show, Plan B staged a riot, complete with burning policeman. This was quite exciting because, such is our experience of the Brits, there was every possibility that it might be happening for real.

But on the whole, TV has not been that exciting. So bad has it become that, a few evenings ago, Dave and I found ourselves watching BBC Parliament, where Nick (Son of Douglas) Hurd squirmed under the onslaught of complex incisive questions about 'the Big Society'. Questions such as: 'What is the Big Society?'

Everyone seemed to accept that, whatever it is, it won't happen unless there is a 'culture change'. What is that then? Is it something like the Renaissance? Oh well, that's OK then. I'm sure there'll be another one of those along in a minute.

Another phrase that kept cropping up was 'social entrepreneur'. These are the people who will supposedly build the Big Society, and already their name sounds like a euphemism for 'criminal'. It doesn't bode well. But I shouldn't be negative. David Cameron has apparently attacked the BBC for reporting cuts in a negative way. But I wonder how you report them in a positive way? The closure of a library as a great leap forward for illiteracy? The scrapping of a bus service as a health initiative?

Presumably none of this will be necessary when this 'culture change' happens and everyone immediately becomes completely selfless. At which point, never mind the Tories, might we not give Communism a go?

Last Exit To Candlerise

So Lark Rise To Candleford has finally come to an end. This series (which I have occasionally glanced at out of the corner of my eye) has seen the ladies of the village briefly putting aside their copies of the June 1890 edition of Take a Break to goggle at hunky newcomer Gabriel, as he bangs away at his ironmongery. 'Hold this still while I show it who's master!', he commands a nearby urchin, who eagerly obliges.

Later in the series, the village is invaded by a python of possibly supernatural origin. What next, I think to myself - a killer robot? Perhaps that is the mysterious 'machine' Gabriel is slaving over in his forge...

But no, it turns out, in the very last episode, that he has invented the combine harvester. Or something. Everyone is quick to understand that this machine represents the end of their pastoral Eden. One old crone has dreamed of a burning chimney rising up from a field like...like a cack-handed symbol of industrialization. Or a massive penis.

But fans of LRTC are not after subtlety. They only want to escape back into a simpler time - a time of poverty, disease, and early death. A time when they wouldn't even have been able to get away from it all by watching Lark Rise To Candleford. Or even reading it, since it hadn't been written yet.

But what is there in this modern world to escape from? Everyone seems to be having a great time. Just look at The Joy Of Teen Sex on C4. 'Everyone I know is having sex on drugs', one teen blithely assures us. Another reaches into a carrier bag and says: 'I went shopping and I bought some drugs.' For a dizzy moment, I think that they are about to play that shopping list memory game ('I went shopping and I bought some drugs, and a vibrator.') Disappointingly, this is not the case.

A teenage girl attends the programme's 'clinic' with her Mum in tow. She has been dumped by her boyfriend because she refused to do it doggy-style. 'I found it difficult to cope with on her behalf', says her Mum, suggesting - or is that just me? - that she has been dutifully standing in.

Meanwhile, outside the window, a massive flaming penis rises up from the earth...

the man with one brain

Mat came up with a thorny problem the other evening. He would dearly love to be a connoisseur of whiskey; only problem is, he doesn't like it. Most people would probably give up on the idea at this point, but Matthew is made of sterner stuff. Blaming his dislike on a 'fault' in his brain (due to a childhood trauma which occurred when he downed an entire bottle of the stuff on a whim), he is forcing himself to drink it in the hope of making his brain change its mind. However, thus far, brain says no.

This scenario struck me as slightly odd. I mean, where is he in all this? Which is the real Mat? The brain that hates whiskey? Or the guy frowning at the brain as though it were a malfunctioning TV? However, when I tried to explain this, it didn't go down very well. Suffice it to say that, when Mat eventually rids the world of all its 'idiots', I am unlikely to be one of the few survivors.

Still, I have thought on his problem, and I don't see why he shouldn't become a connoisseur of whiskey anyway. When he shows his collection of hundred-year-old malts off to visitors, and they ask which he prefers, he can shudder theatrically and say: 'Oh Christ no, I don't drink the stuff! It's pure poison!' I imagine that this would give him a certain cachet in whiskey-loving circles.

It also occurred to me that he could form a double act, Mat And His Brain. He could wear Edwardian costume (I'm not quite sure why) and the brain would be in a bubbling vat, of course:

MAT: Now see here brain, I have it in mind to become the greatest connoisseur of whiskey the world has ever known. What do you have to say to that?

BRAIN (in a reverberating undertone): Gay-y-y-y.

Weary of lifting a spoon? Why not download food straight into your mouth?

I've nothing against Simon Pegg and Nick Frost but it's a bit irritating to go to the cinema and find them fronting an ad nagging you to go and see films at the cinema. 'But, but - ', I splutter, 'I am in the cinema, waiting for the film to start. Isn't it a bit perverse to encourage me to do something I am already doing, and then actively get in my way?'

They don't listen. They just go on to plug their new film, Paul, which judging from the trailer looks a bit like what might happen if two English comedians sold their souls to the Devil in exchange for Hollywood success and found that the price of this was being forced into a menage a trois with Jar Jar Binks.

I'm sure it's better than it looks though - it would have to be - and they are right, of course, when they tell you to make the effort to see films in the cinema. Culture is far too accessible these days. I mean, I'm told that you can download books now, into something called a 'Kindle'. Because books, it turns out, are just text. True, I suppose. Then again, Haribo and fillet steak are both just food, but I wouldn't necessarily want to eat them off the same plate. And at least when I pick up a book, I know that somebody somewhere (rightly or wrongly) thought this particular text was worthy of being transformed into a discrete object. In the digital age, how are you going to separate real writing from, say, an unusually elaborate e-mail? Or this shit?

On the other hand, I don't see why books and Kindles can't co-exist in peace - at least until books are seen as so ecologically unsound that people carrying them are targeted for the kind of abuse now handed out to women who wear real fur. Tree-murderer! I was reading someone's anti-Kindle rant the other day on the internet and this person sounded so smug and precious that I immediately began to warm to the pro-Kindle comments down the page - until, that is, I read one in which someone said how great it was that they were now saved from having to turn pages. What? You can't even turn a page? What are you, a baby? Is there anything else you'd like help with? Breathing, for example? They have machines that can do that for you, you know.