Nathan "Still-born" Barley Prediction Thread

[Beagle 2]

...And I've surrounded myself with a bunch of Big Brother apologists and people who only use Daily Mail pejoritively because Baynham told them to?

All hail Big Brother! Protect your interests! Kill all dissent with out-of-date satire. Bazalgette is the fackin' man!

What do you actually mean? I'm not so well informed on these things, specifically what "big brother apologists" are you talking about, and what relevance does this have to whether NB will be funny or not? And the second sentence, I just don't know what you're talking about, and for once I'd like to understand what these cryptic in-joke statements that so often crop up in these threads refer to.

I'm not trying to be arsey, it's just if I don't understand what you're on about I can't decide whether I agree with you, and I do enjoy reading and being educated by your perspective on comedy an awful lot.

"Fuck - people genuinely questioning what the media has become? With the sort of anger I originally displayed back in 1994?

Yes! You r LOL NO real morisses he az sold out! Sorry, I jest winky winky...

[alan strang]

What do you actually mean? I'm not so well informed on these things, specifically what "big brother apologists" are you talking about, and what relevance does this have to whether NB will be funny or not?

Big Brother = Endemol = Zeppetron = Nathan Barley. Brooker and his ilk are always banging on about how great BB is. A genuine media satirist would surely despise it, or at the very least ignore it. They certainly shouldn't embrace it wholeheartedly as a cash-cow and protect it from criticism.

And the second sentence, I just don't know what you're talking about, and for once I'd like to understand what these cryptic in-joke statements that so often crop up in these threads refer to.

Sniding at Germaine Greer for having the balls to actually sum up what BB stands for - bullying; attempting to arranging human cock-fights for the masses to enjoy and ultimately contributing nothing of worth to television as a whole. A very similar stance to the anti-Greer arguments put forward by BB supremo Peter Bazalgette in that horribly snide lecture he did a while back (where he even saw fit to show an old clip of Greer dancing about on an old comedy show called Nice Time to illustrate what a silly cow she was (so please don't take her views seriously).

Out-of-date satire = deliberately redefining Greer's comments as cliched and ignorable under the rules of 'Godwin's Law' (originally a nice bit of observational satire about Usenet posters enlikening people/situations to Hitler/The Nazis, but now more often than not used as a means to kill debate. Thus, somewhat outmoded and out-of-date.)

[Beagle 2]

Brilliant, cheers! Not sure I agree about this: "A genuine media satirist would surely despise it, or at the very least ignore it. They certainly shouldn't embrace it wholeheartedly as a cash-cow and protect it from criticism", I mean whether you like it or not it's there and should be satirised and took the piss out of I would have thought, but I guess I'm on shaky ground there as usual.

Thanks for an informative reply.

[Rats]

A genuine media satirist would surely despise it, or at the very least ignore it. They certainly shouldn't embrace it wholeheartedly as a cash-cow and protect it from criticism.

Just because it's an easy target doesn't mean to say that if you're a self proclaimed "media satirist" that you should pull it apart and kick around it's failings, digging your elbow into the moral pressure points even if you enjoy the show and think it's good telly. If he is bigging it up and not giving a balanced view because he's living off their money then I take your point, I don't know, I've no interest in the man, hopefully morris knows better and this collaboration is going to blow us all away and prove once and for all that brooker is more than a dissapointing frenzied wank.

edit: actually I take that back, I decided to get interested seen as he's working with our dark lord, bar reading the few issues of tv go home my friend tossed me before I had the net, I hadn't really read anything he'd wrote and I googled his name and have just read a few of his guardian articles and I've chuckled at least 3 times. He's quite good, but in a horribly average, I can think of at least 5 verbwhores who could do it if they were being paid by the word, kind of way. There are plenty of "oh fuck off" moments to keep me worrying though, maybe he was in a rush, he's quite young isn't he? Hopefull big moz will keep him in check. I'll put all my prejudice aside when I watch it anyway.

the third series of 24, which I wrote off earlier this year, and have just spent an entire weekend rather sheepishly glued to (I was wrong - after a slow start it suddenly became absolutely magnificent: rent or buy the DVD right now).

Oh, extra points, how many tv critics would do that? He's a man of the people.
Everything seems to be pornography, he may well be the new tom paulin.

[Andy Spaschrist]

Why all the fuss? You crazy webmongs you.....

Haven't you heard? Your type are on your way out.[/quote]



Sorry I was out Strangy, now I'm back again. It's nice outdoors, you should try it. While I was out I bumped into your wit. Actually it was more like stubbed my toe on. It did ask for you to get in touch though. What was that other thing you said?

[trisha goddard]

hi folks.
hope youre all well.

Fri Feb 11th 9pm

[alan strang]

hi folks.
hope youre all well.

Fri Feb 11th 9pm

Ooh, I'll set me video now to avoid disappointment!

[trisha goddard]

...

[alan strang]

ah !
i see you have an impressive vhs machine with a month set timer

Aye, and it's in space. In the future.

[trisha goddard]

...

[TJ]

ah !
i see you have an impressive vhs machine with a month set timer

Aye, and it's in space. In the future.

Send it back in time and record the missing episodes of "Ace Of Wands" at once, you swine!

[alan strang]

Send it back in time and record the missing episodes of "Ace Of Wands" at once, you swine!

Unfortunately I can only use it to record stuff from the future (you're thinking of the THD5651X model which has backward-compatable inverse thrusters and enormous metallic-effect eyebrows - beyond my price-range at the moment).

Just watching Brooker's Comedy Award acceptance speech. He's used that joke about the Daily Mail three years running now, the twat.

And Ricky Gervais is now in a wheelchair (after that unfortunate incident with the quad bike in 2008). Oh, the delicious irony.

And Cappsy should be pleased - they've finally released the Red Dwarf movie and it's won Best British Comedy. It's Flash-animated and features the voice-talents of the Dead Ringers team's nephew.

[TJ]

Did they ever make a second series of "Hippies"?

[alan strang]

Did they ever make a second series of "Hippies"?

It shows you the future, TJ - not the twisted fantasies of madmen.

[butnut]

hi folks.
hope youre all well.

Fri Feb 11th 9pm

Don't know how true this is, but just bumping it over to the new page for all the lazy buggers who didn't look back a page.

[RHX]

So I assume that the current series run of the Simpsons is over in 3 weeks then?

[edifice]

Mr. Strang,

Surely the satirical can make two points simultaneously; if not then substantial works by Swift, Johnson, Twain, Waugh leading into Stanshall into Cook into Morris and beyond aren't worth the light of day.

My reference to Ms. Greer is not in response to the esoteric theorem you posit but the recent weekend Times article in which she wrote, "As Mussolini's enforcers found, it is easy to break a prisoner by turning day into night and jumbling mealtimes". She wrote this in direct reference herself to her three day experience in Celebrity Big Brother. On Sunday. So not that "out-of-date".

My favourite book is 'The Whole Woman' by Germaine Greer. If you wish to learn a thing or two about the satirical I suggest you read it.

If there exists in society those who are beyond the reach of the satirical there is no satire.

Not that I consider this silly little sketch satire. It was just a bit of whiling nonsense. And long shall such things remain.

Yours,

Edifice[/b]

[Rats]

Urgh, you've got eyeballs in your nostrils.

[The Mumbler]

Mr. Strang,


My reference to Ms. Greer is not in response to the esoteric theorem you posit but the recent weekend Times article in which she wrote, "As Mussolini's enforcers found, it is easy to break a prisoner by turning day into night and jumbling mealtimes". She wrote this in direct reference herself to her three day experience in Celebrity Big Brother. On Sunday. So not that "out-of-date".
[/b]

Aren't you making a rather-too-literal connection between killing people and "hey - a harmless game show!"?  I know what Greer's referring to - it's all too easy for a mass of people to get caught up in a witch-hunt without thinking through what they're actually supporting.  You may reduce it to solipsistic thinking, but she's on to something.  Thank God.

Big Brother and its ilk has fuck all to do with sociology - no matter how many psychological experts they bus in (I would imagine they're being paid handsomely).   It's very cheap to make, but extremely profitable, easy to export as an idea, and it gets people talking (supposedly) because it speaks to everyone's base instincts.  "Nyeeeah, bunch of losers!"/"Facking chavs"/"Ugly bitches"/"Oh my god, look at that arse"/"Blah".

Big Brother's been like that from day one.  Stupid cunts who present it (Dermot and Davina), appear on the endless commenting spin-offs (most people in comedy), say how unmissable it is (from TV critics to Rachel Stevens to four million stupid fucking bastards watching it) and how you just can't look away, can you?  How it's "great television".  

The violence of last year's event was very telling.  Endemol thrilled at the publicity but had to publicly denounce it - still, maybe it'll all happen again.  Keep watching, everyone.  Meanwhile, scratch your heads with puzzlement as to why bullying statistics keep hurtling through the roof.

[edifice]

Aren't you making a rather-too-literal connection between killing people and "hey - a harmless game show!"?

No. The difference between the contestants on "Celebrity Big Brother" and the victims of oppressive regimes is the literal consequence of what can / might happen to them. The (predominantly innocent) prisoners of Camp X-Ray can attest to the psychological effect of not knowing what's around the next corner (torture, rape or death) whereas Greer vaguely understood that the challenges before her (dressing up, being spun on a roundabout or making dinner) were designed to humiliate her and other contestants on national television with all the immediate safeguards in place. And with the promise of release in 18 days (as opposed to release in an unknown quantity of time or death).

The argument that Big Brother influences bullying behaviour is a valid one and is probably a calculated point Greer wanted to make before entering the house. But it doesn't quite wash,  does it? We've had four seasons of the show, just as many celebrity editions, Teen Big Brother etc. etc. - no-one could convince me that Germaine Greer; the writer I respect more than any other - that Professor Germaine Greer did not realise that Big Brother would goad contestants to bully each other. In fact I know she knew this. I saw her say so on a documentary produced by Endemol. Two years ago.

Everything else you say is valid. Endemol obviously are a bunch of immoral money-grabbing shits. Just don't let hypocracy rule because you like the hypocrite.

[The Mumbler]

I never saw that Endemol-produced documentary.  Was it actually about the Big Brother phenomenon itself?  And in what capacity did Greer appear - as a standard talking head, or an academic, or cultural sage?

What I do find a bit peculiar about Greer's observations (while they are absolutely valid, and it's certainly refreshing that *someone*'s making them, no matter how belatedly) is that she had to participate in order to find out how true they are.  The all-consuming Big Brother industry isn't quite so wily so that its tracks can't be hidden - a casual glance at a tabloid or the last 90 seconds of Big Brother's Little Brother is all one needs to retain the fetid flavour of a nation's spare bile (or at least any which hasn't already been spilled over asylum seekers).

"They know what they're letting themselves in for" - up to a point, but it's the fact we've reached this stage at all, that most people seem to find it all a birrovalaff, that disturbs me.  Maybe I'm just too sensitive, but even if it is an obnoxious racing commentator, I can't really delight in 4 million people shouting "faaack off" at their screens.  I find all these programmes - not just BB, but What Not To Wear, Wife Swap, Fame Academy, Fit Club and all the rest - boring obscenities.

[skibz]

Good God, what's going on here? I can understand double posts, but quintuple posts is a little bit silly...

[Neil]

Good God, what's going on here? I can understand double posts, but quintuple posts is a little bit silly...

As is referring to them when they're about to get deleted ;-)

[edifice]

I never saw that Endemol-produced documentary.  Was it actually about the Big Brother phenomenon itself?  And in what capacity did Greer appear - as a standard talking head, or an academic, or cultural sage?

Yes - it was about the global cultural significance of Big Brother and she appeared as a standard talking head.

You're absolutely right of course and I agree with everything you've said re: Endemol / Big Brother. I still think Greer is a valid target for the satirical in this case though; yes, her points are absolutely valid  but the comparison between herself in this television show and those interned in Mussolini's Italy are purposeful hyperbole and, after all, she did propose to take the Endemol dollar regardless of her intentions for it.

She herself might have made a better satirical point juxtaposing the horrors of fascism with BB - "If ever a group of people were worthy of gassing..."

Still, if anyone out there is considering voting for Celebrity Big Brother do yourself a favour and stop supporting the Endemol machine. Save your goodwill for something genuinely worthwhile:  

 http://www.buglife.org.uk/

[goatboy]

1. The Daily Mail will dedicate six pages of the following day's issue to a spread entitled 'Why Chris Morris must now be boiled in oil', with a follow-up pull out in the Night and Day magazine the following Sunday.

2. A Tory back bencher will stand up in the commons and declare that, due to Nathan Barley starting on Channel 4, 'it now surely must be time to ban television for good and have anyone who has ever even smelt a television buried alive'. He will go on to point out that Labour should have seen this coming.

3. It will be 'leaked' to The Sun that Episode 3 contains an undetectable frame of text that reads 'The Pope snores'.

4. Channel 4 will shift it around the schedules several times, until very 'subversively' putting it up against  My Hero on Friday evenings.

5. The Guardian will print a seven page special about why the Daily Mail is wrong.

6. It will be written by Armando Ianucci.

7. The Observer will print a twelve page special about why the Daily Mail is actually spot on.

8. It will be written by Chris Morris.

9. Bernard Manning wont watch it.

10. You'll overhear someone on the bus summising that 'It's not as funny as The Day Today'. They will then over-enthusiastically scream 'This is the news!' in the style of Michael Burke, then virtually in the same breath slip into an equally appalling Vicky Pollard impression.

[TJ]

11. I'll start a thread in Comedy Chat the day after transmission entitled 'one of you fuckers must have that film of The Pied Piper with Donovan in on video', and it will recieve no replies at all.

[Rats]

The comedy clothes-horse puppets will stay together and do a watered down version of the whole thing afterwards with faster cutting.

[The Mumbler]

I never saw that Endemol-produced documentary.  Was it actually about the Big Brother phenomenon itself?  And in what capacity did Greer appear - as a standard talking head, or an academic, or cultural sage?

Yes - it was about the global cultural significance of Big Brother and she appeared as a standard talking head.

You're absolutely right of course and I agree with everything you've said re: Endemol / Big Brother. I still think Greer is a valid target for the satirical in this case though; yes, her points are absolutely valid  but the comparison between herself in this television show and those interned in Mussolini's Italy are purposeful hyperbole and, after all, she did propose to take the Endemol dollar regardless of her intentions for it.

She herself might have made a better satirical point juxtaposing the horrors of fascism with BB - "If ever a group of people were worthy of gassing..."

Still, if anyone out there is considering voting for Celebrity Big Brother do yourself a favour and stop supporting the Endemol machine. Save your goodwill for something genuinely worthwhile:  

 http://www.buglife.org.uk/

I've since seen (not bought, you'll note) the new Private Eye which points out Greer's profound distaste for the whole machine was outlined in a newspaper column as long ago as Summer 2001....

Ultimately, BIg Brother seems an untouchable obscenity.  What was refreshing about Greer is that she was prepared to identify (not by name, unfortunately) who the villains were in the set-up - while the rest of the nation (or so said the tabloids) were rejoicing in the villification of various members of the public or vaguely well-known people down on their luck.  

As for Celebrity Big Brother's "caring, charitable" side, I was reminded by a reasonable (by its standards) Time Shift about supermarkets on Thursday night (BBC4), when a contributor commented something like, "You hear a lot about supermarket chains like Sainsburys, Tesco et al donating to the community and raising money for charity, but you have to remember they only do it because they know there's something in it for them".  Given how often people hurl that accusation at celebrities who take part in Big Brother, how much more money would be available for charity if Big Brother had never been piloted?

[Rats]

It's shocking how half the cost of a vote goes to charity but the other half goes to endermol, they must be fucking raking it in. It mustl pay for itself and 10 series of family fortunes after the first week, and the celebrities accept payment! Surely, having their profiles raised is payment enough, and then they have the cheek to say that they're doing it for a good cause. Having lisa lianson on my telly for anything more than a split second is anything but a good cause. It's not like any of them have a constant, stable income that they're missing by going in there, and they're allowed holidays anyway, they're the ones whou should be paying for a holiday with free publicity. You shouldn't be allowed to utter the word charity on TV unless everyone involved is giving their services for free. It's fucking sickening but I hope the whacky gay one wins.