People with massive cultural voids

[Jockice]

Another one about my cousin who had never heard of Primal Scream/has read one book in his adult life. I was talking to him on the phone a few years ago and he said something about his dad's eating habits and weight gain that made me think of the Mr Creosote sketch from The Meaning Of Life. So I replied with a comment about 'just one wafer thin mint' expecting him to laugh or say 'fuck off, I'm stuffed' or something. Nope. Nothing. He'd never seen it or heard of it. I explained it and he flatly replied: 'I don't like Monty Python.' And that was that.

I sometimes think we're not actually related at all.

[Jockice]

Really. Probably never will TBH, don't really like British drama shows, especially period ones. My own little cultural void there, I guess - aware of the looks I get when I say I never saw Bodyguard. Though, I really liked The Little Drummer Girl but that also puts me in a minority.

I rarely watch drama shows full stop. Apart from one-off things. When people started going on about Bodyguard I genuinely thought they were talking about that Whitney Houston film from the early 90s.

I think Mad Men is the only lengthy several-series I have seen all the way through and that was only by chance because I was flicking channels one night and happened upon the first episode, which I thought was great and stuck with it. Stuff like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad didn't have such luck and to this day I've never seen either.  I've seen the odd CSI but that's because my partner quite likes them. And they mainly seem to be self-contained one-episode stories so I can cope with that.

There was a British series about newspapers (can't remember the title but it starred Ben Wishaw and Romola Thingy) which I tried watching but totally forgot about the final episode. Then I tried again with the second series but the exact same thing happened once more.

I did like that Jeremy Thorpe thing earlier this year though.

[Jockice]

I rarely watch drama shows full stop. Apart from one-off things. When people started going on about Bodyguard I genuinely thought they were talking about that Whitney Houston film from the early 90s.

I think Mad Men is the only lengthy several-series I have seen all the way through and that was only by chance because I was flicking channels one night and happened upon the first episode, which I thought was great and stuck with it. Stuff like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad didn't have such luck and to this day I've never seen either.  I've seen the odd CSI but that's because my partner quite likes them. And they mainly seem to be self-contained one-episode stories so I can cope with that.

There was a British series about newspapers (can't remember the title but it starred Ben Wishaw and Romola Thingy) which I tried watching but totally forgot about the final episode. Then I tried again with the second series but the exact same thing happened once more.

I did like that Jeremy Thorpe thing earlier this year though.

Having said all that, I do watch Coronation Street. Not avidly (for instance I didn't see it at all last week) but if I'm at home and it's on I'll put it on in the background.

[olliebean]

Likewise.

And I was surprised that SPOTY is still going.
And that everyone calls it SPOTY.

Oh, is that what SPOTY is? I keep seeing the word recently, couldn't be bothered to find out what it meant because I assumed it was probably something I wouldn't be interested in.

I was right.

[Captain Z]

Oh, is that what SPOTY is? I keep seeing the word recently, couldn't be bothered to find out what it meant because I assumed it was probably something I wouldn't be interested in.

I was right.

The most annoying thing about SPOTY is that the acronym is so close but yet so far from being 'SPORTY'.

[DistressedArea]

I don't think that not engaging with something creates a cultural void.  It takes more than that. 

I've never watched an episode of match of the day, I still know what Gary Linekar is. I've never watched Coronation street, but I still know it's set in romania.

You just kind of pick these things up, like Weil's disease.  That's what culture is.

[Pseudopath]

I felt like this this morning when I discovered that some bloke called Gareth Thomas exists, won the tour De France this year and apparently is sports personality of the year. Never heard of the cunt.

He's obviously so dull that you instantly forgot his name after learning of his existence. He's actually called Geraint Thomas. The pedalling twat.

[gilbertharding]

You don't have to be beautiful to turn me on - I just need your body baby from dusk till dawn. You don't need experience to turn me out, you just leave it all up to me - I'm gonna show you what it's all about.
You don't have to be rich to be my girl, you don't have to be cool to rule my world - Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with, I just want your extra time and your Kiss.
Oh oh you got to not talk dirty, baby if you want to impress me. You can't be to flirty, mama and know how to undress me, yeah. I want to be your fantasy. Maybe you could be mine. You just leave it all up to me, we could have a good time.
Don't have to be rich to be my girl; Don't have to be cool to rule my world. Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with, I just want your extra time and your kiss.
Women not girls rule my world - I said they rule my world. Act your age, mama, not your shoe size - maybe we could do the twirl. You don't have to watch

"Dynasty"

to have an attitude. You just leave it all up to me, my love will be your food. You don't have to be rich to be my girl, you don't have to be cool to rule my world. Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with, I just want your extra time and your... Kiss.

[manticore]

This is an extremely interesting point. I think the appeal of a few things this year; Love Island, Bodyguard, the World Cup was that everyone seemed to be watching (in my demographic anyway). It happens so rarely.

The other problem with Netflix is that someone will be "have you seen [show x]" and someone else will be "yeah but I'm only on episode 4" and there the conversation ends. And by the time the second person as seen it all the first won't remember much about it.

We're all slowly being cut off from each other by the mass pop culture that used to bring us together.

The family sitting 'together' in front of the television. A french theorist said in a moment of rare lucidity that while the telescreens in 1984 controlled people by listening into their conversations, television was more effective because it stopped people from conversing in the first place.

Mass culture is mass culture and was never of the people, it was for the people. He said with a pop music CD playing in the background to keep him company as he typed.

[imitationleather]

There was a British series about newspapers (can't remember the title but it starred Ben Wishaw and Romola Thingy) which I tried watching but totally forgot about the final episode. Then I tried again with the second series but the exact same thing happened once more.

Press Gang?

[Jockice]

Press Gang?

It might as well have been for all I remember about it.

[chveik]

it's The Hour

[Jockice]

it's The Hour

That's the one. How did it end? Both series one AND two please.

[colacentral]

I think virtually every busker I pass in the street doesn't actually listen to music as they all only have five songs or so in their repertoire and they're generally the same five, give or take, i.e. Wish You Were Here, Don't Look Back in Anger, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, and maybe a semi-ironic cover of Rhianna or One Direction. How have you got yourself a guitar, suffered through the initial callous stage, got to a point where you can play competently, but you're not even slightly curious about songs outside of your narrow middle-aged man canon?

There's one in Glasgow I particularly hate who's always playing Imagine and Horse with No Name, two of the shittest songs ever recorded.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Imagine and Horse with No Name, two of the shittest songs ever recorded.

Horse with No Name is a classic.  Tell him, people. 

[the ouch cube]

Buskers used to do 'Save Tonight' a lot, but I haven't heard it for a while now. 'Time Of Your Life' as well.

[Jockice]

it's The Hour

ACtually, was it newspapers or broadcasting? It had so little impact on me that I can't remember.

[nedthemumbler]

The most annoying thing about SPOTY is that the acronym is so close but yet so far from being 'SPORTY'.

Sports Personality Only Relevant This Year

or Sports Personality Overwhelmingly Rated This Year

I am bored

[chveik]

ACtually, was it newspapers or broadcasting? It had so little impact on me that I can't remember.

broadcasting. yeah, it wasn't really good. it ended with a cliffhanger, they didn't renew it for a third series.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Joe Pasquale has a vortex in his garage that he throws books into when he feels down.

[DrGreggles]

That's the one. How did it end? Both series one AND two please.

There was a tornado and he turned into a lumberjack.

[Jockice]

Horse with No Name is a classic.  Tell him, people.

I wouldn't go that far but it is one of the first songs I remember. I can recall a boy from the flats next to my house singing the chorus of it while I was in the back garden. I'd have been about six. Power To All Our Friends by Cliff also reminds me of a similar situation but it must have been a bit later. May have been the same lad though.

Imagine is utter wank though. Most of those who like it are cunts who treat people like shit. Fact.

[seepage]

yes, some tunes you never tire of hearing but Imagine is the inverse of those and makes me want to vomit up my own pelvis as soon as I recognise it

[Jockice]

broadcasting. yeah, it wasn't really good. it ended with a cliffhanger, they didn't renew it for a third series.

Oh, one of them eh? One of my very earliest memories (in the first flat I lived in, so I'd have been four at the oldest) was a TV drama which ended up with people being trapped in an airtight room. I was worried by this but mum assured me that they'd be okay and the programme would be back for another series. It wasn't.

I mentioned this in one of my earliest posts here and I think someone told me what it actually was. But I've forgotten again.

[bomb_dog]

This made me laugh. Could you test out some other phrases on him and keep us posted?

Apprentice update: 'He who dances, must pay the piper' - "What?"

[Zetetic]

Had to explain the Fallout series to someone from scratch, and ended up realising that they don't even have a decent grounding in the history of Bethesda.

[Mr_Simnock]

This cartoon was made for this thread

[grainger]

I know somebody in his forties who has been a life long fan of Velvet Underground/ Iggy And The Stooges/ New York Dolls/ The Ramones but rather bafflingly somehow he had never heard of MC5. When he got back to me after looking into them, it was as if I'd introduced him to chocolate. Or pornography.

I know someone (in her late 40s, this was maybe 8 years ago) who claimed Hawkwind were her favourite band, but when Lemmy was mentioned, she said "who?". So we checked she hadn't misheard - nope, she hadn't heard of him. When I explained who he was, and mentioned that he was also in Motorhead, she said she really liked Motorhead.

[Icehaven]

I know someone (in her late 40s, this was maybe 8 years ago) who claimed Hawkwind were her favourite band, but when Lemmy was mentioned, she said "who?". So we checked she hadn't misheard - nope, she hadn't heard of him. When I explained who he was, and mentioned that he was also in Motorhead, she said she really liked Motorhead.

I know precisely one Motorhead song and one Hawkwind song and I know who Lemmy is.

[Jockice]

A Canadian friend of mine sent me a CD she'd compiled. It was mainly obscure stuff from over there but there were a couple of tracks by established international artists. I had the CD on in the car when I picked up a mate to go to the pub. The track that was on came to an end a couple of minutes later and the next one started. "What's this?" he asked. Er, it's a little-known artist called David Bowie mate. You know, that bloke you claim to own everything by.

It was Five Years. Not a single admittedly but I'd still say a fairly well-known track.