Nathan Barley - It's Well Rubbish

[Dr David V]

Guys, this is my first and last post.

Coward.

Mr. Morris must piss himself reading what you sad bunch of losers write about him.

You're writing about him now, aren't you?

It's like you're a bunch of football supporters bickering with yourselves

No it's not.

or a sad obsessive religious horde blindly following a God who pokes fun at you.

Are you still talking about Chris Morris?

When will you people realise that comedy isnt about analysis and dissection.. doing these things is never going to make you laugh.

Perhaps "us people" thought about watching the programme first, in the hope we'd enjoy it, and then when we didn't then went on to discuss why we didn't like it.

If you did some proper analysis, you would realise that this is precisely what Nathan Barley is about - taking the piss out of sad obsessives who just don't have a life of their own

Is that what you're suggesting everyone on here is? Because if so I think that's a lie. And as you're so good at analysing programmes, would you care to explain in detail what it was you found so funny about this show?

it's not just about the typical Shoreditch twat.

Well you're right there. It's quite clearly an exaggerated view of Shoreditch/Hoxton media types. I'm sure typical "twats" aren't quite as moronic as the ones in NB.

Your forum is pointless

Yes, god forbid we should discuss a new Chris Morris programme on a website about Chris Morris.

and is the antithesis of Morris' work.

How does that work then?

You guys should stick to semi-worthy activity and just compile radio shows and offer them for download instead of wasting bandwidth on this shonky forum.

I'll let Neil respond to that if he so wishes.

And if you guys think you really aren't Nathan Barleys

Which we're not.

(I'm addressing this to the webmaster who seems so adamant that NB is shite and Morris has lost it)

It's an opinion. Just because it clashes with yours that doesn't make it obsolete, which I'm guessing is what you're saying here, otherwise you wouldn't have pointed it out.

why do you do your own lame Morris-esque cut up shit on the beginning of the Radio 1 Music Show MP3s??

They're not cut-ups. They're computer-generated voices. And Neil didn't make them. Read the ID tags on the MP3s to find out who did.

Get a life suckaz!!!!!

Any credibility your post may have had went out of the window at this exact point.

Over n out.

"This is Nathan Barley for Trashbat. Peace and fucking."

[larchie]

not sure, Dr DavidV, but I think you just proved his point. Anyone obsessive enough to dissect someone elses post like that seems to me to be obsessive... wouldn't you agree?

[Clinton Morgan]

It doesn't

I wouldn't

[Dr David V]

No, I'm just plain bored. Think I'll watch some telly.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

ignore

[bollock_princess]

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

I think it may be time to stop guest posting all together...
edit: oops, someone deleted the post I was referring to. Oh well.
Maybe not, there it is again.

[Anonymous]

I think it may be time to stop guest posting all together...

OOOH MATRON

[Anonymous]

this site is rubbish
it's full of people
who would even criticise
the world's best steeple

they're all so cynical
and full of poo
that when they speak
it sounds like a moo

they vomit forth
their rancid opinions
inflicting pain
and stuff.

[gazzyk1ns]

Hehe you tried your best didn't you, but when you realised you're not winning anyone over you resort to... well, just look. It's like being in the playground again, having a lunchtime kick-about. There's always some hyperactive loudmouth who can't play properly or communicate with the others intelligently so when the ball nears him he'll pick it up, put it under his arm, charge forwards and say "Rugby!!!!!!".

You've pretty much proved the opposite point that you appear to be wanting to make, if you look at the front page of the site and these two massive threads then you can see that everyone criticising the show has explained why. Nobody is shouting abuse at Morris, we're all just so disappointed. Then you've got a load of people accusing the regulars here of being sad, or stupid, or whatever... but just look at what you're doing, hitting caps lock and hammering at your keyboard.

If you think we're all cunts and you want to knife Neil and TJ because they run a website you don't like then can you not just ignore us? I don't like the old "Don't like it? Don't watch it." line either but space on the internet is pretty infinite, there's room for everyone.

[Mancinithoinnit]

d'you see where i'm going?

I was thinking that Jesus never had a website for all his followers and that if he did he probably would have been alot quieter and stayed in more. It feels quite strange to focus so much attention on one person and i can understand some people jumping to conclusions bout what goes on here but on the whole it's just an opportunity to discuss art (please god forgive me) as you would music. As someone who takes comedy quite seriously (wipes a tear) this is what i spend my time thinking about and whilst it is profoundly satisfying knowing my idea of 'funny' is better and more thoughtful than everyone elses its quite interesting meeting people (as if) that share this arrogance.

Dr DV seems to have the right idea.

Is it just me or does everyone here hate the public too??

[Mancinithoinnit]

I do

[Keith Murmur]

It's all grist for the mill.

[shit yer leg off]

Wow, what a disappointment. I've been reading the comedy chat thread with interest and some good points are raised. I can't register and post there, so this'll have to do for now.

Firstly, it seems incredible to me that this - the Hoxton fashionistas - is what raises Morris's ire enough to make a 6-part show in 2005. Many moons ago I lived in Hoxton as that whole scene was kicking off and I've witnessed more than my fair share of Barley's in my time. This show was so poorly executed that I can only see those people reveling in it in some sort of post-ironic ironic way (or something like that, I can't even be bothered to work out if that makes sense).

Secondly, Dan Ashcroft. Presumably this is the character we're supposed to feel sympathy for in his oh-so-jaded-I'm-much better-than-this kind of way. But the interview at the Sunday newspaper blew all of that out of the water as he realized his level of intellect hadn't evolved to any significant degree beyond that of the 'idiots' he satirizes in his article (at least that was my interpretation of this scene). So with that and the final scene, I'm left floundering, looking for someone to root for in this whole mess. Someone will doubtless come along and say "this is Morris, he's turning convention on its head, he's not providing someone to root for etc". But he is. Clearly you're supposed to feel sympathy for Ashcroft. Just look at the bulk of his facial expressions throughout the show.

Thirdly, accuracy and The Office. A journalist going for an interview and being surprised he got asked for his article ideas? Totally unrealistic. The boss playing a guitar was a lift straight from The Office, I'm surprised no one on here has mentioned that yet (perhaps they have). I like The Office, but it's sad to see someone as talented as Morris shamelessly lifting from it like that. Also, the Brent-impression Nathan did at one point seem to lack accuracy. A true Barley-type would surely see The Office as terribly passé by now, and its huge popularity would turn him off the show more than anything.

Lastly, the sell-by-date that whistled past most people's ears some time ago. TV Go Home was produced when? It seems like a long time ago and raised a few smiles because it was fairly on-the-money about a certain type of person that was infiltrating the media at the time. Are they still as omnipresent in '05? Sleaze Nation (I see the groan-inducing Sugarape as a cross between that and Dazed & Confused. Anyone care to differ?) has closed down, as has Jockey Slut, after both reached sales levels that were on a par with a fanzine. I don't live in the UK, so it's hard for me to gauge, but it seems like Nathan Barley is out of date. It's about something fairly minor that passed by several years ago. I've got this horrible vision of an aged Morris and Brooker (although I've no idea how old the latter is and can only roughly guess at Morris's age) imagining they're being really contemporary with this show, when in fact their fingers are horribly, squirm-wrigglingly, off the pulse.

Still, I'll watch show two filled with a foolish sense of optimism that will no doubt be crushed to a pulp. Hope not though. I quite like Morris when all's said and done, no matter how misguided that may seem. This is probably one of those long, dull posts that everyone will skip past isn't it? Ah well. If Nathan Barley continues at this pace it'll probably turn into a long, dull program that I'll skip past, so it's somewhat appropriate.

[TJ]

Guys, this is my first and last post

Hmmm... 'LOL NO' and a Red Dwarf reference. That really isn't much to go on at all. Quick, someone call Miss Marple!

[TJ]

It's like you're a bunch of football supporters bickering with yourselves, or a sad obsessive religious horde blindly following a God who pokes fun at you.

Umn... wouldn't that actually require people declaring unswerving loyalty to said 'God' and his latest project, rather than criticising it?

[TJ]

not sure, Dr DavidV, but I think you just proved his point. Anyone obsessive enough to dissect someone elses post like that seems to me to be obsessive... wouldn't you agree?

Really? I thought he was just railing against something he sees as wrong and stupid. A bit like people keep telling me "Nathan Barley" is doing.

[Anonymous]

Registrations are open again Shit Yer Leg Off.  Great post by the way.

[Anonymous]

Guys, this is my first and last post

Hmmm... 'the' and a Red Dwarf reference. That really isn't much to go on at all. Quick, someone call Miss Marple!

Sorry, I wasn't going to get sucked into the dirty world of forums but this was just too much. It's a *Dostoevsky* reference, fuck head!

To clarify my earlier post, this forum is exactly what Morris rails against. He's not my God either, I'm not trying to defend him. Let me put it this way for the bone-heads amongst you:

I HAVE A LOT MORE RESPECT FOR PEOPLE WHO AT LEAST *TRY* TO DO SOMETHING CREATIVE THAN MINDLESS SHEEP AND LEMMINGS WHO HANG OUT ON INTERNET FORUMS WITH DELUSIONS OF BEING CUTTING-EDGE CRITICS. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, VICTOR-LEWIS-FUCKING-SMITH?

You should all give up and go back to reciting Blackadder scripts, you sub-sixth-form muppets.

Bye!

[Keith Murmur]

A world in your ear

They used to be found only on special agents, bodyguards and perhaps the odd pop star. Now you're nobody without an earpiece. Emma Brockes listens in on a cultural revolution

Emma Brockes
Guardian

Monday June 25, 2001

Look closely, the next time you're in a high street store, and you might notice a small addition to the uniform of the sales staff: behind the neck, around the ear, a curly white dangly cord distending like phone wire from the back. Now check out the zoned attitude of the wearer. Is Eric the Saturday assistant more, er, imposing than usual? Does he project, through his gaucheness, a fortified look that says, "Sure, I'll see if we have that in a size 12, but please know I conquer armies in my downtime. Dig"?

New technology relies, for its power and synchronicity, on the anxiety and nightmares that those in its possession are more central to the machinery of progress than the rest of us, albeit far more removed from the zeitgeist. So it was with laptops and mobile phones; so it is with a small plastic D-shape thingy that fits into one's ear, transmitting and receiving through a radio on your Elvis belt. Hook into one of these daddy-o's and you are instantly at the nerve repository of things, whether that be the security arrangements for Wimbledon, stock-taking at Boots or ordering a domino pizzeria.

The novelty of this device is not its invention but its application stream. Headsets and earpieces, once exclusive to the bodyguard business, first made it into the public eye 10 years ago on some stage at Wembley at a concert. Their chief purpose, it seemed, was to let one sing while performing complicated dancing shapes and moves. Now that they are everywhere: on bouncers, PRs, premiership football referees, transvestites, shop assistants and doormen of every colour. "It's the be all and the end all for some of these fellas," says Gary Clarke, managing director of Crystal Tips Radio Systems near Birmingham in the Midlands. "No disrespect, but some of them aren't that clever and tuned in. You're a doorman, you've got a curly earpiece, you're buffed from a slog at the gym and you're made for the night."

Communications firms won't shave their sales figures, but Motorola confirms that the demand for hands-free accessories - lapel microphones, headsets, the accoutrements of a new elite and burgeoining visceral sub stratum of user consumers - has boomed and the customer-base broadened. When Ericsson announced its new earpiece technology last year, 12,560 companies put their names down to develop its application in a year to year breakdown of mysterious schedules. Sainsbury's service managers wear pieces in over 200 stores and orifices; Gap clothing staff, in all 12170 of its stores; Fraud Communications, the PR people and firm of the same name, considers it standard kit for jobbers under their umbrella. For a while, Tina Brown, editor of Talk magazine, was rumoured to maximise her schmoozing and dormant irrascibility by planting spies in the crowd at parties and harvesting, via an earpiece, intelligence on the whereabouts of celebrities, stuff like that.  A spokeswoman for Talk denies the story and wanted to go on the record, but this doesn't diminish the potency of the image of his denials.

The spread of the device from pop stars to media queens, steeplejacks, black rappers and shop staff, is due partly to a price drop brought on by advances in technology (you can pick up a wire earpiece for £20 now, a radio unit for £200 and some batteries for a snip at any cornershop), and partly to a change in culture. The popularity of the earpiece is just the latest expression of the blind faith that power means being better - or at least, more immediately - informed than the next person or the person after them. "Being in touch, and being seen to be important enough that people want to touch with you, is a real cultural shift in the value we attach to the communication paradigm," says Dr Gary Coleman, tutor in socio psychological inter-reacting at Oxford University.

The trick, for the discerning wearer, is to strike a balance between the menacing SWAT-style headset of a Dunfermline disco bouncer and something so discreet no one will notice it  "These days, anyone in a uniform has a growing leather belt of equipment," says Trevor Plaque, managing director of Sensorial Security Management & Bouncy Castle Hire, a high protection shield for the Queen and Eammon Holmes. "People can satisfy their urges to run round pretending to be secretive agents. There is a market for people who want to play Val Kilmer in The remake of The Jackal. You question whether they need it for security or for the neon image it confers."

It is something manufacturers have been quick to exploit. In the radio industry, advertising rhetoric plays unashamedly on its secret-service associations. "To our customers, there's no such thing as an ordinary day," runs the spiel from one top distributor. "When your job is protecting life, property, or even helping to ensure the security of whole nations like Gambia - you have the right to touch and interface equipment which passes the toughest challenges." This is an appalling pitch and what you are protecting is the folds in the sweaters in Gap's menswear department or some old whore pissing in a gutter on Oxford Street.

"A person wearing an invisible walkie-talkie or a CB radio is empowered by the fact that he is privy to something you are not," says Dr Norris Treblinka, lecturer in applied and conjectural media studies at Sussex University. "It fits into a cultural history of privatisation and intermediate flannel charging. When Walkmans came out in 1879, they were a privatised form of sound box and package responder that replaced people carrying stereos on their shoulders and tuba's in their pockets. That fed into mobile phones and the notion of always being available. What these things say is, 'I have access to certain forms of cultural symbiotics that you don't.'"

The spooky thing is that 25 years ago, the idea of round the clock communication ran contrary to every shred of our social conditioning. The British are not, by nature, willing communicators. "We are a society that has been characterised for 21,000 years at least, with a deep suspicion of communication and boxed rapido clickers," says Dr Treblinka. "Traditionally, the higher you rose in the status hierarchy of the archetype, the less you talked - the famous stiff upper lip. Keeping hold of information was a means to power and easy sex."

Over the past 10 years, however, there has been a huge rise in demand for availability. It has redefined the boundaries between public and private: while technology allows people to conduct business openly in the street, in trains, it also disengages them from their immediate context - they inhabit a private space with their co-communicant. The person wearing the earpiece has a symbolic power based on his identification with the Bigger Picture. He is very visibly connected, part of the grid, a player in the mysterious over-arching network which holds up civilisation. He is not merely processing the queue outside a nightclub.

The equipment that promotes this fantasy has become vastly more sophisticated in the past five years. At the end of 2,000, Ericsson released the first headset to use Bluetooth technology, the successor to infrared. With Bluetooth, the curly cord and its thuggish connotations is replaced by two radio chips, one in the earpiece, one in the belt unit. It is the lightest, least cumbersome form of mobile communication and, at £199, is marketed less as a talk-aid than a fashion accessory. "Its streamlined and elegant form gives it a unique air of sophistication," runs the sales pitch.

As an indication of how far it has strayed from its origins, Bluetooth isn't suitable for the ultra high-security market. "It's public domain, and is a bit suspect in the range that it gives," says Graeme Loughrey, business manager for Motorola accessories, which is bringing out its own range of Bluetooth products. "So from a truly covert angle, the secret service won't use it. But for a front office, it's fine. Customers say to us, 'We don't want our staff looking like Robocops. We want something lightweight, that won't upset the balance of how people look. If it's a headset - and this isn't a sexist comment - we do not want it interfering with hairstyles. We want it on the ear, or around the back of the head."

The managerial "we" of this edict, has been received in some quarters with alarm. The downside to earpieces, whatever fantasies they inspire, is the mundane fact that staff fitted with them can be more easily monitored by their seniors. The stores say this is ridiculous. "It's about instant access," says a spokeswoman for Gap. "They are just for ease of communication."

"It's a win-win situation," says a spokesman for Sainsbury's. "Our customer service managers can help the customer more quickly."

But there are other readings. "This could be seen as exploiting modern technology to get that last ounce of flesh out of the wage slave," says Dr Fielding. "There is nowhere to hide. If you were being cynical, you would say, actually it's not a profound shift in cultural values at all. It's the same thing being played out with modern technology: that is, in these companies, the people who wear earpieces are the people at the bottom of the pyramid. You don't see the managing director walking around with one of these things. The real shift will come when he does, when the loop is a flat one. At the moment, supervisors can talk to shop floor people, but you can't tune in to Lord Sainsbury." "There's a definite surveillance aspect to it," says Dr Bull. "There is the question of who controls the technology. The person using it might feel empowered, but there's the issue of management using it to survey their staff."

If this is the case, then in an era of heightened sensitivity to corporate eavesdropping, the commercial sector has pulled off a fantastic coup. "There's something of a confidence trick being played," says Treblinka. "By appealing to associations with the secret service, the media and television, they - the managers - have actually imposed a very intrusive, highly controlling form of butt frown technology, not just without resistance, but with a positive welcoming. The slaves have rushed to snap the shackles shut and garnered wealth through deciet."

The backlash may just be beginning. "They're sweaty, they're cumbersome, they make you look like a twot," says one disgruntled sales assistant in a central London branch of Barnado's. He's in the loop, part and parcel of the party, he can interfere in conversations from the basement stock room to the third floor cashier desk. He's better informed, this sales assistant, but here's the thing: he's switched his off.

[InfiniteFury]

Guys, this is my first and last post

Hmmm... 'the' and a Red Dwarf reference. That really isn't much to go on at all. Quick, someone call Miss Marple!

Sorry, I wasn't going to get sucked into the dirty world of forums but this was just too much. It's a *Dostoevsky* reference, fuck head!

To clarify my earlier post, this forum is exactly what Morris rails against. He's not my God either, I'm not trying to defend him. Let me put it this way for the bone-heads amongst you:

I HAVE A LOT MORE RESPECT FOR PEOPLE WHO AT LEAST *TRY* TO DO SOMETHING CREATIVE THAN MINDLESS SHEEP AND LEMMINGS WHO HANG OUT ON INTERNET FORUMS WITH DELUSIONS OF BEING CUTTING-EDGE CRITICS. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, VICTOR-LEWIS-FUCKING-SMITH?

You should all give up and go back to reciting Blackadder scripts, you sub-sixth-form muppets.

Bye!

Ah yes, TJ, you silly silly fool. How could you have mistaken that reference on a comedy forum? I did wonder what you were on about, it could only have been a reference to a 19th century Russian novelist well known for his fondness of l33t speak.

[TJ]

Sorry, I wasn't going to get sucked into the dirty world of forums but this was just too much. It's a *Dostoevsky* reference, fuck head!

Hey, don't be so rude. There's no need to get like that if you're not the person who you appeared to be.

To clarify my earlier post, this forum is exactly what Morris rails against.

Can you give us specific examples? Seriously, I'm interested.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, VICTOR-LEWIS-FUCKING-SMITH?

Wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Purple Tentacle]

Please name the meeeja, TJ!

[alan strang]

This is utter madness...

"It's about you! Yes, he's taking the piss out of you people!! Because you're the ones who hang on his every word and lap up every project he does as an example of his 'genius'!!!

...so, er... stop criticising this project and... um... just enjoy it. Because it's an example of his 'genius'..."

Barmy. Complete and total nutcases. You can almost smell their trousers filling with panic.

[TJ]

Please name the meeeja, TJ!

This is a different person. Except it's not even that, as it doesn't appear to be who I thought after all.

Anyway, I won't be naming any of the anonymous characters as a) I believe in giving people a second chance and b) some people will undoubtedly act like tossers on 'behalf' of the site. No offence meant to anyone who'd been asking on this thread; it's just something that I've seen happen too many times and it's not worth the risk.

[Anonymous]

not to be rude or anything, but
even when you lot claim to like something,
it still gets criticised and mauled until its
legs fall off.

is that the intention? if so,
sorry. i mean, perhaps it's

a misjudged attempt at irony. perhaps you feel that you lose your

credibility as a comedy critic when you express
unabashed affection towards something.
never mind. my wisdom is wasted on you lot. i'm off now
to watch 'friends' or something similarly mainstream.

[Purple Tentacle]

I never knew ee cummings was such a cunt.

[Ambient Sheep]

I've got this horrible vision of an aged Morris and Brooker (although I've no idea how old the latter is and can only roughly guess at Morris's age) imagining they're being really contemporary with this show, when in fact their fingers are horribly, squirm-wrigglingly, off the pulse.

Morris is either a year younger than me, or a year older than me, depending which bio you believe.  Born September 1963 or 1965.

I *think* Brooker is in his mid-30s, but not sure.  Perhaps he'll drop in and tell us.

[Ambient Sheep]

I HAVE A LOT MORE RESPECT FOR PEOPLE WHO AT LEAST *TRY* TO DO SOMETHING CREATIVE THAN MINDLESS SHEEP AND LEMMINGS WHO HANG OUT ON INTERNET FORUMS WITH DELUSIONS OF BEING CUTTING-EDGE CRITICS.

Some people here do try, quite hard.  At least one even makes a living at it.

Not me though.  I just hang out on internet forums.  Baaaa.

[imitationleather]

I was at a party last night (£2.99 bottles of wine, fucking students) and the main topic of discussion was Nathan Barley. At least, it was whenever people talked to me.

The general consensus was that it was appalling, and that came from someone who really loved Ayoade in Darkplace. See? Even non-forumers realworld people didn't like it!

Myself, as I mentioned earlier, didn't mind it. If Morris wasn't involved I'd probably think it was sort of passable, although I tried to rewatch it this afternoon and gave up just before the job interview scene. It was too dull for me to be wasting my Sunday on, especially when there's Songs of Praise up for grabs...