ITT an open and frank discussion about the journalist, critic and polemecist Charlie Brooker

Charlie Brooker is a twat. hence this must be awful.

― Local Garda, Wednesday, 29 October 2008 14:45 (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

LG OTM, anyway.

I'm just gonna throw this out there: Brooker, and the man himself would probably admit this in the witching hours, has always been a bootleg Biffo. Biffo had more readers at his peak than Brooker will ever manage. Brooker, however, gets paid lots of money by Endemol to produce mediocre TV, while Biffo is stuck doing kids' TV shows that nobody will ever watch. And "Trixx and Flipside". Discuss.

counterpoint: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/22/arts.visualarts

Reasons I dislike Brooker:

1. Has nothing to define himself with except dislike of reality TV/pop culture/people.
2. Hating reality TV and crap British culture is an important and extremely annoying part of crap British culture.
3. It is extremely easy to write hyperbolic SMASH MY FACE IN AND CUT MY HANDS OFF WITH DISGUST rants, anyone could do it.
4. When he decides to create something it is accompanied by awful charisma free "I like zombies" piece in the Guardian, which reveals a lot about why he sticks to angry ranting.

That Banksy piece is otm except newsflash for Charlie: I reckon Banksy and Brooker share millions of fans.

Have you ever noticed that x Big Brother contestant looks like Golum from Lord of the Rings, only fat?

3. But you didn't.

He's basically received the baton from Chris Morris for scores of indie schmucks to declare "a leg-end".

x-post Marcello Why would I want to? I might end up like you.

So, you think it's funny to laugh at irritating celebrities when their lives fall apart, do you?

Sad thing is Chris Morris was hilarious, and Brass Eye attacked the "the world is in decline" idiocy that Brooker pedals with real venom, whether it was being said about crime or culture. If you watch the Decline episode of Brass Eye it serves as a rebuttal to as many Guardian articles as Daily Mail ones, not least Brooker's.

x-post was pleasantly surprised by that Brooker article Upt0eleven, but seems pretty hypocritical really. You wouldn't have to look far to find pointless misanthropy in his stuff.

The piece kind of loses itself halfway through.

LG - you should make ending up like me your life's ambition.

I think that's the key point. Brooker is a hypocrite. His entire steez is full of "this reality TV contestant I don't like should be stabbed in the knee by trained squirrels until Armageddon", but then when an actual reality TV star is in some pain, he's all "what sicko would want that to happen?" His entire career is based off attacking the "vapidity" of Big Brother, then he goes and takes a shit tonne of cash from Endemol to make TV series etc etc etc

LG - you should make ending up like me your life's ambition.

― Doreen, Dorset (Marcello Carlin), Wednesday, 29 October 2008 14:59 (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Punchline contest entries close 10/11/2008. Please ask permission from the person who pays the bill before entering.

LG - you should make ending up like me your life's ambition.

― Doreen, Dorset (Marcello Carlin), Wednesday, 29 October 2008 14:59 (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://mangii.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/death-wish-uk.jpg

There are loads of Brooker columns like that one, his relationship to reality TV (which isn't the be-all and end-all of his persona by any means) isn't as one-dimensional as is being made out. A lot of it is going "argh god this is inane why am I watching it?" while simultaneously being sympathetic to the people involved and weirdly admiring of the amazing cynicism involved in the product.

Pretty sure the new series is crap though.

Hermione Eyre and Willie Donaldson did the Brooker ambiguity thing with so much more humour and point in The Dictionary Of National Celebrity.

Dom otm, but you can't do the schtick Brooker goes for and have a successful career that's free from hypocrisy, you'll always say "oh well actually I kinda like crap zombie flicks" or "well actually I need money to eat". Hence the inherent stupidity of defining his entire persona by what he doesn't like. What could be more vapid than that? Legions of fans who are like "YES! I compose rants with someone's armpit in my face on the tube too! it's like he's known me all my life!"

I'm not really sure why hypocrisy is a problem when you're writing frivolous bollocks about TV.

He is bestest buddies with Aisleyne off last year's Big Brother (or was it the year before that) so seems fairly able to distinguish between BB contestants as being "people you watch on telly and hate yourself for doing so" and just "people", depending on the arena in which they are currently on display to him. I like Screenwipe/Screenburn anyway, as telly criticism goes, and as far as angry ranting about stuff goes, he does it quite well.

Hence the inherent stupidity of defining his entire persona by what he doesn't like.

Haha you do realise who you're addressing here right?

AA Gill?

I agree with what he says/writes too often not to like him. Look fwd to a new Screen Wipe series.

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/group.php?sid=a4dee092300c4150b137bce8b67792ba&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fref%3Dsearch%26init%3Dq%26q%3Dslow%2Bwalking%2Bpeople%26sid%3Da4dee092300c4150b137bce8b67792ba&gid=2208419959

Britain: A Nation of Twats Who Are Angry About Everything

Brooker's pretty lame when he writes about something he likes. Set him loose on 24 or Heroes or Doctor Who and it just sends me to sleep.

(much like the programmes themselves)

he tends to be all "check it out, I actually like something! I'm being really sincere and enthusiastic! Me! The curmudgeon!"

The problem I have with Screenwipe is that every episode contains exactly one good bit that's both informative and vaguely elucidatory. The problem is that it's exactly one bit and no more, because the rest of it is filled up with him belming at the camera or making blindingly obvious 'revelations' about How Television Works (e.g. that bit he did about the editing of reality television programmes).

Also, when he likes things he tends to go somewhat overboard, as if he's trying to compensate for his big sweary slaggings by proving that actually he can be a really nice humanoid, no, srsly. It's worryingly bipolar in nature.

That said, it was seeing The Wire featured on Screenwipe that encouraged me to get the first season on DVD, and that worked out alright. Plus he's the only mainstream media type that's repping the Consolevania boys (i.e. giving them any telly time outside of Scotland)...

Plus he's the only mainstream media type that's repping the Consolevania boys (i.e. giving them any telly time outside of Scotland)...

― William Bloody Swygart, Wednesday, 29 October 2008 15:12 (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

They had an article about them in Games TM once!

I still can't believe he got to do a television special on why he likes The Wire so much.

William some of the "how television works" on Screenwipe may be blindingly obvious to you but I bet a lot of people genuinely don't realize this stuff. It's valuable - even empowering - to open up the mechanism and show people how it works.

Alternately it's a way of extending what's fundamentally a ten minute programme into half an hour.

People hate on Brooker because he gets paid to do all this stuff in the mainstream media whereas most people have to make do with doing exactly the same thing on internet message boards.

^^^new Godwin's Law, keep up

People hate on Brooker because he gets paid to do all this stuff in the mainstream media whereas most people have to make do with doing exactly the same thing on internet message boards.

no people hate on him cos they're sick of fucking reading it on message boards. cos whinging about reality tv or popstars or celebrity culture is the most played out boring message imaginable and one of the most common.

"rants" should be saved for messageboards.

A lot of television is about creating characters that people want to spend time with, like imaginary friends, basically. I think it's obvious the character Brooker plays when he's on television is successful in this way so why not make it half an hour? What's it to you, anyway?

Screenwipe was not long enough

thread just reads like Critics doing what they do best to Critic for doing what he does best tho

I can't stand TV characters who want to be "imaginary friends." I want more gods.

c-post the language of criticism is easier to employ than the language of praise, the language of bilious ranting is easiest of all, it rolls off the tongue. Personally I see it as a natural duty for a writer to fight this and balanace it with positivity but maybe that's just me.

a member of the facebook group dom noted above: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=a4dee092300c4150b137bce8b67792ba&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fref%3Dsearch%26init%3Dq%26q%3Dslow%2Bwalking%2Bpeople%26sid%3Da4dee092300c4150b137bce8b67792ba&gid=2208419959#/profile.php?id=541368326

Bilious ranting is very easy to badly and very hard do well, like acoustic guitar ballads or something.

As long as they can do it well (xxxp). Even Bangs was usually below par when writing about his heroes as opposed to sticking the boot in.

he's the guy that likes running blacks over, yeah?

xpost...?

Favourite Music: great fan of pendulum and dj fresh ( drum n bass) dont like all that mc'ing crap any more, love the verve, oasis, kaiser chiefs, the kooks, razorlight, blur, arctic monkeys, babyshambles and all that kinda stuff partial to bit of house and techno but not very often mind.....
Favourite TV Programmes:silent witness is great oh and al murray whenever he is on he the best english comedian who loves ENGLAND....well im ashamed to admit it but i do like eastenders and corrie too....
Favourite Films:roots, schinders list, over 50's, pretty much anything really

Bilious ranting is very easy to badly and very hard do well, like acoustic guitar ballads or something.

it's easy to do well! especially if you travel by tube every day. seriously if Britain got rid of the tube the entire audience for Brooker and similar would evaporate.

al murray whenever he is on he the best english comedian who loves ENGLAND...

This is the best bit.

by Britain I mean erm...London and other tubed areas!

i don't use the tube

Rather unfortunate metaphor there (xxxxp).

I'm trying to find the article on the BBC News website bemoaning the lack of video games programming on television that made no mention of Videogaiden, despite the fact that, at the time of publication, BBC Scotland was midway through airing series two...

TH - to be fair, that was a television special on FX, which I think was prior to the network screening season five (I only saw it off torrent last weekend, so I don't know the precise date, but it did seem to be talking about season four in the past tense). It was the bit he did about it in one of the Screenwipe episodes that I was referring to.

My problem with the editing thing was that it didn't seem to say anything other than "Reality TV programmes are edited". It didn't have much of a point, and it wasted rather too much time in the making of it. I got the same feeling off last night's episode of Dead Set, oddly - no much happened, and the way in which it happened wasn't particularly interesting (to be fair, I also got the feeling that was due to it being a one-hour episode that had got lopped in two).

On the other hand, I found his bit in (I think) episode one of Screenwipe about the costs involved in making a shot of him falling off a log quite enlightening. The researchers (I presume) on the programme are also extremely handy at digging up obscure footage - the song about students from a 70s episode of "That's Life!", for instance, or the bits from Sky News where they announced that Harold Pinter was dead, then corrected themselves upon realising that he wasn't dead but had instead received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Brooker's got the air of a man who reckons he's been promoted above his station and seems rather in fear of losing his position. He's not entirely sure how to handle his reputation - unless, of course, he's just trying to project an air of vulnerability to allow him to get away with it - or how to balance his serious and funny personae. I do watch Screenwipe regularly, and quite enjoy it, but it feels like it never goes as far as it should, like there's always something being held back.

I'm not writing very good sentences here, I do apologise.

His rant about the incessant cynical MADDIE news coverage/rolling news was good. who cares if this stuff is "obvious" anyway? it's not happening anywhere else on TV and the visual aspect almost always helps. Archive footage always good. Of course it could do more but couldn't we all.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=541368326#/group.php?gid=57150080706

lol single issue voters who think they should be allowed to do robberies because there are paedos about

I don't read his Guardian stuff much these days so only read the 'hypocritical' (yeah probably, but all the examples brought up e.g. Sezer were not recent) piece last night, along with his self-indulgent (how could it not be?) Road Trip article which at least really made me want to do a similar journey.

i like charlie brooker, but i sometimes think that the thing he loves most about the wire is getting to vicariously enjoy the adventures of someone who looks like a chiseled version of himself:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2007/09/28/charlie_brooker_140x140.jpg

http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/mcnulty.jpg

xp i think the argument that it's obvious, or too rant based, is non-brooker-specific. it's depressing that there are paid cynics, and there's that lapse into all the 'is everything shit' books, but it's not like there isn't enough shit around to write two columns a week on it.

I'm quite enjoying Dead Set but only because I love end-of-the-world zombie bollocks and will willingly lap up anything thrown at me. As satirical document it is way, way, way below Dawn Of The Dead. Davina as zombie IS amusing though. That he's nicked the aesthetic 100% from 28 Days Later shows his lack of actual original thought, I think (as does it not actually being very satirical). It's real point-and-laugh stuff, not at all hahaha-oh-fuck-what-no-surely-not like Chris Morris was at his best.

Morris jumped the shark when the Jam sketch about bereaved parents taking tiny coffins for walks aired, in my mind. Brooker, in picking up Morris' baton, started way past the shark anyway. He can't see the shark, it's behind him. I don't think he's particularly interesting at all.

I'm not sure there are any fictional British TV shows currently on that are more interesting than Dead Set but would like to hear people's suggestions+reasoning

Also his birth name's not Charles but Charlton = wtf, no wonder he's angry.

"Interesting" is an... interesting qualifier to use. The only fictional TV program I watch with any regularity is Hollyoaks.

I'm not sure there are any fictional British TV shows currently on that are more interesting than Dead Set but would like to hear people's suggestions+reasoning

wouldn't know, I don't watch much TV!

me neither

but xpost yeah i didn't mean to confuse Brooker's 'interestingness' as a critic/TV personality (where he remains at least distinctive despite the running into the ground of the schtick) with the interestingness of the show (more interesting conceptually and contextually than in practice perhaps)

who cares if this stuff is "obvious" anyway? it's not happening anywhere else on TV and the visual aspect almost always helps.

It's just not enough, though, but BBC Four's treatment of it acts like it is, and it feels like it could be a lot more than it is, cos a lot of the programme does feel like filler. Brooker's need to keep dropping his zings gets in the way of stuff and takes up a lot of room (I'm aware that I'm oh-so-slightly prone to that myself, mind).

i think the argument that it's obvious, or too rant based, is non-brooker-specific. it's depressing that there are paid cynics, and there's that lapse into all the 'is everything shit' books, but it's not like there isn't enough shit around to write two columns a week on it.

I agree with schlump's view that Brooker's an instance of a mentality more than anything - see, for example, the way the other panellists on Mock The Week regard Frankie Boyle.

Surely not watching much TV kind of takes away a fair amount of interest in Brooker's schtick?

I was referring to his column mainly, it's not about TV all the time, and when it is usually about something pretty well known. I can't remember much of his TV shows really.

it's not like there isn't enough shit around to write two columns a week on it.

but these columns are part of the shit!

it's honestly reached a point where I'd be more interested in someone writing a column criticising the amount of "everything is shit" rhetoric around, apart from the fact that it'd be even more parasitic and worthless.

Armchair Theatre, peak time Pinter, ball in the street

Dude no one's forcing you to read any of this.

Now it's all kick a dude in the street.

I'm not saying that I think everything is shit by the way, if that's how it seems. Far from it.

Though you're right that kids used to kick a ball on the street.

Kids still do kick the ball in my street - bloody kids.

I blame the bloody parents.

Speaking of which, through most of my childhood, and whenever I could manage the time as a student, usually during the summer holidays, my brothers and I incessantly used to kick a ball against a wall at the bottom of the garden in the course of playing the game DONKEY.

It was only towards the end of this halcyon decade or so, at the end of one particular summer holiday, that a women from the house just beyond the end of the bottom of the garden shouted with more anger than I had hitherto possible

'IF YOU DON'T STOP KICKING THAT BLOODY BALL AGAINST THAT BLOODY WALL I WILL COME AROUND AND THROTTLE YOU.'

They had a dog that barked though. Sometimes.

Also, who's Biffo?

'had hitherto thought possible' of course.

http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/images/biffo1.jpg

That's all I've got Nick

omg if i hear one more kid walk past my house bouncing a ruddy ball on the pavement, i'll grab it off him and charge them tuppence to get it back. i will.

It's time a wall of society was once again built on top of every child.

Nick - Biffo is the writer Paul Rose, formerly the man responsible for Digitiser, the video games section of Channel 4 Teletext.

maybe Biffo is just too socially inept

So Biffo is to Paul Scott what Charlie Brooker is to me?

(Jokes, bruv.)

Well, Biffovision (his pilot for BBC3) wasn't particularly great. He does get a fair amount of work, but he's definitely not at the same level of recognition as Brooker, mainly cos Digitiser was much more of a cult thing (and it was about video games. Well, ostensibly)

William I think your sentences are just fine. I like Frankie Boyle though and wonder what you mean by this - see, for example, the way the other panellists on Mock The Week regard Frankie Boyle.

I don't think I've ever seen Mock the Week - how do they regard him?

he's deemed the most popular and most 'outrageous' of the show's regulars, top of the hierarchy after the host, i can't think of a suitable analogy.

he has his own butler.

I only knew of Brooker from that Screenwipe thing. He comes across as a younger Adrian Chiles.

he's deemed the most popular and most 'outrageous' of the show's regulars, top of the hierarchy after the host, i can't think of a suitable analogy.

I'd say Paul Merton, but Merton's been a bigger draw than the host for years. Maybe Alan Davies on QI (though he's a bit of whipping boy, and not very funny)?

I saw Alan Davies yesterday! At the NT!

yeah i was gonna say Merton but he's often the only actual comic on HIGNFY whereas on MTW they're all comics (except when Laverne was on).

it's really annoying how on QI Davies is seen as the wacky pet but yeah similar deal

You know the bald guy on MTW, I only just realised that he's on every week.

^ ILX's wacky pet!

that's cruel :(

in the right measure it's a very good sign

Oh okay then. I mean I could try and write something insightful, but I'm sure it's already been said.

Boyle and to a lesser extent Dara O'Brien are the only reasons to watch MTW. Bald guy and Hugh Dennis are both stomach-turning.

You forgot the little blonde guy! He's a trier!

Yeah he's bearable. Also David Mitchell is sometimes on it, but never on top form.

I might have seen Sean Lock (who I'm a fan of) on MTW week once, actually, but it's easy to get these panel shows mixed up.

Incidentally, Screenwipe starts again on BBC4 in 15 minutes.

Yeh. I'm in. Although I might watch it with a delay, 'cos I'm trying to get some work done first ;)

Why in the fuck am I watching The Book Quiz? Giles Coren and David Aaronovitch, together at last...

Also:

Surely not watching much TV kind of takes away a fair amount of interest in Brooker's schtick?

I watch fuck all telly, really. I watch Brooker so I can remind myself why.

One thing I tried watching recently was Dead Set. It was fucking rubbish.

Giles Coren and David Aaronovitch, together at last

Are they fighting to the death? Otherwise: not interested.

I thought the bit about how Pop Idol and X Factor has led the TV-viewing public to expect to be allowed to have their say on everything broadcast, such as Jonathan Ross's Sachsgate, was rather astute.

Also, by posting this I am proving his point. 1-0 to Brooker.

Bits I loved: his coruscating put-down of newspapers (and indeed pretty much the entirety of the Ross/Brand segment); the increasingly self-deprecating nature of the whole thing; the credits.

Bit that really needs axed, quickly: the "poet".

Bit I wasn't entirely sure about: the unnecessarily brutal mocking of Britannia High's (admittedly clumsy) attempt to deal with dyslexia. But -- to quote Russell Brand -- it was quite funny.

Was it me, or did half of Brooker's introductory links from one bit to the next seem as if they'd been shot in one take? And was it intentional? Did I miss some point about sloppy TV and lower budgets?

The thing about the Britannia High bit - a programme I'd never even heard about: is it a kid's show or a Saturday teatime thing (as I can't believe it would be on in prime time)? - is that, if I didn't know that Screenwipe is a show that comments on actual TV shows, I would have assumed it had been made up as a parody for comedic effect. It really made me think "This can't be real," and that was before I saw the dyslexia bit, which near enough made my mind fall out of my head. ITV shows surely haven't got that bad, have they? Or am I just old now? Go back a few years and Britannia High would have made the S Club 7 TV show look like Songs of Praise.

Alternatively, Britannia High seems like the dramatic equivalent of those times on Sky News or when the stupid graphics or idiotic scripts make me think "Ha! It's just like The Day Today or Brasseye, only real and not ten years ago and ten times more stupid because of those two things".

In short, back in the good old days, it was all fields around here and you kids wouldn't have got where I am today, etc.

Britannia High is kids TV in a Sunday tea-time-ish slot.

I can't believe you're thinking that was the potential parody though. Paul Ross' BIG BLACK BOOK OF HORROR, people!

Poet needs to go, yes.

Britannia High is astonishingly only the third worst programme on at that time on Sunday, behind Antiques Roadshow and Bremner, Bird And Fortune Explain The Recession (Anyone Remember When/If We Were Funny?).

What have you got against Antiques Roadshow?

Don't tell me - it's dumbed down since the golden days when whoeverthefuckitwas did it?

In a nutshell: Fiona Bruce pretending to be happy.

Was it me, or did half of Brooker's introductory links from one bit to the next seem as if they'd been shot in one take? And was it intentional?

I don't know if it's intentional but it's always been like this, i.e. as though he shot all his links in one long night with a webcam set up to point at his coffee table and couch.

In a nutshell: Fiona Bruce pretending to be happy.

― What a broad smile! It is like a delta! (Marcello Carlin), Friday, 21 November 2008 11:44 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark

Bring back Aspel and his suave mannerisms and carefully sculpted barnet.

Antiques Roadshow is one of those TV institutions I would love to take charge of for a short while just to troll its core audience audience. I think Fearne and Reggie could do a good job with it...

> Bring back Aspel

was all downhill after authur negus.

Brooker is just one of a string of people who were allright or even good once, but who've ran their act on for way too long, I think? I remember thinking he was funny years ago, but he appears to have been doing the exact same thing for like a decade or something now.

I actually had to pause it twice last night to laugh like a tool: admittedly, it was at knob gags both times (the "so, the director is shooting a load into the actor's mouth?" and .. cuh, I can't even remember the other one).

And I suppose I did learn something: that advertising manages to be even more O_o than I ever imagined.

very necessary trashing of Dawn Porter and Gok Wan on tonight's Screen Wipe. full marks to Konnie "excellent! let's go piss" Huq too.

last week's episode on screenwriters was great

It was, wasn't it? I liked the old-fashioned format: a bunch of obvious but important questions - basically variants on "where do you get your ideas?" - answered at length by thoughtful people at the top of their game with an interviewer more interested in listening than chipping in with his own observations a la Mark Lawson.

I had a dream last night that Paul Ross had committed suicide due to the mockery his career received on Screenwipe the other week.

Then the tabloids hounded Brooker out of the country, Jonathan Ross style.

It was very entertaining but I'm disturbed by the fact I dreamt about it.

was feelin this series but children's tv is fundamentally boring imo.

yeah it all seemed less interesting coincidentally not long after my 10th birthday

What? That was ace (if only for revealing Johnny fucking Ball Games), and the Oliver Postgate tribute was a genuinely heartfelt and beautifully moving piece of television.

Anyone know what the music used under it (the tribute) was?

If anyone cares: it was Ghosts Of Things To Come, by Clint Mansell, from the Requiem For A Dream soundtrack.

i have noticed that fans of this charlie brooker fellow are often socially awkward young men who may well feel inclined to consider themselves superior to the general population.

can i have a sweetie, now?

who may well feel inclined to consider themselves superior to the general population

Well: there's a raft of psychological evidence suggesting that (in the west, at least) a majority of people feel thus, which is obviously impossible (ie how can a majority be better than average?) ... but yeh, "fans of Brooker tend to be young men" is probably true; young men, or at least the ones who are inclined to watch middlebrow BBC4 programmes, are quite likely to display elements of social awkwardness (though really, who isn't?) ... I'm so sorry, were you trying to make a point or something?

i enjoyed the bit where he was on that morning kids tv show as Angry News Man. he didn't seem as out of place as you might think, but then i grew up watching Mr Bennett and all kinds of other weirdos

I sincerely wish I'd stumbled upon that -- Brooker on Saturday-morning kids' TV -- by accident, with no idea what was going on. That would have made my week.

> (ie how can a majority be better than average?)

because you get to pick your own criteria?

Funny that Dom hates Charlie Brooker so much when he always reminds me of him. Biffo?!??!?!

If ilx hates Charlie Brooker then there is no hope for ilx.

It's taking self-loathing to a whole new level

because you get to pick your own criteria?

Eh? Subjectively, yes, everyone can think they're better than average. But that doesn't stop "a majority being better than average" from being (objectively) impossible.

I think I know more girls than dudes who make a big show of how much they like Brooker

my point is that people focus on different things and there are plenty to choose from. i am better than average because i am more than averagely intelligent. that is the criteria i have chosen. other people will focus on other things, things where they are invariably in the top half and that will be their criteria for being a good person. everybody is better than (an) average because there are a lot of different measures, a lot of different averages.

Why I owe Charlie Brooker a blow job
There may be graphs later.

My main reasoning follows the model that Brooker has given me more pleasure than, let's say, a slightly above average boyfriend would have done a given time period. Let's say over three months.

During the last three months, I have read Brooker's book Dawn of the Dumb, followed his columns in The Guardian and watched the first two series of Screenwipe on Youtube. Conservative estimates show that the book made me laugh out loud or gasp in amusement (often in public) on average every three pages, and made me at the very least grin or even snort every page. So let's say that's one moment of true self abandonment-style pleasure every two pages. 338 pages = 169 moments. And a minimum of one per column in the paper – let's say 20 moments there. And on the telly, I'd say I got giddy with pleasure once every three minutes– so, 10 per episode, nine episodes = 90 moments.

An above average boyfriend...well, it depends on how above average, I suppose. Let us presume moderate bedroom talent, and that I am typically demanding my usual three weeks out of four. So, the enthusiastic little chap gives me what I want five times a week – so, that's 45 pleasure points. And he cracks some entertaining jokes a couple of times a week, and, importantly, indulges my warped attempts at humour (this deserves credit) – so, 5 points a week equals 60 over the three months. Assorted additional marks such as making me a nice cup of tea periodically are accrued – generously, I shall assume a figure of 45.

So, Brooker's exceptional 279 plays fictional average boyfriend's measly 150 (and that's even without deductions made for mitigating stress factors caused by undue emotional attachment). And yet fictional average boyfriend has, over this period, received a bare minimum of 24 instances of fellatio. That's one for every six moments of unadulterated, selflessly-given pleasure. The lucky bastard. And what is Brooker's reward? Nothing (save the money he makes from book sales, TV appearances etc.). I say it's unjust.

And that is why I owe Charlie Brooker a blow job. Technically, 46.5 blow jobs, I suppose.

lol you have clearly nailed whoever wrote that

full marks to Konnie "excellent! let's go piss" Huq too.

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Wednesday, December 10, 2008 1:51 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

word on that.

especially because in an earlier series brooker did one of his trademark 'wanking in front of the tv' shots when he showed a clip of her.

Most people within my existence are pretty stupid though xxxxxxp

Eh? Subjectively, yes, everyone can think they're better than average. But that doesn't stop "a majority being better than average" from being (objectively) impossible.

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 18 December 2008 11:26 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

Not of the minority beneath the average are significantly beneath. For example, take 3 numbers, 1, 8 and 9. The average is 6, and the majority of instances is above that average.

Dropping mad science here!

everybody is better than (an) average because there are a lot of different measures, a lot of different averages

OK there, utopian kind dude with your seeing the best in everyone ;)

Without wanting to derail the thread spectacularly: the experiments that have examined this have used the mean of scores from a host of categories. Now, I accept that isn't necessarily the perfect way to do it, but it is an attempt to find an overall "rating" (of both the self and others) that takes various dimensions into account. The effect tends to be the same: everyone (certainly in the US and UK) ultimately thinks they're better than everyone else. (Indeed, one argument is that such an outlook is actually beneficial for overall mental health.)

Am I right in assuming you'll have an Athens login? If you're interested ... Alicke (1985); Silvera and Seger (2004).

Not of the minority beneath the average are significantly beneath. For example, take 3 numbers, 1, 8 and 9. The average is 6, and the majority of instances is above that average.

Yes, but if you used just three participants in a social-psychology experiment then it'd be kinda flawed, no? :) The experiments I'm talking about have, by necessity, involved enough participants to get something approximating a normal distribution/curve.

Yeah you're right, just being a statistics pedant really!

And you're right to do so! This is one of those things I wish I'd never mentioned, because I did such a half-arsed job of explaining it first time round and I'm now trying to fill in the gaps and leaving myself open to attacks from all sides :)

> Am I right in assuming you'll have an Athens login?

you are below average in your assumptive powers 8) but i have read the preciseseses and see what you mean.

> OK there, utopian kind dude with your seeing the best in everyone ;)

you have this wrong as well, as anyone here at work will tell you. i just know that i can happily ignore my own severe character flaws and focus on the good things (and, yes, often write them off as beyond my control). which i think is a common survival mechanism.

"Norwegians showed significantly less self-enhancement bias than did Americans"

go america! USA! USA! etc

you have this wrong as well

Well, yeh: it's not something I'd necessarily ascribe to any ILX0r, come to think of it ;)

A few nights ago i had an amazing dream where i was in bed with Charlie Brooker. He kept trying to go down on me, but i was too shy so i kept clamping my legs together so he couldn't get at me. He was rather annoyed. To try and appease him i asked him what he wanted me to do to him, he said he wanted 'a veggie' and i pretended to know what that meant. But i never found out because he started taking cocaine from a really weird apparatus. Then i spilt some on a pillow, and he was annoyed just because i made a mess, which was odd because we were at my house.

Surprised you're still having those dreams now Enrique and Louis are back.

lol gays

lol facebook notes of girls you've had full sex in cinemas with

include me out

lol facebook notes of girls you've had full sex in cinemas with

― I have "boned" two lesbians. Anything can happen. (country matters), Wednesday, 7 January 2009 20:33 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol although she defriended me around 18 months ago she only quit the Mondeo Pop group about 10 weeks back.

shit i forgot to quit that group

http://ticotime.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/charliebrooker460.jpg
WWE superstar Vladmir Kozlov

http://www.wrestlingrevealed.com/images/2/vladimir-kozlov.jpg
Journalist, critic and polemecist Charlie Brooker

is his show now airing on bbc2 just a repeat of the bbc3(4?) episodes? or does it include new bits about the week's tv?

It was a repeat, I think.

Also, Brooker is the latest celebrity twit on twitter - http://twitter.com/charltonbrooker

Officially adopting nowtrage. Brilliant.

Am I crazy, or do Brooker and Lawrence Fishburne look weirdly similar?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2007/09/28/charlie_brooker_140x140.jpg

http://www.filmstew.com/Users/Features/10642/tw_fishburne.jpg

I can see that, yeah.

this is kinda pony

Good things: Johann Johannson; Nick Davies

Mediocre things: pretty much all the rest of it.

Watchable but hardly unmissable.

The bit in the pilot about the singing stand-in girl at the Chinese Olympic opening ceremony was hilariously unbroadcastable.

Problem with doing a weekly British version of the Daily Show is he's too busy trying to bring in big huge stories and tell every detail, and in process, forgets jokes.

really unfunny, badly presented, not even v cutting and Brit news is way ripe for this too.

the worst part is the patronising "explanations" which are all way too subject to opinion anyway, eg that random talking head discussing the Brit guys extradition.

Also, explaining to BBC4 viewers what's going on with the economy = not really understanding your audience.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jks6r/Newswipe_Episode_2/

The Jade bit was spot on, I thought.

Very much so, properly excellent. This series is finding its way a bit but shows some promise.

Patchy, but the Mary, Mungo and Midge joke was one of the funniest things I've seen this year.

yes.

adam curtis bit was some bleak shit

is that on the most recent or the week before? have not bothered with this since ep one but im always interesting to see ad-curt do his thing.

this week's

xpost Curtis was on last night, now available on iplayer and youtube.

sweet

The last two have been a lot better than the first one.

the adam curtis section was uncomfortable and brilliant. hope he spins that out into a few doc series, does anyone know what he's working on at the moment?

Popbitch

does anyone know what he's working on at the moment?

According to his Twitterings that'd be, umm, tonight's Newswipe :)

Oh, shit, you meant Curtis. Didn't read that properly at all, sorry.

that curtis bit be like damn.

and it does feel like an excerpt from something bigger, doesn't it? not sure every step of his argument is convincing* but if fleshed out...

*don't see the link between the biafra campaign and the counter-culture. probably the most prominent campaigners were right-wingers like frederick forsyth, no hippie he. (the labour government was culpable in ways i can't recall.)

Great piece, but the hippie-bashing seemed a bit knee-jerk - there was a lot of political analysis going on then. I think what he's really getting at is a model of charidee which is entirely divorced from politics.

xxpost

And the answer, incidentally, is "haven't a clue; sorry!"

I liked the Curtis thing last week, incidentally, but the whole notion that "emotive" journalism is a post-Diana thing is absolute bullshit: I was being taught to "make the reader bleed" (yes, that was exactly how it was put) long before that. As has been the case with a couple of Brooker's own Newswipe pieces: it was interesting and thought-provoking, and better than 99% of the fucking shit that's put out there -- but occasionally a little over-simplistic; or, rather, throwing in some unnecessary simplistic point as if, y'know, we couldn't concentrate properly otherwise. (There was a really good example of this earlier in the series but I'm fucked if I can remember exactly what it was ... it might come back to me.)

*don't see the link between the biafra campaign and the counter-culture

Yes, that seemed a little glossed-over. Then again: I have a feeling that the format might impose awkward demands on both Brooker and his contributors (no evidence for that; just based on the fact I think the BBC is packed full of useless cunts).

Tim Key, by the way: can he fuck off, or what?

he is to an adult what Ronnie Corbett chair bits were to a kid (well me at least)

Corbett's monologues were gold, you were supposed to turn off during the Miss Elaine Paige song.

i was too transfixed by her radiant beauty

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/09_03/rearyearsG1909_468x498.jpg

L-R: Paige, Corbett, David Frost

this from week before last was good too

ad-curt was right about the way they report bad shit in the less developed world. i was watching something about thailand (iirc) the other night on the c4 news and, although it was five minutes long or so, they never explained what was behind it. just people be protesting, police be hitting them. JUST LIKE IN ZANU-LABOUR BRITAIN KIDS.

enjoyed and laughed a lot at this week's even tho it's all so horrible. i guess the show aims to instil this sense of smugness/superiority in viewers because they recognise how awful news media is, offsetting the depression which would otherwise make it unwatchable. maybe it should be more good-natured and constructive ultimately tho?

Key always brings the light titters in our house.

I've only seen the first Newswipe and the most recent one, but has it always used as much background music? Initially I thought it weas just for effect (Gordon's 'party') but it was everywhere and really disctracting. Not sure I remember Screenwipe using as much. I realise I sound likea Points Of View blowhard, but the point remains.

Always Good choices though. Johann Johansson, IBM 1401, A User's Manual!

And lovely snatches (pun intended) of (Cunts Are Still) Running The World at opportune points in the last one.

wow thats real shitty. what year is it from? was he trying to be a kids tv guy, or was it a late-night videogames show?

charltonbrooker: Worst videogame bosses ever? Email yr suggestions to gameswipe at zeppotron dot com. Make what you will of that email address.

I might actually email that, Belger from final fight.

ah, an article about... spotify.

i'm backing you, charlie, of course, but the party wants you to go now, with dignity.

The concept behind the playlist is amusing though. Especially putting 'Unsolved Child Murder' on there.

As I've just posted this to that thread - but I repeat - what is moodkilling about the theme to All Creatures Great and Small"?

I can see Carol Drinkwater's cardigan unbuttoning even now...

I have been watching You Have Been Watching.

The ITV News clip in this week's episode pretty much defines WTF.

If this is the same as the one I saw yesterday..

The bit about the comparing MJ's funeral with Diana's on the basis of "who had the most celebs" / "Who had the grandest" etc...

Normally the joy of Brooker is that whatever he says, you think: “That’s so true.” But in this case it just isn’t. Or funny. And I’m really not saying that because I’m a friend of Dan’s. (There’s probably even a schadenfreude part of me which quite enjoys seeing the overexposed baldie being given his comeuppance) (xxxxDan). I’m saying it because, judging Brooker by his own high standards, it’s lame, totally uninsightful, woefully unamusing. And because, worst of all, it evinces exactly the kind of intellectually lazy, identikit-left, student-bar, group-think which Brooker is normally so quick to condemn and mock.

God how I would like to see Brooker satirizing his own performance here. By the end he’d feel so awful he’d never dare show his face on screen again.

And I’m really not saying that because I’m a friend of Dan’s.

yes

yes you are

James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books including Welcome To Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future And It Doesn't Work

http://www.incgamers.com/News/16303/Charlie-Brookers-Gameswipe-Confirmed

I'm glad there's gonna be a relatively mainstream gaming TV show on British TV. Compared to how popular gaming is, it seems incredible that the niche is not currently being filled.

Getting pissed is very popular but we seem to bump along without having a TV show dedicated to it.

I guess this filters back into the whole "is gaming art" thing, but that discussion (or a discussion on whether there needs to be a discussion) has to happen on a larger, more established media, like, I dunno, TV?

What was that gaming show on BBC Scotland that ran for a few seasons? I'm hoping for something a bit like that.

I don't have any strong feelings about a gaming show but was just saying there are big chunks of popular culture that don't really have their own terrestrial TV shows.

charlie brooker's boozewipe

The connection between gaming shows and boozing shows: most of your target audience are more likely to be engaging in their favoured pastime than watching TV.

http://www.cadred.org/Images/Articles/ce47f5972e456f17f92dd56ae219effb.jpg

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/consolevania.gif

http://www.binaryzone.org/retrostore/images/bits5_large.jpg

holy shit, i did not realise the postgrad type who writes the videogames column in the guardian was one of the presenters

my mind has been blown in a very minor and subtle way

Getting pissed is very popular but we seem to bump along without having a TV show dedicated to it.

― fun is for people who can't cope with life (Noodle Vague)

but there are countless well-known websites dedicated to reviews & videos of computer games. not so many on 'getting pissed'. it IS bizarre that there hasn't ever been a decent successful gaming show

But there is a TV show dedicated to getting pissed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booze_Britain

there were also several print publications of which several still exist. tv just isn't the ideal medium for everything ~

also lots of tv shows feature scenes in pubs, but you never get an episode of Eastenders devoted to Dot and Jim having a bash at Guitar Hero 3

hypothesis i:

watching usain bolt run 100m is waaaaaaay more exciting, to anyone, than watching me run 100m, which would be a bit dull

whereas watching me play street fighter iv would be no more or less exciting than watching the current world champion to even nine-tenths of the potential gaming audience, nevermind the public at large

xpost

lots of those 'scenes in pubs' are based around the old idea of the pub as a kind of community social space, not just somewhere you go with yr mates though - going round someone's and playing videogames kind of works as a substitute for the latter and not the former

i've always enjoyed watching video games being played on tv but i'm weird. if this is more about discussing games and interesting things about the industry then that's even better. still only seen about 5 minutes of videogaiden ever tho.

also (this is a really banal point:) you don't get many scenes of people listening to a cd, or reading a book, or watching a dvd, or watching tv, or other similar experiences. we just don't really tend to do embedded other entertainments in this way.

or: HOW COME THE PEOPLE IN EASTENDERS NEVER WATCH EASTENDERS EH EH

xpost i think watching ppl play videogames has to be, like, more akin to top gear or something like that. which is really depressing. but, you know, more about people who can articulate something when experiencing it fairly viscerally than about ... i dunno. 'criticism'.

How come the people in Eastnders never commute, that's what I want to know.

I was supposed to make an appearance in an episode of Bits, when I was 15, stayed up till 2am or whenever it was on on a school day to catch it, and where was I? NOWHERE. :'(

The BBC Scotland video game show was VideoGaiden. It was good. I still enjoy keeping up with and watching video games even though I don't play them now, so I'm one of the few people in the country who really needs a TV show. Since I'm not aware of the existence of the internet.

i want someone in the uk to make a version of Game Center CX. can't think who i'd want to present it tho.

dominic diamond? dexter fletcher?

Violet Berlin redefining NAGL here

http://www.whizzbang.tv/Violet_Berlin.JPG

Like an Yvette Fielding who doesn't know how to dress age-appropriately.

this starts tuesday at 10pm on bbc4.

am kinda hoping there's enough retro things on it to keep me interested without being a lol80s nostalgia-fest.

It's a one-off, not a series.

my post got cut off, honest 8)

you're right, of course, mores the pity, am sure he could get 6 shows out of it.

lol @ titles

gonna watch this on iplayer. Consolevania guys being on it is a good sign.

they are? huh

According to Rab Florence's twitter aye. http://twitter.com/robertflorence

yes, they did the retro section. but was one of them wearing eyeliner?

Liked the clips of fogeys on old TV shows demonising games as violent and youth corrupting before launching into reviews of that horrible-looking 50 Cent game and GTA IV.

"Beat 'em and Eat 'em" - I had no idea! I feel like a tiny part of my childhood has just died.

Also thought for one happy moment that the neighbourhood simulator might be real.

The clips of pols denouncing the latest games were classic, but they missed the controversy over GTA and Rockstar games generally. The fact that that series has been produced in industrial lofts in Scotland, and has been a massive worldwide hit on a scale which dwarfs anything the Scottish film industry has come up with seems to have escaped every journalist in the country.

You're forgetting Trainspotting

j/k

Then again GTA dwarves even that, probably by a factor of 100.

Also claims of Great Giana Sisters being British were a bit wrong.

I reckon they'd do a GTA-Leith with Irvine Welsh, if enough people would buy it. I reckon he'd be up for it, and arguably, there should be public funding for such a project.

Too long. Got tired. Gave up.

Rapelay sounds like ban-this-filth-bait. And so it was.

I was supposed to make an appearance in an episode of Bits

Er, I did make an appearance in an episode of Violet Berlin's Gamepad once.

they show gamepad (3 and 4) on tv sometimes still, all full of features on the brand new PS2...

interview discussing the show here:
http://www.mcvuk.com/features/554/INTERVIEW-Charlie-Brooker-Part-1

Part 2 has him bigging up Kieron Gillen, which is pretty amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te8hOKWaNJc

Went to a taping of his new Radio 4 panel show "So Wrong It's Right" last night. It was immense. Lee Mack did a hilarious spot-on 15 minute rant about Brooker and Twitter.

rare sighting of 'lee mack' and 'hilarious' in same sentence

That's what I thought.

Screenwipe back for a second series. UK peeps see it here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00q9ypy/Newswipe_Series_2_Episode_1/

Features jokes taken directly from ilx I noticed.

"you never her"?

is doug stanhope on it?

Yes, he is.

Episode 2. Freakin' hilarious.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qbyth/Newswipe_Series_2_Episode_2/

Pretty much all good apart from his terrible sofa asides.

think its time he was just given a half hour to do whatever he wanted, but involve other people more and not be tied down by having to cover only news, or only TV throughout the entire series.

Well, there was Dead Set, which was, I'm sorry, inexplicably shit. That said I know what you mean - would love to see a proper CB TV show that was just let loose to do its own thing.

Features jokes taken directly from ilx I noticed.
waht joeks?

Posted here since he's credited with the idea...

http://www.fatuous.co.uk/2010/01/30/cadburys-full-english-breakfast/

http://www.binaryzone.org/retrostore/images/bits5_large.jpg
now a grown-up adult journalist it wd seem

dog latin: what you described is pretty much screenwipe btw.

Okay, I did laugh at his comment on three American presidents' response to Haiti being like a Doctor Who "Three Doctors" special

I thought his Haiti Screenwipe show was excellent, btw.

He's went viral, 950,000 youtube views this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4

Wow, the music cues on this show are astounding.

The episode w/ the above clip was the first Brooker-related thing I've watched in an age and while I find it sort of heavy handed and DOYOUSEE overall, that bit was pretty fkn funny so I'm glad it's been isolated

even tho I find the above clip sort of true/funny, I still think brooker is basically a bore. he's like the guardian's clarkson.

bizzaro clarkson maybe. given that you admit he's true/funny and clarkson's whole schtick is manifestly false/unfunny.

yeah but the delivery is v similar "oh it's a ruddy nonsense" in general i don't think brooker is true really either...he's just veered into "OH GOD YOU'RE SO RIGHT" territory

he's like the guardian's clarkson.

kinda otm; the downside of being a professional cynic is just turning on that persona all the time.

(xp) so wait is he right or not? or is being right boring and therefore wrong?

and their delivery might be similar but that doesn't mean that their messages are equally (il)legitimate, or do you think that all sceptics are on the same level? media sceptics, anti-homeopathy campaigners, atheists, climate change sceptics, anti-evolutionists, hiv/aids deniers, holocaust deniers, yeah they're all the same.

stick your questions up your ass. I never said he was right, please read my post as that's the second time you've misinterpreted my comment which referred to that one specific clip. see where I say "even tho I find the above clip sort of true/funny"

can't argue with someone who can't fucking read.

he's just veered into "OH GOD YOU'RE SO RIGHT" territory

ah ok it's kneejerk anti-populism, i get it.

ah ok it's my opinion...why can't you accept someone else doesn't like something

"kneejerk anti populism"...wtf does that even mean??? explain to me in full detail when something someone says becomes kneejerk anti populism and when it's just something they think? and why does "kneejerk" come tacked onto that? just cos it's part of the prepacked diss?

i am truly sorry can we make it up. i just see the clarkson comparison as a challop tbh.

sorry for getting annoyed also, just genuinely can't warm to brooker, his huge popularity sort of depresses me, i have a major dislike for that style. i didn't compere him to clarkson for a cheap laugh or whatever either, it just does feel a bit that way, the guardian's clarkson is obv not as bad as actual clarkson, not by a long shot, but it has that same ranting to the converted feel about it.

compare...compere, hmm.

i can see where you're coming from but style =/= substance, brooker is still one of the good guys even if you don't agree with his methods, and clarkson is still just a cunt. and newswipe isn't all ranting, it can actually be pretty nuanced and reflective.

I had some prepacked diss earlier. Buy fresh is what I say.

Would anyone like a Creme Egg?

you can stick your creme egg up your ass

how do you eat yours?

Rectum?
Damn nearly killed 'em!

Oh, Wrexham, sorry.

the clip with N-Dubz manager (Ricky Grove meets Vinnie Jones fkn hell) was also funny. he's been going for Dappy quite a bit since they were both on Buzzcocks.

the clips of Live From Studio Five were the most depressing by far (ok, after Haiti)

Ronan otm.

Well, I know what Ronan's getting at - but it's distinctly unpleasant to be compared to Clarkson. Clarkson has the whole celebrity status, in love with himself, being a tosser and having a misguided sense of moral superiority about it, vibe.

Clarkson is only really irritating/hateful because of his attitude/beliefs tho, and the arrogance that they lead to yes. So it doesn't seem like much of a criticism to compare Brooker to Clarkson just in terms of hackneyed or predictable presenting style (that's an issue but not a big one - and Clarkson is more 'natural' or comfortable as a presenter frankly).

Well, I'd take it as a mortal insult tbh.

it's not really just about the tv show or presenting style. it's just that both are figureheads for this vast and vague dissatisfaction with the modern world, sure brooker is not right wing or whatever, but it's like I said, that ranting to the converted feeling. it's like the starting point is "yes everything is shit and so now lets talk about shit thing x, y, z."

and sure brooker occasionally tries to leave that persona or write a positive or enthused piece but the weakness of these pieces only further highlights the weakness of the polemical ones.

just want to read someone writing something thought provoking, not a bible for people who joined that facebook group entitled "I secretly want to smack slow walking people in the back of the head."

and yeah it may be insulting to compare him to clarkson, but there are similarities. brooker is not especially political anyway, you know he's not a right winger or whatever but he seldom goes too political, eg him ranting about the ipad this week...straight outta clarkson.

he's definitely a paragon for the (media) left as much as clarkson is for the right. pretty sure there was a 'brooker for PM' type facebook group etc. and his articles get fervently linked and RT'd etc.

but he is (sadly) the only person on TV actually talking about TV and doing it pretty well, which counts an enormous amount imo.

xp "Straight Outta Clarkson": the album NWA should have made.

but he is (sadly) the only person on TV actually talking about TV and doing it pretty well, which counts an enormous amount imo.

beg yr pudding? http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Harry-Hill-harry-hills-tv-burp-762583_640_360.jpg

hardly the same. but only one way to find out.

Brooker's rants would be much more interesting if he did add a more explicitly political commentary to them. it's a shame because he does obviously think about stuff but he seems to have been trapped in this angry man persona, like a character from one of his own tvgohome parodies. you can almost see the desperation in his eyes to be free of the role but it's what has made him successful. as it is he hardly says anything that Clarkson's fans would disagree with.

maybe desperation is a bit strong. but i do get a whiff of self-hatred from his stuff.

That's always been a big part of his schtick though.

Left-wing Clarkson is not something that had occurred to me but yeah, I can see that totally now that you mention it LG. I guess one striking difference that comes to mind is that Clarkson does that whole right-winger victim culture thing which is totally annoying!

I think the self-hatred thing is that he gives the impression that he wishes he could be passive or whatever enough to not hate everything, but he can't. Clarkson doesn't have that, I don't think, although I don't know if it's a positive or a negative.

The biggest difference for me is that Brooker comes off as An Angry Man with no (okay, less) sense of smug self-satisfaction at being the Voice of Reason who sees the nonsense of the world around him.

Incidentally, I think when he talks about things he likes he does it well (his Oliver Postgate tribute comes to mind) and I would appreciate seeing more of it.

the other thing is....brooker feels so of the time where people read this stuff online. the stuff he writes is major league comment bait. maybe that's the guardian's fault but there's something weird about regular online columns, like they sort of coexist with their comments and the arguments that ensue below the line and can't be separated from these.

i don't think newswipe works well, and i haven't watched any of the new series... aside from my general thoughts on brooker, which i'm trying to gather, this particular format is a bust -- usually. he isn't a left-wing clarkson because he isn't nakedly ideological. he stands for things being a bit better, but he has no "hook" like "dismantle the welfare state" or whatever.

his deal is that the world is very complicated, and the news doesn't help explain it. but that viral clip of his, though it's accurate and p funny, doesn't actually indict the news of anything important. the adam curtis insert on one of his older shows *did*. the day today's 'speak your brains' did it in 1994.

but adam curtis does about an hour of tv each year; brooker is a more active media presence. there are much worse people out there.

I think Newswipe (this series anyway, I didn't see the first one) has had some fairly insightful stuff picking at the little misleading things that news coverage revolves around, including some things I hadn't really thought of (because I'm dim, but so are lots of people!) - like going into the problems + dangers of reporting based on "a source" which was, I believe, in the show before last.

i think that bit on anonymous sources was pretty bad. heather brooke is obv a candidate for sainthood over the mps' expenses stuff. but also by her own admission she usually works with documents not human sources. so she's the last person i'd go to for a judgement on whether anonymity is ok, which is a way more difficult subject than she allows. how would she have dealt with david kelly?

but newswipe is allergic to ambiguity because it's not funny. (the bit where they tried to ackowledge haiti before going on to the laughs was aaaawwwwwkward.) its m.o. is to dish up cynicism with an air of authority that suggests to people that they've got the inside track on what a scam the news is. that's why brooker on the media is not so far from clarkson talking about government. they've both got ideological inclinations (brooker's are much vaguer, i agree) but their main aim is to let the viewer feel superior in a those-clowns-in-congress kind of way.

it's just that both are figureheads for this vast and vague dissatisfaction with the modern world

i guess this is at the heart of it.

i don't think brooker is actually doing that, wrt the inside track, but yeah people take that from him. there are a lot of cynical people who lap it up. (lol "a lot": ilx is a funny place.)

i swing back and forth on this coz 1) the dissatisfaction isn't *that* vague and 2) it's not that unjustified is it? re. those-clowns-in-congress -- OK, i get it's unproductive on an intellectual level. buuut it's very hard to argue that they aren't all herd-minded war-criminal bastards who have fucked the economy to death, really.

their main aim is to let the viewer feel superior in a those-clowns-in-congress kind of way.

this is the thing...I hate this sort of shit. it's like "if the news is a scam then why are you personally too smart to be taken in by it? because you read this column/watch this show?"

the dissatisfaction with brooker is pretty vague and it's not even government directed always, it's just that sort of "everything is a big load of bollocks" meme that British people seem to love, esp those who want to somehow appear discerning as a result of thinking this.

but actually it would be more impressive to read aboout what isn't a big load of bollocks...or just to read a book instead of a charlie brooker column.

it's like "if the news is a scam then why are you personally too smart to be taken in by it? because you read this column/watch this show?"

this isn't a completely deplorable sentiment. most clever people will go along with the idea that BBC1 news is a travesty. saying so, and analysing in what ways, will look smug if you want it to. but what do you want? better say so than not so. not everyone is as clever as you, they aren't automatically enlightened. (i've said i think he's not *that* good, but still.)

but actually it would be more impressive to read aboout what isn't a big load of bollocks...or just to read a book instead of a charlie brooker column.

we'd probably all do better if we read good books and not newspaper columns. but if we're going to have newspaper columns, and we are, better brooker than the rest of 'em.

his newspaper column is the worst thing about him! real phil space-style bullshit. ipads, eh? what's the point of that? sounds a bit like a tampon, is this 800 words yet?

yeah exactly.

also how is bbc1 news "a travesty"? there are probs with the news but how are the people watching charlie brooker somehow on some higher plane whereby news is useless to them. half the appeal of newswipe is that nobody fucking watches the news.

how is bbc1 news "a travesty"?

... really? OK, well, i think it is ne way. ditto channel 80. it's partly a symptom of other things wrong with the world, but bbc news is desperately stupid, and lame human interest stories crowd out intelligent reporting of anything of significance. (of course it was ever thus, yes, oh sure, nothing ever changes.)

this is kind of a debate about projection, isn't it? people who like brooker think they're sooo much better, etc. obviously "i know what you mean." same with all sorts of other ilx archetypes.

but on the question: are people who get wound up by bullshit news -- be it in the daily mail or the bbc -- worse than people who call that bullshit out? can the latter avoid being called up 'emselves?

how do you go about highlighting the problems of bbc news without putting yourself on another plane?

I think Brooker is in general pretty great. You could argue that what he does is facile, but it's so entertaining, I don't care. And nor do I feel "superior" watching it - that's a round tower of fastidious challop right there. You can be sardonic about shit TV shows, while recognising that considering them shit does not grant you any special virtue. I don't get the unfavourable comparison to Chris Morris either; as much as I love the latter, I've never really understood the claims people make for the political profundity of TDT and BE.

I think Newswipe is great. It's 30 mins, and pretty lightweight, but I think the news needs someone that can laugh at themselves rather than another heavy-handed Panorama or something. Entertaining and funny, the Adam Curtis bits were great, and I don't think it's trying to be this big DO YOU SEE expose, rather a series of gentle pokes at the media's methods.
Wasn't that keen on the poem guy but also glad they put that kind of stuff in, if you know what I mean.

Brooker at least doesn't pretend he's got any answers and acknowledges that his opinions can be conflicting. That clip that went viral was a nice piece of playing around, not exactly representative of the show.

What are "shit TV shows"...you mean "TV shows you and Charlie Brooker think are shit"? sounds pretty superior right there...

"lame human interest stories crowd out intelligent reporting of anything of significance. of course it was ever thus, yes, oh sure, nothing ever changes."

really? I watch about 30-40 hours of the news channel every week and there are few if any human interest stories. that's just incorrect as far as I can see.

it's not really about projecting either, brooker's default is things are shit, people are morons etc etc. you can't subscribe to that or agree to it without self satisfaction.

brookers is pretty funny with his misanthropy though.

I think it's quite easy to enjoy him for being funny without needing to subscribe to any superior / self satisfied bullshit.

surely his schtick is dismay at the passing of a consensual, benign paternalism especially in the bbc, cf his laments for oliver postgate, 'civilization' etc and the patronage of adam curtis; that it's better that people are told how to think than told not to think

forgot to mention marina hyde being on newswipe drags it lower, she's cut from the same cloth imo. anti-celebrity column in the guardian seems more part of my world and bothers me more than anything celebrities do, which I would never hear about if it wasn't negatively mentioned in a paper I occasionally read.

x-post people aren't told not to think. and in any case his column is the most viewed thing on a website of a left leaning paper. and it's about the ipad, or how someone famous is shit.

things are shit, people are morons etc etc. you can't subscribe to that or agree to it without self satisfaction

I think you could, if yr self-satisfaction had curdled into genuine self-loathing - obviously lots of self-loathing cd just be a disguise for self-satisfaction but I don't think it's either/or.

I mostly agree that Is It Me or is Everything Shit? is a boring and self-defeating way of talking about the world but there's a question of context - there are whole shows, books etc where bemoaning yr dissatisfaction is the only point of them, but the occasional screed can have purpose, even if it's only a personally therapeutic one. It's the extremity of the position that's the problem but it's only a problem if you think that way all the time.

Another problem is that the blurred line between polemic and having rubbishy aesthetic taste dilutes the former, e.g. I think "the Labour Government since 1997 has been shit and evil" is a reasonable rant but if you follow it with "some popular pop group/TV show I don't like is shit and evil" you dilute your rhetoric to the point of no point.

What are "shit TV shows"...you mean "TV shows you and Charlie Brooker think are shit"? sounds pretty superior right there...

what the fuck? sorry, you seem to have now moved into... im not even sure what this means. if you think something's shit then you're superior? so be it, i guess.

the six o'clock news seems regularly to have human interest stories, local news does all the time, and real news is basically dealt with in a trivializing and cosy way that stems from this approach.

a lot of things are shit, a lot of people are morons -- i'd love not to think this, but if your reaction to the world is otherwise, idk, you must have remarkable powers of resistance. i don't see how this is a self-satisfied view in the least.

xpost

marina hyde is way more guilty of this than brooker and if she's on it then that's a bad sign.

I agree with your second par....but I think being defined as the "everything is shit" guy is a bit of a prob. I feel sorry for Brooker in a way, he's paid to be that person. At the same time I find his tone really irritating and even his byline pic.

And yeah who hasn't felt that everything is shit from time to time, when someone's armpit is in your face on the tube or something, but these are pretty weak moments. Plus comprehending these feelings can be done more deeply. There are prob a billion completely nihilistic works of art but they don't tend to involve parasitically whinging about some other work from the previous evening or weekend.

I mean some pretty amazing thinkers have tried to dissect human misery or loneliness or the meaningless nature of the universe. And the result is often something beautiful.

x-post my point is people disagree about what's shit and who the morons are. there are no "shit tv shows" by default, it's just opinion.

x-post to noodle vague

lots of people prob think you are a moron. intelligence is quite multi-faceted...who am I to say many other people are morons apart from perhaps in anger...actually standing over it as a belief seems wrong.

Nah I agree Brooker shd be more incisive/constructive but he's just another entertainment option out there for people and in the spirit of your own argument the thing to do is just ignore him really. In a broader context of "is his a useful mode of journalism?" I guess I'd agree with h. mayne that it's better than writing columns about how Stephen Gately died of gay but it's not like he's some cultural arbiter, he's just doing stand-up.

lots of people prob think you are a moron. intelligence is quite multi-faceted...who am I to say many other people are morons apart from perhaps in anger...actually standing over it as a belief seems wrong.

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Sunday, February 7, 2010 8:49 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is relativistic bs imo, sry. he's essentially commenting on other things... valuing them. if you think that's illegitimate, then a lot of other things are too.

my own case proves that you can be a "high-iq moron" (saul bellow's phrase iirc) anyway. it isn't a snob thing. but satire is based on this view, that some people, a lot of people, powerful people, are morons. as for things being shit -- i didn't really have the unpleasantness of tube transport in mind!

my point is people disagree about what's shit and who the morons are. there are no "shit tv shows" by default, it's just opinion.

So, disliking anything = being haughty?

Valuing things mightn't be illegitimate but it's hugely problematic and frequently pointless.

Problem is there seems to be a couple of Brookers. There's the print Brooker, who made his name with witty reviews of populist tv shows, which he seemed to relish as much as scorn. These were pretty good - surreal imagery + misanthropic bile is fine by me. But now his articles are just about general things, he's had to keep the bilious persona because that's made him successful, but he doesn't have the relish that he has for crap tv, so to compensate he's had to dilute his 'valuing stuff' articles a bit with a bit of 'actually you know I don't really take this seriously, and I'm an idiot as well' relativism and this dilutes the fun and makes them no different from, say, my vague, dislocated complainings.

Then there's the Brooker on tv. He clearly knew his stuff and his most interesting programmes have tended to be based on the mechanics behind how tv shows are made/what templates are used, which not everybody knows. But you can only do this a few times, and I think it's become diluted with a sort of auto-Brooker attitude, which is pretty lazy, just a bit of lip curling every now and then, and anyone can do this just by watching a bit of tv.

The stuff he's good at is the stuff he knows, which is hardly surprising, but he seems to have run out/overstretched himself. Clearly a decent chap, but overexposed.

http://www.asfaltkonijn.be/wp-content/what-grinds-my-gears.jpg

yeah i basically agree with all of that. Used to love reading him in the Guardian on the Saturday but I think his jump the shark point for me was an article on the Monday that was essentially "having the flu is shit". A real nadir.

i do think his column is p bad. it takes real stamina to be a columnist, or, often, the ability to be shamelessly, endlessly tedious -- polly toynbee case in point. brooker doesn't have the stuff, and i hardly ever read it. i am surprised that friends have copies of his books, and that they are published by faber. i think his tv reviews are even worse. tvgohome was fkn funny tho.

hahaha noodle's jpg otm

yeah I do ignore him mainly, just an interesting discussion. this actual discussion is the sort of shit brooker should be writing, a bit of self reflection maybe.

btw i wasn't calling you a moron, I don't think it's relativistic bs to suggest that brooker works by some sort of tacit agreement "they are morns, we are not." like if you believe people are thick, what excludes you from that? if you think some people or loads of people are thick, how do you know you're not one of them? to someone who is an expert in field x, y, z, you prob are thick. it's not relativistic to say that humanity is more complex than here is a moron and here is a brain.

in fact a lot of this "people are morons" thing seems to actually be "people who are not misanthropes are stupid/naive."

x-post he did a "i got the tube for the first time today, god it's shit" one day last year

co-sign on TV Go Home but it works precisely because he's inventive and playful and surreal and the moaning gets placed at one remove?

when brooker was promoting the first series of newswipe the idea was that he was admitting to being ignant of the complex things -- israel/palestine, say -- and that this was partly because news obscures rather than illuminates. or something, i can't quite remember. but im sure the point was: i don't know about the content of the news. so the prog, i thought, was awkward, because it tried to handle irl shit that was happening. i don't think i saw more than one ep, so i dunno why im defending him tbh. just like a scrap rly.

(Actually what's great about that "Grinds My Gears" bit of Family Guy is that Peter totally falls into the trap of the columnist who has to keep churning them out. "People from the 19th Century - get with the program.")

if brooker's asking tv news not to pander to people with scare tactics and bullshit human interest stories then surely he's tacitly assuming that people aren't morons?

I don't think it's relativistic bs to suggest that brooker works by some sort of tacit agreement "they are morns, we are not."

There isn't much evidence for this. Brooker satirises and fulminates relatively light-heartedly against aspects of pop culture. Why does this automatically have to be allied to the tacit agreement in question?

I think if you say that something that millions of people enjoy is moronic, you are probably somehow tarring them with some moronicness, but I'm not committed to thrashing that point out, it'd be moronic.

I thought he was pretty good as the host of that panel quiz show. Seeing him actually laugh at other peoples' jokes made me to warm to him. Is that still on?

I thought the "how TV works" bits of Screenwipe were fantastic. As GamalielRatsey says it's his own backyard and it showed - it was quick, passionate, funny, and he was taking the piss out of himself as much as anyone. But he's never been a news presenter or reporter or anything so Newswipe doesn't have the same feel of a guy confessing his sins or whatever. It's taking the piss out of others, rather than himself, so it does just kind of end up being "oh look at this load of shit over here".

I have always hated Brooker's columns. He does the exact same kinds of jokes in them that he does on his shows but it comes across totally differently in print. Part of it might be that simple dumb stuff works really, really well on TV (and in movies) but print needs something else.

In any event, there is too much emphasis in LG's analysis on Brooker's supposed agenda. I enjoy his bile primarily because it's entertaining, not because it's right or wrong.

but he wants to be taken seriously by putting on those mini-lectures in newswipe.

in any case, i think his satire misses the target insofar as it presents shitty news reports as a product of morons. those programmes are the way they are because they think the public are morons.

Plus the remote control.

in any case, i think his satire misses the target insofar as it presents shitty news reports as a product of morons.

But does he actually do this?

That's why BBC3 has that cute 30 second timer running down in the corner during their news, so you know you won't have to flick over.

One difference between Jeremy Clarkson and Charlie Brooker is that the former's fans are often quite loathsome, whereas those who hero worship CB are usually just a bit pathetic. See this man's "Brooker style blog" about Take Me Out:

http://twitter.com/anconky/status/7330045393

You're so smug and superior in your attitude towards Charlie Brooker fans. ;-)

xpost

Well a lot of Clarkson's views are actively hateful of specific groups of people, but there's fucking loads of Internet Liberals who end up getting a bit illiberal with regard to their own pet hate groups.

who will speak for the rights of slow-walking people?

I don't get the "oh would you just use your common sense for goodness' sake!!" vibe from Brooker that I do from Clarkson.

they're obviously very different in lots of ways but their fanbases evidently overlap, judging by his facebook page:

"I sometimes think Mr Brooker and myself are twins separated from birth... He always says things I'd like to say if there were no pc laws against it..."

that's a real quote?

lolz@ that rant: Take me out is just good old fashioned ITV on a Saturday night. What is that guy expecting?

Didn't Brooker do a blog/ Guardian post about Take Me Out? Where he thought it was amusing?
That "Brooker style blog" has kind of missed the point entirely. It's all "Why oh why" whereas that's not CB at all.

That Brooker style blog is, entertainingly enough, more like a Jeremy Clarkson style blog. Except that Clarkson's got a better turn of phrase, even if his targets are completely wrong.

xxxxpost to blueski, it's a real quote from a charlie brooker fan

um, clarkson has a better turn of phrase than that brooker-wannabe blogger, not than actual real charlie brooker.

One thing I like about Brooker as a columnist is you can usually rely on him to call out Popbitch-style sheep mentality bitching on a particular public figure - say, I dunno, Kerry Katona or someone. I think he knows full well that his fans are totally prone to it and is calling them out on it while also knowing their first impulse is to agree with everything he says.

Marina Hyde kind of does this as well but she's got that awful "I'm so above this subject matter that forms the basis of every single column I ever write" thing going on that I find massively offputting.

Clarkson just comes across as a bully.

thinking about it and seeing this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/08/britain-should-invade-jersey

isn't mark thomas the lefty jeremy clarkson?

If the people that come to my shows represent a side of Britain, the policies (chosen and rejected) suggest a strong sense of scepticism, a flair for creative revenge and such an intolerant love of decapitation that I imminently expect the twinning of Maidenhead with Riyadh – though the Saudis might find Maidenhead a little reactionary for their liking.

lmfao mark! killin it.

it's the way he tells them you know...

That Mark Thomas comment is in the context of him proposing that people stand for Parliament on a broadly Left/Liberal "People's Manifesto". I don't see eye to eye with him on a bunch of stuff but that's a lot less reductive and throwaway than Brooker or Clarkson's steez.

half-dece article, still a horrible comment

i mean, in a different context that might pass for a joke about received notions of saudi arabia / crap british towns - here it's kind of going off at a right angle to do 'lol stereotypes', which is either lazy or offensive depending on how much effort i can be bothered to put into it

His new radio show is on Radio 4 right now. I'd forgotten all about it...

The bit with Josie Long on supermarkets is totally OTM: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00scw1t/So_Wrong_Its_Right_Episode_2/

big fan of brooker, but i think he's over-exposed atm (along with mitchell et al), that You Have Been Watching would work better without the game-show element, and is beginning to fray at the edges.

according to the Mail, now engaged to Konnie Huq. WHUT.

what about aisleyne!?

Brooker, a writer and broadcaster, dropped out of the Polytechnic of Central London before completing his media studies degree.

sooo... does this mean he did complete his degree or he didn't? I love the DM.

eh, didn't. It's not that badly written.

Konnie Huq = WS: well in Charlie Brooker, ul Richard Bacon.

daaaaamn son, if this is true

well played

full marks to Konnie "excellent! let's go piss" Huq too.

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Wednesday, December 10, 2008 1:51 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

word on that.

especially because in an earlier series brooker did one of his trademark 'wanking in front of the tv' shots when he showed a clip of her.

― special guest stars mark bronson, Thursday, December 18, 2008 11:37 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

iirc he did, didn't he?

that's going to be my move, from now on

from now on

There is some excellent "go on my son!" action on Twitter right now.

eh, didn't. It's not that badly written.

Hmm, maybe not that bit but the whole thing is in general. HE is a 'foul mouthed dropout', SHE is a 'cleancut blue peter presenter'. And that's why THEY are the odd couple!

They don't seem like a remotely odd couple to me.

Indeed, Brooker even scrubs up quite nicely.

For non-Brits who may be wondering who Konnie Huq is and what all the fuss is about I give you this completely random image. As a public service you understand.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s240/ahboon17/KonnieHuq07.jpg

^^^ WM.

didn't he do an article a couple of years ago along the lines of 'konnie huq: ws'?

i think we have all written that article at one point in our lives.

god imagine if ILX discovers daisy lowe

i've already had to shout down a load of horny drownedinsound menfolk on the subject

i don't... what... what is the connection between konnie huq and daisy lowe?

what subject did you need to shout the DiS people down on?

idolisation of lowe, but hey fine you know what who am I to question others' appreciation of human beauty

WELL DONE BOTH KONNIE AND CHARLIE OBV

Perhaps one of us is having to write about the 'accessibility' of festival-girl models like Daisy Lowe - or as I like to call it, surfing a deadline.

Konnie Huq's siblings are also what you'd call accomplished. HM, have you read Rupa Huq's stuff at all?

i don't... what... what is the connection between konnie huq and daisy lowe?

"trademark wanking"?

idolisation of lowe, but hey fine you know what who am I to question others' appreciation of human beauty

― Mark Ronson: "Led Zeppelin were responsible for hip-hop" (acoleuthic), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 11:26 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah, but what is the connection between konnie huq and daisy lowe? dudes find them attractive? is that it?

rupa huq's name rings a bell, but not sure why. konnie seems lovely as well as banging.

idolisation of lowe, but hey fine you know what who am I to question others' appreciation of human beauty

Are you saying she's like the Lionel Messi of attractive girls?

loool

yeah, but what is the connection between konnie huq and daisy lowe? dudes find them attractive? is that it?

Not exactly an exclusive club there. Confess that I had no idea who Daisy Lowe was until suzy explained her to me on ILX.

suzy's point about accessibility is U&K - it's a justification given by most of the gawpers

Daisy Lowe is quite pretty as well but I think this is news because Konnie is in National Treasure territory, quite aside from her looks.

yeah do not understand louis. 'imagine there being more than 1 attractive woman in the world! you'd go mental!'

ITT an open and frank proto article for Heat magazine.

nono this story is very much news - but they're both Would Stare At material for the internet intelligentsia

anyway I'm fucking off to Bedfordshire for the day, enjoy

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/7809260/Daisy-Lowe-goes-for-bespectacled-boffins.html

such a hacky move, this quote. hot famous women with nerdy fanbases say this kind of thing all the time

Would Stare At material for the internet intelligentsia

such an exclusive club

Still, Result for Charlton

Oh, Would Stareat.

I was thinking something else...

nono this story is very much news - but they're both Would Stare At material for the internet intelligentsia

― Mark Ronson: "Led Zeppelin were responsible for hip-hop" (acoleuthic), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 11:33 (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Lowe then dated Grammy-award winning music producer Mark Ronson in early 2008 until September 2008.

LJ practising the politics of envy there

nono this story is very much news - but they're both Would Stare At material for the internet intelligentsia

"I only like intelligent celebrity gossip"

Hence reference to postwar Italian serialist composer, Luigi Nono

HM, was gonna summarize Rupa Huq thusly but found this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/rupahuq

Yeah yeah yeah, but who's she going out with? Dom Passantino?

Just read somewhere else on the internet the theory that this is a fake story leaked to the press so Brooker can sit and laugh at the gullible fools who believe everything they read in the papers. Thoughts?

Thoughts?

Incisive satire from the big man

Believe? Why not, he's a reasonably friendly bloke and there's no reason why Kon couldn't guest on his show, etc.

Care? Not much to be honest.

Brooker could be trying to top the Dale Winton/Nell McAndrew stunt. It's a big ask.

Konnie Huq and Charlie Brooker get engaged

"Is he 'the one?' Yes, but then I say that about everyone I date. Two weeks later, I've changed my mind."

he could dumped out quicker than North Korea

Brooker's BBC Four show Newswipe was nominated for best entertainment programme at the Bafta TV Awards at the weekend, but lost out to Britain's Got Talent.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

konnie is such a babe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7GFMstEsHE

> Brooker's BBC Four show Newswipe was nominated for best entertainment programme at the Bafta TV Awards at the weekend, but lost out to Britain's Got Talent.

isn't this because newswipe was factual rather than entertainment? did they mean screenwipe? or gameswipe?

Didn't "Loose Women" recently win an award for Best Factual Programme?

Oh good another reason to hate Brooker

Blimy@that clip. Blue Peter wasn't like that in my day.

okay...

there's also one somewhere where she investigates corsets.

must've been won over by the bit from 1:40 on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQx4gedf410

TOLDJA (ish)

makes u sick
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/04/konnie-huq-interview

i thought the whole marriage thing was one of those internet jokes

Good on Brooker for not bringing it up in any of his columns though.

why good on him? he'd have to try and write well if he brought it up instead of clarksonising the iphone again

great joke from konnie, will borrow.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/charlie-brooker-phone-hacking

couldn't be bothered to real this in full, but does he mention that NOW HE'S A TARGET?

That Brooker piece was actually pretty decent I thought, although it's pissing into the wind I suppose really.

from that guardian article: I don't know much about haircuts, as anyone who's ever glanced at my head can tell you.

o rly? up until about a year ago his hair was blokily unstyled but during that alt.election show, when he'd been seeing KH for a while, he was sporting a notably flamboyant fringe. surprised he never spoke/wrote about it actually

who and why is this cunt

he's like nv but on tv

neither of them are cunts afaik

i thunk it was funny

He seems like a mensch.

2010 Wipe was like TV Burp but shit. To use Brooker's own, standard 'it was like x but shit' formula.

He's a mensch.

has to be someone a little better doin this stuff tbf? I've seen this guy's name on ilx but that was so lazy

This new show on BBC2 right now seems like it has the potential to be something more than Adam Curtis with added rhyming slang.

Was the channel 4 thing any good?

no, this isn't looking too hot either

well that was shit

I am really quite surprised by how bad CB is. He seemed to have a huge reputation based on not being bad at all, but every time I see him on TV he is relentlessly mediocre. The horrible constant mannered nasal sneer is like Baddiel. The reputation + the reality together are kind of shocking.

I thought the skits were pretty godawful, and I'm way more in favour of Brooker than most people here. Some semi-interesting stuff otherwise, and old public service broadcasts are always good for a chuckle. Nothing in the least bit radical though.

I actually got bored of it and recorded it to watch later. I'm also mostly pro-Brooker, but it just seemed very watered-down and meh.

idk brooker was p good from like 2k to 2k8 or something, it's a decent run

he's married to konnie huq

guess he doesn't care about his shit any more and nor should u

dude's always been bollocks

'tvgohome was good' - 18y.o. me

In his prime he had a really good way with the rhythm of language I think. The guy's still capable of entertaining me, but it's starting to become repetitive. He should try scripting more comedies or dramas.

The bald disingenuousness of this thread title pisses me off slightly every time I see it, by the way.

*bump*

He should try scripting more comedies or dramas.

^^^ both Nathan Barley and that zombie thing he did were excellent, he should do that more. In the last couple of years he's been morphing into Frankie Boyle, and he needs to get the hell off my tv.

i like the idea of charlie brooker more than the reality of him in the 2k11 i think.

i mean i am glad someone is trying to highlight the bullshit going on in the media and trying to raise the level of discourse. we could do with some people high up actually listening to him.

but he hasn't been funny in a minute.

was a bit of a rehash of things he's done before*, i didn't see a lot of point to it tbh. killed 30 minutes i guess.

(* or maybe generic "Lol 70s" programmes for the PIF thing, 80s for the Threads stuff?)(Threads v cheap on amazon btw. don't think i've ever seen it)

> both Nathan Barley and that zombie thing he did were excellent,

watching NB again recently i realised that's him interviewing 15peter20

ha! I'll check that out tonight.

it was jonatton yeah interview. he's offscreen all the time but obv his voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKkXMesclz8&feature=related

sketches even worse this week

The worst thing about this show is how Brooker seems to rattle through his critique at 200mph just to get to the rubbish sketches, which drag on forever. Wrong balance.

Gotta admit I laughed at Eldon's big sex mime thing.

Nevertheless, a very valid point.

it was dreadful

It's a lot like his TV Wipe show, except that there's often a part where he actually gets to the heart of something, and gives it a deserved kicking.

There's nothing that deserves that in this one.

Ok something I have noticed and want to ask about- what are your feelings on the Huq? Seems that only straight men see her as cute national treasure and everyone else HATES her for some reason (possibly connected to brookers awful new hair)

Don't care.

She is very bad on Xtra Factor. She was good on that "let's go piss!" ep of Screenwipe. Otherwise, I don't really care either way.

yeah thats what i thought it would be, mild opinions to just not caring. and yet in the past week i have accidentally ended up in two totally different groups of people talking about hating her

Actually, she wasn't good on X-Factor extra, because she seemed unable to fake interest in the contestants.

Idiots think she has made Brooker a big girlie telly ponce, when in reality it's probably just being on telly that has made Brooker a big girlie telly ponce. That, and growing up a bit. I suspect getting married to anyone would have been a bit life-changing on him, but to see cynical old Charlie with telly-fluff Konnie is a bit too much for people who like to identify with his cynicism and forget to notice the affection he holds things in.

'Straight men' is a very big section of any given national population.

If 45% of people thought I was a cute national treasure then my life could finally be judged a success.

we do and you are ;)

Well, if all the straight men loved you, then everyone else would hate you for that reason.

And now, excuse me, apparently Jeremy Paxman has said "cunt" on air, more later...

Konnie was the lead presenter on Blue Peter for a very long time, there'll be an awful lot of young women who consider her a national treasure.

Hey Matt, can you delete my response to your now deleted response on the civil war thread. Mod privileges, pah!

he looks so uncomfortable on '10 o'clock live'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uazcDxkCYXU

^ precisely when brooker jumped the shark

Libya would be a good growth market for Beyoncé, incidentally, as, thanks to the Gaddafi regime, it now contains far more Single Ladies than it used to. [gadaffi has killed a lot of men.]

DarraghMcManus

7 March 2011 12:51PM

This is all very interesting, but what I want to know is this:
Why do Fiddy and Kayne whatsisface hate women so violently? Like, it's bizarre. Seems almost pathological. What, did their mommies not give them enough love as a baby or something?
Bitch this, bitch that, blah blah blah. Oh do fuck off, morons.

God that video, what a fool.

that's gotta be trolling

xp

Really enjoyed his completely spiteful tone towards kids in that ep of his most recent about-tv tv show

odd, thought that darraghmac hated women.

(s'been a while since we made darraghmac-that chump darragh mcmanus jokes.)

who is daragh mcmanus doofus?

who is THIS daragh mcmanus doofus?

just some doofus who does terrible stuff for the guardian's blogs on the regular.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/1/25/1327493307587/Charlie-Brooker-in-Austra-007.jpg

Charlie Brooker and his wife Konnie Huq relax on the beach after jumping a shark.

never once did i think the only person in the world to like adelaide would be charlie brooker

lol wait seriously he's married to konnie huq?

Yes.

Funny, by chance I saw her first TV appearance over the weekend, on ChallengeTV's "Blockbusters" 'tribute' to Bob Holness (basically, all old Blockbusters episodes from 09:00 to 21:00)

She was in a team of two, lost both games, and exited without being able to discuss her Music College much. she looked about 14 (probably really 17 or so)

Ah, I just looked it up, she'd already been on Blue Peter as a member of the youth choir (sang a song), and she actually was 14.

touching cloth is pretty good!

that kind of ZAZ humour is going to be pretty hit and miss by its nature (especially if you're not Zucker, Abrahams or Zucker) but yeah, i quite enjoyed it all in all. Favourite line was "eat your orange juice" for some reason

haha yeah

very hit and miss - i feel like it can't decide if it wants to be Airplane! or something slyer. a lot of the lines probably looked funnier in the script than they ended up sounding out loud, but that'll improve after the first ep i'd imagine? (haven't seen the second one yet)

the forensic guy trying to turn off the phonograph with a remote control was probably my favorite part - not referred to, just there for a few seconds in the corner of the screen

"any prints?"

"just purple rain and lovesexy by the looks of it"

"constant craving" ringtone killed me

i think it was meant to be Police Squad meets Cracker or something, and I thought it was great - very high joke-to-squib ratio.

A few people told me about Black Mirror, a show created by Brooker, saying it was great etc. Having watched it, I can't really say that I agree with those people but I'd be curious to know if people here have seen it ? Also, if anyone knows anything about the houses they show in "The entire histoy of you", I'm all ears.

I thought the first two were basically extended one-liners, albeit well-executed, about how shit TV is and how stupid people are but I liked The Entire History of You.

I thought the first two were basically extended one-liners, albeit well-executed

Only saw the pig fucking one, and I would agree with this.

i didn't like the third one but probably more because it felt horrible watching that guy obsessing about the other guy and how it led to him doing ruining his life.

whole thing, neat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oUyjl7N1_Y

^^^ was pretty great tbh

yeah there are some quality lolz. hadn't seen that Costa coffee ad before but my immediate thought was that scene in Caligula, and there it was!

CB seems very much on auto-cynic recently. TBF, I don't know if it's really him who's become more lazy with his pop culture truth-bombing, or whether I'm just bored of his "working-class people will believe anything" schtick.

Caught some of screen-wipe on a random last night...don't care for this in particular (his whole I hate sports when he loves video games then makinng the mistake of making shit TV (the zombie big brother thing) while reviewing other tv isn't a great look), but Doug Stanhope's 'America is great' routine was a thing. At first its a 'oh why are you here then?'/'brits are dur sorts huh' lameness but he then becomes pro-Adolf in a roundabout way that is p/funny.

Slept and then was remembering this morning so..

'dour' sorts, one spelling mistake corrected.

Found it p tiresome, some lolz. He's v bad at liking things.

touch of cloth 3 is winning me over with its relentless commitment to appalling puns tbh

keep forgetting to watch those but they're the only thing by this chump I've actually wanted to watch since idk

It was alright, actually

I thought I was done with this kind of thing but Cunk on Shakespeare was excellent. Diane Morgan is so funny, I love her voice and her sublime way of swearing.. I read an interview with her and Philomena was supposed to be a posh dimwit but she auditioned for the part and Cunk is now Diane Morgan, a northern dimwit.

So did anybody watch the “Death to 2020” special on Netflix? It’s kinda disappointing. It’s like Netflix paid them to do a Screenwipe for an American audience with a higher production value and lots more celebrities, but the writing is only like 40-60% of where it needs to be.

It’s not the worst transatlantic adaption, but it isn’t what it should be. The “Antiviral Wipe” ep they put out in May is far stronger.

Sucked.

Major example of TV getting lost in translation.

Why get sam Jackson to try and sound like brooker? It just didn't come off.

Beyond that though, the main prob it has was how lacking in teeth the material was. Just a very MOR satire.