Condemned to a bus journey the other day without either reading material or MP3 player, I amused myself by making a mental list of stuff I’m fed up of:
Channel Four pseudo-medical Documentaries with titles like “The Boy Who Digested Himself”
The support group weblink at the end doesn’t stop them from being Victorian-style freak shows.
“Behind the Scenes” Documentaries about Porn
Don’t work either as documentaries or as porn.
Articles and books by authors working “undercover” in lapdancing clubs.
The reason you found it “empowering” is because you’re a middle-class Women’s Studies graduate who doesn’t have to do it for a living all year round.
Paris Hilton
In the context of this list, less an entry than a category all to herself
People complaining about political correctness.
“I’m just standing up against the PC consensus”. Oh yes? In the old days we used to call it “racism”
The talking heads in celebrity documentaries.
Especially that guy from Village Voice. “Then, at a party hosted by P. Diddy, Justin said….”. God help me, I’ll kill soon….
People saying that 1916 shouldn’t have happened.
Unless you have a time machine handy, shut up.
Misuse of the word “refute”.
You denied the allegation. Whether you suceeded in refuting it is for me to judge, not you.
The word “Chav”.
The miles simply flew past! In reviewing them I can’t help but notice a certain shallowness. No mention of global inequality, but three entries about TV documentaries. This is explainable by a general coarsening of our culture and public life, to which I am not immune. And for which Paris Hilton is to blame. Feel free to pick up the thread. I’m off to audition for Grumpy Old Men.
4 Comments
That Village Voice guy’s head is freakishly large. He’s like a very poorly selling Bratz doll.
I hate those nostalgic for 1999 shows that come on. As Ben Folds sings “you get nostalgic for the last ten years before the last ten years have passed.”
Particularly hateful contributors are Kate Thornton – who quite obviously doesn’t know anything about anything and appears never to have heard of anything prior to being shown a clip immediately prior to her interview and briefed about what to say – and Stuart MacConie (or whatever) whose idea of wit is to make perfectly ordinary observations but in heavily sarcastic voice. God I hate him.
Poor old Stuart Maconie. He’s responsible for spawning a monster in his TV work, but he was once a mainstay of Q magazine in its glory days, before it succumbed to running a top 100 list in every damn issue. Which reminds me, I’m fucking fed up of lists….
Kate Thornton, by the way, used to be editor of Smash Hits. She went on to a career discussing her memories of ad campaigns of the recent past. Neil Tennant was also an editor of SHits. He became a Pet Shop Boy and made some of the best pop music of the era. Make of this what you will