#oneaday, Day 241: The Gogglebox

Television is generally a good indication of what to expect from a country’s culture. Of course, it’s not the be-all and end-all of their cultural output. Thank God. But it does give some indication of the values of that country, the things they find entertaining and their general outlook on life.

Tonight I happened to catch a little bit of possibly the most uninspiring quiz show I’ve ever seen. It takes the very essence of England and Englishness—grey boringness; small talk about grey, boring things; reluctance to show any sort of enthusiasm whatsoever—and turns it into a spectacular example of how to get what is a pretty well-established format amazingly wrong.

The show is Eggheads. It appears to pit a team of clever people against a team of “Ha! They’re from the public! They must smell awful!” people. Presumably it’s intended to be some sort of triumphant David and Goliath situation, with, at some point, the team of great unwashed defeating the people with two brain cells to rub together.

There’s one very simple thing this programme gets wrong. Tension. Quiz shows are made by their tension. It can be created in many ways, and for many, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is perhaps the best example, as it uses all of them. Music. Audience reactions. A host who milks the situation for all it’s worth. None of these are things that require lots of money and flashy effects to produce. They simply require a bit of personality. And, crucially, an audience.

Eggheads doesn’t have an audience. This means that even the most spectacular victory scored by the hoi-polloi is greeted by absolute, complete and utter stony silence. And this means the participants have no energy whatsoever. If they won, they’d probably just nod their head sagely and go “oh, thank you.” It’s the televisual equivalent of when you find yourself sitting outside the headmaster’s office and all you can hear is the ticking of a grandfather clock. Assuming you went to the kind of school that had grandfather clocks in it.

Contrast this with even the most cheap and nasty of American game shows and you’ll see a very different side of things. You’ll see participants whooping, hollering, cheering, jumping around and generally acting like they’re happy to be there. Of course, you have to be in the right mood to find this entertaining, as overzealous enthusiasm can be just as grating as stark boringness if you’re in the wrong frame of mind. But it somehow seems rather more appropriate for the game show format than what I witnessed tonight.

As for Japanese game shows? They do stuff like this. Kind of like The Generation Game. But, you know, good.

#oneaday, Day 232: The Big Smoke

I spent the day in London today. Primarily for a job interview, but I also had the good fortune to run into one George Kokoris and one Mitu Khandaker. Well, all right, we’d pre-arranged to meet. But “had the good fortune to run into” sounds so much nicer, doesn’t it?

Anyway, the actual reasons I was in London are fairly unimportant for the purposes of this entry. I want to talk about London itself.

London is simultaneously one of the most English places you can be, and one of the most un-English places you can be. Many people who come to visit England begin and end their visits with London. Many of them don’t even get outside the city limits of our capital. Which is fair enough; there’s plenty to see there, after all.

But the city has a unique character all of its own that isn’t replicated anywhere else in the whole country. Sure, there are other big cities, but none quite have the same feeling as London.

It’s a combination of things. Not all of them good. First of all, there’s the fact that everyone’s always in a hurry. Everyone has places to be, things to do and people to see that are far more important than whatever it is you’re up to at the time. As a result, God help you if you dare to stand on the left-hand side while you’re on an escalator or travelator, as you’ll probably end up with someone physically pushing you out of the way, as I witnessed happening to another person earlier. And it’s not as if charging down the escalators saves you any more than one or two seconds at most.

Then there’s the traffic. I have a complete phobia of driving in London. I’ve only done it once and have absolutely no intention of ever doing it again. I’m not sure entirely why that is. Again, it’s probably an aggression thing. See a light turn amber in preparation of going green and almost immediately horns start beeping and other drivers start getting impatient.

But on the flip side, there’s the curious little hideaways that the city offers. Just today, near Waterloo, we wandered down an innocuous and borderline scabby-looking side street only to come across a little row of three lovely restaurants bordered by some gorgeous trees and bushes. Stepping into this restaurant was like escaping reality for a little while. The noise of the city was gone, and we were in a land of Thai curries, Lionel Richie advertising Walkers crisps on the TV, and a selection of R&B and soul from the last twenty years. Most peculiar. And an experience that can’t be replicated easily anywhere else.

Somewhere else, somewhere near Regent Street (and I can’t remember where, so stop hassling me and stuff) there’s an awesome American barbecue and grill place that is pretty much a place where they give you an enormous plate of meat, some implements with which to eat it and the possibility of some bread and/or fries, and then it’s up to you how to deal with it.

Then there’s the theatres. Scattered around the place, there’s hundreds of shows to see, things to do, stuff to enjoy.

It’s a bombardment for the senses. And it’s utterly exhausting. But I think, today, I came to appreciate it a little for once. Perhaps it was sharing it with other people. Perhaps it was having a sense of purpose for being there. Or maybe it’s just one of those changes in my outlook. I couldn’t say.

Just remember, though, if you’re visiting England or the UK in general, we have a whole lot more to offer than that bustling metropolis!

#oneaday, Day 126: Oh Summer, You Two-Faced Bitch

It’s summer! Apparently, anyway. Definitions tend to vary, but the most commonly-agreed ones appear to be “when it gets a bit hot”, “when we have more than two days of sunshine in a row” and “when music festivals start happening”. Actually, that last one is only subscribed to by Radio 1, who are absolutely convinced that their festival of dogshit, aka One Big Weekend, marks the beginning of the summer. But then, this is a radio station which repeatedly screams “IT’S THE WEEKEND! IT’S THE WEEKEND! IT’S THE WEEKEND!” regularly after 5pm on a Friday, so it’s fairly clear that they have delusions of grandeur regarding who is in charge of declaring when summer and/or the weekend starts.

What was I saying? Summer. Yes. It’s been hot for a couple of days. Blue skies, lots of sunshine. What is commonly referred to as “nice weather”, to use some classic English understatement. It’s the sort of weather that, when you look outside your window, makes you think “I should be out in that”. Whether or not you do actually get out in “that” is a matter of your own personal laziness.

I have mixed feelings about the summer weather. On the one hand, there’s no denying that bright sunshine and clear blue skies are a distinctly cheerful sight. At least they are in a country that is traditionally as grey and miserable as England. If you’re out in the desert without any water, then bright sunshine and clear blue skies are probably somewhat less comforting, but that’s beside the point.

On the other hand, there’s the s-word. No, not that one. Sweat. As someone who seems to be able to sweat profusely at the slightest prospect of doing anything, particularly something that makes me uncomfortable, summer isn’t a great time to be hit by direct, toasty-hot sunlight if I have anything productive or active to do. I realise this is a somewhat unpleasant image of me that you’re building in your head right now, but I just want to put summer in context for those of us who aren’t blessed with the ability to always smell of wild lavender blossom and ylang ylang. Or perhaps that’s why chavs always wear an almost-visible cloud of aftershave all year round – so when they do sweat no-one notices because they’ve been knocked out by the scent of fake Tommy Hilfiger stinkystuff.

On another hand (that’s three now), sitting out in the sun is nice. If there’s a large open natural space to lie down in, it’s hugely relaxing to just lie back in the sunshine and doze. I’ve never falling asleep doing this, largely because falling asleep in an open space in Southampton is pretty much an open invitation to allow people to ensure that you wake up naked, cold and devoid of all your possessions, but it’s nice to just chill out. In the heat. Yes, “chill out” is perhaps a stupid phrase to use there.

On the other hand to that (what sort of many-handed monstrosity am I creating here?) there’s the whole “sunburn” thing. While it’s nice to be hit with radiation from the sun (more than, say, a nuclear explosion, anyway) and be nice and warm while you’re out in it, coming in and feeling like someone has set fire to you a little bit isn’t so nice, particularly when nothing cold you put on it makes it actually cool down. The more practical among you would probably advise putting on sunscreen. Not a bad idea, except sometimes when you go outside you spend much more time in the sun than you expected you would, so you had neglected to bring any sunscreen with you. Not to mention the fact that you get all goopy and messy. Ugh. Still… goopy and messy… radiation burns and potential cancer… hmm, tough decision. Why, Sun, do you have to be such a cruel mistress? That’s like a really hot girl having sex with you and then injecting you with AIDS. Or indeed just giving you AIDS, there doesn’t actually need to be any injecting involved, thinking about it. And the sun isn’t actually being malicious about it, so it’s a poor comparison anyway. Plus I mentioned AIDS, which I remember being pretty taboo to talk about during the late 80s and early 90s because the media thought only gay people and Africans got it, but then we all realised that wasn’t true at all and now it’s okay to talk about it and everyone quotes that really funny bit in Brass Eye where he asks the person if he’s got “good AIDS” or “bad AIDS” and it’s really funny and acceptable if politically incorrect. What? Shut up. The sun is both bad and good.

On the final hand (which is probably sticking out of its arse by this point) there’s the way people dress in summer. Pretty girls in tiny shorts or summer dresses = awesome. Overweight skinhead men in vest tops = less awesome. Skinny chavs with an alarming lack of body hair that makes them look like a Ken doll wandering around with open shirts or no shirts at all = way less awesome. And then there’s me, who dresses exactly the same as I do all year round, albeit sometimes without a coat on super-hardcore days.

So in summery (eh, eh, see what I did there? If you hate that pun, you hate fun. Yeah, I went there.), summer’s here. I estimate it will last roughly five days, then piss it down with rain, and then it might be back in October, going on past experience. Still, it’ll be nice to have at least a few warm, attractive days, as good weather often lightens everyone’s moods. And God knows a lot of us need our moods lightening right now!