Every day, some minor – or major – news irritant or moment of cultural awfulness makes us irrationally annoyed and inspires us to vent furiously. But few are worthy of an entire article or news report. Here, then, is our new regularish round-up of dreadfulness and head-slapping stupidity for you to be aghast at.
Quick Links:
Oscars Schmoscars
Puppuccino Panic
We Are (Not) Anonymous
Questions with One-Word Answers
Evening All
And Finally…
Oscars Schmoscars
Tonight is the night when people who really ought to know better get curiously worked up about the Academy Awards – the Oscars to you and I. We’ve said this before: these awards are meaningless, a political and cultural fix-up that flaunts its elitism even while trying to present itself as diverse and inclusive. Will your thoughts on which films you liked last year change based on what wins, what loses and what was ignored? I would hope not. These dreadful events, awash with the rich and famous competing to be seen in the right designer outfits (of which more in a moment), with attendees given obscenely expensive gift bags before heading to even more obscenely expensive after-parties once they’ve done their little speech about social in justice or whatever, are genuinely appalling and best avoided by anyone with a real love of cinema.
Puppuccino Panic
I never thought I’d be defending the corporate coffee monster that is Starbucks, so well done to Keith Perry and family of Stoke for a petty whine that they took all the way to their local news paper. Their outrage is not about Starbucks muscling out independent rivals or other dodgy business practices that the high street monolith has been accused of. Oh no. Perry, his wife Jenny and 18-year-old daughter Eloise are fuming because their local branch will no longer supply free ‘puppuccinos’ for their dogs.
For those of you unfamilair with the concept, a puppuccino is whipped cream in a paper cup, given to dog owners who apparently can’t cope with the idea of their domesticated wolves not sharing in every aspect of their lives. Starbucks allows dogs inside and so the dogs need something that visually resembles a coffee, rather than the bowl of water that would probably be just as welcome and much healthier.
Well, you know, each to their own. But the Perrys are furious that the previously free treat is now being charged for. How much? Steady yourselves, everyone. It’s 60p a cup. A tidy sum indeed to shell out on their monthly visit. “We spend quite a lot of money in Starbucks and their coffee isn’t cheap” comments Eloise to Stoke On Trent Live. Hmm – if only there was some other way to obtain either coffee or whipped cream. But that is clearly madness. “Dogs are really expensive and vet fees have rocketed” adds Keith, as though Starbucks are somehow responsible for this.
Call me Mr Moneybags if you must, but £1.20 a month doesn’t seem a wildly excessive amount for dog treats. And despite Perry’s claim that the dogs are somehow an added draw for the otherwise struggling coffee chain, I can’t help but think that he should be grateful that they are allowed in at all. I’m sure that, as he says, a free puppuccino makes you feel appreciated. A free coffee would too but I’m not expecting to receive one of those when I visit a coffee boutique, no matter how much my presence clearly enhances the place and draws in other customers.
We Are (Not) Anonymous
As you may know, the British government has launched a (cough) ‘independent’ review into pornography with a public consultation that is couched in less-than-independent wording designed to get the answers that they are looking for. Leading questions, the implication of criminal and abusive activity as a given and other efforts to ensure that even the people defending porn will have to answer in ways that acknowledge it as inherently bad suggest that this is not seriously aimed at consultation at all. Oh well, what did you expect? For what it is worth, I would still suggest completing it and not allowing yourself to be led by the leading questions. We’ll let you know our take on it shortly.
But… I understand that many pro-porn people might not want their names given to the government. Even if we accept the idea that the powers-that-be won’t be adding people to a database, there is a long history of hacking and leaking that might make people a little uneasy about filling in porn consultations at all, specially if they are pro-porn. But that’s OK, you have the option to remain anonymous. Yay! Let’s read on.
Before we get to the questions, we are given this reassurance:
The information requested below will help the government analyse and make best use of the feedback it receives from this public consultation and inform further discussions with the public and partners.
You have the opportunity to remain anonymous or to provide some information about your organisation and/or expertise/professional background.
Do you wish to remain anonymous? If yes, this will end the survey and your responses will be submitted.
Wait, what?
And yes, if you click ‘yes’ to the request to remain anonymous, you are immediately taken to a page that says “We thank you for your time spent taking this survey. Your response has been recorded.” So you cannot, in fact, remain anonymous if you want to complete the consultation. How very fucking convenient. You can email your responses, but that hardly feels more anonymous.
We encourage people to submit anyway. But this set-up feels like a cynical way of weeding out a lot of pro-porn opinion.
https://dsit.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1BpMNJHVXVpz1jw
pornographyreview@dsit.gov.uk
Questions with One-Word Answers
“Why Does Every Famous Woman Have a Book Club Now?” cries dreadful celebrity brown-nosing website The Cut.
It’s vanity. That’s why.
Or to dig slightly deeper, it’s the belief of celebrities – male, female or any point inbetween – that they are something special beyond their ability to do whatever it is that has made them famous, be it acting or singing or simply being rich and wanting to be richer. The desire to be seen with the right things, believe in the right causes, be the right level of quirky that people somehow think that you are somehow different to every other fame junkie. As the article concedes (well, less ‘concedes’ and more ‘admires’), Kendall Jenner poses with books that colour-coordinate with her clothes. I appreciate the PR boost this might give to small presses but in the end it is using books as fashion accessories.
Don’t get me wrong: if any celebrity wants to pose with a Desperate Living product, we’ll send you free stuff (you pay the postage though). Obviously, we are shallow enough to take advantage of that passing attention. But let’s not pretend that celebrity book clubs, like celebrity anything else, are anything other than carefully crafted PR stunts from management companies to secure news and social media attention for their clients.
Evening All
Now, we’ve been fulsome in our praise of Talking Pictures TV over the years and remain admirers of this nostalgic channel’s efforts for the most parts. But the TPTV fan base on social media is so relentlessly sycophantic and uncritical that we have to wonder just what it would take for them to find anything that the channel broadcasts to be less than brilliant (and as a result, I’m steadying myself for the abuse to come after they read this). Let’s be honest here: there is a fair amount of rubbish on the channel, from ropey public domain prints to TV shows that no one cared about in the first place but which are now being hailed as beloved classics. There is some value in ensuring that these shows are not lost – it’s all culturally valuable but let’s not pretend that it is all good. Case in point: the frankly ludicrous levels of excitement over the return to the screen of Dixon of Dock Green.
Dixon of Dock Green is the series that spun off from The Blue Lamp, stripping it of any level of excitement or incident in the process. People talk about ‘cosy crime’ shows today but they are The French Connection compared to this show in which nothing happens very slowly. In this week’s episode, Dixon and his underworked police colleague spent the entire show organising the Policeman’s Ball, with a brief diversion involving a shoplifter. It was as gripping as you might imagine. This series ran for two decades – from 1955 to 1976 – and while it made a half-hearted stab at becoming an OAP version of The Sweeney in its final years, it remained at heart a determinedly bland and uneventful show that soft-pedalled the image of the police during a time of corruption and forced confessions. As a propaganda piece that showed the neighbourhood Bobby as a thoroughly decent sort, it probably did its job. As entertainment, it was less effective. I remember suffering through this for what felt like years as a kid, when it was shown on BBC1 in the Saturday early evening slot between more interesting shows. I avoided watching The Blue Lamp for a long time, mistakenly believing that it would be more of the same. More fool me, but watching that film now I rather wish that everyone had left George Dixon dead instead of reviving him for this show.
Perhaps the TPTV audience is loving the handful of surviving episodes being shown, wallowing in a world where coppers are all loveable, fatherly figures and no one is ever fitted up or ‘falls down the stairs’ at the police station. If the TPTV audience is culturally conservative at heart – and I believe that it probably is – then maybe this show is ideal for them, a programme that reassures us that the police are generally decent sorts, that crime is all petty and errant youths can be dealt with by a swift cuff around the ear, and that everything is wholesome and safe and can be sorted out over a nice cup of tea. Perhaps, in these difficult times, there is a need for a show like this, a drama show almost entirely lacking in drama that acts as the narrative equivalent of slow TV. But I found it unbearable when I was a kid and I find it unbearable now.
Now, don’t get me started on Jack Hargreaves and Out of Town…
And Finally…
Some jokes write themselves. Knockout stuff!
Credit, as I suspect will be a weekly thing, to the Angry People in Local News Papers Twitter feed for pointing us in the direction of stories that will make you spit out your puppuccino.
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