The Best Of, The Worst Of

There's another sign that the year is drawing to a close - all those bloody tedious 'Best/Worst of 2006' programmes beloved of TV are dominating our screens, providing lazy schedulers with hours of cheap New Year's broadcasting, courtesy of their archives. Does anybody really care what some bunch of rent-a-quote talking heads think about anything, let alone the events of the past year? I wouldn't mind, but they always dredge up the same idiots to comment on the subject in hand. Stand up Stuart Maconie, Paul Morley, Andrew Collins and just about every gossip/showbiz/music/media commentator in Fleet Street - people so desperate to get themselves on TV they'll even demean themselves by appearing on this type of vacuous crud spouting what they obviously think are side-splittingly funny witticisms.

The other night I had the misfortune to stumble into possibly the worst of these piss poor excuses for entertainment that I've ever seen, namely BBC3's Most Irritating People of 2006. Whilst I wouldn't necessarily disagree with their selections of Russell Brand and Pete Docherty as their top two, I really don't need to have a parade of wannabe Z-listers telling me that these people are very irritating. Trust me, their observations really aren't that profound. Lily Allen, for instance, was deemed irritating simply because she tries to project a 'streetwise' image whilst, in reality, being very middle class. Wow! Pop stars trying to gain credibility by obscuring their middle class origins! Like that's never happened before!

Likewise, the fact that Russell Brand splashes his alleged sexploits across the tabloids whilst Pete Docherty uses his drug arrests rather than any artistic endeavours to stay in the headlines, aren't the primary reasons I find them both intensely irritating. Or, indeed, that they are also both middle class boys playing at being down and dirty 'men of the people' to get credibility. No, it is the fact that they epitomise the current breed of celebrity, building their careers on a carefully constructed image, rather than on their limited talents, (in the case of Russell Brand, no talent whatsoever). Most irritating of all, the media actively colludes with them in this, as they provide valuable column inches with their - carefully planned out - 'outrageous' behaviour. Yes indeed, the very seem media whose representatives happily appear on these accursed 'Best of' programmes, gleefully slagging off the self same celebs who keep them in work. So, although I find the likes of Brand and Docherty incredibly irritating, I'd have to say that I think the most irritating people of 2006 (or any other year, for that matter), are those media twats who incestuously on these bloody programmes, pontificating about the behaviour of others. Fuck off, you sanctimonious whores!