Paxo Stuffed

So, Jeremy Paxman has finally stepped down from Newsnight.  About bloody time.  Paxman long ago ceased to be even remotely amusing in his bludgeoning of politicians and other interviewees on the BBC current affairs programme.  Continually browbeating politicians by asking them the same question over and over and conducting every interview with a smug sense of superiority does nothing to enlighten the viewing public.  Issues aren't explored, points aren't usefully debated.  Not that this seemed to be his aim.  Rather, it was to humiliate the great and the good, particularly politicians in order to boost his own ego. Or so it seemed to me.  I stopped watching Newsnight many years ago, when it became apparent that I wasn't going to actually learn anything from Paxman's regular confrontations, sorry, interviews, with ministers and their shadow equivalents, other than the fact that he clearly sees himself as utterly superior to any of them (and his viewers).  The only achievement of this style of 'interviewing' that I can see is to have contributed to the general vilification of politicians in this country.  The resulting ennui amongst the electorate towards political issues has been expressed in low turn-outs for elections and a the rise of single-issue 'populist' bigots like Nigel Farage.

As if his destruction of intelligent political debate on TV wasn't enough, in recent years Paxman has turned into an archetypical 'grumpy old man', clearly feeling that the world is badly in need of his wisdom on subjects such as popular music and literature.  Not surprisingly, these 'opinions' are the usual knee-jerk reactionary rantings of a middle aged, middle class man completely out of touch with modernity.  His outpourings on these subjects have generally taken the form of ill tempered harumphings  as to why the BBC needs to have radio stations which play popular music - surely the commercial sector can cater for such plebeian tastes?  (Which shows a complete ignorance of what Radios One and Two actually do with regard to popular music - giving opportunities to new talent and playing niche genres which commercial radio simply won't touch with a bargepole, preferring to play middle of the road pap all the time).  Or lamenting the state of British poetry.  (The bastards aren't writing about clouds and daffodils anymore).  All of which brings me o my biggest problem with Paxman: he is so establishment that he could never be effective in holding the powerful to account on behalf of the general public, instead resorting to his pantomime antics on Newsnight.  His establishment credentials were seen to worst effect in his lamentable recent attempts at TV history series, where he was unable to articulate any kind of coherent critique of either British imperialism or the UK's involvement in World War One.  One can only hope that this establishment dinosaur won't be troubling our TV screens again any time soon.

So there you go: Paxo stuffed!  And Adrian Chiles trashed yesterday!  Could it be that I'm turning into those sad middle aged bastards, frustrated by their unfulfilling lives and their failure to achieve even the most modest of their childhood ambitions, spend their time on line spewing barely coherent bile about celebrities?  Hopefully not.  But while I'm on a roll, I can't let pass the opportunity to say something about the late Rik Mayall.  Now, no disrespect to Rik and his family, but lets be honest here - wasn't the Young Ones actually shit?  Come on, you know as well as I do that it was just about the most overrated load of toss broadcast in the eighties.  It wasn't even very radical.  I actually was a student when it was first broadcast and could never understand why so many of my fellow students raved about what was essentially an incredibly conservative and establishment portrayal of us as all being a bunch of worthless layabouts taking taxpayers money to not study useless subjects.  The only notable thing about it was that it established Mayall's screen persona - he subsequently gave the same performance in everything else he ever did.  Harsh?  Maybe, but I'm sick of these aforementioned sad bastards trashing everything I ever liked, so why shouldn't I return the favour with regards to one of their heroes?