Politically Induced Weariness

Jesus, this general election campaign is stultifyingly dull.  Maybe it's the lack of any real personalities on the part of the politicians contesting it, or maybe its the complete lack of any surprising or inspiring policies, as the main parties all try to play safe.  How I yearn for the good old days of the sixties and seventies when we had entertaining politicians, like former Labour foreign secretary George Brown - the man for whom the euphemism 'tired and emotional' was coined.  Frequently drunk and angry, always offending someone, from cabinet colleagues to foreign dignitaries to Hollywood stars (he once nearly came to blows with Eli Wallach), he seemed to 'resign' at least once a week and, throughout the sixties, provided the electorate with endless entertainment.  Sadly, this election is offering us no such colourful behaviour.  Even the much vaunted 'entertaining' buffoon Nigel Farage has, so far, stuck to a carefully stage-managed campaign, minimising any chance of actually meeting anyone who might take issue with him and his crackpot fantasies.

So soporific has the campaign been so far, that it has offered me o inspiration whatsoever in terms of stories for The Sleaze.  Indeed, I haven't a clue what I'm going to post there this week, if anything.  Not that I haven't been busy elsewhere: I've recorded and edited together a new podcast, with a completely different format to 'The Sleazecast'.  It might prove to be the pilot for a new series of podcasts and I might eventually post it here.  For the time being, you can hear it as part of the latest 'Overnightscape Central' podcast over at the Overnightscape Central, as part of a compilation of shows by various contributors.  'Schlock Treatment' - for that is what it is called at the moment, it could change if I do more - draws on material already published here and focuses on my enduring interest in low-rent cinema.  I must admit that it went together a lot more easily and far quicker than the average episode of 'The Sleazecast', which, by the last couple had become just too complex and time consuming to easily produce - a half hour episode was taking more than a month to assemble.  By contrast, 'Schlock Treatment' was produced in a couple of hours.  Who knows, it could be the face of the future.  Even if it isn't, it was lot more interesting putting it together than following the election campaign.