Unsolicited Mail

It's 'Children in Bloody Need' time again - that night of the year when the BBC gives up completely on the concept of broadcasting entertainment and instead tries to subject its viewers to a parade of well-paid celebrities begging ordinary people to part with their money.  At least this year Russell Brand and David Walliams won't be involved, making appeals for underage girls, (allegedly).  But enough of this topical satirical banter, back to more mundane things.  I got another of those unsolicited e-mails offering to be a guest on my podcast.  This one was from some dude who seems to be involved in some sort of religious freakery.  He claims to have written books and apparently every podcast he appears on enjoys a boost in listenership.  It's so obviously a form letter that is sent out automatically to podcast creators whose shows have reached a certain number of episodes, that it's insulting.  Quite clearly, it isn't sent as a result of the sender having actually listened to the podcast in question.  Indeed, it's obvious they've never even read its description.  If they had, then they would know that 'After Hours' has a format that precludes the use of guests and is not one of those 'talky talky' egotistical podcasts featuring someone droning on about shit, while a sidekick politely laughs at the required intervals.

I strongly suspect that 'After Hours' main point of interest for this guy is the fact that it has notched up nine episodes so far.  Which, in the world of podcasting is, apparently, something of a milestone, as most, I'm informed, never make it to four episodes.  And they're lucky if anyone actually listens to those four.  Which doesn't necessarily reflect their quality, but rather the fact that there are just so many podcasts being put out there these days that it is virtually impossible to get any visibility, especially if your podcast isn't fronted by a celebrity, doesn't have celebrity guests or doesn't have some kind of corporate backing in order to buy publicity.  As an absolute nobody, I'm frankly amazed by the fact that 'After Hours' actually does seem to generate a meagre audience, particularly as it isn't advertised and seemingly has little visibility on social media (despite my best efforts).  I'm guessing that it has some sort of novelty value for some listeners because it doesn't conform to what has become the 'norm' for podcast formats.  There is part of me that sneakingly suspects that if it had been created by someone with 'celebrity' status of some kind, there'd be all sorts of 'influencers' and the like fawning over it.  But, as I said, I'm a nobody (and happy to be a nobody), so I'm happy to take what listenership I can.

Literary Snobbery

When I saw a story in The Guardian the other day saying something along the lines of 'M. John Harrison becomes first science fiction writer to win Booker Prize', my first reaction was to think, 'well, at least they aren't scared to use the term 'science fiction'.'  Unlike the BBC - a few weeks ago, I heard an interview with Harrison on some pretentious BBC Radio Four arts programme, as I was driving home one evening, during which the interviewer tried to use every description of his work but science fiction.   'Fabulation', 'Speculative Fiction', anything but science fiction - when the interviewer was finally forced to use the term, having seemingly run out of synonyms, she sounded incredibly apologetic, as if it might cause offence to the supposedly high-brow Radio Four audience.  (I've got news for you, I thought, the only people listening to this are probably, like me, in their cars driving back from something as 'highbrow' as an evening of looking at secondhand Tri-ang locomotives at the local Toy and Model Train Fair).  Gratifyingly, Harrison himself used the term science fiction to describe his work throughout the interview, to the interviewer's obvious discomfort.

I really would have hoped that we'd got past this sort of literary snobbery which regards any form of genre fiction as populist trash, unworthy of serious attention.  Whenever anything deemed 'good' does appear as a piece of genre fiction, the 'legitimate' literary world moves to reclassify and co-opt it as quickly as possible, likewise if an author classified as 'literary' has the audacity to write something that falls within a genre.  I well remember the nineties, when there was lots of talk of 'magical realism', or, as us peasants would call it, 'fantasy'.  It's all elitist nonsense, of course, predicated upon the idea that what is popular cannot be 'good' or have any kind of artistic merit.  Which is entirely false.  Whilst much popular fiction undoubtedly doesn't reflect the highest of literary standards, quite a lot of it does.  All of it, good, bad or indifferent, is also accessible to the widest possible audience.  Which, of course, is its crime in the minds of the 'elite', who, like all cults, wants to think that only its members are clever and sophisticated enough to understand literature - so if something is well-written, then it can't be genre, even if its author and publisher thinks that it is.  So, I'm very happy to see the Booker Prize - usually restricted to 'serious literature' - won by an author who is, quite possibly, the last of that generation of British science fiction writers who were associated with New Worlds magazine and the SF 'New Wave' in the late sixties and early seventies, still standing.

The Reinvention Game

Another day, another celebrity linked with serious sex offences.  The celebrity sex offenders are obviously in season right now.  On this side of the Atlantic, at least.  In the US they elect them as president.  I see that the usual BBC response to such things is in full swing, as they attempt to expunge David Walliams from existence by removing anything he ever appeared in on the BBC from the archives. Still, I guess this latest development rules Walliams out of contention to be the next James Bond.  (I'm just trying to arbitrarily tie together two entirely unconnected stories, tabloid-style).  I mean, he must surely have been on one of those hypothetical casting lists the media have been bandying about.  Personally, I say to Hell with all this talk of Robert Pattinson et al, they just need to get on with it and announce Jason Statham as the new, working class Bond.  'Martini and caviar, sir?' 'Fuck that, just get me a pint and a packet of pork scratchings.'   There's all this talk about how Bond 'needs' to be re-invented by Amazon, now that they have creative control, so what better way than to throw all that class pretension and supposed 'sophistication' out of the window and just go for a more down-to-earth approach, reflecting the low-budget nature of today's Secret Intelligence Service.  

After all, you could well imagine that a Bond played by Jason Statham would work for far lower pay than Daniel Craig or Roger Moore and instead of using expensive gadgets to kill enemies he'd probably be happy using a bent teaspoon or some similar kitchen utensil.  You could have a whole backstory where he'd attained his double-o status, his 'licence to kill, (which, according to Ian Fleming, required an agent to have killed at least twice in the line of duty), in a bar-room brawl, fatally glassing some drunken Scouser who'd spilled his beer, who was really a Russian agent in disguise.  The second kill could have been during a ruck between rival football hooligans, kicking to death a Millwall thug who is actually an undercover Muslim fundamentalist terrorist.  Instead of the Casino Royale, this Bond could hang out at some dodgy gambling den in Streatham, or maybe even his local branch of Ladbrokes.  See - it just writes itself, once you get the casting right!  Of course, nobody out there is asking for a rough and ready, working class Bond movie.  But neither was anyone asking for a reinterpretation of The Great Gatsby as a weekly police procedural series, but right now, that's exactly what one streaming outfit has in development.  Right now, the entertainment industry seems to be full of people who have no confidence in original concepts - unless they can somehow be expressed in terms of an already popular format or characters, regardless of how inappropriate a vehicle these existing concepts might be for the new stuff.  

Celebrity UFO Bollocks

There are some things you just can't seem to escape.  In my case, it seems to be UFO bollocks and Nick Pope.  I thought that, when he died earlier this year, we might see some abatement of the whole UFOlogy nonsense of which he was a key figure.  But, the other evening I caught a bit of The One Show on the BBC, with Bradley Walsh promoting (yet another) TV series he is fronting, this time about UFOs.  Now, I have nothing against Walsh, he seems a nice enough bloke (and difficult to avoid on TV these days), but my heart sank when he described Pope as one his 'heroes' and enthused over the fact that this new series would include one of the last interviews given by him.  All the usual cobblers about Nick Pope was trotted out: how he was part of the MoD's 'X-Files' and investigated UFO sightings in the UK, how he knew all about the cover ups and had access to those secret files.  As I've pointed out here before, this is all just so much horse shit.  The MoD has no 'X-Files', Pope did not investigate anything.  He was simply posted, for a couple of years, to the section to which public reports of UFOs were referred.  I once spoke to his successor on the desk, who told me that there were no investigations, simply a form letter of response sent out thanking the individual for contacting the MoD, but pointing out that the Ministry had no interest in investigating reports of UFOs unless they posed a clear threat to national defence.  The original letter would then be filed (more often than not in the bin if was really crazy).  Now, this guy had no reason to lie to me and we both held the same security clearances, (I met him on a training course when I worked for the MoD), so he had no need to withhold anything from me.

The security clearances are an important issue here, as, like myself and his successor, Pope was subject to the Official Secrets Act, which means that if he had ever used anything he had come across in his work which had been classified in any of his books or TV appearances, he would have been prosecuted under the Act.  As he wasn't, I think that we can safely assume that everything he wrote and said publicly about UFOs was utter bollocks. Because folks - and I can't emphasise this enough - Nick Pope was a bullshitter.  A charlatan.  A grifter who used his short time at that desk in the MoD to build a huge confabulation with which to exploit the gullible and weak-minded.  I've said all of this before and it is depressing that I feel the need to repeat it, but the cult of Nick Pope doesn't seem to have died with him.  Now, if it was just his usual followers - cranks and crackpots - still worshipping at his altar of falsehood and regurgitating his cobblers, I wouldn't really care, but when I encounter it on prime time TV - prime time BBC for which I pay a licence fee, at that - complete with celebrity endorsement, then I object.  I found the whole episode extraordinary, with Walsh declaring that it carried more weight when celebrities like him talked about UFOs than when 'ordinary' people reported sightings.  I'd say the opposite was true: celebrities are generally self-seeking egotists desperate for publicity of any kind, making me less likely to believe anything they say.  By contrast, if a regular, non-celebrity, person was to tell me about how they'd seen a UFO, then I'd be far more inclined to believe that they'd seen something, (something that could probably be easily explained by rational means).  None of this about whether UFOs or aliens exist, its about the fact that the whole field is riven with utter falsehood driven by greed and avarice.  I'm sure that people do see things that they can't identify.  But that doesn't mean that they are alien spaceships - in fact, I'd say that was the least likely explanation.  Nor do I exclude the possibility of alien life elsewhere in the universe - but I don't think that they are regularly visiting the earth giving anal probes to sad, lonely people.  That's just someone's sad sexual fantasy.

Branded!

Apparently, ITV are planning to revive the dating show 'Take Me Out', although Paddy McGuinness  won't be presenting this time around.  Unfortunately for the search for a replacement, Russel Brand has become suddenly unavailable.  Which is a pity, as surely a dating show with lots of single women looking for love/sex would be the perfect vehicle for a Russel Brand comeback.  But, hey, he's now at His Majesty's Pleasure - perhaps it will give him time to write another book.  Something autobiographical: My Rapey Wapey, maybe.  (See, that works on more than one level - one for the smartarses out there who like to think they are sophisticated).  Incredibly, despite his conviction, Brand still has supporters out there, mainly on Twitter, granted, but supporters nonetheless.  Even more incredibly, some of them are women.  It's all the usual stuff about 'two tier' justice and 'them' conspiring to put away brave teller of the truth Russel Brand.  Even more unpalatable has been the right-wing press' attempts to politicise the conviction by playing up Brand's previous links to the left, with one repugnant headline even accusing the left of having 'enabled' his sex offending.  All of which ignores the fact that it has been a long time since Brand had any association with 'the left', he has instead spent the last decade or so drifting ever rightward, into the land of paranoid conspiracy theories and, most recently, right-wing Christianity.  This drift has accompanied his retreat from mainstream fame. As I've noted before, as he found his schtick falling out of favour and TV gigs more difficult to come by, he turned to the web and instead courted the crackpot audience: anti-vaxxers, extreme right-wing fringe conspiracies, crystals and mysticism.  It's a well trodden path that can bring you lots of clicks (which can translate into money) on platforms like You Tube.

Make no mistake, predators like Brand, particularly if they have fame and influence, will latch onto any cause, any bandwagon, that they think can get them what they want.  In Brand's case, when he first hit the big-time, those left-wing causes he sidled up to helped him connect with a potential audience: young, educated, often idealistic and naive people.  More importantly, it gave him access to young women who would look up to him.  The left, especially at its more extreme ends, has long been a happy hunting ground for those seeking sex - I recall that when I was a student, the Student Socialist Workers Party (SSWP) was well known for the number of attractive posh girls who joined it, mainly as an act of rebellion against their middle class upbringings. (Indeed, there was one girl, a redhead, I remember vividly - it was said that her father promised to buy her a new car for her twenty first birthday if she left the SSWP.  Well, she turned twenty one and suddenly lost interest in the SSWP in favour of her new set of wheels).  It was something of a running joke that blokes would join the SSWP (and the full fledged Socialist Workers Party,) just to meet 'posh birds'.  Anyway, getting back to Brand, as he got older and less popular, he realised his demographic and hunting ground lay online, with the middle aged cranks and crazies.  Speaking personally, I can't say that I had any kind of insight or inside knowledge about Brand's activities, but, like Jimmy Savile before him, I just knew that I thought him incredibly creepy.  I really didn't like him.  I tried to like him - everyone kept telling me that he was some kind of comedic genius.  But I just couldn't.  There was just something about him that meant that, if someone had accused him of sex offences back then, I wouldn't have been surprised.  (In point of fact, I believe that there were complaints, but, like Savile, Brand was famous, wealthy and litigious and could make them go away through threats of counter legal action).  So, there you go, just some random thoughts about another celebrity rapist.

Smut Hunters

It could be a whole new TV format - buying abandoned storage containers and searching them for pornography.  The idea occurred to me when I was reading about the Daily Mail or the Daily Express, (they're utterly interchangeable hate rags I really can't tell apart, so it could have been either), tracking down a storage unit in Brazil, or wherever, which had been owned by Meghan Markle's estranged father (who is accused of possessing child pornography) buying it and finding the unit packed full of smut of the most reprehensible kind.  Allegedly.  It made me think, what if that had happened in an episode of Storage Wars?  Could you imagine it, superannuated sex pest Barry collapses clutching his chest after finding a stash of hardcore in the unit he's just overbid on, (doubtless wondering if he'd somehow bought his own storage unit)?  Or perennial pantomime villain and profiteer Dave Hester landing a container full of high quality smut setting up in business as a porn vendor after valuing it all?  He could have a regular adult shop to shift the regular stuff and a dark web-based site to sell the under-the-counter too-kinky-for-public-consumption magazines and videos.  Mind you, the best bit would probably be when they took the stuff to be valued by an 'expert' - the sight of these guys having to skulk around some grimy backstreet pornographer's photo studio, or attending a full-blown porn shoot, or maybe a brothel in order to consult the local working girls over the value and desirability of second hand sex toys, would be priceless.

But, getting back to the original concept, just how could the idea be formatted for TV?  Could it simply be a case of our intrepid smut hunters combing the records of storage facilities to find units abandoned by celebrities, politicians or other notables, try to buy them, then scour them for compromising porn.  Naked and sexual photos of the former owners would also count.  Then, if you really wanted to be 'edgy', then you could have them see what the original owners are willing to pay to get their filth back. Which could, of course, risk getting busted on blackmail charges.  A slightly less contentious format might have the smut hunters blindly buying units which the production team have already established are likely to have porn in them, (I know, the idea of rigging a show like this in such a way is, frankly, unbelievable - but, hey, it's entertainment, folks), then, once they've successfully bid on them, have them trying to find out whose porn it actually is, before trying to sell it, (the more famous the owner, the higher the prices it would command, moreover, wealthy celebrity porn collectors would be more likely to have real rarities amongst their collections).   Ultimately, though, the real entertainment value would lie, as it does in the shows involving regular storage hunters, in watching a bunch of money-hungry guys scrabbling through heaps of crap, desperately looking for stacks of high-quality pornography, then laughing at how crushed they are after finding that the unit they paid a couple of thousand dollars for contained nothing more than a couple of copies of Reader's Wives, (not even famous reader's wives, just regular ones).  Another great TV idea to hawk around the tinpot digital channels...

Losing the Zeitgeist

There are two stories with regard to Andy Burnham that the right-wing media persist with - it doesn't seem to matter to them that their constant efforts to create these 'issues' are rebuffed or ignored by the public, they just keep on trying to push them.  The first is their obsession with the idea of Burnham calling an early election, despite Burnham having ruled such a move out.  Indeed, why on earth would a prime Minister who has inherited a huge parliamentary majority and still has at least half of this parliament's term to go, want to call an election right now?   There is absolutely no reason to do so.  I know that there is the usual bleating about 'unelected Prime Ministers' and how they need to get their own mandate from the electorate, but this sort of nonsense is only a talking point for the politically ignorant on social media, (as ever, here in the UK we don't elect Prime Ministers - we elect parliaments, it is for parliament to form governments and decide on PMs).  But the media can't forget the fact that they tried to destabilise Gordon Brown by constantly running stories about how he was going to call an early election after he succeeded Blair, citing their phoney 'sources close to government', then, when he didn't, after they had woven a complex fantasy they reported as 'fact', branded him a 'coward' for having 'backed out' of this phantom election.  Unfortunately for them, it seems that Burnham remembers their plays as well as I do and moved very quickly to deny any plans for an early election, taking the wind out of their sails, somewhat.

The second thing they keep trying to make an issue out of are his alleged relationship with the owners of Manchester City, back when he was Mayor of Manchester, attempting to build a story about 'political interference' in City's legal fight with the FA.  This one is based around his remark that he hoped that the verdict going against City wouldn't drive its Middle Eastern owners (who had invested a lot in not just the club, but the city, out of the UK altogether.  Which isn't the same thing at all as saying that City shouldn't be punished by the FA.  Although you wouldn't know that from the reporting,  But again, this story seems to have failed to build up any momentum with the wider public - most see the Manchester City business as being simply a football story without political ramifications.  But again, like that early election story, they keep on trying to make it fly.  The fact they keep persisting with these stories simply underlines the desperation that the right-wing press seem to feeling.  It isn't just that they can't anything, so far, that will really stick against Burnham and his government, it's that they can begin to see that the whole zeitgeist is slipping away from them.   Just look at how increasingly strident and desperate their defences of Brexit are becoming - it is becoming increasingly apparent that, thanks both to demographic changes in the electorate and the manifest economic damage caused to the economy by Brexit. public opinion on the issue has firmly shifted against them and Brexit.  The right-wing press' courting of the far right, particularly Farage and Reform UK is also now backfiring badly, with revelations about their financing and racial attitudes of many of their candidates, sending Reform on a downward spiral in the polls.  They are on the wrong side of history and they know it.  They just don't want to accept it.

A Lack of Restraint

It always perplexes me when I see industries or professional bodies asking governments institute regulatory frameworks for them.  I mean, why can't they do that for themselves?  Why are they apparently incapable of developing a series of ethical constraints upon themselves to guide their work?  I mean, it isn't difficult - most individuals are perfectly capable of defining an individual moral code by which they live, so why is it apparently so difficult of organisations?  Not that I'm saying that governments shouldn't be creating regulatory frameworks, it is, after all, one of the primary functions of government.   I'm just puzzled as to why these organisations can't make a start on such measures themselves.  Most recently, we've had various prominent figures in the AI industry making pleas for regulation of their work, in order to stop their creations from destroying humanity.  Which begs the obvious question: if you think that what you are doing is so dangerous, why don't you simply stop doing it yourselves?  The answer, of course, is because if they did that, then they wouldn't be getting all those billions of dollars of investment for their over-valued companies and they just can't bring themselves to forgo the prospect of all that cash and the prospect of future profits.  

In other words, like psychopaths, they have no moral constraints.  They just can't help themselves.  They are driven, primarily, by greed.  Which isn't just an indictment of them, but of modern capitalism in general - it promotes the idea that the profit motive outweighs all other considerations.  Even, apparently, the potential extinction of humanity.  If it isn't AI bosses creating potentially hazardous models in pursuit of profit, then it's the fossil fuel industry happily opposing green energy and encouraging the increased use of its toxic products regardless of the damage they are causing to the environment.  Because, Hell, who cares about the long-term?  In the long run, as Keynes observed, we're all dead, so it isn't going to be our problem.  (Which is precisely the mentality that lumbered us with Brexit - a bunch of superannuated old fogies voting to leave the EU without regard for the consequences because they wouldn't be around to see them.  They just wanted that quick victory so that they could shuffle off this mortal coil happy that they'd pissed on those bloody long haired, lefty, woke youngsters).  So, they all want to abdicate their responsibilities in favour of having regulation imposed upon them by government - which they can then rail against and blame for those falls in profits and/or lack of investment.  It gives them a 'Get Out of Jail Fee' card with regard to shareholders and investors, rather than being born of any real concerns about public safety.  Well, come the revolution, comrades...

Middle Class Whingers

You know the worst thing about this week's budget?  The fact that it has brought out in force the middle class do-gooder whingers.  You know what I mean.  'Oh, these measures will only reduce bills by £45 (or whatever) a year, this just isn't good enough. What use is that?'  OK, I won't deny that I've sometimes said similar things, but the fact is that we are saying them from a position of privilege.  Forty five quid (or whatever), might not sound like much of a saving to us, but, believe me, for those living on a shoestring, as the poorest people have no choice but to do, forty five quid can seem like a fortune.  Of course, those privileged, middle class 'socialists' who like to lecture the rest of us on 'how terrible poverty is', actually have little or no idea what not having any money is actually like.  As someone who was once down , quite literally, to their last few quid and came within a hairs breadth of defaulting on their mortgage, (I quite literally had enough in the bank for one more payment), I'd like to think that I do have some idea of what life is like living on the breadline.  OK, I was lucky, before I had to make that payment, I managed to get some work.  It was casual work with horrible hours and shitty pay, but it enabled me to keep a roof over my head.  Just.  The amount I had left over to buy food and pay bills was paltry and had to be very carefully managed.  Some tough choices had to be made.

Even when did get a full-time job, the pay was still shitty, so I had to keep on making those choices, learning how to like supermarket economy brands, where to find cheap clothes (and how to learn to put up with wearing socks with more holes than fabric and underpants with the arse out them for far longer than was comfortable), learning how to minimise the amount of heat I could live with in my house during the winter.  Any saving and I mean any saving, no matter how tiny, I could make was a Godsend.   So please, middle class whingers, don't patronise the poor by dismissing what you think are paltry savings that they might be able to make as a result of this week's budget.  In fact, please just fuck off.  These middle class wankers are a large part of what is wrong with the 'left' in this country.  It used to be that these middle class do-gooders were confined to the Liberal Party (or Lib Dems or whatever the fuck else it is that they call themselves).  You know the sort: always wringing their hands at the plight of those 'poor people' - not that they knew any themselves and they definitely wouldn't want them in their houses, but it helped salve their consciences to throw them a few scraps and congratulate themselves for their enlightened generosity.  What they definitely didn't want was for those oiks to get sufficient help to better themselves and - horror of horrors - get their own hands on the levers of power.  Which is why they identified as Liberals and decried the Labour Party.  But now they seem to surround every bloody proposed Labour policy, tut-tutting their disapproval whilst simultaneously claiming to be 'socialists'.  Jesus, just fuck off, will you? 

After Hours: Those Horrible Sexy Ghosts

 

Another trip 'After Hours' to meet the medium who claims to be able to match you up with your perfect spirit lover via his dating seances, before we drop into some late-night radio talk debating whether Haitian immigrants eat pets or raise zombies. The-Man-in-the-Pub, meanwhile, recalls that 'Hijab Halloween', when his friend claimed to have become the target of trick-or-treating suicide bombers. A top secret report reveals some disturbing facts about US executions - is the electric chair creating super-charged, revenge-seeking, zombies? We also drop in on the WNKR Evening News for a discussion of a possible trick-or-treat assassination plot against President Trump, before intrepid reporter Charles Coalshed investigates the truth behind reports that raw sewage being dumped in Britain's rivers is creating a strange - and squelchy - new lifeform. 

After Hours was created using FreeTTS, ChatGPT Reader and Google AI Studio. Sound effects by Freesound Community via Pixababy.com. Music: ‘The Wavering Theramin’ versions 1 & 2 by Cosmiczebra via Suno.ai. Opening theme ‘Twilight Static’ and closing theme ‘Twilight Sunder’ by Doc Sleaze via Freemusic.ai. 

Another month, another episode.  As this one is being put out close to Halloween, it has an overall horror/supernatural theme.  Keeping the running time was, again, a big problem.  Having brought the last one in at just under thirty minutes, I thought that I was on target for a similar running time this edition - the first segments I recorded all came in at shorter than usual lengths, but when I put it all together, it was way over length.  So, as I couldn't be arsed to ditch some items and replace them with shorter pieces, I instead did some judicious editing on a couple of the existing segments.