SCENE The writer, a greying man in his early forties, sits at a table gazing at a job advert on his computer screen which calls for "Misfits and Weirdoes". It sounds a cushy number, a highly paid government job just for being an antisocial closet eugenicist, easy money. But he wonders whether or not he qualifies as weird enough. Sure, he has a fairly standard set of eccentricities, still buys a newspaper, doesn't drive, is prone to doing Noel Coward impressions at the drop of a hat, likes County cricket. But do these foibles make him weird enough? What curious trait can he exhibit to set him apart from the rest? How, in short, without going Full Nazi, is he going to distinguish himself from his fellow applicants?
THE WRTITER: I've got it! I'll say I don't care about Question Time. That'll do the trick. Everyone always bangs on about it, like when Laurence Fox was a pillock or that racist was a racist. And then they all say how awful it is. How better to prove how aloof I am, how above the fray, how original a thinker? Surely Classic Dom will admire this streak of individualism?
As it turns out, I didn't get the gig. What they actually wanted was someone to publicly float the idea of selling poor people for parts whilst simultaneously opining that non-white people should be used as makeshift flood defences because "they don't float", whilst citing the "free of exchange of ideas" and me ma would have given me a right clip round the ear if I'd done that. So back to the day job it is.
But the not giving a shit about QT part is entirely true. I mention it only as its hapless host, part-time vase-botherer Fiona Bruce, has been all over the papers this week saying blimey, I didn't realise they'd all be such wankers (or words to that effect), to which the only reasonable response is, what on Earth did you expect?
Strange as it may seem, there was once a time when the Beeb's flagship political discussion/public bear-baiting (delete as applicable) programme was, if not required viewing, at least mildly illuminating, as people of various political persuasions batted around differences of opinion with relative civility, before a politely receptive audience. Not particularly entertaining, I grant you, but people asked questions, and people were given answers. It did largely what it said on the tin. There was very little in the way of red faced men and women of a certain age banging on about "they" should all be "sent back"
At some point over the last few years, Mentorn Media, the company which produces the programme, clearly decided that this wasn't cutting the mustard any more. There was probably a meeting where someone used the word "zeitgeist" in cold blood, worse still, other people probably nodded at it. I suspect it started with the highly controversial booking of the BNPs Nick Griffin back in 2009. QT was suddenly in the news in a way it never had been before, as a large number of people reasonably (and less reasonably) questioned the platforming of a man who was, after all, an out and out fascist. QT argued that the BNP had a large number of councillors and were clearly enfranchised by a significant proportion of the electorate, and that not to allow him on would run counter to the show's ethos of free speech. They managed to say this with a straight face whilst banking the notoriety and beaming at the ratings (in the event, I would argue that his abject, hopeless performance did more to destroy the BNP as an electoral force than any number of pissed off Guardian op-eds).
This furore, I suspect, started the old warhorse's transformation into its modern, clickbaity equivalent, the logical endpoint of which has been reached this year, with the viral clip of the actual batshit racist dong the rounds, and poor, dim, Laurence Fox getting hopelessly out of his depth and tanking his career for the time being.
There have been countless column inches written about the culture war we are apparently currently engaged in, and I don't propose to add too many more, but I suspect that the needlessly confrontational turn that the once staid QT has taken of late is a combination of two things: deliberate decisions taken by Mentorn Media, and a natural consequence of the febrile, unsubtle times in which we find ourselves.
How else to explain the regular booking of Nigel Farage, a man who has been on the show no fewer than 32 times? A man who starts new political parties as a whim, who's had his brain beaten out at every General Election he's ever contested, a fisheries commissioner who never went to any meetings? That QT have chosen to put him on so many times is meat and drink to a man who is as much carnival barker as he is politician (as a side-note, I wonder how all the people who stumped up a hundred quid for the chance to stand as a Brexit Party MP feel about him scooting off and launching yet another new party? Where on Earth did all that money go?), it's also a significant contributor to his public profile. But he's clearly not there on merit, he's there because he's box office, because he speaks to a section of the audience that aren't natural BBC viewers. This cold blooded, ratings-based decision effectively meant that QT ceased to be about the questions, and became instead about the personalities.
As to the audience, they too are hand-picked by Mentorn Media, there have been countless incidences of audience members turning out to be party activists or councillors of various stripes. This rather gives the lie to the notion that the show is about ordinary members of the public asking questions; it is propaganda by the back-door, with a window-dressing of "balance". When an angry racist starts shouting about being "flooded" by immigrants, or a well known actor accuses someone of being racist towards him because he's white, it is many things: it is catnip for social media warriors (on each side of the divide, the perpetually outraged versus the permanently aggrieved), it is a sure-fire ratings booster, it is column inches in the press, it is the programme becoming the story. What it isn't is in any way a serious or important programme. It doesn't reflect the country at large, it's merely an opportunity for a few chancers to spout a couple of glib soundbites about the issues of the day. No one changes their mind about anything, everyone gets more and more wound up and Mentorn Media piss their sides laughing all the way to the bank.
It's taken me a while to learn this, spending the last few years fighting the Brexit Internet wars, but sometimes it's best not to engage at all. And I'd say that leaving QT the hell alone is certainly better for one's mental health than watching it, it's almost as good a decision as choosing not to read the comments. I don't particularly think that "prat says stupid thing" counts as much of a news story, and that's the only one they've got.
THE WRTITER: I've got it! I'll say I don't care about Question Time. That'll do the trick. Everyone always bangs on about it, like when Laurence Fox was a pillock or that racist was a racist. And then they all say how awful it is. How better to prove how aloof I am, how above the fray, how original a thinker? Surely Classic Dom will admire this streak of individualism?
As it turns out, I didn't get the gig. What they actually wanted was someone to publicly float the idea of selling poor people for parts whilst simultaneously opining that non-white people should be used as makeshift flood defences because "they don't float", whilst citing the "free of exchange of ideas" and me ma would have given me a right clip round the ear if I'd done that. So back to the day job it is.
But the not giving a shit about QT part is entirely true. I mention it only as its hapless host, part-time vase-botherer Fiona Bruce, has been all over the papers this week saying blimey, I didn't realise they'd all be such wankers (or words to that effect), to which the only reasonable response is, what on Earth did you expect?
Strange as it may seem, there was once a time when the Beeb's flagship political discussion/public bear-baiting (delete as applicable) programme was, if not required viewing, at least mildly illuminating, as people of various political persuasions batted around differences of opinion with relative civility, before a politely receptive audience. Not particularly entertaining, I grant you, but people asked questions, and people were given answers. It did largely what it said on the tin. There was very little in the way of red faced men and women of a certain age banging on about "they" should all be "sent back"
At some point over the last few years, Mentorn Media, the company which produces the programme, clearly decided that this wasn't cutting the mustard any more. There was probably a meeting where someone used the word "zeitgeist" in cold blood, worse still, other people probably nodded at it. I suspect it started with the highly controversial booking of the BNPs Nick Griffin back in 2009. QT was suddenly in the news in a way it never had been before, as a large number of people reasonably (and less reasonably) questioned the platforming of a man who was, after all, an out and out fascist. QT argued that the BNP had a large number of councillors and were clearly enfranchised by a significant proportion of the electorate, and that not to allow him on would run counter to the show's ethos of free speech. They managed to say this with a straight face whilst banking the notoriety and beaming at the ratings (in the event, I would argue that his abject, hopeless performance did more to destroy the BNP as an electoral force than any number of pissed off Guardian op-eds).
This furore, I suspect, started the old warhorse's transformation into its modern, clickbaity equivalent, the logical endpoint of which has been reached this year, with the viral clip of the actual batshit racist dong the rounds, and poor, dim, Laurence Fox getting hopelessly out of his depth and tanking his career for the time being.
There have been countless column inches written about the culture war we are apparently currently engaged in, and I don't propose to add too many more, but I suspect that the needlessly confrontational turn that the once staid QT has taken of late is a combination of two things: deliberate decisions taken by Mentorn Media, and a natural consequence of the febrile, unsubtle times in which we find ourselves.
How else to explain the regular booking of Nigel Farage, a man who has been on the show no fewer than 32 times? A man who starts new political parties as a whim, who's had his brain beaten out at every General Election he's ever contested, a fisheries commissioner who never went to any meetings? That QT have chosen to put him on so many times is meat and drink to a man who is as much carnival barker as he is politician (as a side-note, I wonder how all the people who stumped up a hundred quid for the chance to stand as a Brexit Party MP feel about him scooting off and launching yet another new party? Where on Earth did all that money go?), it's also a significant contributor to his public profile. But he's clearly not there on merit, he's there because he's box office, because he speaks to a section of the audience that aren't natural BBC viewers. This cold blooded, ratings-based decision effectively meant that QT ceased to be about the questions, and became instead about the personalities.
As to the audience, they too are hand-picked by Mentorn Media, there have been countless incidences of audience members turning out to be party activists or councillors of various stripes. This rather gives the lie to the notion that the show is about ordinary members of the public asking questions; it is propaganda by the back-door, with a window-dressing of "balance". When an angry racist starts shouting about being "flooded" by immigrants, or a well known actor accuses someone of being racist towards him because he's white, it is many things: it is catnip for social media warriors (on each side of the divide, the perpetually outraged versus the permanently aggrieved), it is a sure-fire ratings booster, it is column inches in the press, it is the programme becoming the story. What it isn't is in any way a serious or important programme. It doesn't reflect the country at large, it's merely an opportunity for a few chancers to spout a couple of glib soundbites about the issues of the day. No one changes their mind about anything, everyone gets more and more wound up and Mentorn Media piss their sides laughing all the way to the bank.
It's taken me a while to learn this, spending the last few years fighting the Brexit Internet wars, but sometimes it's best not to engage at all. And I'd say that leaving QT the hell alone is certainly better for one's mental health than watching it, it's almost as good a decision as choosing not to read the comments. I don't particularly think that "prat says stupid thing" counts as much of a news story, and that's the only one they've got.
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