Misremembered Nursery Rhymes

My eyes feel bleary this morning; as bleary, in fact, as the needle in Jimmy Carr’s moral compass after its rapid 180. So he now admits to having been in the wrong over his financial affairs. All is right with the world and he’ll soon have new material for his next show. He’ll mention taxes, give a coquettish look to crowd and people will applaud. As Arthur Smith (a true comedian and a man always worth listening to) said just 18 hours ago: ‘Jimmy Carr's tax avoidance cannot be morally wrong since he does it in an ironic way.’ And as they always say about good jokes: it’s good because it’s funny but good because it’s also true.

What I find strange is the number of people still defending Carr. I understand, of course, that no laws were broken and that nobody likes paying taxes. However, I also understand that in some people’s eyes, celebrities can do no wrong. It’s one of the things I discovered when pretending to be a celebrity: that people will always stand by you, no matter how dumb you act, how ignorant the comments you make, how rudely you treat them. I often wonder if future historians will give a name for this period in our history which reflects the morally vacuous celebrity culture that has taken over all our lives. The Dark Ages, The Enlightenment, and Restoration all seem perfectly applicable to their times. Postmodern doesn’t do this moment of history justice. We’re living in The Great Decline or the Celebocracy. Would I even be talking about this if it had been some bank manager caught fiddling his taxes? I doubt if I would. I’m as bad as anybody.

Okay, enough rambling nonsense. I have my own reasons for second thoughts this AM. I worked late last night on this blog’s makeover and wake up thinking that it’s still not quite right. I felt I wanted this place to look a little different after the rather understated previous design. I’ve always liked strange fonts (Kliban did a wonderful ‘barf bold’ which is something to see) and I wanted to try one of my own. They don’t usually work out but I’m quite pleased with my efforts. I might add to it. I might not. We’ll see. I’m intending to start work on an animation this morning, which shouldn’t take as long as others. I want to try a few different techniques I’ve been reading about. For that reason, not one of my better cartoons today.