33 minutes into 2015 seems like a good time to wish you all a Happy New Year. Well, I say 'all' but I really mean my regular readers. I also wanted to say that one of my resolutions for this year was to remain upbeat, non-judgmental, less critical of our culture, and stop insulting anything that I feel is too lowbrow...
Except I started the year watching BBC1, presented by the deeply irritating Gemma Cairney, all inverted snorts and open mouthed excitement, who told me to 'grab somebody to snog' and to 'carry on drinking'. How much do the BBC pay this witless oaf to come out with this stuff? Is this what we've become as a nation? It sometimes feels like we've handed New Year over to be produced by the brassy and brash, presented by the loud and guffawing. Village idiots are in charge at the BBC and they're earning a bloody fortune.
It's a shame because the fireworks in London were spectacular but they always are. Yet every year my first thought is: does actually find this hyperactive looped XFactor shite bearable? Why is our national celebration run by the US Army's psychological operations group, clearly trying to get some South American dictator out of a church? Wasn't there a report recently saying they shouldn't be allowed to torture innocents? So why do I end up having to watch the fireworks with the TV muted just to stop the looped abattoir sounds from inflaming my auditory nerves? Why must we endure such a deeply depressing example of our national mediocrity at the start of the New Year? Has the entire country been taken over by the zombified acolytes of bad ITV talent shows? Are we all spray tanned orange or wearing muscle vests? Or in the case of the slack jawed Cairney, a jacket made from the blue plumage plucked from the arse end of Rod Hull's emu.
Speaking of the crass and unnecessary: I never much liked Queen when Freddie Mercury was alive but this reanimated version feels like something dreamed up in hell by Jimmy sodding Savile comiting his last crime against humanity. Why does every national event have to involve Brian May doing his splay-legged whining 24th fret bollock fiddling?
The point is: tastes are diverse so why not aim for something relatively neutral? I'd never subject people to the music I enjoy. Nick Cave belting out a murder ballad might not be for everybody enjoying New Year. PJ Harvey might not be very festive. Yet why can't other people be as considerate? I'm not a huge fan of classical music. I own, maybe, five or six albums which I rarely listen to. Yet classical music is widely accepted as being neutral. A few pieces were even written specifically for firework displays, and, here's a crazy left of center idea: perhaps, they might distinguish London's celebrations from every other city so paranoid about their history that they're all desperate to be seen as young and vigorous. The only vigorous thing I felt this evening was the need to shake the TV whenever the gormless Carney opened her mouth wider than it already was.
Sadly, I remember when New Year TV was witty and topical and just a little bit intelligent. What's happened at the BBC? Why must these witless bastards subject me to this hell every year? Why do they have to assume that everybody is already paralytic and in the mood to grope? Why do the BBC act as though the whole nation is involved in an extended Caledonian remake of Caligula? Why do the BBC have to put me in such a crap mood only minutes into a New Year?
And yes: bang goes resolution Number 1.
Happy New Year.
Agreed. She's an example of the BBC at its worst. A presenter more suited to children's tv and even then you'd wonder about the kind of example she sets. The BBC at New Year is unwatchable. Makes me wish they'd even bring back Angus Deaton.
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