Not the Delicious Sugary Wonka Ones

GSGC is thinking tonight about nerds, and now so are you. From the earliest cave painting of a weedy caveman who's rubbish at mammoth catching through to the Milhouse and Mosses of the modern televisual hoo-hah, these intellectual-yet-puny cornerstones of our society have been found in entertainment media since time began.

Yet they've only recently become the stars in their own right, instead of having to loan technical support and trivia hoo-hah to some handsome jerk instead (1980s frat-comedy Revenge of the Nerds aside). Channel 4's the IT Crowd plants a pair of socially inept computer dorks in the limelight, centering its plots on their cunning outwitting of their less-technically minded bosses and perplexion at the operation of normal social activity. Meanwhile, e4 import The Big Bang Theory cranks up the social inability even further, smattering its cast of science dorks with every cliché out of the big book of nerdish stereotypes. While they're still undeniably the heroes, in both shows the character we're meant to cheer along the most is the one with the biggest inkling of how everyone else operates. The one closest to normdom, the least offensive one to their fully functional, twenty-twenty, non-coke bottle-glasses eyes.

On first viewing of The Big Bang Theory, I was so disappointed as to be offended. The show's portrayal of nerdkind was seen through the eyes of norms, and it was a cruel one. We were clowns to them, nothing more than bumbling idiots with glasses, comic books and an inability to talk to girls, sweeping generalizations which are only mostly true. While I've come round to the show's charms since that day, the fact remains that its portrayals of nerds are no better than those of the fat kids who got sat on and flushed down the toilet all the time in Grange Hill, or even worse, that one that was in The Breakfast Club*.

Nerd power as a social movement has grown hugely since the days of Ro-land, though. Nerds are the richest men in the world now, there's a nerd in the White House, and thanks to the Internet a million bored office workers owe nerds a debt they can never repay. And yet. Mainstream media hangs on to the lazy image of the nerd, frozen in the 70s, and by watching it in droves, the nerd masses implicitly capitulate. Vote with your remotes, fellow dorks. End nerdsplotation today.


* He should have got the girl - why did that stupid jock get the girl? What a cop out. He was the most decent human being among them, and yet all he got out of the thing is an important lesson about himself. This is two years post-WarGames, which proved that nerds could do awesome stuff like save the world, and yet nobody's willing to give a high school nerd a punt at getting the girl if he's not going to save the world. I'm not bitter, honest.

Eleven of One, Only One of T'other

It's a retroventure this evening, as GSGC turns its snobbishly loquacious eye on BBC4 this 7.30pm and a repeat of Richard Something-or-other (I'll be hereby saying 'Beckinsale' even though I know that's entirely untrue)'s classic historical jaunt series, War Walks. As a youth, I recall watching this one of an evening, and being excited by the whole notion of wars and walking around them, what with all the fighting and explosions and people dying in brilliant ways. Now I'm a namby leftist peacenik and I'm no longer a fan of fighting and people dying (explosions are still brilliant, though), let's give it a whirl with grown up eyes.

With an epic 'tache, looking like that one what was in Last of the Summer Wine, Richard not-Beckinsale introduces our locale du jour, today Bosworth, where Richard III got deaded by the Tudors, in a big fight he knew he couldn't win. Then, he bobs around some contemporary tapestries and portraits, explaining the political whatnots leading up to the big scrap of the day. It's standard-issue historical stuff, all kings and barons and no poor people unless absolutely necessary, which fits into not-Beckinsale's lovely BBC accent in a way that talking about peasants, pig-farmin' and being poor just never could.

Fifteen minutes of that and there's still been no walking, making me wonder if I could get a bit of my license fee back under Trades Descriptions. Instead, he has a chat with a local Bosworth barmaid and churchwarden who both reckoned, without any possible evidence to back their claims, that Dicky Three was actually one of the goodies, and that they'd've been cheering him on from the sidelines if they could only go back to 1485. If anything, I wish I could get my license fee back even more after that.

Ten minutes left, and at best not-Beckinsale has done a bit of sauntering at best, and no walking to speak of. He also rode a horse a bit. Instead, he's been watching the 'war' bit of the programme, provided by some typically worryingly keen re-enacters. This kind of thing always looks rubbish on the telly, because there's never enough of them for a proper war, and the ones that there are are never dedicated enough to their art to want to get stabbed. Then some bloke in post-production plays some clanging and vague shouting sounds over the top in an effort to help out. Never works.

Five minutes to go till programme's end, and finally Richard not-Beckinsale deigns to do a bit of the promised walking. He does a good job, too, with the classic one-foot-in-front-of-the-other technique we've all come to expect from a walker of this man's standing. Alas, he's just not putting in the effort - a thirty second piece to camera here, a two minute wander up to a stone there, it's really not what the fans have come to expect. Overall, an unbalanced effort from the wandering academic, who seems to have forgotten he's go two mandates to cover in this show. Conclusion: should be called "War and Fighting and Kings and That and a Little Bit of Wandering.”

Mighty White

Tuesday - it's the new Thursday, apparently. Which used to be the new Monday, itself being a replacement for the old Friday. Sitcoms, they get about, don't they? Time was you could turn on the telly on a Friday night and there'd be something on to make you feel better about not having any friendss to go to the pub with, but nowadays they throw you a paltry documentary about Concorde and the implication that everyone else is out having fun without you instead.

But I digress. More than usual. My intention was just to point out that BBC Two are showing comedy on a Tuesday night nowadays. Alan "rumour has it he bit a tramp once" Davies gets a 9pm billing in Whites, where he's been asked to grow a Marco Pierre White beard just to rub it in a bit. I was prepared to diss it with vitriol and evil, but then Issy Suttie and Jen out of off'f The IT Crowd appeared within two minutes of each other and delivered cracking performances, so I thought I'd stick it out. Super Hans out of off'f Peep Show gets a look-in later on, too, but the problem with Super Hans out of off'f Peep Show is that no matter which role he's playing, you always hear Super Hans out of off'f Peep Show and assume that whenever he's out of shot he's probably smoking some bloody lovely crack. Which is a shame, because he's actually played all kinds of non-crack related roles, but you just can't see past the crack. It's a kind of mental typecasting; he could play Harold Wilson, and all you'd be thinking was "I bet that's not tobacco in that pipe".

Anyway, long story short, thanks to a particuarly excellent supporting cast I warmed to the whole thing by the end, despite a script which veered from so-so to actually-alright-really-I-suppose; despite Alan Davies, whom I can't generally tolerate for too long without wanting to pull off my ears; even despite the trailer for Jools Holland afterwards which made me want to pull off his ears (he's a horrible little suckup, isn't he?). Which came as a bit of a surprise, but I'll roll with it. At least it's not Harry and Paul, which was on afterwards and did nothing but make me long for the Fast Show. Which itself probably wasn't that great, actually, but at least I was young enough to not know better.

Tomorrow: I might just watch a documentary on BBC4 about paintings or Jesus or something, if you’re lucky.

Nice Ahse, Darlin'

GSGC returns to our fancy modern flatscreens in an inauspiciously rubbish way, by means of no wifi in my hotel and a bit of fiddling with a USB stick the day after. For lack of anything better, your daring reviewer is watching a possibly-new episode of Grand Designs (More4, 9pm). Tonight's idiots wanting to build an inefficiently-costed house are a Sue Perkins-alike and a confused-looking bloke who are desperate to go live in a hobbit-hole underneath an old crumbling barn in the middle of a field.

Why bother with the barn bit and not just dig a big hole? I don't know either, but someone at the local council planning department thinks it's funny, because they've demanded our idiots leave the barn perfectly intact. What an awesome job that dude must have. It's like he knew they were going to be on Grand Designs and reckoned they could do with a bit more of a challenge. Perhaps he reasoned as I do, that the odds of anyone nowadays building a pretentious super-middle-class house in a field not being on some kind of telly programme are rapidly approaching zero, so he took a punt and is, as I type, sitting in his bedsit chuckling into his pot noodle at an irritating sabotage well done. I salute you, Mr Council Planning Department Man; you've done a narratively important thing. Hope the troubles with your wife blow over and you can move back in soon.

The reason we (and by 'we', I mean 'me'. Well, 'I', grammatically speaking) watch Grand Designs, in determined opposition to the reasons we watch most other telly, is in order to watch people succeed. Nobody cares who wins the Apprentice, we just tune in to watch shitbags be shitbags to each other, in an environment wher there aren't any non-shitbags around to get hit with the crossfire. Nobody likes the people who successfully pitch to Dragon's Den, they're all smug arseholes. But the ones who try to get 200k for a badger eyepatch factory: we'll watch those idiots all day. What awful people we are. By which I mean, what an awful person I am.

Except when I watch Grand Designs, and I have no idea why. By all the standards of the glowing box of judgement, I should be hoping this eco-hobbit hole falls down on the heads of these creatures who dare aspire to live in a nice house. I should be appalled that by the end they've gone and made a quite nice hole with a lovely view of some fields where they can sit and drink ice tea and say 'rah' with their friends. But I'm not. If I may sum up in my best Kevin McCloud impression, that's the real achievement of Grand Designs. Anyone can film some people building a house, but it takes a certain magic, a commitment to making you not hate people, a reminder that nice houses are nice no matter how irritatingly smug and privileged their builders, to make a Grand Design.

Tomorrow: GSGC watches something else, hopefully a bit more writing-worthy.

Glee Is a Synonym of Happiness

At first glance, I carefully decided that my opinion of Glee (E4, just now, don'cha'know) was that it was like Ed or the Gilmore Girls, but on prime time telly for some reason. Possibly it's even like Judging Amy, but I wouldn't know as I only watched that once. Regardless, this is one of the greatest compliments a fifth-rate TV blogger can offer, so pay attention at the back there.

At second glance, I decided to throw Britannia High, High School Musical and The Biz into the mix, because I'm mad like that and every other review in the world ever won't get away without mentioning at least one of the above, so I at least fit into the safety of the fold here. Luckily, though, the comparisons are wasted, because the only thing shared between Glee and the above three are singing and education, while everything else is thrown into the bins of awful-and-possibly-forgotten children's programming where it belongs.

The show's dialogue is chock-full of the kind of fast-talkin' smooth understandin' characteristic of the higher quality US soap operas (or "comedy-dramas" if you're a bit up yourself) so beloved of E4 afternoon schedulers. This results in everyone, from intellectual and vaguely disaffected teachers to high school drama queens and attendant nerds all talk like they were flicking through the dictionary just before they walked into shot and still manage to get away with it.

For those of us who love to flick through dictionaries before we walk anywhere, this is awesometastic.

As is legally required in programmes of the type mentioned above, the cast consists entirely of variously lovable characters all of whom are quirky in some obvious yet for some reason entirely forgiveable way. There's the quirkily crazy teacher-with-a-crush-on-another-teacher, the quirkily mad drama queen, the quirkily steroidy gym teacher lady and the quirkily whatever everyone else. It's a high school, so you can pretty much fill in the rest of the stereotypes yourself and then just add the epithet 'quirky' in there somewhere, it probably won't matter where. Don't feel bad about it, because that's evidently what Glee's writers have done. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it rather handily saves the programme about sixty minutes' worth of tiresome character introduction, because you already know who everyone is by looking at them. That way, they can get on with a standard loser-bulling based plotline and still fit one in about how being a teacher is apparently an awfully-paid job and any teachers with kids on the way should quit and become accountants in the first hour. Also, the music's awesome! There's Journey, for one, and then a load of a capella stuff over scene transitions and montages.

For those of us who love Journey and a capella hoo-hah, this is equally awesometastic. Somehow, though, the bit where the two are combined manages to suck monkey balls, but you can't have everything.

So, in brief: Glee is good, but then again, so were Ed and the Gilmore Girls, and you never watched them either, you bastards. It's like you don't even care.

Your Democracy Pounds At Work

As of the start of this paragraph, the eager eyes of umpteen million political car-crash loving viewers are only thirteen minutes away from seeing Britain's most popular fascist appear on BBC One's flagship political debate show. The previous sentence was never one I foresaw myself typing during my short and anteillustrious blogging non-career, but there we are, I've been forced into it by the moronic actions of a million protest-vote cretins. If not for them, GSGC could have continued to wallow in internet obscurity.

So, our Question Time players for tonight, shortly to be introduced by BBC super-stalwart Dimbleby, include Demon Headmaster clone and Justice Minister (surely a job for a Demon Headmaster itself) Jack Straw, woman who appears in the Guardian and the Indy a lot Bonnie Greer, generic Lib Dem Chris Huhne, Conservative something-or-other Baroness Warsi (didn't she write the Scarlet Pimpernel?), and a room full of angry hippies and BNP supporters on their best behaviour. Oh, and a fat racist.

And we're off! To answer Mark Lawson's question posed in the G2 this morning, Griffin's been sat second from the right, with Bonnie Greer on one side and Dimbleby on the other. I note she's got her back to the racist swine, in quite a fantastic gesture of pretending he doesn't exist. She keeps this up throughout the show, even when addressing him directly, and sometimes when pointing viciously at him. Her eyes are locked directly on the studio lights, presumably so she can blind herself and not have to see him at the end when she gets up.

First question about how shit the BNP is goes to Jack Straw, who says yes, they're well shit, because they define themselves on race. He goes on to talk about how the World Wars were won by so many black and asian soldiers. Griffin bats back with "Churchill hated Muslims" and "my Dad was in the RAF while yours was a consciencious objector." That was, of course, fucking cheap, and the audience ain't buying it. Dimbleby calls him on his bullshit, which he pretends to ignore.

A black bloke in the audience asks why Griffin won't acknowledge the contribution immigrants like his parents have made. Racism-chops reckons he's been misquoted, but won't say which quotes in the media were false. Not even the one about holocaust denial.

Baroness Warsi digs out a quote from a (presumably former, by the way fatty denies it) communications type calling Churchill a "bleeping bleep" (bless the BBC compliance department) who shouldn't have joined the war. Griffin splutters. He'll be doing that a lot tonight.

A bloke at the back of the room has just noted that Enoch Powell had the same attitudes as Griffin. He seems to be reading it as given that the room liked Powell, for some mad reason. Then it's Huhne's go to have a dig at the racist nobhead, finding his own quote-of-evil. I couldn't really concentrate on it, mind, because I just realised how much Chris Huhne looked like the deputy head at my primary school.

Anyway, just tuned in on Dimbleby observing that he's on Youtube hanging out with the head of the KKK. Griffin denies it, saying he was only the leader of "a Ku Klux Klan, an almost totally non-violent one". He's looking ever more blustery, even trying for a rabble rousing "why should anyone trust any politician" line, normally the kind to make the QT audiences scream with approval, but the best he gets is a don't-try-to-play-us murmur. Jack Straw calls him the Dr. Strangelove of British politics, which was actually a fucking nice comparison.

What the hell IS an ethnic minority, asks some girl, in the audience, followed by why did you deny the holocaust from an unfortunately stereotypical Jewish-looking lad. I can't explain because of the law! claims Tubby, shot down by the two people in the room who pretty much make said law. He stutters and blusters on, and then Dimbleby says its time to move on.

"Why is Islam a wicked and vicious faith" asks an audience chappy. Griffin replies it's because a
literal interpretation of the Koran would be well bad, with the stoning and the whipping and that. Britain should remain a Christian country, he claims, rather missing all those nasty things in the Christian holy book. Warsi gets another dig in, and says he brings Christianity into disrepute.
I'm going to stop mentioning when people get a dig in, otherwise this will be a long read. Bonnie Greer's coming in with a nice speech about how selective Nick Griffin is about British history, which in his book seems to start at 700AD. Later, Fatty Grffin reckons the English have been here for over seventeen thousand years. Bonnie Greer corrects him, pointing out that the only humans present at that point were Neanderthals. She's too classy to point out the obvious gag, mind.

We're 35 minutes in, and it looks like the whole thing's descending into a BNP-bashing circus. Obviously the panel can only work with the questions they're given, but nobody wants to get off the subject of what a bunch of shits they are and how wrong they are to be racist. Obviously, none of this needs saying, and everyone spending an entire political panel show reiterating it gives too much attention to them. Having said that, we are now onto Labour's immigration policies, and Warsi's taken the opportunity to point out her lot would change immigration for the better. But not in a racist way. But for the better. But not racist. Ad infinitum. Tubby seems to be taking notes, so look out for a recycling of this bit for future misquote purposes.

Good ol' Jack Straw. He's almost certainly espousing some kind of clever policy on immigration now, but I can't for the life of me concentrate on his hypnotically boring voice.

A bloke at the back shouts out that we should kick 'em all out, or similar. He's wearing a horrible yellow jumper, and he asked the question about Enoch Powell earlier. Another bloke sat in front of him goes yeeurrr. I can see where the dickhead contingent's sitting, now.

Chris Huhne's dropping a classic Lib Dem trick now, by dissing things that any previous Tory or Labour government's done. It's one of those that only a party which hasn't been in power since the fifties can't pull off, unless Jack Straw later intends to have a go at past Liberal policies on gramophone ownership or mangles.

A bloke now has a question for 'Dick' Griffin. There's a cheer, like you'd get in the school cafeteria when someone drops a plate.

"Under ten minutes left, and I didn't want this whole programme to be about the BNP" - Dimbleby there, demonstrating how little control he really had over proceedings tonight. Still, we now have a question about whether the Daily Mail should have printed the Jan Moir article about Stephen Gately. Is this a weak parrallel for racism on Question Time I spy? Of course it fucking well is, and Bonnie Greer is so damn careful to not look Captain Racism in the eye while she approves of Jan Moir's right to write the article while at the same time knocking her prejudice. Chris Huhne has a go, too, but drops the ball by mentioning the racist elephant in the room. Damn it, man, try to emulate some Greer-class!

Tubby has a go at the teaching of "homosexuality... indeed, any sex, to primary school children", which would indicate that breeding rates in a BNP-led Britain would be likely to shoot through the roof. He also claims "there is no head of the Christian sect in Britain" which rather makes me wonder what exactly the Queen's job is, then.

"The British people have too much common sense" says our Bonnie, with regards to being swayed by Griffin's appearance on QT. Judging by the standard of common sense I see out in the street, the average BNP voter must have less than most doormats.

And so, with a little more bluster and racist-dissing, Dimbleby calls a halt, and the credits roll. So what have we learnt tonight? That racists appear to melt under studio lights, and that members of the Big Three political parties are always willing to climb all over each other to point out how not racist they are. We've learnt that Bonnie Greer is the epitome of class, while I'm quite the opposite, choosing to refer to a man's unsightly waist a little too often for humour. It's alright, he's a racist; racists don't have feelings. We've learnt that grey hair and headmastery appearances are de rigeur when it comes to putting down bigotry, and that my usual style of televisual blog-review doesn't work as well with political hot topics as with glossy entertainment shows. This is almost certainly because Nick Griffin doesn't have a very good tan, what with needing to look whiter than Daz.

The Box of Judgement

Yes, folks, just when you thought it was safe to return to an obscure part of the web with fewer pageviews than Harold Shipman had Facebook friends, GSGC returns to blither inanely for slightly too many paragraphs at the same time as fan favourite Shipwrecked (Channel4, 1230, Sundays) saunters back onto our hungover screens.

Ah, Shipwrecked! Where else can the hungover of our fair isle go to witness a band of poshos, fucktards and cavemen-from-the-stupid-ages argue about whether to build a shelter to protect them from vicious storms or lie in the sun all day? Where else on British television can such a high dose of self-involvement and ego be present in one location? No wonder these throwbacks are sent out to a desert island in the Pacific - at some point all those shoulder-chips will explode in a bloody, horrible mess, and nobody wants to have to clean that up in Luton town centre.

Anyway, things kick off especially nicely this year, since the tribes have been forced to elect a leader, resulting in Thug #1 and Bint #2 being elected leaders of their respective isles. Bint #1 is less-than-happy at Thug #1's plans to maybe do some work at some point, and the whole thing kicks off in a joyous explosion of what-the-fuck. 

Television nowadays has turned the corner of Reith's inform/educate/entertain mandate and has overriden the whole thing with 'judge' instead. Judge idiots on game shows! Judge parents for having fat kids! Judge foreigners for their crazy ways! Judge poshos, fucktards and cavemen for having the temerity to be poshos, fucktards and cavemen on your telly! How dare they? Then, when you're done with all that, the shiny box in the corner of the room can judge you right back. Why aren't you recycling more? Eat healthier food, fatso! People are dying and you're just watching television! You make us sick!

Anyway, back to Shipwrecked for a moment, where aggressive Bint #1 has just screamed in the face of Thug #1 in the rudest way possible; "who are you to tell me I don't have manners?"

I love to judge strangers.