The Hell of It All (38 page)

At this point it’s worth stating unequivocally that I’ve never wanted to see anyone being shot, thank you very much, whether they’re a president or the world’s biggest arsehole or both. And fortunately, such things rarely happen. But I’ve seen too many films, and far too much
24
. I’ve been conditioned to almost expect it. So now, whenever the news cuts live to a politician – any politician – making a speech, I’m gripped by an eerie sense of dread and have to change the channel.

Obama’s inauguration, however, was too big to miss. All that hope and expectation distilled into one man whose election has, at a stroke, reminded the world of all that is good and remarkable and inspiring and simply downright wonderful about the most exciting nation on earth: America. For the last eight years, watching America at work was like watching the scenes in
Superman III
where Superman, under the influence of red kryptonite, goes ‘bad’ and grows stubble and gets drunk and starts vandalising the city and shouting at kids. He’s only stopped when his geeky alter ego Clark Kent magically fights his way out from within, and stands blinking before him, in his nerdy suit and thick glasses. Evil Superman scowls, and the pair have a cathartic bust-up in a junkyard – at the end of which Evil Superman is finally vanquished. As a battered but unbowed Clark Kent gazes up at the heavens, the theme music swells, and he pulls his shirt open to reveal – ta da! – a fresh, clean Superman costume he’d been wearing underneath the whole time. Then he flies off and beats up Robert Vaughn or something, which is a shame because until then it had all been a pretty good metaphor for the redemptive spectacle of last November’s election.
And now it’s just a silly action movie I probably shouldn’t have mentioned in the first place.

Still, Obama really has been elevated to the position of Superman in many minds, to the point where it’s hard to keep a check on expectations; we’re all yearning for him to single-handedly save the world. Hearing him referred to as ‘President Obama’ on the news still seems too good to be true, like waking up the morning after falling in love and wondering whether you’re dreaming.

But we’re also aware he isn’t a Man of Steel; painfully aware too that the world contains its fair share of racists and paranoid gun nuts, which is why many of those tuning into the inauguration did so with a mixture of joy and trepidation.

Everyone I know had voiced the same dark fears, even in the face of constant updates from the news networks regarding the mammoth security operation surrounding the day. We were told Obama would be travelling in a mortar-proof vehicle thronged by secret service vans, each filled with about 200 tiny Jack Bauers, packed in like sardines; there were radio jammers to prevent the detonation of bombs and a magic experimental gas enveloping the Mall capable of transforming bullets into harmless glitter. Nonetheless, the entire thing unfolded like one of those scenes in a slasher flick when the heroine heads into a spooky old house on her own, and it all goes quiet, and you tense uncontrollably in your seat, knowing that at any moment someone in a hockey mask is going to burst from a cupboard wielding a threshing machine or something.

The rolling news networks, which rarely shy from exploitative gimmicks, clearly missed a trick by not offering an alternative commentary option in which a jittery, paranoid viewer accompanied proceedings with jittery, paranoid narration. ‘Here’s the presidential motorcade now … oh Jesus, he’s stepping out! He’s in the open! Where’s security, goddammit? Look at the size of that crowd … let’s hope they frisked everyone on their way in. He’s approaching the podium … That bulletproof glass is a bit low for my liking. Oh Christ I can’t watch.’ And so on.

When the ceremonial cannons went off following the swearing-in itself, you could actually hear buttocks clenching around the
world. Did they really have to do that? It just felt downright mean. Because, quite frankly, the vast majority of people on this planet would be far happier if, for the remainder of his presidency, Obama only makes public appearances encased within a gigantic iron-and-concrete ball, addressing crowds via a Wi-Fi link to a nearby tannoy. And even then, it’d be more comforting to assume that this was, in fact, a bluff: that the concrete ball was empty, and the man himself was actually speaking to us from a deep underground bunker, ideally one situated on a different planet, made of cotton wool, in another universe altogether, unmarked on any map, somewhere round the back of our most peaceful and powerful collective dreamings.

I’ve mentioned Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satire
Network
before, but really: it looks more like a documentary with each passing second. The film revolves around Howard Beale, a newscaster who goes crazy and threatens to commit suicide on-air. Rather than sack him, the network notes the ratings spike generated by his outburst and promotes him as a ‘mad prophet of the airwaves’. Soon, record audiences are tuning in to watch him deliver increasingly deranged rants to camera. I won’t spoil the rest; rent it tonight if you haven’t seen it. No, actually: don’t. Just tune into
Noel’s HQ
instead.

Noel’s HQ
– Noel’s Party Headquarters, if you like – is the strangest programme on TV. A live Saturday night ‘shiny floor’ show with conspicuous altruism at its core, it’s essentially a cross between
That’s Life, Surprise Surprise
, and some unmade episode of
I’m Alan Partridge
in which Alan snaps and runs into traffic with his shirt off, smashing windscreens with a cricket bat.

About 90% of it consists of Noel Edmonds introducing members of the public who’ve suffered tragedies, or set up charitable trusts, or both – and then doing nice things for them. Last week, two charming old ladies who’d established a children’s charity were whisked away to the
Strictly Come Dancing
live tour and left with huge grins on their faces. Nice people being rewarded for niceness: only a shit could find fault with that.

It’s the remaining 10% that’s troublesome: specifically the bits where Noel shouts about petty-minded local councils, and the studio audience cheers or boos and waves union flags and the whole thing starts to resemble a disturbing political rally.

Last week the show featured an item about a badly injured marine who, having lost both legs in Afghanistan, was denied planning permission for a specially adapted bungalow by his local council. It was a tale that would irritate more or less anyone – the guy’s lost his legs, so cut him some slack, for Christ’s sake. Following an emotive VT on the subject, Cheggers (Noel’s eternal sidekick; someday they’ll be buried together) read a statement from the council saying they were prepared to negotiate with the marine and his family.

Good. But not good enough for Noel, who wanted them there in the studio. Worse still, the council’s press officer, Jim Van den Bos, told a researcher that Wealden District Council wouldn’t talk to ‘an entertainment show’.

This was the cue for an astonishing three-minute down-the-lens rant during which Noel yelled that Jim Van den Bos, and people like him, were ‘at the heart of everything that’s wrong with this country’, while the audience cheered and yelled. He went on to suggest, via the medium of bellowing, that the people of Wealden should ‘have their say’ at the next local election – and that hopefully they’d be ‘advertising for a new press officer soon’. All of which slightly overshadowed the bit where he read a statement from Gordon Brown supporting the construction of the bungalow. Council policy aside, what really irked Noel, it seemed, was being dismissed as an ‘entertainment show’, even though: (a) it’s listed on the Sky EPG under ‘entertainment’, (b) The studio audience wear big foam gloves with ‘Noel’s HQ’ printed on them, and (c) It opens with a theme tune that sounds like a pinball machine malfunctioning on a bouncy castle.

Highlighting the story would’ve been enough: instead, Noel stood before a baying TV mob calling for the instant dismissal of a press officer who doesn’t make planning decisions, had already issued a statement, was presumably simply doing what he was told, and possibly has a family to feed.

Next time, maybe Noel should concentrate on the nice surprises for charity workers. Otherwise, before we know it, he’ll be carrying out live public executions – death by gunging for bureaucrats – while the audience fires pistols and Cheggers sticks heads on poles. Either that or he’ll be running for office. Presumably on behalf of the House Party. Noel’s HQ? Number 10. FEAR THIS.

Taglines are generally a lie. ‘A journey beyond your imagination’ usually transpires to be a phutting clown car ride down Guffington Crescent, while ‘the movie event of the year’ happens six times a
month and refers to anything from Abbott and Costello Meet the Ombudsman to Attack of the 100-foot Bum Monsters.

Here’s one that bucks the trend.
The Colour of Money
is billed as ‘the most stressful game on television’ and – by golly! – it turns out it genuinely is the most stressful game on television, at least until they bring out a gameshow in which the recently homeless have to solve dot-to-dot puzzles at gunpoint to win a new house before a swinging sharpened pendulum cuts their foot off.

It’s hosted by Chris Tarrant, whose neck is growing increasingly alien and fascinating by the day, so much so you spend more time staring at his neck than his face, which means they might as well draw a pair of cartoon eyes on it and zoom the camera in until the top of his head is cut off and you can just get on with the job of staring at his neck without feeling guilty about not looking at his actual face. If you follow me.

Anyway, never mind that.
The Colour of Money
is effectively a blend of
Deal or No Deal
and bomb defusal. Chris welcomes a contestant into the studio, which looks a bit like the inside of a Cylon baseship from
Battlestar Galactica
crossed with a neon graveyard filled with onyx, outsized iPods. The giant iPod things turn out to be ‘cash machines’, each containing a different sum of money. The players pick a machine (each differentiated by a different ‘colour’, hence the title) and stand staring at the screen while a cash figure steadily rises. The trick is to shout ‘stop!’ before the machine hits its total and ‘locks you out’. Since you don’t know how much cash it contains, this means balancing greed against nerve.

To increase the tension, each contestant has to do this 10 times, and is given a set target at the start. Say it’s £64,000: this means they have to get an average of £6,400 from each machine, and if they don’t manage that, they get piss all.

Look, I know you’re baffled: trust me, it makes sense when you see it, just like all gameshows (except
Goldenballs
, which has more rules and clauses than the European Convention on Human Rights). What it boils down to is this: endless gnawing anxiety as the players attempt to defuse one potential bomb after another. Somehow the makers have hit on a game that provokes one of
those indefinable yet intrinsic human sensations: just as Tetris is inherently satisfying, so
The Colour of Money
is inherently nerveracking. At times I found the preview DVD so unbearable I had to hit the Mute button and look away until the next round. It’s like watching a blindfolded man running back and forth across a level crossing. Totally horrible.

In case the game itself wasn’t stressful enough, ITV has decided to play up the human angle with a chilling remorselessness that borders on the psychotic. Each player is introduced via an emotive
X Factor
-style VT in which they explain, in quavering vulnerable voices, just how precious and important the money would be to them. There are lots of references to the credit crunch and ‘these difficult times’. The first contestant is a mum-of-two whose husband is about to be sent to fight in Afghanistan. This becomes a break-bumper sting. ‘With her husband recalled to the army, can Diane secure her family’s future?’ asks the voiceover, over footage of Diane hyperventilating and blinking back tears.

All of which is tasteless, and not very British. Completely unnecessary too, since the game itself is so compelling, tense and yet ultimately random, it’s likely to be a huge worldwide hit. Unless someone in Argentina has come up with something even more tense, like a game in which new parents have to watch their gurgling offspring crawl obliviously through a cave of whirring chainsaws towards a pot of shining gold. Give it a week.

Perspex Soup. Wind and Pineapple Biscuits. Absinthe and Dildos. One of these is genuinely on the menu in
Heston Blumenthal’s
Feast
, which is without doubt the most mental cookery programme you’ll ever see, unless you’re in the habit of necking six LSD tabs on a weekend morning and staring at
Saturday Kitchen
until James Martin’s face turns into a singing horseshoe in space.

I’ve decided I very much like Heston Blumenthal, who recently seems to have become the most omnipresent of all the TV chefs.
Unlike the others, he doesn’t scream at failing restaurant managers or tut at overweight schoolkids. He doesn’t even pretend to teach the viewer to cook. He just does demented things with food, clearly enjoying himself as he does so. He’s the culinary equivalent of Wilf Lunn, the mustachioed ‘mad inventor’ who used to show up on kids’ TV in the 80s, demonstrating various self-built Heath Robinson devices which performed some abstract function for a few minutes before exploding in his face. There’s something scary about both of them: a true lunatic’s glint.

This new series is the best showcase for Blumenthal’s talents so far.
In Search of Perfection
, the BBC2 show in which he set about anally creating ‘perfect’ burgers and so forth, was too prissy, while
Big Chef Takes On Little Chef
came across as awkward. In
Feast
, however, he’s merely required to create the most preposterous dishes possible.