Ceased by peaceful means

“I’m gonna be a sexy tall dwarf!” (Hello!)

Welcome, or similar. You’ll know by now that these big purple buggers take me a hella long time to write – you’ll see shortly what I’ve been doing in recent weeks instead of this – and in the intervening days the news has kept steps ahead of me, necessitating many rewrites and resulting in what’s sure to be an absolute wristbreaker of a piece both to write and to read. But I have to get this lot out of me before I collapse, so take a week (or less) off, put some calming music on and ready yourself to watch me weep. And, occasionally, cheer. Spin it, let’s begin it…

So, I was all but ready to sit my Brit-ass down and start writing this digital rubbish when the Beeb imploded again, and once again our once-proud national broadcaster is on the back foot, which is never pleasant to see. It does seem that in recent years, spurred perhaps by the sizeable and swift changes the media has been through in modern times, that the BBC is never more than a few days away from collapse, as the tall tower of broadcasting fingers it holds up sway in the fast-swirling media wind in a quite ungainly manner. And when you’ve got as many enemies as Auntie has, the vultures are never more than a short-hop bus ride away. Pity George Entwistle – he had barely set foot in the Director General’s new office when white-hot scandal and serious abuse allegations, many dating back decades, began to cause ructions, and amid the ensuing row over the governance of the BBC, tainted George was shown the door less than two months after taking over from Mark Thompson. It’s always painful for me to see the Beeb convulsed in the death throes, and there is a real fear that too many more of these nasty scandals could kill the broadcaster altogether. The commercial media is rubbing its hands with glee, ready for the payday which will come when those viewers who currently choose the publically-funded BBC as their news and/or entertainment provider are forced into their grabbing hands by the demise of the BBC empire, and sadly every day is now one day closer to the edge. Farewell, Only Connect. Farewell, 6 Music. Farewell, local news. Farewell, Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Farewell, Horrible Histories. It has to be said, if the Beeb had imposed a tighter grip on the activities of its stars back in the 60s and 70s, when celebrity culture was very different to how it is today, then maybe the years of abuse now clouding Broadcasting House would never have happened; however, the landmines left in the BBC carpet by past activities have now begun to blow up and kill today’s staff. I’ve somehow managed to outlive Ceefax – the blocky but brilliant text service has bowed out alongside digital switchover in Northern Ireland, completing the UK’s move to all-digital TV – but now there’s a real danger I’ll live to see the BBC itself die. The Sun was particularly nasty in its glee over Entwistle falling on his freshly-unwrapped sword (‘Bye Bye Chump’, indeed – I could have whipped my schlong out in the middle of the shop and pissed all over the papers on display, were it not that to do so would get me an unwanted reputation). Maybe this is revenge for Leveson – earlier in the year the excesses of the commercial tabloid media were laid bare and the largely-blameless BBC was able to report and digest quite comprehensively the near-implosion of the press barons (it was pie in the face, both literal and metaphorical, for Murdoch). Now though, the nasty redtops are back in the driving seat, extracting their pound of flesh, and the already cowed and wounded Beeb is hanging on by a thread. The Beeb is still making silly, paranoid decisions even now, though – the daft decision to declare Robbie Williams too old for Radio 1, as the station is now slavishly chasing the teen One Direction/Nicki Minaj audience, was proved foolish when the Grimshaw-scorned single Candy bulleted to number one. I guess that the station believes anyone who’s old enough to remember when Robbie was in Take That first time round is too old to be listening to the station. Again, listeners are just going to roll their eyes and retune to commercial radio. Radio 1’s current paranoia will only be manna to the everpresent Heart machine – soon to expand to ruin the areas currently served by Real Radio – and turn ever more listeners off the BBC. You’ve got to wonder if anyone other than me would mourn if the Beeb actually was killed off. 2012 was supposed to be the Beeb’s big year, with events such as the Olympics, but the panning of the Jubilee coverage was perhaps a portent of how the year would actually go for Britain’s (former?) public media service.

It has been a month of falling heroes, though: it seems there’s nobody left we can trust anymore. The BBC-wrecking scandal kicked off when, following his death, the once-feted presenter and DJ – and the man who invented the concept of two turntables and a microphone – Jimmy Savile was exposed as apparently being a serial fiddler of the kiddies. Much has been made of the fact that Newsnight (1980-2012?) canned a planned report in the wake of his demise just as the BBC’s entertainment staff were preparing to pay tribute with a string of specials. Shamefully, I watched some of the Savile celebrations – at the time, we the audience were unaware of his hidden tendencies as few legitimate official complaints had been made at the time the attacks took place; seemingly believing they wouldn’t be heard when it was their word against a national hero, Jim’s victims kept quiet and waited; only after he’d passed and couldn’t defend or explain himself did the apparent extent of his proclivities become public knowledge. In a further ghastly twist, it’s been alleged that some of the fondly-remembered telly that Savile helmed – such as chart-hits series Top of the Pops and dream-come-true hit Jim’ll Fix It – were deliberately concieved by Jim as a way of getting youngsters into the BBC and into his web of trap. This probably doesn’t bode well for the survival of the traditional Christmas TOTP, which has until now continued as a yearly-roundup format despite the demise of the weekly show in 2006. With Fearne Cotton pregnant and Reggie Yates leaving Radio 1 at the end of the year, there wouldn’t be presenters for it, anyway. A shame – during my many years as a music fan the festive ‘Pops was a must-see. Guess I’ll just have to make do with Wallace and Gromit from now on. And it’s knackered BBC Four’s 70s Pops reruns too… I should also admit I did enjoy a dose of Fix It when I was a lad (I didn’t realise I was his type…) because it was lovely to see the smiles as people’s long-held ambitions and dreams were being made real. Of course I regret watching it now, but back then I believed, like almost everyone else, that JS was just the wacky bloke in the tracksuit on the box of a weekend.  But why, when Savile was at the Beeb for so many years, was the whistle left unblown? Seemingly the Beeb didn’t want to crap on their own doorstep – they missed many chances to expose Savile both during his life (then Radio 1 controller Derek Chinnery asking Jimmy, then a DJ at the station, about the then-extant rumours and taking the presenter’s word for it when he said the comments were ‘all rubbish’) and afterward – it was an ITV documentary finally giving voice to the victims silenced by Newsnight that swayed public knowledge and finally, belatedly spurred the BBC into what passes for action – though as we’ve seen many times before, when backed into a corner the Beeb has a habit of running around headlessly, allowing its rivals to take easy potshots. Away from the BBC, Justin Lee Collins executed the perfect career suicide when he was convicted of harassing his former partner. It seems the shouty, bearded Bristolian lieutenant of Channel 5’s failed attempt to televise Heads or Tails hid a violently aggressive homelife. Certainly, those who once found his particular brand of “good times” agreeable have now viewed their man in a different light; hopefully, this will mean an end to the reruns of the Friday/Sunday/Whatever Night Project on the hideous 4Music, though sadly that does leave more room for Balls of sodding Steel and the Kardashians. With one hand the Lord gives, and with the other… Also finding his name muddied in recent months has been former cyclist Lance Armstrong. Mere weeks after cycling became a new national obsession thanks to Wiggins, Hoy, Trott and Pendleton at the Stratford velodrome, the sport of two wheels was being besmirched by the news that seven-times (well, technically zero-times now) Tour de France winner Armstrong was stretching his performance skills with banned-in-sport substances. And so the supposedly wonderful world of cycling comes crashing down into the ditch again, much as Bradley Wiggins himself did when he was involved in a thankfully minor road collison. Let’s hope that the new generation of young cyclists – including pedal-power-couple Jason Kenny and Laura Trott – can rebuild the shattered image of the two-wheeled sport. And as first-ever British winner of Le Tour Wiggins has pointed out, he can now claim more victories than Armstrong, which is only right in the circumstances.

Some of these recent news stories, and others, have reawakened some nasty ghosts from the pages of the past. Much as I still get a frost shooting down my spine every time Lockerbie or Dunblane are mentioned, even where not in connection with the infamous deaths and disasters therein, the reminders of past evils continue to haunt us. During the reportage of Jimmy Savile’s dark arts, it was suggested that he could have been involved in abuses at Haut de la Guarenne, the Channel Islands childrens’ home (and sometime setting of TV’s Bergerac) which a few years ago hit the headlines when a major investigation into historic abuse shocked the nation and led to a period of heavy grief. Elsewhere, a birth-damage case stemming back to 1994 was finally settled, but the name of the hospital where the mistake had been made back then sickened me: it was Stepping Hill, the vile northwestern dump of a hospital which has been much in the news in recent times over a saline-tampering case. The new development hardened my resolve to wipe that horrible hospital off the map, but sadly I wield too little power over the NHS to demand it; unless I go native (maybe turn up there with a JCB and a loudspeaker, and give the staff and the infirm a period of hours to clear out before I start smashing the place) this beast of a building will go on besmirching the image of the nation’s health service whilst its few remaining staff attempt to get on with the job of curing (or, in some cases, killing) the sick. Sometimes, those in positions of care who don’t care are caught, however: we recently saw the sentencing of six staff of the thankfully-closed Winterbourne View care home (don’t-care home, more like) which – having been exposed by BBC journalists, as it happens – had been the scene of terrible abuse of the residents by macho staff, who mishandled and bullied those in their care, and would still be doing so now if the Beeb’s secret filming hadn’t sparked outrage. Hopefully now these scum are behind bars the standard of care work will improve in the UK: hopefully, more of those who would do harm to those in their power will be taken out of service. I think I take these sort of stories too personally, even where they don’t directly involve me, because I care about people (some would say too much), and that lends itself to suggest I should get involved in care/social work – after all, with retail in the dungpit, my chances of carrying on my preexisting career as a shop assistant are slimming wildly. However, I’m concerned about how unsuited to care work I’d be. Whilst I’m capable of handling requests from a broad range of retail customers, I do frustrate easily, and being shackled to someone whose condition made them difficult to get on with could lead me to blow my top. I’m simply not emotionally strong enough to be around the vulnerable – and I’m a blunderer, too: I would worry too much about the consequences if I let the quality of my care slip: if I was responsible for someone’s wellbeing, and as a result of a simple error on my part they were harmed or killed, I wouldn’t be able to cope with the aftermath. I’ve said before that I’d struggle as a father, not that being one is on the cards given my lack of partner, and I still believe that at this stage, still technically fairly irresponsible despite my advancing age, it’s too early to give me any real fatal responsibility. But I’ll never stop caring about the sanctity of human life, which is why I won’t actually be turning up at Stepping Hill with a bulldozer – I’d far rather see the hospital ceased by peaceful means.

There have also been a number of young women in the news for various reasons and, whilst not wanting to sound like a creepy old Savile, I’d like to offer my support with the issues these beautiful ladies have faced. Sadly, in one case it’s too late to offer a hand of friendship to one of the girls involved. Canadian teen Amanda Todd hit the headlines when she posted an online video relating her tale of modern bullying (she’d sent flirty photos to a fella online, the snaps then went viral and the young lass was subjected to extensive taunts as a result.) Days after the morose YouTube video hit screens, though, Amanda was dead: apparently taking her own life, unable to cope with the vicious hatred she’d recieved in her community. I wish I’d been able to offer comfort to the poor lamb – or as much comfort as a bloke twice her age on t’other side of the Atlantic has any right to offer, anyway. I could have saved her life, had I actually been in contact with her at any point prior to her passing (I was not); it’s always a huge shame to see such a young life so needlessly snuffed out, particularly when a little friendship and kindness could have been enough to pull her back from the edge. I do have something of a random affinity of Canadians – some of the first people I became friends with on Twitter when I joined up and grabbed followers from wherever I could happened to be from the land of the maple leaf, there are plenty of Canucks in my CD racks (Amy Millan, f’rinstance), and I’ve seen more episodes of the awesome 6Teen than a guy my age has the right to have done; and although I did make a slightly tongue-in-cheek slamdown when the Canada team punted our ladies out of the Olympic football tourney, I still have a fondness for the maple-syrup munchers; I guess I just have to accept that I never had the chance to be the voice of reason Amanda in particular needed. It’s a great shame to know she will never now achieve the potential she presumably had to blossom into confident adult life. Another teen who was in the media glare recently was Malala Yousafzai, the teen shot point-blank in the head by a Taliban gunman in retaliation for her speaking out in favour of women’s rights, including on a well-regarded BBC international blog. Now, I don’t wish to attract the ire of the hardline Taliban (not that any of them are likely to see this rubbish), but I’m in favour of young women having the humane rights and freedoms they deserve. The Taliban are, given their conservative Muslim background, concerned about the potential intrusion of Western values onto traditional Muslim countries, and so decided to take action, as is their way; however, the wanton shooting of an innocent, intelligent teenager rightly shocked the world. Malala was flown to the Birmingham here in the UK for part of her treatment and, whilst the circumstances of her arrival were not what I would wish upon anyone, it was at least a pleasure to have such a sweet, smart lady on our shores. Thankfully, doctors say the damage done was relatively slight, and Malala’s recovery has been fairly prompt and comprehensive, meaning she’ll most likely be able to continue to fight for young women’s rights in the ever-changing modern world. Democracy is an important thing, and even if more conservative countries don’t want to introduce Western values, politics and styles, all countries should recognise the will of the people, even if they go on to use that freedom to make mistakes. Human life and wellbeing should be seen as sacred in all religious and cultural environments.

One young woman who made a choice which turned out to be more harmful than anticipated was Gaby Scanlon, a young Lancashire lady who, out at a bar to celebrate turning 18, took delivery of a cocktail to which liquid nitrogen had been added to create a flashy smoke effect. Whilst noted for its many exciting and innovative qualities – as anyone who’s been watching Challenge’s repeats of Brainiac will know well – the substance is harmful if ingested, and poor Gaby glugged down two of the danger-drinks, causing perforation to her gut, and ultimately having her very stomach itself removed by doctors. Whilst Gaby will be able to return to a fairly normal life fairly quickly – the operation was similar to that undertaken by gastric-band patients – she will forever be associated with that one misadventure. Of course, the bar is perhaps as much at fault for offering up poison in a glass as Ms Scanlon is for drinking it, and investigations and a potential lawsuit are pending, but one thing I’d like to do is offer a comforting arm around young Gaby’s shoulder and tell her things are likely to be OK. Of course, she’s perfectly within her right to push me away and ask who the hell I think I am, but all the same, the offer of support is there. One lady I hope to offer more support for over the coming days is a gorgeous young Scottish blonde who you may have seen in The Human Mannequin on Channel 4 (or 4seven) in recent weeks. Louise Wedderburn is hoping to take her passion for beauty products and fashion into a career, and is in the process of setting up her own blog (which would most likely be a lot more fun than this one, even for the non-fashionistas among you). What you may also know is that Louise suffers from FOP, a rare and incurable genetic condition causing her bones to lock up (excess bone develops, which can clog up the joints and lock the body in position). Sweet, pretty Louise is working hard to make her dreams come true, as we saw in the film, and whilst many FOP sufferers currently don’t live to see their 40s, research is ongoing which could lead to new ways to tackle the disease and make life longer and easier for those with the gene. On her Twitter page, Louise has been promoting the work done by FOP charities, and also responding to the ever-growing network of supporters who have been touched by her story and her good heart. I wish this wonderful lady nothing but success; and maybe young people today will be awed by Louise’s story in the same way I and many others were touched by Katie Piper’s first film almost exactly three years before; we’ve seen Katie blossom into a strong, confident, gorgeous young woman over the past few years and I have faith Louise can do the same: she’s genuinely very lovely. I’d like to say nice things about pretty Louise online, though the rubbish-at-Twitter phone I currently use means I haven’t been able to converse with her in depth, and in any case the poor girl’s been snowed under with messages by her fresh followers since her documentary aired. If you haven’t seen it yet it’s repeated on More4 on 20 November at 10pm, if you’re reading this before then (or indeed I’ve finished writing it by then), or the film’s available on 4oD, should you be able to access that. You may as well watch Katie Piper’s shows while you’ve got 4oD open, if you haven’t seen them yet. They’re well worth your time.

Whilst there has been some light coming from my crinkly old CRT, we mustn’t forget it’s been a pretty horrible month for those who follow the news (as ever, if you don’t like reading my news bit, scroll down ’til I start whining about myself). We’ve had the hideous situation in Harlow where a doctor and all five of her children were killed (three of the kids died at the scene with their mother, the other two passing away later in hospital). Only the kids’ father survived, and will likely be haunted by that dire day forever. Truly this was a devastating day. There was also a fatal fire in which children were among the dead in Prestatyn – though again, with investigations ongoing, I’ll hold back on giving forth my full opinion on that case, except to say that clearly action needs to be taken to stop these kind of despicable, deathly attacks. The Prestatyn fire hasn’t been the only horrible thing to have happened in Wales lately, with the disappearance of young April Jones also gripping the nation for a time, as viewers sat aghast that such a young and apparently innocent girl could vanish without trace so suddenly and completely. With legal proceedings ongoing, and action having also been taken against those who have discussed the case online, I won’t speculate or conjecture on the matter, but it was certainly horrible news to hear, particularly given that here in London I could do little to aid in the search for answers. Meanwhile, Cardiff saw carnage as a white van driver went on a horrible half-hour rampage, killing a young mother (who died protecting her children from the maniac’s wheels, the ultimate sacrifice) and maiming many others as he barraged his way across the Welsh capital. What a truly gruesome act. One wonders what pushed this maniac over the edge? Speaking as someone who myself is close to the edge mentally (of which more anon) I know that the simplest straw can crush the camel’s back, but this was way over the line. Maybe, though, this will be the disaster which finally gets those nasty white vans and their horrible occupants off the roads – or at very least, spells the end of laugh-free Will Mellor sitcom White Van Man. Well, the ban on smoking indoors wiped out the actually-fairly-good The Smoking Room, didn’t it? There have been other road crashes and fatalities in recent weeks, as ever sadly too many to name individually but with one notable case being in central Bristol’s Passage Street (which, given that it happened almost literally on the doorstep of the former GWR studios, would have meant comprehensive local radio coverage of the horror, had GWR not been subsumed into the London-based Heart hive-mind.) We’ve had the death of a 73-year-old man in an apparent burglary in southwest London, the demise of a woman who plunged from the third-floor balcony of the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham, and perhaps most horribly the stabbing of a pregnant woman in the grounds of a school in that crime-ridden city of Liverpool. Thankfully both mother and unborn baby survived the assault and are recieving hospital treatment; however, it’s certainly a sign of how low society has sunk that brutal, thoughtless attacks like this still take place in broad daylight. More needs to be done to take evil off the streets, before those who would do wrong wipe out the good in society. We must not let evil win. Sometimes, of course, disaster is wreaked on the innocent not by the hand of others but instead by the finger of fate, as nature itself continues to rain punishment upon us for our callous and sinful misuse of its resources, so I’m led to believe. I speak of course of the ‘superstorm’ (downgraded from hurricane, you see) they call Sandy, which sent shockwaves up the seaboard as it killed many of those in its path and devastated homes and businesses right across a sizeable quadrant of the massive USA. The power loss caused chaos in a world so dominated by technology, and again we saw needless loss of life – for example, people who required assistance breathing died because the powercuts stopped their oxygen machines working – and seemingly uncontrollable devastation in a country too far away for me to be of any practical help. Of course, we’ve been here before – Hurricane Katrina trampled New Orleans a few years back in similarly galling fashion and it has taken the area many months and a lot of gut strength to get back on its feet – but clearly something has to be done: we need to change our ways now, lest these insanities of weatherfront continue to strike the world and, potentially, the UK – much has been made of the recent 25th anniversary of the 1987 storm (“A woman rang the BBC to say there was a hurricane on the way. Well, don’t worry, there isn’t”) which ripped the roof off southern England. As they say on Friends Like These: it can happen, it has happened, and it could happen again.

Whilst my problems are a piddle in the ocean compared to those above, my own life hasn’t exactly been a barrel of kittens lately. I’ve not had means to moan about my life all that extensively on Twitter given my weak-ass phone, but I need to let this anger out somewhere, and so here it goes here. It’s been a month-or-two of feeling fairly rough and frustrated, with occasional positives. Being ill for much of the period hasn’t helped – at one point I was huddled over in the jobsearch centre shivering like I had ice running through my veins, and I spent the next few days mostly choking in bed, only venturing out briefly to keep my jobsearch up (I’m hanging by a frigging thread here) and pick up medical supplies and soup, noodles, crumpets and other warm and easy-to-swallow stuff for lunch. I’m now better than I was at my worst, though the cold winter weather at this time of year is not entirely friendly to my chest. I have been piling on the pressure in my jobsearch in desperate attempt to better myself, and with festive opportunities opening up I have on occasion been required to be in two separate places on the same day (and have had to have the bold nuts to ask for a reschedule on those occasions where I’m expected to be in different places at the same time.) One such occasion came when two separate interviewers wanted me in different places on the same Tuesday morning: having already committed to one interview following a phone call, I then later recieved an email asking me to a different location at around the same time. Not being a Timelord, I had to defeatedly reply-to and advise the emailing employer that I wasn’t available at the given time, but that I would be available on future dates should they ever consider inviting me: they offered me a slot later that afternoon. And so it was that I had a full and fulfilling Tuesday of effort – excitingly, the second interview of the day was in a hotel (not for a post therien, alas, but for a retail store job) and as it came just days after Channel 4’s Hotel GB it was quite fun (ooh, they’ve got hotel rooms, like the hotel rooms on telly… ooh, they’ve got teacups like the teacups on telly.. you get the drift) Despite the insane amount of travelling and walking about needed (neither interview took place in the store I would have been working in, in one case because it hadn’t been fitted out yet) it was quite a bracing and fulfilling day, and I got home happy in the knowledge that I’d made a real effort. Sadly, it seems, my best still wasn’t good enough, as neither interview (one group, one solo) resulted in a job offer, but at least I hadn’t wasted the day sat on my back and/or side watching trashy telly (which these days is just about any telly). Oddly, the day after the double-decker interview I felt really unfulfilled and bored, possibly because that day’s duty was to kick my heels until my afternoon visit to the jobsearch centre. Since then, I’ve had a few more double-appointment days, and these have been even tighter for time – real panic and worry that I wouldn’t make it given the distance to be travelled and the time required to get there, only to actually just about manage it. It’s certainly quite a way to spend the day, and it felt good to make the effort, but I’d really rather just have a job, such that I have more certainty about where I have to be and when. I have been getting really frustrated in the jobsearch centre actually, sat in front of a computer feeling rejected and stressed – a lot of the emails I’m getting are reposts of ads for jobs I’ve already seen, or rejections from posts I’ve gamely applied for, and on one occasion I sent an email to one job I’d seen advertised in a shop window only to see the mail bounce back undeliverable: I rocketed out of the centre and down the road to recheck the address and I’d correctly filled out the address as given in the window, suggesting the error was a misprint on their part rather than a mistake on mine. On one occasion, caught in the mire of stress, I simply let out an anguished, primal squeal. I really need to calm down and rethink: I can’t keep feeling like this. You’ll recall that I’ve previously expressed an interest in having a lengthy discussion about my future options with my task-centre advisor. Her response to this request? To wash her hands of me and palm me off to a newly-arrived colleague. To be fair I’ve been at that centre longer than most of the staff, and it’s one of the few regular appointments I keep (unless I have an interview, which takes preference) in my frantic and ever-changing week. But clearly something needs to change: I’m able to put the applications in and also attend interviews I’m being invited to, but my chance of getting a job is slim. Maybe it’s my age: a lot of the entry-level stuff I’m going for is designed for pretty, fresh-out-of-school 16-year-old girls, and when a wheezing (some weeks more than others) bloke in his admittedly-early thirties turns up the employer’s likely to turn a blind eye. I’m also hamstrung that my CV to date is mostly retail at a time when the shopkeep is in little demand – with the retail industry still in manic flux, there are still more holes in the high streets than strictly necessary, and as such my chances of employment are very reliant on a recovery in the sector. One firm I applied to for an advertised post went into administration mere days later – am I really that hated that the firm would rather fold than hire me? Of course, that particular retailer’s soon-to-be-redundant staff, with their retail experience more current than mine, will shunt ahead of me in the queue for work, just as thousands did when Woolworths went under. I’ve tried to expand my horizons, and have been applying for a wide range of locations where customer service and/or stock handling experience could be applied, such as cinemas, bookmakers, beauty parlours, bingo halls, banks and hotels with almost no success – my retail-heavy CV indicating I’d need extra industry-specific training, when someone who already has the relevant experience could be hired with lower cost and effort.

I’ve definitely got to get out of this charade and into something proper: the Government are making it harder for those of us between the cracks to survive, both with the impending welfare-budget cuts designed to get us abandoned souls off the books and with further hoops to jump through as though they enjoy mucking about with us for their own amusement. I recently had to update my jobseeker’s discount travel card – it’s useful for enabling me to get around to appointments, errands and interviews, so I’m not gonna knock it – and, whereas previously I’d been able to renew it in a local post office, on this occasion I was told I had to go to ‘the station’. So I trotted round to the local rail station, only to be told “it has to be a TfL station – Woolwich [DLR] or [North] Greenwich [tube]”. So, in order to get my bus pass updated I had to get a bus first to Woolwich – where I (re)discovered that Woolwich Arsenal DLR doesn’t have a manned ticket office; the on to North Greenwich, which does. Two bus jorneys to renew my bus pass: only in Britain… But I’m not going through that rigmarole again; if I’m not in work by April 2013 – and I hope I am – I’ll have to reconsider my entire life and operations. This is one of the things I wanted to discuss with my TC advisor, not that they ever have time to talk to me at length. At least the chaos did give me the opportunity, albeit at short notice, to take a walk in Woolwich for the first time since before the 2011 riots. And a lot of my worries and fears about the town post-chaos proved to be unfounded: Powis Street, or at least the bit I was on during my rather rushed visit, was recognisably still for the most part the Powis Street I remembered from prior years: the shops were open and trading (apart from those which had closed in the intervening period: goodbye to Bonmarche, Gamestation and Clinton Cards – all scuppered by corporate collapse – along with Vodafone, Pizza Hut and Nationwide) and some newcomers had even opened (welcome to Deichmann and CEX, who both also recently landed in Bexleyheath). Card Factory and Noir Menswear had moved to new locations, and Blue Inc had reopened in the old Ethel Austin to replace their burnt-down prior store. The Great Harry, as previously mentioned, is back, and Superdrug was even having a refit as part of a rollout of a new store style. Aside from a couple of still-boarded-up stores near the now-reopened Wilkinson, and the construction work on the former Blue Inc site, you’d be hard-pressed to tell anything untoward had happened a year ago at all. I even got a look at what had replaced the landmark No. 27 – previously Bay Trading, before that the legendary Our Price from where I’d purchased my first-ever single, and many years before a butchers. Designer Kidz have even been good enough to make their sign white-on-red, so it looks from the outside almost identical to how it did back in the glorious Our Price days of the 90s. (I did get one scare, mind: walking past Nando’s I heard a loud bang and nearly jumped out of my chinos: it turned out a sudden gust of wind had upended an A-frame outside the restaurant just as I passed. The drilling for the Superdrug refit also spooked me until I craned my neck around and actually saw what was going on.) And more is coming soon – a big new Tesco is nearing completion as part of a long-planned major regeneration. Not sure if getting a job there would be wise – a prior placement at Asda confirmed I’m not very good at supermarkets. And at least the Government have the good grace to give us all a transport-related laugh sometimes, with the George Osborne ticket balls-up proving that the nasty Tories are just as out-of-touch as ever: having purchased the standard-class train ticket he was entitled to under expenses rules, the toffee-nosed chancellor decided he simply couldn’t stand sitting amidst the oiks and instead plonked himself down in the first class carriage he felt he was entitled to. Cue a dispute with a just-doing-his-job member of rail staff, during which Osbo’s shrill aide attempted to insist seating her MP employer in normal-people seats simply wouldn’t do, and eventually the man with the red box paid up out of his own pocket to retain his place in his preferred carriage. Coupled with the Andrew Mitchell police/’plebs’ incident, it’s clear that the current Government, or at least those squad members in the blue shirts, have little respect for those who lack the necessary plum. Of course, some or many of those on benefits are slime – witness the case of a mother who pretended her son had cancer (shaving his head to ape chemotherapy) so she could claim the higher benefits available to carers of sufferers: this sort of garbage gives us all a bad name. Whilst I’m not entirely a Jeremy Kyle viewer and in fact am keen to better myself, stretching almost to breaking point to do so, I would be hugely unpopular with the Tory-led coalition, should they ever deign to discover my existence. But they won’t: to the government I’m just a number, one of those faceless, hopeless berks they’re keen to stop funding the continued survival of because employers clearly aren’t interested.

Whilst on my travels to various appointments, meanwhile, I did notice that the Wintergarden foodcourt at Bluewater – closed for much of 2012 for rebuilding work – has now reopened; whilst some of the old kiosks have gone for good, McDonalds and Harry Ramsdens – the two I frequented most frequently, owing to their being among the cheaper options for lunching whilst embedded in the centre – have returned, alongside several newcomers including Tortilla, Square Pie, Tossed, Indi-go and Giraffe. It’s good to see the more affordable options haven’t been left out: as a fairly (or unfairly, depending on your view) impoverished fella who’s usually eating alone, I’m not in a position to visit any of the large sit-down restaurants. It’d be nice to have someone to travel with, but with no girlfriend and few friends in this area I’m destined to stalk the malls like a loner. That said, I did clock shoppers’ Twitter reports that Katie Piper had been spotted snaking around Bluewater on a recent expedition – on a day I happened not to be there! So I missed the one and possibly only chance to accidentally bump into a lady I really care about and interrupt her day by telling her how fond I am of her, as some of those who were actually there presumably got to do. Ah well, it’s probably for the best that I didn’t rub one or more shoulders with the prime Piper, as I’ll explain later. But I have been keen to get away from Bluewater – all the work-related stress I’ve been under of late has left me needing a getaway from the norm, and so one day when I didn’t have any other appointments pending – and now that the Olympic chaos which kept me away from there during the summer is over – I took myself over for a look at that big Westfield centre in Stratford. Because that’s the closest I’ll get to a holiday this year, OK? It’s too far away and too big of a faff to get to to go there daily for work reasons, but given I’m getting so sick of the places I usually bang around in, I wanted to take time out to take a trip somewhere that was out of my usual loop. And as the places people usually go on holiday are out of my time and/or price range, I had to settle for Stratford. There are some things Westfield’s eastern centre does better than Bluewater – its New Look has menswear, its H&M has homeware, many of its comparable stores are proportionaltely larger – but there are still some things Bluewater does well (the triangle shape is easier to shop, and Greenhithe’s centre has a third department store – House of Fraser, actually – which ‘WSC’ does not). Being on the south side of the river, Bluewater’s easier for me to get to, and so that’s where many of my job applications will be going, but it was nice to have what passes for a day off; I’ve desperately needed it what with all the frustration. And I haven’t had a holiday in best part of a decade. So cut me this one slack, yeah?

I do need to get into work and then down to the shops because I’m currently trapped in a technology K-hole: I’ve spoken before about the death by drowning of my in-hindsight-OK previous phone and its replacement with a slow-moving, poorly-featured, barely-working piece of cack which was the cheapest phone in the nearest shop. I still use that, and I’ve got more used to it since last time, and have resigned myself to accept that I’ll have limited access to online services for the immediate future – this has made it difficult to use the web, as I’ve had to squeeze all my use into the limited time I can get at the libraries: I used to be able to clear unwanted entries from my Google Reader by mobile during the course of the day, leaving the big stuff that I wanted to keep to be collected when I was on the big-web: now I have to dedicate a huge chunk of my limited computer time to cutting down the forest of stuff that builds up between visits. I am no longer able to use Twitter anywhere near as much as I used to: I can no longer offer warmth and hugs to my beloved and much-missed Twitter friends or communicate with my followers in a prompt manner, as I no longer have anytime, read-and-write access, though I can still – at fairly heavy cost – SMS in messages to go up on my feed when necessary, whilst being unable to read any responses these generate. With web time also required for jobsearch, it’s become a chore trying to fit it all in and some of the Reader feeds I find most useful may have to be given the elbows in order to leave me less to do. And now I’ve got more tech to worry about. I’ve spoken last time about the tube on my mid-Nineties bedroom telly going a bit wobbly, and now it’s even nearer the end of life: the hold is now so loose that when I watched The Human Mannequin up there (my brother was watching Russell Howard in the living room, that’s why) poor Louise looked ruddy corrugated! In addition, even though the telly still does, after a fashion, pony up a picture, I can’t watch any DVDs as my purple DVD player (as mentioned here many times here before, and purchased as you may recall some years back at the now-being-refitted Woolwich branch of that electrical powerhouse Superdrug) has decided to pack up – whilst power still goes to the switch-on, it’s no longer actually playing DVDs, which for a DVD player is a pretty major failing. At least I won’t have to replace it if I don’t replace the telly: and with the tiny amount of TV I now watch, there’s not really much point replacing it just now. And then there’s my chunky old Nintendo DS – bought cheaply second-hand a few years back, and already in a pretty blotchy state when it came to me, it’s now completely unusable thanks to a series of accidents: firstly, my brother fell asleep while playing a game late at night, as he occasionally did, and dropped it, cracking one of the hinges. The console was still usable, however, but I was mindful that handling the now-loose-lidded device too harshly may have caused further damage. As a result, when next playing the unit myself, I held it very lightly: too lightly, in fact, as my unusually-loose grip led to the machine falling from my hands as I attempted to switch it off and remove the game, breaking further as it hit the hard floor. I’d been getting on quite well with my Brain Training up til that point, and I dread to think what digital bollocking Dr Kawashima will hand down to me should I ever resume my brain-play. I looked into getting a DS or DS Lite (ideal as they have the Game Boy Advance slot, meaning we can still play our old GBA games) secondhand again, but didn’t feel confident when I saw the prices being charged in the shops I looked in – most places had prices north of fifty quid, and when looking online the only one I found below forty notes was one which was “water damaged and not switching on” – a paperweight, essentially, or something a solderer could scavenge for parts. In arguably worse condition than the one I have now, at any rate. But this technical cock-up coinciding with my continued job rejection (and thus the news I won’t soon be earning enough for fresh tech, or anything more important) did make it feel like I should just give up – is it worth replacing, as cheaply as I can, these items of worthless consumer tech when – if my stomach succumbs to the gaseous, acidic explosion it’s been threatening to, or if the job depression finally drives me under the train – my life isn’t really worth prolonging? Or do I take the death of my below-average gadge as a sign that it’s time I stopped being so silly and just left myself to go to rack and ruin? Or is it a sign that my tactic of buying the cheapest possible tat available is a false economy and that I’ll have to invest, when money is available to do so, in allegedly better-quality stuff? Or should I just go back to living the way I did before these digital timewastes existed? I spoke last time about buying 100 Classic Books on a DS card, and had barely got into Emma (so to speak) before the DS crapped out – maybe I should go back to the analogue way of reading, trot down to Waterstones and spend a fraction of the price of a replacement DS on some printed-on-trees Austen! I should also mention here the recent changes Amazon has made to its MP3 download service, which makes it almost impossible to buy MP3s from the library computers now: it’s a good job I don’t like music as much as I used to anymore!

One thing I did manage to order online was a lapel badge now being offered for sale as part of a range at the Katie Piper Foundation’s recently established online shop. However, whilst the charity appear to have recieved the three quid I paid for the thing, no badge adorns my outerwear: when the envelope arrived from the KPF HQ, it had a huge hole in the back and contained solely a blank KPF compliment slip: of the badge, there was no sign. Either it had fallen out somewhere in the postal system and the Royal Mail had pointlessly delivered me the remains, or the badge had been squeezed out during its wedging through the letterslot (though the absence of badge around the doorstep, inside or out, put paid to that theory); maybe someone had been on the thieve, light-fingering my badge at some point along the way, or maybe the item is/was left jangling around at the bottom of the postie’s sack. Or maybe the KPF squad didn’t put it in in the first place, maybe in an attempt to dissuade me from exposing myself as a supporter of the charity despite the fact that I actually am. Either way, I’m not big enough of an arsehole to actually raise a complaint or demand a refund: I don’t want to deprive a charitable trust of the pathetic sum of three pounds, and I’ll just have to accept that, unless I fling another three down the tubes and take the same gamble on it actually arriving, I will have no badge to display my support for Piper’s fundgathering endeavours. However, the badge-based incident did bring clarity to something I’ve been considering. I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s time for me to stop being such an ardent fan of wonderful Katie. She’s always been mentioned in glowing tones here and on my Twitter, ever since she fell into my life three years ago with the broadcast of her first film. Indeed, it was Katie who inspired me to come back to blogging and networking such that I could spread the word about her lovely glow. However, I’ve noticed that whereas Katie’s moved on with her life, I really haven’t: whilst young Piper is in a better position now than when her road to recovery began, I’m still in much the same mire I was when first I saw her footage. When I first got in touch with Katie following that debut broadcast, I saw her as someone who needed love and support – I wanted to tell her everything would be OK and that there were people out there who cared about her feelings. I wanted to be one of those guys who helped her get back on track and rebuild her life. As Katie joined Twitter herself (some time after I did, just so you know), I made clear that my support was there. Katie knew I was fond of her and welcomed the support as she built up her charity and continued to blossom into the magnificent woman we see today. I’m proud to say that Katie and I even had a couple of lengthier chats – I recall for instance one morning, during the period last summer when I had that part-time, half-hour-from-the-bus-stop job, that I turned to Twitter to help ease the boredom on the long, slow march to the middle-of-nowhere warehouse and responded to some comment or other which Katie had made about early starts: this turned into a cheerful chat which I only terminated when I was approaching entry to my workplace. Katie is a sweet lady and really lovely to talk to. More recently, though, neither Katie nor I have had as much time in our lives for big Twitter stints: me because of the mushy new stopgap phone, Katie because she’s got a lot more to occupy her time with – she has a boyfriend now, so no longer needs my hugs, and with her charity work, TV gigs and printed book publications, she barely has time to put her feet up and chat! In addition, Katie’s now often using Twitter to promote her books and other projects, making her pronouncements less chatty and more commercial, and Katie herself is also presumably wary of the increasing likelihood that people’s Twitter comments could be taken out of context and published by media outlets, given that this is easier for lazy, overstretched hacks than actual journalism. Couple this with the fact that Katie’s made no secret of the fact that positive thinking and upbeat affirmation is her stock in trade today; it’s no wonder that someone whose own page is mostly moody screeches (hello) and is increasingly-rarely updated at all (it’s the crappy phone) deserves to be frozen out of her purview.

So Katie’s changed (most would say for the better) and I haven’t – I’m still the shrill weirdo who’s desperately in need of support, whilst Katie is soaring onto a new plane of celebrity and no longer needs my shoulders to stand on. I’m still slavishly keeping an eye on Katie’s comings and goings, like some demented fanboy, as and when I can, because I still care about and support this delightful woman; I still read her books when I need a pick-up, and I still sit up and cheer when I see my most-admired lady on TV: overall it’s clear, though, I need Katie more than she needs me. I don’t want to be one of those ghastly hangers-on that keeps badgering celebs with nonsense and desperately tries to get noticed by the stars as a way of filling their empty, drudgey lives. You see a lot of that on Twitter – many famous names (whose Twitter pages are often marshalled on their behalf by management staff, such is the scale of the problem) are bombarded almost constantly with inane gibberish from wannabes who don’t actually posess the power to string a sentence together (hey, maybe that’s why they can’t get a job and so just sit on Twitter all day!) I don’t want to be that guy. In fact I criticise that kind of guy/girl – I have little time for the deluded likes of Big Brother’s Tashie, whose brief stint in the house led her to believe she was (a) famous, (b) popular and (c) Pamela Anderson’s best mate. None of these were true outside of Tashie’s warped little mind, and today the hook-nosed wannabe can be found scraping cheap modelling jobs in a desperate and (mostly) naked bid to keep herself in the public eye. I can’t be like that. Maybe Katie’s just decided that, as she’s in a relationship, she will engage with her male followers less; maybe she’s decided that she can’t cope with my needs and I should seek redemption elsewhere; maybe it’s just that, with the various time commitments and constraints that apply, we just haven’t had the chance to be on Twitter at the same time. Or maybe Katie just plum doesn’t like me any more. I don’t know for certain as it’s never been explained directly to me why things between myself and Katie have soured – if indeed they have at all – but I am driven to think: is it time for me to be the bigger man and turn my back on Katie? She doesn’t need a ringpiece like me clouding her otherwise-sunny life. Her charity has much wealthier supporters who can make more of a difference; her books sell by the buttload with or without my stupidly-swift Amazon preorders; her columns are in women’s magazines I shouldn’t really read (and usually don’t); and, as my being unable to tweet much during Hotel GB showed, her TV and Twitter projects are the same – no, better – without my involvement. I’m too reliant on Katie but am now utterly useless to her. It’s time to cut off the teat. It’ll be really hard to stop myself being a fan/supporter of Katie – I still care about her, I don’t plan to unfollow her on Twitter or stop watching her lovely programmes – but I’m clearly too obsessed with this one person and need to move on. It will be hugely sad to say goodbye to someone who’s been such a huge part of my life through what has been a really difficult era for me; however, I am nothing if not realistic. Katie was never really my friend, barely a conversational acquaintance, and whilst she is the sort of sweet, kind woman I’d love to be close to, the likelihood of her actually becoming my partner is and always was nil. We don’t move in the same circles at all – she’s mingling with the champagne set at awards bashes in swanky celebrity dresses, I’m sat stuffing myself with cheap lasagne and watching crappy repeats in ratty old clobber. So, in a rare example of me actually making a decision, I’ve decided that, unless she does anything particularly writeup-worthy, like bringing out a new book or TV show that I want to push your way, this edition of the blog will be the last to mention Katie Piper on these pages. It’s for the best. I need to step out from behind Katie’s strings and start looking for someone else to hail as a hero in my life. Though there aren’t many heroes around these days, which is perhaps how Katie was allowed to become so special to me in the first place. So farewell, sweet Katie. Long may you continue to be happy and successful, and thank you for always making my day brighter with your ever-beautiful smile.

One difficulty which has exposed why I can’t be nice about Katie Piper any more is that I also need the freedom to be critical of that media fireblanket that is The X Factor. Every year, despite not being a viewer of the programme, my mind gets clogged by the media rubbish pumped out around the Cowell-created media frenzy. Whilst I cheer the news that X Factor ratings are continuing to decline – that’s what you get if you try to present that nasty chav Tulisa as some kind of arbiter – Katie Piper remains on-message (Simon Cowell being a patron of the Katie Piper Foundation): when asked on Twitter recently if she watched Strictly Come Dancing (X Factor’s big Saturday rival), Katie said no, she was watching ITV’s Take Me Out instead. She’s also posted updates from her visits to the X Factor studios, too. Clearly, I can’t despise X Factor and also like Katie – if I love one I have to love the other! But there’s been a lot of media clogging by X Factor controversy in the last few weeks, to the point I know who’s taking part and why I hate them, but just as last year I’m judging them when I haven’t heard them sing a note. There was the controversy over Lucy Spraggan, who was asked to remove previously-released music from whatever iTunes is after she made it into the live shows, then withdrew from the competition herself claiming illness (though there have been enough cases in pop history of fake illness covering for legal spats – Geri Halliwell, anyone? – that I always raise an unconvinced eyebrow when a singer claims to be unwell). No idea whether her old stuff will go back online following her withdrawal, or whether Cowell’s people still contractually own her ass until long after the winner is crowned, mind. Then there’s the Chris Maloney case – some have said that boss man Simon, despite not personally being on the judging panel this year, is worried that Maloney could win and become a new Steve Brookstein, and has allegedly instructed those on screen to rubbish Maloney to reduce his chances of winning. In X Factor, the winner isn’t who the public choose, it’s who Cowell chooses. I saw a headline online saying Little Mix were ‘not fans’ of Maloney – those girls aren’t yet ready to bite the hand that feeds them, it seems. Jade’s exit from the series was hyped up by fans and the press as a disaster, and I had to remind myself not to care and that I’d had no idea who she was to begin with – again, I’d heard the moaning of fans but not the vocals of the actual singer herself. Then, of course, there’s the simulant media wormhole that needs little introduction: Rylan. He’s been this year’s controversy-magnet, and early on caused one of the big strops this series when his remaining in the contest at the expense of someone called Carolynne caused massive ructions: Gary Barlow threatened to walk off the show (he should have done, it would have been the brave and noble thing to do, but presumably he returned as Cowell had his knackers in a vice contractually), and there was controversy when it appeared Louis Walsh – whose vote could have sent Rylan home and instead saw him continue – was seen to be recieving direction from a member of show staff before casting his ballot. And then I discovered Rylan had appeared on Sky Living’s sleazy modelling show Signed By Katie Price and the pennies began to fall into place. Rylan (born Ross, if it matters) wants to be a brand rather than a man, a male version of Price in terms of media ubiquity. How the hell do I avoid him if ditching ITV1 (and 2) alone is not going to be enough? I get like this every time stuff like X Factor is on, swallowing all the hype and garbage that the hyperactive media pumps out in a bid to hang on the coattails of the horribly massive show – apparently, this year the recieved wisdom is that a boyband will be anointed winners such that Cowell can groom them (in the non-Savile sense) to One Direction-style international commercial success. But then, that’s what music’s about today – sales will always win out over substance.

X Factor isn’t the only reality show running at the moment. At least Strictly has the good grace to have the lovely Victoria Pendleton (hey, a cyclist!) among its lineup. ITV’s got I’m A Celebrity up and running, and two of this year’s jungle rats have been particularly high in the headlines – blonde MP Nadine Dorries is this year’s contestant chosen to get the chattering classes and formerly-broadsheet papers talking about IACGMOOH, and given she’s known for her needling of David Cameron she’s been one of the most prominently-discussed personalities immediately prior to this year’s run going live. Meanwhile, the red-tops have been able to feast on the needy Helen Flanagan. Having been in Coronation Street since she was so young only Jimmy Savile would crack onto her, Flanagan recently left the soap having become something of a sex symbol, her now-curvaceous figure a popular target for tabloid crowing. Helen was apparently depressed and suffering panic attacks around the time she decided to quit the soap – it seems that having spent so long acting as someone else, the poor lamb perhaps wasn’t sure where Rosie ended and Helen began – and the sudden rage of attention from the sleazy media can’t have helped her health. However, now she’s no longer in a regular gig one does have to ask what her motives are for going in the jungle – does she crave a return to the spotlight? Is she keen to market herself as available to new productions? Is it just some ITV contractual thing? Or is there some sort of backroom deal with the tabloid press to give them plenty of uncovered Flanagan skin to coo over in return for extensive fawning coverage of the series? The media has sunk into such a sleazy pit that I no longer know what to believe – showbiz is built on so many lies, shady deals and self-serving brown-nosings that it’s impossible for the lay reader to identify what’s real and what’s fiction concocted to tantalise fans and sell tickets. Not that the exploited (or self-exploiting?) Helen has been the only celeb in the news for her body lately. Rihanna has become known for flaunting her figure in various photoshoots, web posts and music videos, but a rekindled relationship is reportedly set to cause a change in her physical appearance: the Barbados-born chart-dominator has reportedly reconciled with her former flame Chris Brown – the gruesome R&B hitmaking fella who sickened the pop world when he violently pounded Rihanna in a car the night before the Grammy Awards – and is said to be planning to impress him by undergoing an enhancement to her assets of the breast area. Now, clearly Rihanna has forgiven Chris much sooner than I have, which is awkward, and she is entitled to do so, I guess – when challenged on the reunion by Twitter followers, she posted up a Bible verse on forgiveness – but hasn’t that cruel man done enough damage to the lovesick girl’s body? Is Rihanna that unhappy or lacking in confidence that she needs the closeness to Brown and the approval from him that fake chebs would bring? There has to be some way we as a people can convince her to think again (maybe we can – Rihanna’s is one of the few celeb Twitter accounts operated by the star themselves, and I’m told she gives as good as she gets), but ultimately we have to accept Rihanna is in control of her own mind and body, and that it is ultimately her decision what she does with these. I just wish she was able to make a clear-headed judgement – in her current clouded-by-Brown state, there’s a danger she may do something she later regrets. Elsewhere in modern urban culture, it’s reported that Kim Kardashian, famed for her curves, feels under pressure to keep her weight down and slim her famous figure because, according to some trashy rag’s screeching, her current/former (I can’t keep up) partner, Taylor Swift-interrupting rapper Kanye West, prefers his girls skinny. Now, I’ve never previously been moved to side with the Kardashian media empire, having previously slain the clan’s 4Music-clogging reality show for swallowing slots which should by rights have gone to Adam & Joe and the like, but I feel the need to step in here and say something, So Kim, listen up. Don’t change your body for any man. Be proud of yourself and the person you are. Have the confidence to stand up for yourself, keep your weight and figure at exactly what you’re comfortable with, and if Kanye doesn’t like that, tell him to go stuff an egg – there are a great many men who would love and appreciate you for the woman you are, and wouldn’t try to crush you down into something you feel is unhealthy. Your wellbeing is more important than the College Dropout’s opinions. If you want to be your most beautiful, be true to yourself and natural, in the shape you’re most happy with, and don’t bend to others’ demeaning demands. There we go. I just said something nice about a Kardashian – I guess the old rules don’t apply anymore! Of course, sometimes reality microstars and media celebs do things I actually approve of and reveal hidden depths: as previously mentioned here, Rebeckah Vaughan does a fair bit for the Katie Piper Foundation, and her fellow Big Brothering blonde Nikki Grahame is a 6 Music listener – so maybe I shouldn’t judge people purely on the cackling of the glossy media.

There have been a few media landmarks to celebrate recently: although at current pace it’s sadly unlikely to see the 100th, the BBC did take a break from Savile-gate to celebrate the 90th anniversary of its first 2LO radio broadcast, with a unique synchronised transmission that only an organisation like the Beeb could pull off. See, they are still capable of doing something good! Elsewhere, Channel 4 turned 30 in what has been one of the station’s biggest years – it’s had all manner of headline-making chaos going on this year, with big-bidget event broadcasts strung through the year, such as the C4 Mash Up, Drugs Live, House Party (those were three separate events, not the same thing), Funny Fortnight, the Plane Crash, Hotel GB, Stand Up to Cancer, and of course the magnificent Paralympics – this has really been the year C4 bellied up to the big table and showed it had balls. That said, there was little mention of the anniversary on the birthday itself – a throwaway mention on Countdown was just about all that we got on 2 November – and outside of these special stunt events C4 is still a little too reliant on a few big hits – Come Dine With Me is now making multiple appearances (you can normally expect at least a couple hours a day of it now, plus even more on 4seven and More4) which is leaving the cookery contest looking a little overheated, and the nasty habit of tugging something off the main channel mid-series and flinging it onto a digital station, replacing it on C4 with CDWM, is still very much alive, Gok Wan’s Friday night dating show Baggage being the latest victim. (I should point out that, whilst it was no Blind Date, Baggage was at least more enjoyable than the muttony meat market that is Take Me Out, and was also the first bit of proper shiny-floor entertainment C4 has done in bloody ages.) At least new-to-channel episodes of The Simpsons have finally, belatedly, turned up on C4 as a break from the relentless repeat cycle, but these editions (the 20th season, if you need) will soon become tired and unfunny from endless looping around. C4’s paranoid slicing-up of Simpsons scenes (which began in earnest after the station was slammed for allowing U2 to say ‘wankers’ at 6pm) hasn’t won the channel many friends, either – a segment featuring Ned Flanders and Snake in one of the new eps was so horribly butchered by C4’s censors as to be rendered pretty much meaningless, and the channel has admitted being overly cautious when it ripped an offhand Carl comment from a Sunday lunchtime rerun of an earlier show simply for daring to include the word ‘gay’. After the Simpsons of course comes Hollyoaks, and it’s been tough to avoid chatter around the wedding-day carnage that is a central storyline in the show at the time of writing. It’s wedding-day deaths, disasters and divorces in TV shows which have spooked me from getting married – drama and documentaries have me so worried that some sort of murder, fire or punch-up will blight my future partner’s special day that I’m nervous even to think of it. Although quite how I’m going to find a girl to love me is unclear – a manky jobseeker with no real social skills isn’t going to attract many takers, and in my declining years I may be reduced to crawling along Powis Street or around the still-largely-triangular Bluewater armed with some kind of net-based mechanism. Or perhaps I should just shark Twitter for phrases such as “I wish there was a nice guy around” or “Why can’t I find a fella who’s into Biffy and Muse?”, and then respond, if it’s technically possible to do so, should any such combination turn up on the searchbox. Although with today’s young women largely being followers of folk like the above-mentioned Kim Kardashian and Rihanna, there’s likely to be little love for a fella who knows his Two Door Cinema Club from his Bombay Bicycle Club – that’s also why I can’t get a job in ‘music’ stores, as with CD sales on the high street in decline most entertainment retailers would rather hire someone who knows about iPads and Kinect rather than someone ancient enough to remember a time before MP3. Maybe I’ll get lucky and in the course of scouting around on my usual scruffy roustabout for jobs, food and reason to live I’ll happen to stumble into some sparkly, charming indiegirl who can put up with my foibles (or reattach them when they fall off) – though as I’m usually scurrying around almost on autopilot, nervously avoiding eye contact with those who would do me harm, it’s unlikely I’ll spot a sexy lady in the street unless I blindly thud right into her whilst escaping some store in a baffled state, by which point a date would largely be out of the question. As I told Kim above, I don’t have too many hang-ups on looks – I’d rather be with a lady who was comfortable in her own skin than some botoxed and overpreened confidence-vacuum – though if truth be told I do like blonde hair, possibly because my mother is a brunette, and very few single lads would want to date their mum. (Pro tip – if you look like, say, Kiri out of Bid TV, you stand a chance of catching my eye…) If I did get a girlfriend, though, mum would probably relax a bit, as I’d finally be able to move towards emerging from under the apron strings and letting her get on with her own life…

Some of my, and the nation’s, favourite ladies – and gentlemen – were celebrated publically at the recent Daily Mirror-backed Pride of Britain awards, as screened on ITV1. I don’t usually watch a lot of award shows (though I did used to watch events like the Brits back when I was a music fan) – however, on hearing who was involved this year I decided to tune into the POBA and, well, it was brilliant. One of the people I was watching for was a certain Ms. Piper – her award win was the culmination of all the hard work she’s done over the last few years, not only rebuilding her own life but also laying the groundwork for an organisation through which many others may benefit in the future. Katie’s journey here started with pain and agony, but finally here was the celebration, the moment when our girl was finally rewarded for her courage and strength of spirit. Elsewhere, another lady I was delighted to see on the show was Alice Pyne. The girl behind the Twitter-phenomenon “Alice’s Bucket List”, beautiful Alice has been through a lot of pain and struggle in her young life, but here we saw her smile – particularly when she was handed her award by one of her very favourite pop stars, Robbie “too old for radio” Williams. Alice has, like Katie, decided to use her experience and support to build a better life for others, launching her own charity – Alice’s Escapes – to raise funds to help young people whose days are too often filled with pain have fun, memorable days that they’ll enjoy. I do adore Alice – not in a Savile way but because she is a kind, sweet young lady who has a lot of warmth and sparkle – and you should know by now I admire that in a lady, as you’ll have seen from my comments on other girls above. Also honoured at the POBA was a girl who put herself in the path of an oncoming car and barged her sister out of the way, wrecking her own leg in the process but crucially saving the younger girl’s life – now there’s heroics – and also a woman who has become something of a figurehead for justice in my section of the woods: Doreen Lawrence, mother of Stephen, the teenager fatally stabbed in Southeast London’s very own Eltham back in the early 90s, back before many of today’s teens were even born and when I was only about 11, has spent the subsequent two decades fighting to see her son’s racist killers put behind bars, and has seen through the establishment of an architecture scholarship in memory of her wannabe-architect son. And, in a neat bit of synch, both Doreen Lawrence and Katie Piper have delivered Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message, albeit in different years. The highpoint of the POBA for many though was the mass-honour for those sportspeople who did Britain proud at the Olympics and Paralympics – and seeing them descend en masse onto the stage in a peer group so rampant they even persuaded HRH Sir Prince Charles to do the Mobot was the champagne-cork moment at the end of a mighty year for them and their supporters. It was lovely to see the athletes I’d become suddenly fond of over the summer being celebrated, and indeed themselves celebrating, having done so much for us. Although dragging on Heather Small (we’re not related – her voice is far deeper than mine, and I’m as white as the driven winter) at the end was perhaps milking it a bit – but hey, they needed a big powerful finish to the show! It was good to see decent people being celebrated, although slightly odd to see it being done on ITV1, a channel which revels in the vile and the mucky (from Jeremy Kyle to X Factor) on practically all the other days of the year. Incidentally, the day after the POBA, Katie Piper attended as a guest the non-televised Cosmopolitan awards, at which winners included Tulisa and the Kardashians. It’s sad to see the normal order so swiftly being restored. But at least for one day I was able to smile.

I did enjoy a little bit of a titter the other day when I saw that kicked-out X Factor contestant Frankie Cocozza had made a stumbling entry into the singles market when his new release – his first post-X serving – was reported to have landed at that fantastic chart position of number 89. This was in the week that the supposedly too old Robbie spent his second week at the top of the modern-day pops with Candy, and also hit the album chart number one. Who’s popular with ver kids now, Grimshaw? Still, I did enjoy the opportunity to smirk at someone’s downfall given that I’m usually so preoccupied with arresting my own! At the time I saw the report I hadn’t heard the song, though on seeing it described as ‘indie pop’ in one report I did wonder whether, given my heritage listening to Supergrass, Sleeper and the like, I would actually have enjoyed the song. When I did eventually stumble across Cocozza’s tune – ‘She’s Got a Motorcycle’, apparently – on Chart Show TV of all places, I found out what it actually was like – and found it to be cheerful scruffy-pop fairly reminiscent of 90s/early 00s guitar-led boynoise – if you recall the likes of Catch (y’know, the ones that did that song Bingo, remember that? Well, if you’re young enough to know who Frankie is, probably not) and their ilk you’ll know about where Frankie’s tune has landed. So whilst it’s no ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, it’s probably preferable to forcing young people to listen to Chris Brown. And of course, today’s guitar-led pop listener is potentially tomorrow’s rock listener. But then, who am I to force my musical tastes on anyone? If people would rather listen to Drake than Biffy Clyro, I just have to accept that and find fun where I can. And whilst it would suit me to seek out something outside the mainstream – it would be nice, should I ever find a few minutes’ break in the rushing-around I tend to have to do, to spend some time sat listening to the 6 Music I fought so hard to save, for not only myself, not only Nikki Grahame, but for all those who want something of quality amidst a mass of mainstream mush. And I perhaps shouldn’t be so quick to judge people on their media message – there are real people behind the headlines, and we need to remember that these people have insecurities, worries and feelings which the screaming gossip can sometimes mask. And while I’m far too old to chat to any of Cocozza’s fans without looking like a massive Savile (last one, I promise), it would be nice to see young people’s day being brightened by positive role models and good-natured, kind-hearted folk – for instance, on the recently-revived dream-maker show Surprise Surprise, a wheelchair-bound teen girl arranged for her able-bodied sister, who had done so much to support and help her over the years, and who she clearly adored, to meet their favourite pop group (The Saturdays, as it turns out, minus blonde Mollie) in a shopping mall for the show. You should’ve seen the smiles on the girls’ faces when Frankie (Sandford, not Cocozza, as it goes), Rochelle, and, um, two others (alright, Una and Vanessa then) appeared before them – now that was one of the genuinely prettiest (in a good way) TV moments of the year. Maybe in future, with X Factor and the like in decline, and the growing influence of good people across the schedules, Britain could in the longer term return to the spirit of happiness, positivity and friendship it enjoyed back in the days when the original Surprise Surprise (and other such shows) were still on the box. And then we’ll all have some fond memories which hopefully won’t be dashed in years to come. How’s about that, then, boys and girls?

“When he grows up, I want to be like me!” (Goodbye!)