ITT an open and frank discussion about the journalist, critic and polemecist Charlie Brooker

Kids still do kick the ball in my street - bloody kids.

I blame the bloody parents.

Speaking of which, through most of my childhood, and whenever I could manage the time as a student, usually during the summer holidays, my brothers and I incessantly used to kick a ball against a wall at the bottom of the garden in the course of playing the game DONKEY.

It was only towards the end of this halcyon decade or so, at the end of one particular summer holiday, that a women from the house just beyond the end of the bottom of the garden shouted with more anger than I had hitherto possible

'IF YOU DON'T STOP KICKING THAT BLOODY BALL AGAINST THAT BLOODY WALL I WILL COME AROUND AND THROTTLE YOU.'

They had a dog that barked though. Sometimes.

Also, who's Biffo?

'had hitherto thought possible' of course.

http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/images/biffo1.jpg

That's all I've got Nick

omg if i hear one more kid walk past my house bouncing a ruddy ball on the pavement, i'll grab it off him and charge them tuppence to get it back. i will.

It's time a wall of society was once again built on top of every child.

Nick - Biffo is the writer Paul Rose, formerly the man responsible for Digitiser, the video games section of Channel 4 Teletext.

maybe Biffo is just too socially inept

So Biffo is to Paul Scott what Charlie Brooker is to me?

(Jokes, bruv.)

Well, Biffovision (his pilot for BBC3) wasn't particularly great. He does get a fair amount of work, but he's definitely not at the same level of recognition as Brooker, mainly cos Digitiser was much more of a cult thing (and it was about video games. Well, ostensibly)

William I think your sentences are just fine. I like Frankie Boyle though and wonder what you mean by this - see, for example, the way the other panellists on Mock The Week regard Frankie Boyle.

I don't think I've ever seen Mock the Week - how do they regard him?

he's deemed the most popular and most 'outrageous' of the show's regulars, top of the hierarchy after the host, i can't think of a suitable analogy.

he has his own butler.

I only knew of Brooker from that Screenwipe thing. He comes across as a younger Adrian Chiles.

he's deemed the most popular and most 'outrageous' of the show's regulars, top of the hierarchy after the host, i can't think of a suitable analogy.

I'd say Paul Merton, but Merton's been a bigger draw than the host for years. Maybe Alan Davies on QI (though he's a bit of whipping boy, and not very funny)?

I saw Alan Davies yesterday! At the NT!

yeah i was gonna say Merton but he's often the only actual comic on HIGNFY whereas on MTW they're all comics (except when Laverne was on).

it's really annoying how on QI Davies is seen as the wacky pet but yeah similar deal

You know the bald guy on MTW, I only just realised that he's on every week.

^ ILX's wacky pet!

that's cruel :(

in the right measure it's a very good sign

Oh okay then. I mean I could try and write something insightful, but I'm sure it's already been said.

Boyle and to a lesser extent Dara O'Brien are the only reasons to watch MTW. Bald guy and Hugh Dennis are both stomach-turning.

You forgot the little blonde guy! He's a trier!

Yeah he's bearable. Also David Mitchell is sometimes on it, but never on top form.

I might have seen Sean Lock (who I'm a fan of) on MTW week once, actually, but it's easy to get these panel shows mixed up.

Incidentally, Screenwipe starts again on BBC4 in 15 minutes.

Yeh. I'm in. Although I might watch it with a delay, 'cos I'm trying to get some work done first ;)

Why in the fuck am I watching The Book Quiz? Giles Coren and David Aaronovitch, together at last...

Also:

Surely not watching much TV kind of takes away a fair amount of interest in Brooker's schtick?

I watch fuck all telly, really. I watch Brooker so I can remind myself why.

One thing I tried watching recently was Dead Set. It was fucking rubbish.

Giles Coren and David Aaronovitch, together at last

Are they fighting to the death? Otherwise: not interested.

I thought the bit about how Pop Idol and X Factor has led the TV-viewing public to expect to be allowed to have their say on everything broadcast, such as Jonathan Ross's Sachsgate, was rather astute.

Also, by posting this I am proving his point. 1-0 to Brooker.

Bits I loved: his coruscating put-down of newspapers (and indeed pretty much the entirety of the Ross/Brand segment); the increasingly self-deprecating nature of the whole thing; the credits.

Bit that really needs axed, quickly: the "poet".

Bit I wasn't entirely sure about: the unnecessarily brutal mocking of Britannia High's (admittedly clumsy) attempt to deal with dyslexia. But -- to quote Russell Brand -- it was quite funny.

Was it me, or did half of Brooker's introductory links from one bit to the next seem as if they'd been shot in one take? And was it intentional? Did I miss some point about sloppy TV and lower budgets?

The thing about the Britannia High bit - a programme I'd never even heard about: is it a kid's show or a Saturday teatime thing (as I can't believe it would be on in prime time)? - is that, if I didn't know that Screenwipe is a show that comments on actual TV shows, I would have assumed it had been made up as a parody for comedic effect. It really made me think "This can't be real," and that was before I saw the dyslexia bit, which near enough made my mind fall out of my head. ITV shows surely haven't got that bad, have they? Or am I just old now? Go back a few years and Britannia High would have made the S Club 7 TV show look like Songs of Praise.

Alternatively, Britannia High seems like the dramatic equivalent of those times on Sky News or when the stupid graphics or idiotic scripts make me think "Ha! It's just like The Day Today or Brasseye, only real and not ten years ago and ten times more stupid because of those two things".

In short, back in the good old days, it was all fields around here and you kids wouldn't have got where I am today, etc.

Britannia High is kids TV in a Sunday tea-time-ish slot.

I can't believe you're thinking that was the potential parody though. Paul Ross' BIG BLACK BOOK OF HORROR, people!

Poet needs to go, yes.

Britannia High is astonishingly only the third worst programme on at that time on Sunday, behind Antiques Roadshow and Bremner, Bird And Fortune Explain The Recession (Anyone Remember When/If We Were Funny?).

What have you got against Antiques Roadshow?

Don't tell me - it's dumbed down since the golden days when whoeverthefuckitwas did it?

In a nutshell: Fiona Bruce pretending to be happy.

Was it me, or did half of Brooker's introductory links from one bit to the next seem as if they'd been shot in one take? And was it intentional?

I don't know if it's intentional but it's always been like this, i.e. as though he shot all his links in one long night with a webcam set up to point at his coffee table and couch.

In a nutshell: Fiona Bruce pretending to be happy.

― What a broad smile! It is like a delta! (Marcello Carlin), Friday, 21 November 2008 11:44 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark

Bring back Aspel and his suave mannerisms and carefully sculpted barnet.

Antiques Roadshow is one of those TV institutions I would love to take charge of for a short while just to troll its core audience audience. I think Fearne and Reggie could do a good job with it...

> Bring back Aspel

was all downhill after authur negus.

Brooker is just one of a string of people who were allright or even good once, but who've ran their act on for way too long, I think? I remember thinking he was funny years ago, but he appears to have been doing the exact same thing for like a decade or something now.

I actually had to pause it twice last night to laugh like a tool: admittedly, it was at knob gags both times (the "so, the director is shooting a load into the actor's mouth?" and .. cuh, I can't even remember the other one).

And I suppose I did learn something: that advertising manages to be even more O_o than I ever imagined.

very necessary trashing of Dawn Porter and Gok Wan on tonight's Screen Wipe. full marks to Konnie "excellent! let's go piss" Huq too.

last week's episode on screenwriters was great

It was, wasn't it? I liked the old-fashioned format: a bunch of obvious but important questions - basically variants on "where do you get your ideas?" - answered at length by thoughtful people at the top of their game with an interviewer more interested in listening than chipping in with his own observations a la Mark Lawson.