Galactica.

Galactica.

So, it's over. The greatest TV experience of science fiction in history. Finished. Story told. ..What do we do with Tuesday nights now?

I saw a friend's status update the morning after the final episode of Battlestar Galactica had aired in the US, at the weekend, and it said he thought it was ''all a bit... meh."

Oh dear.

This meant I was secretly set for a bit of a disappointment lastnight, as Laura and Chris joined us for the ceremonially last getting together for our favourite show. But this can, I find, sometimes enhance your discovery of a film or program. Low expectations – good life lesson, kids.

For, in the end, lastnight's episode essentially rocked. But gently.

They did all the right things, really. Well, almost. Two things that disappointed for me were the limp disappearance of one of the most dynamic characters in the dynamic ensemble, Starbuck – "Right, so bye then." >pop!< – and the end of the eponymous heroine, Galactica herself.

I reeeally wanted dramatic closure. I wanted to choke up manfully as we watched an unwarranted amount of CG man hours pull apart the old girl's every nut and rivet – because to me it would have been warranted. Symbol of hope and safety and fighting chance, Galactica was ending her life and service. Off into the sunset wasn't good enough – I wanted a phoenix end with surging score and way too much screen time.

..Although, on that score (as it were) they did deliver. I'd always hoped, since pretty much the beginning, that in the last ever episode someone would have the courage to deliver the original colonial theme. It's just a great theme. And thankfully, after what amounts to probably the greatest musical build up in screen story-telling history, Bear McCreary finally got permission to surge in with Stu Phillips' stirring motif. As the fleet broke orbit around Earth for the last time and in came the tune, I cheered. Annoyingly.

Hooray for great tunes. Well done, Bear – you did the right thing. Though you have a silly name.

---

Interestingly though, the young composer has said that LA is a great place to find musicians who play odd things. By which I assume he means unusual instruments, rather than Daft Punk on the tuba, or something. Though I'm sure you could get that too.

My point is that Bournemouth is not a great place to find musicians who play odd things. I could really have done with finding an oud player for Sophie at least. Or even better, a vocalist. But, as much as I'm having to fake it, I should say that the pieces coming together for Ben's little show are cute and groovy. But still more to write and arrange before next week when he delivers the first of it.

Short weeks like this often seem to attract more deadlines than normal weeks, I've noticed. Pulling my hair a little leading up to time away on the boat – during which I'll probably be thinking about all the music I'm not doing leaning over in the middle of the Solent.

Still, I had to pay homage to the most impressive thing on TV. Ron Moore did the right thing with Galactica's last episode, apparently writing on a white board in a production meeting: 'it's the characters, stupid'. It was the right thing to do to amble around and say goodbye and tie up loose ends for these people – they deserved it.

I would say, however, that there was so much to practically get through, it was hard to pack a real wallop of an emotional punch. Too many places to apportion your emotion, really. So there were no tears as we said goodbye, though a good number of emotive moments – especially President Roswell's thankyou to the doctor – just a feeling of satisfaction.

Well rounded, damned interesting story. Seemless cast of powerful performances. Writing that pushed TV drama hard, but with compelling integrity. And production values that were frequently bloody amazing.

How do such things come into existence? How can TV get things so right occasionally? It's a little miracle of creativity.

But that is the key – commitment to creative integrity. When suits trust the creatives and creatives trust their instincts, you get a smash hit.

So say we all.

(..Unless the creatives turn out to be crap. But don't spoil the noble mood. Shh.)

Equinox(e).

Equinox(e).

It's still my favourite Jean Michel Jarre album, I feel.

Zoolook – that's the one, obviously. The creative one. The one I'll say I'm taking with me on Desert Island Disks, largely because of Ethnicolor. And because it's sort of the original inspiration behind me making music at all.

But I slipped on the ol' iPod headphones the other night, alone on the sofa, and found myself dialling up this old 1978 electronic record, Equinoxe, and just enjoyed it as an old, old friend. Beyond critical faculties.

I mention it only because today is the spring equinox. Day as long as night. A tipping point into summer, perhaps.

We've had a joyous week of consistent, high, sunny skies and still the houses beyond the studio window are bathed in warm evening glow at nearly half five on this Friday evening. Felt the sunshine for much of it too, though not all. But, y'know, some things are done as the week ends, other things are at least progressed, and a mezze platter with friends is waiting for me in town right now. So life is sunny overall, I know.

Plus, more importantly, I'm falling in love with a new tune I've produced for Sophie. Over twenty years, there's been more than just French space music or Kraut techno pop influencing my writing, but I still feel as energised by finishing a new tune as ever I did back in the days I was recording in a shed on a four track.

Expect to hear a giant mix of Trailblender online sometime soon.

I am a tart. But it's spring, so it's good to get frisky in some way.

Saturday night, Sunday morning.

Saturday night, Sunday morning.

They're not meant to go together. Not when Sunday morning becomes the time to do exercise.

I'm a fan of the Littledown Centre. As much as people defect over the road to The Village for its Starbucks coffee and its swimming pool you can actually swim in, I think the Littledown flies the flag for municipal sports facilities pretty well.

You're already thinking I'm taking the pee, right? The same pee it takes five hundred gallons of chlorine to sterilise the idea of in the minds of swimmers in the main pool, right?

Well, no. I speak as someone evidently unschooled, skilled or motivated in matters sporting, of course; Laurent Garnier's The man with the red face is not my favourite workout track for nothing. But this council-run sports centre has created a nice enough vibe to keep me coming back. If only because they need my money a little too much to throw me out of the classes as a hazard.

Sunday was its 20th anniversary. To celebrate, they'd apparently decided to have a day of '1989'-style activities and prices and Adrian announced at the end of Thursday's circuits class that he was holding a special version of one on Sunday morning.

For some freakish reason, I decided to go.

To the sports centre.

On a Sunday morning.

Me.

The guy so not cut-out for sporting prowess that his only emergency asset in the gymn – his personality – is emergency over-ridden by blood flow and some autonomic safety reaction when engaging in exercise. All I have in there is Funny. Only it stops working after five minutes of running, leaving me floundering like a flipped turtle in my panting exchanges with Actually Fit people as they spring past. Cheeky smiles become villainous leers, amusing quips become spittle-repeated weirdo remarks to strangers, and boyish confidence becomes stooping, sweating, staggering, purple-faced vulnerability.

Me.

---

It was a gorgeous morning as I pulled on my shorts and irreconcilably-deformed sports shirt. And it felt odd as hell doing so.

Pulling up to the swooping shape of the Littledown, I felt a hint of the same kind of trepidation I felt going to a pre-term summer sports week, before I started big school. Everyone laughed at my Super Saints sports bag, I recall. Thankfully, I knew so little about football even then, it didn't scar me.

Who else would turn up to this? And why couldn't I think of a place to get a sweat band?

But, as I approached the windows overlooking the main hall, I found myself grinning. Adventure play today, kids.

The middle station included some spongy stairs and crash mats, a spongy hole-in-the-wall and some crash mats, some more crash mats to run along and some beams to leap under and over, without crash mats. Fun, in other words. And a legitimate reason to waste time experimenting with amusing comments in the heat of exercise. Like comedy boot camp.

Adrian was, as I'd have place money on him being, wearing sweatbands. I ruminated as we started the warm-up run that this was the one occasion when I could have legitimately held my stupid floppy hair out of my face without unspoken pity – in fact, with the jump-started pride of a man Evidently Amusing – but I'd missed it.

The thing was. Yeah. That thing.

Working out to eighties music is weird. I couldn't work out whether we were all secretly energised by Eye of the tiger or whether, by the time Living in America was bouncing off the high walls, we were all feeling very uncomfortably like we were doing Robert Webb's now infamous Flashdance routine.

In my head, I could feel the cling of lycra and the inexplicable ankle heat of leg warmers. I could feel myself starting to mince-skip, between stations. By the time There's no stopping us (no stopping) from the original soundtrack to Breakdance II: the electric boogaloo had me side-tapping my head and singing along, its 808 beat marking my jogging steps, I was beginning to just feel dirty.

---

It was a feeling subsumed, I should continue, by fatigue. That adventure playground was no playground. Those spongy stairs weren't for softies. Crash mats? Crash and burn mats, baby.

Obviously all the fittists took it seriously. I however, after one lap of running through what felt like treacle, found myself draped over the high bar like, in my wife's worryingly-immediate words afterwards, "one of the 118 blokes".

I know at one point I opted for the positive alternative of shouting instructions and encouragement to the people still actually using the equipment for exercise. "Come on. Yep – nice one, keep going. Now over the mat. Good – knees up..." You get it.

I think I ended the session on my back, spilling out of either end of the spongy hole-in-the-wall. Cheering in a very can-do fashion, so quietly that no-one could hear.

---

To be fair, some of the Genuinely Fit People almost made to invite me to come to the normal Sunday morning class, sans spongy toys. But I think it will be a while before I do anything reckless with my Sunday mornings again.

I really should have put this to good use and at least been sponsored for Comic Relief.

Short.

Short.

I promised myself I'd be wedded to the timecode today. Ben's now sent me three little edits of the show and I'd hoped to be well into the fun bit by the time I was sitting here in a fresh shirt, about to go and watch a bunch of films that actually got finished.

Somehow, unsurprisingly, didn't get that far. I've, like, watched all the clips though.

It is the fun bit, reacting to the pictures and the edit. But I won't be able to get back to it until Sunday now; Mark and I are taking a road trip to Bedford tomorrow.

Tonight, however, we're going as far as Bournemouth pier. After a flurry of emails, the chaps now hosting Future Shorts are showcasing their organisational skills tonight. Mark and I had chatted seriously about taking over the franchise down here, it's so cool. He'd naturally gotten as far as basically convincing the lady from FS in London to give it to us too. But realistically? How would either of us have found the time to organise a miniature film festival?

White Lantern, the prod co who've taken it over are good chums of Mark's however, and however much they've turned in a good deal of enthusiasm for tonight's lavish gala of short films and minor movie production celebs, I can't help suspecting something of this will still end up on his desk in the, well, future.

---

Wednesday I did something I've not made the time to do before. Take a morning off and just go for a walk.

I shouldn't be blogging this, of course. I'm up to my eyes etc. But the point is, I usually am. And when do I go take in the seaside charm I'm always telling my clients it's great to work near?

Near? What difference is near? Unless you're completely at, you're not there at all.

So I slung a little bag over my shoulder and walked. With a decent pile of things to do that were all largely pending someone getting back to me with something crucial to make them finished things, I paused the Skype pipe and pottered off into the crispy sunshine.

I took myself into Tuckton and along the river and up to the Head, naturally. Found a weird and perfect sweet spot on Warren Hill and watched the waves breaking against the beach in the mouth of the solent. Wandered back eventually past Ma's place to find her 'wagging six tails' at the new carpet that had been finally put down that morning. Dad's old room looks stunning. Largely thanks to the efforts of my wife.

Efforts are something she doesn't have right now, though. Still run down enough to be sleeping rather than working today, poor thing.

So, I'm leaving her to Brideshead Revisited – a very long thing she's almost entirely through – while I go out with our bright young things to watch a series of short things.

Sometimes you just need to get a way for a short time on your own. Off to a beach head, or into another world. Helps you get back to all the workish, creative, real world a little more equipped.

---

One thing I did manage to do by the end of the week was revisit something I thought I'd finished but hadn't – Disfunkshun. So much fun, but... what was the piece missing still?

Mucking about with the beats still further, like something I should leave well alone, I hit upon a little detail by accident that suddenly made it fall into place. Just... there it was. Grinning like a loon, I suddenly knew what we were supposed to be doing with the video.

The Hospital mix is now up on the website and the MySpace. Not much different but different.

Short can be sweet. Especially when it's the short little something that finally connects up the very long something that still didn't quite reach.

Bankst.

Bankst.

Can you believe it's snowing again? As wet as it is out there, snow is back – and settling. Which is unsettling.

Chillier is the news that the Bank of England is about to announce another interest rate cut, apparently – to 0.5%. It's another attempt to unfreeze the economy, while Gordy tries to warm the UK/US entente cordiale. Or at least get Obama's autograph.

As everyone over-analysed the two leaders' body language this week, I couldn't help thinking that Prime Minister Brown must represent an odd partner in the economic fight – wasn't he at the helm of the UK's influential economy for the precise ten year period that we built the success time bomb? Wasn't he at the head of the drooling mob, stuffing fifties into the M&S y-fronts of various vulgarly gyrating bank bosses, burring: "Devilishly imprudent, you naughty boys"?

To say nothing of his public backing of Blair in the war on Iraq.

A nice ironic daydream I've had is Blair still being PM alongside the Obama administration; though they represent fairly fundamentally different micro-eras in world politics, I can picture them dragging out every press con with charming jokes and little witty winks to one another. Possibly with stiff little declarations of love creeping into the routine...

Tony:
"I meeen, y'know, c'mon, Mr President knows, ah, y'know," >LOOKS UP, DEAD-PAN< "that I love him. >PAUSES< "Asyouknow," >SMIRKS BASHFULLYTO ONE SIDE< "it's always beeen a vury... speshul relationship... and..." >LOOKS UP AGAIN, PRESIDENTIALLY< "I'd like him to take me in his arms and tell me the warrineerack was just a bad dream."

Barry:
>MOUTHS THE WORDS< I Love You Tony.

Well, it's Gordy and Barry doing the stand up. And I think they should let Baz do the jokes.

..Maybe that's the ticket, yknow. While Mr Brown returns home and discusses quantitative easing with the bankers, fretting over where to get more cash from, I think the US should send Obama on a world comedy tour. Really. Can't you see him, perched louchely on a cocktail lounge stool? Knocking them out to rapturous guffaws?

Wouldn't just ease everyone's tensions. I think it would be a licence to print money.

Life.

Life.

It goes on. Things happen, and then more things happen. Or don't.

Doesn't sound like much of a screenplay idea to pitch to God, I'll grant you. Life: stuff keeps, like, happening. But it's obviously more complicated than that.

..Plus we'll fill in a lot of it with CG and snappy editing.

---

So, after a remarkably sociable, productive weekend, Caroline and I are starting the week a little pooped. But, y'know. Okay.

The sun is out again this morning and I've written my first list of things to do. There will undoubtedly be more flamming and thwacking and clacking and shimmy-shingling and wailing to test the remarkable patience of our neighbours, as I get more into the film score, and Caroline seems to have yet more Very Important Meetings to deliver things into, but all of this is helpful momentum for us in what are weird times for many of the people we sat around mugs, glasses and tables with over the last 48 hours. And those we were hoping to with but couldn't.

But, Sunday morning I was reminded of the need to sometimes get away alone and remember what's really important in this fleeting life. Momentum can also be inertia, making it hard to steer the right direction.

So perhaps I'll start this Monday with a walk up to the bakery and the bank in the sunshine. Before all the rythmns of life this week carry me along.

Slumming it.

Slumming it.

So we finally made it to the cinema. For two apparent 'movie lovers' we haven't exactly boosted the British film industry with our patronage over the last twelve months. What have we been watching all that time? Don't tell me it's Will and Grace.

Of course, everyone says they're a movie lover. What they mean is they love being given largely mindless things that move for a couple of hours, to stare at from the sofa. Bloody proles, eh? Eh? Wouldn't know a subtitle if it explained what it was in Hindi to them. Those saps.

Everyone also says they're a lover of Oscar smash, Slumdog Millionaire. And who are we to argue with the masses? I love those masses – they're right. For we have seen it at last and can verify, it's fab.

It's one of those dead simple ideas, like the perfect pop tune, that seems so obvious it must have always been around.

I think Caroline's draining few weeks made her rather vulnerable to its triumph-over-adversity charms as we sat there hugging in the cinema, last to leave. The cleaner guy looked uncomfortable.
Now we can join the throng, Bollywood sequence dancing in the street over it's loveability. Masses, shaking their asses.

And I have long wanted to do a Bollywood dance number for a video. Like I said on my Facebook status the next morning, Charminster high street - that's the place to do it. Someone ring the council. Someone ring an Indian choreographer. Someone ring the camera track and boom rental people. Someone leaflet the shops.

And the guy who knows the guy at the Giant Silk Pantaloons R Us store - make the call.

---

Sunshine's out this morning. Been a productive week in some ways; artwork to press and articles written. Even managed to get Slumdog into my e-mailer for Team this week: "The slums of Mumbai may be a long way from the semis of Corfe Mullen..." Almost poetry.

Ben and I had a good first chat around his shoot in Morocco and my first skits for the soundtrack. Think he digs it generally so I'll be skitting some more as we tackle first edit next week – jeepers, all eight episodes have to be delivered by the end of March.

And now I have some brochures to put to bed. Not tucked up under a quilt, you understand. Just finished and sent to the printers. But my business needs all the cooler-sounding street slang for what it does that it can get.

I've put on Cafe Del Mar volume Seis and am in an officially summery mood ahead of the weekend. These little delusions are the fuel you need. They're the little shiny moments to bask in while you wait in vain for the big gameshow win to set off the glitter droppers and change your life.

Ah, Dusty doing The Look of Love. Let's go to work, people; the world can be made alright.

Networking.

Networking.

I have no idea how to do this. Never have.

You're given a room full of people and a sticker with your name on it, and you have to just launch yourself in there and, like, talk to people. Say: "Hi! I'm Tim. I'm groovy and you want a piece of me. You do. You just didn't know that you do before I sauntered over and finger pistoled you a compelling wink. Yeah. ..By the way, I should tell you that this kind of groovy does NOT come cheap..."

Right. Of course I'm comfortable doing that.

Mark took me to a fairly convincingly organised-looking affair at Landmarc lastnight; film students and, er, film students, I think. No sign of movie producers weeping for need of a really creative musician to bring their well-funded, starry-casted, lavish, big screen production to life.

So I killed time and my embarrassed Out Of Placeness by being a table whore.

Thank goodness there were some people who'd brought tables of leaflets. I sauntered around the gallery chatting to a nice succession of people manning various tables of leaflets and finding out what they do. Interesting things, it turns out. Could have chatted with some of them for longer quite happily.

But I was that awful thing at events – a chatty useless punter. I was no good to any of them for business. And none of them needed a groovy electro-beat score for anything. So I tried not to keep them for too long, and instead of networking, we just chatted and swapped branded material. It was nice. It was pointless.

It was my kind of business.

---

This morning, getting up early to get the latest Team e-mailer in shape, I found an e-mail from one Guru Josh Project (Official). Asking to be friends on MySpace.

Now, I don't know if you know much about Guru Josh, he of the Infinity tune that was a smack-rave hit in the early 90s and has been again over Christmas, 18 years later. I didn't. I only knew that the sax riff on that record is quite nice and GJ obviously knows this because he repeats the b'sheesh out of it for five minutes. Fair play. This creative attitute made a life-long career for Vangelis.

So I click to the page and find his biog.

OMG. As young MySpacers might put it. Which he clearly isn't.

I couldn't tear myself away from his story.

He's hustled and blagged and worked his way through so many mad tales and bank accounts, I had to keep reading. Fortunes made and given away repeatedly. Sometimes intentionally.

Read it, you'll see what I mean. His straight-talking yarning reminds me of friends I've known who've lived on the street – which he kind of has, I suppose, working it. It's fascinating, and it's under About Guru Josh:

http://profile.myspace.com/gurujoshmusic

Wish I had a story like this. Though I suspect the loved ones around me are glad I'm a little more predictable...

---

This morning, however, the only person I really want to network with is one of my oldest chums and fellow musical explorers, Kev.

I'm turning off Skype for a couple hours, pausing the studio's deadlines, to go have a nice chat with my mate. Doubt it'll make either of us any money. It'll just be great to see him.

That's my kind of networking.

Moroccan role.

Moroccan role.

So I've been immersing myself in North West African beats and flavours for the last few weeks. Amazon have been helpful, as has a very informed chap called DJ Umb, who has been chatting to me on MySpace. After which, I coincidentally found he'd compiled one of the albums I'd had delivered, Experience Morocco – a great contemporary spin around this fabulously groovy country.

Also been chatting with a chap based out there called Steve. A Canadian musician who's fallen for the vibe. And a girl, I think. Who can blame him for moving into it all.

I contemplated blowing some of Momo's moola on a plane ticket out there, especially as Ben is still shooting this week. But, though I asked myself seriously 'why'd you always choose Sensible, Tim?' I did eventually conclude that Sensible had a point – spending rather than making on the project is not the smartest use of the Mo machine.

So here I am in Southbourne still, working through some early versions of vaguely oriental sounding things that don't yet approximate anything properly Moroccan. The sketches I have together so far sound more like the score to a Middle Eastern political thriller.

Which is, of course, what I really want to be scoring. Might need to dial it down a tad for a cookery show.

---

Had a bonkers kind of few weeks, with odd experiences littering the normal itinery as casually as scientists now seem to be talking about alien life and the God Particle and Earth Like Planets. Will go into all that one day over coffee, perhaps. But I've been forcing myself to finish reading the intriguingly thought-out but risibly written out Alastair Reynolds book, Revelation Space, while also watching Around the world in 80 faiths and Battlestar Galactica, on again tonight. So once again, Real World and Play World are getting badly blurred for me.

I like it.

Would like to blur the Real Wallet and the Play Wallet enough to get on a plane to Marrakech and go record Gnawa zither music and Bedouin Chaabi for two weeks, mind. Think I'd like to put weird robot love aside for rocking the Casbah. WIth Caz, preferably.

Snow further.

Snow further.

So, I'm standing in the bay window of the studio, pouring a coffee. I'm looking out at a Christmas fairy cake icing version of the street outside, made by what I can only assume is a gigantic foam spewing machine somewhere behind the house, and I'm wondering where to start with my Moroccan TV score.

---

In a surprisingly rare clash of car itineraries this morning, I found myself walking to Boscombe to visit a very nice hygienist lady, who very nicely told me that I clean my teeth too well.

"Are you saying I shouldn't be using the belt sander?" I asked incredulously. "Either you're impressed with the lack of tartar or you're not, lady."

No, it is remarkable how nice going to the dentist is these days. Apart from the dental horror snaps they slideshow past you on the plasma telly while you wait in the very expensively slate-tiled reception area.

Anyway, the walk up there was a sort of biting wet one, made essentially pleasant by the genius addition of an umbrella and some rush mixes of the new Momo:tempo album.

But by the time I'd been in the waiting room, avoiding eye contact with the gum gore and teeth fear scrolling overhead, the wet stuff had turned distinctly to white stuff. With cold air reeshing around my shot blasted smile, some time later, I found myself walking back to the flat in a snow flurry.

The bakery at the top of the road always looks so inviting on days like this, doesn't it? So naturally I popped in for a giant comfort bun, while there were still so many plump specimens lolling against the glass at me.

---

Now?

Jeepers, how does it do this so fast? This week-long, country-wide, weird weather? The crossroads outside looks like a seasonal greetings card. Snow has flumped over everything and the world is white again.

Which makes for a nice Friday feeling, for sure. Not due anywhere else today or tonight, so I think I might work on into the evening pizza zone. Which is also the disco zone, I believe.

---

All this warm lighting and work feels increasingly like some strange privilege at the moment. It's the simple cutting edge of being homeless, this kind of weather. And with the scrolling list of businesses going under and people losing work, even my jolly stoicism is just beginning to get wary.

But busy I currently still am, for as long as I can avoid being a professional bumhead, as my Advertising Guru, Gellan, might put it.

The trick is working out how to spread any of this around. It all kind of needs my brain. So little of what I do is hand-overable artworking, or easy to brief work. It's something I'm still thinking about, when thinking of other creative friends.

I can, though, make my own schedule sound fun, even if the reality isn't the kind of swaggering money pump that some city agencies have the giant snowballs to charge. Ask Lorraine and Vernon what we were talking about on Wednesday evening. Sheesh, I need to get a London postcode...

Still, down here at the wintery seaside, do you fancy a glamorous peek at what a real-world idle creative gets up to? If you're interested in a snapshot of a typical Momo To Do list, then I can tell you that I've pushed through some core brand material and web art for one client this week, signed off some scary-smart print for another, made a start on some cute folder pack for someone else, chewed around some reasonably clever-sounding headline creative for a charity campaign in the last couple of weeks, written a series of convincing articles about the local area for Team's weekly e-bulletin and come up with a very cute brand for a chain of local fish and chip shops that will have all Momo afficionados scorning my One Design FIts All approach to creative. Not that I care here – it's so jolly friendly. And 'typical Momo' was exactly what the client asked for. ..I DO have more than one typeface installed on this thing. I DO.

I'm now about to sit down with the layout pad for the start of something else new. ..Come on brain, stop staring out of the window at the snow. It's just snow. ..Lots more fairy-pixie-playful but oddly portentous-seeming snow. ..Nothing to see here.

I suspect, however, that the real challenge this weekend won't be messaging a new electronics testing business – it'll be how to create a hazy North African vibe for a TV score filming in Marrakech next week.

I'm not sure gazing out of the window for inspiration will help...

Fill you in on that random addition to the schedule later. But if you happen to have an authentic raita reed horn somewhere – pleeeease may I borrow it?

Snow time.

Snow time.

You'd think there was nothing else going on in the world.

I don't know which is more annoying – the country-wide, pigeon-stepped chaos of a bit of winter weather, or the flurry of news reports trying to tell us this is what's happened. Is it more pathetic that we are now apparently coping with snow even less well than we did in the 1980s – or that we feel the need to fill airtime proposing such an idea?

With the hefty homework of the Children's Society report this week also slamming my generation for being too damned selfish to bring up its kids properly, you wonder whether to just reach for a Daily Mail and start flagellating yourself with the Family supplement and be done with it. Give in to the simple comfort of The Fear. Is there anything we can organise confidently?

Well, possibly. Apart from all the snowball fights and bon homme in the parks of London and the B roads of the South East that seemed to cheer everyone's stress-sapped souls on Monday, you only had to catch a little of lastnight's Comic Relief prelude to think of Britain as a sometime-genius crucible of humanity. Who else would have thought of celebrating sillyness as a way to confront some of the most brutally dehumanising experiences of people miles away? It's very very British to do that. As British as still being surprised by a temperate climate.

And it's a relief to have a reason to muck in and muck about in the streets with eachother.

---

My generation probably suffers from living in its own little world too much.

Working for yourself at home can shrink your outlook too – even as it grows it in some ways.

My list of things to do is a mix of things to get done, but it has no time for just mucking about with the neighbours. Or sitting on the pavement with the bloke in the Grove down on his luck. Or tramping the streets in a giant banana costume to raise money for him. Or getting over to my own mum's place to finish decorating her bedroom.

Or just having coffee with friends... for the sake of it. Not just because so many of them seem to be fighting fires of one kind or another this week.

No, I have things to get done. Thoughts to get blogged. Frustration to feel, as the things I really want to do don't get done.

The thing that cheers and challenges me, as I sip fresh coffee and look out over a winter wonderland (with Vangelis' Antarctica filling the house, funny man that I am) is how many people in this stressed, chilly island still DO make the time to wear pants on the outside for a day or dye their hair red nose red, or chase eachother around with buckets of custard in order to help us all get serious about each other's real needs.

I sit and wonder about that. Wonder how to get off my bloody arse.



..Though I shouldn't think too big, right off. I should probably start with wondering how to get time for a shave and a haircut.

Octulips.

Octulips.

Some poor lady in California has just given birth to eight little blooms, apparently.

Let's hope all of them make it to the spring; they've arrived a little early.

But I'm not sure it was so sensible for someone trying to conceive a family to have been necking Baby Bio – I think she's obviously got the wrong end of the training cane.

Little Shop of Horrors indeed. Crikey.

Word.

Word.

Down.

Microsoft Arse is what it should be called; I've long said it.

Having to make a load of templates in the damned thing. >GAAKKK!!<

Cack-handed crap. Unintuitive, artificial... – NOW what's it done?! AARGH!)

---

At least I've turned some entirely pointless frustration into some purposeful frustration. Maybe. This morning I was considering banging my head on the bedside radio, listening to Beeb DG, Mark Thompson, make a giant political mountain out of the DEC appeal molehill.

I know that the situation's a minefield for journalists, but Mr T's managed to do more to politicise the BBC's decision by not showing the thing. It would have been so much easier to argue against any criticism the other way. It would have slipped past with less fuss, I think.

Think about it. Is he ultimately worried that there's a risk of condoning aid getting to huge numbers of women and children if Auntie runs the appeal – because of who they are? Because of where they find themselves?

Who could argue sensibly against the Disaster Emergency Committee's aid? If they'd never been broadcast by the Beeb before, then making this the first ever would look a bit partisan, to be sure. But they've been screened after the Ten and the Six and in all manner of other BBC slots umpteen times over the years – and understandably. UK people see need and tend to give, recession or not. And the DEC know what they're doing, or so the BBC always appeared to think before.

Arguing against the DEC's aid aims in Gaza is to essentially declare some version of the idea that Gazan's wholesale 'brought this suffering on themselves' and so are unworthy of the help. Disqualified. All of them.

Is that how humanitarian aid is apportioned?

The thing is, now there's a political lobby trying to bully the Beeb into screening the bleedin' thing, I kind of think they have to stick to their guns, days into the bickering, or they'll look persuadable in all directions. People certainly know about it now.

It seems like a toughie, but I've spent less time figuring it out than I have trying to figure out Microsoft Bloody Word.

It's all very well coming up with something that technically works, but proper solutions are shaped around human beings.

Balance.

Balance.

Interesting. Tracking some of the responses to Channel 4 News' interview with Mark Regev and some of Jon Snow's blogging about the situation in Gaza – as well as some of the reactions to the Beeb's increasingly publicised stance on the DEC Gaza appeal – there are more than a few typed voices singling out issues of bias against Israel and blindness towards Hamas. Some outright slamming of C4 for living in a 'left wing bubble'.

Interesting too is watching that C4N interview again. Mark Regev was for much of it more controlled in his manner than I remember, and I can see how someone rooting for his point of view would read bias into Jon's energy and line of questions.

My point here is point of view. We bring our own filter to everything always.

Even trying to be objective, far away, I came away from Thursday's piece feeling angry – piecing together the scenes of utter destruction with an apparent arrogance of tone from the representative of those who wrought this particular round of destruction. Did I leap a little further than the facts alone, in front of me on the TV, should have taken me?

If I'm doing it, living miles from the conflict with no direct involvement, how much is everyone on the ground filling in perception and fueling passions with their prejudices?

---

Jonathan Miller's report on the misuse of certain weapons in 'civilian' areas had been discussed in that interview with Mr Regev, being cited by the Israeli spokesman as a case of naiivety.

"Of course the people your respected reporter spoke to couldn't say what they really thought – Hamas is an intimidating military regime." He said. "Do you deny that Hamas is an intimidating military regime?"

"So you're saying their injuries, which they told us were from Israeli weapons, were actually from Hamas fighters using intimidation?" Jon replied. "Are you saying Hamas used the white phosphorus and flechette weapons?"

"No, I'm not saying that, you're putting words into my mouth, sir. I'm saying Hamas uses intimidation and you therefore cannot be sure what people tell you in Gaza." Mark Regev replied.

The order and precision of the dialogue I've put here isn't accurate, but this is some of what was exchanged. And in a subsequent report on Friday night's programme, Jonathan Miller spoke to some Gazans who said that Hamas had indeed intimidated their way into some people's homes in order to launch rockets from them – even shooting one witness' son in the leg when he begged them not to turn his family home into a military target.

---

But here's the thing.

My view of either of these people doesn't change their humanity. Doesn't alter it one jot – in the outside world. To the reportable truth. But it does in my head.

In the head of the Gazan Hamas freedom fighter, the Israeli occupiers are genocidal aggressors to be resisted in all possible forms. It is a glory to die in the pursuit of that freedom, all civilian infrastructure can be apportioned for the struggle however it's needed, and anyone from the bitter rival party, Fatah, could well be a collaborator and might well need to be shot in the name of security and the ultimate good for Palestinians.

In the head of the Israeli defender, the Hamas terrorist is an indiscriminate killer, in power by military coup, using civilian areas as weapons caches and human shielding, who will never accept the democratic right of Israel to live in peace and who will never stop mindless murder unless stopped once and for all. However bad the death of children sounds, the Palestinian people either voted for these self-proclaimed extremists or refused to organise themselves a better democratic alternative, and so brought a measure of this on themselves.

So are we stuck forever?

Surely not. The key is still responsibility. Proportionality.

---

Both sides have inculcated some ugly normalities in their views of the other. Enough to hide the humanity and common sense going on, on either side of the wall.

Ultimately, both party leaders appear care little, in tactical terms at least, about the death of children in the struggle – a dreadful thing to say, unhelpfully loaded, but observationally true to the outside world. Yet we can never solve a crisis of passions without asking why each side feels those passions. Why these ugly cultural normalities took root. Why is the word. And that word is only a link word to actual dialogue – because it must be followed by listening.

Democracy and nuclear capability each bestow on Israel an expectation of a high moral standard. But not an empty piety. To an Israeli official spokesperson I would say that if Israel thinks Hamas is beneath speaking to, she should ironically have the superior confidence to talk to them. What would there be to fear? If Israel knows what it's doing, it will know that the superior strategy is dialogue. Winning over your opponent.

Instead it has always chosen military strategy. More than that – and this is, I believe, Isreal's core cultural problem – it has always defined itself by military strategy. Best form of defense is offense.

Occupied land, blast walls, initiated wars, check point choking, daily humiliations. All of it sounds strategically legitimate if you believe you are at war. If you define yourself by the fight. By the enemy. As might suicide bombing, to someone's particularly ugly normality. Hamas' very creed is to destroy Israel – it couldn't exist at all without its enemy. It sends its sons and daughters to blow themselves to pieces fighting its enemy. So we're back to a stalemate of definition. If those understandings of each side are the only truth of them. Back to an ugly balance of pain and blame.

All these political tactics and cultural outlooks do is breed fighters. Angry killers, defending their right to exist at any cost.
Dialogue, on the other hand, means having the guts to see your opponent as human. If you once do that, rather than villifying them into hateable cartoons, the military conviction to kill them begins to break down. If you define your identity by hating them, there's no way you can talk to them. Because you won't know who you are any more.

And you'll be admitting you'll have to live with people who see the world differently to you.

---

If, despite the stalemate of cultural outlooks, both parties really do want to see something other than total annihilation of the other happen, in the game of who goes first, Israel has always held the controlling power. By far.

If I were talking to the UK's democratic partner in the Middle East, I would say to her that Israel needs to depower Hamas by gradually showing its violent methods to be void. Defunct. Out of time.

By opening the flow of movement, by aiding in the rebuilding of Gaza, by ultimately opening talks with Hamas leaders – who are the elected representatives of Palestinians in Gaza right now – Israel will begin to take the heat out of the rockets.

By using its great power to humanise the empoverished Palestinians in its own mind, Israel will begin to build peace. By treating them not as victims or villains but partners in the region, it might start to build real security. By giving back some of the land that is blatently contentious, by trying to build dignity into its dealings with its neighbours, by coming ever closer to being able to say sorry for certain things, Israel will begin to silence its critics around the world.

By defining itself by the fight, by always claiming moral high ground but refusing to dismantle its own war machine – the machinery of intimidation and humiliation and provocation – Israel fuels the militant opposition. And then blames it.

Who shoots a human shield to get at the terrorist hiding behind it? Someone who sees the military victory as more important than the human concerned.

If leaders can one day be found in the Kenesset who will begin to voice a whole new lexicon of dialogue with the situation – rather than voting for spectacularly disproportionate death tolls – less and less people outside the situation will be able to say: 'what is Israel really up to?' Because it will be obvious. Israel will be actually doing something about the situation.

---

But, back on planet Earth, where big dreams begin, the human reality is that tone of voice is as vital as choice of words in communicating. My job tells me this every day. If I were in charge of Israel's security, I might be be keeping Mark Regev away from cameras and microphones.

What matters the label, Left Wing, Israeli, Palestinian, to humanity? Nothing. Not a bloody thing.

Of course the BBC should broadcast the DEC's appeal. It's the DEC, for God's sake. It's children, for God's sake. The decision not to broadcast it has sounded like one of the most partisan, unbalanced things I've ever heard.

Poppet.

Poppet.

Lilly Allen. Never met the girl.

Don't know any gossip, if there is any. But her new single - let's just agree, shall we, that the more you hear The fear the more meaningful and moving it seems. Pop at it's most articulate. Geist of the zeit indeed. I think I love it.

She's a proper talent, and perhaps a poppet. But nobody's pop pet.




> OK, WHILE WE'RE HERE...<
Puppet.

Check out Thursday's Daily Show. Jon Stuart interviewing Gitmo, the Guantanamo glove character.

I don't know where to go with this.

Lost.

Lost.

I staggered in from circuits lastnight to catch the end of an interview that Jon Snow was conducting with Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev.

I've never seen Jon Snow shut down an interview before.

It should have no bearing whatsoever on the reporting of facts, but the shouty arrogance of the individual in this case began to take over from any fact finding. Began to distract from the debate. The line he took though, heat of delivery aside, was the real thing to make blood eventually boil.

The flat, outright, F**k You denial.

It seemed undeniably there in the flat words, as well as the fired tone.

Not knowing what else to do, I posted something feebly on Jon's Snowblog at C4:


Lastnight's interview with Mr Regev was a tough one to sit through, and people will make of it various opposing things, I suspect.

But I suspect too, Jon, that you'd say your concern in your work is simply reporting the truth, as far as we can get at it.

Mr Regev's aggression of tone is one thing - we can judge it however. But the responses themselves, transcripted, seem to illustrate Israel's apparently consistent official practice, at least whenever I'm watching - answer direct questions by pointing elsewhere. The question: "Did you do X?" might be met by the answer: "We didn't start it."; "Did you do Y?" by: "What about North Korea?". "Did you do Z" may even just get talked over.

Passion is one thing. It's obviously hard to hold in, in the face of such events and issues. Nor should it always be, I think. But decisions and actions taken are reportable truth. So too should be responsibility.

As ever, thanks for doing your best in the middle of the issues, Jon. It surely says as much about passion as it does professionalism.

Yes, of course it's sycophantic - I want Jim to fix it for me to go to the Channel 4 News offices and meet everyone. I want to stand in front of the big man in bright socks, purse my lips awkwardly, and shiftingly tell Jon I think he's a ruddy hero.
But what I want to know in the real world is: when will a political leader start helping Hamas to stop shooting rockets? And when will a political leader outright condemn Israeli government tactics? Not to do so, on some level, is to not help anyone.

Who knows what I would feel if I were born and raised in an Israeli suburb. But if I was still essentially me, I can only say I'd be very concerned at the way Mr Regev spoke for my country. And insensed at the strategy he represented for my security. I'd be surely be f***ing livid, wouldn't I? ..Wouldn't I?

---

Interesting that many other people expressed similar incredulity on Jon's blog. But it's true to say that Mr Regev's views and tone do represent a lot of people. The comments accusing C4 of bias and clear anti-Israeli sentiment are many.

But they all take the same line, essentially: "You just hate us, and we didn't start any of this." The answer to over 300 dead children, bulldozed infrastructure, a systematically traumatised population and blanket ban on live reporting in the theatre of conflict seems to be: "Hamas is a dictatorial regime that that rules by military coup and fires rockets into Israeli back gardens." Without heat or passion, these appear to be the facts on the ground.

That filter is the thing many people look through at the situation - who they think Hamas, or the Palestinians are. That's enough. They see the rockets land and that's evidence enough for any reprisal. But have they walked through Gaza and seen it themselves? Have they sat down with Palestinians - or, dare I say it, someone affiliated with Hamas - to talk with them about it?

Bloody f***k, this is hard. This is hard to put right.

Harder to hear, however, is the possibility that the BBC and Channel 4 refused to air a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal on behalf of the people of Gaza, for fear of appearing biased.

Could this really be true?

Excuse me being a child, but why can't this be about human need, human suffering and human injustice? What difference should a sodding flag make - Palestinian, Israeli, Iraqi or British?

Is the truth completely lost? Can no one speak for it? Because if we choose to hide the truth of one group of people, we surely lose the right to have it disclosed for ourselves.

Sworn.

Sworn.

Who can work? The boy's about to be sworn in. Number 44.

Hard to take in the humanity of the vibe, apparently everywhere in America. When did we have such a touchy-feely-poeticy inauguration? When did the prayers of a pastor over the new Commander in Chief sound as much like the prayers in local church?

"Our father, who art in heaven..." leads Rick Warren.

"Sweet land of liberty..." sings Aretha Franklin.

"Holy, blubbing cow..." chokes some bloke in Bournemouth.



But let's not forget.

Baz?

This is a guy who's about to define the word 'pressure'.

Sand.

Sand.

We traipsed a few grains of seafront sand into London over the weekend. A little symbolism.

The time had come round all too soon to wassail a few hearty hurrahs and bon voyages to Jules and Angela, as they prepare to move life to Bahrain - a country familiar with sand. The capital was suitably wet and windy to wish them off.

Their flat was heaving. And still half full of people wanting breakfast by Sunday morning. But even a hearty Sardinian sausage can't properly compensate for losing your chums to warmer climes. But, in the end, Mr and Mrs CJ had, as ever, simply created another excuse to get a good group together to enjoy themselves.

It's obvious a lot of folk will miss you in London, chaps. If any of our gang in Bournemouth decided to follow a star to the Middle East, or even Middle England, I know it'd be a trauma for the rest of us. Great holiday opportunities not withstanding.

Stiff upper lip, everyone.

---

This week is another one creaking at the seams here. Strategy and branding stuff close to delivery, plus various bits of artwork to get in shape and some more research to do for a music job. No complaints at being kept so reassuringly in shape in such tricky times. My brain may be close to full, but it's a much appreciated problem for as long as it lasts. The problem or the brain.

But it's a challenge coming up with good thinking while being mentally in a number of places at once. You have to keep coming back to things. Hoping you remember where you left them.

With all the GISBBI* running around already this year, though, sad to say that the laptop has been an invaluable way to make the most of time on trains and boats at least, if not beaches (you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere).




(*Gosh I'm So Busy Being Important)

Straight. And Soft.

Straight. And Soft.

Now, I don't know if it's because of being so generally loose and floppy-haired and unshaven and late for things, or whether it's inexplicably at odds with it, but I'm famously one for straight lines and right angles and generally lining things up. Makes me rub my thighs a little.

So at the weekend, away from the studio and normal stuff, I was almost beside myself.

I'll explain, if I can.

Getting lost for hours in over-working the production on a piece of music is probably one symptom of liking considered engineering. Tidying my studio floor or doing the washing up before I can think straight is probably as much a symptom of putting off work I don't fancy doing as any neatness compulsion, but it's there too. But it is, of course, working as a designer that tends to most bring out my nerdy tendency to attach everything to grids.

Lining up, making it match, underscoring uniformity... don't get me started. Why do I love this? I need to sit down.

In practical terms it's all about legibility of course - making an ad or a poster or a brochure or a website intuitive to read. It's about ensuring stuff is easy to use by people.

But I'm hardly a slave to practical, am I? It's more than that. It's some weird, personal compulsion to drool over signage and airport graphics and that kind of strictly uniform stuff that is beautiful, precisely because of its functionality.

Which would sound odd if you'd ever actually seen me. You could starch me into a naval dress uniform and rivet me to a deck ladder and I'd still find a way to lean. I don't usually look right with the top button done up.

But give me the Helvetica family and the colours black and white and a strict No Curves rule and I'm likely to have a ball. A square one.

---

It is, at risk of puncturing my impending profound thesis on the subject, ultimately all to do with a conviction that the very best design makes a single statement. An immediate, instantly appreciable identity.

Logo, website, advert, car - even a pop tune. With the good stuff, you know instantly that it knows what it is. To me, that clarity shows good creative; it's what I'm always trying to do.

And, pertinently to this story, I'd say it's a conviction that certainly applies to one of the hardest but most important things to do this with.

Buildings.

---

First full week of oh-nine was largely about preparing for a particular branding presentation. A client I've been working with for a few years had commissioned Momo to develop the branding for their partners across Europe, and subsequently invited me to present the conclusions to their head office in France, at their annual new year kick-off meeting.

"Hoorah" I remember thinking coolly, as the head of the company was originally rounding on asking me to do this, during his call before Christmas, "..go on, go on - invite me to Paris. Give me an actual reason to say I'm bloody well going to Paris on business..." I don't believe I said any of this out loud.

"This year we're meeting somewhere else for a change" he said. "Le Havre. Thought it would make life easier for you. ..Can you make it?"

"Yee-uh. ..Er, yeah. I can make it. To Le Havre."

"Great. Just great. ..You'll need to catch the overnight ferry. Meeting's first thing and you're on right at the start. See you then" he said nicely, ringing off.

---

Despite the uncomfortably rapid from-the-cabin-bunk-straight-into-the-room-full-of-expectant-French-people-who-are-decidedly-unsure-about-this-whole-branding-business segue that morning, my enthusiastic apologies to the room, en Français, for being able to do nothing more than apologise en Français, seemed to work. I saw a few smiles and a few laughs at my universally understood William Shatner impressions. Which I'll explain some other time. But yes, it was an actual business presentation I was doing.

Caroline was with me on this trip, to prolong the trip into a night away and a subsequent morning properly off, loafing around French cafés. Which is, as you know, largely why I go to work in the first place. We were both welcomed into a friendly environment and fed a smart, friendly three course lunch and encouraged to not worry about clearing off again in the afternoon to enjoy our hotel room without bothering any more about work. I do so love the French.

"Where are you staying tonight?" one of the chaps asked Caroline warmly.

"Le Havre" she answered sweetly. She says his face flickered momentarily.

Given that we were, that morning, in the pretty little seaside town of Trouville, set in the rolling, relaxed Normandy countryside bathed in frosty winter sunshine, he could easily be forgiven for wondering if we were off our bleedin' chariot.

---

But here's the deal. And I mean, who knew.

Le Havre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A whole central chunk of it.

Hard to imagine, as you swoop over the Seine estuary through a forest of lekky pilons and belching refinery chimneys and squatting gas reservoirs, that anything of such impressive-sounding renown should be so well hidden in this busy, traffic-vomitting artery of the channel. But it's there. Unhidden, once you've found it.

Auguste Perret's vision appears to be one of straight lines. Blocks of right angles and perpendicular lines. And I was sort of in heaven, the more we walked around it.

Now, it's not the sort of heaven that most people would get. We would have sounded fantastically like we were convincing ourselves, as we wandered and pondered and pontificated on the ponts and quais. UNESCO badged the the city centre in 2005 for its "innovative utilization of concrete's potential." But fans of Communist social architecture and/or Thunderbirds might understand.

I was obviously weak at the knees.

The 133-hectare space is, according to UNESCO, "an exceptional example of architecture and town planning of the post-war era" - and it really, distinctively, oddly is.

It's rare to come across such a large geographical area that seems so born of a single idea. So controlled and planned. For all the variety of details, the whole seemed wonderfully, to my mind, single-minded. Complete.

Msr Perret apparently once employed a cocky young upstart called Le Corbusier. Who learned from who, I don't know, but wandering around Le Havre is a bit of an architect's wet dream. Not because it's any of the finest individual architecture you've ever seen, but because of the sheer scale of the vision they managed to actually deliver. It's a whole fifties toy town. Vast boulevards, arrow-straight to the sea front, large properly square squares - and all of it low, at only five or six stories. It gives you loads of hopeful sky to look at. (..Mercifully distracting you from all the concrete, perhaps. Cynic.)

The merrits of concrete as a material to actually live with are, yes, debatable. And you might also point out that the entire vision here is really of the motor car - it's all designed to be watched from a moving window, sliding gracefully past in continual, shifting, perpendicular perspectives.

But it feels very airy. And purposeful. With very tall shop frontages, there's plenty to keep the human eye-level occupied, without looking up. But when you do, from wherever you are, you see the looming, moderno-gothic imposition of Saint Joseph cathedral - which looks like it should peel open robotically and reveal a giant rocket with CCCP and a red star on it. To do what, who knows. Who cares? To just show off.

Fantastic.

It's all quite surreal. But in the sunshine at least, all quite something.

The thing is, something about the clarity of the single idea here is comforting. The design places you well - you can always see where you are in relation to something distinctive, but more than that, you feel you are somewhere very definately sure of itself. Somewhere that knows exactly what it is. And this is a surprisingly fundamental human need - to feel placed.

---

Our hotel was an unexpected temple to this modern dream - a recently converted Ministry of Finance building. And as a consequence of all those Fibonace squares and perfect proportions, the rooms were huge and angular and just FULL of straight lines. Square taps, rectangular lamps, risque 'diagonal' throws. And all with a spa on the other side of the choridor. They had to drag us out of the place.

The thing is, as Caroline and I swapped notes - urban designer to graphic designer - the interlocking issues between the disciplines that we'd so often mused (oh the long winter evenings just fly, etc...) were just obvious, writ large all around us. Space, place, legibility, identity.

And most important, after all, was how the space was being used. For right in the centre of town, set in a vast public square, was the Hotel de Ville - the town hall. It had a huge square clock tower you could place for miles around, and a wide open frontage designed very firmly to do one thing - one especially French thing. Encourage people to gather.

As we stood and watched the growing hoards of people with Palestinian solidarity banners, chanting for 'les enfants de Gaza', reminding us of the smashed, chaotic streets and decrepit, jagged, infrastructure of a strip of land so small you can see all it's boundaries from the top of a tower block, yet has a million and a half people living in it, on top of eachother, locked in and unable to leave, I knew the graphic design of the city we were standing in must be working on some significant level. I stopped looking at it.

I stopped thinking about right angles and straight lines and hard materials and got lost thinking about the soft tissue of people.

We came home feeling oddly clear-headed.

Screenwipe.

Screenwipe.

Charlie Brooker. Am I right to be applauding him on?

I'm becoming increasingly unsure whether watching his show is standing against the gradual, erosive downfall of civilisation or hastening it.

Watch the current episode on BBC iPlayer in disbelief.



..Why would they make Konnie Huq do that? Why?