Thursday 31 August 2017

Are you Charlie?



The response from French weekly magazine "Charlie Hebdo" to hurricane Harvey's devastation in Houston and elsewhere in Texas: a cover, portraying a bunch of Nazi flags and saluting hands going down in the flood, with the caption: "God exists! He has drowned all the neo nazis of Texas!" Sweet.  Last week the magazine published this cover in response to the murderous attack in Barcelona.
The caption reads: "Islam, religion of peace...eternal" a pun on 'peace eternal' as a way of referring to the after-life. This got them into all sorts of trouble for daring to equate the actions of the jihadis with their avowed motive i.e. Islam's call to jihad against infidels (us) and hypocrites (insufficiently Islamic muslims). They got into trouble for making fun of the truth about the perpetrators. The Texas cover, on the other hand, is an outright slur. And it's a slur against the victims of a natural disaster. Worse, it's a rejoicing over the deaths of the victims of a natural disaster, with a damnable slur thrown on top of it. I wonder if that's the kind of joy the magazine describes itself as having on its website. "Charlie Hebdo", it tells us, is a magazine that is "satirical, secular, political and joyous". But then , in English, it also says it is "a punch in the face" and "an angry magazine"; that life is too short to not be "laughing it up a storm", because "very nearly everything" is "ridiculous", "absurd or preposterous". Well, I'm going to stick my neck out here and say "Charlie Hebdo", shame on you for not sticking to your own motives. There is nothing satirical, secular, political and certainly nothing joyous about the Texas cover because there is no truth in it. And there has to be at least a drop of truth in a provocative stance to make it interesting.

Wednesday 30 August 2017

"Bake Off" on Channel 4


There's much to worry about in the world at the moment, so what better object to focus on than a baking show? The big move of "The Great British Bake Off" from the state-run, advertisement-free, BBC to commercial Channel 4 has finally materialised, with the first episode of the new series broadcast last night. A lot of fans took to social media to express their views on the added 15 minutes or so of commercials, viewing this development as either a good or a bad one. Good because it allows for tea/wine/cake breaks, or bad because it interrupts the flow of the show. I care more about the change in staff. Three out the four original presenters didn't make the move to Channel 4: baking judge Mary Berry, and the comedy duo of Mel and Sue as the jolly compères. They have been replaced with Prue Leith as judge, and an ill-assorted twosome of Sandi Toksvig and someone called Noel Fielding as the supposedly comic relief. Who - or indeed what - Fielding is I couldn't tell you. Transgender? Just a man who likes to wear weird clothes and lots of make-up? He is apparently a comedian, but is so tall and lugubrious, as well as strange looking, I had to check the impulse to hide behind a sofa every time he sloped onto the screen. He and Toksvig had no discernible chemistry. They both have unpleasant voices, and further grate on aesthetic sensibilities by being visual opposites (tall, thin, dark vs short, dumpy, blonde). There is no way of satisfyingly framing them in a screen shot. Neither seems remotely interested in baking. Channel 4 are perhaps trying to reel in a younger audience with this Fielding fellow (?). I have no idea who Toksvig's audience might be. She is a well-known 'out' lesbian, so maybe the thinking behind the new line-up is simply one of Political Correctness. (Of course Sue was also a well-known lesbian, but she and best-friend Mel balanced each other out very sweetly.) This is Channel 4, after all, and it would hardly be surprising if their take on the Great British Family Show was to make an in-your-face PC point from the start. One of the very first of the twelve bakers to be introduced last night was a female contestant who said that the sight of the famous tent had made her all giddy (or something), just like at her wedding. Then after a well-timed pause: 'Except that my wife isn't here". Well, that's us told. Of Prue Leith, all I can remember is heavy-framed dark glasses. She and her fellow-judge, BBC original Paul Hollywood, had no chemistry either.  I mean, come on, baking is all about chemistry! The cakes were pretty amazing, especially for a series opener. It would be a Great Shame if the series continued as it started last night, by undermining the talented contestants with dud presenters.