A Roddenberry For My Own Back

There is Star Trek controversy and arguments about modern Star Trek online! This can only mean it’s a day of the week with a Y in it. Normally these things, like anything on the internet except cats, are best ignored. But it’s a little hard to ignore when the comments complaining about modern Star Trek come from William Shatner himself.

Shatner was asked what he thought about modern Star Trek during a convention and his response was less than supportive of his fellow Trek-casts. He said

“I got to know Gene Roddenberry in three years fairly well ... he’d be turning in his grave at some of this stuff.”

Now, to be fair to Shatner, I watched the whole comic-con panel (because I didn’t know this quote was only right at the end) and he is in great form, roasting and insulting everyone. He has a smile on his face and has a lot of fun at a lot of people’s expense and the room loves it. Right after that sentence someone booed him and he shouted at them – tongue in cheek – “what do you know, I know it all!” kinda poking fun at his own ego a bit there. But I think that’s important to say because, as is often the case, we’re presented with the most controversial sentence without the context of how it was said or the understanding of the room it was said to which makes it sounds worse. It’s how Jimmy Carr sells out theatres when every joke of his you read in the papers sounds awful. Writing things down is not always great. Context is king.

But it’s still a little disappointing to hear Shatner say that. Because it’s one of the internet's top trolling lines when it comes to modern Star Trek. And it’s kind of a weird one. Not “I don’t like it,” which is a perfectly valid opinion but “Gene Roddenberry wouldn’t like it.” As if somehow speculating on Gene Roddenberry’s opinion is more important than your own. And while Shatner’s not necessarily aligning himself with the internet trolls, to find the video of him talking I already had to scroll through tons of 30 somethings in their bedrooms – just like I am now – in front of shelves of outdated home media and toys – just like I am now – ranting that Shatner “DESTROYS” Modern Star Trek and rejoicing in having their views confirmed. He’s not necessarily a troll himself but he’s certainly feeding the trolls. These same men incidentally hate Doctor Who since 2018 by the way, but aren’t sexist they just don’t like how it once mentioned global warming which it never did before if you forget all the times Jon Pertwee’s Doctor mentioned it.

But “it’s not true to Gene Roddenberry’s vision” is a common criticism of modern Star Trek. I read this in some forum at least once a day. Youtube recommends me videos about it. So let’s look at that.

Before I break it down any further, I want to say: I of course love and respect William Shatner and his contribution to Star Trek.

I of course love and respect Gene Roddenberry and his creation of Star Trek.

I of course love and respect Alex Kurtzman and all of the new teams contributions to Star Trek.

I have seen the JJ Abrams movies.

Joking! That’s not fair. Respect to everyone who makes Star Trek and I want to stay a bit Spock about this and look at things as logically and emotionlessly as I can while looking at Trek opinion. This isn't a question of which shows are my favourites and which aren't. It's more to do with looking at this common criticism and getting to the bottom of why does it come up and is it fair?

Because “It’s not true to Gene Roddenberry’s vision” has been the opinion on Star Trek for a while now. It’s not new. It dates back as far as DS9, which is now widely regarded as one of the best.

Gene Roddenberry’s vision was for a future where humanity had put aside petty squabbles, eliminated war and poverty and hunger and worked to improve ourselves as a species and move beyond the problems he saw around himself in present day Earth. Star Trek was a show about these humans, who had solved much of their planet's problems, exploring the galaxy and spreading that wisdom.

TOS and TNG were both directly created by Gene Roddenberry and are therefore pretty faithful to that vision – although sometimes TNG didn’t go as far as he would like, as we’ll come to later.

DS9 was the first Star Trek show to be made after Gene Roddenberry’s death. It introduced more flawed characters and explored internal conflicts between the show’s primary characters – something that Gene Roddenberry had been against in TNG. But I believe it was still informed by Gene Roddenberry’s vision and ideals. It simply took a crew of people – Sisko, Dax, O’Brien and Bashir – who had grown up in that ideal future that TOS and TNG are set in and moved them to a “less developed” part of the galaxy. A part of space that had recently known oppression and devastation and was still besotted by poverty, inequality and neglect. The show would explore a crew taken from Gene Roddenberry’s utopia trying to help those people build their way towards achieving that themselves. And ultimately when it became a show about war, it became about the fight for those ideals. Humanity might have moved beyond war but what happens when a threat comes along that hasn’t? Even In The Pale Moonlight, the best ever episode of Star Trek, that sees Sisko trick the Romulans into joining the war, only works because Sisko is a man of such high moral calibre. DS9 is like John Hurt’s Doctor Who. “You were the Doctor [/Star Trek] more than anyone else because you were the Doctor [/Star Trek] on the day it wasn’t possible to get it right.” It’s Gene Roddenberry’s vision tested. The show has a different relationship to Gene Roddenberry’s vision but it's still crucial to the show. And that’s kind of the way for all subsequent Trek TV shows.

Voyager is about a ship of those utopian ideals stranded away from the help of their powerful empire. It’s easy to be idealistic when you have a fleet of ships behind you and likeminded people control half the quadrant. Voyager is often a story of a Captain forced to choose between Gene’s ideals and the practicalities of keeping her crew alive. Again Gene Roddenberry’s vision is at the heart of it.

Enterprise is set in a world that has only recently achieved that utopia facing the first real threats to it. Because humanity wouldn’t be humanity if they didn’t stumble on their way to greatness. At the very least it wouldn’t make for great telly if they didn’t.

So onto the new modern Trek. Discovery these days is accused of being anti-Gene Roddenberry’s vision. But – aside from some dodgy decisions Michael Burnham made in the pilot – Michael, Saru and the ship’s crew seem to be fighting for those Roddenberry ideals the whole time. They seem to believe in them pretty strongly. And each season throws at them a disaster that threatens those ideals on a fundamental level and sees how they cope with it. The perfect future takes a bit of a beating but the fight to hold it together is what the show is about. It offers perhaps a more rounded take on how hard it might be to achieve that perfect future when faced with terrible fears. Which feels like a timely story for the 21^st century. We still have to take our shoes off to go through airports. It seems our imagined great western lives are always being torn apart by fear. What will people do if something threatens their ability to feed their family? How do we react to perceived threats to our way of life? Discovery deals with these questions in it’s fight for Gene’s vision.

Picard is probably the series furthest from Gene Roddenberry’s vision, but again that vision is still important to the series. Picard deals with the Federation having apparently turned it’s back on parts of the utopian ideals in the wake of a terrorist attack and become more insular and less idealistic – feels relevant to 2022, but that is arguably something Gene definitely wouldn’t have approved of. Again though, the first season is the story of Picard, possibly the most principled of all of Star Trek’s characters, fighting to bring back Gene’s ideals that the Federation has turned away from. It might not be that the Federation still holds his principles but the series does.

Lower Decks is a slightly different one to quantify. It’s a comedy series that is often taking the piss out of Star Trek from within, so it’s a different beast really. That said, across the two seasons released so far, and despite lots of piss taking of all of Star Trek, there’s been no jokes at the expense of Gene Roddenberry’s beliefs.

Prodigy, the children’s show, is set outside of the Federation utopia, and so arguably Gene Roddenberry’s views shouldn’t count so much because there’s no Federation characters, but in it’s messages and in how the characters act and what it’s teaching your kids, it’s Gene’s messages they are trying to teach kids.

And Strange New Worlds, well that’s as close to the Original Series as it’s ever likely to get in the 21^st century so that one is really true to the ideals in the Original. While also allowing a few character flaws to add richness and interest.

To be honest, the Kelvin Timeline films are the only ones that don’t really seem to have any relationship with Gene Roddenberry’s vision. It’s not that they dismiss it or don’t respect it. It’s more that they’re just focussed on being action films and don’t care about much else. How much that’s a good thing is up for debate. A lot of debate.

So its my belief that Gene Roddenberry’s vision is present, to varying extents, throughout all of Star Trek and inspires every series in the Prime Time Line. So you’ve got to ask yourself: Would Gene Roddenberry really be turning in his grave? Would he really? Coz it seems this huge franchise is all about his vision and his creation? So would he really be upset? And I can’t help escaping that the only obvious answer, with all respect to Mr Shatner who knew him better than me obviously, is: yes. Yes Gene Roddenberry would definitely be spinning in his grave.

Because it’s worth considering some other things Gene Roddenberry didn’t like. In TNG there’s an episode called Family, it’s the second episode of Season 4 right after The Best of Both Worlds. I think it’s one of the most underrated Star Trek episodes. In it Picard returns home to his family’s chateau and vineyard in France – all those things you’ve heard about Star Trek being the most middle class show ever are definitely true – to rest after his trauma in the previous episode. Throughout the episode he clashes with his brother who lives a simple life on the vineyards, shuns technology, makes food from scratch rather than uses replicators, has never left the solar system and sees Picard’s arrival – which encourages his own sons excitement about space travel – as a danger. While Picard’s body has recently been invaded by technology which took away his humanity and individuality and ultimately led him to be used to kill thousands of people against his will. Eventually the two brothers have a fight in the mud and Picard has a bit of an emotional breakdown, it all comes out, the two reconcile and Picard returns to his job having addressed the trauma and acknowledged that it’s something he will now always have to live with. Sounds like a good episode right? Not according to Gene Roddenberry. Ronald D Moore who wrote this one, and many other great episodes recalls:

"Gene goes through this whole thing about how much he hates this script. 'It says terrible things about Picard’s parents; these brothers don’t exist in the twenty-fourth century; they have such profound personal animosities; this would never happen. I don’t buy any of this, this is not a Star Trek episode. There’s no action in this; there’s no jeopardy. We can’t do this show.'" After the meeting, Executive Producers Michael Piller and Rick Berman advised Moore to finish the script anyway, and that they would deal with Roddenberry. Moore concluded, "I went off and wrote it, and never heard another word. Somehow, they were then dealing with Gene in a different way and that script just went through after that point. He just stopped kind of throwing out scripts and changing things from that point forward, and just started slowly to change.”

See now it kind of feels like Gene Roddenberry vision might be getting in the way of good stories and a new team of executives had to step in. Does that make them wrong and Gene right?

Even more surprisingly what Gene Roddenberry hated: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. That’s right. Almost universally regarded as the best Star Trek film ever made. Oh sure you’ll find some people like me who think First Contact is better – indeed any film where Patrick Stewart wears a tuxedo and machine guns down a bunch of zombie robots is better than any in which that doesn’t happen. Casablanca is great but Patrick Stewart doesn’t machine gun down a bunch of zombie robots while wearing a tuxedo so it’s not perfect. But anyway The Wrath of Khan is basically considered by most to be the best ever Star Trek movie. Gene Roddenberry complained mainly about the militarism in the movie. But more interesting than that in terms of sticking to what Gene Roddenberry believed, he was basically not allowed to write this movie. Apparently he’d been such a nightmare on The Motion Picture, which is an interesting movie that goes to some deep places but has also been dubbed The Motionless Picture and been described as slow and boring, that he was basically made an Executive Consultant on the subsequent Star Trek movies. Essentially that means he was paid a lot of money to stay out of things, he could read and offer advice on scripts but the writers and producers were under no obligation to pay any attention to him. Now for the record he made some good suggestions that the team went with and some that they ignored. But the fact remains that arguably the best Star Trek film ever was made by pushing Gene Roddenberry out of the writers room and almost out of production entirely.

And for the record Mr Shatner, he also was not a big fan of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier which Shatner wrote and directed, though that’s less of a bombshell because it’s not so well liked. Though if Patrick Stewart shooting Robot Zombies elevates any great movie to perfection, William Shatner innocently asking “Excuse me but, What does God need with a star ship?” might be able to save even the worst film from being truly awful. You can’t tell me it wouldn’t have made The Human Centipede or A Serbian Film at least a little bit more enjoyable.

So all that being said, the question now is: does it matter that Gene Roddenberry would be turning in his grave? And honestly, I think not.

There’s something in what William Shatner said that I think hasn’t been properly addressed. When he said “Gene Roddenberry would be spinning in his grave.” One thing that nobody seems to have noticed in what Shatner said. Gene Roddenberry is in his grave. He dead! Sorry to break it to you.

I’m from a place called Welwyn Garden City, it was founded by Ebenezer Howard in 1920 to be the perfect utopian town. Now there is an empty building long since abandoned by whatever it used to be opposite a beautiful looking fountain and with great views of the grassy nature filled town centre – I am going somewhere with this I promise – that building has been purchased by a pub company who tried to get permission to open a pub in it. But have been met with opposition from local groups in part because opening a pub there was not in keeping with the original intentions of Ebenezer Howard. So I live there now but I can’t have cheap beer because a man who died in 1928 wouldn’t approve? Does that seem right. Things have moved on Ebby!

The same is kinda true here. Gene’s dead. We can’t just keep copying what he was making in the 1960s, we have to move on.

Gene Roddenberry’s legacy isn’t that he wrote a TV show. A lot of people can do that. And we’re not here discussing whether the twelfth spin-off is true to the original spirit of Z-Cars. Gene Roddenberry’s legacy is that he inspired a lot of other writers and creatives to share their take on his vision. The show doesn’t – and never has – belonged to one person.

We also need to stop talking about Gene Roddenberry like he was some kind of God-like infallible being. You know what was in Gene Roddenberry’s vision? Denna Troi should have three boobs. And it was only after every woman around him told him what an awful idea that was that it was dropped. The point is Gene Roddenberry’s vision is mostly great. But what’s made Star Trek one of the best shows on TV has been collaboration and listening to new ideas when it needed to.

Claiming that Gene Roddenberry doesn’t like Star Trek now has been a common criticism on the internet. I guess people think that you might argue with someone in their bedroom who doesn’t like the series led by a black woman but would anyone write 3000 words disagreeing with Gene Roddenberry – probably not.

If you don’t like new Star Trek that’s fine. There are fair criticisms of it – infinite lifts! – but I think it’s time we moved passed what one man thinks. Tell me your opinion. Don't hide behind pretending you know what Gene Roddenberry thinks. That's not relevant to what you think.

Useless 100

Captain Tom Moore's family have set a challenge for his birthday weekend, to raise money for charity by doing a challenge this weekend revolving around the number 100. So here below are 100 Pub Quiz Questions and there will be a prize!

To enter, simply answer all the questions below and email those answers to uselessquiz@outlook.com alongside evidence (a screenshot or a very honest sounding comment) that you have made a donation to the Captain Tom Charity Foundation (link: https://captaintom100.justgiving.com/donate ).

Entries close at 11:59pm on Sunday 9th May. The winner will be notified by email before the end of May. The winner will be whoever answers the most questions correctly, if there's a tie, one of the winners will be picked at random.

The amount donated to The Captain Tom Charity Foundation is up to you, and will have no bearing on the winner. Donate what you can.

The prize will be deliberately awful so it's not worth cheating.

Sport: Home Advantage
All of these countries hosted and won sporting competitions at the same time

1. In 1995 which country hosted and won the Rugby Union World Cup?
2. Which country hosted and won the first ever FIFA World Cup in 1930?
3. Who hosted and won the 1974 FIFA World Cup?
4. Who hosted and won the 1978 FIFA World Cup?
5. Who hosted and won the 1998 FIFA World Cup?
6. Which country hosted and topped the medal table in the 1996 summer Olympics?
7. Which country hosted and topped the medal table at the 1980 Summer Olympics?
8. Which country hosted and topped the medal table at the 2010 Winter Olympics?
9. Who hosted and won the 2011 Rugby Union World Cup?
10. Which country hosted and won the 2019 Cricket world cup?

TV & Film

1. Who played Sonia Fowler in Eastenders?
2. Alongside Si King who is the other Hairy Biker?
3. Who has appeared as a judge on the most episodes of the British version of the X-Factor?
4. Who has been nominated for the most Best Actress Oscars? (15)
5. Which actress played Lady Rose MacClaire in Downton Abbey and the title role in the 2015 film Cinderella?
6. Who shot JR?
7. Jimmy Nail played Oz in which 80s TV series?
8. What is the name of the boy who owns Woody, Buzz and the other toys in Toy Story?
9. Jim Moir is the real name, used occasionally for straight acting roles, of which comedian?
10. What was the first James Bond film to feature Roger Moore in the leading role?

Art & Theatre & Books & That

1. Who created the Mr Men series of books?
2. What word describes a gene in the title of a book by Richard Dawkins?
3. Who wrote Wuthering Heights?
4. The Cherry Orchard is the last play written by which famous playwright?
5. What is the third book in the Harry Potter series?
6. In the comic book company DC, what does DC stand for?
7. Hamlet was the prince of which country?
8. Atticus Finch and Boo Radley are characters from which famous work of literature?
9. In which novel does Ford Prefect save his friend Arthur Dent when the Earth destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass?
10. The Character Lord Snooty appeared in which comic?

Music

1. "All The Lonely People, Where Do They All Come From?" is a lyric from which Beatles song?
2. Which singer is famously not impressed by rocket scientists, Brad Pitt, Elvis Presley or those who have cars?
3. Brian Jones was one of the founder members and original guitarist with which band?
4. Released in November 2017, Reputation was a UK number 1 album for which artist?
5. Which all-female rap trio had a hit with Push It?
6. In the title of a song Tina Charles says she Loves to Love but her baby just loves to do what?
7. Terrence Nelhams-Wright was the real name of which famous singer and occasional financial journalist
8. Dangerously In Love was the debut solo album for which singer?
9. Which colour is mentioned in the title of seven of Elvis Presley’s UK hits?
10. Which pop singer was married to Jason Alexander for a 55 hours in 2004 and Kevin Federline later the same year?

Pot Luck

1. What did Theresa May answer when asked what the naughtiest thing she had ever done was?
2. Which of Henry VIII’s wives was married to his brother Arthur?
3. What is the name of the pirate flag with the skull and crossbones?
4. Anastasia Steele is the main character in which book?
5. Parkhurst Prison is on which Island?
6. What colour is traditionally associated with jealousy or envy?
7. What word would an American use to refer to the bonnet of a car?
8. Barry Took, Barry Norman, Simon Hoggart, Sandi Toksvig, Miles Jupp and Andy Zaltzman have all hosted which radio 4 program?
9. Who was Chancellor of the Ex-Chequer when Gordon Brown was prime minister?
10. In Scotland a Spurtle is a wooden stick mainly used for stirring what?

Food & Drink

1. Prosecco comes from which country?
2. Mother’s Ruin refers to which drink?
3. In booze what does IPA stand for?
4. What sauce do you use to make an Eggs Benedict?
5. Mars, Bounty, Snickers, Twix and Malteaser Teasers are in which box of chocolates?
6. What is the main ingredient in the French dish Bouillabaisse?
7. What spirit is the main alcoholic ingredient in a daiquiri cocktail?
8. What name is given to a mixture of Whisky and Ginger Wine?
9. What is in the French dish Escargot?
10. How many litres are in a Magnum?

Sport

1. What sporting event is represented by a flag that features 5 interlocking rings?
2. Which racehorse was kidnapped by the IRA in 1983?
3. In which sporting event did the actor Hugh Laurie participate in 1980?
4. Who was the England captain when they won the Rugby Union world cup in 2003?
5. Who captained the British Men’s Football team at the 2012 Olympics?
6. In his speech at the end of the Beijing Olympics, when Boris Johnson said “Wiff Waff” was coming home, what sport was he referring to?
7. Lewis Hamilton holds the record for most F1 races started in poll position. Whose record did he break?
8. Which of the four tennis grand slam tournaments is played earliest in the calendar year?
9. In November 2011, which football team reported an annual loss of £197million, the biggest in English football history?
10. Cricket, and world Geography, Which world city hosted the first home test match for Pakistan in 1955 and the first home test match for Bangladesh in 2000, it is now the capital of Bangladesh, it was the capital of East Pakistan in 1955?

History – The World Wars

1. What date is D-Day?
2. What treaty bought about the end of the first world war but imposed strict conditions on Germany?
3. Which Dutch Exotic Dancer was convicted of spying for Germany during World War I and shot by French firing squad?
4. In which year did the USA join the first world war?
5. Whose assassination on 28^th June 1914 sparked the first world war?
6. Which US band leader went missing over the channel in 1944?
7. What was the name of the German airforce?
8. In which French city was the German surrender at the end of World War 2 signed?
9. What is the English translation of the word Blitzkreig?
10. According to the song lyrics Hitler has only Got One Ball, what is the location of the other one cut off by his mother when he was very small?

Science & Nature

1. What K is the proper term for movement energy?
2. Where in the human body is the Hyoid Bone, the only bone not connected to any other bone?
3. Hepatitis causes inflammation to what part of the body?
4. Edward Jenner is credited with development of the vaccine for which illness?
5. What part of the body are cuspids?
6. What animals are the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight?
7. The Malleus bone in the ear is colloquially referred to as what common tool?
8. On the periodic table Pu is the chemical symbol for which element?
9. In which organ of the human body would you find the hippocampus and hypothalamus?
10. Dione is a moon around which planet?

A Little Bit Of Everything

1. The TV and film character Alastair Leslie Graham is better known by what name?
2. Which TV show has featured memorable guest appearances from Sir Cliff Richard, Status Quo, Cheryl Cole, Peter Schmichael, Peter Kay, Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Patrick Stewart, Noddy Holder and Prince Charles?
3. The character Dr Frasier Craine first appeared in which sitcom?
4. Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Wednesday, Uncle Fester, Lurch and Thing were characters in which films and TV series?
5. Ziggy Stardust’s backing band were the WHATS from Mars?
6. Who had a 1981 hit with Stand and Deliver?
7. “In my imagination, there is no complication, I dream about you all the time. In my mind, a celebration. The sweetest of sensation, thinking you could be mine” are the opening lyrics to which song by Kylie Minogue?
8. On the 27^th January 2006 all the church bells in Salzburg rang out simultaneously to honour the 250^th anniversary of which composer?
9. In computing what does RAM stand for?
10. In the British Army what rank comes between lieutenant and major?

Good luck.

Remember email your answers to uselessquiz@outlook.com with proof of your donation to the Captain Tom Foundation

Entries close 11:59 on Sunday 9th May. Winners will be notified by email before the end of May 2021.

1.

5 Other Fabrics to Celebrate like the Flag

Some people say that they should bring back the death penalty because if there's another Jack the Ripper, he should be hung. And I really have to object to that on the grounds of being pedantic here, because the word should actually be Flag the Ripper. He's only Jack The Ripper if he's hung at sea.

A little joke to be appreciated by the flag fuckers there, a market I'd love to break into.

This week Conservative MP James Wild asked the BBC's Director General Tim Davie how many Union Flags were shown in the graphics inside the BBC's annual performance report. Then revealed, much to the shock of...maybe if we're being generous the organisers of last night at the proms but realistically no one, that it was in fact zero. There were zero pictures of the Union Flag in the BBC's performance report.

So while James Wild MP, or Wild James as I imagine he's called at parties, is bringing this to the attention of the masses, I thought I would implore him to raise the case of other omissions from the BBC Annual Review, so here are

5 Other Fabrics Overlooked by the BBC Review

1. Thomas the Tank Engine Duvet Covers

Did you know the BBC report does not contain a single image of a Thomas the Tank Engine duvet cover (inc. related pillow set). Now this may surprise you to learn but back in the period of 1989-1999 when I was a child, we had Thomas the Tank Engine duvet covers almost every other week, with the rest of the time being taken up with Winnie The Pooh. Since 2008, so all my adult life, I have never once slept beneath a Thomas the Tank Engine Duvet cover. Now my choices are limited to white, yellow and with flowers. And it's not until someone points this out that you realise how few Thomas the Tank Engine duvet covers you've slept under recently. When the number of qualified Fat Controllers in this country starts to fall, I think we'll know what's to blame.

2. Y-Fronts

In recent years boxer shorts and hipster pants have become the cradle of choice for the British scrotum but at what cost? The support offered by the Y-Front has all but disappeared from British culture as a result of a direct cultural attack from America. Not one superhero in the MCU wears Y-Fronts, which was once a staple of the genre. And what's more in this day and age of Covid, it's always a decent idea to wear undergarments you can quickly whip off in an alley behind Sainsbury's and wear as a plausible face mask when you nip out having forgotten yours.

3. Hawaiian Shirts

Red, White and Blue? Well it's a start I guess, but Hawaiian shirts are the ultimate accessory no man should be without. Stand out from the crowd - not a crowd of your own friends, you may find you have quite few, but crowds in general. The term peacocking refers to a man trying to impress a lady, but these days it usually just means chinos and a haircut that you saw on The Only Way Is Essex. That's not how peacocks do it. Display your range of colours. Worried your child might get lost on a beach? Not if they're wearing a hawaiian shirt you won't be. Power cut? While everyone else is searching for candles you're lighting up the room with your own luminescent glow.

4. Hot Towels in planes and Indian restaurants

At the end of a delicious curry there's nothing quite so satisfying as sucking on a slice of orange and dabbing your head with a hot towel. I love a curry but I would honestly say it's one of the best bits. The food is over. The little hoover that looks like a blackboard rubber has been run across the table and sucked up any stray bits of rice. The table cloth is carefully picked up, folded and taken away to reveal a second table cloth that was underneath the whole time! Is this table cloth one that will only know the embrace of the hot towels and the bill or will it one day be sullied by Jalfrezi sauce too? Nobody knows. Maybe there is no table, maybe it's just an increasing arrangement of intricately folded table cloths supporting themselves. Then the hot towels come over. All individually wrapped in planet killing plastic. How are they wrapped up? They can't be single use. Which means that they must be sent back somewhere to be resoaked and wrapped again. Like poking a bruise, cricket or the female orgasm the process is a baffling mystery to us all, but the euphoria is unreal. Also they're on planes but the food is shit so they're less good.

5. The Safety Curtain

When it comes to disasters in the theatre - and I'm talking disasters in the literal sense here not Thriller the Michael Jackson musical - the insurance firm Direct Line has calculated that almost all risks of disasters: fires, intruders, terrorist acts, murders, floods and the like, occur in theatres approximately one minute into the interval and last approximately 30 seconds, and so having a defensive shield made of extra strong asbestos that can be lowered down, just for those crucial seconds has probably saved the lives of so many of our great actors. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Joe Pasqualie and Helen Mirren are all still here today because of the power of the safety curtain. Of course fringe venues can go fuck themselves. It's not even a legal requirement for those to have doors, seats or any kind of window or air conditioning below 80 decibels. But our West End stars are safe for that crucial 30 seconds every night.

And now back to flags:

The clip of James Wild MP talking to the BBC DG is well worth watching, it's basically a guy convinced he's cottoned onto the one insightful point that's going to bring down the Beeb making that point to a guy who doesn't even really know why it's a question. It's like arguing the government should be disbanded because the Chilcott report into the Iraq war doesn't feature any cat gifs.

And Wild James (PM?) says that his constituents would expect to see "more than one" union flag in an industry report, which is really surprising. I can honestly say that I don't know how many company's accounts, staffing contracts, health and safety audits or risk assessments have a Union Flag in them, but like Tony Davie predicting where the question was going...I could take a guess.

The Union Flag has become an increasingly common symbol across British politics in recent years. Boris Johnson announces lockdowns in front of two of them, and his new press briefing room has four (I think that makes him more patriotic than someone with 3 but fucked if he ever comes up against someone with a string of bunting). Sir Keir Starmer, has announced intentions to win back voters - after he was shockingly exposed by the Daily Mail as the kind of fucker who owns a sanctuary for sick donkeys - by "wrapping the party in the flag" and a leaked report said the Labour party would "make use of the flag, veterans and dressing smartly."  

Now all of this has blown up around the BBC over the last week since housing secretary Robert Jenrick appeared on the news with a perfectly natural Union Jack and Portrait of the Queen hanging above his sofa.

Which is perfectly normal isn't it? I mean unless the dude was Alf Garnett it's hardly a normal thing - side note: people often say "you couldn't make it up" but in this case if the flag and Queen portrait had been written into an old British sitcom it probably wouldn't get repeated today or appear on Britbox, but that's a whole other issue.

The point is some people - traitors, commies, scum and that - don't have union flags beside their sofa and a portrait of the Queen. This was commented on by BBC Breakfast presenter Charlie Stayt, who made fun of the flag a bit. So naturally his co-host Naga Munchetty received widespread abuse on Twitter. Now who knows why Naga Munchetty received more abuse that Charlie. I'm not saying there might be a link between people who get really upset over a joke about a flag and racists, but that's because they're exactly the same people most of the time.

Look, the Union Flag sends out a message. The background of that zoom call is as carefully curated as all these book-shelves of Stephen Hawking and Oxford Classics books that have been shipping in to MPs homes to replace 50 Shades, Mills and Boon erotica and Oswald Mosley's memoirs. And there's nothing wrong with curating your zoom background, but in a world of politics obsessed with authenticity anything that feels like it might be done for show is going to get rightly called out. And you can't deny the Union Flag and a picture of the Queen is a choice, and it's a powerful symbol of Britishness while actually being fairly weak on substance. It's like the free T-Shirt I got from Macmillan Cancer Support, it looks good, it wins me brownie points in the eyes of certain people I might want to impress, but in itself it's a pretty meaningless distraction from the fact that I didn't donate to Comic Relief this year.

This isn't about patriotism by the way. I'm all for waving a flag around at the last night of the proms while singing about all the countries whose resources we pillaged and people's we enslaved. Ok, the "reasonable paragraph" hasn't got off to the best of starts but, no, people should be proud of where they are from, and having a pride or love for your national symbol is not an inherently bad thing (it does lead to some people's unwillingness to discuss some of the uncomfortable failings of this country which is a problem, but patriotism itself isn't really an issue).

What I'm complaining about it more the faux-shows of patriotism to score political points while doing very little. And trust me, I should know, I'm a leftie. Oh we are the best at half arsed slogans. There's a sticker someone stuck on a lamp post near where I live that says "No-one is illegal." To which I added my own important caveat "except Bank Robbers" bank robbers are illegal. Now the original point of that sticker (one about immigration) is a fair and valid one but the slogan itself is fairly meaningless. And that's what's happening here, figures right across the board of politics have adopted the Union Flag as a means of saying "Look how much I care about Britain" and a certain type of nationalist and patriotic people have gone "yeah, anyone without a flag is a traitor!" But the politician isn't actually doing anything to show they care for Britain. They're not making the world a better place. They're not making meaningful change. It's like a restaurant being accused of having a dirty kitchen and you go back in the next week and they've changed the colours of the napkins to red, white and blue. It's a pretty empty gesture that does nothing to put things right.

Meanwhile because it's the ultimate symbol of Britishness if anyone questions it, or asks them what they're doing to make Britain better they can be shut down as being "unpatriotic" as if that's a crime or as if liking the flag is the only way to be patriotic, when a better way might be to knock the futile gestures on the head and improve the country for everyone.  

When Boris Johnson makes those lockdown speeches in front of flags the subtext is partly that he's speaking for the country but also that criticising the content of those briefings is an attack on your country and not "pulling together". When Keir Starmer focuses on flags and "dressing smartly" it's about presenting an image but if there's nothing there to back it up, the image is fairly pointless. It's dumb political symbols not smart political policy, and as an aside, "dressing smartly" is an odd choice. Most politicians dress reasonably smartly anyway, and anyone who saw Dominic Cummings give evidence to a select committee in a smart shirt, or do his big garden press conference knows why he doesn't dress like that more often. He looks really weird.

It's also part of a wider thing right now. The last year has really seen us reckon with our past. Statues have been torn down, statues which themselves are symbols of British history. Heritage sites have put more honest and open accounts of some of the unpleasant things that happened in the country's past on little plaques and then been told by the government that it's an infringement on their free speech to be allowed to express whatever they know to be true. One of the smartest scientists the planet will ever produce (for he's not been born yet) Lt Commander Data in Star Trek: First Contact said "believing oneself to be perfect is often the product of a delusional mind," and questioning our past and our symbols is an important part of that. Fly the flag by all means, just don't let it become the thing that matters. Don't become America. David Mitchell once said on Mock The Week that the difference between Americans and the English is that Americans give a massive shit about their flag being burnt, while British people would react "You paid for it, so it's your flag, you're burning your own flag!" So lets stop focussing on the symbols and go away and google all the bad stuff that James Wild doesn't want us to notice the government is up to.

That said, I do think siding with these flag people is the best way to get The Goodies repeated on the BBC...so Rule Britannia

Who Wants To Buy My Flat?

This morning, I received a lovely letter from Haart estate agents, just one of a number of estate agents who, apparently, have a load of people just waiting to buy my flat. (Or indeed any flat in my area, they're not picky).

We get letters like this fairly often, from a whole load of estate agents in the area.

So after receiving such a lovely letter, and after forgiving them for the direct approach, I felt it was a only nice to write back. 

Hi there

Thank you for your recent letter about the successful sale of a flat on our street. Congratulations on the sale and the “good price” you got for it. It’s lovely to hear from you about your good day at work. I had a decent day too. Finally caught up on Wandavision, wrote a pub quiz for zoom and briefly opened a word document in which I wrote the title The Red Moss, which will be the title of my hit literary novel just as soon as I have an idea what it means.

Anyway, if you’ll forgive the direct approach. You have a nice office right? I’ve seen it. It’s lovely. There’s a load of people who out there who would love to work in your office. Accountants and legal firms and that. And your office is great. Were it not for you selfishly working there!

Would you mind not working there so I can give it to someone else to work there? That would be really useful for me. Come on, move out, pack up and let someone else have a go. Quit hogging your home guys! There’s people out there who want it.

Yours faithfully

 

Dan Vine
Sarcastic Guy

 

PS. I noticed in your letter that you had buyers looking to buy my flat. Please let me know who, I might sell it to them if they turn out to be really nice. But my policy on my home is – and this might seem a little racist – I will not sell to hypothetical people. I’ve had enough of hypothetical people! You notice they never tell you their names. Imagine how annoyed my neighbours would be if someone hypothetical moved into our flat. “Are they alive or dead?” “Well as long as they stay in the box room, unobserved, they’re actually both until someone opens the door to the box room.”

Bloody hypothetical people, coming over here, behaving however is necessary to make the point I want to make to win the argument.

If you have a non-hypothetical buyer in mind, send me over some details and how much they’re willing to pay for the flat – I hope it’s more than the one down the street, you had to market that and everything but it seems like someone is actively searching for mine – and we’ll do business.

Otherwise, and please forgive me for the direct approach, they'll just have to wait until we move out and put the flat on the market. Tell them (and I appreciate it's not you saying this but these rude people out there eyeing up my flat) my home is my home and not just some commodity I will be made feel guilty for living in by some person who may or may not even exist.

No hypothetical people, or metaphorical pets.

Unpresidented

So I went to America and Washington DC last week and came across what I mistakenly thought was a Black Friday sale. But it turns out I'd got my days wrong and Black Friday in America actually always falls on a Friday. And this was a Wednesday. It turns out that that I'd stumbled upon a riot in the capitol building. Literally a once in a lifetime event - unless you were 207 years old.

And on a side note, I bet if you were 207 years old, you'd be interviewed on the ITV Evening News and putting your longevity down to whisky, fine wines or smoking 20-a-day. If there's one conspiracy theory that I absolutely buy into it's that all of these things that the "man" tells us are bad for us are definitely what's keeping us alive, and they tell us sugar is bad for us because the post office staff can't cope with a population with an average age of 150.

Anyway, I was storming the capital and I was following a man with a flag who claimed to be a victim - and to be fair, he did seem like a loser, but that's quite possibly because he was carrying the flag of a side that lost a war.

Now some people get the wrong idea about these guys. And I think the confusion arises because what these fellas want is to find out who won the election and to make sure everything was fair and above board. Now there is a flag for American democracy and it looks like this:

but it's actually really hard to get hold of these in America because, for reasons that will never really become clear, they are often bulk bought in American schools where children have to pledge allegiance to them every morning in a thing that is in no way like a cult. Seems completely unnecessary to me. Flags don't need allegiance. They're flags. They don't want anything. If I went to an American school, I would be writing instructions on flags every night so when people came in the next day and pledged allegiance to them, the whole class have to stand on their desks and dance like Elvis whenever the teacher took a sip of their coffee. Really batshit instructions written on a flag so that all of the students had to obey it or break their pledge. "Move all of your desks to the playground and arrange them in the same rows out there but you may not step outside the classrooms!" Real Taskmaster style stuff.

Anyway the problem is because of all the schools buying these they can be really hard to come by, but luckily nobody wants the confederate flag on account of the fact that they were the losing side in a war and generally accepted to be the side of the dickheads. Unfortunately that means that those turning up just to see a fair counting of the ballots takes place do carry the flag of the side of the civil war who were fighting to preserve slavery and it's all too easy for the media to see a bunch of white people carrying a flag that was adopted by the people who wanted to own black people and leap to the conclusion that actually they're not really into democracy they just want to beat the shit out of someone, ideally someone they own. They're probably just the cheaper flags. We know how much these protestors love a bargain. Just like in the UK you can get a bag of broken or misshapen biscuits cheap in some supermarkets, in the USA you can buy hoodies for the third Captain America film cheaply if they've got the wrong release date for the movie on them.

Weird that they made such a basic mistake when Civil War came out in 2016, before the merch had to be pulled due to the wrong release date and the decision not to rebrand Marvel and Marvels Awesome Great Adventures after all, so this guy picked up a bargain, purely because he couldn't afford to buy a Black Widow or Black Panther 2 sweatshirt with the dates of actual films - being led by women and black actors who I'm sure he'd like to support - that might actually be released in 2021.

Mistakes were made at the Capitol protests. For a start they this confusion could have been avoided if they'd tied the slave owner flags to the railings outside and believe me this was the original plan. We even asked one guy to bring his cable ties in order to do this, but weirdly at the last minute the police moved the very barriers they had planned on attaching them to. And you wouldn't want to argue with a police officer now would you. I mean you could end up dead or receiving directions to the office of Nancy Pelosi, depending on if you were black or white.

Because of course the police are a very powerful presence in America. But it's important to know, in times like these especially, where the source of power lies in a country. Is it with the President or the House of Representatives or the Senate? Well reassuringly the most powerful force in America is actually the same as it is in the UK and the most powerful thing ever created is the velvet rope.

It is genuinely reassuring to know that even during a coup everyone stayed between the velvet ropes. It's the one rule nobody ever wants to be caught breaking and in a way that's good. Sure our next president may be fair game for assassination attempts, mob justice and beatings, but we can sleep a little safer at night knowing that the wax works of the former presidents are safe in Madame Tussauds. 

The truth here is that these people just wanted to make their voices heard, and they would have quite happily peacefully kneeled down before a football match if that wasn't the worst kind of protest possible, so really vandalising the home of your nation's proud democracy is the only way.

The capitol building was placed in a state of lockdown! Which meant that rioters were only allowed to steal the art works if they had a substantial meal first.

Joe Biden, a man who shares his name with a van that took all those Trump votes to the recycling plant, went on TV and told the president that he should speak out and tell the rioters to stop, which very unfairly distracted Trump and he missed the putt and the ball went straight passed the hole. So everyone agreed, at the president's insistence, that it was very unfair and they just put it down as a hole in 3, although some fake newser he was playing with pointed out he'd already taken 5 shots getting the ball to the green.

And to be fair to Trump he did go on TV and said "the election was fraudulent and we love all the people rioting in Capitol Hill." Now Trump is "not a stupid man" (source: Donald Trump speaking in 2018) and "has all the best words" (Source: Donald Trump speaking in 2016) and so sometimes you have to read between the lines. Whenever my wife says "Dan, I love you but..." it usually means that I should stop doing whatever it is I'm doing.

But the problem with rioters is that very often nuance and reading between the lines don't stand a chance. That's why Donald Trump had to spell out for them exactly how and when to march on the Capitol building in a public speech before hand rather than be more subtle about it or try to pass off the responsibility to Alex Jones or one of the other right wing thugs - honestly why they still let her host the One Show, I do not know.

If you missed the footage of Donald Trump stoking up the crowd by calling the election results "bullshit" by the way, then please don't worry, as it will not the last time that you see an angry mob in front of Donald Trump chanting "bullshit."

But I know we don't want to give Donald Trump credit for anything, but he did actually come out on TV and ask for rioters to stop what they were doing. He did that on Wednesday 13th of January, just ONE WEEK after the rioting. ONE WEEK! That's literally the lowest number of weeks. How could someone be expected to act sooner? I mean, yes I guess you could have minus weeks. He could have said "please don't start rioting" on 31st December 2020 minus one week after the riots happened, but honestly is he supposed to be able to predict the future? Look none of us could have acted quicker. The first indication that anything was even going to kick off was right at the very last minute...of 2016.

I don't want to come over all Fox News here, but Donald Trump's election that he won happened during the Obama administration, so isn't all this really Obama's fault?

Look the President really didn't have time to address the rioters any sooner. He was too busy on the phone to the president of Iraq who was sarcastically calling every 20 minutes to ask if he should send peace keepers to America to secure it's democracy. Meanwhile Trump considered mobilising the national guard, to attack Twitter who it was claimed had a little blue exclamation point they could deploy in 45 minutes.

Twitter had an interesting role to play in this as people across the globe spent the night glued to their smart phones doom scrolling through the latest developments on Twitter. And it made you realise what an astonishing future this really is. We were able to see what was going on live from the scene as it was happening thanks to reporters and bizarrely the people committing the illegal acts taking photographs of the people committing the illegal acts. And this is where crime has really gone down hill these days. Back in the good old days of wholesome Victorian prostitute murders (you know the kind of family friendly thing you could build a tourist attraction around, not these new grizzly murders that happen to people today and which absolutely nobody should profit off except for podcasters) back in the glory days of the Victorian Prostitute killings when a murderer did in a prostitute they might leave a calling card by which you would know it was them but not know who they were like a single rose petal, an origami ostrich or a glove that only fits OJ Simpson's hand if he really tried but he doesn't. You know the kind of mark that nobody could trace back to an individual. They didn't leave their literal calling card with all the details you'd need to trace them along with photographic evidence of them committing the crime. The Great Train Robbers would have been a lot easier to catch if Ronnie Biggs had been on Instagram.

I do think part of the reason a coup like this wont work though is because we're amazingly privileged to be able to watch events play out in real time on our mobile phones. I can't imagine what it was like for my parents generation who, when Watergate happened for example, would have had to gather in the hallway to read twitter on the landline.

A man called @Jack, the CEO of Twitter, was being deluged with tweets about how badly behaved twitter was being. Kind of like a letter writing campaign complaining that there were too many pictures of the Queen's head in profile. Eventually Mr Atjack displayed all the financial ingenuity you would expect of a man who's twitter bio just reads "#bitcoin" and took one of the most talked about people on his platform off his platform for 12 hours. Now in the old days someone who committed treason could be hanged but I take comfort from the fact that as a more enlightened civilisation, I can sleep through two thirds of a man's punishment for treason these days. Again, could twitter have acted sooner? Maybe. I mean, I guess if someone had previously tweeted an explicit threat such as "when the looting starts the shooting starts" you could then look at whether this person is the right "look" for your company, but again there were no signs that anything like this was going to happen until it was already half way through...the year 2016. And Twitter are strict! I once got a week long ban for telling people that they should leave stable doors open. Admittedly the horse was 1,600 miles away in Estonia by the time I got the ban but my point still stands.

Twitter is an interesting platform. One of the best things about Twitter is it never forgets, so it would be really embarrassing if the president of the USA who started these riots had tweeted say threats of harsher jail sentences for anyone who vandalised public property or had said say "when the looting starts the shooting starts" because imagine if people found those during the riots, you'd be quite red in the face if you forgot to get out of your sunbed while reading the news.

Right wing nutter Tomi Lahren tweeted in November that "If @realDonaldTrump were to lose (he won’t) his supporters will go to work tomorrow just as we do everyday. When Biden loses, his “supporters” will likely loot and riot. Tells you everything you need to know! #Trump2020" Well she was half right and also alt-right.

Washington DC bought in a curfew, and told the Qanon guys it was passed their bedtime and they weren't allowed any supper. So the business of counting the votes could continue. But not before Mike Pence gave a lovely speech about how much of a dick "a certain someone" was without naming names. He was just slower than Twitter but took well under six years to condemn a bully so good for him. Mitch McConnell even said some nasty things about the same certain someone and over here Boris Johnson was also having trouble remembering the name of Donald Trump when it came to calling out his actions. A lot was said about the disgusting scenes, but failing to directly name the man who caused them. Like if there was a racist painting or a scene in a play where an audience member was tied to a radiator while their life was threatened, you wouldn't just say "I don't really care for the painting" or "I felt the second act suffered a bit from the lack of musical numbers and the threat to rape Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," would you not just complain about those scenes but also call out the artist and play write who wrote and painted those scenes?

Around the world people reacted to the news. Inspired by what they'd seen Lawrence Fox, both members of his fan club and a member of the Billie Piper fan club who never unsubscribed from the newsletter, stormed the Didcot Sainsbury's Local, and posed for photographs with their feet up on the fish counter demanding to know why one of the actors they employed was black.

Meanwhile Virgin #72 turned to her fella and asked "Why so glum?"
"Because I told them they were silly when they said I should play the long game and host The Apprentice instead," replied Osama Bin Laden with his head in his hands.

Of course others around the world were not surprised. I don't know for a fact that foreign powers were interfering but this guy clearly has a French flag painted on his face

You may think that a French Flag might be the stupidest thing to wear to a riot. Or maybe a hoodie that advertises the date and time of your riot (honestly, how could the police ever have seen this coming?). Or a Camp Auschwitz T-Shirt which is very very disgustingly stupid but in a slightly different way to our competition winner, who wore the stupidest thing to the riots:

His work ID. He was subsequently fired. I don't want to pander to pre-existing prejudices here but I think we all secretly knew already that people who wear their work lanyards after work were twats.

It's all over now and that just leaves one question: What next for Donald Trump?

While the president's immediate plans are obvious: hiding mouldy fish behind every radiator in the White House, shitting in the bottom drawer of his desk and dialling a premium rate number before leaving the phone off the hook until Joe Biden moves in, it seems like he may not have as much time for that as he wants.

You see it turns out that if you incite armed rebellion against the lawmakers of the country you govern, you might get impeached. Democrats - and Republicans numbered into the double figures (lets just leave it at that, it could be 99, it could be 10, I'll let you work it out) - voted to impeach the president an unprecedented second time, and this time America could be unpresidented.

With only 10 Republicans backing the call for impeachment, you wonder what could make the party of law and order and the constitution actually indict a president. Well again, this is maybe a good thing. A sign that America is becoming a more lenient and accepting place. You'll remember they were particularly harsh on Barack Obama during his term for sins such as wearing chinos. So perhaps they've rightly decided to lighten up. In fact when we broke into the offices of the senators we found a document in a Republican desk that they drew up outlining a softening of the rules in 2016. Remember at this point they hadn't named Donald Trump as their candidate and so their first choice of candidate appears on the document.

I guess the question now is, with just a week to go, will Donald Trump try for the hat trick? I think he should, but where can he go from here? As I see it he has three options to guarantee making history for the impeachment hat trick:

1. Use his Myspace page to tell an angry mob of thousands of armed men and women to storm and desecrate Tom Hanks

2. Use his Habbo Hotel to have a "perfect email exchange" with Boris Johnson offering a post-Brexit trade deal if Boris Johnson seduces Dr Gill Biden.
(Incidentally, Sir Kier Starmer did ask the Ukranians for any dirt they had on Boris Johnson's children. The Ukranian's are still working on the report and expect to have it ready within the century)

3. Put the nuclear codes in his MSN messenger name.

So one way or another that would appear to be the end of the Trump presidency. We hope we wont see much more of him. We already know he wont turn up to Joe Biden's inauguration, but fortunately at short notice the "what a sad little life Jane" guy from Come Dine With Me was available to replace him.

Let's see what happens next. Hopefully a return to civilised debate and reasoned politics, but if all else fails I guess we could just shout "Hunter Biden's Laptop" for a year and hope that makes a difference.