Why do I care?
James Delingpole
Sometimes I really do think I should be sacked from this job. Obviously my columns can be bloody funny and fascinatingly autobiographical and even quite percipient about some of the things that are on TV (so long as they're about war). But what they almost always fail to do is to talk about the programmes that really matter. Why haven't I reviewed Club Reps, for example? Or Fat Club? Or Footballers Wives? Or Pop Idol?
To my shame, I caught Pop Idol for the first time only last Saturday, when there were just three contenders left. So I never got to see Simon Cowell (the famously nasty judge with the out-of-date hair cut and the Swiss-Tony-type trousers belted at chest height) making people ciy, which I think was rather the programme's main attraction.
What disturbs me about Pop Idol (and related programmes like Big Brother) is that they're a bit like that horrible 24-hour puking bug I picked up at the weekend and which you no doubt will too if you haven't already: however determinedly you try to avoid it, it will always get you in the end. For many months I managed to exist quite happily without having any idea about the identities of Gareth, William, Darius or the fat one who shagged the three-in-a-bed Essex bimbo from Club Reps. Yet, by the end of last Saturday, I could not only recognise these jumped-up nonentities but I suddenly found myself caring which one won. Me, I want it to be William because he's well-spoken, isn't made of sculpted plastic and has a reasonable singing voice. But I gather it's going to be Gareth.
Let's catch up with Frasier (Channel 4, Friday), since it's an annual tradition. It's in its ninth series now and the people behind it, quite understandably, are concerned that no one with any sense gives a toss any more. I suppose that's why they capitulated and let Niles finally get Daphne. At the time, I thought this was sensible, partly because it made us feel warm and gooey, mainly because her continued failure to notice his infatuation after seven whole seasons was starting to strain the bounds of credulity.
But having Daphne as Niles's wife has left the scriptwriters with a problem: what to do now that she's lost her point. Yes, I know some will disagree (old geezers like my father who like her breasts, mainly), but — romantic tension apart Daphne has
always been a really crap and annoying character whose quaint accent, kooky mannerisms and hilarious reminiscences about her English childhood are funny only if you're an American who has never been to England or met an English person but knows pretty much what they're like because they saw Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins once.
At least in her servant days Daphne knew her place and was kept in the background as a foil to Frasier and Dad and Niles. Now, though, she's had all these extra personality traits dumped on her. She has become shrewish (so that we can endure many tedious, husband and wife bickering scenarios) and jealous, like in the deeply implausible episode where she spies on one of Niles's patients. They should have killed her off. Instead, they've given her loads and loads more money to stay, which is the sort of thing the Romans did in the last days of their empire, and look what happened to them.
Another thing I can't understand is why more people don't rave about Big Train (BBC 2, Monday). Even when the sketches don't quite work, you only to have to look at Kevin Eldon, Simon Pegg and Mark Heap pretending to be ordinary people to burst out laughing, and when they do work, you're up there with The Fast Show only much more weird. I particularly liked the sketch in the broth factory where the team leader reveals to his employees the latest research showing that when a large number of cooks are involved in making the product its quality appears to deteriorate. Maybe if its cast were all-Asian or predominately female it would stand a better chance.
Certainly, though Smack The Pony (Channel 4, Friday) has its moments, I don't think it's nearly in the same league as Big Train. Perhaps this is because, as Simon Hoggart suggested last week, it's almost too realistic to be funny. That sketch where the girl being pulled on a rubber-ring behind a speedboat, squeals with joy when she's going fast and then whimpers that she wants to get off when it slows down. Or the one where the girl gets all tearful and difficult because the location her boyfriend has chosen to propose (on a lawn by a picturesque river) just isn't quite as romantic as she'd hoped. I mean, this is exactly what girls are like — total headcases — and we blokes are expected to be charmed by it. Seriously, it makes you wonder why we don't all turn gay.
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