What a world we live in. I wake to the news that members of the RNLI have had death threats for having saved people from drowning at sea, before learning that the leader of the free world, Dementia Donald Trump, has offered all American adults $5000 worth of free money if they vote for the Republican Party in the USA USA USA mid-term elections. Then, I find that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s number two – I use the term number two advisedly – the privately educated Daniel Thomas AKA Danny Tomo led a bunch of his Burqa Boys to the offices of the Daily Mail to “protest” that the rag had published the address of his dear old mum when in fact he’d done something similar by registering his own “business” at Companies House using … er … her address. I am bewitched, bothered and and bewildered.
If that’s not mad enough, I came across a reason that appears to confirm something that I have always suspected and feared. Some people should not be allowed to vote.
How else can you explain the sheer lunacy that the worst programme in the history of television, the vomit-inducing Mrs Brown’s Boys, has won top comedy show at the National Television Awards, seeing off competition from Not Going Out, Last One Laughing, Changing Ends and Amandaland. How bad must these other shows be?
I cannot answer that question because I have never seen any of them. Indeed, I have never heard of any of them, except Not Going Out which I believe is a comedy vehicle for the normally admirable Lee Mack. But, back in the increasingly distant recesses of time, I did see Mrs Brown’s Boys, sitting as I did slack-jawed, open-mouthed, eyes bulging, wondering how the fuck something as grim as this ever got commissioned, never mind shown on national television.
It is what we used to call a Situation Comedy show. Old folk like me grew up at a time when Situation Comedies, or Sit Coms as we called them, were all the rage. Dads Army, Fawlty Towers, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads are good examples and half a century on, they have stood the test of time. Others, like Love Thy Neighbour, the hilarious story of a bigoted white man who has a black family move in next door, clearly haven’t, but that’s probably down to wokeness and political correctness, I expect. It comes to something when you can’t even be a foul-mouthed racist on peak hour TV. The genre appears to be all but dead now.
And I think that last bit is true. It’s not so much that “they don’t make them like they used to”, although that’s palpably true, but the whole Sit Com thing has had its day. Except, of course, Mrs Brown’s Boys. Someone somewhere must be watching it. Is it you?
I can only imagine that the actual vote was a wind-up, that some wag put thousands of people up to voting for Mrs Brown’s Boys just for a laugh. “Wouldn’t it be funny if the worst programme ever was voted the funniest of the year?” That kind of thing. Because nothing else makes sense. Or perhaps, as I am in so many things these days, I am completely out of touch with the modern world?
Looking through the awards show results, I quickly became aware that there were two types of show. The ones I had heard of but didn’t watch and the ones I had never heard of. Hell, I didn’t even know Emmerdale wasn’t a farm anymore. Whatever happened to Amos Brearley and Alan Turner, my two favourite characters the last time I watched? (One for the teenagers, there.)
I shall doubtless be reminded of what’s popular on television as I descend into my later years and find myself unable to do pretty much anything except stare at the crystal bucket. It’s a terrifying thought, as I sit there in my armchair, eating my dinner after it’s been through a blender, while simultaneously pissing my pants, waiting anxiously for the next episode of Call The Midwife or fretting about who the guests are today on This Morning. So, instead of wasting my time watching terrible TV shows, or even worse TV award shows, I’d better do something else instead.
For today, Mrs Brown’s Boys can wait.
