“Nothing.”

I’ve only worked with friends a few times. I’ve worked with plenty of people I’ve got on well with – most, I’m glad to say – but only a few with whom I’d share my private thoughts and feelings. So, if I’ve had any bad news, or have been feeling low for any reason, I’ve kept it to myself, and got on with the job in hand. Work is work, and private life is exactly that.

It’s not only a sense of propriety, though; there’s a sense in which I recognise that blurring these boundaries is pointless. If I’m troubled by something in another part of my life, it’s not going to be remedied by discussing it with people who don’t know the context or who I don’t want to open up to in that way. In which case, walking round in a markedly distracted manner, pointedly not engaging in conversation, and responding in monosyllables would be an indulgence.

I never understand what it’s supposed to achieve, beyond a little, immediate, and cheap attention; that, and creating an atmosphere for everyone in the vicinity, which is unfair, as they don’t know how – and usually aren’t able – to help. And having been one of those bystanders, on more than one occasion, only fuels my own desire not to create that discomfort for others. It’s childish, selfish and silly.

Not that I’ve encountered that recently, you understand. Just saying.

Smaller on the inside

There’s a wonderful post here about canon being a redundant concept for Doctor Who. No, come back! It’s cogent, funny, and provoking.

Reading it made me reflect on the conservatism often displayed by so many fans of the show. I started watching it in 1979 (nineteen – seventy – nine!), and I loved not knowing where each story was going to take me. I think that that was a good time to discover the programme, because change was in the air: a year later I witnessed regeneration for the first time, as Tom Baker became Peter Davison, and, before his first season, the BBC showed a series of repeats of stories from each Doctor. This meant, in my first three years as a regular viewer of a programme new to me, I saw the lead character played by five separate actors, and watched stories made in three separate decades, with all the attendant differences in approach and house-style that involves, including two of them being in black and white. That’s not bad going for an eight-year-old, is it?

And I swallowed it all whole. The most exciting bit was always the opening moments of episode one, as you looked to see where this story, and therefore the next few weeks, was set. Where were we? And when? Then, an indication that something was amiss, or that something was lurking in the shadows, and, soon after, for the Doctor to get involved – that was what I wanted. But, in that happy, open, time of transition, it didn’t matter who was playing the Doctor, or who his companions were, or when the story had been made… the essential ethos of the programme was enough. No, more than that, watching those old repeats, I was excited by the variations on a theme dictated by the change of production teams (not that I would have known about such things then, of course): not only in terms of the iconography, blatant and not-so-blatant – different title sequences, different police box prop – but also tonally. Even as a seven-year-old, I could discern that there was a murkier morality guiding the characters’ actions in An Unearthly Child to the more straightforward malarky of The Three Doctors, and I knew that something had happened between the first two seasons I’d watched (Tom Baker’s final two, the latter of which was stylistically very different to what had gone before, much more sombre and, superficially, ‘sciency’), though there was no way I could have told you precisely what.

And that, more than anything, I think, is what hooked me; that each week you tuned into a programme that bore the same title, but you never quite knew what you were going to see.

Which is why I’m always disappointed when other fans react against the programme’s continual and inherent idiosyncrasies (I was going to say ‘against the programme taking risks’, or ‘doing something peculiar’, but neither of those is quite right). I loved the casting of Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor, precisely because, for a minute or two, as I read the news, it seemed so wrong. He didn’t seem like a Doctor, and yet, that’s the best reason for casting him; the whole concept of regeneration is rendered meaningless unless you exploit its potential for difference. I love The Happiness Patrol, a barking story from 1988 that brazenly pushes its studio-bound limitations in your face, demanding an explicit reaction, and so getting a positive one from this viewer. I love The Gunfighters: a Western? On a children’s show budget? With real horses? And scenes linked by a specially-written ballad? In 1966? But, of course!

I know the feeling, though. Even if it’s a vivacious eclecticism that draws you in, the longer you watch, the more you invest, and become attached to the invented world. I enjoyed each episode of the 2005 series – but only on the Sunday, after I’d watched for a second time, because I was too nervous, as each was transmitted, THAT THEY’D HAVE GOT IT WRONG!!! 45 minutes is a long time to be holding your breath, believe me. And it’s a small step from affection to making a fetish of the surface details; it’s one thing to have a small smile of recognition at a neat reference to a previous story, quite another to have a Cyberman with a visible paunch because of some boss-eyed idea that it actually matters that he’s played by the same actor that played the part twenty years earlier.

Some years ago, at the last convention I attended (oh, that’s gone and done it now!), I was in a queue and, being a sociable sort, I struck up conversation with the man in front of me. Being a convention, the conversation was about the Big Finish range of Doctor Who audio dramas. I was asked my favourite, and waxed lyrical about Creatures of Beauty: a well-written Peter Davison story, most memorable for having a fragmented, non-linear narrative, which demanded attention from the listener, and repaid the effort with a tense, involving, and satisfying tale. “Oh yes, that was a good one,” agreed my fellow fan, “though I wish they’d re-edited it so it was all in the right order.”

“You will be like uzzzzzz!”

Welcome to the United Kingdom! Do you want to assimilate? Do you want to find out more about life in this country? Life as it’s really lived?

Then take the Life in the United Kingdom Official Practice Citizenship Test!

It’s only the practice one, mind! Just a warm-up, in order to “find out whether you are ready to take the actual test”!

Go on, then. Have a go.

I was born in the UK, I’ve lived here all my life, and this test is as relevant to my experience of daily life as an IKEA stocktake. I failed it, but, then, it is cretinously abstruse (and, as such, a fitting introduction to a certain aspect of UK officialdom, I suppose).

I should do a withering pisstake, but thankfully Boz has done it for me (though I joined in in the Comments).

IN SUMMARY: There are 15 million children and young people up to the age of 19 in the UK. Let’s hear Katie Melua sing about that. No, actually, let’s not.

I was so surprised and shocked, and I wondered too if by chance you’d heard it for yourself

I swore involuntarily at reading that Jonathan Ross’s Radio 2 show is to be pre-recorded from this week onwards. Admittedly, this is never going to count as the big news story of the week, but it does, I think, have some significance*.

My initial dismay is because there’s a real value to radio programmes being broadcast live; radio is a much more intimate medium than television, and part of the connection you make with it, as a listener, is knowing that you’re interacting with it in real time. Of course there are many, many radio programmes that are pre-recorded, but this type of ‘music and chat’ show has live transmission built into its DNA in a way that The Afternoon Play or a documentary don’t. I think it’s about feeling a sense of spontaneity; it’s spurious, but there’s a feeling that the presenter rolls up and does the whole thing off the top of his or her head; it’s only a bit of inconsequential chit-chat and then pressing a button on the CD player, after all. (It’s the same reason that Private Eye covers have a crude cut’n’paste look – the joke’s only funny if you feel that someone’s come up with the idea and then bodged together the cover in a matter of minutes. The enjoyment would be lessened if you thought anyone had actually spent any time on it).

But, at the macro level, there’s a weariness at how Ross has become totemic of the BBC’s willingness to be kicked. We’re all numbed from the tedium of what we must now, for the sake of cretinous brevity, call Sachsgate, but it’s worth again pointing out, if only because it is touched on so rarely by the mainstream press, that any issues of behaviour or morality that were thrown up by those infamous phone calls are nullified by the obsessive, disproportionate, cynical, calculated and hypocritical campaign waged on the BBC, through the persons of Ross and Russell Brand, by, most vociferously, the Daily Mail.

It’s well-known now that, stung by that torrent of vitriol at the end of last year, the BBC has introduced a new level of fearful and jumpy ‘compliance’ monitoring, of which the pre-recording of Ross’s show is only the latest casualty.

It pains me, as a gay man, that it is an accusation of homophobia that has proved the tipping point for this action. Discussing it could take up an entry of its own (ahem), but, briefly: Ross

joked, in reference to Hannah Montana-themed prizes on his morning radio show, that: “If your son asks for a Hannah Montana MP3 player, you might want to already think about putting him down for adoption before he brings his … erm … partner home.”

The implication is that if your son were to exhibit effeminate tendencies, then that would be a cause of shame. Objectively, that is indefensible and offensive. However, I’m going to invoke two words that normally have me yelping with derision: context and irony. Jonathan Ross is a flamboyant dresser, with an oft-proclaimed love of musical theatre and an equally proclaimed scornful lack of interest in typically heterosexually-masculine sports, such as football or rugby. These may be crude signifiers, but, within the morally primary-coloured world of television, they are enough. In televisual terms, and regardless of his actual proclivities, he is ‘gay’.

Regular viewers and listeners will also know that he has a fondness for the light entertainment of the 1960s and 70s, and its particular idiom. A gag he exhumes regularly on his radio show, if a guest is involved in or has an interest in a piece of high culture, is the line “have you seen my Giselle?”. This is always followed by a laugh at the joyfully-transparent lameness of the innuendo. (My own favourite piece of the ludicrously filthy non-sexual banter that Eddie Braben wrote for Morecambe & Wise is “Would you care to ratify my credentials?” “Certainly. Put them on the table and pass me that hammer.” But, I digress).

So, when Ross alludes to the ‘shame’ of having a gay child, it is against the backdrop of his status as ‘gay man’ invoking the moth-eaten morality of an earlier age to, hopefully, comic effect**. Context is all here, because Ross is demonstrably the kind of boy who himself may have asked for toys that were considered ‘unmanly’. His ‘gay’ media persona inhabits the gap between what is said and what is meant, robbing it of any credible offence. This, incidentally, is why Chris Moyles continues to offend. With him, homophobia is a fetish and a safe taboo against which he can spuriously posture. Ross is aware of his own ludicrousness and actively invites us to laugh at him; Moyles would hate to be laughed at, and, aware of his own inadequacies, like the playground bully, feverishly implores us to mock the weaker kid – which is anyone who isn’t the white, heterosexual Chris Moyles.

OK, maybe that wasn’t that brief, after all.

There are questions to be asked around all of this and issues involved that are larger than the merit of any one presenter. Nonetheless, I like Jonathan Ross. I watch his Friday night television show and listen to his Saturday morning Radio 2 show, and my enjoyment of the latter is going to be dampened by this latest capitulation. On this occasion it wasn’t, to my knowledge, demanded by an outside agency, but rather appears to be the BBC aiming for a quieter life. And that makes me angry, because the BBC is terrific. David Mitchell said it well here, and I’m going to echo him. It is the thing that makes me the most proud of my country. It is deeply flawed, and will probably always be so, but it is, nonetheless, a towering, incredible, wonderful thing. I wonder if it’s trying to avoid rocking the boat in anticipation of a Conservative government – if so, it shouldn’t. The BBC is always going to be a target for those with vested interests, be they commercial, moral, or whatever. It stands best chance of confounding its enemies if it takes a breath, puffs its chest out and stands tall. It needs to stop accepting the arguments of those that would destroy it and reclaim some self-belief. What it needs is some pride.

Oh, hang on, I think Mark Thompson just said something:

If we announced in front of every edition of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross that we could assure the public the programme had been fully complied, and we guaranteed that Jonathan was not going to do anything which was in any way going to be risky or edgy, I think your personal enjoyment of the programme would probably be diminished rather than enhanced.

IN SUMMARY: Ahem.

*I’m not talking about me swearing. That would only have significance if the Daily Mail was listening.
**And I did the same thing, just before the indented quote, with my own bit of lame innuendo.