Mr. Charlton Brooker

fig 1: what stinks?

Have you ever read something on your commute (tube/ bus/ train) that made you laugh so hard/ out loud that suddenly you became the "strange person" that other passengers avoided? That's happened to yours truly. And clutched in my hands was a copy of Charlie Brooker's The Hell of It All. Now, I had never read Brooker until I stayed in London for research. I thought his byline photo (see fig. 1: in which he looks like he's smelling something horrid) was off-putting. But, when you're on the tube for 40 minutes every morning, you get desperate. You can't just stare into thin air or people watch. That would be creepy. Enter the wild ramblings of one @charltonbrooker.

Brooker is a Guardian columnist. He (used to) regularly rant and rave about television shows (reality tv), politics, the modern world. Brooker is now a dad and is involved in numerous tv projects so his columns appear less frequently. You'd think that this type of incessant complaining would be irritating. But, it's his gift for incisive social critique in the bluntest and most exaggerated terms that makes him a favourite. I knew that we shared a world view when I read his article on nightclubs ("The hell of nightclubs," 13 Aug 2007). He called them "insufferable dungeons of misery" that (since the ban on cigarettes) smell of "crotch sweat and hair wax." Perfectly articulated! Unlike David Mitchell, who can be a bit haughty (a self-admitted SWOT, Cambridge educated, not one of the plebs) when he sneers at social conventions and everyday stupidity, Brooker's acerbic wit is used to convey the (sometimes) irrational fury we all feel about, for example, spiders ("Planet of Spiders" 3 September 2007) or usages of "Keep Calm" ("Wondering what to give up for the New Year?" 8 Jan 2012). We're all just as pissed off with the absurdity of life in the modern world ... but most of us (especially if you're a Canuck) are too polite to chuck it back in the world's face. Charlie doesn't waste his time with such concerns. Brooker's brand of comedy ("edgy") doesn't really exist in Canada. Which leaves curmudgeons-in-training without much guidance.The closest approximation would be Rick Mercer but he's closer to the Daily Show/ Colbert Report model. And, Rick (though equally razor-sharp) has never called a Canadian politician a "universal disappointment sponge" (a term that was used by CB to describe the role of Nick Clegg in the Coalition Government). Too bad.

fig 2: still smelling something but less repulsed by it

The @IdleHistorian and I were lucky enough to attend a taping of Brooker's show You Have Been Watching (series 2, episode 6: an episode that featured Reginald D. Hunter and Sarah Millican and in which they lambasted the Canadian show 'The Listener' -- rightly so! ). He had a new poofy/ posh haircut (see fig 2: unlike the byline photo) and perhaps ever so slighly less grumpy in 3-d. I only regret that I didn't launch myself at him so that he could sign my book ...

@SloaneScholar1

As the person currently in possession of @SloaneScholar1's copy of Charlie Brooker book, The Hell of It All (I've somewhat taken it hostage)*, I can second the laugh-out-loud experience of reading his work. He, in the vein of many British cultural talents, is so much more than a writer - a commentator, telly presenter, comedian (of sorts), and all-round curmudgeon. But the curmudgeonly persona, one suspects, is at least partly a performance. As witnessed by his recent touching effusiveness over his status as a new father, there is no heart of stone at the core of the man. He also has that disarming quality of infusing just enough of his own vulnerability and uncertainty into his writing. He is angrier than the everyman, but still the everyman.

When really riled, however, he does not stint in defaming his adversaries in the worst possible terms. But his chosen targets are usually those who we could all agree need to be taken down a peg or two: bankers, bigots, manipulative marketers, shallow celebrities, and overconfident businessmen. He gets his blood in a boil so that you don't have to. Even some of his stranger causes, such as his weeks-long rant against this John Lewis Christmas advert from last year, strike some sort of chord. Even if you personally liked the John Lewis ad, you too feel his inchoate resentment against consumerism and the disjointed values of our society. His brilliantly conceived programs critiquing the media, Screenwipe and Newswipe, fulfil a similar cultural need.

As my friend @SloaneScholar1 suggests, we really do not have the same level of edginess in Canadian commentary. This is probably due to several factors, but the primary one of stereotypical Canadian "niceness" cannot be ignored. British public figures are expected to take personal attacks and dish them back in a manner that would be almost unthinkable here. It is difficult to imagine a rotund Canadian politician such as John Prescott or, now, Eric Pickles, receiving the same level of ridicule vis-a-vis their eating habits that occurs almost weekly on panel shows such as Have I Got News For You. The pros and cons of both cultures are debatable (expect if, perhaps, you ARE Eric Pickles), but undeniably the absence of this discourse means that we have a different sort of society on this side of the pond.

In the age of the internet, however, the need for Charlie Brooker's commentary is easily satisfied.

*@SloaneScholar1 has custody of @IdleHistorian's copy of Anger Management by Giles Coren

@IdleHistorian

Your weekly serving of Brooker LIVE!

I won't contribute any further to the fawning over Charlie Brooker, because it's now abundantly clear that he's brilliant, and if you haven't read his column or watched old episodes of Screenwipe on YouTube until your eyeballs are raw you basically haven't lived. Plus I think all of this praise would make him bristle uncomfortably. I like my Charlie Brooker bitter and jaded. Like a strong cup of coffee flavoured with moral indignation.


We have been wondering if his new fatherhood will soften his expertly sharpened barbs, as he sheds the self-described air of a creepy basement masturbator and is inducted into a society of fellow floppy-haired pram pushers. Will marvelling at his new son's ability to babble, defecate and produce all manners of ooze turn him into a cuddly mug? Is domestic bliss an antidote to acerbic wit?


I want to believe that's not the case. Mostly because it feels pretty outrageously sexist. The notion that Brooker would be softened or somehow discursively "feminized" through active fatherhood or the influence of a loving wife is one that belongs back in the 1960s, hidden under a hoop skirt and chained to a stove top.


But part of what makes Brooker's work so compelling is that there is a palpable outrage beneath his words that could erupt into a fist-pounding, mouth-foaming fit at any time. I don't think it's domesticity that would tame this, but really any kind of genuine, true happiness. Placid contentment.  And I really don't think we have anything to worry about on this score. Because no matter how much happiness Brooker finds in his personal life, and I truly hope it is quite a bit, I think the man has too much of a social conscience to be truly completely happy without society, media and politics becoming less ruinously fucked up.

So here's to many more years of Brooker commentary ahead, with a hope that we eventually come to a time when we can all be less justifiably angry.

H.