Dawn of the Dumb

by Charlie Brooker

  Actually, sod the billboards. Let’s just erect shelves all over the place. Shelves heaving with pork pies and marshmallows and chocolate biscuits and piping-hot ready meals. Cut out the middleman and pass them round for free. The streets’ll be full of cheery, wobbly, blobby people, munching their way to oblivion. It’ll be one big life-affirming, population-reducing party!

  Come to think of it, let’s hand out wine, cocaine and heroin as well! And handguns! Free loaded handguns, on a shelf, on every street corner! Life would become markedly more dangerous, sure—but imagine the buzz you’d get each time you simply made it home alive (and besides, your chances of survival would be higher than you think: there’d always be loads of fatsos puffing about between you and the bullets).

  They should do that. Our quality of life would improve.

  Till it does, I’m going to eat precisely 6.1g of salt a day. In protest.

  Rage with the machine

  [21 October 2005]

  Planet Earth is an angry place, a searing bauble of rage. Wherever you swivel your eye, someone’s losing their rag like a rag-losing machine. There’s a worldful of furious people. Look. In the street—a man thrashing a traffic warden. On the telly—two guests on a daytime talkshow trying to bellow each other to death. And in the newspaper—some tooth-gnashing maniac demanding the public execution of anyone who breaks wind.

  (Actually that last one was me, and I stand by every word—hey, it’s particles of their excrement going directly up your nose. It’s an ASSAULT, for God’s sake.)

  All this fury, roaring round the ether—and where does it go? The answer is it simply dissipates; flitters up toward the clouds, where it hangs around making pigeons sick and causing thunderstorms.

  Not good enough. The planet sorely needs clean, sustainable energy sources; this waste can’t be allowed to continue. We’ve got to work out a way of harnessing all this spare rage and using it to power our kettles and our mopeds and our iPod Bassetts (or whatever the bumming heck Apple have decided to call the latest incarnation).

  For example, imagine a car powered by raw anger. If you pulled into a lay-by for a mean-spirited argument with your partner over their inability to read a bloody map and announce the bloody turning in time, you wouldn’t be dismantling what meagre love still existed between you, you’d be gathering fuel for the rest of the journey. Brilliant.

  Trouble is, you’d have to find ways to maintain your irritation. If you’re driving between the hours of 7 and 10 AM, that’s simple—just tune into Chris Moyles on Radio 1 and the car will hurtle along (but be sure to restrict your listening to 2o-minute bursts or both the engine and your heart will explode).

  But for those barren moments when the nation’s airwaves are less cluttered with mindless, foghorning warthogs, you need to plan ahead. You might, for example, scatter a few uncomfortable objects across the seat before you sit down. A couple of three-pronged plugs and a live cat should do it.

  Or you could simply replace the windscreen with a sheet of frosted glass, thereby forcing you to squint at the road ahead, sustaining a constant level of mild irritation. And to make it slightly more annoying, scratch the phrase ‘THIS IS PROGRESS’ into the glass before setting out, leaving you gazing directly into some deadpan sarcasm for the duration of your trip.

  Or the government could rebuild all the roads in infuriating squiggles, with huge sections that loop back on themselves so it takes an extra five hours to go anywhere, leaving everybody perpetually angry and late. Well, more than they are already.

  And rage wouldn’t just power cars! You could generate enough wattage to light up a skyscraper simply by introducing random bumps on the carpets so the residents continually stub their toes. The possibilities are endless. The world of science should investigate immediately.

  Immediately, I said. Come on, science. Hurry up. You wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.

  Dead famous

  [28 October 2005]

  The police have charged a man with committing murder in an Oxfordshire village occasionally used as a location for the TV series Midsomer Murders. I know this because I read it in the paper, in a single-paragraph story with the heading ’

  ‘Midsomer’ Murder: Suspect Charged’.

  Surely it’s bad enough being murdered, without the news of your death being reported solely in relation to a TV phenomenon that’s nothing to do with you. Imagine the coverage if you were run over and killed by the bloke who played the Honey Monster. I’d rather not make the papers at all.

  I live in fear of this sort of thing. Earlier this year, I was in Edinburgh at festival time, and at one point found myself standing in a hot, cramped bar with a group of people that included Ricky Gervais. This bar was a couple of floors up; it had low ceilings, was heaving with smokers, and felt like a tinderbox.

  All the while, I was acutely aware that should a fire break out, my death—and the death of virtually everyone around me—would go unmentioned in the resulting news story, which would be headed: ‘TV RICKY IN BLAZE HORROR—Joy as Office star battles past scum to reach exit’. Of course, Ricky Gervais is so famous that even your closest relatives would forgive him for kicking you down a blazing stairwell as he fought his way to freedom. But how insignificant does a celeb have to be before you’d receive equal coverage in the event of you both dying in the same incident?

  I suspect there’s no bottom limit. Even if you were involved in a fatal coach crash with, say, ex-Children’s BBC presenter Andy Crane, the headlines would likely read, ‘FORMER BEEB MAN KILLED—Someone else dies also’ rather than ‘TWO DEAD IN BUS MESS’. It’s a sobering thought, but in terms of raw news, you are worth less than a dead Andy Crane.

  It’s less clear how this grim hierarchy might work among celebrities themselves. If the Iranians launched a rocket at the Baftas, killing everyone, how would the tabloids respond? Would they print ‘100 CELEBS DEAD’? Or would they lead with the most famous victims first—‘ANT & DEC: THE DAYTHE GRINNING STOPPED’—and work all the way through to the guy who plays Martin Fowler somewhere around page 247?

  Actually, given the seismic impact a mass celeb wipe-out of this kind would have on the mindset and sales prospects of the tabloids, it’s likely they’d simply go nuts and print no headlines whatsoever—just a load of violent, abstract scribbles, accompanied by a library snapshot of a monkey on a trike.

  It’d take them a good six weeks to stop hyperventilating and actually explain what happened. And even then, you can bet all the dead waiters, doormen and catering staff wouldn’t get a mention, unless one of them had been hit in the eye by a chunk of Cat Deeley’s shinbone or something.

  The only way to guarantee yourself fair coverage is to travel somewhere European and get killed at an awards ceremony there. Since British readers wouldn’t have a clue who all those foreign TV stars were, your nationality would instantly elevate you to a starring role.

  Yes! ‘BRITISH WAITER DIES IN GERMAN OSCARS HORROR’—and at last the tables are turned!

  The National Excuse Hotline

  [4 November 2005]

  Q: When is a lie not a lie?

  A: When it’s an excuse.

  I love excuses. They represent the human imagination at its finest. A good excuse hovers somewhere between plausible and absurd—credible enough to be thoroughly believable, daft enough to sound like it couldn’t possibly have been invented.

  It’s important to choose your excuse carefully. Once, a few months into a relationship, I told a girlfriend I was deaf in one ear, in an attempt to explain why I hadn’t been listening to her. It worked in the short term. But we stayed together for another six years. During that time I kept forgetting which ear it was, or the level of deafness, or that I’d said it at all. I lived in constant danger of exposure. Got away with it, mind. And if you’re reading this now, Roz—sorry about that.

  A good excuse won’t backfire like that. Here’s one of the best I’ve heard:

  Let’s say you’re meant to be at work by 9
AM, but you’ve woken up at 10. By the time you get dressed and travel there, you’re going to be two hours late. Well sod that—you might as well stroll in wearing a dunce’s cap, clanging a bell, bellowing what a failure you are. The only sane course of action is to throw a sickie. So you phone the office. But rather than trying to pull off an ‘ill’ voice, use the following brilliant excuse. Your opening line, bold as brass, is: ‘Sorry I’m late—1 shat myself on the tube.’ (Or on the bus. Or in your car—delete as applicable.)

  You then go on to sheepishly explain just how embarrassing it was; how you think it might’ve been something you ate last night; how you had to waddle home to change your clothes—make it as vivid as possible. Don’t forget to chuck in a bizarre, unrelated, detail for good measure—claim the actress Pauline Quirke was on the bus at the time, for instance. A mild surrealist dash will, paradoxically, make the entire story more credible.

  Then you offer to travel in again. At which point they’ll suggest you stay home and recuperate. And after you’ve hung up, they’ll share a collective chortle at your expense. But you have the last laugh, because you get to spend the rest of the day lolling on the sofa, eating crisps in your (unsoiled) pants.

  It’s a great excuse, but sadly, you can only use it once. That’s why I’ve decided to market a page-a-day calendar with a creative late-for-work excuse for every day of the year—everything from ‘Cows were blocking the road’ to ‘Aunty put a spade through her foot’.

  If you’re a publisher, get in touch. Let’s do this. We’ll make millions. And I’ll use my profits to establish Britain’s first National Excuse Hotline—a 24-hour call centre dedicated to providing the perfect excuse for any situation, round the clock. Want to explain those mysterious entries on your credit-card bill but can’t think how? Give us a call. Police on your back about the disturbed soil in your garden? You know where to come.

  And if our excuses backfire, and your marriage collapses, or you wind up in jail, don’t even think about suing us. You won’t win. We’re the National Excuse Hotline, stupid. We know every excuse in the book.

  The Instant Suicide Button

  [11 November 2005]

  How much does it take to break you? To break you to the point of wishing you were dead?

  Quite a lot, for most people—a couple of bitter divorces, plus a total career collapse, followed by bankruptcy and a dash of existential woe. Whereas my threshold’s far lower. Simple everyday chores do it for me. During the average washing-up experience I’ll wail about not wanting to live any more at least six times. And I genuinely mean it.

  That the slightest personal drawback leaves me huffing like a toddler denied sweets is a good indication of just how cosseted my existence has become. It’s a life of luxury taken for granted.

  Not that I live like a king—the same applies to everyone in the West. We spend our lives flopping on the sofa, moaning about the telly—but the sofa’s upholstered with pauper skin and the TV runs on baby blood. Our double-glazed windows block out the sound of lashes and screams from the workhouse next door, while an electrified fence surrounding our garden frazzles any potential intruders to a sizzling carbon turd—which we feed to our dog. Our tiny, pedigree dog. Our dog in a sodding tiara.

  To make matters worse, every now and then, we’ll come across something in the paper that reminds us just how much injustice it’s taken to put us where we are, and we’ll get a bit angry and sad, and we’ll roll our eyes and turn to our partners and tut and say ‘Have you seen this? The world’s so unfair’ and then we’ll get distracted by a car advert on the telly that’s got that bloke who was in that thing in it. What was it again? Was it Holby City? Pass us a Malteser.

  We’re pigs.

  Perhaps if we’d all been born with a suicide button on the back of our heads—a ‘death button’ that would kill you instantly and painlessly on a single press—we’d all be a bit more grateful; more aware of our good fortune. Yes, a single press and tee hee hee—it’s dead as a cardboard box you be!

  Incidentally, it’s a button with its own fingerprint detection system, so only the owner can use it—it’s not like some prankster can hide behind a hedge and prod it with a long stick as you walk by, then laugh as your corpse lands face-first in doggy-doo. It’s yours and yours alone.

  Of course, few would make it past adolescence. What? I’ve got to go to school with this huge spot on my chin? Click. And that’s only the first of a long line of push-button temptations. There’s exam pressures—click—your first heartbreak—click—your mid-twenties breakdown—click—your shitty job—click—turning thirty—click—your first grey hair—click. And so on. But it’s all for the best. It thins out the populace and spreads the comfort around for everyone.

  Besides, anyone voluntarily pressing their button is a fool, and the world’s got too many of them. Stroke it, by all means. Flirt with danger. Run your finger round the rim and contemplate choice. But don’t press it. Who cares how big that pile of dishes gets? You’re alive, stupid. And you’re lucky to be here. Now get on with it.

  Pray for Stumpy Ralf

  [18 November 2005]

  Who’s the world’s biggest celebrity? Let’s say it’s Ralf Little. Obviously it’s not, but for the sake of argument, imagine a version of Ralf Little that had made some different career choices, and starred in a string of hit movies, and written fifteen best-selling albums, and was better-looking and taller and had a different head and face and voice and outlook and mind. Imagine that Ralf Little.

  Right. So Ralf is the world’s biggest celebrity. Wherever he goes, bedazzled plebeian scum congregate to take photos of him with their phone cameras and scream themselves to death. He’s on the cover of Heat magazine so often they end up incorporating his face into the logo. In a survey, more people can tell you what Ralf Little got for Christmas than can tell you what ‘milk’ is. He’s insanely bloody famous.

  Then some ghasdy accident occurs and Ralf loses a leg. But hey—he’s still Ralf Little! And the way he hops is so cute, people love him all the more. Then a week later, during a garden party, he inadver-tendy hops into a gigantic whirring fan and loses all his other limbs. PRAY FOR STUMPY RALF scream the tabloids. It looks like he’s finished.

  But men they wheel him onstage at the Oscars—in a brightly coloured toy truck pulled by Hilary Swank—and everyone leaps up and applauds. The worldwide audience sheds a tear and Ralf’s still completely famous.

  But on the way home from the ceremony, Ralf’s limo somersaults into a tanker full of concentrated acid. He’s almost completely dissolved. All that’s left is a single lip that, miraculously, is still alive. So now Ralf Little consists of nothing but a lip. Surely his career is finally over?

  Not necessarily. A single lip could maintain a decent profile. He could do cameos. He could slither down a window in the next Ben Stiller movie. Or play a small pink slug that befriends Dakota Fanning. He could even star in his own action blockbuster—a new Die Hard. Just dangle him from a bit of fishing wire at face height, shoot his scenes as normal and fill in the rest of his body later using CGI. Easy.

  Failing that, his agent could glue him onto an orange, draw some eyes over the top, ram the orange onto a pencil, and hey presto—he’s a puppet. Book him onto a hip, ironic, late-night American talkshow where all he has to do is sit there while the host smirks at him and he’d soon rekindle his following.

  And then they could market him as a doll! Or even just as a lip—a single plastic lip that you stick onto an orange yourself (or an egg, or a tennis ball, or your own knee—whatever, it’s your plastic lip). Suddenly he’s the new Mr Potato Head! Phoenix from the flames!

  It seems the only way his career can falter now is if someone were to deliberately and maliciously slice him in half with a Stanley knife. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens, on his birthday, following a backstage row with his PA. So Ralf now comprises twin chunks of cold, chapped lip. At which point the public finally desert him. And why? Because they�
�re fickle.

  A two-minute howl of despair

  [25 November 2005]

  On the first anniversary of 9/11 I accidentally stood in a pub bellowing into a mobile phone throughout the two-minute silence. Now, I’m not in the habit of shouting into my phone like a cunt, but this was a heated argument—plus it was a huge metropolitan pub, full of noise and clatter as I entered: I was SPEAKING VERY LOUDLY to be heard above the din. Suddenly everyone else fell silent, while I continued my fevered yabbering at maximum volume, scattering swearwords like rice at a wedding.

  It took a while to realise what was going on, and oh oh oh, the contempt on their faces. I couldn’t have been less popular if I’d danced in dressed as Bin Laden, hopped on the bar and unveiled my scrotum (something I inadvertently did on the second anniversary, but that’s another story). It felt like a huge spotlight had swung round to single me out as the Scummiest Bag in Existence.

  Furthermore, my telephonic opponent took my sudden hush as a mark of defeat, so I had to endure him crowing ‘See? Haven’t got an answer for that, have you?’ in my ear while I withered in the glare of a hundred sickened faces.

  Still. Two minutes silence. Scarcely a week pops by without us being asked to bow our heads and remember; to mutely contemplate sacrifice, or tragedy, or the grisly misfortune of others. It makes us feel slightly better—hey, we’ve done our bit, yeah?—but it’s otherwise useless. The tragedies continue and the world becomes a sicker joke by the day—and the best you can do is stare at your shoes and shut up for a while? No wonder you feel helpless.

  I mean, you switch on the news and here’s what you see: rhetoric, death and white phosphorus. You see a furious, ignoble arsehole claiming the divine right to blow himself and innocent civilians to pieces, and then you see a grinning presidential meerkat incapable of opening a door. You see bombing and lying and lying and bombing and it comes from both sides and there’s no end to it. And you think ‘What can I do?’ but there’s no answer. And the tension and nausea rises in your gut, because all you know is something’s coming and you are powerless.