Avuncular Television

And now, after my highly entertaining twenty-four-and-a-quarter hours in Cambridge in the company of the delightful Holly Spice, midwife of this site, I'm back in Slough, from where I will sally back to Manchester on Monday morning. The journey here was Hellish, but such is London transport.

Channel 4 provided entertainment this evening, which was generous of them, since they don't get any license money. Bless. Another one of those '100 Best' lists, this time consisting of the most bestselling singles in Britain over the last fifty years. Viewers couldn't vote, as it was purely based on sales. One good effect of this was that crap and inexplicably popular songs from the last five years didn't dominate. Unfortunately, this meant that crap and inexplicably popular songs from the last five decades all got their chance.

How did Boney M make it into the top ten twice? I mean, come on! And why, why, why did so many people but 'Candle in the Wind '97'? Nearly five million, for Heaven's sake. The list is already slipping away from me, but I seem to recall Band Aid at number two, with 'Relax', 'Mull of Kintyre', 'Bohemian Rhapsody', and 'Unchained Melody' being close behind. Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' was at fifteen, which shocked me...

(Where were The Police? The Rolling Stones? Abba? Madonna? U2? REM? I just found it hard to believe that none of those made it into the top 100 while 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon round the Old Oak Tree' and something by Ken Dodd did...)

The show was presented by a prize twat, a masked buffoon doing pointless and irrelevant impressions of such luminaries as Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Elton John, Mel B, and Craig David. I was astounded at how the performance of this talentless cretin was as lacking in humour as that of the Tory party is in spontaneity. Harsh, I know, but sadly very true.

Curiously, while the former Mr Dwight held pole position, as it were, and Miss B managed two spots with her former sidekicks, Ms Spears and Mr Jackson barely made the list at all. Britney predictably enough was represented by that wonderful German folk song 'Schlag mich Liebling, noch einmal', but Michael Jackson, amazingly was represented by.... 'Earthsong'! I mean, I barely remember that. I would have assumed 'Thriller' or 'Billie Jean' were automatically top of any sales chart. Who in God's name bought 'Earthsong'? Would anybody ever admit to that?

One of my nephews was watching the show with me, and livened up proceedings immensely whenever Art Garfunkle appeared on screen. Art Garfunkle is apparently turning into Bilbo Baggins. This troubles me. Go compare Ian Holm and Art Garfunkle sometime; I think you'll be as disturbed as me. Anyway, as soon as Art appeared, talking about 'Bright Eyes', I think, my nephew declared: 'It's Bilbo! Look, it's Bilbo!' (He evidently needed to repeat this on the offchance that I can't hear children shouting when they're sitting about a foot-and-a-half away from me.) I admitted that indeed, there was a passing similarity between Messrs Baggins and Garfunkle, and the nephew went silent for a moment, only to muse on whether or not he had used his magic ring to make his hair disappear. I kid you not.

Watching old videos with children can be an odd experience. A couple of years back I sat with both nephews, watching, I don't know, MTV or something. On came a song that Michael Jackson (yes, him again...) and Paul McCartney song did together in the early eighties. I think it's called 'The Girl is Mine'. After a moment or two one of the lads looked at me:

'Gregory? Who's that?'

'That? Oh, that's Paul McCartney.'

'Oh. And who's that?'

'That's Michael Jackson.'

An incredulous silence followed, as both lads looked at each other in disbelief. Finally, the older one looked at me, and said, obviously troubled:

'But I thought he was white...'

I don't mind telling you, I was a bit concerned.