I bought The Sun and The Guardian today. Not because I wanted to get frightened and angry from opposite perspectives but I’m trying to be a more topical comedian and the truth is that, while The Guardian is the most informative paper, The Sun is the one that covers the stories that the public are really interested in.
Raol Moat dominates The Sun’s front cover. The headline is ‘Moat’s girl doesn’t know he’s dead’, below which there is a dramatic out of focus shot of him kneeling down with a gun to his head. It’s not sensationalist at all – it’s essential pubic information! The Guardian leads on ‘Victory for food firms as safety watchdog axed’. That truly is essential public information showing that the Health Secretary is axing the Food Standards Agency and putting the interests of big business ahead of pubic safety but it’s not such a riveting read! So let’s talk about the Moat case.
The papers are trying to work out who’s to blame for his death. Personally I blame Gazza. If you’re cold and wet, surrounded by armed police, with no hope of escape, and then in the distance you hear a lone voice singing, ‘Fog on the Tyne is all mine all mine’, I know I’d pull the trigger.
It is disgusting the way we and the media enjoy these dramatic gun rampages while pretending that it’s all in the public interest. TV reporters can hardly contain themselves.. ‘Moat is in a stand off with Police Officers. There’s a negotiating team there and armed police officers behind every tree. He is reported to have a gun to his head…it’s bloody exciting isn’t it. Like a real-life movie.’ Obviously they never say that last bit but I feel that it’s bubbling away inside them. In fact, even the supposedly terrified locals are recounting their stories with massive grins on their faces. I don’t think anyone comes out of these episodes looking very good – specially the British public who demand as much information as possible to feed their voyeurism.
The main sports news is that Spain have won the World Cup despite Holland’s disgraceful dirty play. Of course they’re dirty – they’re Dutch! That’s why we love them. They’re filthy.
I quite enjoyed the World Cup. I don’t enjoy the way England fans behave – I know they’re not violent but I can’t bear the tacky flags on cars. They’re cars not ships! I was thinking of getting a pirate flag for my car and forcing people off the road then stealing their stuff. In general, though, the football wasn’t that bad if you avoided England’s matches. Argentina and Uruguay were great but Spain were in a different class. Of course, it looks like Germany are set to be the dominant team in Europe for the next ten years so I hope we forget about the bloody flags and ‘66 the next time we make it to a major tournament.
Football and gun rampages aren’t really important of course because one’s just a game and the other’s so rare in this country that there’s very little you can do to stop it. Of course, the fact that the Food Standards Agency is being abolished after it campaigned to have our supermarket food packaging colour coded to show how healthy it is – a move that would have really helped our nationwide fight against obesity and early death – is something of great importance and something we could as a nation really change the Government’s mind on…. but it’s so boring isn’t it.
