Charlie Brooker; Twat Extraordinaire

Charlie Brooker plans to vote for Ken Livingstone for Mayor. Okay, so be it. That, though isn’t why he is a twat – although, doubtless, it’s arguably enough. No, he is a twat because of his reasons for voting Ken: It is to stop Boris becoming mayor. Even that, alone, is nothing more than tactical voting – and we’ve all done that at some time. No, Charlie is a twat because he writes inane drivel in support of his decision. In the Guardian’s grand tradition, he produces a puerile column better suited to the school playground:

Johnson – or to give him his full name, Boris LOL!!!! what a legernd!! Johnson!!! – is a TV character loved by millions for his cheeky, bumbling persona. Unlike the cartoon MP, he’s magnetically prone to scandal, but this somehow only makes him more adorable each time. Tee hee! Boris has had an affair! Arf! Now he’s offended the whole of Liverpool! Crumbs! He used the word “picaninnies”! Yuk yuk! He’s been caught on tape agreeing to give the address of a reporter to a friend who wants him beaten up! Ho ho! Look at his funny blond hair! HA HA BORIS LOL!!!! WHAT A LEGERND!!!!!!

Yet again, a miserable ill-informed hack trots out the same old un-truths. Boris did not agree to give the address of a reporter so that he could be beaten up. This lie has been debunked time and time again, yet still the leftist journos trot out the libel. As for Boris’ apparent bumbling and the public’s affection for it; a tactless man frequently utters what the rest of us are thinking; that, I suspect, is why he survives censure by the electorate. Also, unlike Charlie Fuckwit Brooker, the electorate are aware that Boris used the word “picanninie” in a piece of satire. Satire is a word that sails a parsec or so above poor wee ignorant Charlie’s head, it seems.

If butterfingers Johnson gets in, it’ll clearly be a laugh riot from beginning to end, like a series of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em in which Frank Spencer becomes mayor by mistake. Just picture him on live TV, appealing for calm after a terrorist bombing – the scope for chuckles is almost limitless.

Really? Johnson is an educated and intelligent man. A man of greater depth than his TV persona – you only have to read his writing to figure that one out. I suspect, that should he win, he will make a satisfactory mayor – he couldn’t do any worse than the present incumbent. At least a Johnson administration won’t be sucking up to south American authoritarian despots or jihadist apologists.

Assisting Boris in his run, the London Evening Standard is running an openly hostile anti-Livingstone campaign, which means every other page carries a muckraking down-with-Ken piece from crusading journalist Andrew Gilligan, played by Blinky, the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons, in his byline photo.

And Brooker’s dire little piece is, what, exactly? Well, here’s a clue, it isn’t a well thought though piece of gravitas is it? No, it’s openly-hostile anti-Johnson. Clearly the word “hypocrite” doesn’t feature in Brooker’s desk top dictionary.

Now, even if the Standard photographs Ken carving a swastika into a dormouse’s back, I’ll vote for him for the following reasons:

That tells me much about Charlie Brooker – and it isn’t flattering.

I’m genetically predisposed to hate the Tories. It’s my default, hard-wired position. If Boris wins, their simpering pudge-faced smuggery is going to be unbearable. Picture the expression Piers Morgan makes when he’s especially pleased with himself, then multiply it by 10 million, and imagine it looming overhead like a Death Star. That’s what it’s going be like. Therefore I don’t care who wins provided Johnson loses, and loses hard, preferably in close-up, on the telly.

I’m predisposed to abhor nasty little hacks like Charlie Brooker. I don’t much like the Tories, but that mild dislike pales into insignificance when compared to my utter disgust for people like Brooker.

 I wouldn’t trust Boris to operate a mop, let alone a £10bn Crossrail project.

Yeah, well, I wouldn’t pay any attention to the judgement of Charlie Brooker – he has demonstrated a penchant for lying in this article, therefore everything he utters is suspect. I’d trust Johnson to operate a mop rather more readily than I would pay any heed to the judgement of Charlie Brooker, fuckwit and hypocrite exraordinare. What a poisonous little creep.

On a related note, I don’t believe in my gut that Boris gives even the faintest hint of a wisp of a glimpse of a toss about London, or indeed humanity in general. Both of which are fairly important in a job like this.

What Charlie believes is irrelevant. Charlie is a liar, hypocrite and fuckwit. I have read Johnson’s work over the past few years and it makes a mockery of this charge.

Charlie Brooker, what a prick.

19 Comments

  1. Well, I usually like Charlie Brooker. When he’s good (e.g. the piece about celebrity magazines – no, I can’t be fucked to find the link right now) he’s really rather funny. When he’s as bad as this, he really fucking stinks. Who put him up to writing today’s piece of drivel I don’t know, but they want shooting.

    Ian’s last blog post..Video Of The Week (15)

  2. Indeed. When someone says that they are hard-wired to hate a particular group of people, they are effectively saying that rational discourse need not apply.

  3. Amused that you not only claim Brooker doesn’t understand satire (which is an interesting claim for the writer of a mediocre libertarian blog to make about the man who wrote TV Go Home and Nathan Barley), but then react to his obviously-satirical-hyperbolic imagery of a man carving a swastika into a dormouse’s back as The Worst Thing A Politician Could Ever Be Caught Doing with veiled insinuations of antisemitism…

  4. Satire is supposed to be funny. Brooker’s hyperbolic diatribe is about as funny as a traffic accident. My comment, therefore stands – mediocre or not (that’s your opinion – one you are entitled to and one I’ll take with the proverbial pinch of salt if it’s alright with you. You don’t have to read it and I won’t be missing you if you don’t).

    I’m sorry, but when did penning dull television programmes and puerile spoof websites qualify Brooker as someone who understands satire? His comments about Johnson’s use of the word picanninies clearly demonstrate either a lack of understanding or wilful misinterpretation. Each is as bad as the other.

    but then react to his obviously-satirical-hyperbolic imagery of a man carving a swastika into a dormouse’s back as The Worst Thing A Politician Could Ever Be Caught Doing with veiled insinuations of antisemitism…

    I didn’t say that – you did. I don’t defend words others put into my mouth.

    As for your assessment of my writing…

    some people seem to like Longrider, but I’ve never seen him produce anything beyond slightly less insane and witless versions of Richard Littlejohn talking points

    Why does the expression pots and kettles spring to mind? Curiously, that was exactly the impression I gained when I first read your outpourings. Revisiting, merely confirms that first impression. 2/10 could do better.

  5. Sorry for putting words in your mouth. What exactly does “That tells me much about Charlie Brooker – and it isn’t flattering” mean, then?

  6. Generally Brooker irritates the balls of me, primarily for the fact that his particular brand of studied apathy and infantile moroseness has now been taken on my a whole generation of smug cretins who seem to think that in any argumet caring less automatically gifts them the moral high ground.

    However – a couple of points.

    Firstly, (and this is an honest question rather than a rhetorical one) if there is not an ounce of truth in the claim of Johnson’s involvement with Guppy, then why does he continue to allow it to be stated in print?

    And secondly, as John Stewart famously argued on crossfire – there’s a gulf of difference between Andrew Gilligan’s ‘award-winning investigative journalism’ in the ES and Chralie Brooker’s rambling weekly G2 column (which last week was about Brain Gym). Brooker’s point being that the ES has come out to assassinate Ken from the get go, with a series of damning front page expose’s with the fig leaf of objectivity. Brooker in his own column is (for better or for worse) unashamedly wearing his prejudices on his sleeve. In short you’re comparing apples and oranges and so to shout ‘Hypocrite!’ seems a trifle hyperbolic to say the least.

  7. PDF,

    Sorry for putting words in your mouth. What exactly does “That tells me much about Charlie Brooker – and it isn’t flattering” mean, then?

    That he is an unthinking tribal bigot who will vote for a candidate irrespective of policy. Pretty straightforward, I’d have thought.

    Andy, I can only assume (not being privy to his inner thoughts) that Boris Johnson is choosing to rise above it. The alternative would be litigation. Perhaps he thinks that not worthwhile? Ultimately, you’d have to ask him 😉

    I haven’t been following the ES – I share Brooker’s disdain for it (and Gilligan) and for much the same reason. Brooker decided to use the same tactics in his column – so, yes, hypocrite as a reasonable charge. Does anyone seriously look upon the ES as unobjective? really? As far as I am concerned, they too are nothing more than tribal bigots. Each is as bad as the other.

  8. Yet again, a miserable ill-informed hack trots out the same old un-truths. Boris did not agree to give the address of a reporter so that he could be beaten up. This lie has been debunked time and time again, yet still the leftist journos trot out the libel.

    I read, I fume and yet I quietly trust that Boris will just become Mayor and all this guff will then cease.

    jameshigham’s last blog post..[tibet] one small piece of the chinese puzzle

  9. Sorry to say writers like Brooker can be funny when they set their sights on celebrity magazines because the publications are risble. Brooker merely points out the obvious with a few comments thrown in, so it may be funny because he is not required to exhibit any understanding of why these mags exist, what they mean to the people featured in them or even to those who read them.

    It also allows him to position himself above such trash, thus indicating he is somehow superior.

    Brooker is, under a democracy, entitled to vote for who he wants and indeed for whatever reason he divines. So it goes.

    Interesting though as always with the left so many of the Socialists routinely support candidates who approve, support and even facilitate regimes where democracy and choice (and even being allowed to read articles trashing magazines in their own country) are at a premium. Or even downright banned.

    Go for it Charlie: be a good Socialist and demonstrate your inate contempt for thinking about the issues and making an informed decision.

  10. Freemantoo, quite so. I wouldn’t dream of gagging people like Brooker. Free speech is sacrosanct – or, at least, should be. Suggestions that he is in some way superior to your humble scribe and should be immune from my criticism – for no other reason than he has penned some dreary television programme – fall on stony ground here. He is not my superior, far from it. His unthinking tribalism makes him someone to despise and possibly pity for his lack of intellect and critical thinking. Oh, and the repeating of a lie… Let’s not forget that one. 😉

  11. hahaha Brooker’s piece sounds excellent, i’ll have to read it. Thanks for the heads up.

    Far funnier and more accuratre than your desperate, angry little rant anyway.

    You sound like a right twat

  12. Like Brooker’s, it seems that “higson prime ordinance”‘s words tell far more about him than his subject. In this case he even supplies the appropriate description.

  13. I find it amazing that right-wingers are trying to turn Johnson’s admitting on tape that he would supply a journalists address to his fraudster friend beat him up, as some sort of heroics. You are propagandists of the utmost skill. If Johnson was being so noble, why the repeated pleas ‘you better not ***k this up, darry, if this gets out I’m finished’.

    Well, it did get out and Johnson should be finished by it because this little episode reveals him to be the nasty weak little thatcherite hypocritical creep he is, and that goes for Cameron and Osbourne as well. You may not mind this nasty cabal running the country, but give me incompetent Brown any day compared to the damage this corrupt little Tory twerps will do to the country.

  14. I find it amazing that right-wingers are trying to turn Johnson’s admitting on tape that he would supply a journalists address to his fraudster friend beat him up, as some sort of heroics.

    No one is doing anything of the sort. Johnson was playing for time, nothing more. Who do I trust? The person who made the tape, or you? No contest, really, is it?

  15. The person who made the tape has no more idea of what was going on in Johnson’s head than anyone else.

    What we can go by is what Johnson actually said and he did agree to supply the address and he did plead for this to be kept quiet. What his real intentions or otherwise were is just right-wing spin or wishful thinking. Did you see how red Johnson’s face became when he was confronted about this on ‘Have I Got News For You’? It was the face everyone pulls when some embarrassing skeleton has just been revealed.

    Johnson is a poor liar, even Michael Howard sacked him for lying and that is saying something considering that odious man’s record. And you want Johnson running London? Now you are having a laugh.

  16. Where did I say that I wanted him running London? I don’t give a fig who wins the election; I don’t live in London and thankfully no longer work there. I do, however, believe that it is time for a change.

    As usual, you get entirely the wrong end of the stick. You, like the other Nulab supporters have missed the point entirely. No surprise there, then.

    Boris Johnson was seeking to buy time while Darius Guppy forgot about it – this is discernible from his subsequent (in)action. Unlike you, I don’t have a partisan axe to grind.

  17. Here is a transcript of the conversation.

    More than once, Johnson tries to find out how severely Collier is to be injured. Guppy tells him “not badly at all.

    ‘Johnson: “I, really, I want to know…”
    ‘Guppy: “I guarantee you he will not be seriously hurt.”
    ‘Johnson: “How badly will he be…”
    ‘Guppy, interrupting: “He will not have a broken limb or broken arm; he will not be put into intensive care or anything like that. He will probably get a couple of black eyes and a… cracked rib or something.”
    ‘Johnson: “Cracked rib?”
    ‘Guppy: “Nothing which you didn’t suffer at rugby, OK? But he’ll get scared and that’s what I want… I want him to get scared, I want him to have no idea who’s behind it, OK? And I want him to realise that he’s ****** someone off and that whoever he’s ******* off is not the sort of person he wants to mess around with.”

    The conversation ended with Johnson saying ‘OK, Darrie, I said I’ll do it and I’ll do it.’

    ‘Johnson had evidently spoken of Collier before: the conversation begins with him telling Guppy he has someone “going through the files”, news Guppy describes as “brilliant” and “fantastic”. ‘But there is no doubt Johnson appears to be afraid of detection. “If you **** up, in any way,” he warns Guppy, “if he suspects I’m involved…”

    Guppy: “No, no, he won’t, Boris.”

    When Johnson says Collier will go “apeshit” if he finds out who is responsible for the attack, Guppy says he “doesn’t give a **** because no one he has ever met is “as psychopathic potentially as me”.

    ‘Both agree that things are “getting serious”.

    ‘Johnson: “If it got out…”
    ‘Guppy interrupts: “That he’d been beaten up.”
    ‘Johnson: “Beaten up, it would inevitably get back to the contact.’

    ‘Johnson says he has used four contacts to track down information about Collier, and is worried one of them “might put two and two together, if he heard this guy [Collier] had been beaten up.”

    ‘Guppy interrupts: “But Boris there’s absolutely no ****** proof: you just deny it. I mean, there’s no proof at all.”
    ‘Johnson interrupts: “Well, yeah.”
    ‘Guppy: “I mean, you know, big deal. You’re sitting in Brussels and the day it happens you’re in Brussels, its as simple as that.’

    ‘He repeatedly appeals to Johnson so have faith in him. At one stage, Johnson replies: “I do have faith in you.”

    ‘Guppy insists: “As far as I’m concerned, I have never told you what I require this number for. You do not know at all… so you are totally off the hook.” He adds: “You have nothing to fear. I give you my personal guarantee, OK, and my word of honour.”

    By the end of the conversation, Johnson is volunteering to do what he can to help.

    Both you and I know that if Ken doesn’t win we will get Boris as Mayor, this is obviously what you prefer, but you can’t bring yourself to admit it because even you know Boris is a prat. And you have the temerity to ridicule politicians for not being credible – you take the biscuit.

    Don’t vote for Ken and get a racist Thatcherite Tory if that is what you prefer.

  18. Oh, do give it a rest, Neil… What part of “playing for time” did you not understand? Your transcript means nothing. Peter Risden has already explained all this to you over at DK’s – and yet you still bang on about it. Talking to you is a waste of effort, once the conversation finishes, your memory is wiped and the same codswallop starts all over again.

    Both you and I know that if Ken doesn’t win we will get Boris as Mayor, this is obviously what you prefer, but you can’t bring yourself to admit it because even you know Boris is a prat. And you have the temerity to ridicule politicians for not being credible – you take the biscuit.

    What part of “I don’t live in London” do you not understand? I don’t give a fuck who wins the election, because I don’t have a vote. If I did, I’d be voting UKIP first and Paddick second. Satisfied?

    In future, please refrain from telling me what I think – you are not qualified. You never will be, you lack the intellect.

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