Alan Coleman

I got lost last night on the way home. I was supposed to get the 171 from Waterloo but somehow ended up walking through those surreal yellow lit arches in Bermondsey. Eventually I found the Old Kent Road, which I floated along in a pissed up daze of confusion and spin. Wandering through places that I’d never even look at in the daylight, that somehow lager and darkness have tamed.

Probably not the best time to start considering the state of the world, but you know how it is? Things just pop into the head and they just wont go away until you discuss them with yourself out loud. Which is actually a good way of staying safe on the streets at night. Nobody in his right mind is going to mess with someone walking at full speed and arguing with himself . Especially if they occasionally stop to make a point with some loud expletives.

The ideas flash like a strobe light.

FLASH! The concentrations of power and how we’ve ended up in this state. How a race of people, capable of things like the Space Shuttle and Captain Mainwaring, can simply give up control and allow others to think for them.

FLASH! Lager, and the sweet taste of Greek food.

FLASH! People like Tony Blair, Lord Levy, Dick Cheney and all those other insanely powerful men of spite and grandeur. Men deluded by the high minded values of religion, celebrity and control. Who are these people?

FLASH! Mandy, laughing.

FLASH! How an individual can pursue a personal cause with such conviction without intervention, either from other human beings or something a little more rational, like a sense of humour for instance.

FLASH! Again, Captain Mainwaring, one of the people I admire most in the world.

FLASH! Donald Rumsfeld, and that bloke who owns North Korea. The whole scenario of paranoid men verging on mental illness but yet still responsible for so much.

FLASH! Borat, dancing.

FLASH! Young people behaving the way they do, but yet all they have to look up to are societies twisted by pious self righteousness and greed.

FLASH! White Riot, by the Clash.

FALSH! Is it any wonder, is it any wonder at all, that people turn their backs on it all and look to drink or drugs or insanity for some kind of salvation.

FLASH! Next time, I’m getting a taxi.

For some reason I was looking forward the BBC’s latest adaptation of Robin Hood for the autumn season. The early evening slot coming at just the right time on a Saturday when Mandy is kept from the remote by hair and make-up ect.

I was expecting a slightly darker version of the story that was told in the kevin Costner film a few years back. Remember the one accompanied by the self harm inducing Brian Adams track that spent eight years at number one? That film took a story of myth and did a fairly good job of americanising it, that is making the story fit into the tried and tested Hollywood format. It was drivel.

And I’m afraid the BBC’s latest effort is the same drivel minus the special effects. I understand that it is aimed at young adults as well as grown ups, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be produced to a Hollywood simplicity. The stereotyping must be from the same team responsible for casting Eastenders, as the storyline watches like some kind of Comic Relief spoof.

Robin, the scruffy student from Oxfordshire, complete with smug middle England wit and corny one liners. Marion, a glorious match of intelligence and beauty, should we need reminding that the later is actually a function of the first.

Then there are the peasants who of course are all ugly, apart from the brassy tart from the first episode, and speaking with thick northern accents to add to the setting of poverty and ignorance. It goes without saying that their humour is rather more slapstick, less knowing, with no irony or wit.

And last but not least there’s the cheeky chappie, the wheeler and dealer with the sharp eye and even quicker tongue. Any guesses where his accent might come from?

So as much as the aggressive advertising campaign may suggest, it’s really not worth watching. In fact, the only way it can get any worse is if Bill sodding Nighy makes an appearance.

Just another example of patronising money wastage from the self important BBC.

I can turn it over, but I still have to pay for it.

Last week saw Piety Blair give his last speech to the Labour party as Prime Minister.

It should have been a defining moment in his premiership, a point when the egomania, lies and contempt finally reached the apex that seemed to have threatened for so long. We should have seen a man struggling desperately to convince his own party of a ridiculous and fantastical legacy, that of a successful term in public office, untainted by the charges of cronyism, celebrity and deceit.

Instead we were exposed to a grandiose production aimed at avoiding the rightful shame of his predecessors, the Widow’s tears of self pity, or Major’s well overdue humiliation. A cynical final act, timed at his own discretion to ensure the legacy remains untainted for precious Euan and Leo. The all important, legacy.

While he accepts smiles from the sheltered fool Judas of New Labour, self satisfied celebrities take a turn at the mic of self righteousness. The fact that he can happily accept a standing ovation from this, the oily sycophant hell of his own creating, and does so without any sense of irony or humour, makes for a strangely bizarre spectacle.

Somehow the adverts for Zippo’s Circus on Peckham Rye spring to mind, with the clownish insanity of self delusion seeming strangely relevant. This brings me to my headmaster from primary school, neither a clown or self delusional, but a funny and fairly decent bloke who seemed to be permanently playing a small guitar. His name was Mr Atkins. After one of our daily bouts of showing off made him finally lose his rag, he’d leap up and down like Basil Faulty with his arms stretched up high shouting in a terrifying high pitched voice, “Me! Me! Meeeeee! It’s all about Meeeeee!”.

As I watch Piety collect accolades from the self importance of party politics, I can’t help but imagine Mr Atkins comically losing his rag in the front row. Leaping up and down in his trusty brown suit shrieking at the top of his voice.

“Me!! Me!! Meeeeeee!!! It’s all about ME and my legacy isn’t it Piety?!”