Conundrums on Campus (NB. looking for a better name...)

Theo (Theodore) Watson sat on the raised decking outside the local university cafe. To his right traffic and pedestrians breezed by, sliding through the late morning heat. He sipped his coffee and contemplated his smoking paraphernalia. The drink tasted bitter and slightly burned his soft lips. He’d been using lip balm recently because he suffered from bouts of dry skin, he manages to laugh it off in front of his more masculine friends though.

The heat was making him tense but it suited the setting and he didn’t think the orange squash that he really wanted seemed fitting. Pretending to adjust his imitation Wayfarers he glanced over at the two women having a conversation on one of the other three tables on the platform.  They were engaged in some kind of political discussion that also seemed quite enjoyable. The one facing him looked over 20, but not by much. She had precisely disorganised curly hair, a small bobbled nose and angular shoulders that sunk beneath a lime cardigan. ‘She’s pulled it off’, thought Theo, ‘lime doesn’t work for allot of people’, he recalled from an article he had read in Cosmo whilst on the toilet doing a crap at his cousins house. The cardigan was draped over a loose fitting t-shirt with a band or something on it. Theo was partial to a band or two and decided that she was his type. He thought she probably likes drinking different types of tea and likes to sit on the floor whenever she gets the chance. His speculations were confirmed in his mind by his spying of her two odd socks beneath some battered trainers.

The sun was very bright. It made Theo lament the changes in fashion. This morning he had opted for a tight fitting t-shirt, on it was a grainy print held in a neat square of nude woman holding a pair of headphones between her teeth as she jutted her photoshopped arse out and stuck a ‘V’ sign up. It might have been a Churchillian ‘V’ for victory, as some sort of layered punk comment on post-colonial Britain. More likely, it was just a naked woman on a t-shirt. It made Theo feel uncomfortable in his lectures about genocide and that seminar on domestic violence but it generally served the purpose of showing his open acceptance of the female form. Despite this, the t-shirt in question was sticking to his skin because it was a size to small. A necessary sacrifice however, as it partially made up for all those lonely hours in the gym lifting things in the wake of another man’s sweat. He had desperately wanted to fish out that linen number his mum got him but he didn’t have a choice, no one wears linen anymore except hippies and yoga-dabbling house wives. The British ambassador to Burma probably wears linen too actually.

Moving his chair to face in a different direction, Theo crossed his left leg over his right, it felt really uncomfortable, but that wasn’t the point. He faced the road and the bright grey sidewalk. He was pleased with his strategic positioning; facing the passers-by yet suitably out of sight and raised behind a thin veil of ivy and flowers so they couldn’t judge him for judging them.

They all looked like idiots, he thought. In the cave at the back of his mind he separated those who passed him by into the categories of those he could beat up and those he would have sex with. He was genuinely troubled when the two categories overlapped occasionally.

He decided upon a cigarette. It complimented the coffee both toxically and stylistically. He slid one crisp paper from a fresh pack, being careful not to crease it, inspecting its sides and corners for erroneous folds, proceeded with the filter, flicked open the top of the box and removed one thin sleeve, covered in a sheath of plastic. He squeezed the one second from top and thrilled in the way the top one gradually slipped out. ‘Cause and effect’, Theo thought to himself, yesterdays politics lecture lingering in his head. He was enjoying himself. Filter loaded in taut paper, he cracked open the seal of his packet of Western Indiana. He had missed a lecture as a consequence of trying to find this particular tobacco. He remembered reading an article about Jay Trumtar, the deaf arthritic bassist of the avant-garde jazz band Dust Apocalypse, and how he refused to smoke anything else as all the other brands were far too ‘barky’. It was true though, he thought, the ‘barkiness’ of modern tobacco was getting ridiculous. It had taken the elderly shopkeeper 45 minutes to find it in the reserve stock cupboard, and it was considerably more expensive than normal tobacco.

He finished rolling his cigarette and drew out a match from the box, a few fell on the floor. He struck it towards him so that he could move smoothly into a cupped position close to his face, allowing him to make eye contact with the bobble nosed free spirited girl and allow wisps of smoke rise around his best asset – his Burtonian brow. The match snapped and he lit it with lighter.

‘Full English sir!?’ hailed the stocky waitress as she slammed down a plate of food. Theo jumped and spilt his assemblage and cigarette onto the floor. ‘Oh, thanks’, he replied, remembering his manners. 

Will and Katie holidaying in the Solomon Islands

(Economist / Corbis ©)

Potential Captions (please add your own in ‘comments’):

Kate: ‘Oooh I’ve got that bra!’

Italian gossip magazine Chi send PR girls to apologise

Man in blue shirt grapples with irony

Will: ‘You don’t need a zoom lens for these Katie!’

Solomon Islanders fumble over the Duchess of Cambridge’s bra strap

Solomon Islander pull off hilarious piss take

Will: ‘These friends of your dear?’

Solomon Islanders pay homage to their new fashion icon

Solomon Islanders sue British magazines over saucy snaps

Locals thank Duchess of Cambridge for embracing tradition

Texan Ranger (pt.1)

It's a crude first recording of the Texan Ranger's now infamous radio show 'Southern Fried Sentiments'. This week he has Skeeter Cooter on to discuss gay marriage.

'Fight, Fight, Fight'! - Comedy legend Armando Iannucci calls for originality in BAFTA lecture

The glut of crass and unimaginative comedy currently on television in the UK can be disheartening, particularly for a country which prides itself on its sense of humour. At the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Annual Lecture earlier this month Armando Iannucci, brilliant co-creator of The Day Today, The Thick of It, Time Trumpet and Alan Partridge, spoke out as a beacon of hope for creativity, lodged in the toxic swamp of Russell Howards and Frankie Boyles.

He repeated the outlines of his lecture on Radio 4’s Media Show with Steve Hewlett and to John Plunkett on the Guardian’s media podcast. His main point throughout was that complacency at the BBC will strangle new comedy.

He urged the British to follow the example of American broadcasters, such as HBO whose profits and existence rely on creativity to drive subscription. The BBC’s license fee, therefore, ‘will be unworkable in ten years or sooner’ he claimed to John Plunkett (Guardian Podcast) as viewing is more complicated now and a stable fee instils a complacency in the BBC who still think of themselves as ‘the only place in town’ when it comes to comedy.

New challenges, however, are now coming from Channel 4, ITV(who now have a comedy commissioner for the first time) and Sky (who Iannucci chose over the BBC for his new Alan Partridge series).

Unlike commercial broadcasters, he claimed the BBC can get tangled in its own thick bureaucracy and threatened with political duty. Broadcasters need complete political independence as politicians are separate from society, they ‘have no idea what the average member of the public culturally consumes...they are specially bred adminadroids’, he said at the lecture. This was demonstrated in Jeremy Hunt’s reasoning behind his support for the Murdoch’s BSkyB bid; seeing only ‘the cash nexus’ and business opportunity, entirely blind to the necessity of competition and diversity for creativity in programming.

 

David Cameron was so aware of Hunt’s poor reputation that he has since replaced him in the reshuffle with Maria Miller, who, as a political non-entity, will have a clean slate on which to deal with Lord Justice Leveson’s report into the practices of the press. A report which, if comments on exclusive early copies are to be believed, will seriously damage the press’s ability for imagination.

Iannucci sketched out an adventurous business model for the BBC where they expand overseas, sell to foreign markets and bring the profits back to invest in originality and risk. He urged the media not to treat the BBC as a body exempt from money making, profit should not be a ‘weasel word’ but a means to a culturally beneficial end.

Ultimately was asking for those in power to fight for imaginative programming, ‘we are at our best not in committee by at our most idiosyncratic’. It was a speech of very high ambition, clearly from the perspective of a writer and not a pragmatic businessman. Nevertheless, his argument must be compelling for both the left, who want to see the BBC expand, and the right, who want it to stop being a financial burden. Regardless of the politics, it is hard to argue about comedy, originality and imagination with a man of his stature and weight in British culture.  

 (NB. There’s a generous quote from ‘Ketmaniac’)

Radio 4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqmm1

It can sometimes feel a bit alienating listening to a Radio 4 quiz (at 3 in the afternoon) (by yourself), it makes you feel bad for not knowing anything about London’s sewerage system in the 18^th century or Ernest Hemmingway’s unreleased folk album. But every now and then they sound like complete idiots and it makes me happy. Twats. Check out the quiz from 24.00-26.20.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqmm1

The end of civilization

Courtesy of trashbat.co.ck

Sense And Sensimilia?

The Home Counties Herald

A Different Sort of Village Green

10.09.2017

Rufus Oaten-Cotter seems an unlikely revolutionary. As he settles back in a leather armchair, sunlight streaming through the windows of his rural Berkshire home, he could almost pass for a thirty-something investment banker.

However, the game is soon given away by the sickly sweet aroma in the air, the profusion of vintage reggae records strewn across the heavy oak desk and the large bong in the shape of HMS Victory, which dominates the mantelpiece.

Just five short years ago, Oaten-Cotter could, as he puts it, ‘no more have done what I do now than I could have stabled my horses on the first floor of Harrods.’ He is now Middle England’s first weed baron.

 In the two and a half years since marijuana was legalised in the UK, production has become a thriving enterprise. Until a year ago however, it was controlled mainly by liberal bohemian types, paunchy wide boys and immigrants. None of these were capable of effectively marketing marijuana to, say, the readership of this newspaper.

What would Mr and Mrs Respectability of Middleton, Hampshire, want with such product lines as “Rockstar Reefers”, “Lenin’s Leng” and, worst of all “Mogadishu Mong”

Lenin: Unpopular in the Cotswolds

“Nothing whatsoever and good day sir” was the standard response. All this changed with Oaten-Cotter and his company, Sense and Sensimilia. The following is the first part of the transcript from the Home Counties Herald’s world exclusive interview with the man himself:

Home Counties Herald (HCH): Good afternoon Rufus, you’re looking very well. Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been up to today?

Rufus Oaten-Cotter (ROC): Well, I’ve had a very interesting day so far. Basically, we’ve been testing reactions amongst focus groups to new strains of product that we’re going to be introducing this autumn.

HCH: And what does that involve?

ROC: Well, we’ve been mainly testing out brand names at this stage (Lights joint) But obviously (Offers the reporting team a drag and is politely rebuffed) there is an opportunity to sample the products at the end. It’s either that, or they can be paid a cash sum for their time.

An out-of-focus focus group, or as I like to call it "The Sidesplitter"

HCH: And how many focus groupers choose to be paid in marijuana?

ROC: Surprisingly few of them: perhaps ten, fifteen per cent. Of course, when I started out last spring, most of the focus group were choosing to be paid in weed, and that says something about why it took a while to get this company off the ground.

HCH: How do you mean?

ROC: Well, we weren’t being selective with our test users (Digs out an ashtray from beneath a pile of empty Tyrells’ packets) And selectivity is at the heart of this whole operation (Coughs hard) What I’m trying to do with Sense and Sensimilia is to sell weed to what I like to call “respectable types”, Middle Englanders. You know: vicars, Women’s Institute members, old buffers in country pubs. It’s about getting the message out that marijuana is for everyone, not just the bongoloids down the rec.

Down the rec

 

HCH: Bongoloids? 

ROC: It’s a new term that I like to think I’ve coined for the stereotypical weed user. You know the people I mean: pasty teenagers with dirty hair and facial piercings.

HCH: Quite. So, how exactly have you managed to achieve such success in selling your products to Middle England?

ROC: In a single word: branding. Brand identity is everything, and it extends from the clothes I wear to the names of the individual marijuana strains.

HCH: And, could you give us examples of some of these strain names?

ROC: With pleasure. We currently offer around 30 different strains, of which some of my personal favourites are: White Spliffs of Dover, Ganj of Hope and Glory and our bestseller, GladStoned – that’s a political one.

HCH: I notice there’s a somewhat patriotic aspect to those names. Was there a conscious decision to go for brand names that reflected Britishness?

ROC: Oh absolutely (Extinguishes joint)

"God save the Green" indeed: the company logo

 In part 2 of this world exclusive interview, we delve deeper into Rufus' world of weed, exploring his new "Seeds of the British Empire" range and his plans for a limited edition commemorative bong and grinder set to keep the Olympic spirit alive. Don't you dare miss it!