Fark TV - about as odd, haphazard and mildly irritating as you might expect.

I have to say that not so long ago I wouldn’t have bothered with last nights Storyville on BBC4. But since Frank surreptitiously plunged me into the world of the online journal presented in a chronological order, Blog Wars now held a certain interest for me.

The show looked at the impact blogging has had on politics stateside eventually focusing it’s attentions on the Conneticut Democratic Primaries where, bolstered by huge left-wing blogger support, unknown Ned Lamont took on incumbent and Democratic Party stalwart Joe Lieberman. Besides being an almost text-book example of how to make a simple but effective documentary, it also produced some of the most unwittingly funny moments on tv. For instance on the day of the elections one blogger described it as feeling like they were “amassing at the gates of Mordor” (and something about attacking the Death Star too). There was also the Lamont aide, after they’d won, telling them all that blogging was, struggling to find the right phrase, the thing.

In the end though, Blog Wars is unlikely to change anyone’s opinion of blogging or bloggers as very few of them managed to come across as anything other than smug geeks. The bitter irony came later, after the cameras stopped rolling, when Lieberman ran as an independent and beat Lamont in the senate elections - where, after all is said and done, it really matters. Still, Blog Wars did demonstrate the speed at which their influence is growing and how stupid it’d be to start writing them off.

So it would seem there’s nothing like a spot of ignorant racist bullying to boost the old ratings - international relations be damned. Haven’t watched the show and what i’ve seen of it, from flicking through the channels desperately looking for something to watch in the early hours of the morning, indicates that it is essentially all about watching people, albeit celebrities(?!), sleeping. But, apparently, they do wake up long enough to throw racist barbs around. Channel4 have stated that “no overt racial abuse or racist behaviour” took place but there had “undoubtedly been a cultural and class clash”. Now exactly how overt your racism has to be, I’m not sure but telling Shilpa Shetty, an Indian national, to “go back to the slums” seems quite unambiguous to me. Still for anyone to feign surprise that people like Jade Goody, or her cohorts, think like this is ludicrous. Shows like Big Brother have celebrated the dumb and exhalted the ignorant from their inception. They’ve turned fame into an aspiration in itself and to hell with talent or intellect. You can’t smirk smugly at their stupidity one minute and then throw your arms up in horror at their ignorance the next. You sowed the seeds everytime you watched one of these shows or bought a celeb gossip mag, so now you can fucking well reap the rewards.

After Frank’s post about Monkey Dust, I felt I had to mention Jam - the ultimate black comedy sketch show. Created by Chris Morris of Brass Eye fame, it started as a series of radio sketchs on BBC Radio 1 show Blue Jam. It only ran for one series of six twenty minute episodes on Channel 4 and, even though it was on a commercial channel, it had no ad-break. Supposedly this was because Morris insisted on it but even if he hadn’t, you’d probably have had a bastard of a job convincing people to associate their products with it. Other writers on the series included Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, who created Father Ted, plus Peter Baynham who co-wrote the Borat movie.

Surprisingly enough, you’ll find a few Jam clips on Youtube but be warned, if your even vaguely offendable, you will be. In fact, if your breathing and aren’t a sociopath, you’ll probably be at least a little uncomfortable. The clip below is my personal favourite and has stuck with me, like an ugly growth, from the moment I saw it. It’s horrible but funny, in a way that will probably never be repeated. If it offends or upsets you don’t come crying to me, you’ve already been warned and I don’t really care.

Apparently, on the quiet, Hollywood is finally admitting that DRM (Digital Rights Management) isn’t really about the fear of piracy. It’s actually got more to do with creating new revenue streams.

And while their fucking around, trying to squeeze more and more cash out of us, the first HD DVD rip has appeared on BitTorrent and Pirate Bay have decided to buy themselves a country - Sealand as it happens.