Daytime TV reviews: The Wright Stuff
| January 17, 2013 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under reviews, satire |
Have you ever considered what life might be like if you were completely unburdened by responsibility? Have you imagined what exploits your almost limitless freedom might facilitate? Perhaps you have, though most of us can only dream of such things. For the benefit of those currently subjugated to employment, education or daily hygiene rituals, I shall attempt to recreate in prose the myriad unique experiences infused into the lives of we happy few who can boast such independence. I can think of no finer way to begin than with the recounting of all the exquisite delights that daytime television has lavished upon me. Ostensibly the only program featured on Channel Five that isn’t NCIS or one of its many siblings, the somewhat… more
Covering my shame has never been so difficult
| May 16, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under satire |
I went clothes shopping recently. Voluntarily, in the sense that it was just marginally preferable to pneumonia and a prison sentence as a result of public nudity. This is typically a bi-annual event at best, so I tend to see changes in fashion as sudden events. What follows is an interpretation of what York’s main retailers of young men’s clothing had to offer. The once-distinct boundary between the two gendered sections of clothes shops has become so seamlessly blurred that the average sensible man is now in danger of accidentally cross-dressing. Most clothes shops seem to have been annexed by the nauseatingly flamboyant and unappealing cast of Hollyoaks, and overwhelmingly saturated with their gaudy “retro” bullshit and arse-smothering chinos, which incidentally are equipped… more
Twitter: intellectual hub or Facebook’s idiot brother?
| April 11, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under satire |
The latter. I’m not crediting the average Facebook post with any tangible evidence of cognitive ability, but I remain adamant that most tweets actively make their readers substantially less intelligent, even ignoring the sorry state in which the person who typed it must have been. This article was inspired by a recent – relative to two weeks ago, when I started writing this piece – news report on the first vicar to begin using Twitter. Well, not quite. In fact, one of the interviews on Sky News regarding the issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Well, not exactly. Actually, 19-year-old church intern George Lightwood exhausted my last ounce of Twitter-related patience with this judgement, given in an… more
PM finds time to fix Britain
| March 22, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under satire |
After roughly two years of keeping us all in suspense, the prime minister has put in motion the miracle that will save our economy. He certainly kept us guessing. During my brief time at TSR, I’ve pointed the finger at a number of issues that ought to be remedied in order to better mankind. These include, but are not limited to, Michael Gove, Adele’s stance on tax, Harry Redknapp’s stance on tax, England’s stance on Harry Redknapp, Michael Gove, the Daily Mail, horses, News International, Michael Gove, Andy Coulson and Michael Gove. It turns out that the solution is quite simple: privatise the roads. Plans to reform the NHS proved a unanimous success among those doctors who attended the recent… more
Equine lynchpin’s masterplan revealed
| March 9, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under national, satire |
There had to be someone right at the heart of it, at the eye of the storm. The Murdochs were too obvious, and too indiscrete. No, this symphony of illegality and institutionalised corruption needed a maestro. A mastermind. It certainly wasn’t going to be someone working directly for the tabloids; intellect was required, and it needed to be someone above suspicion. On Friday 2nd March, the conspiratorial legacy of phone-hacking confederate Raisa was finally uncovered. The former police horse had been well known as a philanthropist and a close friend of the prime minister during her short life. After a raid on her family estate in Witney, police uncovered correspondence linking the deceased horse to former News of the World editor Rebekah… more
Why hate the last few minutes of the BRITs when you can hate all of it?
| February 25, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under entertainment, satire |
This isn’t so much an article as a smug lecture from someone who didn’t waste two hours (or however long it was) of his life watching the BRIT awards on Tuesday. Or rather, someone who wasted that time watching Alex Polizzi’s The Fixer and then deciding whether or not he had just viewed a repeat, who then later had to research and view clips of the event when writing this article. In any case, enjoy. As far as self-congratulating formalities of reality TV go, this particular uncompromising turd was so utterly unpolished that even BBC3 ought to have turned its crack-eroded nose up at it. The fact that Adele’s entirely predictable monologue in acceptance of her grotesque and dubiously prestigious statuette… more
English football could teach us a thing or two about general scumbaggery
| February 17, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under satire |
Politicians? Bankers? Rupert Murdoch and his newspapers? They’ve had their rough patches, and they’ve become satirist fodder as a result. But when it comes to childish or criminal behaviour, corruption and callous greed, they’re all lightweights. Like Scooby-Doo villains at an arsonists’ convention, they’re out of their depth and sweating profusely into their home-stitched dragon costumes as the heady aroma of petrol-fuelled flames beckons them into a dizzying state of depression, inadequacy and nausea. Because when it comes to unbridled immorality, no one has quite such a monopoly on the concept as those in the football industry. For instance, England manager Fabio Capello has resigned after trying to convince the FA that the criminal court was a higher authority than… more
As it happened: the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony
| February 8, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under satire |
The BBC breakfast team have appeared almost animated lately, stirred from their humourless comas in anticipation of one of the last great distractions from the impending yet frustratingly ambiguous apocalypse. The London 2012 Olympics are making an overstated swagger into the headlines. Most recently, Danny Boyle has hinted at how the £81mn ceremonies budget might be spent. Naturally, Boyle’s involvement in the process loaned it some credibility, and I admit that, for the first time, talk of the Olympics evoked a cautious and somewhat rare optimism within me. Rest assured, this was immediately nullified when the executive director of ceremonies, Stephen Daldry, said that they would be “looking at who we are, who we were and who we would wish to be.” No… more
£60 million is a small price to pay to keep Michael Gove distracted
| January 24, 2012 | Posted by Cameron MacLeod under satire |
With the exception of everyone who isn’t a member of the Tory cabinet or the royal family, we’ve all come to love Michael Gove’s latest initiative. Plans have been put into place to commission a new royal yacht, and it’s a snip at 2,500 times the average UK annual earnings or, if you prefer, 6,600 years of top university tuition. The people of Britain were given the opportunity to make their most meaningful contribution to society yet, by consenting to the diversion of a portion of the apparently exorbitant government budget towards the noble endeavour. Unfortunately, British taxpayers remained uninspired, and so it was left to Canada and Lord Ashcroft to pick up the shortfall. Though this scheme initially appears incredibly unhelpful,… more
