Ruminations of a far flung voter

I have been terrible at keeping up with these blog posts since I got back to Canada, mostly because of adjusting to the cold and catching up with friends, among with looking for somewhere to live.

One thing I have been doing, however, is watching some English TV.

Now, having lived for a year and a half without a TV and with absolutely no passion to get one in the future, this would seem an odd activity for me to content myself with. However, I've been missing the UK quite a bit, and this has led to me wanting to catch up with what's going on. This, in turn, has made me watch Rastamouse.

Now, kids' TV shows worldwide, and in the UK especially, have always been a bit effed up. The Magic Roundabout is patently terrifying, and anyone who's ever seen Bagpuss or the Trumptons know that this isn't a contemporary trait. In recent years though, kids TV has been getting pretty awesome, while keeping this same abject strangeness. Take Pocoyo for example; a Spanish show, translated into English and narrated by the wonderful and acerbic Stephen Fry:

If this isn't the trippiest 7 minutes any child could ever spend, then I don't want to know about the state of parenting in the UK at the moment.

I love that show and have done since my friend alerted me to its existence back in the heady, time-wasting days of uni. Yet I could never imagine that a new show could so eclipse its nihilistic surrealism.

Enter Rastamouse.

There isn't much on youtube due to the BBC keeping it firmly in their hands, but Google it and you'll be able to hear the glorious dulcit tones of a rastafarian rodent talking in true British-Jamaican patois.  Rastamouse and his band members Scratchy and Zuma, who together make up the crime-fighting Easy Crew reggae band, regularly exclaim "Dat's irie man!", "Whagwan?" and "Me love de cheese!", much to the apparent disdain of middle class mothers in Kent who are terrified that they babies might start talking like black people...but that's another discussion altogether. The theme tune especially is a mind-blowing amalgamation of cute liberal ethics and riding ragga: he's a Batman-figure, helping out President Wensley Dale (a modern-day Commissioner Gordon) whenever he's needed, but languishes in the joy of playing reggae when he's not. He's about redemption, not retribution, and is "always there to make a bad ting good."

It's not just the concept of this show that makes it so great, because both the puppets and the script totally deliver on such a promising idea. I can't convey how much I laughed when I listened to the cheese thief's soliloquy about having to eat all the cheese-based baking that resulted from his actions as he had no friends to share them with: "It's why me get fat. Look."

So heartbreaking! So sweet!

Anyway, gushing about Rastamouse wasn't my original intent. I actually meant to talk about 10 O'Clock Live.

Apart from Lauren Laverne, whose delightful fashion choices may "urban up" the set slightly but whose attempts at comedy fall flat (and why should they do anything else? She's not a comedian!), every presenter makes me laugh out loud. I've loved Charlie Brooker ever since his TVGoHome days, and though he may have become somewhat more mainstream in recent years, the self-reflexivity of his comment "I would volunteer but I've got no skills. What can I do? Go to someone's house and whine though a box set...for free?" makes me love him even more. David Mitchell draws simliar feelings from me, ignoring the Mac commercials, and the fact that series 7 of Peep Show is as funny is series 1 is a source of constant gratitude from me.

Even Jimmy Carr, whose particular style of comedy can be a little grating after a while, provided many lolz during a discussion of the activities in Egypt by captioning the map "Biffy Cairo".

The best thing about this show, however, is the fact that it tries to make disillusioned students and 20-somethings interested in politics again - and succeeds! The most shamelessly educational part of each show is David Mitchell's round-table discussion with 3 opposing and regularly passionate/angry political activists, writers, and the like who actually, really discuss a real, contemporary issue. They've covered the proposed selling of the forests, the idea of Big Society, and a whole host of other issues that, having lived outside of the country for 2 and a half years, I haven't even heard of. The problem with getting most of your info from the pages of news websites is that these more minor issues (and I use the word on a global scale) get pushed to more hidden pages while other horrific stories take the front pages, and not having 3 hours a day to plough through the subpages of guardian.com, I feel somewhat underinformed. 10 O'Clock Live is rectifying this situation for me, while providing me with some much-needed humour about it.

They also do a good job of letting the Tories make themselves look stupid, which always goes down well with me.*

It's distinctly left-leaning but David Mitchell in particular gives it some balance (I feel he's most about logic and reason than being partisan). Their satirical "Bankers in Need", despite seeming to be the most light relief available, is regularly interspersed with quite radically-strong comments such as "if it wasn't for your mindless compliance...the bankers wouldn't be able to screw you quite so easily" and constant reminders that the incalculable greed of bank CEOs has shafted our country to the extent that we now all have to pay for it. Strong stuff hiding under the guise of comedy. Good for them.

Living outside of your home country while an unelected government systematically removes all of the best things about it is both frustrating and upsetting, and this show is making me feel that little bit more connecte as well as amusing the hell out of me. I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, Channel 4!

*My favourite example of this came during a discussion about the selling of forests, when a promoter of the dissolution of the Forestry Commission said "well, if the public are so bothered about the forests, why don't they group together and buy them?". David Mitchell instantly stepped in with "Isn't that ....the Forestry Commission?". Perfect, David, perfect.