HIGHLIGHT of the BBC’s endless Glastonbury coverage arrived, day one, with the appearance of some dingbat called Marina Abramovic, who planned to: “Heal the universe with seven minutes of silence.”
An inspired idea, I thought.
But why stop there? Try eight, nine, ten and keep it going right through Shania Twain’s hour in the traditional “tax exiles” slot, if that’s what the healing process takes.
With one hefty clang of her assistant’s gong, though, Marina got what we both craved.
No blether from the BBC studio. No abattoir noises from the Pyramid Stage.
Nothing but heavenly silence.
And then — CLANG! — it all started again. Conor Curley, from Fontaines DC, told BBC Two viewers how happy he was to see “so many Irish and Palestinian flags”, and I remembered all the reasons why I sincerely despise everything about the Glastonbury festival.
It’s a resentment that starts with the level of BBC imposition and extravagance, of course.
So vast is the coverage, in fact, that it’s almost impossible to work out exactly how long it lasts, but still safe to assume that, with 90 hours on the Beeb iPlayer alone, there’s hardly a Portaloo turd that goes unrecorded.
Likewise, estimates for the number of BBC staff varies between 500-1,000 and don’t even include the likes of Oxbridge-educated, public schoolboy News presenter Ros Atkins, who’d wangled a drum ’n’ bass slot that would’ve had the BBC squealing “cultural appropriation”, if he wasn’t on the payroll.
The scandalous excess would have mattered slightly less, naturally, if this year’s line-up was better and the main hosts, Jo Whiley, Lauren Laverne, Clara Amfo and Jack Saunders, weren’t so cringingly awful, in the most weirdly uniform way.
For they all affect a too-cool- for-school nonchalance while remaining the four biggest sycophants on television.
A combination that’s impossible to make work and gains zero respect from the surly musicians, as Whiley discovered when she tried to interview two charmless gits from the band Idles.
“What’s in store tonight?”
“Music . . .”
An optimistic view of the occasion, which was ruined by “biscuit tin” acoustics, Cyndi Lauper’s caterwauling and a line-up that was compromised beyond repair by political correctness. Not that the BBC gang was admitting to any of these obvious flaws. They were all too busy gushing over absolutely everyone.
A strategy that eventually hit a brick wall when Whiley announced: “Joining us now is Aurora. You were also mesmerised by Polly Harvey.
“Was she someone who was a role model for you?”
“No.”
You can’t say fairer than that, and it was the closest anyone came to a contrary, rock ’n’ roll opinion all weekend at Glastonbury where the mass is united by many things, like privilege, class and hypocrisy, which is now so overwhelming and predictable it’s almost ritualised.
Every year, for instance, these posh, noisy environmentalists leave behind enough garbage to landfill the whole of Somerset.
Similarly, you’d genuinely be lynched if you opened a “stop the boats” stall, yet the moment any freeloader breaches the very expensive security wall, the entire festival has a meltdown about the lack of space, tents and medical facilities for paying customers.
The reason the BBC gives itself and Glastonbury a free pass for these double standards, clearly, is the shared political agenda which mostly bubbles beneath the surface but came spewing out, Sunday night, when someone straight from central casting introduced herself by saying: “My name is Pinky Tesfay, I’m an abstract expressionist painter.
“This piece, Smash Capitalism, is about tearing down a system that doesn’t work.”
It needed a presenter, at that moment, to point out the event is sponsored by Vodafone (net worth $23.5billion) and the instant capitalism is smashed, Britain’s revolutionary socialist Government will confiscate Pinky’s brushes and have her spray-painting hubcaps in a tractor factory.
No bad thing, in my book, but it still doesn’t fully explain why I hate Glastonbury quite so much.
For that, you have to go back to October 7, when hundreds of Israeli youngsters, at a similar gathering, were murdered, raped and abducted by Palestinian terrorists.
No acknowledgement of their suffering was ever expected or forthcoming, but the relentless sound and sight of artists hailing the Palestinian cause and spectators waving its flag was proof it’s not just irony that’s beyond these imbeciles, it’s basic humanity as well.
WORST ever EastEnders death?
Keanu Taylor, who was taken from behind by Linda Carter with a meat thermometer, then buried under the cafe, where he stank the joint out just as surely as he had done when he was alive.
A horrible way to go, and all the more disturbing because Sharon Watts has subsequently “concealed the meat thermometer”, and made it pretty clear it won’t be found without the Deep Space Nine crew getting involved.
We should all be thankful, then, that this unpleasant matter has largely been forgotten as Deano Wicks has been framed for the murder, by the so-called “six” who witnessed Keanu’s death.
His absence, of course, created a vacancy for the role of Walford’s compulsory sex offender, which has quickly been filled by an evangelical religious nut called Gideon Clayton.
And by “religious” you already know I mean he’s a Christian, because EastEnders simply wouldn’t allow any other faith to be portrayed in this hideous way.
Indeed, not that long ago, the BBC soap featured another Christian psychopath, in the shape of the Rev Lucas Johnson, played by Don Gilet, who recently returned to the show to tell Denise: “You really want to know how I live with my crimes? I own them, by admitting to what I’ve done.”
Holby City, Hotel Babylon, Cutting It, Death In Paradise, EastEnders.
It’s a sickening catalogue of crimes, but Don owns them.
LOVE Island clarification.
Re: Harriett/Ronnie/Jess love triangle.
Jess: “Do you understand why I made that decision?”
Ronnie: “Yeah, it’s tiff for taff, or whatever it’s called.”
T*ts for tw*t, technically.
THE Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “Based in Norwich, UEA is the University of where?”
Mickey: “America.”
Roman Kemp: “Chippy is a slang term for what type of tradesman?”
Janae: “A chip shop.”
Roman Kemp: “In a famous sea shanty, what is the Billy O’ Tea?”
Mickey: “Billy Ocean.”
And Roman Kemp: “In what hobby would you most likely use a raku kiln?”
Nick: “Rat catching.”
ITV’S dreadful new drama Douglas Is Cancelled turning from a light comedy to a woke show trial in the space of four episodes.
BBC2 sketch show Ellie & Natasia proving to be about as funny as an arson attack at a koala sanctuary. And Love Island’s increasingly tired-sounding narrator Iain Stirling announcing: “We’ve sent Ayo and Mimii to a resort that’s classy, sophisticated and quiet. In other words, one that has no British tourists in it.”
For the show that very obviously hates its own audience will very quickly lose its own audience.
OLIVIA ATTWOOD on The Price Of Perfection: Bottoms.
Ashton Collins: “We had one woman who literally had to have her buttocks removed surgically she had such a severe infection.”
Olivia, left: “And what does she look like now?”
She looks like she’s no end of an ar*ehole.
lTV quiz. Finish Olivia Attwood’s sentence on The Price Of Perfection: Vaginas.
“I’m planning a trip to the US to explore an area of surgery I’m particularly curious about with one of the labia’s close neighbours . . . ”
A) “The clitoral hood.”
B) “The Sugarhill Gang.”
C) “The Wu-Tang Clan.”
D) “DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince.”
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week.
Love Island, Uma: “Grace, there is literally nothing about you that says idiot.”
Love Island, Ronnie: “Is this the end for Turbo? Nah, it’s just the start.” And Glastonbury, Nadia Jae: “SZA is a household name that many may not know.”
So, not a household name at all, then.
WAYNE ROONEY: “Harry never misses, so if he gets the chance again, nine times out of ten he’ll score.”
Guy Mowbray: “Red and white at one end, white and red at the other.”
Andy Robertson: “We made a mistake but make no mistake – he didn’t make another mistake.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
APOLOGIES. I quite enjoyed watching the brilliant Spanish football team dismantle whatever opposition was put in its way; Simon Russell Beale, above, trying his brilliant best, as Bently the agent, in ITV’s lousy Douglas Is Cancelled; and BBC4 documentary Dam Busters Declassified.
But I’d be lying if I said anything this week deserved the tag “TV Gold”.
Maybe next time.
THIS week’s winner is Beth Ditto, at Glastonbury, and Petunia from the old Joe And Petunia public information films. Sent in by Terry Marsh, from Tottenham, North London.
