Keeping Racism on the QT
After a tempestuous week of protests and a raging media storm, Daniel Smith discusses the mutiny on the BBC’s flagship
There are some things that you cannot escape unless you are fortunate enough to live in a cave. A cave that is isolated. Away from any poorly secured wifi connections, radio transmitters or vociferously bothersome newsmongering town criers. A blissful cave of ignorance. Free from insurance comparison website advertisements, people who walk 3-abreast on pavements and those who are only slightly better - racists on TV. Unless your cavemates are a trio of rather inconsiderate pathway-hogging bigots. If you happen to be taking part in an underground version of Strictly Come Troglodyte then the chances of you being able to avoid inevitable showers of ignorant mouth muck are about as slim as a silver Rizla with a Tapeworm. For the higher-end professional recluse these things aren't going to be an issue but for those of us left to fend in the world above they come thick and fast.
Watching the Ticking Clock
Eyes bleeding, legs bowed and skin two shades off ‘Oyster Taupe’, Daniel Smith offers a sofa-side perspective of rolling news
As you sit, hunched, unwashed, blearily counting the syllables of the words in the rolling news ticker at the bottom of the BBC News 24 screen, the voices start to sink in. Stories start to take shape. It's not a big news day. It's a slow news day. The news ticker hasn’t slowed to a crawl, reflecting that nothing warrants it's continual attention. No. The scrolling ticker scuttles by at the same rate as usual (approx. 114 syllables per minute) but with nothing good for it to really grasp with its many hands and bite with its many teeth. There are no child kidnappings/discoveries. No natural disasters. No opportune celebrity homicides to condense to haiku. It just trudges along, blissfully unaware of the gravity of its cargo of letters. Like a sluggish, yet reliable postman carrying a birthday card and a letter bomb in the same unquestioning sack.