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I’ve Covered My Website in Complete and Utter and Total Absolute Nonsense Gibberish

Published 27th December 2019

TV Comedy

Slightly alarmingly, it seems I have been writing for Red Dwarf fansite Ganymede & Titan for a full 16 years now. My oldest contributions there can now technically have sex with articles from a Doctor Who fansite, to produce the most unpleasant offspring you can imagine.

Still, over the years, my contributions – while definitely increasing in quality – have certainly decreased in quantity.1 So this year, I set myself the challenge of updating the site at least once a month, a feat I haven’t managed since 2007. Slightly unexpectedly, I actually managed to achieve this.

Which means over the last year, I have provided answers to the following questions:

And to round everything off, I also wrote the G&T Christmas Message for this year; our traditional address to the nation rounding up all the Red Dwarf news over the last 12 months. Until fairly recently, I could have probably just written “that silly AA advert” and had done with it, but this month saw the first of two audience recordings for a new special to be broadcast next year. Meaning there will be a whole new spate of people saying “What, I thought Red Dwarf finished years ago with that dodgy one set in prison, I didn’t know there had been new episodes since then”, despite there being literally 21 brand new episodes made and broadcast since 2009.2

Away from the wacky world of Red Dwarf3, don’t forget that the 1st January sees the 10th anniversary of a particularly stupid website called Dirty Feed. So pop over here in the New Year for a celebration of the fact that very, very occasionally, I write something which doesn’t deserve immediately throwing into a large bin.

  1. And not just because of an extended sulk in 2009 after Back to Earth. ↩

  2. It’s no secret I’m not crazy about most of the new episodes, but if you haven’t seen any of the Dave-era shows and want to dip your toe in: my personal opinion is that Lemons, The Beginning, Officer Rimmer, M-Corp and Skipper are your best bets. ↩

  3. Or “whacky”, if you really have to. ↩

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Dirty Feed: Best of 2019

Published 11th December 2019

Meta

2015 • 2016 • 2017 • 2018 • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • 2022 • 2023 • 2024

“Hello again, John. Still doing your roundup of all the best stuff on Dirty Feed this year?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t this being published even earlier than last year?”
“Yes.”
“Is that because you’re planning some huge masturbatory celebration of 10 years of Dirty Feed in January, and you at least want to spread out your willy waving to some kind of bearable level?”
“Yes.”
“I really hate you.”
“Yes.”

*   *   *

And Finally…
Firstly, a little tale of Anna Soubry presenting Central News, and some naughtiness that seemingly only I remember. (I have to admit, I was hoping a video of this might surface, especially once a few media figures retweeted the article. No luck, sadly.)

1990s Central News East logo
The Shangri-Las in the recording studio


Listen. Does This Sound Familiar?
Looking at glimpses of a lost song by the Shangri-Las. I have a fondness for this as being one of the first bits of writing about music I’ve ever done; this year I’ve tried to push myself outside my comfort zone a few times with my writing, and this piece definitely qualifies. Also: listen to the Shangri-Las, do it, do it right now.1

Night Network
If there’s one thing I want this site to achieve, it’s to post things that nobody else would ever post. Whether that’s because nobody else is capable of writing something so amazing, or because nobody else would fucking bother, is a judgement call. Whatever your answer, this piece – about the nightmares TV channel directors have to endure – most definitely counts.

Identity.
In which I spin an incredibly personal anecdote from the BBC Two Toy Car ident. You heard.

BBC Two Toy Car ident
Mike Flex and Mike Channel, KYTV


KYTV: Challenge Anna
My first really substantial article of the year: a look at one of my favourite episodes of comedy ever, and exactly what changed between script and screen. (Watch out for the practical joke Geoffrey Perkins and Angus Deayton planned to play on Anneka Rice… and then chickened out on.)

Tales from a Dystopian Future
This little story is another example of how I tried to push my writing into some different areas this year. It’s certainly like nothing else on the site. It didn’t get much reaction, and I think it has its faults. But after writing the KYTV piece – which I think turned out well, but is entirely within this site’s usual ballpark – it was nice to stretch myself with something I’d never written before.

Beyond Grace Brothers
Having done a full watch of Are You Being Served? this year, I vaguely have in mind the idea to write a book on the show. This article was a test to see if I could write about the series in any kind of entertaining way. I think it turned out quite well, tackling an area of the show that I don’t think has been talked about before. (Fuck knows when I’ll have time to write that book, though.)

Mr. Rumbold on the phone
Mr. Davidson covered in soup


Fawlty at Large
Hands down my favourite thing I’ve written all year, and certainly the one to get the best reaction. This set of four articles starts off as a look at the origins of Fawlty Towers… but halfway through, turns into something else entirely, and for my money something far more interesting. John Cleese has never written anything more terrifying.2

*   *   *

A few other brief thoughts. I really struggled with the site at the beginning of the year, with the first four months especially yielding the odd fun post, but nothing truly substantial.3 Having realised I was going to let the year slip away entirely if I wasn’t careful, the second half of the year was a lot better, cumulating in the aforementioned set of articles which I’m thoroughly proud of. If you read nothing else I’ve written this year, I’d really like it to be that.

I’m also going to make my usual plea. I make a point of not having a tip jar or Patreon on this site; I don’t need them, and your money would be better spent on others. But if you’ve enjoyed any of my writing this year, I urge you to consider donating to the Internet Archive if you can. I realise that at a time when the UK seems to be going to shit, then they might not be the first organisation you’d think of for donations. But the Internet Archive do a great deal to hold people, organisations, and governments to account, and I think that’s more important than ever. Just $5 would mean something – especially as they currently have a 2-to-1 matching campaign running, which brings it up to $15 without you doing a thing.

That’s pretty much it for Dirty Feed this year; there will be a roundup of all my Red Dwarf writing later on this month, but aside from that, that’s your lot. Thanks to everyone who’s read, liked, or shared my stuff over the past year; I really do appreciate all your kind words. One person who takes the time to tell me they enjoyed something I wrote is worth 1000 anonymous hits. And people who clearly haven’t read what I’ve written but feel the need to tell me their ill-informed opinion about it on Twitter deserve 1000 hits.4

And as for next year… what’s this I see on the horizon? Could it be the site’s 10th anniversary? And do you really think I can resist the urge to bang on about it at length until you all escape to Digital Spy in desperation?

  1. I think this article may be the first ever time a picture of the Shangri-Las has appeared next to the logo of Central News East. If any fact sums up what I try and do with this site, it’s this one. ↩

  2. With thanks to Tanya Jones for inspiration and help with this; so much so, in fact, that the pieces really deserve a shared byline. ↩

  3. Fun game: try to figure out which piece I was sure was going to be great, but I’ve since decided really isn’t, and was misguided and pointless publishing in its present form. ↩

  4. To the face. Specifically to the face. ↩

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Fawlty at Large, Part Four:
“Why did you laugh if you don’t understand it?”

Published 6th December 2019

TV Comedy

LWT logo

In the penultimate part of this series, we examined the full wrath of John Cleese. Today, to round things up, I want to investigate his softer side. The softer side that nonetheless involves a sharp jab at his fellow professionals, because this is John Cleese: the man who deliberately broadcast David Frost’s telephone number to the nation because he thought it was funny.

And a character like Mr. Davidson – someone who is the embodiment of anti-comedy – is the perfect vehicle Cleese can use to slag off some lazy jokes.

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Fawlty at Large, Part Three:
“He doesn’t know when to stop, does he?”

Published 4th December 2019

TV Comedy

Mr. Davidson and Collier

Last time in our analysis of No Ill Feeling!, we took an in-depth look at Dr. Upton’s nemesis, Mr. Davidson. We are now heading towards our final showdown with that particular fragment of humanity.

It is utterly glorious. It is also utterly savage, in a way that you might not expect from a 1971 LWT sitcom. And it’s something which seems to have been pretty much ignored by everyone in their analysis of the episode – in as much as the episode has had any analysis, beyond “look, there’s an early version of Basil”.

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Fawlty at Large, Part Two: “Join in the fun!”

Published 2nd December 2019

TV Comedy

Mr. Davidson

In Part One of this series, we took a trip to 1971 and Doctor at Large, where newly-qualified doctor Michael Upton went to stay at the Bella Vista hotel. There, he met Mr. Clifford, our ersatz Basil Fawlty, and had a fairly baffling time with him.

That’s where most analysis of the episode No Ill Feeling! ends. But to me, it’s really just the beginning. Today, we meet the real nemesis of Michael Upton… and John Cleese.

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Fawlty at Large, Part One: “Did you book a sprout?”

Published 30th November 2019

TV Comedy

Doctor Upton and Mr. Clifford, from Doctor At Large

There is a tendency, when talking about TV shows, to get caught up in the same old anecdotes and stock opinions.

Star Trek: The Next Generation only got good with Season 3. Panorama was briefly interesting in 1957 with its spaghetti harvest April Fools, and again that time when Dimbleby sat there like a twat when no films would run. Catchphrase is reduced to Mr. Chips having a wank next to a snake.

It’s the same with sitcoms. Hancock is all about armfuls of blood and reading off cue cards. Are You Being Served? is entirely centred on Mrs. Slocombe’s minge. The Office invented a whole new way of making comedy.1 So it is with Fawlty Towers, which has its own set of anecdotes and origin stories, all endlessly repeated over the years until nobody bothers to question them.

So let’s question one of them, shall we?

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  1. It didn’t. ↩

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Deviance.

Published 25th October 2019

Internet / TV Comedy

Currently, I’m going through a load of old Dirty Feed articles, for preparation for the site’s 10th anniversary in January.1 And this particular piece about the now-dormant Dirty Feed Tumblr caught my eye.

There is no polite way of saying this. The most popular post I ever made on Tumblr was a collection of pulp book covers featuring women about to have sex with dogs.

Now, you may not be particularly keen on my bestiality material. You may prefer my in-depth articles about sitcom edits instead. But it was definitely the most popular post I ever made on Tumblr, by an order of magnitude. I mention over 200 likes/reblogs in that previous piece; it had over 400 before it was removed.

Removed? Ah, yes. Sadly, that post is no longer available, due to Tumblr’s porn ban in December 2018. As soon as that ban was announced, I stopped using the site. I never really clicked with Tumblr anyway; the porn ban was the final straw.

But the fact remains: by far the most thing I ever posted on the site was deleted by Tumblr. That’s a mildly annoying state of affairs, even if I’m not using the site any more, and even if the post did feature an illustration of an Alsatian with a particularly lascivious look on his face.

*   *   *

OK, fine. If you want an article on sitcom edits, let’s talk about some sitcom edits.2

Back in 2012, I wrote a series of articles on pre-watershed edits made to Red Dwarf on Dave. One recurring motif presented itself: time and time again, some of the funniest moments in an episode were cut.3 Kryten sticking up his finger and saying “Swivel on it, punk!”; “Rimmer Directive 271 states just as clearly: No chance you metal bastard”; “Santa Claus – what a bastard! He’s just a big fat git who sneaks down chimneys and steals all the kid’s favorite toys…”; “No officer with false teeth should attempt oral sex in zero gravity”; “Men! They’re all bastards!”; and by the funniest moment in Red Dwarf VIII:

CASSANDRA: I already told you: Rimmer dies of a heart attack, and then you and all the other Canaries die too; all except Lister, Kryten, Kochanski and the Cat. I’ve seen it.
RIMMER: That’s as well as maybe, but have you seen this?

RIMMER flips his middle finger to CASSANDRA, then turns and storms out.

CASSANDRA: Yes, I’m afraid I have.

My analysis of pre-watershed I’m Alan Partridge edits brought up similar points: “Don’t rub your fanny on me!” and “He means his cock!” were gone. And if I ever get round to writing something about pre-watershed Porridge edits on Gold, I’ll be sure to mention that the climax to the episode where Fletch sticks two fingers up to the camera is pixellated, destroying the joke entirely.

*   *   *

This isn’t really an anti-censorship screed, at least not per se. My point is simply this: when things are deleted from the internet, or cuts are made to programmes, it’s worth remembering that the effect of such things isn’t random. It’s not arbitrary chunks that disappear: it’s the outliers that go. The rudest joke in a sitcom episode; a blog post which takes a left turn into filth. And those outliers are often one of the most popular parts of a piece of work.

And slowly but surely, the corners of things get knocked off. Censorship is often talked about – sometimes correctly, sometimes not – in terms of how dangerous it can be. But often, the enemy is the sheer blandification of pop culture. It’s not that anybody dies. It’s not about suppressing important conversations. It’s about which bits of our culture survive in the popular memory, and which don’t. Which is both very important, and not important at all.

And that leads to one of the joys of owning your own little part of the internet. Away from social media giants changing their policies on a whim, and away from UKTV’s bizarre editing policies, you can quietly sit and document things. And documenting these things shifts the power dynamic back towards the integrity of the text, however slightly, rather than companies just doing things because it’s easier. I find it immensely rewarding.

Especially when – just occasionally – you get to stand up for an author’s original intention, when it never managed to make it to the screen properly in the first place.

Though that’s not as important as dog cock, obviously.

  1. Come on, like I’m going to be able to resist writing something appallingly self-important for it. ↩

  2. “Others may wish to skip on to the last chapter which is a good bit and has Marvin in it.” ↩

  3. Bizarrely, not the rhythmic thrusting of Kryten and Lister in Polymorph. ↩

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This Is Not The Shangri-Las

Published 4th October 2019

Music

I know, I know. Posts about Spotify being stupid are ten a penny online. But dammit, I’m allowed one of them.

Let’s take a look, then, at Spotify’s “This Is The Shangri-Las”, described as “The essential tracks, all in one playlist.” When it comes to the Shangri-Las, this should not be a difficult thing to make, considering they were only active for such a short time; all their actual records were released between 1963 and 1967. Not even Spotify can screw this up, right?

This Is The Shangri-Las Spotify Playlist

Hmmmmmm. Even the most casual Shangri-Las fan will see a few things wrong there. Let’s take them one by one.

Monster Mash Re-Recording (150 Rock ‘N’ Roll Classics)
Oh, could it be true? Please say it’s true. Please tell me the Shangri-Las recorded a version of Bobby Pickett’s “Monster Mash”. That might possibly be the best thing which has ever existed in the entire world.

Well, no. Of course they bloody didn’t. To add insult to injury, this isn’t even the original recording. How this ever got labelled as a Shangri-Las track is a mystery.

Duchess of Earl (Boys Can Be Mean)
Absolutely nothing to do with the Shangs – this is the Pearlettes from 1962, with their cover of Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl”.

Oddly, Spotify has the song credited to the Pearlettes and the Shangs, so some metadata has got confused somewhere. Why Spotify felt the need to grab a song from a compilation CD when there’s plenty of Shangs-specific albums on the service is also a mystery. That just seems designed to lead to this kind of confusion.

He’s So Fine (Leader of the Pack)
This one is particularly strange. No, the song is nothing to do with the Shangs – this is The Chiffons from 1963. But things get strange when we check where the song has come from.

It’s another compilation album, called “Leader of the Pack” from 2011, which is most certainly not the original Shangri-Las album from 1965. It contains 14 songs which are actually by the Shangs… and this single one which isn’t. So a) bad luck Spotify, you played the odds and lost, and b) I find it difficult to believe that 2011 album is a legitimate release. It probably shouldn’t even be on Spotify at all.

Little Bell (Boys Can Be Mean)
From the same compilation album as “Duchess of Earl” comes “Little Bell”, which of course was not the Shangs, but their Red Bird labelmate The Dixie Cups.

Again, the metadata on this credits The Shangri-Las and The Dixie Cups, but at least I can see where the confusion comes from this time. This almost certainly stems from the 1986 compilation album The Dixie Cups Meet The Shangri-Las. (Needless to say, that album is just a bunch of hits from both groups, rather than anything more interesting.)

*   *   *

So, my question is: how are Spotify’s “This Is…” playlists put together? Are they curated by actual people, or is this just an algorithm going rogue because of incorrect metadata? For the answer, let’s take a look at Spotify’s guide to playlists; the relevant section for us is “Editorial – Made by us”:

“We handcraft thousands of editorial playlists. You can tell it’s one of ours by that little Spotify logo on the top left corner.

Our Editorial team is made up of genre, lifestyle, and culture specialists from around the globe. Their understanding of the right music for every moment is based on years of experience and careful consideration of listening habits.

We also personalize some of these playlists so they have different tracks for different listeners, because we know everyone’s taste is different. Therefore, a playlist with sing-along hits can have songs each listener would know the words to!”

So reading between the lines, the “This Is…” playlists are mainly a real person making them, and an algorithm doing some tweaks. Let’s hope the four tracks above weren’t added by Spotify’s Editorial team; you would think that a team of specialists would at least be able to figure out whether a track for a Shangri-Las playlist was actually by the Shangri-Las or not.

Of course mistakes happen. If it had just been one wrong track, I would have rolled my eyes and ignored it. But I would suggest that four incorrect entires – on a playlist of just 21 tracks – is taking the piss. A full 20% of the playlist is entirely wrong. And worst of all, “Sophisticated Boom Boom” isn’t even there. Come on. This is not the carefully curated playlist Spotify claims it is.

May I suggest: if you want a decent overview of the Shangri-Las, listen to the “Remember” compilation instead. And don’t miss “Dressed in Black”.

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“The 100 Years War?”

Published 29th September 2019

Internet

I have to admit, Dirty Feed and podcasts is a bit of a sore point. I did three episodes in 2012… and the fourth one has yet to materialise. Yes, a wait of seven years and counting is taking the fucking piss. All I can say is that it will return one day. I’ve spent far too much on jingles for it not to.

I have been involved in another podcast these last few years, mind. Over on Ganymede & Titan, the Red Dwarf fansite which is unaccountably still running and updated in 2019, we just published our 100th episode of DwarfCasts. The reason we managed to get to 100 episodes is because all I have to do is turn up and speak loudly and annoyingly about Red Dwarf, rather than actually do any of the hard work of getting the show prepped, recorded, edited, and published. So when I say I’m proud of that 100th episode, it’s nothing to do with me, and everything to do with Ian Symes, who put that beautiful little documentary together.1

Still, it got me thinking. Maybe 100 episodes of a podcast made over 13 years isn’t the most impressive thing in the world, even if that is 98 episodes more than most podcasts manage. But it strikes me that there’s something pleasant about devoting myself to the same thing for that length of time. Indeed, take a look at Ganymede & Titan as a whole – I’ve been writing for the site for 16 years and counting, and if you look back at the very first incarnation of the site, it’s been going for a full 20 years. And doing the same kind of thing for so long means that I’ve ended up writing and talking about areas that I never would have examined if I’d done what so many people did.

Because most sensible 90s Red Dwarf fans did the following: got a job, got a family, and stopped thinking that much about Red Dwarf. I managed the first two, but somehow never stopped doing the third. And sure, I’ve written about my frustration about that at times. I do have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the show these days.

But if I’d done what normal fans do, and drifted away from doing anything in fandom, I’d never have written some of my favourite pieces on the show. On the development of Holly in the early days of the show, on the very earliest stirrings of Rob and Doug playing with the nature of reality, or about how the glimmerings of one of Red Dwarf‘s most famous episodes can be seen in Hancock’s Half Hour, to name three of many.

All this is on my mind as we come up to this January, and the 10th anniversary of Dirty Feed. In one sense, anniversaries are an arbitrary waste of time. But as an excuse to take stock of where we are, and what’s to come, I find them useful. Over the last ten years, I’ve published stuff on here I love, and stuff which I now think is a bit crap. But the fact that I’ve been publishing stuff in the same place for a full ten years feels meaningful, somehow. As with the DwarfCasts, I haven’t been as prolific on here as I would have liked to have been; other bits of life got in the way. But over the years, it adds together into a really nice archive of fun stuff.

There’s an advantage to plugging away at the same thing for years, without getting bored and flitting to the next thing. You don’t have to give it endless chunks of your time each week. Nor do you have to worry about any kind of long-term plan, or where exactly it is you’re going. And after a few years, you may just look back in surprise.

Without even realising it, you’ve made something you’re proud of.

  1. Shhhhhh. Don’t tell him I was nice about him. ↩

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“A few little jinglettes for you…”

Published 22nd September 2019

Jingles / Radio

A fun thing happened a week or so back. Radio presenter Nathan Turvey1 posted the following absolutely delightful thing.

And don’t miss Kenny’s little message to Nathan at the end of the reel.

Understandably, this went down extremely well on Twitter. At the time of writing, that video has had nearly a million views, and a ridiculous number of replies. Which is fascinating for such an arcane subject. After all, radio jingles are not exactly the most popular thing to talk about on Twitter. Believe me, I know. I’ve tried to talk about them on there for years.

Which proves one thing: topics are esoteric and simply not talked about… until they suddenly are talked about. People just need a gateway into them. And I don’t mean that in a sneery way at all; quite the opposite. There are plenty of topics I never think about, until I suddenly do.

The reason that has happened here isn’t difficult to figure out. The story of a 13 year old writing to his radio hero and getting back some jingles made just for him is an irresistible one. As a jingle nerd I’ve heard audio of Kenny making jingles for other people before… but for professional DJs, never for a kid who just looked up to him. Combine that story with the presence of Kenny himself – where the word genius really does apply – and you have a story which is pretty much guaranteed to go viral. And quite right too. We all need as many glimpses of pleasure as we can get these days.

My point is simply that subjects can be seen as impossibly nerdy and esoteric, when they actually aren’t at all. To take a similar example: old Radio 1 jingles weren’t exactly a popular conversation on Twitter… until Radio 1 Vintage played some of them, and people remembered how great they were. Or moving away from jingles entirely: chatting about Doctor Who continuity errors was confined to a decreasing section of society… until a certain Russell T. Davies relaunched the show in 2005, and a brand new legion of fans got involved in the UNIT dating controversy.

To be absolutely clear: nobody is better because they talked about this stuff before other people. You can’t do everything at once. My first love is sitcoms, but I only got round to watching Are You Being Served? properly this year. A fair few people enjoyed my observations about the show, but I’m sure plenty of what I talked about had been discussed by people decades earlier. This is not about cultural gatekeeping.

It’s just a reminder not to worry about whether the things you love are important, or popular. Because those statuses can flip in an instant. And then flip back again. And certainly don’t let anybody sneer at you for your interests.

Just love the things you love, and the rest will take care of itself.

  1. Yes, that Nathan Turvey. ↩