Tuesday 14 December 2010

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, THE RADIO TIMES.

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM A CELEBRITY ATHEIST,
DAWKINS: FATHER FORGIVE HIM,
FOR HE KNOWS NOT THAT HE IS A  PRAT

THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE THE DAWK .

His scientific unholiness, Dawkins the Gob, now a premier telly professor on the fashionable cusp of science and showbiz,  is at loose in this week's Radio Times, not exactly writing but in an "as told to" piece of ghastly name-dropping about his late friend, the brilliant Cantabrian, Mr Douglas Adams, celebrated author of you-know-what but also the author of much I-never-heard-of-this-shit  shit.

The BBC is serialising - or maybe it's a one-off, who cares - Adams' later novel, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.  There are people, or there were people, praise God, they may now all be  dead and up in fan heaven, who cherished bootleg tape recordings of Bob Dylan's kettle boiling,  traded slightly differing recordings of its boiling on separate dates, completists, they might term themselves, pathetic, weedy arseholes,  more like.  Regulars here will know that we despair of copyright greed - a nurse gets paid only for his or her shift, why should Reg Presley earn millions, be paid everytime someone plays his bucolic warbling of Wild Thing? Especially when it is played on airwaves which, technically, we own;  the fucking moron should pay us.  Up against the wall, I would put them, people like him, useless, idle fucking greedy bastards.  Vermeer got paid for his paintings, not for everytime someone looked at them.  But even so, we were never interested in acquiring surreptitiously obtained recordings of little Bobby's work, happy, rather, to engage in the official record buying transaction.  YouTube and the proliferation of recording media has made much concert and recorded material available freely (or do we now say ForFree?) and the copyright argument is largely academic, save amongst the consumerist successors to the weedy arsehole nerds who simply must own the latest dismal product of Take That or Duran Duran,  Rock'n'Roll, it's the paying for it that counts. Intellectual property, Aye, right. Shitheads.

Adams, in passing, it seems, together with other literary giants, was, of course, a frustrated rockers and  hee and they would "jam" in homage to Bob -  Amis, Adams and Rushdie, I believe, was one such ensemble.   Fuck me Jesus, what a racket that would have been. Don't know if Ricky Dawkins was at the back on the drums but he'd probably say he was; he so rocks, innit, bringing science to the streets,  with that Apostasy Shuffle he does.

But we digress, to swiftly re-establish our course - how did we get here from there, that sort of thing - it is assumed in modern showbiz world that a truly inspired comic, or any sort of creative well can never run dry, that anything,  anything a once creative performer or writer does is of interest, merit, commercial value - Bob Dylan's outtakes  or Douglas Adams' dreary later works, there will be someone there to market them, furthermore, there will be someone to turn a radio series into a book, a book into a film or in Dawkins' case an idea into an industry and so it is with the creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.  A greater man than Adams would have left it there, on the radio, where it belonged, where it shimmers and dazzles and entrances, prompting tears of mirth, gasps of admiration. No such luck, no such judgement. Hitchhiker was degraded in most possible media and at the time of his death, Adams was in negotiation with Warners or Disney or some such megacorp for further "developments."

Dawkins' self-serving bumfluffery - does he do any other sort? - in the Radio Times, though, is amazing and highly recommended. Do go and read it, down the library, if Mr Pickles the Pig has left yours open.  They were friends, you see, Adams almost as clever as Dawkins, in fact,  although - and this is simply too wonderful - Dawkins modestly credits himself with having "converted" Adams to atheism, coverted to unbelief;  I always said Dawkins was only offering a different version of what he claims to hate,  the negative image of Islamo- or Christian/Judaeo-fascism.

Adams, according to the Dawk, more into comedy-science than proper science,  would contact Dawkins,  pursuing scientific versimillitude, whilst Dawkins would defer to Adams on computer nerding, at which he was  just a genius.  Dawkins was, in fact, according to his as-told-to, was the uncredited scientific adviser to Adams' entire ouevre, everything apart from the good stuff.  Adams and the revolting  Steven Fag introduced Dawkins to his wife - do career atheists have wives, shouldn't they be partners-in-disbelief - and to the happy marriage which has so clearly led to Dawkins being a pisshead, check the tremors, check the capillaries, man, check the delusions, les folies de grandeur .  The aforementioned wife once even appeared in Doctor Who, how's that for greatness,  befitting the towering intellect of our time, that, a marriage of fucking luvvies. Adams, of course, dead as a galactic mackerel,  can neither confirm nor deny Dawkins' intimate camaraderie. Maybe they just met once, at a literary atheists'  luncheon, out Alpha Centauri way.

Surely time  for a Nobel prize
or the Big Brother House, at the very least

Aside from gushing to a note-taker over  the Dirk Gently novel - tedious, lacklustre and disappointing -  the Dawk  reveals nothing of the BBC production to which it is linked but one could reasonably surmise that it will be akin to the recent prurient,   sexed-up, gratuitously gay, postmodern re-working of Sherlock Holmes into a metrosexual fantasy, shite, in other words; sometimes, honestly, my dears,  one thinks the BBC is simply crawling with gay people. 

Adams, however, redeemed himself in the manner of his death, which was something he could, would  love to have have written. Une homme des lettres celebre, over celebre, actually and only among his Oxbridge peers; minted, having junked his first wife, married a US attorney and hot on the heels of Hollywood superstardom, the very picture of commercial success,  the silly genius expired while  "working-out" on  the consumer treadmill in  a Santa Barbera gym. And now he is spending Eternity dead for tax purposes, lovely.



THE FIRST TEN MILLION YEARS ARE THE WORST, 
THE NEXT TEN MILLION, THEY'RE THE WORST, TOO.
------------------------------------

Like others here, as a matter of literary achievement,   I prefer Asimov's Enclopaedia Galactica from which the Hitchhiker's Guide sprung, chortling;  Adams' radio series, though, is among the great comic creations of my lifetime, this one, anyhow.  Such a shame that it was all downhill from there; sometimes a man has to know his limitations.

Dawkins, however, celebrated for his science, has become a pain in the arse and God or no God, I would burn all his books to illuminate, for a few seconds, The Last Supper or Christ of Saint John of the Cross and  burn his bones to generate enough power to hear Mozart's Requiem, Handels' Messiah or Monteverdi's Vespers. Odd, how one who claims to know so much actually knows so little,  good, as my young friend would say, for fuck all

15 comments:

lilith said...

It turns out that Richard Dawkins is actually Hermione Granger

Verge said...

Ishmaelites not already familiar with the episode might enjoy rooting out the bit of South Park where Dawkins falls in love with the post-op Mr(s) Garrison ("pound my monkey vag" she coos on their first date.) Sadly, Cartman spitefully reveals that, Garrison's distant monkey past notwithstanding, (s)he was more recently plain Mr G, and Dawkins chucks his beloved in disgust.

as they say up north:
There aint no God
his name is Nowt
he casts no rod
to fish for doubt
his head is clear
his eyes are blank
he knows no fear
the doubts all sank.

Dick the Prick said...

Gadzooks Lils, that's uncanny.

Accidently caught myself listening to the 'faith debate' between Hitchens and Blair the other day and a complete waste of time it was too.

I dunno about Adams; hmm..genius not questioned at all but 'to cash in is human to not cash in divine?'

Dawkins on the other hand can go boil his head - it's just modern day communism, choose this idol instead of that one; geez, where would it all end? I prefer reverent worship of all things olive based but as yet no book deal. Wanker. At best 1st year 6th form but with presumably better appendices to demonstrate a career of catalogues.

call me ishmael said...

Not entirely a waste of time; at least it showed how peurile was Blair, when confronted by someone other than fawning Fleet Street hack-arseholes and Tory wannabees like the nasty joker, CallHimDave.

I watched it all on the You-thing and was struck by how those two addressed neither the Need for God, which afflicts both the wise and the unwise, nor the works in His or Her name, many of them transcendental, greater than God, sort of, divine in themselves - art, music, architecture and literature, not to mention law.

I mean, Pope Nazi and the noncing monsignors, the head-chopping, babe-whipping fag Ayatollahs and the stone-mad, bitter, punitive, angry Rabbis, one could consign them all to their versions of Hell, put them up against the wall but it wouldn't stifle the need for God, which is the proper debate, the proper study; the simpering bloodmonger, thief, blackmailer, money launderer, traitor, pimp, slag and whore, Blair, though, and the ailing yet insufferably showy Hitchens, what's the word for them, yes, that's it, cunts, both of them, Godless heathen bastards.

I don't know what the Munck organisation is, which hosted this nonsense, some faux academic Pseuds' Corner, obviously, fronted on this occasion by a grotesque, transatlantic Dale Winton but I am amazed that anyone takes it remotely seriously, Tony Blair on God, I ask you, taking the piss, that is, even for showbiz. Next week, Gordon Brown on arithmetic.

Dick the Prick said...

Of which - Snotty was on Jon Stewart's DaileeeShow last evening and the man's still fucked up. He was lecturing Yanks on how fucking stupid they were - not a bad policy in itself but even then he acted like a freak. He still thinks he runs the show - I can't remeber the exact point but there was a unreality check that he performed; a vignette into the slurry pit that exists between his ears. Fucking scary really.

I wouldn't mind seeing Hitchens & Blair over in Blighty - check out the deference here.

'To Mr Blair - why are you such a cunt?'

TB - 'well, thanks for that. You see whaddya gotta understand is this....blah blah blah'

call me ishmael said...

Aye, he is a freak. But Stewart's as big a turd as Snotty, isn't he, worthless, smirking git. And as for his studio audience, it's like a Max Bygraves Convention, LaffalongwithJon......

Hitchens is not long for this world, is he; wonder if he and the bro' will be reunited, although I couldn't care less, might be some column inches in it, though, deathbed rapprochement, these fuckers have no shame, anything for a few quid.

Dick the Prick said...

They did that a couple of years back for the column inches but I think they've got a similar thing to me & our Bob in that fuck it; yeah, related to the guy but let's not bang on about it type thing.

I think that's how Yanks like their entertainment though; used to watch Letterman and got much the same impression. However, was watching Frankie Boyle also - I like the lad a lot but sometimes jokes aren't meant to be laughed at and yet the audience do. Hmm..

Marcus Brigstock tried to copy the Daily Show over here a couple of years or more ago and utterly failed and that was only once a week - if ever a format could just be nicked and jazzed for local audiences then that's it but because of the unique way the BBC is funded etc they got an arrogant lefty cunt instead of someone, yer know, witty. Hey ho.

mongoose said...

Dawkins is alright but he has gone as mad as a hatter.

BTW I know that we do not do links but take a look on the iThingy at yesterday's BBC4's Beautiful Equations. Artist guy - completely lost - gets led through the glory of some of God's fundamentals. Want to know the maths of a black hole? Think that you can't handle that? Peasy. "S equals a quarter A." Done. Over. Mozart for nerds, Mr Ishmael. Explain that, Dawkins, my lad. It's almost enough to make us turn to Intelligent Design. Almost.

call me ishmael said...

My Avanti broadband speed won't permit me to watch it, mr m but if it was by Natthew Collings I am sure it was revalatory. He used to vie for prominence on the old Late Show with the then-unknown, screeching, transexual hunchback, Kirsty Wark and the other guy, the one who did the Baroque series, Waldemar Jabberwocky; there was another bint, too, Tracey Macleod, but I think she had a thing with Loudon Wainwright the turd and we all know the fate of maidens so beguiled; insane or dead or both. I will try to look at it in the library, tomorrrow, if Mr Pickles the Pig has not had it burnt down.

The older one gets, the more science one watches, the harder it becomes to refute Intelligent Design. That's what I find; hard or not, though, I manage.

Same goes for South Park clips, mr verge, can't watch them at these speeds. Never having seen it, I kind of would like to keep it that way - a bit like heroin, I know that if I tried it, I'd like it. Family Guy is enough adult cartoonery for this pilgrim; they all just get worse and worse, more show tunes and dance routines, that's what they need.

I will, however, look in wikipedia for an account of the Dawk in cartoon world, sounds quite charming.

call me ishmael said...

I have just watched Beautiful Equations on the Scottish BBC television, mr mongoose and I am afraid it went entirely over my head. At King Edwards I was once given two per cent in the algebra paper, for correctly putting my name at the top of the page.

mongoose said...

Hey, there were five equations. I recognised three - not the symbols, the science - and properly understood only two-and a-half. Which means two. (You understand it when you can explain it to someone else.) And I am a bleeding scientist. Of sorts. It's not the understanding. Don't try to understand it. Just accept that this is the way nature is. The Dirac stuff was complete gobbledogook, though it means that a positron will go the other way, and it did. The wonder of it, Mr Ishmael! You have now seen the track of an antimatter particle with your very own eyes.

The best bit was at the end all the scientists trying to make order out of the man's abstract paintings. We must have order, we geeks. It's why we line up our pencils like that on the desktop.

call me ishmael said...

No,like Herr Dawkins, it's not for me, that stuff. Further down the evolutionary ladder, scientists, all that fucking measuring. Anal, that's what it is.

mongoose said...

Nonsense, Mr Ishmael. Join not the savages. It is not measuring; it is the music of the spheres. A man who has ever joined even two bits of wood together knows this harmony.

call me ishmael said...

But it is measuring, isn't it? And isn't it one of the bases of quantum physics that in observing stuff, measuring it, we alter it?

I don't mind people doing science, y'understand, mr m, it's their trying to make it interesting which irks, it's only interesting to them. When they can tell me a) Why is there anything and b) which way, in an infinite universe, is up, then I'll pay them the attention they will then deserve.

mongoose said...

Nobody understands quantum physics, Mr I, even quantum physicists know that they don't.

And I been down so long it looks like up to me. Relativity at work.