Charlie Brooker for PM

If being full to the brim with common sense and wit were an olympic event then Mr. Charlie Brooker would be the Steve Redgrave of the 'sport'. His columns for the Guardian are legendary for their dry, veracious wit and uncompromising honesty about his subject matter.

Here is a great example of why Charlie Brooker is my favourite 'bitch slapper' in the media today. Sorry Dr. Kermode, you come a close second.


Charlie Brookers Screen Burn | The World Cup


I wish I enjoyed the World Cup, if only for some fleeting sense of common unity with the rest of humankind. But I simply don't get it. A huge number of my fellow citizens tune in and witness a glorious contest of ecstatic highs and heartbreaking lows. I see 22 millionaires ruining a lawn.

If the fans want to enjoy their sport, fair enough. Judging by their rapt faces, I'm the one losing out. What puts me off isn't the game itself, but the accompanying patriotism; or, more specifically, the hollow simulation of patriotism used to hawk products throughout the contest.

Take the current Carlsberg campaign featuring an insanely jingoistic dressing room "pep talk" which blathers on and mindlessly on about national pride. "Know this," the voiceover whispers portentously, "that shirt you're wearing? Your countrymen would give anything to put it on." Really, Carlsberg? I wouldn't put down a sandwich to lift the World Cup, let alone pull a sweat-sodden sports jersey over my head. And would even the most committed fans really do "anything" to wear it? Would they saw their own feet off with a bread knife dipped in cat piss? No. They wouldn't. So stop lying.

Having grossly overestimated the cachet of said hallowed shirt, the ad treats us to a cameo from virtually every notable English sporting hero of the past 50 years, pausing briefly for a patronising moment of silence for Sir Bobby Robson, before depicting an ethereal Bobby Moore, bathed in heavenly light at the top of the tunnel, standing proudly beside a lion. The whole thing plays like a masturbatory dream sequence for Al Murray's Pub Landlord character, the punchline being that the whole thing is a sales pitch for a Danish brewing company. The tagline should be: "Carlsberg: as English as Æbleskiver".

The American confectionery company Mars is also keen to pat our patriotic behinds. It's paid John Barnes to jokily recreate his notoriously poor rap from the 1990 New Order single World In Motion. And – ha, ha! – it's hopeless. But if you're not familiar with the original, it just looks as though we, the English, have absymal taste in music. Tourists watching this advert in their hotel rooms will spread tales of our cultural ineptitude on their return home. Thanks for that, Mars. Incidentally, Barnes's lyric has been altered, so he's now rapping about "three lions on a Mars", which rather implies that the sacred England shirt that Carling was getting religiously excited about is, in practice, interchangeable with a calorific chocolate-and-nougat slab.

Japanese technology giant Sony is also capitalising on the World Cup. It's got an advert starring Brazilian star Kaka which aims to convince viewers to trade in their old TV sets for shiny new 3D ones. It's an exciting prospect, only slightly undermined by the fact that the World Cup is being transmitted in the UK by the BBC and ITV, neither of whom will be broadcasting any of the matches in 3D. In fact, if you want to watch the World Cup in three dimensions, you'll have to go to the cinema, where Sony plans to show it, in 3D, on around 50 screens. That'll mean leaving your brand-new 3D telly at home, of course. But never mind. You can watch Avatar when you come back. In 2D. Because the 3D version won't be out until months after the World Cup. So you might as well not bother getting a 3D TV till then. And come to think of it, it's probably best not to bother anyway, because Avatar is rubbish. (I couldn't stand that tribe of pious, humourless, surly blue luddites. Fuck their stupid tree. I was cheering on the bulldozers).

There are other adverts of course: Coca-Cola, Nike, Pepsi-Cola, BP, Blackwater Security, The Tyrell Corporation, Damien Thorn Enterprises and so on. All hitting the same phoney note of concord, all somehow cheapening the fun that millions will extract from the tournament itself. Not me, though. I'll be out of the country for the whole thing. When I think of all the adverts I'll miss, I'll try not to sob too loudly.

Courtesy of www.Guardian.co.uk