Counting the pixels in Bear Grylls’ eyeball

I recently returned from my honeymoon in Australia. How was it? Absolutely wonderful, thanks for asking. In fact, it was so wonderful that my wife and I were overcome with snotty weepiness prior to take-off from Brisbane Airport, when Qantas cruelly filled our personal TV screens with sweeping images of vast, red-tinged Aussie landscape, accompanied by a song that was so sad it was like injecting the final scenes of Pans Labyrinth directly into my heart.

I feared our flight had been commandeered by a team of X-Factor producers determined to yank at our heartstrings, and that the opening announcement from the flight deck would probably feature Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ playing in the background. The captain would then tearfully reveal that he was flying us back to Blighty to make his leukaemia-stricken cat proud, before pumping a looped soundtrack of anthemic Snow Patrol tracks into the cabin for 21 gruelling hours.

Thankfully, none of that actually happened (apart from the crying bit), it was just a way of bulking out the intro to this blog post. And the honeymoon was great. The only downside was other people. Dribbling idiots, all of them (well, some of them).

When I think about the perfect holiday set-up my mind instantly darts to the opening scenes of 28 Days Later, with Cillian Murphy wandering around a deserted London. Provided you did all your sightseeing before nightfall – to avoid being overwhelmed by excessively violent ‘Rage’ zombies, while posing for a photo at a key tourist attraction – it would be absolute bliss to wander around a holiday location without the presence of other tourists. Sure, the gut-wrenching smell of bins and lack of public transport would eventually take its toll on the holiday spirit, but those first few days without other people would be great.

Because when I’m surrounded by other people on holiday I can often lose hours of my life obsessing over their rudeness and baffling inconsiderateness. I also end up with a roll-call of identifying nicknames for the most annoying people I encounter, which often sound like members of a crap street gang. Subsequently, my wonderful honeymoon was frequently punctuated with grumbles about ‘Pink Shirt’, ‘Fat Samoan’ and ‘The Inquisitive Brothers’ – to name but a few.

Planes are particularly challenging, claustrophobic environments in which to sit shoulder to shoulder with fellow humans. For instance, there are those passengers who fully recline their seats roughly 20 seconds into the flight, which leaves your headrest TV screen so close to your face you can count the number of screen pixels in Bear Grylls’ eyeball (assuming you’re watching Born Survivor, like I was). I dare say these inconsiderate arseholes would also happily vomit on my Kindle’s screen and wipe their bum on my bread roll, anything to make my flight just that little bit more uncomfortable.

On a flight we took from Perth to Sydney I was driven to distraction by an overweight father of two toddlers, who wandered around the plane constantly – barefoot – like it was his own living room. He spent almost the entire flight doing circuits of the cabin in pursuit of one of his daughters, which was impossible to ignore on account of the fact that Boots Randolph’s ‘Yakety Sax’ rattled through my brain every time he and his daughter whizzed by my seat for the umpteenth time. I then spent the next few hours of the flight fantasising about garrotting him with the cord of my complimentary headphones, or fashioning a shank from the foil tray of my inflight meal; something strong enough to puncture his Hawaiian shirt and the outer wall of protective blubber in which he was encased. However, on the upside, my murderous imaginings actually made the flight pass quite quickly.

It’s also worth mentioning that the sound I associate most with the collapse of civilisation is the chorus of clinks at the end of a flight, when everyone unfastens their seatbelt before the seatbelt sign has been fully extinguished. (Let me repeat that: before the seatbelt sign has been extinguished.) Hell, why don’t we all just charge off the plane, smear shit along the walls of the jetway as we go, pillage each other’s luggage, and rut like stags in the arrivals lounge? Let’s revel in the total breakdown of order!

Unbelievably, I even found someone annoying whilst snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef. Someone actuallyannoyed me in the middle of the Coral Sea – at a breathtaking World Heritage Site. As I marvelled at the explosion of colourful marine life darting around beneath me, with a vacant expression of total awe – like a man wearing a snorkel mask dipped in paint thinner waiting for the Clown Fish to perform a routine with a bucket of confetti – the bellowing voice of a Russian constantly pierced the calm.  I actually thought I was pretty clever shouting “shut the fuck up!” into my snorkel – until my ears broke the surface of the water and I heard my voice carrying across the waves, sounding like a Borrower hurling abuse from the bottom of bottle.

Thankfully, the Russian didn’t drown me or offer me a polonium-210-coated digestive on the boat journey home, and he eventually piped down and allowed us all to swim around without the commentary.

It should have been hard for me to find anything remotely annoying about the people at Byron Bay, as it’s sort of a mecca for inoffensive types, such as surfers, beach bums and hippies – but I still managed a tiny grumble (even though a bearded old hippie said my wife and I were an “attractive couple” and described me as a “strong man” for carrying a heavy rucksack. He was stoned, obviously, but that’s no reason to doubt his opinion). Basically, everyone in Byron Bay seemed to walk around with their bum out, looking lithe, sexy, bronzed, young and cool, while the surfers darted in and out of the tumbling surf as if they were running a giant thread through the waves in a bold attempt to sew up the ocean. The place has a ridiculously high rate of general attractiveness and effortless cool.

It wasn’t that I found the people themselves annoying, I think I was just annoyed at how old they made me feel. The average male surfer and beach dweller tended to walk around with their shorts sitting just below their Apollo’s belt, while I wandered up and down the beach with my Apollo’s bum bag concealed beneath a t-shirt and some sensibly hoisted cargo shorts. They were young and free, with their lives still ahead of them. Conversely, I could barely remember my youth and freedom, which means that I probably didn’t even know what to do with it when I had it. And now it was gone. I wasted it. That wasn’t the fault of those who’d flocked to Byron Bay, of course, I was just envious of them. It was annoying to think about.

Anyway, I thought I’d better wrap up this blog post by saying something positive, which is that the customer service we received in Australia was possibly the best I’ve ever experienced anywhere, and the vast majority of people we encountered on our travels were beyond fantastic. There was even a guy on one of our flights who retrieved everyone’s hand luggage from the baggage compartment and passed the bags to those who couldn’t reach. Whoever you are, sir, you briefly restored my faith in humanity. Still, me being me, I probably spent more time grumbling about the irritating and inconsiderate few that we came across, which my long-suffering wife will wearily testify to. I honestly don’t know why I do that? I guess I’m just annoying.

Apropos of nothing

It’s official: thanks to television, the word “reality” has now lost all meaning. The evidence is all around us. For instance, Gavin Henson was recently described as a “rugby player-turned reality star”, which was a reference to his role in Five’s “romantic reality series” The Bachelor.

If you conveniently missed the series a few months ago, the basic premise was this: Gavin Henson is a successful and dashingly handsome man (if a perma-tanned version of Guy Smiley from Sesame Street gives you the horn) but there’s something missing from his life – the love of a good woman. Thankfully, Channel Five rushed to his aid, turned his light-sensitive eyes away from the abyss he was staring into, packed him off to a swanky villa on the Côte d’Azur and delivered 25 single women to his doorstep, who proceeded to battle (not in the conventional sense, unfortunately) for his affections.

I think we can all relate to that dating set-up, can’t we?

“I’ve got to leave my ego at the door and wear my heart on my sleeve,” said a contemplative Gavin in the opening episode. Although, coming from a man who’d turn up for work at an undertakers with his shirt off, I doubt he’s got even a metaphorical sleeve on which to pin his heart. But in Channel 5′s version of ‘reality’ it didn’t really matter where he pinned it. He could’ve dangled it from one of his rock hard nipples, like a bloody, pumping Christmas bauble, and I doubt any of the women would have cared. They seemed to be unquenchably hot for him regardless.

The Bachelor actually reminded me of a fantasy I used to have when I was about 14 whereby if I passed an attractive woman on the street I could simply touch her on the shoulder and she would immediately make her way to a waiting coach (filled with numerous other women I’d acquired throughout the day). The destination of the coach would be some kind of palace, and all the women who ended up there would have sex with me whenever I asked.

Two things now strike me about this: (1) Even in my wildest sexual fantasies I was only prepared to lay on budget coach travel, and (2) herding women onto a coach and transporting them to a palatial compound for sex is how I imagine ruthless despots and sex traffickers meet women.

Anyway, I digress. The fact is: reality television isn’t real. It doesn’t even have a vague whiff of reality about it, so why are so many shows branded with the ‘reality’ tag?

Kerry Katona once starred in an ITV ‘reality’ series called My Fair Kerry, which was described at the time as a “Faking It style programme in which she goes to Vienna and tries to pass herself off as a member of the English aristocracy”. Unless Iceland was training her to become some kind of undercover operative who could infiltrate ambassadorial functions and replace Ferrero Rocher pyramids with platters of partially defrosted prawn rings, the ‘reality’ aspect of the series was a complete mystery.

If you want cold, hard reality, here’s a glimpse into my world…

I once blocked my toilet with a Glade Touch ‘n Fresh dispenser and had to poke around the U-bend with a straightened coat hanger to try and dislodge it, like an enthusiastic punter playing a dirty fairground game. Then, after mistakenly believing that I’d cleared the blockage, I decided – unwisely, as it turned out – to do a much-needed poo. Initial relief was then swiftly followed by a panicked call to Dyno-Rod and the immediate activation of ‘Operation Dustpan’ to remove the offending log from the swollen waters of my toilet before the plumber arrived.

“Just imagine you’re panning for gold,” my brain kindly suggested, in an effort to transpose the grim reality with a hastily cobbled together fantasy. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the effort my brain was making, but unless I imagined myself as a prospector who only ever turned up giant lumps of shit instead of gold it was incredibly difficult to get into character. Thankfully, however, I eventually managed to resolve the unpleasant situation to everyone’s satisfaction (perhaps with the exception of my local binmen).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this particular situation would make for a ratings-winner of a reality television series (although, ITV2 may now get in touch with some suggestions as to how I might tweak the format) but at least it was a real situation. And if there genuinely was a reality TV choice between watching Kerry Katona being filmed in a variety of banal situations, or watching someone scooping turds out of a toilet basin, I know exactly which one I’d series-link on Sky Plus.

Unfortunately, ‘structured/scripted/semi-reality’ TV is now all the rage, with shows such as The Only Way Is Essex and Made In Chelsea inflicting a host of vacuous idiots on the world, who’ve swiftly been elevated to the status of minor deities by the readers of Heat, Reveal, Now and Tedious Cockends Weekly magazines. And all those vacuous idiots had to do was allow their ‘real’ lives to be filmed. Well, the filming usually takes place after the production team has decided on the locations for each scene, and after a ‘story producer’ has informed the various cast members of the conversations he’d like them to engage in – but after all that’s over with, it’s about 80% real (according to TOWIE cast member Mario Falcone).

Only a few months ago, however, it was reported that Jack Tweed was rumoured to be set for a role in The Only Way Is Essex, but the show’s producers apparently vetoed the idea because they considered him “too famous“. I think that’s all the proof we need that TOWIE is about as far from reality as it’s possible to be.

Desperate Scousewives is the latest “reality drama” to hit our screens, which will follow “the next generation of Liverpudlians…real guys and girls determined to make a name for themselves, work hard and achieve a dream no matter how big or small”.

Thankfully, I left the country shortly before this series began so I haven’t had a chance to watch these “real guys and girls” in action. However, I did manage to have a quick look at some of the cast members on the show’s official website. Basically, if you can imagine what a Westworld-style amusement park might look like if it was created by Nuts magazine, you can probably visualise the female cast without having to watch the show at all. In fact, their perky, enhanced breasts look like they could swing open on hinges, revealing a nest of wires and circuitry (or perhaps a simple storage compartment for false nails and make-up). You might even be able to pop some bread into their vaginas and have perfect toast in just under a minute. They’re certainly impressive multi-purpose androids. So lifelike. But not real. Is reality really so fake?

The sad reality of Desperate Scousewives is that the show’s producers could have scoured Liverpool’s diverse population of over 445,200 people for an interesting cast of real people, but instead they lazily opted to feature yet more fodder for the celebrity magazine circuit, playing opposite male counterparts who look they’ve fallen out of the Grattan catalogue. The result is a glossy televisual construct of meaningless bullshit. It’s entertainment for some, but it’s not real.

So can we kill off reality TV? Or at least eradicate any mention of the word ‘reality’ from any series based on a faintly preposterous premise. And can we all please avoid uttering the word when referring to the artificial worlds of Essex, Chelsea, Newcastle and Liverpool. Oh, and I’d also like to propose that we phase out the term ‘reality star’. Because let’s face it, if these idiots are the leading lights of our reality – where the fuck does that leave us?

Kettling Daniel O’Donnell fans

It was recently reported that Apple might be planning to develop software that could prevent iPhone users from filming gigs and live events on their smartphones. According to patent plans filed by the company in late 2009, infrared sensors close to the stage at gig venues could disable the iPhone’s record function, or in some cases, apply a watermark to the captured photos and video. (So presumably your grainy gig footage would be obscured behind a matrix of tiny Apple logos – or Steve Jobs’ laughing face.)

In fairness, I guess infrared technology is the easiest way to prevent gig-goers from capturing concert footage on their phones. Imagine the terrible publicity if Apple physically policed all live venues, with reports of iPhone-wielding Daniel O’Donnell fans being kettled and beaten by ‘anti-capture squads’ during the crooner’s performance of Tipperary Girl. It’d be a PR nightmare.

According to The Sun, “the new technology is seen as an attempt to protect the interests of event organisers and broadcasters who have exclusive rights to concerts. The companies are often left frustrated when videos of shows appear online via websites such as YouTube which let users watch them for free.”

Really?

I find it genuinely hard to believe that broadcasters waste any time worrying about how their multi-million pound event coverage will fare against a few minutes of live performance footage captured on a gig-goers’ smartphone, which usually looks like someone’s tried to film the John Lewis ‘home lighting’ department through the bottom of a sick-filled vase (with audio quality worthy of the iPhonautograph).

We’re not talking about stunning, high quality concert footage here; it’s just ordinary people recording live experiences for posterity (using the video-enabled phones they were slickly encouraged to purchase or upgrade to). And given that such footage is often spread around via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it’s the fans themselves – armed with their blurry snippets of video – who play a crucial role in promoting and supporting up-and-coming bands and small gig venues. Why kill that?

Typically, it’s been speculated that this technological concept may strengthen Apple’s hand when it comes to negotiating with record labels to sell content through its iTunes store. So with mountains of money potentially at stake, I fully expect to see this technology rolled out in the very near future. Perhaps around the same time that Apple strikes a deal to sell us our own emotions, so that we’ll be unable to complain about the restrictions placed on our iPhones’ record function until we’ve downloaded ‘anger’ from the App Store for £5.99 and installed it in our brains.

If Apple wants to make our iPhones work against us, they should at least invent features and gadgets that have the potential to enhance some of our lives.

For instance, through the use of motion sensors, GPS and audio monitoring equipment, there could be an iPhone function that incapacitates aggressive drivers. Imagine stopping at some traffic lights and looking in your rear-view mirror at the Audi driver behind you (looking like Agent Smith from The Matrix, like they all tend to do) who’s been dangerously tailgating you for miles. As his impatience reaches an abusive crescendo, wouldn’t it be an absolute delight to see the agonised expression on his face at the precise moment a metallic barb (embossed with the Apple logo) shoots from his iPhone, rips through the lining of his trouser pocket, and embeds itself deep in his scrotum.

“Thank you, Apple!” I would shout gratefully. (Only later would I rue the fact that the Audi driver’s phone hadn’t been kept in a breast pocket, close to his heart.)

Or what about an iPhone function that uses facial recognition software to scan for high concentrations of ‘celebrity’ nonentities in the VIP lounges of some of London’s premier nightspots. When the iPhone establishes that there’s a significant gathering of talentless cockends in one location, it could trigger a limited release of nerve gas, while simultaneously establishing a FaceTime connection with the editorial desk of Heat magazine. Screengrabbed images of Kerry Katona and the cast of The Only Way is Essex - convulsing and drooling heavily into their champagne flutes – could then fill approximately ten pages of the next issue (and all for free!).

You see? There’s so much more Apple could do with the iPhone instead of cracking down on millions of music fans worldwide.

But there is an upside to this technology, apparently. Because the same infrared jiggery-pokery that would prevent you capturing concert footage on your iPhone could also be used to enhance your experience of places like museums and art galleries. In a museum, for example, a transmitter could be located adjacent to an exhibit which would turn your iPhone into an ‘Auto Tour Guide’. Wandering around the museum – intermittently raising your iPhone to each exhibit, like a modern day salute to the past – it would then helpfully provide you with further information about the artefacts on display.

Of course, it’s to be hoped that this infrared iPhone technology doesn’t make it out onto the streets and ultimately become a mishmash of the two intended functions. What if you pulled out your iPhone to film some police brutality during a mass demonstration, only for the record function to disable at the crucial moment? Or even worse: as you shakily raise your iPhone towards the snarling officer looming over you, it randomly switches to ‘Auto Tour Guide’ mode and begins to furnish you with extensive information (including a bonus audio commentary) about the ASP 16-inch telescopic baton that’s just fractured your skull.

Still, that kind of nightmare is a long way in the future (and it’s largely stuff I’ve just made up anyway). And like James Holland, editor of technology site electricpig.co.uk, says: “A patent is just an expression of an idea, and no guarantee Apple’s actually building it into the iPhone.”

Very true. But that said, I think Apple should just stick to creating the phones – we’ll decide how to use them.

Yippee-ki-yay, Mrs Dorries

The front page of yesterday’s Daily Mail ran with the forthcoming ‘Let Children Be Children’ report, an independent review commissioned by David Cameron into the sexual commercialisation of children, due to be released tomorrow. In its finest crusading voice, the Mail wrote:

“David Cameron will endorse the proposals of Reg Bailey [the chief executive of the Christian charity Mothers' Union] who found parents are deeply concerned that sexual imagery in television, advertising and pop videos is making children grow up too fast.

Ministers will make clear that they expect changes and the Government is prepared to intervene directly unless the conveyor-belt of smut is toned down.”

When I think about a “conveyor belt of smut” I imagine something on the scale of Barclaycard’s giant waterslide snaking through the streets of London, with a load of wobbling tits, sexually explicit song lyrics and gay kiss storylines from soaps juddering past people’s office windows. Although, I’d wager that it runs directly through the offices of the Daily Mail’s web team.

Because once you finish reading the Mail Online’s report about the smut that our children are exposed to – on television, the internet, and in the high street – you can then read about how lucky Gary Lineker is, spending the day on a sun-kissed Miami beach with his 31-year-old “model turned actress” wife Danielle. Go on, why not scroll through umpteen photos of her “sizzling body” in a black string bikini. Phwoarrr!

Still not tired of bikinis? Well, you can always click on the Mail Online’s other story about Danielle Lineker, in which you get to see photos of her wearing an open shirt over a different bikini. Or you can drool over shot…after shot…after shot…after shot…of the girls from The Only Way is Essex wearing…er..bikinis. Or maybe you’d just rather settle for Cameron Diaz in a “nude swimsuit”. Your choice.

OK, what about some science and technology news instead? Did you hear about the iKini? Apparently, you can charge your iPod with it and…oh, wait, the article features a blonde model wearing a solar-panelled bikini. Sorry.

Perhaps you’d prefer an article about Imogen Thomas “showing off her figure in a tight red summer dress alongside tan strappy heels” as she embarks on a much-needed clear-out of her wardrobe. The lead photo is a gratuitous shot of her cleavage as she hoicks a bag of clothes into a charity shop, which practically places you in between them and muffles your internal reading voice. Go on, you know you want to!

And let’s face it, she’s a remarkable role model for young girls. With the lucrative commercial opportunities and kiss and tell deals off the back of the Ryan Giggs affair, not to mention the nude modelling for Nuts and Zoo magazines (the kind of lads’ mags that David Cameron, Nadine Dorries and the Daily Mail want to see encased in a modesty cover and banished to the top shelf), she’s a modern day success story. Look, kids, she drives a Mercedes SLK and can afford to give away bin bags full of designer labels! Look how easy, yet aspirational, it all is!

But if none of that floats your boat, there’s always the Mail Online’s favourite sex tape and reality star, Kim Kardashian. If she callously suffocated a load of chicks and tossed their lifeless bodies into the slobbering jaws of an irritable Doberman, the Mail would probably report on how the chicks’ fluffy yellow feathers complimented her amazing shoes and low-cut, figure-hugging dress. They cover her every fucking move. The Kardashians simply must have some dirt on Paul Dacre.

For a newspaper with a free-to-access website, full of questionable ‘celebrity’ role models and cheap titillation posing as news, it’s laughable that the Daily Mail should report on the Bailey Review as if it’s the moral guardian of the world.

Even the Mail Online’s report into Reg Bailey’s review was crammed full of photos from Christina Aguilera’s “raunchy” X-Factor performance from last December, including a screengrab of the precise moment a backing dancer spread her stockinged legs during the dance routine.

Mary Whitehouse once said: “Last Thursday evening, we sat as a family and watched a programme that started at 6.35pm. And it was the dirtiest programme I have seen for a very long time.” I imagine several Daily Mail journalists reluctantly endured the same level of filth while searching for the sexiest looking screengrab they could find from December’s X-Factor. Poor souls.

Also talking about the Bailey Review yesterday was Tory MP Nadine Dorries. She took to the airwaves to speak to a slightly bemused-sounding John Humphries on Radio 4′s Today programme, where she once again dribbled a load of vague, outdated statistics about pre-watershed sexual references on TV. The exchange went as follows:

Dorries: “In terms of the watershed, at 9pm, there are 1.8 references to sexual intercourse before the watershed in the evening. Many more sexual innuendo and other references…”

Humphries: *interrupting* “Sorry? 1.8…say that again. There are 1.8…”

Dorries: “There’s recently been a recording of sexual innuendo, references to sexual intercourse…and there’s a whole list of comments made before the watershed. 1.4 references to sexual intercourse before the watershed at 9pm.”

You can listen to the full interview here, but Dorries’ comments are typically confused. Firstly, she quotes two different figures relating to pre-watershed references to sexual intercourse on TV, which strongly hints that she doesn’t have the first clue what she’s talking about (it’s also a different figure to the one she cited in Parliament in May). And secondly, the figures she regurgitated (“recently” recorded, apparently) had already been whisked off to a lab and carbon-dated to the early 1990s, where they’ve apparently been doing the rounds on American Christian websites for years.

You’ve almost got to give Nadine Dorries some credit. Securing yourself a slot on Radio 4′s flagship news programme to confidently spout woefully inaccurate twaddle is impressive. Disturbing, but impressive.

Referring to the prime-time filth on our screens, Dorries also claimed that “young boys want their young girlfriends to behave like the women they watch on X-Factor,” which perhaps insults young people’s intelligence slightly.

When I was a kid, I once found two books in my mum and dad’s bookshelf which made my eyes widen with delight: one was Ronnie Barker’s Gentleman’s Relish, which was a collection of Victorian nude photographs and saucy postcards, and the other was a cocktail recipe book called Rude Cocktails, featuring nude photography by David Thorpe.

If dislodging those books had caused my parents’ bookshelf to suddenly revolve, transporting me into a magical, Narnia-like world, I still probably would’ve just sat there studying every nude picture intently, while rudely ignoring the attentions of a charming woodland satyr.

Based on Nadine Dorries’ assumption that young people are impressionable to the point of having wildly inaccurate expectations of the opposite sex, I probably should have grown up believing that foreplay would come with a free champagne cocktail. Or maybe I should have expressed confusion when my first sexual experience wasn’t preceded by my girlfriend posing against a scenic backdrop, holding a parasol.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that kids should be kids. I don’t want to see little girls dressed up as if they’re starring in a school production of Band of Gold, and I obviously don’t want young kids surfing the internet for hardcore porn. But some of the anticipated recommendations in the Bailey Review range from the painfully obvious to the worryingly meddlesome.

The Advertising Standards Authority should discourage the placement of billboards with sexualised imagery near schools and nurseries or other areas where children are likely to view it. Also, no bear traps should be laid in school playgrounds. And children should not, under any circumstances, be issued with crossbows during assembly.

Lads’ mags should be moved to the top shelf or sold in covers. Fair enough. No children should have to see Danny Dyer’s smirking face superimposed over the nipples of a curvaceous blonde. If you’re moronic enough to buy such mags, you’re probably tall enough to reach them.

A single website to be created, to act as “an interface between parents and the variety of regulators across the media, communications and retail industries”. What’s this website going to be called? Mumsnet Extreme? Will the media, communications and retail industries be able to keep up with the sheer volume of complaints they’ll receive from all the parents they’ll most certainly be offending in various ways across our vast culture? And how will that work exactly? Is there going to be a Blue Peter totaliser that will set off a vibrating alarm in David Cameron’s trousers when a complaint receives a certain level of support? “We’re only 80 complaints away from having Bill Turnbull arrested for saying ‘boob’ on BBC Breakfast this morning. Here’s how you can get in touch, parents!”

A clampdown on sexualised and violent images shown before TV’s 9pm watershed. This is another no-brainer. But here’s the thing: if pre-watershed TV is sanitised to create acceptable, clean family viewing, then post-watershed TV should cater for an adult audience and be strictly off-limits to anyone complaining about the effect it’s having on their children (who shouldn’t be watching anyway).

I distinctly remember watching Die Hard 2 at gone midnight once, when “frickin’” was still being dubbed over every use of the F-word and John McClane’s famous “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” line was changed to “Yippee-ki-yay, kemosabe”. (Although, the American dubbed-for-TV version changed the line to: “Yippee-ki-yay, Mr Falcon,” so maybe we got off lightly.)

Of course, with the advent of Sky+ and internet television the watershed is somewhat irrelevant these days anyway. People can watch whatever they want at whatever time of day they choose. Prime-time TV can be toned down and sanitised to a point where the only programme available is a cartoon of Alan Titchmarsh playing Hungry Hungry Hippos with a kitten, but there will always be content that’s naturally inappropriate for children of a certain age.

As such, regardless of the government’s various reviews and recommendations, parents are always going to be the first and best line of defence in terms of what their kids are exposed to.

With the Bailey Review condemning what it describes as the “sexualised images used in public spaces and on television, the internet, music videos, magazines and newspapers,” it’s called for public space to become more family friendly, thus changing “the wallpaper of children’s lives”.

Let’s just hope that Nadine Dorries and the Daily Mail aren’t decorating.

[UPDATE: Only a few days after I published this post, the Mail Online ran a photo-heavy article about two girls from Channel 4's Made in Chelsea series, which showed them cleaning cars and bouncing on Space Hoppers....in bikinis. It surely won't be long until Loaded or FHM magazine comes as a free supplement with the Mail.]

Digital Soul

“If you blur your eyes, this looks a bit like Chris de Burgh being bummed in a sex swing by a giant rabbit,” enunciates Brian Sewell, as he suddenly loses his mind during a Dali retrospective on The Culture Show.

As much as that hilariously vulgar display would cheer me up no end after a long day at work, unfortunately I made that opening paragraph up. Well, sort of. Those words were actually taken from a tweet I once wrote about a photo I’d seen on a fancy dress costume website. It popped into my mind after reading an article about digital legacies, which made me think about all the useless toss I’ve posted online over the years. What will become of it all when I’m gone? Will it form the basis of people’s memories of me?

Only a few years ago, it was considered quite unorthodox for bereaved people to create special memorial websites to celebrate the lives of people they had sadly lost. But the internet was clearly the perfect platform for such things. Friends and relatives could pore over hundreds of old photographs and snippets of video, stick everything into a timeline, have it all gently dissolve into each other over a soundtrack of the deceased’s favourite music (a bit like a remembrance version of ITV’s Nightscreen), and upload it for all to see. A million times better than a fleeting obituary – it was a permanent online presence.

These days, of course, formal memorial websites and tribute pages are commonplace online. But those thoughtful, emotive creations of the bereaved now exist alongside the digital legacies we’re creating for ourselves every single day.

We constantly update our Twitter timelines with thoughts, observations, rants, jokes, banter, and details of our darkest moments and happiest hours. And what we’re unable to squeeze into 140-characters (without reverting entirely to text speak, which creates the impression we’re valiantly tweeting through a stroke) we write on our blogs.

Facebook has recorded our farming skills, our ability to pointlessly recite song lyrics, and our insatiable appetite for quizzes (“your inner dictator is: Nicolae Ceaușescu!”). While our Flickr and Twitpic accounts are vast digital picture books containing all the images we deem to be beautiful, interesting, hilarious, controversial and thought-provoking.

The internet is like an unfathomably huge toilet, with thousands of polystyrene foam packing peanuts dancing in the surf of every flush. That unflushable debris is our digital legacy – or what Hans-Peter Brondmo, head of social software and services at Nokia in San Francisco, calls our “digital soul”. And according to Sumit Paul-Choudhury, writing in New Scientist magazine recently, cheap storage and easy copying means our digital souls have the potential to be immortal.

According to Paul-Choudhury: “The memories we are leaving behind now, in all their riotous glory – drunken tweets, ranting tweets, bad-hair-day pictures and much more – may become a unique trove to be studied by historians for centuries to come. In fact, today’s web may offer the most truthful and comprehensive snapshot of the human race that will ever exist.”

Really? That’s a disturbing thought.

If I was to unexpectedly skid off this mortal coil tomorrow, in a spectacular car-shaped fireball, the thought of my various contributions to the internet knocking around for evermore makes me feel a little uneasy. That’s why there’s a war on for our [digital] souls. In the blue corner: the ‘preservationists’ (who believe we owe it to our descendants to preserve our digital legacies). In the red corner: the ‘deletionists’ (who think it’s vital the internet learns how to forget).

I don’t know which side I’m falling on. Deletionists, maybe?

My Facebook profile alone is full of unflattering photos and self-deprecating crap, most of which I’m guilty of uploading myself. For some reason, I once posted a photofit image of myself as a profile photo which I’d created with a free online generator (and misguidedly thought was a good likeness). So when I think about my digital legacy, I envision my descendants adding the sole remaining image of me to a holographic family tree, which resembles Corey Feldman wearing a witness protection disguise.

[Although, rather that image than the one where I look like a disgruntled Swedish pornstar who's just been handed some Cillit Bang and told to wipe down the set of Shit Guzzlers 4.]

But it’s not just the dim, distant future that we need to think about. I sometimes wonder which web-based photo of me a local newspaper or news station would use if I suddenly met with a particularly messy, but ultimately newsworthy, death.

I took a photo during a clifftop walk in Boscastle a few years ago, which I subsequently uploaded to Facebook. Wouldn’t it be hilarious, I thought, if I let my head hang over the edge of the cliff, pull a terrified expression (as though falling), then snap a photo of myself from above.

Of course, aside from the basic fact that my photo idea just wasn’t very funny, the key element of the composition – namely, the sheer drop beneath my head – wasn’t at all obvious. Consequently, it looked like I’d taken a photo of myself only moments before a block of frozen toilet waste from a passing aircraft impacted my skull. Or like I was documenting my slow, agonising death by steamroller.

It’s almost the perfect photo to run next to any story about my untimely death. But I’d rather my digital soul didn’t present any future picture editors with the opportunity.

The words we hammer out on our keyboards and hurl online can also create a powerful digital legacy. The Chris de Burgh tweet that opened this blog post clearly marks me out as a renaissance man (as does this), while various other tweets seem to confirm both my lack of optimism and general hatred of people (Exhibits A, B, C, D and E). Even my ‘jokey’ threats to bludgeon my noisy neighbours to death still sit on Facebook’s servers in its labyrinthine data centre. And as for the rubbish written on this blog, well, where do I begin? Would my descendants be proud?

[Occasionally, though, I've provided my Twitter followers with a tantalising glimpse into my unconscious mind.]

But of course, our digital legacies aren’t always in our own hands. Googling your own name usually throws up a plethora of Twitter-related websites, which aggregate every mention of the word “bum” or something, and before you know it you’re the number one “bum” Tweeter in your area; an unexpected accolade over which you seemingly have no control. The internet is vast. Maybe too vast to keep fully abreast of.

So maybe it’s time to pick a side. If you want to preserve something wonderful for your descendants, then you’d best get organising and assembling your digital legacy into something presentable. It’s the digital equivalent of wearing clean underwear in case you’re hit by a bus.

But if you’d simply rather hit delete, make sure you think it through first. A lot of our online memories – our photos, blog posts and tweets – are intertwined with social interactions that we might recall with great fondness. And once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Actually, maybe I won’t hit delete. Not just yet, anyway.

The one where I write something about Osama bin Laden

So, Osama Bin Laden is finally dead. I actually thought he’d been dead for about ten years, but I obviously haven’t been paying close enough attention. I have the same thing with Denis Norden; I’m never quite sure if he’s still with us or not. (He is, by the way. Alive. I’ve just checked his Wikipedia page.)

I was still awake just before 5am (BST) last Monday morning when news of Osama’s death was first breaking. Those celebrating Americans sure made our Royal Wedding street parties look mighty dull, didn’t they?

With no complex network of bunting and no rickety trestle tables snaking through the streets, buckling under the weight of scotch egg pyramids and platters of stale ham sandwiches, the American celebrations could easily have been a bit of a yawn fest. But they were nothing of the sort! Because even before Fox News could once again confuse the name of the world’s most notorious terrorist with their own president, thousands of ordinary Americans had gathered outside the White House, and at Ground Zero in New York, to celebrate Osama’s demise, bringing with them broad smiles, dancing shoes, and hearty lungs capable of at least sixty whoops per minute.

The crowds that gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue quickly surrounded themselves with a cacophonous wall of patriotism, with renditions of The Star-Spangled Banner and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, and also Queen’s We Will Rock You, which was perhaps a less obvious choice (unless everyone was singing the “you’ve got blood on your face, you big disgrace” bit while gleefully envisioning the moment Osama Bin Laden was shot in the face).

As car drivers slowed to a crawl and beeped their car horns in support, revellers climbed lampposts and trees, held aloft home-made placards, waved the Stars and Stripes enthusiastically (or wore it like a superhero’s cape), and provided camera crews with wild-eyed, exhilarated whooping, as if trapped in the memory of their greatest ever rollercoaster ride.

Typically, one of those camera crews belonged to Fox News, which cut live to a grinning Geraldo Rivera, who was deeply embedded in a crowd of excitable college students. “It’s wild out here!” said Geraldo (who looked like Lionel Blair playing the role of a waxed-moustached Victorian ringmaster), “It’s Mardi Gras, it’s New Year’s Eve!”. He then thrust his microphone at the students in the crowd to get some raw reaction to Osama’s death, which led to several minutes of television that should see al-Qaeda’s human resources department inundated with applications.

“It’s awesome! Finally, the guy’s dead!” shouted one girl, instantly gaining deafening approval from her whooping peers. Geraldo then reiterated what a “party atmosphere” it was outside the White House, before describing the raucous scenes of patriotism as “soothing” and “reaffirming”. The only person who said anything vaguely sensible was the girl who described the occasion as “surreal”. It was certainly more sensible than Geraldo’s laughable claim that the wild celebrations over Osama’s death was America’s “Cairo moment”.

The death or capture of Osama bin Laden was always going to be the breaking news most likely send Americans into frenzied rapture, but the scenes outside the White House felt terribly unsettling. It was like watching a Facebook photo album of a testosterone-fuelled keg party come alive and scream “BOOYAH!” in the world’s face.

The American press was no less understated in its response to the news. Perhaps most ridiculous was the front page of the Chicago Southtown Star, which declared: “Bin Laden Dead – We Win At Last”. That the last ten murderous years of the ‘War on Terror’ (on both sides) could be summed up with a headline that sounded like America had just scored a match-winning point in a crucial sports game, was as naïve as it was supremely dumb. Especially when the prize for “winning” was a heightened terror alert at U.S. military bases and power plants, and a State Department travel alert for Americans worldwide.

Similarly, on the same day that the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, released a statement that the death of Osama bin Laden “makes the world a safer place”, there was a big, cuddly worldwide security alert.

But even with all the ecstatic celebrations that took place, it still felt like something was missing in the immediate aftermath of Osama’s death. I mean, did we really make as much of it as we could have done?

For instance, when the [blatantly obvious] Photoshopped image of Osama’s bloodied and mangled face appeared on TV screens in Pakistan, and later on the websites of several major British newspapers, wouldn’t it have been more impactful (i.e. great!) for it to have been available in 3D? If those people rejoicing at news of his death had been given the opportunity to look at his face through a pair of 3D glasses, they would’ve been able to reach out and almost feel as if they were mockingly ruffling his blood-matted beard. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Or perhaps news of Osama’s death could’ve been broken with the aid of a hilarious Taiwanese news CGI reconstruction of the Navy SEALs’ assault on his compound. News stations could even have thrown in a ‘bullet time’ animation sequence, showing the round from an M4A1 Carbine entering his left eye and then exiting out the top of his head, popping like a champagne cork, in a technicolour shower of brain matter and skull fragments. Imagine the giggles! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

But back in the real world, where people genuinely were wondering when the ‘money shot’ of the expired terrorist mastermind was going to be released, it soon became clear that there would be no publication of any such photograph. After deciding against releasing Osama’s death photo, President Barack Obama told CBS News: “It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence.”

Thankfully, though, Reuters decided to release extremely graphic photos of three of Osama’s dead associates (not sanctioned by the White House) who were shown lying in vast pools of congealed blood, with vacant stares and their brains blown out. So at least we sort of got to see what ‘justice’ looks like. U-S-A! U-S…oh, you get the idea.

But with all of this aside, there was surely only one thing on our minds after Osama’s killing: what did the stars think about the news?

Well, Barack Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism advisor Paris Hilton said: “So happy to hear the news of Osama bin Laden’s death. He was the face of terrorism and such an evil man. The world is a much better place with him not in it.”

Lindsay Lohan simply tweeted: “Go USA!” (although, she’d probably just skipped bail, puked in her own shoes and stolen a car at that point, so her excitable contribution might just have been high spirits).

Mel B reminded us all that we should spare a thought for the brave soldiers who risked their lives (*solemn applause*), while Kate Thornton rued the fact that Bin Laden had been killed, as she would’ve preferred to see him pay for his crimes. (Don’t worry, I’m sure the Loose Women managed to find their way back to more important matters, like discussing Kate Middleton’s menstrual cycle or rating viewers’ photos of their vajazzled pets.)

Meanwhile, Jedward pondered on Twitter: “Are Golden Grahams really gold? Could we buy new trainers and pay for them with cereal?”

(Only one of the above was made up.)

It’s taken me a whole week to write about this because the story of Osama bin Laden’s killing has been anything but straight forward, with claims, counter-claims and, worryingly, falsehoods from the very beginning.

Osama was originally painted as a crazed terrorist in a cowardly last-stand, firing an automatic weapon at the Navy SEAL assault team from behind his wife (his “weeping wife” according to the Daily Mirror, which sounded more emotive), who subsequently died in the assault. “A coward to the end,” spat the front page of the Daily Express.

Next day, of course, it transpired that Osama had actually been unarmed at the time of the raid and that his wife had been shot in the calf (injured but not killed) when she apparently rushed towards the assault team. A White House spokesman claimed that Osama had been killed after he “resisted”.

Following the revelation that he’d been unarmed at the time of the raid, the Daily Mirror then reported that Osama had been killed because the Navy SEALs feared he may have been wearing a bomb vest. The assault team had apparently been briefed to “take him out” if he was dressed, so Osama’s decision to retire to bed wearing his “trusty getaway kit” (traditional robes with 500 euros and two emergency phone numbers sewn into them) was a fatal mistake.

[Being the world's most wanted terrorist must have been a remarkably tedious experience. Every night, the same thing: take rubbish out (then burn); work on new aspirational terrorist plots; sew more items into clothing (travel pillow into hem of robe; packs of Fox's Glacier Mints into sleeves; Kindle into underpants); turn electric blanket off and bomb vest on; fall into light sleep.]

After the raid, Osama’s dead body was bundled into a helicopter and extracted from the scene, before being swiftly identified using “multiple methods” and then lowered into the North Arabian sea in a weighted body bag from the deck of the USS Carl Vinson (a burial that was widely criticised by Muslim scholars as a violation of Islamic tradition). Case closed!

But aside from the confusing details of Osama Bin Laden’s death (the White House later blamed the “fog of war” for their ever changing story), there were even questions about whether the photo of President Obama and his key aides – huddled in the situation room, supposedly watching real-time feed of the assault on Osama’s compound – was everything it seemed to be.

Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, later admitted in an interview that there was a period of 20-25 minutes when the live feed from the Navy SEALs’ helmet-mounted cameras was cut off, which meant no one – not even Obama himself – had the slightest idea what was happening on the ground in Abbottabad. For a raid that lasted only 40 minutes, it was quite a significant time gap. In fact, according to Panetta, Obama’s team really only managed to watch the helicopter ride in. The operation itself went unseen. The Special Ops Forces team could’ve met resistance from an army of emotionless Cybermen, and no one would have known anything about it

Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow, who was already working on a film about a failed attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden, is now re-writing the script to take into account the success of the Navy SEALs’ mission in Pakistan. The provisional title for the film is Kill bin Laden (or Terrorist Brain Explosion! U-S-A! U-S-A!) , and is likely to go into production this summer. Given that no officials seem to know what the fuck happened during the raid on Osama’s compound, it will now be left to Hollywood to fill in the gaps and create something that history students of the future will assume is a documentary.

Just as I was planning to wrap up this lengthy blog post, yet more news emerged about Osama bin Laden. Last night, the Pentagon released five snippets of “home videos” which were apparently discovered at Bin Laden’s compound by the Navy SEALs team that killed him. The clips show muted footage of previously unseen video messages, including what some have described as a “blooper reel” which appears to show the al-Qaeda leader missing a cue during one recording.

But perhaps the most bizarre footage shows Osama sitting on the floor of a cluttered room, wrapped in a blanket, watching seemingly endless footage of himself on a 14″ television. It’s how I imagine Jeremy Spake spends his days, rocking back and forth watching repeats of Airport.

Analysis and discussion of these videos in the press and news media has concentrated heavily on the fact that they appear to show a man obsessed with his image, and with his portrayal by the world’s media. “He wears a gold robe in one [video] – and uses dye to disguise his greying beard on camera in a vain bid to protect his public image,” said The Sun. While one American news anchor – with a delivery so deeply serious as to be vaguely comical – reported: “Sources say Bin Laden saw himself as the CEO of terror and mass murder.”

[If that was the last position on your CV, your next job would simply have to be with another terrorist organisation. Nothing else really fits. "It says on your application that your last job was 'CEO of terror and mass murder'. What makes you want to pursue a career in telesales?"]

I find it slightly baffling that a man so obsessed with his image would sanction the filming of a video that showed him looking, not so much like the evil, all-powerful terrorist mastermind, with a global network of jihadis under his direct command, but like someone who’d wandered in off the streets to spend the night in a homeless hostel. Yet that will undoubtedly be the enduring image of his reign of terror.

Reducing terrorist leaders to a human level – portraying them as isolated figures or bumbling, incompetent fools – is fairly standard stuff after their deaths. When America killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 (another al-Qaeda bogeyman), the U.S. military released a seized video which showed him fumbling with a machine gun in the desert. That the most notorious terrorist in Iraq appeared to lack any real fighting skill immediately extinguished the legend of the fearsome terrorist that the Bush administration and mainstream western media had worked tirelessly to construct in our minds. Osama is no different.

But anyway, what the hell do I know? If you want really in-depth analysis of this stuff, I suggest you talk to Paris Hilton.

The lucrative art of doing nothing

Jules Renard once said: “Fame is a constant effort.” Although, I’m fairly certain that if he’d glimpsed a future in which one-dimensional idiots could become famous at the drop of a hat, and that those one-dimensional idiots would be able to hold onto their fame by essentially doing nothing, he probably would’ve publicly retracted that quote. Because the truth is: we now live in an age when seemingly everything is newsworthy, so fame actually takes no effort whatsoever.

Only the other day, the Daily Mail reported that Amy Childs (from ITV2′s The Only Way Is Essex, for the uninitiated among you) was “mobbed” by schoolgirl fans as she exited a hair salon. In reality (actual reality, not the reality created by the oxygen-starved brains of Daily Mail journalists) the pitiful ‘mob’ consisted of three schoolgirls politely chatting to Amy on the street. In fact, there was probably only one schoolgirl and the other two were Photoshopped in to create a scene of total chaos.

The Mail’s coverage of this astounding non-news event also managed to achieve yet another journalism low, with the sentence: “Amy had just finished getting her mahogany locks blow dried at the salon, where she was spotted drinking a Vimto soft drink.”

If the Daily Mail had written: “Amy was spotted being powered down, disassembled and packed away in a box by a friend,” that might have been halfway interesting. But instead, the best they could muster was the earth-shattering ‘news’ that a Katie Price action figure, with fewer school-age fans than Doreen Rodwell, the North-East’s most popular lollypop lady, had drunk a carbonated soft drink.

Of course, the tragedy of the age in which we live is that if Amy Childs then went out armed with a Shewee and proceeded to piss Vimto up a cash machine, she’d probably receive even more undeserved column inches.

(The Only Way Is Essex is starting to sound less and less like a programme title and more like a damning verdict on humanity, delivered by a bellowing God-like figure sitting on a cloud. “You had the chance to do great things, my children. But now, I’m afraid, the only way is…Essex.”)

What is it about these ‘celebrity’ nonentities doing nothing even remotely interesting that intrigues people so?

In Star magazine last week, a photographer had obviously instructed Alex Reid to contort his face into an expression of embittered seriousness. However, the resulting photo looked like it belonged in a local newspaper article about a man who’d been found wandering on a beach in his underpants, repeatedly muttering half a phone number to himself.

The photo accompanied a short article, with the headline: “ALEX: Jordan drove me to suicide,” which was a quote that left me momentarily confused. After all, I’d heard absolutely nothing of his suicide bid. Had Alex smuggled one of Katie Price’s lethal acrylic nails out of her Surrey mansion and desperately hacked at his wrists? Or maybe he’d tried to explode his own brain by attempting a junior Sudoku puzzle? I simply couldn’t wait to read more!

But of course, there was no story whatsoever. Because in the first five lines of the article you learned that Reid merely “considered suicide” after Jordan dumped him (which is still somewhat unbelievable). Even by the laughably awful standards of ‘celebrity’ magazines, it was a complete non-story: here’s news about something that didn’t happen, with a headline quote that isn’t technically true.

Alex Reid considering suicide has the same news value as a story about Alex Reid considering whether or not to have a second Müller Crunch Corner straight after the first.

But enough about Alex and his demons. What’s his ex-wife up to these days?

Well, Katie Price’s latest ‘relationship’ is with an Argentinean model called Leandro Penna. Given that he can’t speak a word of English and she can’t speak Spanish, it sounds like their eyes met across a bleak, minimalist conference room at Price’s PR firm. Still, love knows no bounds, so they’ve been communicating through her iPhone translation app.

Never was this more apparent than when she recently posted a message on Twitter in both Spanish and English, saying: “Leandro Penna is very transparent and mature. It has a fantastic family and everything together. I’ll soon know.”

If that tweet is anything to go by, before long every ‘celebrity’ magazine in the country is going to read like a compendium of Radio Londres coded messages. In an exclusive interview with New! magazine, Katie Price said: “Leandro sits by the fire. The teapot is melting! We are loving together soon.”

Yet again, there are rumours that Price’s latest relationship is yet another lucrative business arrangement, with the future break-up already planned. Which prompts the question: why are the newspapers still covering this meaningless, fake bullshit? And why do so many people still pay to read about it, and tune in to watch? Isn’t there enough real news and drama in the world?

Katie Price recently told a showbiz reporter from The Sun that she was currently taking helicopter lessons and planning to have a helipad installed at her mansion. With a nod to her constant pursuit by the paparazzi, she said: “People might think it’s extravagant but I’d like to see people following me in the air.”

I have to admit, I’d like to see that too. But only if her pursuers are flying F-22 Raptors. Let’s face it, this ‘celebrity’ nightmare has to end somehow.

Like a scene from Scanners

The other day, I was reading in New Scientist magazine about something called “telempathy”, a term coined by the American science writer Michael Chorost, which is described as “the ability to feel another person’s emotions through a technological connection to their brain”. How would this be achieved? Well, I’m no scientist, but it’s got something to do with fusing the human brain to the Internet…or something.

In short, technology and the human brain will be intimately connected in the future, with the “world wide mind” ultimately supplanting the World Wide Web, providing us all with technologically shared experiences and emotions. Of course, it’s to be hoped that Chorost’s vision of the future is a controlled one. I wouldn’t particularly want my brain to be suddenly flooded with endorphins in the middle of a job interview because a friend was looking at porn online while wanking into a sock. I assume there’ll be on ‘off’ switch or some kind of filter?

The need for us to share more and to know intimate details about each other has become ever more prevalent. It’s been reported this week that, from next season, Tottenham Hotspur’s players will wear shirts embedded with tiny computer sensors that will constantly monitor their physical condition. The technology is designed primarily to help the manager make decisions on substitutions, with coaching staff receiving second-by-second updates about players’ heart rates, core body temperature, breathing rate and acceleration. However, plans are afoot to also share this information with broadcasters so that fans will be able to see a player’s increased heart rate as he steps up to take a potentially match-winning penalty.

I’m sure it’s technology that fans won’t be able to get enough of. By 2012, with increasing demand for data driving the development of the technology, I dare say fans will be able to monitor the extent of Wayne Rooney’s nipple chafing as he tracks back to defend late in the game. Or perhaps fans will be tweeting about how sweaty Frank Lampard’s balls were during the post-match interview with John Motson. We might even get camera footage from players’ snot-rockets as they fly through the air like laser-guided missiles, along with information on speed, consistency and a GPS location of where each one landed, so that we can enjoy watching players venturing unknowingly into the stickier areas of the pitch.

With Chorost’s vision of the future and Spurs’ new kit technology in mind, I’d quite like to see the coin-sized brains of call centre staff wired to the Internet, and for them to wear embedded sensor technology in their Burton suits. Why? Because then I’d be able to feel their condescension when I speak to them on the phone; I’d be able to almost taste their disdain as they inform me, the ranting customer, that I’m basically an idiot that they can’t help.

Of course, in return, with the benefit of sensor technology, I’d also get to enjoy seeing their heart rate and sweat levels increase as I bark down the phone at a cocky twat in a headset.

If you’re wondering why I’m so bitter, it’s because I recently lost my iPhone 4 on a beach in Newquay while on a stag do, which ultimately led to a fractious conversation with a call centre employee at an insurance company.

Amazingly, losing my phone was nothing to do with any stag do antics. It’s not like I’d injected absinthe into my eyeballs and then decided to see how far I could skim my phone across the sea. And I hadn’t buried it in the sand as part of a pissed treasure hunt. It just dropped out of my pocket onto the beach and was then claimed by the rapidly advancing tide.

At one point, I was stood, distraught, knee deep in sea water, with the waves crashing against my cold, aching legs, while I used my friend’s phone to call mine in the hope that it would light up like a beacon underwater. To the casual observer I must have looked like a man in desperate need of the Samaritans, or like a well-dressed spear fisherman patiently waiting for a school of iPhones to swim by.

The last photo I took with my iPhone was of the blindfolded stag waiting to taste a selection of beers. I imagine that if my phone is ever retrieved from the sandy depths of Towan Beach in the distant future, by a technologically advanced race who can miraculously bring the phone to life, they will assume I attended some kind of public execution shortly before the phone was lost.

It was particularly annoying to lose my phone in such unspectacular circumstances on the beach, which was so peaceful and still in the early hours of the morning. Especially when I’d survived a visit to a club only an hour earlier, which recreated the confusion, aggression and physicality of being at the centre of a crowd during a UN aid drop.

In the melee, I saw one bloke trip up and crash to the floor before leaping to his feet and flying into the face of a perfectly innocent bystander. Thankfully, however, his girlfriend managed to grab him by the scruff of the neck and direct him out of the club before a fight ensued. I assume he staggered out onto the street and immediately squared up to his own shoes.

There was such an undercurrent of menace in the club, it was like an immersive, interactive Crimewatch experience. It felt like I should’ve been strapped into a rollercoaster car at the door, before being pushed off with a jolt past an animatronic Kirsty Young. But instead my arm was grabbed by a burly doorman, who stamped a red kiss onto my hand. (I should stress that he did so with a snarl, which I guess is a defence mechanism to prevent anyone thinking that it’s an affectionate act.) To be honest, it was something of a relief to receive the hand stamp as I was fully expecting him to lop off my little finger and post it home.

If I was going to lose my phone or have it swiped from my pocket that night, I would’ve put money on it happening in that club. But no, it was lost on the beach. Lost to the sea.

Anyway, my aforementioned conversation with the call centre employee ended with him telling me that my insurance claim had been declined because I failed to report the loss of my iPhone to the police within 48hrs.

Clearly, this stipulation is nothing whatsoever to do with the phone being retrieved (unless Devon & Cornwall Police were going to send out a team of divers for me), it’s just a flaming hoop the insurance company wanted me to jump through within a time-frame they’d randomly set. They could just as easily have stipulated that I turn up at my local Carphone Warehouse with a Kit Kat Chunky and a Monarch of the Glen box set within 48hrs of losing my phone. It’s equally as meaningless.

Still, my failure to inform the police about a phone [lost to the sea] enabled the insurance company to dodge the claim. My phone: lost and unrecoverable. My hard-earned money paid out for insurance cover: gone.

So yeah, I’m pissed off. And if I could plug my brain into the mainframe right now, the arseholes down at the insurance company would be able to experience just how much. In fact, it’d be like a scene from Scanners down there.

The future can’t get here quick enough.

Ken Barlow…pooing at Paul’s

I was watching season five of 24 a few nights ago (for the second time), when I clocked something weird that I hadn’t noticed during my first viewing of ‘Day 5’ back in 2006.

As President Charles Logan and other prominent political figures gathered at an airfield to receive the flag-draped casket of assassinated former President David Palmer, it cut to a shot of Logan’s (and formerly Palmer’s) Chief of Staff, Mike Novick, sombrely watching the funeral procession pass before him. Admittedly, there was nothing too weird about that. But what I found slightly jarring was the fact that Mike then looked down at his mobile phone [cut to a close-up of his Sprint mobile's colour screen], where coverage of the very funeral he was attending was being live-streamed by Fox News.

The only thing missing from this scene for the DVD release (aside from a presidential wake catered by Burger King® on the extras disc) was a news ticker, reading: “We don’t just cover fictional presidents. Why not check out Fox News’s live-streaming service on January 2nd 2007 for the state funeral of former president Gerald Ford, available in high-resolution colour on all Sprint® mobiles!”

I wasn’t impressed.

In later episodes, I feared we might see Jack Bauer torturing a terrorist with a fountain pen swiped from a nuclear scientist’s desk in a wood-panelled study. Plunging the pen into the terrorist’s brachial plexus, Jack would shout over the man’s blood-curdling screams: “I can do this all day, you son of a bitch, because this pen’s virtually indestructible iridium nib won’t suffer any damage as a result!” Jack would then gulp down a Coke®, wipe the chilled aluminium can across his forehead, then impressively stab the blood-stained fountain pen clean through it.

Eyeballing his terrified captive, Jack would then snarl: “You’re going to tell me the exact location of the nuke. And even though you’ve just seen me abuse this JML Classic Pen, I’m going to use it to write down the coordinates you give me…with no loss of ink flow or blotting whatsoever. Now talk!”

As I’ve now seen all eight seasons of 24, I’m happy to report that no such scene ever transpired. Thankfully, Mike Novick watching live-streaming of an event at which he was present was as stupid as it got. But I guess that’s product placement for you. And it’s something that we Brits are going to experience more frequently from now on.

On Monday, This Morning became the first British TV show to feature product placement, with Nescafé reportedly securing a £100,000 three-month deal for their Dolce Gusto Espresso machine to appear in the kitchen area of the studio.

I suppose it’s easier for the show to begin this era of product placement with a harmless inanimate object. Imagine how uncomfortable it would be for Gino D’Acampo to talk viewers through a tasty meatball recipe while under the watchful gaze of the Birds Eye polar bear. Just picture the indignant look on D’Acampo’s face as Willem Dafoe’s hypnotically sinister voice pipes up off-camera: “What about the Chicken Dippers, Gino? Dippers! Do you really think meatballs can make you happy? Oh, Gino. Your recipe makes me so sad. I don’t like to be sad.”

Product placement on British television is sure to herald a new era of annoyance for viewers everywhere. (Although, playing ‘spot the obvious product placement’ game might be mildly entertaining for a short while.) However, there are rules.

According to Ofcom: “Product placement will be allowed in films (including dramas and documentaries), TV series (including soaps), entertainment shows and sports programmes. But it will be prohibited in all children’s and news programmes and in current affairs, consumer advice and religious programmes made for UK audiences.”

“European legislation also bans the product placement of tobacco (and related products) and prescription only medicines in all programmes. In addition, UK legislation bans the product placement of alcohol, gambling, foods or drinks that are high in fat, salt or sugar, all other medicines and baby milk in programmes made for UK audiences. Ofcom has also prohibited the product placement of products and services that cannot be advertised on television, such as weapons and escort agencies.”

So we can all sleep soundly in the knowledge that we’re unlikely to see Aled Jones introducing hymns on Songs of Praise while firing a Heckler & Koch XM25 from the pulpit. And the episode of Something Special, where Mr Tumble secures the expensive services of a curvy escort to accompany him to the zoo, will never see the light of day.

Actually, you can scrub those examples from your mind anyway, because under the terms of the BBC Agreement product placement is not allowed in programmes made for BBC licence fee funded services. However, it’s entirely possible that BBC series repeated on commercial channels could have brands digitally inserted later on. So we may yet see Doctor Who defeat the Cybermen by maliciously inserting Snack-a-Jack® rice cakes into their CD-drive bumholes while they sleep. (I’m not an avid watcher, as you might have guessed.)

I’m not entirely comforted by the fact that there are ‘rules’ governing product placement on British television. It’s a bit like instructing a pride of lions not to stalk, attack, maul and kill a group of playing children, before releasing them into a playground.

A few years ago, it was reported that McDonald’s products had been introduced into some regional news programmes in the States (described by the Guardian as the “tentacle-like growth of clandestine advertising in American TV”), with anchors on Fox 5 News in Las Vegas presenting their morning shows from behind two large cups of McDonald’s iced coffee.

Maybe the product placement in that instance was designed to take the sting out of Las Vegans’ local news. So when a newsreader solemnly reads the headline ‘32 dead as fire sweeps through childrens’ party’, viewers will have forgotten how sad they are by the time the anchor has finished mesmerising them with a noisy, satisfying slurp from a branded vat of iced coffee.

(Actually, seeing as the iced coffee in question was just a bogus liquid with fake ice cubes, the news anchors didn’t even chance a sip during their news bulletins. It was all just an illusion.)

Still, how long before the rules are relaxed here and it becomes the norm for Jon Snow and Krishnan Guru-Murthy to announce grim headlines while sucking on Soleros® or diving into a ‘More to Share’ bag of Maltesers®?

Of course, the rules state that there must be ‘editorial justification’ for a product to be placed in a programme, which means the product must be relevant to what the programme is about. According to Ofcom: “The content of programmes shouldn’t seem to be created or distorted, just to feature the placed products. Programmes also can’t promote placed products or give them too much prominence. So there shouldn’t be any claims made about how good a placed product is, or so many references to a product that it feels like it is being promoted.”

I hope advertisers and programme makers abide by these rules. Because the moment Ken Barlow marches out of the Rovers Return after declaring that he’s going to do a poo at Paul’s - before a scene in which he’s shown happily crapping in a dreamy fog of Glade® Touch ‘n Fresh – there’ll be no turning back for us.

Bustin Jieber and the days of rage

In her infinite wisdom, Julia Roberts once said that “a fever is an expression of inner rage”. I think she’s right. In fact, guru Roberts’ wise words suggest that there might actually be something in this so-called ‘Bieber Fever’. After all, the tweens and teens that have been affected by this condition are angry. Fuck me, are they angry. And what’s worse, there’s apparently no cure.

Justin Bieber seems to have been everywhere this past week – the Grammys, the Brits, Rolling Stone magazine, and the London premiere of his new film Never Deny Me Awards Or My Minions Will Kill You. Given his omnipresence I suspect he operates like Saddam Hussein, employing several doubles to travel around the world on his behalf. When Peter Andre was presiding over a gut-twistingly awful interview with Bieber on the Brits’ red carpet the other night, what’s to say it was even the real Bieber? How would you know if you were punching the right one?

Anyway, back to his fans.

Justin Bieber’s week began at the Grammys, where he was nominated for the ‘Best New Artist’ award. However, the result was to stun the entire world (well, those who cared) when jazz star Esperanza Spalding scooped the prize ahead of him. Now, I’m not going to pretend I’ve ever heard of Esperanza Spalding, because I haven’t. If someone had mentioned her name to me prior to the Grammys I would’ve assumed they were talking about a law firm. But that’s not to say she isn’t a talented musician and an extremely worthy winner. Of course, Bieber’s fans thought differently. To them, it was simple: their idol had been robbed by a nobody.

In response, Bieber’s army of incensed screamers focused all their rage on Esperanza Spalding’s Wikipedia page, which was edited (i.e. vandalised) to include abusive messages and truly random put-downs. For instance, her middle name was changed to “Quesadilla”, which is an odd choice of insult to hurl at a woman born in Portland, Oregon. But given the influence of Justin Bieber, maybe we’ll all be using Mexican food references as insults soon. “I want that report on my desk by Monday, TACO BREATH!” / “I put it to the Prime Minister – David Guacamole Cameron – that government cuts are destroying this country.”

Another addition to Esperanza’s Wikipedia page was: “SHE IS F****** REATARD THAT NO ONE HAS HEARD OF SO B**** PLEASE DIE!”. (You’ve got to admit, it takes a special kind of retard to misspell ‘retard’.) Twitter also lit up with a disturbing amount of death threats aimed at the jazz artist. One brilliantly stupid tweet was: “go die in a whole (sic) Esperanza Spalding or whatever the hell your name is.” (For future reference, the “whatever the hell your name is” part doesn’t really work after you’ve referred to that person by name.) It seemed there were lots of Bieber fans who were keen to see Esperanza die in a hole. One person even confidently proclaimed: “I’m going to murder Esperanza Spalding.”

What lovely, warm, cuddly fans they are! And I guess we shouldn’t be too shocked at the appalling spelling, given that these people spell “believer” with two b’s.

[To compound Justin Bieber’s misery, his new film was pipped to the post at the Box Office by Jennifer Aniston’s latest film Just Go With It. As Bieber’s film was typically expected to conquer everything in its path, much was made of the fact that there was only a few hundred thousand dollars separating first and second place. Although, to be honest, I could probably make a four hour film of a cigarette butt bobbing around in a fetid urinal and it would still give a Jennifer Aniston rom-com a run for its money at the box office.]

The next target for Bieber’s fans was Twitter. The social networking site updated the algorithm behind its Trending Topics feature last May, which prevented Bieber from trending almost constantly. At the time, Bieber tweeted @twitter, saying: “I heard you changed your system to stop my fans from making trending topics?? Really?? Where is the love??”

So while the Esperanza Spalding rage was still pulsing through their veins, Bieber’s fans took to Twitter on Tuesday to outwit the trending topics algorithm. The result? “Justin Biebber” started trending, thanks to an avalanche of vitriolic tweets from his fans who intentionally misspelt their idol’s name.

One fan tweeted: “Dear Twitter, next time you think about stopping Beliebers trending something, think again. We run this place. #justsaying JUSTIN BIEBBER.”

The fact is, though, that Bieber’s fans don’t actually tweet or trend anything interesting. Repeatedly tweeting: “RT this if you love Justin Bieber!” is as pointless as tweeting “RT this if you enjoy wearing a warm pair of slippers”. It doesn’t actually mean anything. His fans enjoy his work, which is fair enough, but what’s the point in bleeting on about it? I sincerely hope Twitter is now working tirelessly to prevent names like “Justin Biebbber”, “Just in Beeber” and “Bustin Jieber” from trending in future. In fact, every possible variation of his name should be outlawed.

Unfortunately, Justin Bieber’s not even turned seventeen yet so we’re going to be stuck with him for some time. And his forthcoming European tour is also going to include 10 year-old Willow Smith, who we’re going to be stuck with for even longer.

Aside from her burgeoning music career (probably nothing at all to do with her parents Will and Jada Pinkett Smith), Willow recently landed her first fashion shoot for Teen Vogue (again, probably nothing to do with her parents whatsoever), where she talked about her style. “I wear anything I feel like. If I want to put on a pair of Converse with a pencil stuck through them, I will.”

After she’s supported Bieber on tour, I dare say tweens everywhere will be walking around with pencils stuck through their trainers, protractors sellotaped to their socks, and wearing pencil sharpeners for earrings, like feral children emerging from a ransacked storeroom in a branch of Staples.

I weep for the future.

Anyway, in the meanwhile, Bieberettes, why not calm down a little? The rest of the world doesn’t care that you love Justin Bieber, so turn the volume down on your hysteria and try and remember that your Canadian pop prince isn’t entitled to every accolade and award going simply for having good hair and a winning smile.

Justin Bieber may have his lucrative music and acting career, earnings approaching £100m, his own brands of nail varnish, anal suppositories, and Tasers (only one of those is true), and considered by analysts to be the most influential person on the Internet, ahead of Barack Obama, but he can only remain a teen idol for so long. I mean, just look at David Cassidy.