On today's writeup...
*needlessly dramatic music and lens filtering*
The noder who would rather WRITE ABOUT UNDERPANTS on the INTERNET, than have SEX with her BOYFRIEND!
The Boy Friend: "You were never there! You'd rather just poopsock all day! No wonder I cheated on you with your mother!"
The Noder: "YOU F****D MY MOTHER! GRAAGGGHHH! *leaps out of chair to attack*"
The man who... get this... ACCIDENTALLY... slept with his long-lost SISTER!
Jeremy: "So how did you find out she was your sister?"
Ne'er Do Well: "When I introduced her to me mam. I said, hey mam, this is my new girl... and the girl shouted, MUM!??!?!?"
Jeremy: "So what was your reaction to this?"
Ne'er Do Well: "I were devastated... *big pause* but I still kept pokin' her!"
And those all important, crucial, life changing DNA results!
Scrote: "Naahhh! Shat aappp! SHAAATT AAAPPP! Of course it's yours! My Chevreen would never even look at a drug-addled tw** like you!"
White Trash: "Who you callin' drug addled! I haven't had any weed in years! And I only shagged her once anyhow!"
Jeremy: "Is this true Chevreen?"
Chevreen: "*nods*"
Jeremy: "WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT SOMETHING ON THE END OF IT."
White Trash: "...cuz johnnys make me feel like I'm f*****g a plastic bag."
Jeremy: "Yes, well, that's your funeral sunshine. Now. We're here for the TRUTH. *opens envelope* The DNA results clearly show that Scrote..........................................................................."
That's all on my node, next!
When I was recovering from my arse surgery in March of 2010, I was bored. No work and nothing to do but arse about on the internets all day makes Hazelnut a dull boy. So I inevitably ended up tuning in to ITV at 9.25 am on weekdays and watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. This is described in its blurb as a "confrontational talk show" in which "guests air their differences." However, a District Judge in Manchester describes it as "human bear baiting" and I can't say he's far wrong.
It's still alarmingly gripping though. It provides a window in the lives of the vapid and useless, a snapshot into the lives of the unworking classes. It's apparently perversely popular with politicians because it allows them to brag about their insight into the "issues" commonly faced by people in "challenging communities."
What usually happens is that the eponymous Jeremy Kyle, who has a face that Charlie Brooker describes as "demonic", gets a number of guests on who have a dispute that needs resolving. Usually these fall into a number of categories: the lie detector, the DNA test, the tabloid issue, and the general brawl. The guests are always the sort of people who in the US would be described as "white trash" and the storylines are always stupid and sensationalist. One recent episode had as its issue, "I slept with my brother's girl friend but which one of us got her pregnant?"
These guests shout and accuse and are confronted by the host with a selfrighteous attitude. As soon as someone says anything about drugs or alcoholism, Jeremy will pounce on them and ask them how they obtained same, and when, inevitably, they are told from benefits, there will then be a snit from Jeremy about how he's subsidising them. Anyone who has unprotected sex is told to "PUT SOMETHING ON THE END OF IT" or to "KEEP IT IN YER TROUSERS" or suchlike. Children are used as weapons in relationships left right and centre. Guests are usually dressed in trackie bums and what would, a few years ago, been called "chav" style clothing. One recent edition of Viz, in the Roger's Profanisaurus section, described it as "Kyle Style" or "Scrote Couture." Female guests, if they are young (and, sadly, a lot of them are barely 18 and have one or more kids), often look fairly attractive but vacant, and the older ones look rougher than a badger's arse. Most of them are from oop north but this is because the programme is filmed in Manchester. Occasionally tempers flare and someone tries to thump someone else but there are no Jerry Springer type pitched battles. Just pure, unremitting despair and stupidity.
Oh, but they're not stupid enough not to know tabloid speak and psychobabble. Everything is "devastating" and the roughest looking council estate denizen will suddenly start holding forth about their "abandonment issues" and their own inner gremlins. When some of the guests open their mouths it's like a red-top editorial comes blurging forward. "'E really needs tah sort 'is 'ed aahhht!" and all that happy horseshit.
I suppose one of the reasons the guests are usually like this is because they're the sort of people who watch daytime television. Bored housewives. Old folks at home. Students. Unemployed folks. They ring up with their saga and along comes a producer who basically does the human equivalent of throwing a peanut into the cage of a starving squirrel. Hilarity ensues.
That being said, though, some of the stories shown on Jeremy Kyle, I suspect, are put on. They don't quite hang together properly, or there's something about the characters that doesn't make sense. One that is commonly shown on YouTube under "The weirdest man in Britain" is an example of this. There is something about the story and the people involved in it - esp. the eponymous weird man - that seems... not right. Like they're all actors or are all making it up for shiggles. Sadly, though, most of the stories have the unmistakeable ring of truth about them.
Do they actually help people? Debatable.
Still, it's been daytime ratings gold for ITV for years now, although the stories are gradually getting slightly more and more outrageous, and there are more shows based about "ishoos" now than there have been before. A shark jumping perhaps?
Still, 1000+ episodes must mean that someone watches it. Bored housewives, the unemployed, the elderly, and students. And people recovering from surgery on their arse, also.
(IRON NODE 20 of 30.)