When I first moved to London in 1984 and lived in a halls of residence in Battersea, my friend Rob and I would spend many happy hours tramping up and down the impossibly glamorous King's Road in London's Chelsea (which was just over the river from us), looking out for famous people. I would then log them in my diary, under the heading "Star Spotting". It was a rare excursion on which we didn't spot anybody famous. (The King's Road isn't anything like as glamorous now - it's just another cloned high street.) Because we operated an open door policy, "star" meant literally anyone we recognised off the telly. At the very top of the tree, we once saw Lady Di, who stepped out of a car and went into a shoe shop. This was logged. We saw Bob Geldof and Paula Yates a lot, as they then lived on an adjoining street. But if we saw, say, John Keeble, drummer from Spandau Ballet, or Steve Blacknell the TV presenter (at that stage not yet immortalised by being the reporter who went with Phil Collins on Concorde for Live Aid), we were equally excited. Anyway, whenever I see famous people in the street now, I am still transported back to those starstruck days. It still makes me excited.

Today, on a reasonably short walk from Leicester Square to Oxford Circus in Central London, I passed three stars! In reverse order of famousness: Reece Shearsmith, Amanda Burton and ... Chris Langham! One of the most famous men in Britain! For all the wrong reasons! Interestingly, I'm pretty certain Rob and I spotted Chris Langham back in the mid-80s, when he was just that funny bloke off Not The 9 O'clock News (I'll have to dig my diaries out and check.) Now, in the popular imagination, he is arguably Britain's most famous paedophile - although of course, he claims not to be a paedophile and just looked at four downloaded images/mpegs "for research", and because, as an abused child, he felt an urge to seemingly commune with the similarly abused to try and achieve some kind of closure. We know all this because, being famous, his case has been all over the papers since he was arrested in November 2005, charged in May 2006 and tried in July and August 2007, after which he was found guilty of possessing child pornography and sentenced in September. He was released in November after an appeal. Rather than fade back into obscurity, Langham fought back against what he considered misleading media coverage and went on telly (and in the Observer beforehand), opening up to Pamela Connolly on More4's Shrink Rap (how we're supposed to take the programme seriously with that silly punning title, I don't know).

I watched as much of that programme as I could bear. Langham did seem to be a broken man who had suffered a great deal since his original arrest - albeit his family seemed to have, if not forgiven him, certainly decided to let bygones be bygones and support him. He came across as a pathetic figure, wracked with self-loathing and self-doubt, but confident enough to appear on the telly to claim his innocence. He claimed - and it is up to us, as the viewers of the programme, to decide whether to believe him or not - that he downloaded four images/videos but that six other ones downloaded automatically while his computer was switched off. He also said that once he'd started watching one of the appalling films he felt that seeing it the through to the end was the only honorable response to the severity of suffering. Due to the nature of the programme, I was rather put off by the way they timed lurid revelations to appear just before the ad-breaks. Yuck.

All of the thoughts that went through my head when I read about the trial and viewed the subsequent "comeback" interview hurtled through it again in the moment that I passed Chris Langham on Charing Cross Road. Clearly, he has to go about his business (or leisure time, as I'm imagining it must be), and I wasn't offended by his presence or the fact that he was walking along with his head held high, nor did I feel the urge to throw rocks at him, or sneer. However, I do still feel disgust at the thought of anyone seeking out and viewing those images, whatever their excuse (and there is no excuse), and what struck me most vividly how much perception can change. In the mid-80s when I saw him, I was really excited. Now, I'm uneasy and a bit creeped out. Is that wrong?

Anyway, Amanda Burton! Nice star-spot!

If you wish to be at any of the recordings for the third series of Radio 4's Banter, the tickets are here. If you've been before you'll know the drill, except this time we're at the Drill Hall (in Central London, off Tottenham Court Road), which is a more traditional venue for Radio comedy. I can't wait. It's the best job in the world: sitting in the middle of really funny comedians with no pressure upon you to be as funny as them.

In order to remove myself from my comfort zone, I accepted a kind invitation from Robin Ince to appear on the bill of his comedy night The School For Gifted Children (son of The Book Club) at Battersea Arts Centre last night. I haven't really done actual stand-up before, and indeed my main experience of standing up in front of an audience and trying to make them laugh has been the Banter warm-up. (We can't afford a warm-up comedian.) Because I am not a stand-up comedian I think audiences are lenient towards me, and are prepared to laugh at my jokes because I don't tell jokes for a living.

I often talk about serial killers when I do my warm-up (because I am very interested in serial killers, proving that I am not one), and I prepared a ten-minute routine about it two years ago for a comedy night hosted by my publishers, where certain authors had to get up and entertain people from the book trade, in order to persuade them to stock our books in their shops. (In other words, prostitute ourselves.) This was made into a video podcast, if you're interested, which you can still get here in audio form (I think you have to download the video one from iTunes). I wrote about it on my blog here. Anyway, I refined this routine for Robin's night at BAC and, thankfully, he put me on at the beginning, so that the audience didn't have many other proper comedians to compare me to yet. The seasoned genius Graham Fellows, for instance, was on the same bill, and Josie Long, who was on the front of the Guardian Guide. It was fun to hang out in the tiny dressing room with so many friendly comics beforehand, and nerve-wracking beyond belief to hover outside in the corridor, waiting for Robin to introduce me. I needn't have been nervous, as the audience were very friendly and didn't heckle me. I went onstage in my woolly hat and long overcoat so that I could show them what I looked like when stopped and searched under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which dovetailed into my talk about serial killers. I overran and Robin had to come on and tell me to get off, which I did, but that's because I'm not experienced and have no idea how long ten minutes is unless someone tells me. Anyway, a good, invigorating, palette-expanding experience outside my comfort zone.

Come to Banter. It's mainly other comedians. (The show is broadcast on R4 in April. Dates as I get them.)

It's been a while, but I'm in the Observer this morning. (I used to write for them about films and TV every week between 1999 and 2001, but it's amazing how quickly you can fall in and out of favour. The last words I wrote for them were in August 2001, then nothing.) If you want to read my thoughts about why Hollywood films are suddenly so dark, the column is here. When you do, try to picture this:

It's Friday night. I have long since clocked off for the weekend. Watching a taped Kitchen Nightmares. The mobile rings. (I don't even usually have my mobile switched on after hours, so it was pretty lucky.) It's the Comment Editor of the Observer and he asks if I fancy writing 800 words on Hollywood's heart of darkness - he needs it by midday on Saturday. I say yes, very pleased to have been asked. I wake up early on Saturday, already writing the first paragraph in my mind, and sit at the laptop with a cup of tea. The piece is finished an hour and a half later and I'm pleased with it. It's a subject close to my heart, and doesn't exactly require a lot of research beyond checking the exact wording of a No Country For Old Men quote, and running through the Oscar nominations to make sure I haven't missed a good example. (I had.) I email the piece to the Comment Editor, then go shopping. He rings back to tell me he likes the piece. We negotiate a couple of small tweaks over the phone and we're all square. Job done.

At 2.00, I set out for Northampton on the train, as it's my Mum's birthday party. En route, my phone rings. It's the Comment Editor, who has run the piece past his editor and now wants the middle section cutting down and two extra paragraphs adding. I explain that I'm en route to Northampton and won't have access to a broadband connection until I get to my Mum and Dad's at around 4.30. We put our heads together and agree that I will do the changes on my laptop, on the 3.20 to Northampton, and - eek! - phone them in.

Now, I'm not a journalist. Not a proper journalist. I have never phoned in copy in my life. (I know what you're thinking - why not get wi-fi? Because I am suspicious of its effects on my brain and don't wish to add any more microwaves to our already polluted world. Also, I'm not a journalist. I don't need wi-fi. I never work on trains, and indeed always feel a mixture of sympathy and contempt for those who do. I don't even have my phone switched on when I'm on the train.) So, I get on the train at Euston, which is mercifully empty and get to work. I have the changes done in about 15 minutes, by which time the train pulls out of Euston and is now packed to the brim with people. The next half an hour is spent with me on my mobile, reading out my article, word by word, comma by comma, to anyone in the carriage who's interested, and many who are not. Every time we go through a tunnel, the connection goes. This drags the process - and the agony - out forever. I hope you are now feeling my blushes. It had all seemed so painless just a few hours before.

Anyway, I apologised to the couple sitting opposite when they got off at Milton Keynes Central. They were very nice about it, luckily, and asked which newspaper it would appear in, even though they had, in effect, already read it.

It's one thing being a ponce, it's another thing announcing to the world that you are one. Anyway, appreciate the suffering that went into those 800 words. It was like filing copy from a war zone or something.

So, Peter Hain has resigned his post, or posts (how can one man be in charge of work, pensions and Wales?), over the undeclared donations made when he went for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party in September 2006. He seems to have spent almost 200,000 quid on this campaign, failing to declare 103,000 of it. The joke of which is, he was eliminated in the second round, coming fifth. What a waste of money. It just shows you can't spend your way out of unpopularity. Hain has hung on to his job, or jobs, for about three weeks since the story broke, saying he'd been too "busy" to remember to declare the money. I don't care why he didn't declare it, or that he's one of those Blairite sellouts who once demonstrated against Apartheid and was a member of the Anti-Nazi League but now seems content to wag his tail and do what he's told and in fact is such a wet Blairite he was able to become a Brownite without anyone noticing, I just want to know: what on earth did he spend all that money on? It's not as if he was a presidential candidate crossing 50 states to drum up support - it was an election within the party. A few phonecalls, surely? If I was a member of the think-tank that exists only in name, the Progressive Policies Forum, who donated much of the money, I'd certainly want to see some invoices, even if I didn't exist.

(By the way, does anybody know how to type a pound sign and for it not to come out all weird like this - £ - when the blog is published?)

I hereby helpfully send you to this link. It's the notorious Tom Cruise Scientology Recruitment film that was taken off YouTube and will presumably disappear from this site too in good time. Have a look. I add no commentary. You just have to watch it. (Warning: it's 9 minutes long, although you'll get the general idea pretty quickly. Also, you may have no fucking idea what the hell he's going on about. I didn't.)

It is one of the greatest comedies on television, featuring one of the co-creators of one of the other greatest comedies on television, and the first episode in its sixth series is watched in the UK by 157,000 people. What's wrong with us? I know it's on More4, but I think I'm right in saying that over 50% of all television sets in the UK are now able to pick up at least the Freeview channels. Which means that millions of people are choosing not to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. An extra-long opening episode, Meet The Blacks was everything that I demand from Curb: social embarrassment, shouting, juvenile behaviour by people in their fifties, domestic niggles, the subtlest kind of racial politics, repetition of an earlier gag, and at least one mention of a sports jacket. Meet The Blacks, whose plot I won't give away in case the 157,001st person forgot to tune in, involves Hurricane Edna, a delicious cake, Ted and Mary, a mysterious beeping, and the word "Schmohawk". It's not as if you spend the entire running time laughing like an idiot - in fact, most of the time, you're doubled up with the pain of expectation - and there was only only actual verbal joke (an improvised comeback from Jeff: "I'm going as a little Dutch girl"), but Curb mines such a rich seam of urban farce. A minor domestic mishap. A conversation after golf, at which a plan is hatched. A news report on TV. An idea from Cheryl, based on the news report. Larry's reaction. The plan is tried out. The plan backfires. It backfires again. A social faux pas from Larry. Cheryl's idea is surrendered to. The plan is tried again. It backfires. It backfires again (funny, because it's already happened once). Domestic equilibrium is shattered. Domestic equilibrium is regained. Domestic equilibrium is shattered once again, this time calling back to a seemingly minor detail from an earlier scene. The minor domestic mishap from the beginning of the show, which we'd all forgotten about, creates the final insult. The plan resurfaces. Larry ends the programme with less than he began it with. And that's it. All comedy writers should aspire to this level of invention and structural simplicity. The rest are schmohawks.

I watched Ross Kemp In Afghanistan partly because I was worried that my Sky One button might heal over if I didn't actually use it occasionally, but mostly because he was taking a six-month tour of duty to Helmand Province with the Royal Anglian Regiment, which is who my brother was with when he joined the Army in 1983, aged 16. (In fact, he was in the 2nd Battalion, The Poachers, and Ross is with the 1st Battalion, The Vikings, but it was enough of a connection to get me to tune in.) Like you, I've been led to believe that Ross Kemp is something of a joke - a former soap actor who's never been able to escape his "hard man" image, even when his wife, News Of The World editor Rebekah Wade, gave him a thick lip in 2005. But a) lest we forget, he was brilliant in EastEnders, and b) he really seems to be making a go of being a TV reporter. Yes, he's on Sky, and his series do still trade on his "hard man" image, but Ross Kemp On Gangs won a Bafta for factual programming. Anyway, I caught up with Ross, training for combat with the Vikings, and there really is something quite admirable about him.

His dad had served with the Royal Norfolk Regiment in Cyprus, so there was a reason for attaching himself to the Royal Anglians. Also, he didn't need to have his hair cut. Although he did "hard" things like fire an SA80 assault rifle in training, he admitted he was scared often enough as he prepared to fly out to Afghanistan, which, by all accounts, and to borrow a phrase from No Country For Old Men, remains "a colossal goatfuck". He's actually quite well spoken when he plays himself, with very good enunciation as a narrator. Sadly, Ross is afflicted with Jeremy Clarkson Syndrome, meaning he feels that to ... add impact ... to what he's ... saying ... he leaves ... large gaps ... between ... words. It's almost as if he's stretching his links out to fill an allotted time. Totally unnecessary but, I suspect, very Sky One. The actual meat of the documentary - which runs for some weeks - is substantial: up-close filming with the soldiers; revealing interviews with them (many of the older soldiers candidly talk of putting the job before thoughts of their families, which sounds harsh, but how else are you to engage "the enemy"?); amazing proximity to actual bullets and mortar fire, if the throw-forward clips are to be believed. I had to laugh at the one-minute history lesson the programme makers felt compelled to put in (Russian invade Afghanistan; Russians leave Afghanistan ten years later; Mujahideen armed by the Americans; Taliban kick Mujiahideen out; Osama bin Laden arrives; Twin Towers fall - now, back to the action), but this was there to justify continually talking about "the enemy".

I wouldn't last five minutes in training, let alone combat, but then I was born a conscientious objector (classic Woody Allen line: "In the event of war, I'm a hostage"). As such, I do admire these boys, and some of them are boys, for the sheer guts it takes to throw yourself, swearing and shouting, into a combat zone - and because my own brother did it, for a great number of years, I do not feel the knee-jerk dismissal of service people that I, as a pacifist with no answers, might normally. (Signing up to get killed? The idiots! They're just tools of the government, doing the dirty imperialist work of men in grey suits behind oak desks! Don't they have minds of their own?) I don't even have any patriotism. These soldiers seem to. They have many things I do not have. They'll probably even keep their jobs during a recession.

I like Ross Kemp, is what I've been putting off saying. I don't like war. And neither does he. In the name of entertainment, he was prepared to go and hide behind a wall in Helmand Province to prove it. I might watch the second episode.

My headline is, of course, borrowed from most Guardian articles in G2 about things we probably shouldn't be worried about actually, but asking it gives urgency to a two-page filler about some statistics or a new report. But this time it's serious: should we be worried? Black Monday! Panic selling! Stock market rout! Steepest drop in FTSE 100 index in a single day since September 11, 2001! The "acrid stench of fear"! (That's a quote from yesterday's paper.) Chaos reigns in City! Biggest single cut in US interest rates in two decades fails to halt shares slide! Dow Jones, whatever that is, plunges 400 points, whatever they are, within minutes of the opening bell, whatever that is (actually, I can guess what that is)! Weakening economic outlook! House prices fall! Something called "subprime"! Credit crunch! High street downturn! Gridlock in money markets! We're all doooooomed.

I'm not making light of this. First, I don't understand economics, other than the stock market is based upon speculation, unit trusts can go down as well as up, and that the richest nation in the world is in big debt, and that's never good for the rest of us. I know what a recession is like, as I've lived through a few. I can certainly remember energy-saving measures and power cuts during the oil crisis 1973-75 (quite exciting for a ten year-old), the gloom of the early 80s and the negative-equity crisis of the early 90s. I always cling to the notion that the entertainment industry is always the last to shed jobs in a depression, but we know that EMI are streamlining 1500 to 2000 employees, and even the BBC is being squeezed to the tune of 1800, so perhaps the worst is happening already. What interests me in all this, is the way the media seems to be willing a recession upon us. House prices were bound to slow down eventually, and they finally are, but do you detect glee in the newspapers' reporting of this fact? I do.

Perhaps they're right to crow about it. Perhaps it's actually happening and in six months' time, house prices will have plummeted so far it'll be possible for first-time buyers to buy a house. I don't want to see City employees jumping out of skyscrapers, but if some of their million-pound bonuses are reduced, that might not be the end of the world. Most people live beyond their means, thanks to instant credit, and although that might mean plasma screens for all, it's a false economy. People have two cars, two houses, go on two holidays a year, and these aren't Lord Snooty-type hoorays, they're people you know. No wonder we all leave the lights on all the time. We've forgotten how to save money, how to economise, how to plan. (Being self-employed forces me to do my accounts for VAT every quarter and were it not for this, I might also have lost sight of my finances. I'm not exactly a whizz with figures.) The worst thing about all this economic downturn is that pensions become worthless, if they're not already, and savings become frozen, and it's ordinary people who get it in the neck.

Anyway, it hasn't happened yet. So I'm going out for a slap-up meal.

This is me at Nene College, Avenue Campus, Northampton, at the end of summer term, 1984. Yesterday, I was back, wandering the same corridors, this time not as a student, but as ... a visiting lecturer. The "journey" from pupil to tutor has taken 24 years. It's now the University Of Northampton, having been upgraded in 2005, and those who've been following the story, will know that I was proud to be made a Fellow of the university in August 2006 (an honour I share with Jo Whiley and Bob Harris). Since then, I have been back to cut the ribbon on the new Heyford building, where the Foundation art course is housed. When I attended Nene, you could only do a foundation; nowadays, you can do your degree there too. (Perhaps if this had been the case in 1984, I'd have stayed in Northampton. As it was, I left for London, and never looked back.)

My day as a lecturer was split into two parts. I was met at the entrance by John Harper, a legendary tutor who's been there at least since 1983 when I first walked, wide-eyed, through its doors. It was he who invited me, and he who oversaw my first project as a proper art student, which was to build a tent in the main hall of the college, along with my 50 or so fellow foundationeers. The only specification was that we weren't to make any holes in the floor. Come the end of the day, the hall looked like a pretentious refugee camp. I made mine by lashing together some of Mum's old sheets and an Oxfam raincoat with brown tape and string. I then stuck a plastic shark above the door and strung a red light bulb from the inside, with some photos of Marlon Brando around the flaps. John then made us spend the day sitting in our tents, drawing the space. This is how I recorded that head-spinning event in my diary of the time:


It was strange to be back in that very hall - now kitted out with tiered seating and a big projection screen - lecturing about 100 students, some of them fine art, others graphics and illustration, mostly the same sort of age I was in the mid-80s, a few of them mature students, and with a sprinkling of tutors, many of them called John, and again, quite a few from my day. As a visiting lecturer, and first-timer, I was called upon to talk about myself, or what Strictly Come Dancing contestants would call my "journey" from Nene to whatever the fuck I am now. I made up a fat portfolio of work, which ranged from a cartoon of Top Cat and his gang that I drew when I was about five, via a still life of some wellies and a carrot I drew for my Art A-level and the very picture I made from inside my Oxfam tent, to the crowd-pleasing smears I created whilst at Chelsea School of Art, where my natural inclination towards doing cartoons was looked down upon and discouraged, meanwhile paving the way to actual employment on leaving college. The theme of my talk, which lasted over an hour and a half, was Art versus Commerce, something that I hoped would pique the interest of both fine artists, who make art for art's sake, and the commercial artists, who do it to order (as I did). Because I began my higher education in that very hall, I hoped I would connect with the students from the off, and I kind of think I did. They certainly seemed attentive and responsive (ie. they laughed at my self-effacing jokes and carefully placed swears), and nobody slept.

However, once I'd got to the end of my "journey", and soaked up the applause, I threw open the usual Q&A opportunity to the students. After all, I'd covered an awful lot of ground, from foundation to the NME, and I felt it was time to respond to individual questions. Not a single hand went up. Not a single student, in the prime of their life, currently engaged in mind-expanding creative education with a view to entering the world via the door marked "Art and Design", wished to know anything further. I must admit, I was shocked.

For the afternoon session, I was to hold a more intimate seminar in a smaller room, and John asked for a show of hands from anybody interested in discussing the issues further. Four hands went up.

Not an auspicious showing, I mused, as I ate lunch with the Product Design faculty and listened to their stories over bread and salad and pork pie and red wine (a Thursday lunchtime tradition, so I discovered). I really like the staff at Nene - as I shall continue to call it, Opal Fruits/Hammersmith Odoen style - although even though I'm 42 I still felt a bit like a student when sat among them! Having seen a lot of the students' work last summer, I know that they're producing some fine stuff in design and fashion and fine art, and that the still-young degree courses are punching their weight in an unfashionable town. But when did students get so shy and unquestioning? I'm not flattering myself that I'm the most interesting person in the world, but I'm an ex-student and I've been in the real world for 20 years and I was only there for a day, and I still can't believe that nobody had a question. I don't take it personally - I think it says something far more general about the next generation: perhaps they really have been beaten into submission by SATs and New Labour's literacy/numeracy hours, too worried about passing tests to ask supplementary questions. When Rob O'Connor, the record sleeve designer, came to Chelsea to talk to us, my friend Rob and I were all over him, asking him everything we could about working in record sleeve design. (It's actually his handwriting on the cover of Siouxsie & The Banshees' Kaleidoscope album for God's sake!) We had a visiting photography tutor called Ronnie Randall, who'd also had a couple of reviews printed in Sounds - again, we wouldn't let him go! Tell us everything!

Anyway, about 15 students came along to the afternoon seminar, and it really raised my spirits. They were a mixed bunch, and after doing some more talking about the problems of being creative to order, and the way autobiography can inform your work (it certainly did mine!), I asked them all to reveal an aspect of their life or personality that feeds into the work they do. Not one of them let me down, although some were more shy than others. There was a fantastic mature student in there called Dave, who's 65, and had an incredible story to tell. I hope he inspired the others. I hope just by being there and getting them to talk, I inspired them just a little bit. I've spoken to lots of students over the past ten years, mainly through the NUS, and it can be extremely rewarding. I can see why teachers do it. (Not that I would compare doing a day here and a session there with actual lecturing or teaching - I know my limits. I have friends who are teachers and I take my mortar board off to them.)



Anyway, I really loved going back to Nene for the day. It's a terrific School of the Arts and I'd happily do it again. As a postscript, one of the students in the afternoon seminar emailed me and told me he'd been inspired by the day, so all was not lost.

Now, any questions?

No?

Nothing?

If I did a newsletter, this would be on it.

I'm doing a gig. Robin Ince has kindly asked me to appear on the bill of his School For Gifted Children night at Battersea Arts Centre in South London. I have a ten minute slot, and I think I shall talk about serial killers. It's on Monday 28 January and the full lineup includes Darren Hayman (formerly of Hefner and The French), Graham Fellows (aka John Shuttleworth), Rich Sandling (winner of So You Think You're Funny), and songwriter and Daniel Kitson accompanist Gavin Osborn. Robin is, of course, the genial and brainy host. Book here.

Banter is returning to Radio 4 for its belated third series in April, and the recording dates, soon to be confirmed, will be at London's Drill Hall in February and early March. Details as I get them. (Confirmed regulars: Richard Herring, Will Smith and Russell Howard.)

I was on Front Row on Radio 4 last night, reviewing Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It can be listened to again for the next seven days here. (It's the first item.)

I joined in the fabulous and shouty Word Podcast last night, too - enlivened, as if we needed it, by the ceremonial tasting of a new caffeinated soft drink. Check the Word website. It's bound to show up presently.

That's it.

Oh, and Richard Herring and I are threatening to make a podcast. Would anybody be interested in such a thing? (It costs a certain amount of money, it seems, to buy the bandwidth, but we wouldn't charge for it, obviously.)

I love Jamie Oliver. I really do - his style, his recipes, his enthusiasm, his gardener Brian, his attitude, and his campaigning zeal - I loved him when everybody else went off him. And when they all decided to like him again because he put some urchins to work in his restaurant and sank loads of his own money into it, while trying to stop our kids eating mechanically reclaimed turkey products, I was already there, tapping my foot, saying, "What kept you?"

However, one thing has always bothered me, and has done for seven years, and that's Jamie's association with Sainsbury's. (For which read: any huge supermarket whose job it is to make money, by hook or by crook, and only pretends to care about our well-being if it helps them to make more money.) You can see why Sainsbury's leapt on him and offered him a contract worth 1.2 million a year, or whatever it is - he gives them much-needed credibility by association. By putting his signature on their packets of coriander and helping to advertise them as if they actually want us all to buy unadulterated ingredients from their stores, like vegetables and that (when they make far more profit from the "added value" items that fill about 80% of the shop floor, and only use the fresh stuff to lure us inside), Jamie Oliver stops Sainsbury's looking like a supermarket. It's all in the perception. Even though he grows his own food and shops at Waitrose.

Well now, at last, it seems that his "special relationship" with the high street (or actually out-of-town) retailer has come back to bite him on the arse. As part of C4's latest attempt to get us to stop eating shit, he's come up with Jamie's Fowl Dinners, a one-off, studio-based expose of how "standard" chickens and "caged bird" eggs are produced. I always think this stuff is common knowledge, but apparently not. It wasn't a bad programme, actually - edited with a blunt spatula, but Jamie handled the presenting well and they really pulled out the stops in order to shock: gassing unwanted baby male chicks before our very eyes (chickens bred for egg production: no males required), and showing us a chicken being electrocuted before being drained of blood. The problem came when Jamie turned to a near-empty table where representatives of Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and - gasp! - his employer Sainsbury's had declined to sit. Co-Op and Waitrose were represented, and good for them. It seems that all big supermarkets have spotted that certain customers want free-range and organic chicken and eggs, and they are being catered for, but for as long as some other customers "demand" cheap stuff, they will supply it, and the birds will suffer for that free-market luxury. (I was shocked to discover that farmers make 3p profit on every chicken they sell. This programme was careful to shift the blame off the industry and place it at the table of the supermarkets - who, of course, blame it on us.)

In an interview with the Mirror, Jamie sounded off about Sainsbury's and expressed understandable dismay at their failure to show up for his programme. Sainsbury's got cross at his "outburst". And this is where it gets really gory: Jamie wrote a letter to the Sainsbury's chairman, Justin King, grovelling on his knees, and telling him how great the supermarket was, and - in so many words - why they should renew his contract this summer. The letter is here. Read it and cringe.

I still admire Jamie for all of the reasons stated above, but surely his position as chicken campaigner and promoter of Sainsbury's has now become untenable? He may use their money wisely, funding his training programme for "problem" kids, but surely he can stop taking the Sainsbury's shilling now? There comes a point when subverting from within starts to taste a bit like having your chicken and eating it.

What's this called?

It's a kind of nut with a thread on the inside and outside. It's designed to be inserted into a pre-drilled hole in a piece of wood, so that the thread on the outside grips the wood, and you screw a screw into it. This one, as you can perhaps see, is damaged, chipped, and it doesn't stay in the hole in the wood. I need to replace it, and I've taken it to B&Q where two helpful young men assured me that they don't stock it, and couldn't come up with a name for it either. What is it called? I've been trying to find one on an ironmongery website, but again, without the name for it, I'm having trouble searching for it.

If anyone can help, I'd be very grateful.

As you were.

Manners Manifesto Update: whilst ordering my peppermint tea in my usual coffee shop this morning (and making conversation with the man behind the counter - nothing profound), the woman behind me in the queue said, "I think you may have dropped some money." We looked down and it was a two pence piece. I picked it up, and said, "Thank you. Two pence might make all the difference!", which was a daft thing to say, but at least it was more of that human contact we all crave. It was nice of her to go to the trouble of pointing it out to me, knowing that it was only 2p.

I was feeling fed up as I walked through the crowded station this morning, trying not to tread on anyone's heels or to huff and puff. I could feel that my face had fallen into its default grumpy commuting frown. I forced my mouth into the shape of a smile, and do you know what? It's really hard to feel grumpy when you're smiling. This may sound sappy, but I look around me and I see upset and misery and despair, and it really does make a difference. Give it a go. (I'm on hold, waiting to be connected to BT as I write this, and I vow to be friendly and patient when I finally get through. It's the ultimate test.)

Manners Manifesto Update. Just a small incident. I ordered my usual coffee at not-my-usual coffee shop - the large decaff soya latte - and the young gentleman behind the counter who made it for me gave me a withering look as he handed it over. (The "Large" is way too big at Costa, but the "Medium" is smaller than the "Grande" I'm used to at Caffe Nero.) "This is not a coffee," he said, with concerned sympathy. "Decaff? With soya?" I was slightly disarmed by his subjective insult of my coffee choice but man enough to stand by it, and I said, with a smile, "But I don't want caffeine, and I don't want dairy, so in fact, this is the perfect coffee for me!" My argument was sound, and all the better for having been defended. He wasn't being rude - in fact, he was doing what I myself advocated, which is to make contact, make conversation, prove we are not coffee machines, and I rather admired his honesty. Convinced, at least by my logic, he bid me farewell with an "Enjoy, Sir!" that also took on an air of sympathy. Poor sap, he was probably thinking.

I applaud the young man in Costa. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's not a coffee. But at least we had a dialogue.

(Incidentally, I've remembered another key facet of the Manners Manifesto which I didn't write down: the respectful negotiation of other people as you pass through a crowded place. Look up at all times; judge distances; allow for people who are running for trains when you're just ambling; always apologise if you make contact; never barge; do your utmost not to step on the person in front's heels; smile at fellow travellers if it gets really crowded - you're all in this together.)

Really enjoyed one-off documentary 1983: The Brink Of Apocalypse on Channel 4, Saturday night, except for one small thing. For once, a C4 documentary whose title was not sensationalist, it told the tale, using reconstruction and talking-head testimony from major players, of the closest the United States and the Soviet Union ever came to nuclear war. It sent a chill through me to remember just how tense it was at that time. We really thought the end of the world was nigh, and acted accordingly. It's weird to think how much a part of our lives that dreaded face-off was. This intelligent documentary brought it all back, and uncovered a narrative that - thankfully - most of us had no idea was happening: Russian paranoia was such that they had joined a number of dots and in November, 1983, during Able Archer, a ten-day Nato exercise whose radio messages their spies were picking up, the silos opened to reveal ICBMs pointed at a number of key American cities, Russian fingers hovering over red buttons in order to preempt the inevitable first strike. Unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis, the whole thing went off - or didn't - outside of common knowledge. (Other key factors in this massive, potentially deadly misunderstanding were the tightening of security at US facilities following a truck bomb that killed Marines in Beirut, the Korean airliner shot down by a Russian plane, the imminent arrival of America's Pershing II missiles in West Germany, and the cast-iron belief that the Americans would hit during a Russian public holiday - November 7 being the start of the Revolution Day festivities, right in the middle of Able Archer. Also, let us not forget the bellicose President Reagan and his fucking stupid "Evil Empire" speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Florida - those two little words moved the Cold War closer to becoming Hot at a stroke.)

Anyway, a gripping documentary whose authority and power were undermined occasionally by ironic use of 1983 British pop music (Smalltown Boy, Let's Dance, Blue Monday etc.), but undermined constantly by narrator Gina McKee. Fine actress that she is, and with a lovely, soft Tyne and Wear accent, she's also unfortunately one of those people, like George Bush, who pronounce the word "nuclear" as "nucular." I calculate that the word was spoken around 100 times over the course of this programme, for self-evident reasons and each time she said it - "nucular missile," "nucular stand-off", "nucular war" - I tensed up. It was as distracting as if she couldn't pronounce "Nato" or "Reagan" or "1983." Surely Gina didn't just record her own narration and send it in seconds before the tapes were sent off to C4? Surely somebody was listening to her as she recorded it - like the producer? I've done a few voiceovers - they're done line by line. Couldn't they have asked her politely to say it properly? She's an actress. She's used to direction. New-clear. It's easy.

I sincerely hope you have never seen the television programme My Super Sweet 16. It's on MTV and although it's an American show - how could it not be? - it now exists in a xeroxed British version, called My Super Sweet 16 UK . If you haven't stumbled upon it, please don't seek it out unless you have a strong stomach. (If you do find it, please ensure you are not wearing shoes, as you may feel the urge to kick the television set in.)



Here's how it goes: a spoiled brat approaching their 16th birthday is corralled by the programme-makers into throwing a party to beat all previous parties. Now, who actually pays for all this is unclear. Certainly, the parents seem well off. The "narrative" of the show, which is typically murky for a "reality" format, involves the parents being ordered around by said brat, as preparations escalate, a dance routine is rehearsed and the centre of their universe becomes ever more demanding and appalling. If the programme is to be believed, 15-year-olds in America are all rich beyond their wildest dreams and interested only in designer labels, price tags and being "popular", a quality that can be bought with the aforementioned designer labels. Now, fair enough, most of us are pretty shallow at 15, caught between childish urges and creeping hormonal discomfort, but then most of us don't have access to blank cheques from daddy and an overinflated sense of our own importance. The Super Sweet 16 bash - heavily formulaic, if you watch more than one episode and you mustn't - always involves a "theme", a "performer" (ie. someone famous appearing to mime to a record and thus make the birthday boy/girl more popular with their squealing contemporaries), that dance routine, and a tantrum, when something fails to go right. Clearly, if you are going to organise a massive party, you don't leave stuff to the last minute, but they always do, in order for the programme to introduce some jeopardy where there really is none. Omigod, the snow machine isn't big enough! The Bollywood dance routine won't fit on the stage! They can't book Kayne West! (They all seem to want to book Kanye West.)

It's trash telly, but it's also deeply frightening that there are kids out there this materialistic and hollow, and parents out there so unable to provide love they substitute it with money, in the process creating a monster. I'm afraid I've seen a number of these things now, mostly the UK ones, and if someone told me that the whole thing was set up and that the parents and kids were played by actors, I wouldn't be surprised. Charlie Brooker, whose Screenwipe shamefully brought the show to my attention, called it "an Al-Qaeda recruitment film," and I can't top that for accuracy. You stagger away from watching it with the cast-iron certainty that we are all going to hell.

Of course, it can be watched for morbid fun. Midway through, the party-thrower is helicoptered or chauffeured to a photogenic location, there to hand out the invites to a scrum of schoolfriends (and I use the word "friends" in the social networking sense). It is here that "reality" comes unmoored from reality. If there really are kids like this out there in the country I live in, I want them removed from the gene pool. This may sound harsh, but if these 15 year olds grow up thinking that wealth is everything, what are their eventual offspring going to grow up thinking? (A dimwit from Essex who conspired with her "friends" not to invite any "losers" or "ugly people" to her James Bond-themed party, to which a mercenary Akon turned up to mime his song, was given a bracelet that cost as much as a car.)

As ever, I blame the parents. I am reluctant to criticise parenting, not being one myself, but the cowed, unthinking, credit-card-swiping fools on this programme (all "new money") have misunderstood what parenting actually is.

Labels: hell, kids, tv

It's a new year. Time to solve the problems of the world - and there are one or two - before it's too late. I've been thinking about this for a while now, and it's dawned on me that the only way we're going to make the world a better place without having to plough through all that due process and red tape and so-called democracy is to start being better ourselves. And I'm not about to lay some guilt trip about carbon footprints or food miles on you. Those things are common sense. I actually think it's time we adopted Derek Batey's famous sign-off from Mr & Mrs:



This is The Manners Manifesto. It's time for a return to - or a formalisation of - good manners. Here's how we do it:

1. Smile. Not all the time. Not at everybody. They'll lock you up. But smile at the person who sells you your ticket at the station. Smile at the person behind the counter at the newsagent, even if, like the man who sometimes serves me at mine, he's a miserable, sour-faced sod. That's no reason to spread the gloom. Look at yourself reflected in the train window, or the shopfront: your default face is one of tight-lipped, frown-headed anxiety. And with good reason. Now reconfigure it. Don't show your teeth, this is England (or at least, it is where I'm standing) - but allow your lips to soften into a grin.
   
2. Say please and thank you. I'd like a medium decaff soya latte, please. Even if you insist, for whatever arcane reason, on using the phrase, "Can I get?", suffix it with the p-word. It feels good coming out of your mouth. Combined with a smile (see: 1), it actually takes the edge off the sheer ritualistic, mechanical joylessness of an everyday transaction. When a man or woman in a brightly-coloured kagoule offers you a free newspaper, the very existence of which makes your blood boil, remember that it's not his or her fault - they're just trying to earn an honest crust, like you - so smile and say, "No, thanks." It takes a second. You don't even have to stop walking. Likewise, if someone tries to give you a flyer, or a card, don't take it as an affront. And if their technique is to hold their arm outstretched in front of you, which is oppressive form, why not say, "Excuse me" as you push past?
   
3. Let that car in. Driving is a fucking nightmare, especially in the cities, and you want to get home, or to the shops. Of course you do. It's only natural. But so does that person ahead of you, indicating that he/she wants to cross the lane that you're in, to make a right turn. Why not flash them through? It's one of those maddening high streets that starts at the traffic lights with two lanes then almost immediately bottlenecks into one because of a bus lane, or a parked lorry. Come on: one at a time. You can keep edging forward to keep them out, but they've got to come in at some point. Why not now? And if someone lets you in, give them a friendly wave in the rear-view mirror. If someone cuts you up, or crosses in front without indicating, or jumps a light at a box junction and blocks your path, for a change, why not pull back from mouthing the word "cunt" or "twat" at them, which won't alleviate this temporary snarl-up; it will just make the atmosphere worse. Roll your eyes at them, or do an exaggerated tut, as if to say, "Cuh! The traffic, eh? We're all in this together, and the sooner we get home, or to the shops, the better!" (To avoid being called a "cunt" or a "twat" yourself, don't drive into box junctions on amber, and use your indicators.)
4. Be friendly to strangers. We were brought up to be terrified of strangers, but we're all strangers until someone introduces us, and only a very tiny percentage of the people you pass in the street will be paedophiles or murderers. Most will be just like you, except with a different coat on, or a different bone structure, or with a few more miles on the clock. So if someone asks you directions, don't run away, or pretend that you're in a hurry, try to help them. Make them feel less like a stranger. Sometimes, the stranger will be shy, and would rather stand around looking lost than risk the humiliation of asking someone directions. If you see this, intervene.
5. Help old people off or on the bus. There's an etiquette here, so let's use our discretion. Not all old people consider themselves old, and might look frail and in need of a seat, or a leg-up, but if you barge in there, they get embarrassed. It's a minefield, but better to be the first person on a bus or in a carriage to offer your seat to someone with grey hair than to sit there, not knowing, willing someone else to do it first. I have found that helping people off or on the bus or train gives you a lift (ironic!) for the rest of the day. And not just the elderly - people with pushchairs, or loads of bags, or the infirm. (Helping blind people without guide dogs is another tricky one, but again, try and judge the situation on its own merits. Blind people are not usually afraid to ask for help, in which case, give it, and don't run away, thinking, ha ha, they can't see me. I think we all know not to pat or fuss guide dogs, don't we? They are irresistible and the most noble of all dogs, but we must resist the urge, as it puts them off their job.)
6. Buy the Big Issue and give some change to the homeless. I have put this one because I never, ever buy the Big Issue. I smile and say no thanks to Big Issue sellers, which is better than looking at the floor, or regarding them with contempt for slowing down your walk to the bus stop with their untidy appearance, but they'd rather you didn't do any that and did still buy a Big Issue. It's easy to let cynicism get you off the hook, as you assure yourself that anyone who begs on the street is probably only going to spend it on strong drink or heroin - indeed, homeless charities and London Underground advise against giving change to beggars - but sometimes you have to take the situation as you see it, and trust your instinct. They're not all millionaires. And they're not all junkies. There are no hard and fast rules. I was approached on the beach at Bournemouth by a beggar who claimed he had lost the return half of his train ticket in the sand. He was obviously a liar. I still gave him some. As I say, no hard and fast rules. (I am so shallow I will give money to any homeless person with a dog. Sue me.)
7. Be polite to Jehovah's Witnesses. Yes, I do object to people knocking on my door after dark, as I always think of the old lady I used to live next door to in Streatham, who would have been terrified of a knock after dark, even if it was from an accredited British Gas salesman hawking for her electricity business. I think it's OK to pretend you're not at home if the doorbell goes after dark. You're doing it on behalf of the old people. But if you do answer the door and it's a young lad with a case full of inferior cleaning products, or two smartly dressed men asking if you ever think about Jesus Christ (or at least getting to that key question after luring you into small talk about non-religious matters), just politely tell them that you are not interested or that you are busy and smile as you close the door. No matter how annoyed you are for being distubed, at least you can go back to the telly - they have to keep knocking at all the other doors, which must be shit. I am even polite to canvassing Labour politicians.
8. Never swear at people on the other end of helplines. They are just doing their job. If they cannot help you, ask to speak to their supervisor. During my telecommunication problems last summer, I reached the point of no return and calmly informed the Scottish gentleman on the other end of the line that I was about to swear, but not at him, only through frustration, and that he should not take it personally. Then I swore. ("This is fucking ridiculous," were my words.) I'm not proud, but I think this preface helped. Keep them in the loop. Stay calm, and if possible, stay PG certificate. There's enough tension in the world of customer service without blaming it on someone with a job on the other end of a phone. It's not his/her fault, it's the system's.
   
9. Never, ever drop litter. This may seem to be outside the remit of manners, but it's not. It's about respecting the space we share. It's an extension of smiling and being nice. I've seen grown adults eat the last crisp in a packet and literally let the packet drop from their hand to the pavement below, without even a look back. Putting a Starbucks cup neatly on the pavement is no better than chucking it, overarm. Put it in a bin. If the nearest bin is full, take it to the next one. That cellophane bit around the cigarette packet? Just because it's see-through doesn't mean it isn't there when you drop it to the floor. I once saw a man get into an argument in Brixton because he, the owner or tenant of an office whose door opened out onto the pavement, was tearing off a poster that had been recently flyposted to his door, and letting the pieces flutter to the pavement. A nearby council street sweeper, with cart, remonstrated with him that he was making a mess that he'd have to pick up, but the poster man felt that he had the moral high ground because his door had been vandalised in the first place. How much better if he'd put the pieces in the cleaner's cart. How much higher his moral ground would have been then.
10. Leaving bags of stuff outside charity shops when they're closed? Come on! The signs are clear enough. Just because you're a superhero for giving an old jigsaw and some jumpers to charity it doesn't mean you can just dump bin bags by night with a clear conscience. Yes, the old ladies who work in there are volunteers, but does that mean they can think of nothing nicer at the start of a working day than sorting through your rain-sodden rubbish before they can even get in the door? On the same ticket, if you're recycling cans or bottles, don't just tuck the empty plastic bag down the side of the bin because fuck it, if they want you to save the planet, they can chuck your sticky bag away as well.
11. Talk to people at the check-out. You don't have to say much. God, even something inane like, "Busy in here, today, isn't it?" or "Not as busy as usual in here, today, is it?" might put us on the road to peace in the Middle East. Carrying on grumping around and spreading those grump vibes certainly isn't going to help.
12. Don't swear when there are kids about. I do, occasionally, if I'm in a family-friendly eaterie, and it's not nice. Reel those swear words in.
    

These are not impossible dreams, are they? It's all about a state of mind. It's remembering that you share the planet, which is a lot easier if you first remember that you share Waitrose and the high street and the train carriage and the motorway. The conversation I had with the man in the coffee shop this morning simply wouldn't bear transcription it was so dull, but those few extra words made those few seconds just that little bit more human and bearable.

Is anyone with me on this? Or have I been on holiday for too long?

Labels: manifesto, manners