Thursday, September 25, 2008

Capital of Japan? Yokohama, isn’t it?

As the rather splendid series of “Who do you think you are” winds down, I would have bet a good 20p that they would not and could not have found anyone more irritating and stupid than Esther Rantzen to appear.

Well, in the words of Pope John 17th, “Bugger me”.

Tonight’s fascinating documentary featured a young lady called Jodie Kidd. I had not previously heard of her, (well I might have, a bit, but I couldn’t have told you who she is) and I am not sure of the spelling. I refuse to try to find the spelling, because I don’t want to visit any web pages that feature her, lest some of the vacuity rubs off.


I gather from the programme’s preamble that she is/was a fashion model. That’s right, she earns a living by wearing clothes - other people’s clothes at that. This is just as well, as she is evidently too fucking stupid to dress herself.


Seldom could the words “amazing” and “unbelievable” have been used so often to describe the mundane. I suppose that if you have the IQ of a knitting needle, then most things must seem unbelievable and amazing, and we should look upon someone with this degree of unworldliness as some sort of saint. I look upon her as a thick twat. I hold no grudges against thick twats, I just don’t want to spend my time with them. (Even if they’ve got big tits, Tom.) (I have already surrendered to the likelihood that I will be invaded by another set of perverts for the next 3 years, as Theodore and Evadne Google’s filing system juxtaposes the subject of this article with the phrase “big tits” or “twat”, so I don’t really care).


I learned that Ms Kidd is descended from lord Beaverbrook. She regards this as a good thing. Bugger me again. This squalid purveyor of quasi-fascist propaganda should have been set to work in a mercury mine, and his bloody awful newspaper should never have been allowed to go unpulped. What a twat.


Putting lord Copper aside, Jodie went off in search of her maternal great grandfather, who was a Newcastle shipbuilder, eventually given a baronetcy for his endeavours. She thought this made him a great chap. Twat. Both of them. This atrocious capitalist pig got rich off of the backs of his labourers, and made his fortune from making ships during the first world war. He was such a twat that even George V didn’t like him, and Churchill thought he was a twat. Like so many of his sort however, Jodie’s granddad was an entrepreneur, and secured his honour by slipping Lloyd George a couple of quid. Twat. This was after a conviction for food hoarding during the war. Arsehole.


While all this discovery is going on, young Jodie is pictured looking unbelievably amazed at everything that is happening, which isn’t difficult really, as I reckon she understands about 3% of it.


You know that it is going to be a below average episode when much of the programme is spent showing the subject meeting each of the people who have done the actual research. There is not a great deal of entertainment to be gleaned from watching doors being knocked and people introducing themselves to each other, as if they haven’t just fucking rehearsed it 8 fucking times. Probably 48 times in the case of Jodie Kidd. Bastards. And I don’t fucking care if the deputy librarian at the Kidderminster Records Office is called Barbara.


Anyway, Jodie then pursued the Beaverbrook Canadian line, and chose a line that wiggled its way back through Eastern Canada to Massachusetts and finished up with some of the earliest settlers from England in North America. Yes, the bloody puritans. Not quite the Pilgrim Fathers, but the same sort of godbothering busybodies who everyone in their home town was glad to see the back of, and who went on to spawn the throwbacks who form the redneck tradition of the worst of middle America. Yes, we got shut of the gits, and then, four hundred years later, their offspring are here to get paid 6 xillion quid to walk up and down a fucking catwalk without falling over.


We should not be too harsh on Ms Kidd. It is not her fault that she is descended from such a menagerie of total tossers - I will try to remember this when the television licence fee appears on my bank statement next February.

23 comments:

I, Like The View said...

erm, apart from providing those of us who don't really watch the televisual box, with a short and to the point review of a programme that I doubt I would have chosen to watch anyhow even if I did switch on and find myself aimlessly flicking thru the channels, one might wonder why you yourself did not turn off your television set and go and do something more interesting instead. . .

. . .but upon rereading your piece, I realise that the whole point of it was to bring a much needed piece of information to my attention

my knitting needles have an IQ!

fantastic

thanks vicus

I, Like The View said...

(I do think you might brush up on your geography tho - imagine all those people googling twat and big tits now believing that Yokohama is the capital of Japan)

(it's J, actually)

Vicus Scurra said...

ILTV - all of my work here is geared toward education and improvement. Are you familiar with the works of old Evelyn? There are some programmes on BBC3 or 4 next week about him. Might be worth switching the old telly on for.

I, Like The View said...

thank you vicus, you are too considerate. . .

the only thing is, I've forgotten how to do that, turn it on, I mean - there are four blips, and I haven't a clue which one does the job

now, if it was an old telly I'd just be able to stand up, walk over and press a button and twiddle a dial

(might have to call up The Teen, and get him over to show me)

(-:

Tim F said...

Not only "big tits" and "twat", but "fucking", "bugger", "arsehole" and "beaver". This post may as well be crumpled up and left in a hedge for schoolkids to peruse.

I, on the other hand, only came here because I Googled "the deputy librarian at the Kidderminster Records Office". Oh God, mmmm, oh yeah baby, etc.

Romeo Morningwood said...

Is Yoko Ono related to Yoko Hama? I find it so confounding when they place their surnames at the front.

Just think how much there is to learn about our world..and yet we end up watching shows about leggy, upper-class inbreds.

Actually I stopped listening after you mentioned 'big tits, Tom', what were you going on about this time?

Vicus Scurra said...

Tim. I am pleased now that I didn't mention the archivist from the Crimean War museum in Budapest.
Donn. I do not 'go on' about anything. I illuminate, charm and educate. Are you related to Beaverbrook? Those eyebrows look a bid dodgy to me.

Dave said...

I am pleased that you have decided 'not be too harsh on Ms Kidd'. Whoever she is.

Vicus Scurra said...

Dave, as you well know, compassion is my watchword.

Richard said...

I can only hope that as you are an old hippy you watch the television in bare feet or at most a pair of vegan espadrilles. The fewer things you have to use for target practice is ultimately beneficial to maknind.

garfer said...

Jonathan Aitken is related to Beaverbrook, who is related to Jodie Kidd.

Blimey, small world innit?

I am a direct descendant of Nebuchadnezzar.

Vicus Scurra said...

Richard. You interest in my intimate apparel is not suitable for this family-friendly forum.
Garfer. Yes indeed, but I thought Ms Kidd had suffered enough, what with criminals, fascists, puritans and native-American murderers in her ancestry, without mentioning the living criminals in her extended family. I'd prefer old Neb to this lot - anyone who liked a spot of gardening can't have been all that bad.

Leila said...

Why oh why did you watch the prgramme is what I can't figure out! Thats where Im glad I live in my own bubble....

But you were merciless! Well done!

After reading comments, and seeing as Im sitting at university, I am NOT going to google Yokohama!!

Vicus Scurra said...

Leila! Welcome. I don't believe I've seen you here before. Come in, pull up a sheep and sit down. Let me introduce you to the inmates. They are the deranged ones whose comments you will see here. Perhaps I better let you take that gradually. They are mostly harmless. I watched the programme because of my interest in genealogy. I thought I might pick up some tips. The only one I picked up was never to marry a model. Mrs S would probably not allow it anyway. If you google something, google "Lord Copper" - an essential part of your education.

Geoff said...

We watched the Jerry Springer one but didn't want to get our hackles up at this one or the Rantzen one.

They do pick some incredibly annoying people.

Lin said...

V, it sounds as though that show is just stupid enough to make it across the pond to BBC America. Fingers crossed.

xoxo

Vicus Scurra said...

Lin, the show isn't particularly stupid, apart from the emphasis on showing sections where people meet each other and waste a few seconds of footage that could be put to better use. The previous episode, with the lovely David Suchet, was excellent. (Although they do tend to gloss over how arduous the research into historical records is - Joe Blow turns up some place and is presented with a list of 17 generations of ancestors, which had probably taken 10 or 20 man-hours to compile). Jodie Kidd would do very well on US TV. I think, however, you are under the impression that UK television programme makers have managed to avoid the same level of crassness that have adorned prime time over there - if so, I suspect that you are mistaken.

Dave said...

I've only watched one episode of this series - it was about a very nice gentleman called Boris (I didn't catch his surname). Seemed like a very decent sort of chap.

Richard said...

I still don't have a television so I hope that one day in the distant future when I finally get one that all these lovely programmes are repeated on Dave. I'm sure they will be if I wait long enough.

I, Like The View said...

someone called Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen has "salt in his DNA" apparently

(I managed to work out how to use the televisual contraption)

I, Like The View said...

vicus disaster has struck! now I've worked out how to use the telly, I keep turning it on and watching things

Vicus Scurra said...

ILTV. He also appears to have crap between his ears. Let me know if you need any guidance about suitable viewing materials.

I, Like The View said...

oh I do!

partly because there only seems to be total rubbish on the channel the tv is tuned to (altho I did see a superlative conversation between a Ms Tracy Emin and some ex-tabloid chappy the other day), and partly because I aspire to write informed informative pieces on current affairs as you do

instead of my usual dross

any assistance would be more than greatfully received