Idiots in idiocy shock

But first: 28,004. Rock! Only another 10,000 or so to go I reckon. Tra la la. And some interminable tinkering obviously.

So I stopped watching Big Brother because my telly broke, although I would probably have stopped anyway as it was becoming painful. I don't find people being horrible and humiliating each other or themselves entertaining even when it's fiction, let alone reality. Now telly has been cleverly reset in a way only someone who's not a techno-arse can manage (thank you), and I'm going to be drawn back to it just to see, just to seeee if those awful women are as bad as the massive furore suggests. It's hopeless.

It's difficult to pin down whether or not the fairly obvious bullying of Shilpa Shetty is specifically racist or not, but oh the issues, the issues it raises. 21 MPs have signed a Commons motion condemning it, and Channel 4 have refused to make any proper comment beyond a generic one. The former probably haven't seen the programme, and the latter are going to milk the controversy beyond the point at which it's acceptable for a show which is always going to seek controversy. Both stink. You do have to jump on racism very hard as soon as it raises its head, but you've got to establish that it is racism first, otherwise you are making matters worse in much the same way as women who cry rape do. Channel 4 are going the other way, and getting very close to being irresponsible.

Part of my problem is that all the howling about racism rather excuses the fact that she's been called a cunt by that nothing-boy Jade Goody is porking - so sexism's OK - and undermines the fact of the bullying itself, which isn't acceptable behaviour either (although it might be inevitable in the BB house; they did do it to that poor fucked-up bloke last year... oh... and he was Pakistani. But that's probably a coincidence. He was dreadful. But still).

So I agree with maybe 20% of Germaine's argument - the rest of it is the usual naive crap that gives people credit for the kind of Machievellian plotability that only a sociopath could sustain. I really don't believe she's at all manipulative - she's got no need to get the British public on her side to further her career, she doesn't care if she wins or loses, and she didn't know anything about the show before she went on it. I've rarely seen anyone appear to be so genuine on there, celebrity or otherwise. Thus, Germaine, I need to say my love is eternal but do shut up, you intermittently horrendously erroneous windbag.

I think the racism's there, but it's the fat end of the wedge. It's just oozed out of the general nasty garbage bag (yes, I hate Americanisms too, but 'rubbish' just doesn't convey the kind of rancid goo I need here) of hatred that the other idiots have for the woman. If you're a moron and you find someone objectionable for something specific and fleeting, then you find larger, permanent, personal things about them to hang your objections on - a pair of specs, a big arse, a funny accent. It's because you can't quite articulate your objections in and of themselves - they have to be attached to something. Specific objections are subtle and fiddly and require a bit of analysis - vulnerable personal attributes are like big child-sized building blocks you can grab onto and throw about. Plus, morons think hate is fun. It's like bingo. This is why they don't do it alone. It's a communal, bonding activity, and a bind against the dark suspicion somewhere in the echoing cellar of their brain that the world might find them pointless.

Shilpa is very un-pointless - she seems to be a great example of humanity. She's immensely successful, poised and cultured and well-mannered and beautiful and a lot nicer than you'd expect. The others have had varying degrees of success on the basis on not much talent or beauty and must know how limited it is. They might have some subconscious sense of how 'totally and utterly ordinary' they are by comparison, and how beastly and base they are. Maybe they suspect Shilpa knows it, and so they're just childishly going all out to prove how very horrid they are to her, in that sheep-as-a-lamb sort of way. Or they might just be galloping gormless oafs with no idea of how to treat people.

I don't think they can justify their behaviour on the basis of Shilpa's behaviour, as I think they are doing to themselves, even if Shilpa has been annoying. They're reverting to the lowest possible insults in the face of someone who outclasses them so comprehensively that they can't digest it. But I had to laugh when I saw a clip in which Danielle Lloyd, a dead-eyed Scouse twit who never puts a 'T' on the end of anything when a simple Gordon Brown-esque unhinging of the chin after a vowel will suffice, slobbered "She carn even speak English proplee!"

I suppose I should feel sorry for her, as her flimsy career will be in ruins and she'll probably need to pay for her own protection, which she will need because a lot of other ignorant bastards will want to beat her up. A most mature response, especially when most of them will be the kind who regularly spout much worse in the pub. But for the time being, I'm just finding her a nasty little girl.

The trouble is that the wilfully ignorant often seem to claim a sort of psuedo-racial immunity from criticism. When Jackiey Goody had that scrap with Shilpa over mispronouncing her name, she bellowed "If I can't pronounce your name it's not my fault". Why isn't it? Because no one should ever expect you to make a tiny bit of effort to get someone's name right, so you can show them that most basic level of respect? Well, not if they're foreign and have a silly name. It's their fault for having a silly name, and you don't need to apologise for not being able to get your flapping gob around it. Or it's just the fault of the universe in general. The universe in general cops for a lot of shit from the stupid.

Nothing is ever an idiot's fault. It's just this automatic failsafe against criticism and means nothing, beyond "you are not allowed to criticise me because I am a poor bear of very little brain". This can be augmented by insistences of shit childhoods, drug problems, other problems, other nasty people, etc, but it usually stands up on its own as this impenetrable wall of ignorance. But you can always make an effort, however intellectually challenged you are - you can always try. That elevates you, that you're aware of your shortcomings and refuse to offload them onto others - if you can't pronounce a name, you are contrite about it, not hostile. Why would you be hostile? How can you justify it? You don't need to - it's not your fault, so fuck them. It's just always easier to be permanently on the edge of defensive hostility, and to absolve yourself of responsibility for that and everything else, with the get-out-of-jail-free card of your idiocy.

I can't wait to hear the justification Jade and Danielle and Jo will have for this. I suspect Jo will be horrified and will repent enormously in an ohmigod-what-have-I-become sort of way - she'll wring her hands over ever going into the house in the first place and apologise profusely, having realised she does still want to be famous and liked after all. Danielle will just dig herself in deeper with more twittery, and try and justify it, and flutter her lashes, and then Teddy Sheringham will dump her, or defend her, or defend her and then dump her. Jade will just shout that her dad was black, and then go into hiding, then make a kind of mockery of a Kate Moss-style comeback, possibly by being photographed snorting coke. Shilpa will just go back to her great life in India where she is adored and venerated by all, and hypocritical self-loathing newspapers will call us all cunts.

Then stupid people will continue to be rewarded by society for staying stupid, remaining infants, and causing any amount of damage for which we don't hold them to account. Maybe this is a good start on that score. I try to believe in freedom for everyone to be what they want to be, but I find it so hard not to be militant about idiots. I think they're the biggest problem in the world, and idiocy knows no boundaries of race or nationality. It's only lucky for us that they're too stupid to unite, otherwise we'd be fucked. It's bad enough as it is. (It would be totally inappropriate of me to mention for example suicide bombers at this point, and to speculate that the most significant thing about them is not their race or nationality or religion but their rampant and self-justifying and dangerously energising and self-perpetuating and contagious idiocy. So I won't.)

I might write a book. And then go into hiding.

Links! that I am too rubbish to work into the post properly (I'm not very good at this blogging lark - I should make an effort and elevate myself, or something)

Uniquely British 'not-quite-racism'

Good point, really

Ha ha. Yahoo news is no better than Jackiey "Shoopa... Shuffpa" Goody