September 21, 2007

One thing about staying in foreign parts is the ease of access to the sort of television that used to make Chris Tarrant pull that lob-sided smirk as he read from an autocue and thought himself terribly funny and popular for basically doing bugger all (and breathe, Justin... breathe...)

Now, Fox News. Wow. It's Sky's sister channel in the US and while I've seen it before, I've never had a chance to really examine how awful it really is.

It's not so much the journalism - which is pretty right wing and pro-Bush, but that's fine with me: everyone has an agenda after all - but it's delivery.

Watching Fox is a bit like finding the most ShinyZanyZip MySpace site on the net - now now, you there at the back - and then plunging your head into the monitor and wrapping the virtual insanity around your wooly-hatted head.

With non-stop - and I mean non-stop - screaming from crazed presenters, too.

I watched the OJ Simpson coverage on Fox yesterday and despite the story being so inane and dull it would normally make me weep, I couldn't get my eyes off it.

Three interlinking screens, all with their own rolling tickers beneath, all at the same time, one with footage of his original flee from the cops all those years ago, one with Greta Von Blondevagina live outside a hotel, and a third with whichever talking head the producers had lined her up to interview non-stop for an hour - even if it was a turnip.

However, I digress, because there was a moment of sheer class that shone through this barrage of brash shiny crap - Barbara Streisand's husband, the actor James Brolin, being slagged off by all and sundry.

Why?

Because on the anniversary of 9/11, he was doing a live interview with a crap radio presenter on a station just outside NYC, who - even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the reason for the interview - began with a grave, low-voiced greeting along the lines of: "Hi James, thanks for talking to us today on this terrible anniversary."

"Eh?" said James, clearly taken aback, but cheerful nonetheless. "Hey! Happy September 11!"

Marvellous.

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