Line of Duty

For the past 6 Wednesdays I have been watching the second series of BBC2's Line of Duty, a drama series focussing on a police anti-corruption unit AC12.  I was slightly disappointed with the first series, which starred Lennie James as the corrupt DCI Gates.  I admire much of the work of the writer Jed Mercurio, but found it lacked the intensity of, for example, his medical drama Bodies.  

The second series proved to be much stronger.  Whereas in the first series, we knew Gates was corrupt and the journey was simply watching how the officers of AC12 pinned it on him, the second the took a more interesting approach.  From the outset suspicion falls on another DCI, Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawkes).  Denton is a more intriguing character than Gates.  An honest, and rather rule-bound officer, and something of a loner, she stands in stark contrast to the smooth, sociable and patently untrustworthy Gates.  From the outset there seems to be little doubt about her guilt; the question is why?

Except, it turns out there is a lot of doubt about her guilt.  The hypothesis the anti-corruption officers construct becomes increasingly rickety in the face of evidence - evidence seen by them and evidence seen only by the viewer.  Denton, meanwhile, blames superior officer and former lover DCC Mike Dryden.  While this initially looks like a desperate attempt to escape justice, the viewer, seeing her treatment on remand has to think again.  The officers, too, are convinced and Dryden is arrested.  This, of course, isn't the end, and by the final episode bets were back on again and everything was set up for the grand finale.

The grand finale, sadly, didn't materialise.  The hour-long episode unfurled, much like Jane Austen's 'tell-tale compression of the pages', but leaving more loose ends and less time to tie them up.  At around the forty minute mark, we were given an extended flashback that tied up several strands in a rather unsatisfying fashion.

To an extent, I think the exigencies of TV drama must take some of the blame: it is doubtless agonisingly difficult to plot six episodes to a set length, each containing its own dramatic arc, while contributing to the overall arc of the series.  Having seen and read a few of Mercurio's series and novels, I confess to being generally let down by the endings: it seems he is very good at creating characters and putting them into unusual positions, but he just isn't that good at resolving everything.

Line of Duty is still a great series.  There are enough loose ends, in particular the newly-revealed details of DS 'Dot' Cotton's nefariousness.  The moral ambivalence of the characters and the darkness of the dramatic world will make a third series welcome.  I just hope the ending's better next time.

West Midlands Folk Lounge

On Saturday, I visited the West Midlands Folk Lounge.  I generally feel uneasy with any kind of generic approach to - well, anything.  I can't like or dislike music on the basis of what label it has.  'Folk' seems the most nebulous genre, with the possible exception of 'indie' and of course the sub-genre from Hell, 'indie folk'.  What I find most upsetting about the whole thing is that I played in an acoustic duo in the late 90s, that I jokingly described as 'indie folk' because I couldn't think of a better description.  As self-delusions go, 'I could've been a contender' is one of the more ridiculous, but knowing discovering fifteen years after the event that you might have been in the forefront of something moderately interesting is rather galling.

Enough of my middle-aged frustrations.  The most interesting of last Saturday's act were Jenny Went Away. The three band members sing in various combinations and play guitar, violin, cajon and ukulele.  They look and sound like 'indie folk' might have done had it been around in the 1940s.  They lack the technique to be totally convincing, but that is easily remedied.

The most affecting were Driftwood Store, or rather a combination of Driftwood Store and The Mistakings - there is some overlap between the two group and Saturday's lineup contained members of both.  Again, there were three singers, arranging vocal harmonies in various combinations.  They also had a violin and one guitar, shared between two guitarists.  The vocals are ethereal and shockingly beautiful; the guitar was rudimentary, but none the worse for it.

What both acts share is a willingness to move away from the tired drums/bass/rhythm/lead/vocal formula that has dominated music for about a million years.  Did I enjoy the evening?  Apart from the unpleasant envy I felt at realising  some of these musicians are young enough to be my children, yes.

I might be wrong

So, today is David Bowie's 66th birthday and to celebrate, he's released a new single - and why not?  I am something of a Bowie agnostic.  Apparently, I once tried to chat up a woman at a party by claiming to be a big Bowie fan (as she was) and dropped myself in it, by admitting that I'd never heard TVC15.  I say 'apparently' because I remembered nothing of the conversation after the party and was only told afterwards by a mutual friend (of the woman I was trying to chat up, not David Bowie).

I do, genuinely, own a couple of Bowie's albums, and find some of his work awesome; I also find a lot of it  pretentious untuneful tosh - I might be wrong.  Anyway, I've listened to his new single: I like the wistful chord changes, but I'm not sure about the lyrics; on the whole, it's enjoyable enough, if not exactly earth-shattering (but see my earlier caveat about the 'pretentious untuneful tosh' comment).

The video is the most striking thing.  Bowie appears yoked to a woman said to look like Bjork.  I didn't see the Bjork resemblance: to me, this woman looks like Yoko Ono, particularly in her attachment to a famous musician.  Towards the end, Bowie sings 'so long as there's me', which is followed (in no way predictably) by 'so long as there's you' - the whole thing reminds me of Lennon's 'God', although I might (as previously hinted) be wrong.

I don't know if there's any significance in this; I suspect David Bowie is just having a laugh at our expense - and why not?  Anyway, Mr B, if you're reading this, happy birthday, whatever your intentions.

Update: It seems that I am a bigger Bowie fan than I realised.  I have just taken this quiz on the Guardian's website and scored 9 out of 10.  This, apparently, entitles me to 'bore on' about Bowie.

Let's see if a shameless plug does the trick

I would just like to take this opportunity to plug the BBC's excellent, satirical radio show Newsjack.  I have a vested interest in this.  I have submitted several sketches to the programme over the last few years.  So far, I have had nothing broadcast.  Last week, however, I came close.  Something I had written (I don't know what) was recorded, but didn't make the transmission.  This is very flattering, although I don't get paid.  I have just submitted more material and would like all my readers to give the show a listen.  I can genuinely recommend the show, and if the producers trace the sudden surge in listeners back to me, it is possible they will pay me for the plug, if not the material.

You're welcome.

Dumbing Down

I recently had a conversation with some colleagues about ITV's deceased show Parkinson.  The gist of the conversation was that TV channels don't really broadcast shows like this anymore, because everything has become 'dumbed down'.  The only chat shows we have now are comedy shows such as The Graham Norton Show.  The particular lament was that there are no shows that feature people just talking.  Everything, it was suggested, is 'dumbed down' nowadays.

I feel slightly uneasy about this: it has certain reactionary undercurrent that makes me uncomfortable for one thing - the past was not indisputably better (or worse) the the present; real life is more complicated than that.  I have no evidence for this, however, but I do think that TV shows are more likely to feature small chunks of easily-digestible information than they did when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s.

One obvious explanation for this is that TV executives have ratings to maintain and don't like to risk audiences switching over part way through a show.  There were only 3 channels before 1982; now, I really have no idea, but the numbering on my Freeview box goes up to 999; we also have games' consoles, a plethora of radio channels, not to mention fabulous websites, such as Twitter, You Tube or even Myoclonic Jerk (no link for obvious reasons).

My one colleague felt that this substantiated his argument about the 'dumbing down' of culture.  People get so used to changing channels or surfing to new websites that no one can concentrate on anything demanding.  In the past, he suggested, people would watch shows such as Parkinson, perhaps because there was nothing else on, or perhaps because they were only interested in one guest.  Whatever the reason, the show was on and that person might learn something unexpected.  This is a possibility, but is is equally possible that people had the show on in the background, while they talked about the football, beat up the kids or did whatever people did in the 70s.  I'm not entirely sure we are a more stupid society because people can look for something they want to engage with.

There has been some research on the neurological effects of internet usage, but nothing conclusive yet. It is perhaps inevitable that those of us who grew up without internet access and more TV channels than we can easily count feel uncomfortable with it.  I'm pretty sure my parents' generation (who didn't really get into TV until adolescence) felt that my generation were stupid because we watched too much TV (but not Parkinson, which was on after our bedtime).

Ultimately, it is not the medium that leads to 'dumbing down' (if such a thing exists).  Look at this You Tube Channel, pick a video and watch it all the way through.  You might enjoy it; you might learn something; or, you might be bored out of your mind: whatever happens, don't make the mistake of blaming the internet or cable TV for 'dumbing down'.  As I said at the beginning of this blog, real life is a bit more complicated than that.

Might as well go for it ...

Martin Amis is in the news at the moment: last night, he was even interviewed by Jeremy Paxman.  What has he done to get in the news?  He's published a book.  Ok, the cynicism is probably a little unfair.  A new Martin Amis novel has some news value in its own right: it is not as newsworthy as my own first novel will be  - no link to that, but you might want another look at this - but that's because Martin Amis has published lots of books before; my first novel will, by definition be unique, at least until the second one comes out.

Martin Amis also, of course, has an efficient publicity machine, which is aided in no small part by his ability to make controversial statements and provoke equally controversial reactions.  So far, although the book was only published a week ago, Lionel Asbo has already provoked numerous responses: see, for example, the comments section at the end of the Guardian review I linked to above.  How many of these people have read the book, I don't know; to be fair, not many claim to have.

That's the thing, of course, Amis is newsworthy because people talk about him and people talk about him because he's newsworthy.  I try not to be too obvious when writing this blog; I haven't read Lionel Asbo yet, although I might, but I do have an opinion about Martin Amis and you're going to read it (unless you click on something more interesting).

I've read a few of Martin Amis's books.  The only two I have any time for are Money and Time's Arrow.  I admire and (to an extent) enjoy his prose style, which seems to grab the reader by the throat and drag him or her outside for a good kicking.  The problem is that, apart from the two books I mention, this seems to be all it does.  Halfway through The Rachel Papers - his first novel, but not the first I read - I decided that I'd got the joke, but I wanted to see what he was going to do: the answer turned out to be not a lot.

Time's Arrow I like because it uses a spectacular conceit - the first-person narrator views his own life backwards, from death to birth - to discuss an important topic.  To avoid spoiling the plot, the identity of the narrator becomes clear to the narrator at the same time as the reader.  The method of the narration raises questions about moral responsibility and defamiliarises an element of twentieth century history so significant (and so horrific) that it is difficult to gain any perspective on it.  The only problem with this novel is the ending (the narrator's birth) is clearly predictable.

Money is set in Thatcher's Britain and its aggressive style suits the decade like a ball and chain would suit her son.  That isn't its most impressive feature.  The novel features a minor character, a local novelist called (hold your sides) 'Martin Amis'.  A year before Money was published I wrote a short-story that featured a minor character called 'Jason Jawando'.  Far be it from me to suggest that Martin Amis is a dirty plagiarist, but to paraphrase Father Dougal, it is a bit of a coincidence.

Why I call my blog 'Myoclonic Jerk'.

To be honest, I'm not really sure anymore.  I've had this blog for a few years, but so far no real theme has developed; certainly, I had no real theme in mind when I started it.  If you've taken the trouble to read my other posts, you'll have found a selection of topics that took my interest when I posted them.  I do try to keep themes reasonably current - I don't anticipate posting my opinion of The Beatles anytime soon - but it sometimes takes me a while to decide what I think about a news item.

So far as I remember, the title just came to me while I was thinking up a pseudonym for something I wanted to post somewhere else.  I don't remember any details.  At the top of my blog is a tagline: "Culture that makes you start; culture that makes you nod off; culture made by jerks".  This was my attempt at twisting the title of the blog into some sort of theme - it isn't very clever.  In case you're wondering, I didn't use the name 'Myoclonic Jerk' as the blog's URL as it had already been taken.  I haven't read this other blog in detail, but it seems to be written by someone from the medical profession: no doubt she or he is more entitled to the name than I am.

Having recently looked at the stats that blogger.com are now handily providing, it seems that some of you might have found me by googling 'myoclonic jerk'.  If that's you, then you were probably hoping for something more substantial - sorry.