I blame the scapegoats (20 page)

This bizarre lapse in security was discovered
last year, but the broadcasts have still not been halted. If you failed to spot
the wacky adventures of the American army listed in your copy of
TV
Quick,
don't worry, you can still catch the omnibus
edition that goes out on Sunday. If the US military wanted to keep the
information top secret they could at least have switched transmission to
Channel Five. If they'd stuck it between
Barney and Friends
and
Family Affairs
then maybe no one
would have ever seen it.

You'd
think suspicions would have been raised when the bloke from Dixons was called
out to connect up a new satellite TV package for a Mr O. Bin Laden at a secret
address in the Tora Bora cave complex in the Afghan mountains.

'So there's all your
movie channels there - you've got Sky Sports, the complete Disney package and
then on Channel seventy-one you've got all the latest movements of US
peacekeeping forces in the Balkans.'

'Excellent! Now can you tell me when the
Shopping Channel is selling anthrax warheads?'

For satellite customers bored of watching
re-runs of
The Good Life,
the
exciting new US spy plane package includes
The
Terrorist Channel,
featuring all the
latest movements of anti-US terror networks;
Terrorist
Kids,
for younger viewers; and
USA
Style,
which is a sort of homes and garden makeover
channel. 'Okay, let's just remind ourselves how this Afghan village looked
before the bombing, and watch the reaction of the red team when they get to see
how the US air force have managed to completely change the layout of their home
in just one hour!' Who wants to watch all that familiar footage from the Second
World War on the Discovery Channel when you can watch all the preparations for
the Third World War being broadcast live twenty-four hours a day? First the BBC
do away with the globe and then everyone else has the same idea.*

The
spy plane footage could also provide endless out-takes for other programmes.
Between the home-video bloopers of bridesmaids fainting and toddlers getting
stuck in their potties, there'll be other endearing human slip-ups, like NATO
smart bombs accidentally blowing up the pharmaceuticals factory. Instead of
watching CCTV footage of speeding joyriders on
Police,
Camera, Action!
Alastair Stewart can tut about the
dangerous driving of these irresponsible suicide bombers. 'Look at this idiot.
If he carries on speeding that lorry load of explosives towards that building,
someone could get really hurt!' Ever aware of the possibilities of advertising,
it must only be a matter of time before the broadcasters find a suitable
sponsor. And now back to part two of the War on Terrorism, sponsored by Taco
Bell.'

Product
placement will mean that, instead of chasing terrorists in helicopter gunships,
US army personnel will be forced to cross

* The BBC had just done
away with its famous globe logo. They were also considering replacing their
historic motto, 'Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation', with 'Charlie Dimmock
Shall Speak Gardening Tips Unto Several Viewers.'

mountainous
terrain in the latest five-door hatchback from General Motors. American
military operations will be organized into eight-minute slots so that the
broadcasters can cut to an ad break at just the right time. Each segment will
end with a cliff-hanger in case the viewer is tempted to switch channels. 'Oh
no! The Al-Qaida are about to escape over the border. And I forgot to ring my
mom to say happy birthday!'

With
the BBC, ITV and Sky now all pitching for the licence for ITV Digital, it would
seem sensible to include these wonderful new American programmes in any new
package on offer. The expertise demonstrated by their World Cup pundits could
be employed at half-time in the latest global sport to hit the airwaves:

'Well, frankly, Gary, the Americans are going
to have to work a lot harder to close down this Saudi star, Bin Laden.'

'I couldn't agree more, Terry; I've not been
very impressed with accuracy of these American strikes so far. Here we see the
action replay of this attack. Look: he completely misses and blows up the
Chinese Embassy - and at this level you've really got to hit the target.'

With coverage like this it won't be long till
we are all filling out our War on Terrorism wall-chart. And when all-out
nuclear warfare does finally break out, at least we'll be able to say to our
friends down the pub, 'Don't tell me who wins! I'm taping it and watching it
later!'

22
June 2002

This
government is fed up with being accused of an obsession with the media. So
they're starting regular briefing sessions to be reported on the telly, on the
radio and in the newspapers. 'No more spin!' said the press releases arriving
in every newsroom in the country. 'Policy before Presentation!' said the
hot-air balloons all over London.

We're used to seeing this sort of press
conference from the White House, in which the President stands behind a lectern
and answers really tough questions, such as, 'Just how evil are these Iraqis,
Mr President?' Having British government policy announced in the same way as in
the United States was the final adjustment required after it was decided we had
to have all the same policies and opinions as them as well.

Tony
Blair began his first televised session by announcing that the event was 'the
first of what will become regular opportunities for question and answer
sessions on anything you want to ask'. This was his first mistake. If you say
'anything' then there are all sorts of problems that people are going to want
to know the answers to. Question number one - Andrew Marr, BBC: 'Prime
Minister, I've got a new lambswool jumper but it's got chewing gum on it -
what's the best way to get this off?' 'Put the jumper in the freezer and the
gum will go rock hard; then carefully pick it off with a small kitchen knife.'

'Yeah, Jon Snow, Channel Four News. In the
film
Toy Story,
if
Buzz Lightyear thinks he's a real space ranger and not a toy, then how come he
plays dead when the humans walk into the room?'

Although
the PM is now answering questions directly instead of via his official press
spokesman, it's a bit much to expect him to be up there completely on his own.
That's why he now wears a secret radio earpiece, so that Alastair Campbell can
dictate the correct facts and figures from a little radio booth in the room
next door.

'Prime Minister, isn't it true that spending
on health is actually falling compared to our European partners?'

'That's not true,
Tony!' dictates Campbell.

'That's not true, Tony!' says the PM to a
surprised-looking Elinor Goodman. And then, as is traditional, the radio signal
starts to get interference from the mini-cab office up the road: 'This
government has overseen the greatest hospital-building programme in our
history,' says the PM resolutely, adding, 'and furthermore, we have always said
Car Nine: pick up at Orlando Road, number ninety-seven, ring top bell.'

The idea of this initiative is to try to get
past the cynical and negative press and talk direct to the British people,
although it's hard to imagine bosses up and down the country allowing their
workers to come in late so that they can watch the Prime Minister's live press
broadcast first thing in the morning. If you want the great British public to
tune in, then frankly it's no good holding boring old press briefings featuring
politicians and journalists; you've got to put a bit more popular appeal in
there to compete with all the other shows on TV. Basically, if it hasn't got
Pauline Quirke in it, no one's going to be interested. If David Jason isn't
playing a lovable maverick, you might as well forget it. What the government
needs to do is to inject a bit of Sunday night drama into the proceedings. So
the session will start with John Sergeant asking a tricky question about the
Euro and then the PM begins explaining about the five economic tests. Suddenly
Cherie bursts in and shouts in her strongest scouse accent, 'You said you'd be
there for me and the kids, Tone, but since you've got this job it's just been
work, work, work! It's not me you're married to - it's that little red box.'

'Not now, Cherie -
I'm busy . . .'

'What, too busy for
your own family?? I'm leaving you, Tony I've met a holistic vet who lives on a
canal barge. We're going to start a floating pet rescue centre with Robson
Green and Amanda Burton -it's over, Tony!'

Ratings
for the press briefings would soar. Every week the nation would tune in to
watch the Prime Minister trying to cope with the pressures of life at the top
as his private life crashes all around him.

'Prime Minister, what
about this threat of all-out nuclear war?'

'You know, I think there may be another more
important problem I need to deal with first. My family' And then he'd push past
the astonished hacks before running along the tow-path just in time to save the
canal barge from going over the weir and taking Ross Kemp and all the injured
animals with it. Rehearsals start on Monday . . .

29
June 2002

During
a recent secondary-school production of
The Sound
of
Music,
a
teacher stood up in front of the audience and asked if all mothers with babies
in the creche could come and check if it was their baby that wouldn't stop
crying. Half the cast walked off the stage. 'I am sixteen, going on seventeen,'
continued Liesl, with a nine-month bump sticking out of her Mothercare
maternity dress.

The
problem of teenage pregnancies is in the news again, with the government
announcing that it will be making free condoms available to schoolchildren. In
practical terms, it is not very clear how these contraceptives will be handed
out. Will each class have a condom monitor? Perhaps these boys will be sent
down to the chemist to buy them, only to return shamefaced with thirty combs
and a toothbrush. Or will the teachers just hand them out at morning
registration? 'Right, take one and pass the rest back. No, don't open them now,
Timothy, they are for after school, except for members of sex soc' Or maybe
they'll be sold in the school tuck shop (recently wittily renamed by the boys
from 4B)? 'Er, yeah, can I have a sherbet dib-dab, 100 grams of lemon bonbons
and a super-ribbed fetherlite Durex please.' Seeing who can blow the biggest
bubbles will never be the same again. It is important that teenagers know what
these things are for. Now that they're to be made more widely available, we can
look forward to a

dramatic increase in
the numbers of condoms being filled up with water and chucked at passers-by
from the top of the multi-storey car park.

Underage sex is not a new problem in this
country. A report back in the 1970s showed that boys in their teens were having
more sex than ever, although this figure would have dropped dramatically if
they'd included me in the survey. Of course, these things can be quite
difficult to measure. Approaching a class of sixteen-year-old boys and saying,
'Right, hands up who's still a virgin?' may not be the most reliable polling
method available. In the developed world, only America manages an even higher
teenage pregnancy rate than us, and there George W. Bush is funding an
abstinence education programme, telling young people that they should not have
sex, while every advert, TV show and movie is telling them the opposite.

It is fashionable on the left to laugh at the
idea of abstinence education as misguided and reactionary, and if the only
thing we were telling our teenagers about sex is 'don't do it' then we would
obviously fail. But alongside better information, advice and access to contraception,
I would venture that it is a good idea to just add that there is no compulsion
for teenagers to lose their virginity quite so early on. Basically, what I'm
saying is that if I didn't have constant sex as a teenager I don't see why they
should. More education has to be the answer and Dutch caps off to the
government for taking a brave stand on this. Obviously it's going to be a
struggle to get fourteen-year-old boys to think about sex, but it has to be
done. 'Oh but, miss, do we have to do sex again? Can't we do logarithms,
please, miss, please?'