Watching the defectives
REACTING. That’s a word I hear all the time now. My 10-year-old spends hours watching other people reacting. The word, in this sense, means watching something on the internet, whether it be a clip of 10,000 cats singing the Hallelujah chorus or a couple of students playing DeathCraft II.
Incredibly, to someone of my generation, people film themselves watching these things and other people, like my son, watch the people watching the things.
24 HOURS IN POLICE CUSTODY (C4) reminded us last night that, if parents struggle to keep up, the forces of law and order do too. The case involved a young man who, following an argument in a pub, had driven his car at a group of people on the pavement, hit someone and then reversed it over him. There was a lot of CCTV, a lot of people reacting to the CCTV and a depressing sense of a deep, widening gulf between what different groups of human beings believe is okay.
The detectives from Bedfordshire Police found it hard to review the footage. Even at a distance, even given all the nasty things these men encountered in their working lives, the sight of a car ploughing into a person was revolting to them.
In the interview room, the man charged with and later convicted of the crime, was similarly reluctant to look. When the officers showed him footage of the fight he’d been in beforehand though, he brightened considerably.
“Yeah boy... look at me standing up,” he said, proud of how he’d handled himself. He displayed a similar, bashful pride in the amount of drugs and alcohol he’d loaded up on beforehand, patiently explaining to the older detective what a Desperado was and how much alcohol it contained.
It wasn’t just the words for drinks the police seemed to be struggling with but the world they were policing. Bradley Vine, for that was the man’s name, seemed like quite an affable soul.
He’d been pleasant when a patrol officer stopped him after the initial brawl. Later on, he described his injured victim, an uninvolved bystander, as “my mate”. It was as if there was no connection in his mind between getting high as a kite, getting into a fight and then getting jailed for three years.
He was like someone reacting to things on the internet, clicking through the pages of something that just happened to be his life. This bit was funny, this bit was cool, this bit... oh well.
Another term I’ve come to late is “jumping the shark” which has a specific TV pedigree. It refers to a scene in sitcom Happy Days where, in a bid to boost flagging ratings, Fonzie was depicted, literally, jumping over a shark. TV shows are now routinely accused of shark jumping when they do something ridiculous in order to win audience approval. It’s a phrase losing its meaning, though, when shows like MARCELLA (ITV) receive a second season.
This pantomime-violent police farce kicked off last week with a child’s ear being exhumed from some rotten brickwork. It has continued in its pursuit of the ultimate nasty ever since, with abducted schoolboys being operated on by some masked ghoul and, at the close of last night’s episode, finding an entirely new way of jumping the shark.
It’s called squeezing the mouse and if you didn’t see it or can’t imagine it, you’re one of the lucky ones.