Read Online The Hell of It All by Charlie Brooker - Free Book Online
Authors: Charlie Brooker
Ads: Link
your face, and your arse, and that weird bumpy little mole on your lower back. That’ll greet my eyes every single day. And I’ll hear your voice; hear it talking about what you’d like for lunch, or who’s annoying you at work, or arguing with me about towels. I’ll go to the supermarket with you, week in, week out, staring at the side of your head as item after item goes through the scanner. Beep, beep, beep, beep. What did you get that for? We’ve got loads of those in the cupboard. Never mind. You’re my life partner. From here to eternity. And we’re stuffing these carrier bags together. Woo-hoo. Yee-hah. Beep. Beep. Beep.’
It’s not easy, selecting a cellmate. Generally speaking, the ones you want don’t stick around, and the ones you don’t want – well, when you finally quit trying, that’s your future spouse, right there. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together. At the checkout.
But assuming you haven’t simply thrown your hands up with despair and married the nearest bit of background filler, there are countless ways to meet Mr or Mrs Right. Fix-ups from friends, internet dating sites, and now Arrange Me a Marriage , in which ‘matchmaker’ Aneela Rahman attempts to pair off on-the-shelf Brits in a traditional Indian styl-ee. For the purposes of the show, this boils down to (a) getting someone’s friends and family to choose a partner for them, (b) concentrating on suitors of ‘appropriate’ class and family background, and (c) not letting your intended couple meet until you’ve organised a big daytime house party where they’ll clap eyes on each other for the first time, whileyou all stand around grinning at them, presumably in the hope they’ll start shagging out of sheer discomfort.
Aneela’s first ‘mark’ is a high-flying London company director called Lexi, who’s 33, unmarried, and starting to feel the bite from her under-deployed ovaries. Like every single woman in the world, Lexi insists on meeting a tall man. I feel sorry for shortarsed men. Women are unbelievably shallow on this issue. I’ve never heard a man insist his wife must have big tits, but I’ve heard countless women complain about a man’s height. What do you want, you whining harridans? A ladder in a hat?
Anyway, at the risk of being a big Mr Blabbermouth McSpoiler, it’s fair to say that despite feeling as clinical and controlled as a scientific investigation into renewable energy sources, Aneela’s matchmaking appears to succeed (although that might be down to the fact that if you can find two people prepared to consider hooking up on a TV show, chances are they’ll be pretty compatible).
But it’s all so slow, and meticulous, and devoid of emotion, it feels like selecting cattle for breeding. Call me old-fashioned, but some smothered, cornered speck in my being still believes in the random joy of romance, and I just can’t see that flourishing in a system that runs like software. Which is worse: dying alone, or having the alternative defined by committee? Answers on a Valentine’s card to the usual address.
Smell the weight come off [8 October 2007]
Has David Cameron lost weight? I’ve only caught glimpses of him out of the corner of my eye over the past week, and either the TV’s set to the wrong aspect ratio or he’s shed a bit of face flab. Presumably this means that whenever he puts his top hat on (i.e. the second the cameras stop rolling), he looks less like a chortling chubby-cheeked toff and more like an angular, dashing Fred Astaire type.
Cunning move. I smell a focus group. Research has probably shown he’s become 15% more electable thanks to his leaner face alone. No one wants a prime minister who looks like he’d steal chips off your plate when your back’s turned. He’s doubtless had advisers following him round for months, slapping sausage rolls out of his hands every 10 minutes. Maybe he’ll go the whole hog and strip off for a calendar, like Putin. Yeah. That’ll
It’s not easy, selecting a cellmate. Generally speaking, the ones you want don’t stick around, and the ones you don’t want – well, when you finally quit trying, that’s your future spouse, right there. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together. At the checkout.
But assuming you haven’t simply thrown your hands up with despair and married the nearest bit of background filler, there are countless ways to meet Mr or Mrs Right. Fix-ups from friends, internet dating sites, and now Arrange Me a Marriage , in which ‘matchmaker’ Aneela Rahman attempts to pair off on-the-shelf Brits in a traditional Indian styl-ee. For the purposes of the show, this boils down to (a) getting someone’s friends and family to choose a partner for them, (b) concentrating on suitors of ‘appropriate’ class and family background, and (c) not letting your intended couple meet until you’ve organised a big daytime house party where they’ll clap eyes on each other for the first time, whileyou all stand around grinning at them, presumably in the hope they’ll start shagging out of sheer discomfort.
Aneela’s first ‘mark’ is a high-flying London company director called Lexi, who’s 33, unmarried, and starting to feel the bite from her under-deployed ovaries. Like every single woman in the world, Lexi insists on meeting a tall man. I feel sorry for shortarsed men. Women are unbelievably shallow on this issue. I’ve never heard a man insist his wife must have big tits, but I’ve heard countless women complain about a man’s height. What do you want, you whining harridans? A ladder in a hat?
Anyway, at the risk of being a big Mr Blabbermouth McSpoiler, it’s fair to say that despite feeling as clinical and controlled as a scientific investigation into renewable energy sources, Aneela’s matchmaking appears to succeed (although that might be down to the fact that if you can find two people prepared to consider hooking up on a TV show, chances are they’ll be pretty compatible).
But it’s all so slow, and meticulous, and devoid of emotion, it feels like selecting cattle for breeding. Call me old-fashioned, but some smothered, cornered speck in my being still believes in the random joy of romance, and I just can’t see that flourishing in a system that runs like software. Which is worse: dying alone, or having the alternative defined by committee? Answers on a Valentine’s card to the usual address.
Smell the weight come off [8 October 2007]
Has David Cameron lost weight? I’ve only caught glimpses of him out of the corner of my eye over the past week, and either the TV’s set to the wrong aspect ratio or he’s shed a bit of face flab. Presumably this means that whenever he puts his top hat on (i.e. the second the cameras stop rolling), he looks less like a chortling chubby-cheeked toff and more like an angular, dashing Fred Astaire type.
Cunning move. I smell a focus group. Research has probably shown he’s become 15% more electable thanks to his leaner face alone. No one wants a prime minister who looks like he’d steal chips off your plate when your back’s turned. He’s doubtless had advisers following him round for months, slapping sausage rolls out of his hands every 10 minutes. Maybe he’ll go the whole hog and strip off for a calendar, like Putin. Yeah. That’ll
Similar Books
