According to Chanel 4, We're All Going to Die!

by Alex J Allen

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There's been a Channel 4 programme running all this week, it's one of their 'look at us, we're pushing the boundaries of what you can broadcast' deals. It's full of puss, blood, warts, you know the rest. It's the kind of gore that will leave people talking about it by the water cooler at work the next day. It's full of startling, dramatic warnings for people. 'If you keep listening to your music at that volume, then you'll be deaf by the time you're 25'. Egad, what an eye opener! I don't want to put everyone on a downer, but isn't the main thing to look forward to in the grand scheme of things death? Fun things generally seem to be detrimental to your body in one way or another, but if you don't do some of them and fuck your body up a bit as a result, then what's the point of being here at all? If all I had to look forward to was becomming 'Pixie', the woman running around tell everyone how many years of their life they are losing as a result of their various vices, then I might just kick the bucket now and be done with it all. If that's your attitude, why don't we all just in lie in state, saying nothing, thinking nothing and doing nothing until we eventually drift in to one big, continious coma? Check me out, I'm the most tedious, boring, uninteresting person in the world, but I can hear a door slam in a house three miles away, hurrah!

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I find these various programmes a giant waste of my time, and frankly, little more than unsubtle scaremongering. '70% of teenagers are insecure about their appearance'. How could you possibly have worked that out? You can't just ask ten people and mutiply the results to reflect the views of a nation 'Pixie', it doesn't work like that! A doctor wanders on to the stage at Western Supermare proclaiming 'front bottoms, back bottoms, we want to see them and fix them!' Sounds grim to me 'doctor'. I write that in inverted commas because while these 'doctors' are on TV trying to be confrontational and scaring the general public in to submission, there are actual doctors around the country doing a real job. Personally, I'd rather share my medical concerns with Doctor Pepper, than trapse in to a temporary health clinic next to festival near the seaside and air my inner most fears about my personal health to man who used the phrase 'front bottom'.