Youth In Revolt... Or Revolting Youth?

This is not a "revolt".

It isn't a "protest".

It isn't even "mindless thuggery".

I don't often write about current affairs, but I'm not sure how I can ignore the fact that, here in the UK, our towns and cities are being burnt to the ground, looted and pillaged by The Young People.

One of the reasons I usually choose not to comment on such things is that I'm an (un?)apologetic middle-class Guardian-reading leftie pinko liberal who always wants to look for the root causes and underlying problems that ultimately shape our society.

Another reason is that, as a writer, I always try to see things from other people's points of view. I'm interested in what makes people tick and what drives them to behave the way they do. I can't help but play devil's advocate in my own mind in even the most despicable of circumstances.

To complicate matters (because like most human beings, I'm a ball of confusion), I'm also - as anyone who's read this blog for any amount of time will know - thoroughly misanthropic. I have an angry reactionary inside me who dreams of leaving the human race to destroy itself and going off to live on an island with puffins. (Because puffins are COOL.)

With all this going on inside my head at any one time, how can I write about the sort of scenes we've witnessed in this country over the last few nights with any kind of objectivity? Simple answer: I can't. But thankfully I don't have to.

Because these are not "riots".

The people involved are not protesting the police shooting a young man in Tottenham last week.

Neither are they rebelling over the fact that the council closed down their youth club. (And if I see one more interviewed yoof say "no one respects us", I'll smash something myself. Respect yourself first, morons!)

They're certainly not "mindless thugs" either. They know exactly what they're doing. They just don't care.

They're bullies. They're thieves. They're vandals. They're arrogant and selfish and opportunistic... and all the traits I deplore most about humanity at its lowest.

So excuse me if I don't believe this is time for rooting out the underlying social problems. Excuse me if I'd just rather send in Jack Bauer to deal with the lot of them. Call me when that's been done. In the meantime, you'll find me hanging out with the puffins...

12.7 Thoughts About 127 Hours

1. Went to see 127 Hours on Sunday at 4pm. Should be finished by midnight on Friday. (Apologies to those of you who already had to sit through this joke on twitter.)

2. The strapline is rubbish. Every Second Counts? Not only does it remind me of a sad old Paul Daniels quiz show, but the more you think about it, the more irrelevant it is.

3. True story films are hard to get right. 12 Hours follows a similar path to Touching The Void, but it's less documentary, more dramatisation.

4. James Franco has matured as an actor since Spider-Man. That said, Harry Osborn was a thankless role. 127's hero, Aron Ralston, allows Franco much more scope. A nod from Oscar would not be unexpected... especially as this is the kind of "triumph over adversity" stuff the Academy regularly wet themselves over.

5. Is it a spoiler to mention exactly what happens to Ralston... and how he eventually escapes his dire predicament? Many of the reviews I've read have done so, and there's an argument to say that audiences are better off knowing... particularly if they're squeamish... but if you don't want to know, feel free to bugger off now. Your enjoyment of the film might be better for it.

6. So Ralston (Franco) goes canyoneering alone in the Utah desert, gets his arm trapped beneath a falling boulder and the canyon wall, has no way of calling for help, very little food or water, survives 5 days entrapment without losing his mind... then, in desperation has to cut off his arm with a dull blade to escape.

7. Ouch.

8. No, really ouch. I've seen some pretty painful things happen to characters in films, but nothing quite as shudder-inducing as this. I challenge you to keep your eyes on the screen throughout the key scene... particularly when Franco's cutting through his tendons.

9. As you'd expect, this is pure "triumph of the human spirit" stuff, well played by both Franco and Boyle. It's not a film that'll surprise you - paragraph 6 is basically the entire plot - but it will move you.

10. That said, the "people need people" subtext (Ralston's predicament is made worse by the fact that he didn't tell anyone - friends or family - where he was going that day; the movie's closing line is "next time, I'll leave a note") grates a little. But that's just my misanthropy in action.

11. Boyle directs pain- and stress-induced hallucinations very well. Though I've never been in anything like the kind of pain Ralston must have been in here, I recognise the trippy freakouts he has from when I've lost consciousness myself on occasion. The Scooby Doo hallucination isn't quite as freaky as Touching The Boid's Brown Girl In The Ring moment though.

12. Like all Danny Boyle films, you'll walk out humming the soundtrack and discover a new favourite tune. This time it'll be Never Hear Surf Music again by New York electro-indie plebs Free Blood...



12.7. Jack Bauer would have ripped his own arm off in Hour 2, then used the bloody stump to beat a terrorist to death. Just saying...

24 Tribute Top Ten

And so I bid fond farewell to another favourite TV show, as Jack Bauer finally hangs up his torture implements and gives his tonsils a rest from all that shouting... well, at least until the rumoured 24 movie anyway. (Wow, that'll be almost as long a film as Lord Of The Rings!)

24 started ridiculous, then went out of its way to get ever more so as the years progressed. It didn't so much jump the shark or nuke the fridge as torture the shark by cutting it up into small (yet still alive) pieces, stuff them into a fridge, nuke the whole of the country containing the fridge, then resurrect the shark only to poison it with anthrax, kills its family, connect its genitals to a car battery, and have its remains savaged by a mountain lion. Only then the shark would turn out to have been working for a fictional Middle Eastern country all along. Or was it?

But if you were willing to suspend your disbelief - your sheer incredulity - there was no more exciting, adrenaline-packed way of spending 18 hours (minus commercials) and in Jack Bauer we found another great hero for our times, one who could stand proud with Bond and Bourne as a man who would do anything... no, really, anything... to get the job done.

In tribute then, here's my Top Ten (musical) suggestions for what Jack can do next...




10. The House That Jack Built (Aretha Franklin)

Jack builds a house for his daughter Kim only to discover that all the builders are actually working for the Russian mob. When they kidnap Kim because there's a 'y' in the month and she hasn't been kidnapped this episode yet (surely some oversight!), Jack gets medieval on their eyelids with power tools and vinegary salad dressing.

9. Jumpin' Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones)

Jack is given his toughest assignment ever. He must jump up and down on the spot for 24 hours without pausing to eat, sleep, breathe or go weewee, whilst simultaneously flashing every passerby with Little Jack. If he doesn't complete his mission, Big Bird from Sesame Street , Count Duckula, and Hamble and Big Ted from Play School will be senselessly slaughtered. With a chainsaw. And sticklebricks.

8. Jack Singer (Ricky Ross)

Jack goes undercover on X-Factor. Simon Cowell finally gets what's coming to him.

7. Jack On Fire (Blanche)

Terrorists capture Jack and try to force him to complete their Rubix Cube. When he won't play ball they douse him with a mixture of nitroglycerin, magnesium and gasoline then set fire to his writhing, twitching, teeth-gritting body and watch it burn for 24 hours straight. After which Jack gets really pissed off and kicks their tonsils into orbit.

6. Jackhammer Blues (Woody Guthrie)

It's Jack... with a hammer. A fucking massive hammer. You can guess the rest.

5. Jack Names The Planets (Ash)

Jack thinks the planets in our solar system have very suspicious names. Mars? Jupiter? Neptune? It's all some damned Roman conspiracy! Then there's bloody Earth. What a shit name Earth is - why didn't they just call it Dirt and have done with it? Jack decides to deal with the problem once and for all by detonating eight planet-sized nukes (plus a tiny asteroid-sized nuke for Pluto, which might not actually be a planet anymore but still... "IT'S NAMED AFTER A DAMNED DISNEY DOG, CHLOE!") and starting the galaxy again from scratch. Luckily the wind is blowing eastwards that day so none of the nuclear fall-out affects him. Or anyone else we care about.

4. Jack Killed Mom (Jenny Lewis)

Your mum has information vital to stopping a terrorist attack on Mothercare and only Jack Bauer can get it out of her. I'm so very, very sorry.

3. Hit The Road, Jack (Ray Charles)

Jack goes on a road trip across America but is horrified by the state of the nation's highways. "DAMN IT, CHLOE - THERE'S JUST TOO MANY POTHOLES!" He solves the problem by pounding every single inch of tarmac from the east coast to the west with his own face until it's all levelled out and nobody will ever get a puncture again.

2. Smackwater Jack (Carole King)

Undercover CTU moles trick our hero into going back on smack (remember season 3?) but he soon discovers it has no effect on him whatsoever. It's like drinking a glass of aired water for someone as hard as Jack Bauer. So he decides to completely eliminate the drug trade by torturing every single addict in the world, one by one, with garden shears, pliers, and Ricky Martin records, until they're all as tough - and immune to everything - as he is.

1. Jack & Diane (John Mellencamp)

Jack uncovers the truth behind the conspiracy to murder Princess Diana, storms the palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner, bites off one of Charles's ears (it keeps him going for about a week), and gets savaged by a pack of the Queen's rabid corgis.