My Little World10

Ah the fun of politics, in a time of olympic protests and right wing reaction (yes i have been reading BBC's have your say (HYS) - stomping ground of the right online as that, and occasionally right wing newspapers, are the only websites they can find) - but whilst i care about this, i can't be bothered with a diatribe - instead i'd much rather be comical and review the new satirical show - headcases

now headcases, being a shoot-off of the legendary 'spitting image' came with great expectations - i was essentially expecting '2DTV', which was also a spit child and quite brilliant, in 3d

was i disappointed? sort of - is it just me or does the mere fact that it's on ITV leave a sour taste in the mouth? when i think of 'headcases' now all i can see is the gimmicky ITV logo on the trailer and just think 'shite', is it the camera style, the voice-over, the colours? i don't know, but it's like thinking of american broadcasting standards and it taints it for me - the trailer for 2DTV did as well actually, but i still loved the show, maybe that's an indicator that it's not quite as good as 2D (or spit) then

but not to be too critical - i remember a lot of laughing

In particular the Fabio Capello (with an FA translator) was a highlight for me, but unsurprisingly i always get football humour on these types of shows and there was little football reference apart from that and the Beckhams (which is a limited tie-in these days)

i did however enjoy the beckham skit - basically victoria harassing steven spielberg as david looks on in bemusement - but this is old ground, beckham himself rarely gets much mocking these days, it's all on victoria being fame obsessed - but i did find it good

more than i can say for the 'katie and peter' sketch with a lot of reference to the fact that modern britain is obsessed with the antics of people like this on the cover of tripe like 'heat' - it just wasn't that funny, literally saying 'how can we get attention?' isn't subtle enough

likewise the clarkson piece - bizarrely going on about that man (who isn't a man) getting pregnant in a macho way, i just felt that the impression was pretty poor

piers murdoch - yes we all hate him and in the trailer he says 'hi i'm piers murdoch (anvil falls on head) - i deserved that' - funny once, and that was the trailer - hardly witty 3 times

then there was the 'dames' (helen mirren and judi dench) who are chavs, or more likely stereotypical south london black teenage girls who like to abuse kate winslet - very surreal, and not satire but i did think this was quite funny

also a random dance by sarkosy to 'mr.boombastic' - again surreal, although at least based on reality this time

mugabe's farm was a bit strange - planting crisps (who wants to eat seeds?) - nice try but it was a bit weak

Wills and Harry trying to be normal was pretty good, they tried to order a pizza with ham and caviar - and a 75 don perrignon ("F** off" - "80?") - not bad, the animation doesn't really seem to come alive tho, it's nothing on ugly latex puppets

then there's the politics - Brown is a much harder man to mock (or rather imitate) than thatcher or blair - he's represented as a victorian miser, but they still need blair to make it work - they get him, sunning himself with bill clinton, to trick gordon into throwing a celeb party - at which point pete doherty and amy winehouse appear ("oh, vagrants") - it wasn't up to much - it's all on blair, jaqui smith not being able to count and alastair darling hopping around saying 'we're doomed' wasn't particularly funny

I think the present government aren't as fun to mock - full of ineptitude, yes but also full of nobodies - no brash john prescott, no quirky robin cook, no brown constantly trying to get power - no spin, well there is - but nothing on blair

The tories were better I feel, Cameron is unkindly shown as a vicious bully who likes to horse-whip george osbourne, and is of course a toff, with a policy that europe doesn't exist - i felt william hague was the best of them, voice was very good and he is "a real-ale-drinking yorkshireman and won't hear of europe with their superior public services" - the best political shot i feel was at them

and no george bush - he's out of the limelight these days - so while a lot of people will have a go at this show for reducing the politics, there really is little to go for in a time where there are few differences between the parties, a lack of political characters and no large (government) issues to lampoon - spitting image decined because centrist politics replaced hardline thatcherism and opposing socialism, it got boring - no hitler loving tories, no lefty loonie kinnocks - so maybe politics is just a bit dull for now and of course multi channel tv and the internet reduce the effect of new political satire unless it's very good

overall i think it's worth watching and like i say it was humourous at the time, I may be being overly critical - i decided to watch 2dtv and spitting image after and found them both hilarious - despite being years out of date, obviously the blair years resonate with me quite a lot, and who can't find hitler advising thatcher not to hate the argies too much funny?

oh and go the frenchies - show us your history of disrespect for law and order and put us to shame!