Pop Culture and News Roundup

A few things going on at the moment, so here's the list.

First off, Stewart Lee's finally back on our tellies! Hurrah for that!

Second, watching the definitely not shit Red Riding on catch-up is a weird experience when the connection's slow, since the audio track carries on but the video frequently lapses into a series of elegaic stills. It's almost liking watching a Poliakoff drama, except something's happening.

Third, today's XKCD is even more sublime than usual.

Fourth, fascist scumbags the BNP have been in Sunderland today with their Liemobile, and the dregs have spilt over into Gateshead. However, I must announce just how much 'I Heart Gateshead': on the way to Tesco's this afternoon, I encountered three pissed up racists hanging around the Interchange and the words 'vote BNP' scrawled in marker pen on every level crossing and poster between Windmill Hill and the remains of the Get Carter car park. However, by the time I got out of Tesco's again, about 20 minutes later, racists appeared to have been swallowed up by the Earth (or hopefully nicked for threatening people, as they were doing when I saw them), and every single piece of graffiti had disappeared. Today, I really really heart Gateshead and Gatesheadians.

Fifth, Corne and Horden. I saw a few minutes of their new sketch show on the iPlayer the other day. Now, I know that they have been called things like 'not very good,' 'not funny,' and 'rubbish'. Critics have been less kind. But I think they've been incredibly brave. They deserve credit for this daring move, and people have been incredibly sniffy about it. What they're doing is subverting the whole medium of the sketch show by their clever inversion of the format. Most performers, for example, would try and start a new series with their A-Grade material. Not many people would start a new sketch show with what at first glance looks like a slap in the face to the viewer: a sketch about how the fat one (James Hornedon) is quite fat, followed by Jim Corbridge playing a fey war reporter. IN SHORTS! IN A WAR ZONE! It's impressive that they would put this stuff out in their first few minutes.
The only thing I can think is that it's a satire on the medium, playing with our expectations of a sketch show (i.e. that the first show at least should hang together or at minimum be sporadically funny). I assume that it will build over the rest of the series until the last 5 minutes of the final show actually raises a smile. It's clearly a great art joke in the tradition of Duchamp's urinal. Well done you two, this is a piece of history for sketch show comedy.