The Thick

I don’t pride myself on being contrary, you know.

Granted, there are perhaps too many very popular, very well-loved things I completely detest. Bill Murray, for one. Milk. Leona Lewis. I would keep my mouth shut about this fear and loathing, because I understand that non-conformists make everyone else … kind of annoyed; when people like me disagree with you about things you didn’t know we could disagree on, it’s a shock, and it feels like a challenge, a slur on your good judgement. I would keep my mouth shut if I could, but I get loud when I’m defensive, never the wisest tactic, but there you go. It’s a personal failing. I’m sorry. It’s not a good thing; like I said, I’m not proud of it.

I don’t much like The Thick Of It, and I’m not much proud of that, either.

Now, I know everyone loves The Thick Of It. I know it’s critically acclaimed, I know it’s clever, I know some of it is improvised and that’s clever too, I know it’s hilarious, I know the sky is blue and the ocean is deep and Amy Winehouse has new tits. But I’ve become quite disillusioned with The Thick Of It. To me, it’s like … a maelstrom of insults, the writing getting dizzier and dizzier and the dialogue more and more high-pitched, each line reaching for an even dafter metaphor, each character’s squeal more and more desperate, onwards and upwards and endless and one big, long, heaving fucking festival of cunt fucking arsefucks – how many shits for how many giggles? How many profane similes can you chuck at a sentence?

Of course, the whole thing is a love story, swooning around the character of Malcolm Tucker…

… who does most of the bollicking in a very impressive Scottish accent. When he’s on screen we’re directed to quiver deliciously, when he’s not on screen the other characters talk about him like he’s some sort of awesome natural disaster that makes you throw caution to the wind and let strangers play with your nipples. Ooh, Malcolm. OOH, MALCOLM. Ooh, Malcolm’s coming. OOH, I’M COMING! LIKE A FUCKING JACKHAMMER ON THE NIGHT FUCKING TRAIN! MALCOLM!

Oh, fuck it, I don’t know. I don’t dislike The Thick Of It, to be honest. I’ll watch it over my laptop when it comes on t’ellah. I’m just not salivating over it like I should be. I think of it not so much as jumping the shark, but doing a steeplechase over a whole line of ‘em, except the sharks are made of elaborate jumbles of cocksucking dickmongers and the only leaps made over them are hot off the legs of writer who should know better.

And then I think … well, maybe I’m just jealous. I’m one for belching up daft, Gypsy Tourette’s bollickings at the best of times. I tend to call down all manner of genital-twisting curses on those whose mere plonkerisms stoke my wrath like a … No, no more fucking similes. It’s fucking lazy, for fuck’s sake. I’m fucking lazy. I get slightly annoyed and I wrap it up in entertaining hyperbole and embellish it with stupid gurglings of swear words and diseases and how my subject resembles something fat with some sort of embarrassing ailment … Christ, it’s ridiculous. I don’t even know who the fuck would be entertained by it. I’ve flogged this dead horse down to the maggoty marrow, and The Thick Of It keeps reminding me of that; it nags me, through all its expletives and sour linguistic buffoonery, like a possessed fishwife on an LCD screen.

I mean, if I had an LCD screen telly. And if I hadn’t sworn off similes.

I’m having a really, really horrible week at work. The terrible weather at the moment is causing our clients quite a few problems with various products and services of ours – we’re in the construction industry, and many times, you won’t actually spot the snags in your architect-designed snuggle pad until the wind has blown away everything but. This week I’ve been chewed up more than a handsome bull’s balls. I don’t know why people feel they have the right to scream at and threaten strangers on the other end of the phone (but enough about my work ethic); let’s just say I’ve been very angry this week. Very stressed. Very frustrated. And not just because of clients! Because of co-workers, because of management, because of resources squeezed useless by the economic downturn. And the more angry I got, the more tongue-tied I got. By 5pm today I’d been struck dumb by my lot, no more able to conjure up a clever put-down than Kermit the Frog can an erection.

I hadn’t given up, mind. I work well under pressure. But so pissy was I, so sparky and hard-nosed and crackling with the current of STFU BITCHES, that there was no way I could do a Malcolm and belt around the office calling everyone cunts and cracking the witty whip of well-directed and terrible ire.

Fuck fucking Malcolm. No one is that creative when surrounded by the dregs. No one is that terrifyingly witty when battling through the fucking flotsam. I identify more with Larry David than Malcolm Tucker, dumbfounded by the fools around me, by the pond-life and the righteousness of idiocy and …

Yeah. The Thick Of It. God, it makes me jealous.