Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Ghost in the Machine




"You're becoming addicted, aren't you?"

"No. But I can see how people get into it. It's Noel. It would be nothing without him."

Noel Edmonds. you either hate him or love him. I know this because I can see the love in the contestants' eyes. That attractive, presumably intelligent young psychology graduate would let him clamber all over her, she loves him so much.

The fat man thinks Noel's a mate. Noel calls the contestants by their nicknames. He shortens their names to be chummy. "Nichola" becomes "Nick". Nichola loves it even though she only gets called "Nick" by her best friends. Noel's one of her best friends and in addition, is an incredibly attractive man with that glint in his eye.

The "banker" phones Noel to offer the contestant a deal. Noel's on the contestant's side. He's on all our sides. He calls the banker "Scrooge". It is Christmas, after all.

People in the audience shout things out. The sort of cheeky things that a child might shout out if allowed in the studio. Although this is a show for adults, they all seem very childlike. And for their childlike comments, Noel rewards them with a little Christmas box with some money in. He's still got that glint in his eye.

This is an adult show. The excitement of losing or winning large sums of money is blatantly sexual. A television company without vision would have chosen an obviously modern sex symbol such as Vernon Kaye to present this show. But the company knew about the millions of people who had their loins enflamed for the first time watching Swap Shop or Noel's House Party. Whole families used to come together at Christmas as Noel made the day of a terminally ill child. And would there be a thriving swinging or dogging scene today without the groundwork done by Noel's Swap Shop?

I've a feeling this is the ghost of Christmas future.

17 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:02 PM

    Blobby blobby blobby

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  2. Anonymous1:13 PM

    One of the many things I like about "Deal Or No Deal" is Noel.

    In a sense, he's gone back to basics; all that shrill excitement and running around like he's just about to shit himself he used to do on "House Fucking Party" is gone and we're back to the effortless presenting he used to display "back in the day".

    Noel responsible for the invention of dogging ? I think you're right.

    I cannot find the right words to describe how much I fucking loathe Vernon Kay. The man is a wank of the highest order. Kill the cunt.

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  3. Richard - Mr Blobby nowhere to be seen. This is ADULT entertainment.

    Sky - Yes, he makes it look so easy. I think maybe he's like the swan paddling furiously under the water, especially when he makes up the telephone conversations with the banker. In the same way I'm always impressed by Tony Blair when he's answering questions from the public, I'm impressed by Noel's easy way with his audience. It's the measure of a true con-artist that he can do that to me. The show itself is all about greed and fits in perfectly with what Christmas is all about. The shops are open today, the sales are on and people are shopping till they drop. Bollocks to the people who have to work today, why the fuck should they get two days off in a row? What are they going to do at home anyway? I've got the whole week off and I want to go to HMV and Next and come home and have a little gamble on an 090 number -Deal Or No Deal.

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  4. Anonymous4:13 PM

    Geoff, some things should never be forgiven.

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  5. Vernon Kay a modern sex symbol? I'm so glad I don't do boys.

    The strangest thing about Deal or No Deal is that it is strangly compelling viewing. It shouldn't be.

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  6. Richard - I can't forgive him for something I never saw. As far as I'm concerned the man has a clean slate and he looks like the King of Greed to me.

    Billy - There's not exactly much to it, is there? You don't even need a memory to play it. Nothing to remember, nothing to forget. A lot of love and goodwill between the contestants, though. I bet there's a lot of swapping in the hotel afterwards. Noel dogging in the car park.

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  7. I know what you're saying Geoff, but I can't bear to think about it long enough to comment.

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  8. Sorry to put the mockers on Christmas, Kaz.

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  9. Anonymous2:05 PM

    I can't imagine my loins being enflamed by him either. Or Cheggers and Maggie Philbin for that matter. He was tolerable until that bloke died on House Party

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  10. Anonymous2:53 PM

    They could do a dogging version of deal or no deal, with people in the boxes and you have to have sex with the person in the last box, it could be George Clooney if you're lucky or Archbishop Rowan Williams if you're not.
    Then all the audience would have to gather round to watch the sex and cheer you on if you're flagging.

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  11. Anonymous3:00 PM

    I think the dogging association derived from the similarity between the bewhiskered midget's face and a dog's arse. Uncanny.

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  12. Richard - Never could stand him. Just another DJ who didn't like music.

    Realdoc - Would the boxes be shaped like coffins? The contestants could be dressed as Dickensian style pallbearers for the Christmas shows.

    Murph - Similar stuff comes out.

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  13. No, the boxes could be dangling from bungee ropes, containing members of the public blissfully unaware that they were about to splatter on the tarmac.

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  14. Why the hell did I watch "It all started with Swap Shop" last night?

    Ah yes, I banged my head on the windscreen two days before xmas eve.

    Still, it was great re-watching the clip of Captain Sensible fall over in a drunken manner on Saturday Superstore.

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  15. Mind you, I do think that the Five Star phone in where the caller described them as "fucking crap, fucking mental" should've topped the disastrous events on kids' tv chart.

    Why was I watching it actually? Oh yeah, I was pissed.

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  16. How they could say Thatcher was the number one guest when Sting was only number 4 is anyone's guess.

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  17. Do you remember that phone in they had with Matt Bianco?

    Someone rang in and said "Matt Bianco; Bunch of wankers!"

    Not as good as the Five Star example, but a corker nonetheless.

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