Eddy Says

Eddy Says: This week I’ve decided I need to watch more television

By | Published on Monday 1 June 2009

The Inbetweeners

I know. It sounds slightly ridiculous when most people spend their lives telling themselves they have to watch less and get out more. But TV is the purest form of popular culture and to deprive yourself of it, for whatever reason, is to cut yourself off from your peers – it’s an obvious social glue and conversation point. And, more importantly, there is some great TV being made out there.

Don’t get me wrong, I do realise that *most* of it is either not for me (‘Songs Of Praise’) or just total and utter shit (‘Big Brother’). But like when we had John Peel’s blessed and much missed Radio 1 show, in amongst all the terrible things that aired, and still air, on your average pop radio station, there are some gems in that sea of shite.

Ever since I became a single dad with ‘custody’ of a little boy, and gave up drugs, my TV consumption plummeted. Well, something had to give. The average weekday I’ll pick him up from school, do homework, play, draw, encourage him to read by leafing through ‘Tintin’ or ‘Asterix’ books with funny voices for the different characters, then cook dinner and put him to bed. At that point a normal parent would switch on the telly and relax for the evening. But by that point, I’ll have a hundred unanswered emails in my inbox, pages of unread messages on MySpace and Facebook, endless demos to check out and tunes to download – “please check my band/my remix/my mate’s band/my brother’s remix/my neighbour’s demo” – then, before I know it, 1am is looming and I have the school run in a matter of hours.

So, as a result, I’m a bit behind when it comes to all things television. I was late to discover ‘Heroes’, and was possibly the last person in England to discover ‘The Wire’ (I’m catching up on that – I got all five seasons for Christmas from various members of my family – well, actually I got five DVDs, but two of them were Season Four, doh!)

And now it seems I’m the last person in the UK to have discovered ‘The Inbetweeners’. It’s Sunday as I write this. I discovered them on Friday night, I’m five shows in and it’s already taken over my life. Almost everyone of my Twitter updates (oh yeah, I was the second last person to join Twitter – Punks Jump Up somehow let me beat them – so hit me up, I’m eddyTM) is about this show.

I’ve always been a sucker for lavatorial humour. I think I have the mental age of a 16 year old, so this sitcom has hit me like a ton of lead. I’ve found myself laughing like a fucking drain (loudly) in airport lounges and hotel rooms, at this joyous, puerile script. I love a good turn of phrase, and the adept fusing of the words ‘minge’, ‘muff’ and ‘clit’ to form ‘clunge’ has had me in paroxysms for days. I just randomly burst out laughing at any given moment when I think about it. So many people on Facebook have been saying things like “genius”, “love it'” “you’re missing out eddy” (these were all girls surprisingly and delightfully), andone even hit the nail on the head with “part of me wanted to be offended but it’s just too funny”.

And then, having finally discovered this show, it dawned on me. There must be other great stuff I’ve missed. So TV. More please.

X eddy

Eddy Says from this edition of the CMU Remix Update.

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