This evening’s Archive Hour on Radio 4 celebrated the 40^th anniversary of the seminal children’s TV show Sesame Street. The programme featured healthy dollops of insight about the visionary goals that underpinned the show and how the Children’s Television Workshop revolutionised children’s TV through the medium of animation, bad puns and felt glove puppets. The one thing that wasn’t discussed, however, was an aspect of the show that most media pundits are either blissfully unaware of or would prefer just to ignore. I’m talking, of course, about the way in which the seemingly benign and wholesome inner city world of Sesame Street is inextricably linked to the violent and seedy inner city world of modern American crime drama.

In 2006, Sesame Street featured the following (very funny) parody of the popular drama series, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit –

The green one with the shades was a Muppet simulacrum – a simuppetcrum, if you will -- of Detective John Munch, one of Law and Order’s most popular and enduring characters as played by the comedian-turned-actor Richard Belzer:

This wasn’t the first time -- or, for that matter, the last time -- that Sesame Street featured a parody of a popular cop show (cf Miami Mice from the 1980s, or the more recent RSI: Rhyme Scene Investigation). However, the appearance of the Munch character in this skit carried with it a certain troubling ontological resonance that would be lost on the typical pre-schooler, well-meaning parent or Radio 4 researcher.

Namely, that Detective Sergeant John Munch is a conduit of continuity, a notorious fictional floozy and the tart of TV crime drama.

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit wasn’t the first procedural cop show that Munch appeared in. Before that, he was a regular in the groundbreaking 90s series Homicide: Life on the Streets. During Homicide’s run, Munch made three guest appearances on the rival crime show Law and Order and, when Homicide was cancelled in 1999, he subsequently became a regular in Law and Order’s Special Victims Unit spin-off.

While actors do this sort of thing all the time, it’s pretty unusual behaviour for a fictional character. TV shows tend to exist in self-contained, self-referential worlds and Munch’s prime-time promiscuity helped to shatter this time-honoured illusion. It was a bit like EastEnders’ Phil Mitchell ordering a pint at the Rovers Return or Brookside’s Jimmy Corkhill becoming a regular on Skins. If it’s just the actor turning up in a different show then nobody really minds, but when fictional characters themselves start doing this sort of thing then it has troubling implications.

In the case of John Munch, it suggests that Homicide: Life on the Streets and Law and Order co-exist within the same fictional universe. That’s not such a big deal in and of itself as they’re both crime dramas. Thanks to the existence of the Munch simuppetcrum, however, we’re now faced with the troubling implication that both shows exist in the same fictional plane of existence as Sesame Street.

It gets worse. Not content with appearing in multiple crime dramas (including a brief appearance in a short-lived and largely-forgotten series called The Beat), fictional Detective John Munch has also branched out into other genres. He interrogated The Lone Gunmen in a 1997 episode of The X-Files and, more recently, had a cameo appearance in the cult comedy series Arrested Development.

So, thanks to John Munch – the metafictional mindfucker de jour – we now have to get our heads around a single, unified fictional universe in which the characters from Homicide, Law and Order, The X-Files and Arrested Development could theoretically interact not only with each other but with the denizens of Sesame Street.

What makes all of this even more unusual is the fact that Detective John Munch is based on a real person. The Homicide series (in which Munch first appeared) was based on a non-fiction book called Homicide: a Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, who would later go on to create The Wire (which, in case you don’t already know, is officially the greatest crime drama in the history of television). Munch’s character was based on real-life Baltimore cop called Jay Landsman, and Simon would later go on to pay further tribute to Landsman by naming a character in The Wire after him. The real Jay Landsman – Jay Landsman Actual, I suppose – worked as an advisor on The Wire before eventually becoming a regular cast member on the show, playing a character called Lieutenant Dennis Mello (who, you guessed it, was named after another real-life Baltimore Cop).

In the penultimate episode of the final season, the comedian-turned-actor Richard Belzer made a cameo appearance in The Wire. The character he played was Detective John Munch.

This implies that even a programme that’s as highly-acclaimed as The Wire can still be absorbed into the single, unified fictional universe that centres around Detective John Munch. Furthermore, it suggests that the fictional inner city Baltimore of The Wire is just a mere Greyhound bus ride away from the fictional inner city New York of Sesame Street.

I guess it’s only a matter of time before simuppetcrums of McNulty, Stringer Bell and Omar are introduced to the world of Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Oscar.

Or, The Life Arachnid with Peter Parker.  A slyly clever parody by Jeff Loveness which -- like Anderson’s actual films -- you’ll either get or you won’t.

(Thanks to zenbullets for the heads-up.)

I’m probably the last person in the world to see this, but here’s a tremendously funny movie mash-up that features Darth Vader reimagined by Guy Ritchie:

Updated 30th January 2010: this may seem a bit overdue, but I’ve now added Armando Iannucci’s 9th and 10th questions that were Tweeted after I wrote my original post. In light of how yesterday’s events played out, it now seems as though my additional question for readers was a wee bit optimistic. It was based on the assumption that the former vicar of St Albion would receive a thorough grilling and be deftly evasive. In the event, a deft evasion wasn’t required as the “thorough grilling” turned out to be, at best, a gentle simmering, or possibly even a fricassée.

Blair’s remarkable transformation from Zero to Nero -- as those initial physiological signs of awkward nervousness swiftly morphed into a swaggering display of unrepentant moral righteousness -- seemed to be triggered by a prompt evaluation of his opponents’ capacity to do him harm. All it took was the merest hint of hesitation, deviation or lack of focus from the panel to neutralise the threat, and the opening question managed to convey all three.

It was a bit like watching Ronnie Barker in an episode of Porridge expecting to get a incandescent rollicking from Mr Mckay, only to find out that it’s Mr Barrowclough instead.

Just for once I’m going to sheepishly pop my head over the parapets and amble awkwardly into terra incognita. Yes, I’m venturing outside of my normal comfort zone of pop culture and low humour to talk about politics

Later today, the former vicar of St Albion will be giving evidence at the Iraq inquiry. I’ve got very strong opinions about this, but I’ll let you work those out for yourself.

Now, I’m not in the habit of following celebrities on Twitter, but Armando Iannucci is an exception as he’s fiendishly smart and very funny. The modern-day Moliere has been posting a series of questions on Twitter that he’d like Tony Blair to answer. For the benefit of those who don’t follow @AIannucci, don’t do Twitter or are somewhat averse to the textese-like vowel-gutting necessitated by a 140 character limit, here’s my humble attempt at translating them into English:

1. Was regime change one of your aims? Alastair Campbell’s diary entry for 2nd April 2002 confirms that participants at one meeting “discussed whether the central aim was WMD or regime change” and that “TB felt it was regime change” (at Iraq inquiry, former foreign minister Jack Straw said he regarded “a foreign policy objective of regime change” as “improper and also self-evidently unlawful.”)
2. In January 2003, your foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning recorded that you were “solidly with the president” about military action with or without a second UN Resolution. If this is so, then why didn’t you tell the Cabinet or parliament that you had already made up your mind? Why did you tell the Commons as late as 25th February 2003: “I do not want war. I do not believe that anyone in this House wants war. Even now we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully”?
3. On 24 September 2002 you told parliament that Saddam night acquire a usable nuclear weapon within “a year or two”. No substantive Intel ever supported that claim. Explain.
4. On 7th March 2003 Attorney General Lord Goldsmith sent you detailed legal advice questioning the legality of proceeding without a second UN resolution. By 17th March he’d hardened his position, so to speak, and provided unequivocal legal backing for the war. How many people helped him revise this advice? Are you happy for them to talk to the enquiry?
5. Did the Attorney General’s wife play any part in this change of advice? Are you happy for her to talk to the enquiry?
6. Foreign Office lawyer Elizabeth Wilmshurst’s resignation letter was censored for “security” reasons. The suppressed passage referred to Lord Goldsmith’s aforementioned change of heart over the legality of the war. Is this really a security matter? Would it be better described as an insecurity matter?
7. Government legal advisers said that justifying war as an act of self-defence would be illegal as there was no evidence that Saddam was planning an imminent attack. Why, then, did you not retract the 45 minute claim?
8. Why did you you present the Attorney General’s advice to the Cabinet, the House of Commons and the military as clear and unequivocal when you knew it wasn’t?
9. Last December, John Prescott told New Statesman magazine: “Bush is crap. You know it, I know it, the party knows it.” Why were our troops at his disposal?
10. Did you let political considerations delay proper military planning and financing, particularly over troop equipment?

Finally, a question for you:

1. Do you really think the former vicar of Albion will give a straight answer to any of the above?

Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge has been in the news a lot this week. These stories were all very serious issues that merit very serious discussion by very seriously-minded people. As I’m not a particularly seriously-minded person, however, I feel more comfortable turning my attention to something altogether more glib, trivial and frivolous.

Namely, so to speak, Lord Judge’s name.

It does seem slightly odd (to me, at least) that someone with the surname Judge ends up becoming the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.  This would seem to support the theory of nominative determinism, whereby a person’s surname helps to influence their choice of career.  If your surname is ‘Judge’, the theory goes, then you’ve spent so many of your formative years being referred to as ‘Judge’ that you’re going to be subliminally conditioned and/or subconsciously predisposed to pursue a career in the legal profession.   Of course, with us human critters being the fairly complex engines of infinite possibility wot we are, things don’t always work out this way.  Just ask Judge Reinhold from the Beverley Hills Cop movies.

Reinhold notwithstanding, Lord Judge isn’t the only example of nominative determinism.  I first became aware it in the 1990s when New Scientist coined the term and it subsequently became a regular topic in the magazine’s Feedback section:

We recently came across a new book, Pole Positions – The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman. Then, a couple of weeks later, we received a copy of London Under London – A Subterranean Guide, one of the authors of which is Richard Trench. So it was interesting to see Jen Hunt of the University of Manchester stating in the October issue of The Psychologist: “Authors gravitate to the area of research which fits their surname.” Hunt’s example is an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology (…) by J. W. Splatt and D. Weedon. (Italics mine)

New Scientist – 5th November 1994

Besides Lord Judge and Messrs Splatt and Weedon, my favourite examples of possible cases of nominative determinism include the following:

• Former Minister of Agriculture, Douglas Hogg
• British neurologist Russell Brain.
• Urologist at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Nicholas Burns-Cox.
• Association of British Police Officers spokesman on knife crime Alf Hitchcock.
• My secondary school English teacher, Mr Hyde.
• Former Microsoft Program Manager Noah Coad.
• Frances Crook OBE, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
• Former Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Sin (1928-2005)
• Law firm in Leamington Spa called Wright Hassall.
• German football team VfL Wolfsburg’s former coach, Wolfgang Wolf.
• Spokesman for the Reagan White House, Larry Speakes.

And my absolute favourite:

• Urologist who specialises in vasectomies: Dr Richard (Dick) Chopp

Nominative Determinism focuses on the connection between surnames and careers, but I sometimes wonder if the influence of a person’s surname can go beyond that and have an impact on their personality type and/or character.  In this respect, the partial-to-booze chanteuse Amy Winehouse and the perpetually perky TV presenter Carol Smilie spring to mind, although I wish they didn’t.   On a personal note, in a previous job I used to regularly deal with a pair of clients called Mr R. Sole and Mr I. Wankawala.  I’m happy to say that they both lived up to their names.

And why should this just be limited to surnames?  Can a person’s first name also have an impact on their personality type and/or character?

Somehow I doubt it.   But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

20. Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois (2005)

Sufjan’s Prairie State

I wish he did all fifty

(Yes, I fell for it)

19. Jeffrey Lewis -- It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through (2003)

Anti-folk hero

Serves comic stripped down delight

Raw, honest and fun

18. PJ Harvey -- Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)

Poptastic Polly

Her most commercial album

That never sells out

17. Pulp -- We Love Life (2001)

Leafy perfection

From kitchen sink troubadours

Sad, Sheffield swansong

16. TV on the Radio -- Dear Science (2008)

Arse-shaking anger

As Sitek and crew unleash

Brooklyn funky stuff

15. Bruce Springsteen -- Working on a Dream (2009)

My favourite Boss

Is reconciled with E Street

Glory Days again!

14. Midlake -- The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)

Lush, pastoral grooves

Et in arcadia they go

I think I’ll head home!

13. The Strokes -- Is This It (2001)

New York storybook

A soundtrack of the decade

This, it seems, is it

12. Johnny Cash -- American III: Solitary Man (2000)

Departed legend

Au revoir, L’homme en noir

No one sounds like you

11. Brian Wilson -- Smile (2004)

Infamous Beached Boy

Went back to sea triumphant

And served up Surf’s Up

10. Grinderman -- Grinderman (2007)

Black Crow Kingdom reigns

As Bad Seeds bear twisted fruit

(See what I did there?)

9. The White Stripes -- White Blood Cells (2001)

Third from Jack and Meg

With incandescent gee-tars

And Awesome Welles riff

7. Lift to Experience -- The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (2001)

A Lone Star Statement

They burnt fast but -- by God! -- burnt bright

“Don’t mess with Texas”

8. Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Tupelo’s Tweedy

Overcame Warner Bother

To create this gem

6. The National -- Alligator (2005)

Late night, low-rent wit

Don’t compare to Tindersticks

They’re better than that

5. Arcade Fire -- Funeral (2005)

Mournful joie de vivre

Joyous momento mori

(Inadequate praise)

4. Tom Waits -- Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (2006)

Gravel voiced Bardfly

Serves up three courses of treats

We hunger for more!

3. Warren Zevon -- Life’ll Kill Ya (2000)

Sardonic singer

Enjoyed every sandwich

Then left us a feast

2. Lambchop -- Nixon (2000)

Funky slide guitars

Where country and Curtis meet

Mayfield, not Stigers!

1. The Flaming Lips -- Yoshima Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

Fearless freaks, rejoice!

Perfect bubblepop classic

Don’t you realize??

In the Seinfeld episode The Frogger, the eponymous Jerry and his “short, stocky, slow-witted and bald” best friend George Costanza visit a soon-to-be closed down pizza parlour they used to frequent at high school.  They discover that the owner still has the old Frogger arcade game they used to play as kids, and the Frogger machine still displays George’s high score of 860,630 points.  George regards this as his greatest ever achievement, so resolves to buy the machine off the pizza parlour owner (“I’m never gonna have a child.  If I lose this Frogger high score, that’s it for me”).  Things, of course, don’t exactly go according to plan.

To add insult to injury, Pat Laffaye of Westport, Conneticut -- a real person, no less -- has recently beaten George’s fictional high score.

Poor old George Costanza -- nothing ever goes his way.   Oh well, at least he’s still the Lord of the Idiots.

(Thanks to Clare for the heads-up)

HBO have just released a teaser trailer for Treme, the new series from The Wire’s creator David Simon.  The show is set in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans and centres around a group of local musicians.  It stars Wire alumni Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters  (who played Bunk Moreland and Lester Freamon in the Baltimore-set TV masterpiece) as well as the mighty John Goodman and -- somewhat bizarrely -- Elvis Costello.

Here’s the trailer:

I meant to write this on Friday night, but I was sick so I didn’t.

Friday would have been the 75th birthday of Mr Elvis Aaron Presley, a name you probably won’t need to look up in Wikipedia.  Like most anniversaries (or, for that matter, most things in life), the news coverage was a fairly predictable affair. Stock footage covering both ends of his career followed by smug observations about Elvis impersonators and obligatory soundbites from eccentric fans, which invariably consisted of a random great granny from The King’s original target demographic (who, ideally, doesn’t much care for modern music) juxtaposed with some young arsehole with a quiff. I assume the latter was “going through a phase” and his or her parents were probably into Britpop or hip hop.

Personally speaking, I’ve always been rather fond of Elvis. My parents’ were part of his original target demographic, you see, and some of the first songs I ever heard were by The King. In psychological circles that’s known as imprint vulnerability. I’m also old enough to remember what I was doing when I first heard that he’d died. I was putting on a snake belt and getting ready to go to infant school.

In any case, in memory of Elvis I planned to spend Friday night watching Bubba Ho-Tep and listening to Gravelands by The King and Porcelain Monkey by Warren Zevon. Unfortunately I was sick, so I didn’t. To the best of my knowledge, Bubba Ho-Tep, Gravelands by The King and Porcelain Monkey by Warren Zevon did not feature prominently in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Elvis anniversary. I suppose that’s the reason why God created the Blogosphere and idiots like me.

Bubba Ho-Tep, in case you don’t know, was a blackly comic but strangely touching independent film directed by Don Cascarelli that was released in 2004 or thereabouts. It featured the mighty Bruce Campbell playing an aging Elvis who cheated death in 1977 and now finds himself living in a Texan rest home.  Together with an elderly black guy -- who may or may not be JFK -- he has to face down a deranged mummy who’s preying on the souls of pensioners.

It’s one of my favourite movies of the last decade, and I cringe a little as I type that. Blog logic -- or blogic, if you will -- states that I’m now have to follow through on that comment by churning out a list of my favourite films of the decade. More bad haiku, then.

Gravelands, on the other hand, is a 1997 album which features cover versions of songs by dead rock stars performed by an Elvis impersonator from Belfast whose real name is James Brown. Yes, I know that sounds like the ingredients for some God-awful novelty record, but it really is quite wonderful. ‘The King’ really does sound like The King, the musicians really do sound like the Takin’ Care of Business Band and the choice of songs is priceless. They make it sound as though Nirvana’s Come as You Are, Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart and AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie are new additions to the Presley back catalogue. To put it another way, it gives us a weird glimpse into a parallel world where Elvis got to live for another couple of decades and Rick Rubin helped him rehabilitate his legacy.

Finally, there’s Porcelain Monkey by the late Warren Zevon, which featured a blistering riff and some brilliant lyrics:

From a shotgun shack singing Pentecostal hymns
Through the wrought iron gates to the TV room
He had a little world, it was smaller than your hand
It’s a rockabilly ride from the glitter to the gloom

Left behind by the latest trends
Eating fried chicken with his regicidal friends
That’s how the story ends
With a porcelain monkey

Zevon, however, was not what you might call a fan of Elvis. In an interview in 2000 he said:

“He furthered the cause of ripping off a culture we’ve already oppressed for 400 years in my country. But I don’t know how much is individual brilliance, genius, and how much is just the currents of culture. Being at a cultural crossroads can be luck, you know? Don’t be absolutely sure that Soundgarden wasn’t as good as the Rolling Stones. They just came 30 years too late to be innovative.”

I’m a big fan of Zevon’s, but that’s a pretty harsh and iconoclastic position to take, even by his standards.  The 6th Century sage Chilon of Sparta once said “Let only good be spoken of the dead”,  but if that’s the case then how have Channel 5 documentary makers managed to stay in business?  And does this lofty ideal still apply when the person wagging a finger at a dead rock star is another dead rock star?

I can’t say for certain, but I do know that  Zevon’s Life’ll Kill Ya is one of my favourite albums of the decade.  I cringe a little as I type that, too.

I guess that means I’ll be churning out even more bad haiku.

As a blogger, I’m contractually obliged to produce and publish annual lists of things wot I like. It’s one of those tedious tasks in life you try to put off until the last moment and always bitterly resent, like getting your car serviced, completing a tax return or flossing. If I don’t do it, though, bad things might happen. I could lose my weblog licence, get a nasty email from Technorati or even end up with a terrible gum disease.

So what follows are my favourite films of 2009 at this particular moment in time. These are movies that were released in the UK between 1st January and 31st December 2009 that I watched during this period, and it doesn’t include any films that were released during this period that I watched last night with Clare. Which is a shame, really, because otherwise Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell might have been a contender.

Just like last year, each entry comes complete with a lovingly hand-crafted piece of bad haiku.

Don’t say I never treat you.

______________________________

10. Public Enemies

Mann’s gangster epic

Is a fedora-clad ‘Heat’

(The film, not the mag)

9. Avatar

J.C. rose again

With pulp sci-fi eye-popper

Tangled up in blue

8. The Wrestler

Rourke drifts to glory

With tale of aging fighter

Who’s your (Big) Daddy?

7. In The Loop

Big-screen Thick of It:

In this sharp, sweary satire

‘Fog of war’ turns blue

6. Gran Torino

It’s flawed, but who cares?

Clint’s in front of the camera

And that makes our day

5. Inglourious Basterds

Don’t burn cinemas

Unless there’s Nazis inside

In which case, it’s OK

4. Fantastic Mr Fox

Roald Dahl kid classic

Goes stop-motion to Wes World

(It’s no cluster-cuss!)

3. Star Trek

Lapsed Trekkers rejoice

As Abrams’ restores their faith

Final frontier fun!

2. Where The Wild Things Are

Spike’s grown-up kids’ film

That’s perfect in every way

A beautiful freak

1. Let The Right One In

Swedish vampire tale

Is no flat-pack Drakea

More Bergman with bite