IT was the "Special" in Cutting Edge Special: One Night Stand that sounded seductive. Perhaps they were onto something big. They weren't, although something similar was the goal of some of their subjects. Three twentysomethings - Bonnie, Mark and Adam and 34 year old Jean Yves - were hot to trot. They went out on the town seeking Saturday night sex with no strings attached (tights, handcuffs, lariats . .. probably even baling twine would be fine - but no strings!).
There was nothing very special about any of them. Bonnie was a Spice Mama, with a baby daughter; Mark and Adam were Men Behaving Badly bores (they even played golf); Jean Yves was gay and sounded like he was doing impressions of Jean Paul Gaultier. Time was when seduction thrived on subtlety and humour. From the mouths of the artless and for the drunk, attempts at being subtle or funny invariably collapsed into smarm, but at least the participants in the sad, embarrassing charades of chatting up played the game.
In the 1990s, it appears the ultra direct style is in vogue. At a deafening disco, Mark demonstrated: "When was the last time you actually had sex?" he inquired of his dancing partner. "About two weeks ago," she replied. "You must be f***ing desperate then. I'm actually gagging for it," he said. Smooth, eh? Not to mention suave, subtle, sophisticated, seasoned, silver tongued and thick as bottled manure.
Whatever happened to "Do you come here often?" (the Morris Minor of the genre) or the Ballroom of Romances "Do you fancy stopping off in the field Bridie? (the Massey Ferguson approach) or the inimitable "How would you like to be buried with my people?" (the GTi of shocking understatement)? Granted, such lines lacked finesse, urbanity or savoir faire. But they were opening gambits which acknowledged that human vulnerability and awkwardness are intrinsic to the mating ritual.
Excessively elaborate courtship is, of course, codology - the product of inhumanly rigorous times and societies. But the ultra direct approach is proof that British society (probably Irish too) is coarsening at an alarming rate. It's not the sex that's worrying. It's the glorification of smugness, vulgarity, selfishness - suggesting that these are now virtues - which is startling. Defenders of the new directness will argue that, at least, there's less hypocrisy now. On the evidence of Cutting Edge Special, there isn't.
Consider Bonnie. She went out in what was little more than a bikini top and painted on trousers. Fair enough. At a club, she demonstrated "walking with attitude". This was great. It involved swaggering past punters while avoiding eye contact. It was just showing off, but it was presented as liberation. It was the same story with the guff of Mark and Adam. They too felt "liberated". Some liberation if you have to be so crude to get sex.
Their language gave the game away. The people they had sex with had to be objectified. "I don't like doing anything I've done before," said Mark. The "thing" referred specifically to his former girlfriend, who didn't "want to be anybody's shag on tap". Mark's guff was intended to show a chauvinistic independence; his girlfriend, despite her stated objections, took it, literally, lying down.
Jean Yves went to a gay club named SubStation. Well, whatever rings your bells. Certainly, there didn't appear to be much trouble scoring in SubStation. Most of the men wore leather trousers and a few of the shy ones wore sleeveless vests. But, the "liberated" brigade weren't into such prudery. Bare chested, they rubbed their nipples against each other as they tripped the light fantastic. You could almost smell the sweat from the screen. Jean Yves picked up with David.
The rest you don't need to know. The cameras arrived for post match analyses. Our heroes (and heroine) had all scored.
In a year of extraordinary exhibitionism for TV cameras, these four were among the saddest (beaten only by the incomparable clown who allowed his circumcision to be filmed). Warriors against hypocrisy, they all claimed they wanted sex but, essentially, wished to keep themselves to themselves. Then they invited an audience of millions to watch them in action. Wannabe lone wolves in search of an audience - now that is sad, indeed.
WOULDN'T Daddy Dimbleby have been proud to see his two strong sons go out to fight and vie for the BBC and ITV on British general election night? David (59) and Jonathan (53), though they're no spring chickens now, will always be the children of Richard "Voice of the BBC" Dimbleby, remembered for pioneering the ultra reverential, farcically obsequious commentary for occasions of state.
On Thursday, the Dimbleby boys (David for the BBC; Jonathan for ITV) anchored Election 1997 marathons. Backed up by herds of dapper constituency reporters, banks of technology and studio teams of high profile hacks and pundits, the Dimbleby boys done real good. But the technology, especially the Beeb's virtual reality gameshows, which drove their operator, Peter Snow towards visible arousal, was the star.
ITV, though it too was techheavy (it even had a virtual reality House of Commons), had Alastair Stewart in charge of the gizmos. Al was animated but it was obvious that, unlike Snow, he was faking much of his excitement. Still, in fairness to ITV, it, unlike the BBC, opened its coverage with an immediate announcement that Labour had won. As the night wore on, this proved to be an understatement: Labour hadn't Just won; it had annihilated the Blue Meanies.
Because of the seismic scale of the shift to Labour, the tension of competition (and thereby much drama) was missing. There were, of course, many absorbing sideshows - the nasty podium squabble in Putney between David Mellor and James Gold - smith; the post defeat anger of Michael Portillo as Jeremy Paxman did his smiling Gestapo man routine; Tony Blair's emotional, super sincere victory speech, which evoked hope streaked with scepticism.
Though there were exceptions, television, throughout the British election, couldn't quite incite the levels of confrontation which might reasonably have been expected. Given the size of Labour's lead in the polls, Blair was sure to play, eh . . . conservatively. Given that sleaze was a major issue - at any rate, a major media issue - a vicious, personalised anti Bambi ad-assault by the Tories would probably have backfired, confirming their sleaziness at least as much as damaging Labour.
Yet, the massive victory of Martin Bell over Neil Hamilton in Tatton (where sleaze was the issue) was made possible by television. After all, Bell offered little more than the spurious fame of being a high profile TV reporter. In the event, that was enough. As he delivered his victory speech in front of the winking on and off electric nipples of the transvestite candidate from the Moneypenny Glorious Party, Bell must have been conscious that in politics, as in the media, image is key.
So, an 18 year era ended. In 1979, when Maggie Thatcher became Britain's prime minister, television viewers were being treated to the likes of Minder, Blankety Blank and The Dukes Of Hazzard. The twin PC revolutions (personal computers and political correctness) had still to begin. Yet, there can be no doubt British society has coarsened at an alarming rate since then. Some of this has been media driven but none of it can be divorced from the mean spirit of the ruling political ideology of the period. At least the Tories are now "out, out, out".
Maybe Blair will give decent people a real opportunity to "rejoice, rejoice, rejoice". Maybe.
BACK on RTE, Grounding A Hawk With A Hammer, was a documentary about the three British women who, last year, broke into a British Aerospace base and disabled a Hawk jet fighter with hammers. Times have changed alright. Richard Dimbleby used to broadcast for BBC radio from an RAF bomber over Germany. The women argued that their attack was intended to prevent further genocide in East Timor by the Indonesian government, for whom the plane was built.
Using talking heads principally two of the attackers, Joanna Wilson and Andrea Needham - and reconstructions, this was, rightly, a celebratory documentary, although it (not the women) did exude a very faint whiff of moral smugness. Certainly, the women were brave and ideologically motivated. Their refusal to accept the establishment's commercial arguments about supply and demand in the arms industry was commendable.
As a public record relating to East Timor (where one in three of the population, about 200,000 people, has been murdered in the last two decades - the equivalent of 500,000 in the North) this was compelling. Still, there were aspects of the story which suggested there may have been specific factors influencing the jury which acquitted the women of any crime. First, they were women; second they were, as one of them said, "well educated and middle class".
Being female, well educated and middle class were attributes in this situation. Such features it could reasonably be argued, may have helped to propel these people to act against genocide. That's fine and their courage was exemplary. But, it was hard not to wonder if a court would have acquitted poorly educated, working class young men who did £1 million worth of damage to a fighter jet even in the laudable pursuit of a battle against genocide. Anyway, good luck to the women. Let's hope they've set a precedent.
FINALLY, roundup time: The Sky At Night was 40 years old this week, making Patrick Moore the most durable TV presenter, with the most durable suit, in the world (sorry, the known universe). Moore's programme first saw the light of day on April 26, 1957 a year when the combined television and radio licence in Britain went up £1 to £4. On Sunday, in, unlike Cutting Edge, a deserved Special", he gave us a run through on the history of the telescope from Galileo, through Newton, Hale and on to Rubble. With his curious mix of enthusiasm and efficiency, it was splendid. Cosmic, really.
Eschewing space, Mark Lamarr, in contrast, just went as far as the US to present Planet Showbiz, a new eight part series on developments in the entertainment industry. There he met 23 year old David Blaine, an excellent magician, who pulled lit cigarettes through coins and did impressive card tricks. Sadly, Blaine didn't make either Lamarr or the rest of the programme - a corny, old hat, "America as freak show" effort - disappear in a puff of smoke.
Meanwhile, beleagured TnaG continues to show a steady share of worthwhile programmes. Among them, Cuirt na Cruinne, a trekking and climbing series, presented by Dermot Somers and filmed by John Murray, is the equal of all (except the sublime Walks With Wainwright) in its genre. The Himalayas, the Andes, the Cuillinn Ridge on Skye, the Eiger and, this week, Mount Kenya have been featured. The series ends next Monday in California's Yosemite National Park, a natural wonder which truly is "special".