An excellent article about the proto hipster Nathan Barley, who would answer the phone “Hullo you wanker”. Nathan Barley was John the Baptist to Russell Brand's Messiah:-
Looking for an online guru with an open-ended nanofesto that boils down to “peace and fucking – believe!”? Sorry Russell Brand, Nathan beat The Trews to the punch by 10 years with the rambling video homilies on his website (back when websites were novel)trashbat.co.ck. Barley aficionados will surely see in Brand some echoes of the show’s Preacherman character, the burnt-out style writer Dan Ashcroft who is bullied by style mag Sugar Ape’s appalling editor Jonatton Yeah? into adopting a voice-of-a-generation role. Replace the cynical weariness with messianism and you have Russell to a tee. ...
Nathan started life on the TVGoHome website....
TVGoHome was [Charlie] Brooker’s surreal and scatalogical late 90s collection of fake TV listings, including imaginary shows such as Inspector Bumhat, Daily Mail Island and the probably-best-not-explained Mick Hucknall’s Pink Pancakes.
….One regular listing concerned a young media man about town called Nathan Barley. It went under the pithy title of Cunt...
Chris Morris, the creator of The Day Today and Brasseye, had written listings in secret for TVGoHome. Around 2000 he suggested that they try to develop a show around the Nathan character and east London’s increasingly absurd club/art scene. “We talked about the show for years before we made it,” says Brooker. “Chris was adamant very early on that there should be a tiny acorn of likability to Nathan, something irrepressible. He does terrible things but he has an endearing sort of rabbity enthusiasm to him. In the fake listings he really was a cunt, whereas in the TV show he’s a twat – and there is a difference.
As there is.
Kingsley Amis liked these sorts of fine distinctions.
He says of a club bore: - “he was only an old fart, not an old shit as well.”
(The Folks Who Live on the Hill)
That's a wide distinction. But when it comes to the following:-
A privilege granted to few
Is meeting a pratt on the scale
Of Nicholls: by common consent
A nitwit not fit to shift shit,
Whether more of a bastard or cunt,
Views varied, one has to admit.
(Kingsley Amis The Reunion)
The distinction is narrower. But here's a working definition – a bastard will cheat on his partner, a cunt will get back at her with revenge porn.
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