Time Trumpet

I’d just like to plug Armando Iannucci’s new series on BBC Two once again.

Time Trumpet is excellent. It is very, very black humour. The usual suspects of the American Right (e.g. Michelle Malkin) certainly didn’t appreciate Iannucci’s treatment of terrorism (I consider that to be a point in its favour – my equivalent of Groucho Marx’s approach to clubs). Probably because Malkin et al failed to appreciate that it was the reaction to terrorism that was being lampooned. It was, if you will, Iannucci’s "The power of laughter" to be set alongside Adam Curtis’ "The Power of Nightmares" – a programme, I note, that has still not been shown on US television.

There’s now an external web site set up for Time Trumpet, and this has some clips from the show. However, my favourite collection seems to have been taken care of by this prime selection on YouTube. It includes another bravura piece of video editing: President Bush singing both "Imagine" and "Walk on the Wild Side" (and you can probably guess who is the coloured girl going "Doo, de-doo, de-doo"…). Oh, and there’s Tesco’s war on Denmark, and lots of other goodies… Go and watch it.