Tune out and switch of

Rattle the bars, breach the walls and cry freedom. Once again it's that time of year, when the claustrophobia experienced by big brother inmates is vicariously experienced by those outside the compound walls. When the omnipresence of Big Brother inside the house is mirrored by the ubiquity of Big brother conversations, gossip and news: in work canteens, offices, and overheard conversations on the train, on the radio, the internet, tabloid and broadsheets, from the mouths of fellow workers, friends, commuters, journalists, presenters, priests, politicians and bloggers. Help me out of here! It's inescapable, pervading the cultural atmosphere. Transmitted digitally by Channel 4, manifesting as sound and vision in its early infectious stage, it has, as it always does, mutated into human to human form. And what accounts for the success of this contagion? Well, partly it's because Big Brother quenches the thirst for a reflected reality whose fascination lies in its distortion, like the contortions that stare back at us in a hall of mirrors. But then why does it provoke such condemnation and evoke such revulsion? Because everything is designed so as to reflect back to us only the most undignified and grotesque aspects of the human condition: subservience and selfishness. And of course, the successful spread of the contagion is partly because of its ability to arouse such antipathy. Rather than ignore it, I write this blog and expedite its spread. Rather than ignore it, I stop awhile, while channel surfing, stayed by a morbid sense of curiosity, buoyed by a self-righteous sense of indignation, and give thanks - "there but for the grace of god go I" - and bemoan the failings of democracy as I am confronted by the thought that many of these inmates might actually have some say over who governs me. Perhaps I should just tune out and switch of.