Head-the-balls – At Home

Remember at school when someone accidentally dropped a tray in the dinner hall? Woe betide that person. If your school was anything like my school, the moment that tray crashed to the ground there erupted an almighty, “WOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH!” from all the other diners. It happened every. single. time and undoubtedly, it was an asinine and puerile reaction to someone else’s misfortune.

I was reminded of the dinner tray fiasco this week when I noticed a different kind of asinine and puerile reaction on social media.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after the first rockets were fired and after many thousands of Ukrainians started fleeing towards various borders, some armchair experts from this neck of the woods began lamenting the lack of fighting footage. Honestly, I couldn’t believe what I was reading but basically, these social media leg-ends were querying the dearth of a smoking Ruskie gun. 5G and Covid concerns had apparently been set aside so that they could wax conspiratorial about the inadequacies of the Western media’s coverage of an unprecedented European war. In point of fact, they seemed to be inferring that such a war wasn’t even taking place at all, as exemplified by the lack of Marvel-like explosive footage.

Personally, I’m not sure how this can transpire. OK, so every war that has ever been fought has come festooned with propaganda but, as was the case with the pandemic, do the armchair experts believe that the entirety of Western world governments are in cahoots against the ordinary man or woman on the streets?

“WOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH!”

The internet and, as an extension, social media, are great tools. They’re information super-highways and they allow us to stay in touch with the not-so nearest and dearest. However, what they also provide is an unaccountable soapbox platform for all the crazy, conspiracy theorist, looney-bin, head-the-balls out there, those people with framed pictures of baboons’ bums on their bedroom walls. And just as a person’s politics is reflected by their newspaper of choice, so the head-the-balls’ involvement in social media works as a kind of echo chamber whereby their knee-jerk, non-understanding, conspiracy-laden madness is returned on them tenfold via like-minded baboons spouting the same pseudoscientific, quacked-up nuttiness.

Maybe they don’t get out enough or maybe there isn’t a strong enough peer network in their lives to tell them to wise up on occasion – or maybe they’re suffering from an online form of modern cabin fever. I don’t know and, to be honest, I don’t want to know.

“WOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH!”

Keep spouting. The only people taking notice are the others in your echo chamber.

Meanwhile, on with the programming!

First up and in no particular order is The Real Peaky Blinders (Monday at 9pm on BBC2)…

Part one of two. Historian Carl Chinn explores the real-life stories of the Birmingham gangs that inspired Steven Knight’s hit BBC drama, sorting out the fact from the fiction. The programme begins by examining the origins of the phenomenon in Birmingham, from the first mention of the term Peaky Blinders in the popular press in 1890 and the street gangs that stretched back into the Victorian era as far back as the 1860s, when they were known as slogging gangs.

Alternatively, for something a little more light-hearted, 

Mary Berry’s Fantastic Feasts (Wednesday at 8pm on BBC1)…

Mary comes to the aid of three novice cooks – fireman Mark, youth worker Callum and boxing instructor Thaer, who want to throw a spectacular afternoon tea to say thank you to Soraya, who runs a youth charity in Cardiff. While the trio join Mary at her home for a series of cooking lessons, Roman Kemp and Tom Read Wilson oversee the extras to make the party extra special – and also offer moral support when temperatures rise in the kitchen. When everything is ready, they head to Langley Hall near Cardiff to cook their feast for 15, and give Soraya the surprise of a lifetime.

And lastly, Michael Mosley: Who Made Britain Fat? (Wednesday at 9pm on Channel4)…

The first of a two-part documentary in which journalist and broadcaster Michael Mosley delves into the reasons for the steep rise in the number of people living with obesity.

He begins by investigating why past government policies have failed and whether new initiatives stand any better chance in the face of the massive advertising spend of fast-food companies. Mosley also visits one of the new pre-school obesity clinics, where babies as young as one are being treated, talks to campaigner Jamie Oliver and discovers from former chancellor George Osborne why the sugar tax did not go far enough.

“WOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH!”