Guilty Pleasures
Something I like doing, that MC barely lets me get away with, is listening to The Moral Maze. I'm really addicted to it, for a variety of reasons. One is that the show is remarkably pretentious, and clearly considers itself a high brow show, while at the same time displaying an often sophomoric level of debate - and I'm talking about the panellists here. It is pretty clear that few of them actually know what an argument looks like, preferring instead to side with "common sense" - the latest show on drugs is great for this, since it is a show about the morality of legalising drugs, but any actual discussion is condemned as "moral equivalence" (MM panellists love denouncing moral equivalence), so what you get is a spluttering at the pro-legalisation guests and satisfied agreement with the antis but with almost no content.
Obviously, the real star of the show is Melanie Philips, whose performances are sheer genius. I think of her these days as a rival to Chris Morris. Every time I listen to her, I wonder to myself if she can say anything more outrageous, more incoherent and more ignorant while still taking part in a "serious examination of the moral issues of the day". Yet somehow, she always raises the bar.
Its a guilty pleasure, yes, and one which tends to provoke MC to acts of violence if I don't indulge it quietly, but one that I won't be giving up any time soon.
Obviously, the real star of the show is Melanie Philips, whose performances are sheer genius. I think of her these days as a rival to Chris Morris. Every time I listen to her, I wonder to myself if she can say anything more outrageous, more incoherent and more ignorant while still taking part in a "serious examination of the moral issues of the day". Yet somehow, she always raises the bar.
Its a guilty pleasure, yes, and one which tends to provoke MC to acts of violence if I don't indulge it quietly, but one that I won't be giving up any time soon.