Charlie Brooker's screen burn

Like you, I'm constantly terrified people might discover just how thick I truly am. Oh, I manage to cloak my abject stupidity most of the time, by self-consciously lobbing words like "diaspora" and "ostensibly" into casual conversation but, nevertheless, it's always there, lurking in the background, dribbling down its chin. I can hardly recall a moment of my bogstandard comprehensive education: if I close my eyes, all I see are a few sparsely-distributed globules of trivia twinkling feebly in a galaxy of ignorance. When it comes to carefully-considered intellectual analysis, my brain's about as much use as a dented tray. I might as well think through my knee for all the good it does me.

I'm a moron, a cretin, a doofus, an arsewit. I'm so revoltingly dim, the moment I finish this sentence I'm going to walk away from this keyboard and kick myself right in the fucking head just for being so stupid. Ow.

Anyway, I suspect one of the root causes of my profound and overwhelming thickery is the amount of time I spend watching shows like The X Factor (Sat, 6.40pm, ITV1) as opposed to, say, How Music Works With Howard Goodall (Sat, 8.30pm, C4).

Regular readers may recall I mentioned the latter programme a fortnight ago at the end of a regulation spite-fuelled dismissal of every human being in I'm A Celebrity ... I gave it a throwaway recommendation of sorts, saying "I could've used this space to promote something worthwhile, like Howard Goodall's How Music Works ... but let's face it, you don't want to read that, and I don't really want to write about it (it's good though - watch it)" - a comment that struck at least one reader as spectacularly obnoxious; they emailed to tell me I was being lazy and proud of it.

And you know what? They've got a point. Because I've just watched this week's episode of Goodall's series and it deserves more than a passing thumbs-up. It's an absorbing, fascinating programme that charmingly explains the development and use of the raw elements of music - tonight's edition, which examines harmony, feels like a warm, comforting bath compared to the screeching, empty gaudiness of the X Factor, a show that's not even vaguely about music any more thanks to the utterly inexplicable ongoing inclusion of Ray (a jigging, Brylcreemed cross between a ventriloquist's dummy and a screaming otter foetus who hits every note with a hammer) and the MacDonald Brothers (bland ladyboy twins gently slitting music's throat with faraway grins on their faces - if the Nazis had won, all bands would sound like this by law).

Anyway, How Music Works is proper, copper-bottomed, quality television. Goodall himself (a successful composer responsible for the Blackadder title music) has the inoffensive looks of a kindly milkman, knows his subject matter from top to toe, and clearly enjoys passing this knowledge on. The show deserves a better slot; it's fighting against too many bellowing distractions.

Mind you, no matter what time it's on, I suspect my mind's too hopelessly perforated to appreciate it properly. I've grown so accustomed to TV shows that attempt to bypass my (admittedly scant) intellect completely, it's downright unsettling to suddenly encounter one that's earnestly trying to cram new information into my head. In this day and age, that's almost a violation.

What's more, although it felt like I was learning loads of new things while the programme is on - minor triads, major chords and so on - as soon as it finished, I was hard-pressed to recall any of the facts. (A similar effect occurs when I read the New Scientist; during the reading of it, I can feel myself growing cleverer, yet the moment I stop, my newly-acquired learning vanishes, like a meal I've shat clean away.)

But never mind me. I'm dumb, and terrified people might finally uncover the echoing depths of my dumbness. Thank God I'd never confess to it in print. I'd have to be twice as thick as half a cow to do something as stupid as that.

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