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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Saturday, February 08, 2003
This Space for Brent
I've now watched three episodes of the exquisitely dark comedy The Office on BBC America. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, serialized weekly.
The show masquerades as a TV documentary about a workplace in the turgid town of Slough (think Cleveland). In reality, it's a pitch-perfect satire of life in millions of cookie-cutter, dead-end, pen-pushing, clock-watching, flourescent-lit hell-holes. It's all here: the body language, the ill-fitting suits, the doomed flirtations, the petty practical jokes, the embarassingly shallow conversations and uncomfortable silences. And at the center of it all is David Brent, the middle-manager who believes himself to be the office comedian -- but is utterly unaware of his flaws, his childishness and cowardice. The result is funny, sad and subversively true.
What interests me almost as much as the show is how much my American friends get it. I would have thought the many British culture references and the odd accents would put them off. Not a bit of it. They're laughing in embarassment and groaning in pain even more than I am. Characters like Brent, it seems, are universal.
Of course, one of the American networks has bought the rights to develop a U.S. version of the show. Tim Goodman, the San Francisco Chronicle's wonderfully cranky TV critic, launched a blistering attack on NBC's plan to set the show in Manhattan, a location that of course totally misses the point. He anticipates "beautiful twentysomethings chewing scenery to the deafening sound of a laugh track," and he's probably right. Never mind: we have at least a dozen episodes of the original to go before that happens.
If you're a fan like me and you can't wait to see how it turns out, there's an excellent episode guide here.
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