TV Orders You To Remember. posted by Richard Seymour

A small sample of bathetic genius from the BBC: "Later, there will be a memorial here, where tributes, poems and psalms will be read out in memory of the victims. But now news, traffic and weather." I think you all know what this memorial is about: 52 people killed in tube explosions on, er... what was that date again? Don't worry - you can't possibly forget because the Beeb keeps explaining, as they cut to various anchors (or some homonym thereof) at various scenes around London, that "this is Friday, 7th July". Kings Cross, a grave looking Bill Turnbull salutes ordinary working Londoners trying to go about their day. Tavistock Square, Kate Silverton looks windswept and sad while her grim testimony about what happened is overlaid with footage from what is referred to with special emphasis as "that day". Back to the warmly lit studio where Dermot and Sian pore over the obvious. Pre-recorded interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses (in one, Kate Silverton solemnly asks the driver of the exploded bus if he believes he had a "guardian angel" on "that day" since he survived). Still photographs of carnage accompany the interviews. Tim O'Toole, the staff-cutting boss of the Underground, explains his determination to keep the tube safe. Ian Blair, the Destroying-Brains-Instantly-Utterly head of the Met Police, intimates that the police have stopped three attacks already since 7/7. Sian holds a door open for a wheelchair-bound survivor, and smiles warmly.

Possibly some kind of sanity or intelligence will peep through the cracks in this maudlin production, but this will make it all the more evident that seriousness of purpose and human sympathy has nothing to do with the ritualised dramaturgy that passes for 'memory'. The blogging commentariat will doubtless include those who wish to mimic the media produced hypostatisation of Grief, Anger, Determination and every other emotion an actor can display. They will tell you what they were doing: "I was at work when suddenly I got a phone call from a mate I haven't heard from in ages..." or "I saw it on the news. I tried calling my mum but the phone lines were down. I thought 'what if she's come down from Lancashire for the day and got on the tube?'" Like the media they seek to imitate and be like when they grow up, they will do your sentimental leg-work for you. Sure - you wake up, you're told it's the anniversary of 7/7. You know you're supposed to feel something about that, even though it's only another day between then and another date for commemoration. Your mind doesn't immediately stir to action - too many things to think about, too much work to do, breakfast is cold. You get a nagging feeling that you really ought to be reflecting or something. Perhaps you'll pop down to a service during lunch hour, or participate in a minute's silence. But is that enough? Not to worry because the television will produce your experience for you. They'll take your very memory of what took place (which, in most cases, was produced for you by them) re-synthesise it and sell it back to you for advertising revenue. They will feel on your behalf, they will be your long-distance mourners and grievers, they will glower and sulk beautifully.

For my part, I was thinking I could spend the day following various camera crews, live-blogging my re-experience of something that didn't quite happen to me, and, like my media mentors, feed off the cold flesh of the dead and puke the chewed carrion into your mouths as you gawp like hungry baby birds. I could regale you with impressionistic psycho-babble and pseudo-religious chitter-chatter as good as any besuited news hack. You want to hear the obvious? I'll give you the obvious. You want comforting lies? I'll give you that too. You want vicarious grief, outrage, and determination? You've so got it. You want to fantasise that you are a hard-ass Blitz-survivor? Done. You want to be the Avenging Angel? We can use death as a masturbatory aid. Would you like that? Wouldn't that be a fitting tribute? I'll give you any fucking thing you want because, my friends, like those guys who have got your eyeballs this morning, I am a mercenary.