No he isn't. UNDERrated if anything. Discussed.

I don't like him very much and quite honestly, I can't be arsed to give any justification other than 'I just don't.'

I will instead, have a cup of tea and a biscuit.

He has had his faults- hype aside, 'Brass Eye' was inferior to 'On the Hour/The Day Today', 'Jam' had its faults- no Sausage or Talking Dog monologues, for example, and Mike Morris (or whatever his name is) actually won on the Thurston Lowe episode. However, what must not be overlooked is that 'On the Hour/The Day Today', 'Blue Jam/Jam/Jaaam' and 'Brass Eye' genuinely did push broadcast comedy into new territory- 'Ja(aa)m', if nothing else, was a visual tour-de-force, showing Morris' remarkable skills as a director.

He is overrated by Will Self- Morris is not omnipotent and omniscient, proving that Self has little understanding of the ontological argument.

As was pointed out back in the 12th Century, the ontological argument is shite anyway.

If you strip away all of the ontology it's really very simple things that make us laugh. If a cat falling off a chair can stimulate laughter you have to wonder why some people bother trying so hard.

>As was pointed out back in the 12th Century, the ontological argument is shite anyway.

You're not going to pull this 'begging the question' bollocks on me are you?

>He is overrated by Will Self- Morris is not omnipotent and omniscient, proving that Self has little understanding of the ontological argument.

OR..

God being 'That which no greater can be imagined', Self has virtually no imagination, as the best he can do is a brilliantly inventive and funny zoology graduate

He's most often overrated by people who haven't actually seen/heard him.

I personally have enjoyed everything that he's done (or at least everything he's done that I've seen/heard - "No Known Cure" remains sadly beyond my grasp...), but I can see that his humour is an acquired taste, and probably of strongest appeal to those who like a bit of avant-gardism with their comedy.

I do think, however, that comparing his solo projects to On The Hour/The Day Today is unfair and unreasonable both to him and to others. With both of the above, it wasn't just him throwing madness into the mix but Armando, Rich'n'Stew, Coogan, Marber, maybe even Doon and co too. A lot of people make the mistake of attributing every single joke in the series to Morris alone, and that's wrong. Anyway, they are the work of many hands, whereas Brasseye/Blue Jam/Radio 1 etc are essentially just him with Peter Baynham. It's like the way Ian Brown/John Squire are 'different but the same' to The Stone Roses - if you like the group, it's no guarantee that you'll like the solo stuff (for the record I loathe John Squire's post-Roses work, and haven't thought much of some Steve Coogan projects for that matter).

Am I making sense?

He's most often overrated by people who haven't actually seen/heard him.

I personally have enjoyed everything that he's done (or at least everything he's done that I've seen/heard - "No Known Cure" remains sadly beyond my grasp...), but I can see that his humour is an acquired taste, and probably of strongest appeal to those who like a bit of avant-gardism with their comedy.

I do think, however, that comparing his solo projects to On The Hour/The Day Today is unfair and unreasonable both to him and to others. With both of the above, it wasn't just him throwing madness into the mix but Armando, Rich'n'Stew, Coogan, Marber, maybe even Doon and co too. A lot of people make the mistake of attributing every single joke in the series to Morris alone, and that's wrong. Anyway, they are the work of many hands, whereas Brasseye/Blue Jam/Radio 1 etc are essentially just him with Peter Baynham. It's like the way Ian Brown/John Squire are 'different but the same' to The Stone Roses - if you like the group, it's no guarantee that you'll like the solo stuff (for the record I loathe John Squire's post-Roses work, and haven't thought much of some Steve Coogan projects for that matter).

Am I making sense?

And if posting the same message twice wasn't pure Morrisism, then I don't know what was.

OK, I messed up.

> It's like the way Ian Brown/John Squire are 'different but the same' to The Stone Roses - if you like the group, it's no guarantee that you'll like the solo stuff (for the record I loathe John Squire's post-Roses work, and haven't thought much of some Steve Coogan projects for that matter).
>
>Am I making sense?

Yes, but I'm a little worried that you might be saying that Chris Morris is the Ian Brown of comedy. Please assure me that you are not...quickly...now...

No I'm not... he's the Scott Walker of comedy, if anything.

And "Tilt" _is_ "Blue Jam"

>No I'm not... he's the Scott Walker of comedy, if anything.
>
>And "Tilt" _is_ "Blue Jam"

And 'jaaaaam' is the soundtrack to "Pola X"? Where does "Climate Of Hunter" fit into all of this? And what was Morris' back-to-the-standards chicken-in-a-basket early 70s crowd-pleasing period?

"You're not going to pull this 'begging the question' bollocks on me are you?"

You're not trying to pull all that "ontological argument" bollocks on me are you? Read Kant.

Grade is a Kant

The crowd-pleasing phase is "It's Only TV", obviously.

Not sure about "Climate Of Hunter". Maybe "Big Train"?

>The crowd-pleasing phase is "It's Only TV", obviously.
>
>Not sure about "Climate Of Hunter". Maybe "Big Train"?

Er, right. So, "Scott" and "Scott 2" are OTH and TDT, "Scott 3" (frequently bombastic, over-the-top) is the 1994 Radio One series, "Scott 4" (masterpiece) is BE. His early pop gems with the 'brothers' = GLR.

It all fits because Chris Morris is curating next year's Meltdown.













Nah, not really.

>"You're not going to pull this 'begging the question' bollocks on me are you?"
>
>You're not trying to pull all that "ontological argument" bollocks on me are you? Read Kant.

I have. Deontology is shite.

I like almost all his stuff, with the notable exception of Richard Geefe* which was disappointingly long-winded and not terribly funny. Still, paid the bills, and it all upset India Knight and her friends, so not an entirely wasted idea...

*12 columns called "Time To Go" in the Observer, spring/summer 1999, about a columnist preparing himself for suicide. It was based on a quite good Blue Jam monologue called Clive The Suicide Journalist.

BTW Blue Jam compilation is out on Warp in October. Music Week claims it's the 10th, but they usually talk crap.

"I have. Deontology is shite."

So what? Kant's ethics are irrelevant to the point about rational theology.

>Mike Morris (or whatever his name is) actually won on the Thurston Lowe episode.

John Stapleton on The Time, The Place?

Yes, I think he did. Morris got rather carried away at the end when Stapleton revealed who he was. Morris was pretty good up until that point but became a bit nasty when he was rumbled.

>"I have. Deontology is shite."
>
>So what? Kant's ethics are irrelevant to the point about rational theology.

Surely Kant's own proof for God's existence was the existence of the categorical imperative, therefore Kant's ethical argument is an alternative to a priori arguments such as the ontological argument and is entirely based on his ethics. Kant himself proposed it as an alternative.

...and Deontology is shite.

I think we're at cross-purposes. I agree Kant's ethics are misconceived, I don't think there are any categorical imperatives. But Kant's argument against the Ontological Argument, which he took as applying also to other proofs of God's existence, is sound. That argument, given in Critique Of Pure Reason, somewhere in the section on Transcendental Dialectic (I think) is entirely distinct from his ethics, which is hardly touched on in CPR anyway.

You could be an atheist who rejected Kant's ethics. Like myself.

Who the fack is this Kant, then eh?

Ah! A Nietzschean...

Me? Just a humble Spoonerist, with the odd brief nod to Onan.

>A! A Nietzschean...

AA Gill

>'Tilt' is 'Blue Jam'.

Brilliant observation, TJ, in a kind of spurious way. All we need is Scott singing dodgy things about children and the analogy is complete.

Sorry, I'm catching up.

So... would that make "Why Bother" into 'The Rope And The Colt'?

>So... would that make "Why Bother" into 'The Rope And The Colt'?

Ooh - nice one. Still, we don't really have anything to tally with "Nite Flights", or the 11-year sabbatical. Perhaps SW's brief appearance in a cafe window in that 1980s ad (what was it for?) = "The Time, The Place"?

Well, maybe the reunion is yet to come...

So where does Richard Geefe fit into this? Curating Meltdown???

Er, isn't he dead now?

>So where does Richard Geefe fit into this? Curating Meltdown???

Did anyone else go to 'Scott Walker's Meltdown 2000'? Loads of good stuff and a chance to buy rubbish books on him. He was in the back rows for Smog but he didn't make a sound.

Half the incentive for going was for a glimpse of Scott - but Howard Devoto was there so that was cool.

Back to Chris Morris.

I never agreed with the 'dark' analogy which the Corpses often return to when talking of 'Jam'. In a natural desperation by the press to pigeon hole it, that vague word was employed.

Silly really. The main problem with 'Blue Jam'/'Jam' in terms of it's reception was that so many assumed it to be a stop gap project, including myself. Three years on it's clearly a new approach in Morris' work.

Two things to bring up, both preying on my mind since the TV series aired. The difficulty of creating an ambient pace was that it was such a short duration for what needed to be achieved.

With 'Blue Jam' it was more effective. I'm not heading down a 'better on radio' route here, but pointing out that 'dark' should be substituted with 'ambient'. It's a misreading, I feel, of what he's been experimenting with since 97.

'Ambient', at a very basic level, means a progression which never loops back and continues to evolve. Blame Debussy. People naturally attach 'music' to the word, which gives the intentions of the show a slightly different edge.

Match that with the prevelant influence of Eugene Ionesco on the series and you start to understand his aims. Ionesco would begin with familiar language which corrupted and progressed in such a way that it became nonsensical but pertinent to the breakdown in the action/thoughts of characters.

I'm convinced 'Blue Jam'/'Jam' was a fresh start and Morris has moved on. Not to piss people off, but because the influences are changing in his work. Ionesco *has* to be on his bookshelf.

I'm trying to avoid justifying him for the sake of it, but I'm comfortable with what he does now. It just has less gag points, which is crap in a way, but...

I'm not going to enter into debates on whether 'Jam'(C4) was any good either, but I'm curious to know whether anyone else had noticed this Ionesco/ambient connection.

I always thought the point of "Blue Jam"/"jam" was, as so many people point out but don't realise that they have and then go on to completely miss the point anyway, that it finally achieved the much-vaunted 'stepping out of the inverted commas of the news format' that CM had been talking about for ages. It's the exact same style of humour (if a little more extreme), only presented in a different way.

I agree that the television version was way too short in running time - this alone was probably the reason why the monologues did not survive the transition (Rothko in sound alone is about thirteen minutes long - visually, it'd probably need about twice that)

However, I do feel that both series can be alienating and annoying for anyone who doesn't care for the music that they featured. That's not idle speculation, its a genuine scientific observation based on the way that they have split the Morris afficionados that I know down the middle. Not that I really care that much, though. I enjoy it, and that's all that matters to me.

People seem to _still_ be very upset that he isn't doing those funny news stories and interviewing Carla Lane, but I'm absolutely certain that unless he had come up with a really new and radical idea, then if he had continued down that route, fatigue and predictability would have long since started to set in. It's like with Belle And Sebastian - the new album is excellent and full of great music, no argument there, but as it's the fourth consecutive offering of exactly the same formula, I am really finding it difficult to be bothered listening to it. CM should at least be applauded for having the vision to try something new rather than flogging the same ideas year after year after year.

Which apparently translates as "that's just what I was thinking"!

My brain has just come up with a Dead Kennedys version of the Scott Walker thing. My brain cannot be trusted (least of all by my mouth), so the following may be complete bullshit...

CM: The Day Today
DK: Too Drunk To Fuck
ie: Look at these buffoons - if you didn't laugh you'd cry

CM: Brass Eye
DK: A Child And His Lawnmower
ie: Look at these fucknuts condemning them selves by their own actions. Words fail.

CM: (Blue) Jam
DK: California Uber Alles
ie: A slightly angrier and more solemn approach, amplifying what's going on to make the underlying horror more apparant.


It's balls, isn't it? You're all going to laugh at me now.

>My brain has just come up with a Dead Kennedys version of the Scott Walker thing. My brain cannot be trusted (least of all by my mouth), so the following may be complete bullshit...
>
>CM: The Day Today
>DK: Too Drunk To Fuck
>ie: Look at these buffoons - if you didn't laugh you'd cry
>
>CM: Brass Eye
>DK: A Child And His Lawnmower
>ie: Look at these fucknuts condemning them selves by their own actions. Words fail.
>
>CM: (Blue) Jam
>DK: California Uber Alles
>ie: A slightly angrier and more solemn approach, amplifying what's going on to make the underlying horror more apparant.
>
>
>It's balls, isn't it? You're all going to laugh at me now.

Are you kidding? That's probably the most pertinent bit of Morris critique I've yet read. It's also about the only one he'd actually enjoy. (Apart from "Chris Morris Is God", obviously.)