The Fabulous Destiny of Marked Accordingly

It was while I was doing the ironing. That’s the first thing I remember. From there it follows on like the loading of landscapes in an old Spectrum game, detail after detail painfully layering themselves over one another; the waterfront window, the sloping ceiling, the tinny transistor and its trailing cord, all the accoutrements of a transient and temporary life. And me, in the middle, ironing the clothes.

Stephen Fry was on the radio, talking about Hamlet as far as I can remember, and as the steady stroke of his voice swept through the static it suddenly occurred to me that Stephen Fry, poster child for wit and ingenuity, Stephen Fry, the self-help Renaissance man, Stephen Fry, the acceptable face of modern intellectual discourse, that Stephen Fry was actually not very bright at all.

I say this advisedly. Not everybody could do what Stephen Fry does, as is evidenced by the fact that only Stephen Fry seems to get away with it. Most of my first year English Lit tutorial group could have, though, and I include in this a ginger-headed prick called Philip whose sole manner of self-expression was to catapult himself with affected huffiness back into his chair and announce that he couldn’t understand why we had to talk about all these books and poems and stuff instead of just reading them. Put him on the spot, y’see, and Philip could waffle. Boy could he waffle. He’d array all his facts, line them up like a bridge of broken tiles, and plod methodically along, swerving from one subject to another in a way which was meant to demonstrate scope of expertise but actually indicated that he’d exhausted his knowledge on the current subject and was leaping like Frogger onto the next one. Easy to plot a path through a forest that’s only six metres wide.

So Stephen Fry waffles. What’s wrong with that, you say? We all do it! Only we don’t all do it, that’s the thing. Yes, we all talk rubbish. Yes, we’re all boring cunts. But we don’t know that we’re boring cunts talking rubbish, which is exactly what the waffler does know. He is at all times fully aware that he is a pumper-out of noxious, know-it-all nothing in the aural atmosphere. What nerve it must take! What cheek! To stand there and think that you’re the only person in the world who doesn’t realise you’re talking a load of shite! To which Stephen Fry could quite casually turn around and ask, well, where are all these people who realise it? Where are they? And why aren’t they saying anything?

I was on the bus out of Edinburgh when I turned on my PSP and put in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and on North Bridge when my earphones started belching out its pompous, it’s-funny-because-it’s-Stephen-Fry narration. Talk about setting the tone! The rest of the movie takes its cue from Fry like he turned to it directly afterwards and pointed at it whilst pressing the side of his nose with his index finger. Smug from start to finish, H2G2 can only be interpreted as some kind of Funny Games-esque challenge to the viewer to sit through the whole thing. Who will survive, and what will be left of them? I don’t mind telling you that I nearly didn’t make it; there were times when I actually felt physically sick watching it, dry prickles of heat multiplying across my back and scalp like a gross transformation scene in an 80′s horror flick. I was so bored I could have wept, just for something to do. The Easter Egg? 15 watchable minutes in which Bill Nighy showcases the rebirth of the Earth; a feat considerably less impressive than Nighy actually managing to make something in this script sound funny, or touching, or something. When the final curtain drops, you can only wonder who decided which scenes were funny enough to be included in the film and which were only funny enough to be included as end-credit cookies. Then some poor cunt had to decide what was only good enough to be included on the DVD extras. Think about that next time you’re watching Sophie’s Choice.

I wonder if there is a precise moment, some freeze-frame during Blackadder Goes Forth, when we can see Stephen Fry starting to turn into a brand-name for bullshit. Or was it during Jeeves and Wooster, perhaps even watching the first, fabulous episode of House when that reptilian sheen glazed his eyes over for once and for ever? Don’t know, don’t need to.