Punk and disorderly
I'm not completely sure whether Jonathan Ross's tele-essay for BBC, 3,1,2 FU, was by far the worst possible way to remember the old punk rock days. At the heart of this messy, moving, clumsy, speedy little film you could tell he wants to believe in something, but isn't sure he can do that anymore. It is the work of a broadcaster who smothers his intelligence with a restless exuberance that contains only in fractured code his punk-fuelled intellect.
He once believed in something. It made him the man he is today - vulgar, brilliant, lazy, funny, stupid; a cocky cocktail of the loveable, the unloveable, the dreamy and the shrewd. To think, it all started with X-Ray Spex, with the young, the fucked up and the Damned.
His punk doc eventually begins, after the false start of some gratuitous swearing from an old lady, with an apology. This, he says, isn't going to be the definitive, detailed analysis of the brief, monstrous punk years - and he's right.
But it's Jonathan's take on punk, and it's as valid and as definitive as anyone's - not least because he was, to his eternal delight and regret, there when it all happened. He was the right age, feeling the right things, for it to mean that whatever he becomes, however lightweight or camp he seems as he plots his success, he will always have punk in his blood.
In his tailored, flossed-mod suit, you wouldn't at first sight quite believe his punk loyalty, but as the film unfolds, cracking up between some kind of integrity and some kind of idiocy, you start to pick up on spiky bits of truth about why punk mattered so much to young people like the young Ross.
He does everything in the programme you would want him to do - talks to the original hardcore members of what was not then punk but simply an opportunity to rearrange reality. He then pays a visit to Dizzee Rascal - to look as if things are being brought up to date - and plays him 'Anarchy in the UK'. 'Sex Pistols, innit?' says a polite Dizzee, wondering why this zany entertainer is trying to give him music lessons. What do you think? 'It's catchy ...'
Ross also does everything in the programme that you don't want him to do, like flirting with the Slits' Ari Up in that defensive, prurient way he does with anyone pretty. Worse, he dons a bondage jacket, spikes up his hair and with Vic Reevessings 'Punk Daddy', just like when the Two Ronnies used to dress up as greasers.
It's what we never wanted to happen - two guys in their affluent forties sitting around ironically being unironic, drinking sherry and eating biscuits, talking about the good old days of world-changing punk and fury. Jonathan doesn't give a damn about any of that. He just goes ahead and does what he pleases, even if it makes him look like a childish buffoon. That's the punk in him - never afraid to fail, prepared to go that extra silly mile for the sake of a reaction.
There's no Malcolm McLaren. As some sort of stand-in, as Jonathan's major cultural critic, there's Simon Schama, popping up like Tom Wolfe on Top of the Pops. Somehow, this little insert ends with Ross and Schama dancing a samba in front of the Houses of Parliament. It's sick, sickly and sickening. It's sort of punk. And you somehow end up liking Ross for pulling it off, whatever it is.
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