Britain's Got 'Talent'?

Paul sat in front of the large television in the living room. “Britain’s Got Talent” was playing across the screen, with its two presenters – the oddly named Ant and Dec – wearing tailor-made suits that did not suit their humble North-Eastern backgrounds.

The audience was roaring with excitement at a colourful mixture of groups and individuals, some wearing suggestive burlesque outfits, some army fatigues, one or two cross-dressing and the rest suits they’d been given by the show’s wardrobe staff.

The would-be judges of this menagerie of bizarre animals sat behind a desk slightly away from the audience, beaming and flawless in their sophistication that not a single contestant in this carnival could ever hope to achieve. Their shining white, perfectly straight teeth, their clean and shining hair, their fashionable attire. They glowed.

These were the demagogues of the people; far more important than the likes of politicians, great philanthropists, or even criminals, their sphere of influence was abominable and huge. They could and would decide, on a whim, the fate of peasants, turning them into human money-trees who’d – they all knew it, Paul hoped, but couldn’t be sure – be popular with the public for but a moment before their names drifted from guest-lists, their faces disappeared from newspapers and no television or radio show would exhibit their “talent” ever again.

Winners of the show would become transient pseudo-celebrities, but there was a ceiling to their ambition. Soon they would return to their typical and mundane jobs, grafting from nine in the morning to five in the evenings, all the while dreaming of ‘the good old days’. Soon, they would become shadows of their former selves, miserable and pathetic and wearing a mist of stale fame, hanging around their person like stale sweat, highlighting their descent into normality like a neon sign. When drunk enough they’d tell their story to anyone who’d listen; they were once heroes of the public, prodigal sons of the demagogues.

The audience roared and screamed and squealed, ringing in Paul’s ears before he turned off the television and the light and left the room, pensive and sickened, sad in advance for those poor fools grasping at “fame”.

Heading up the stairs to his bedroom, he was reminded briefly of a quote from George Orwell’s “1984”: ‘He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.’ Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan: this trio could turn an untalented, unimpressive, absolutely normal individual into a golden model of fame to the public. Of course, they would only choose those capable of supplying a sufficient stream of revenue, or it would all be pointless.

The country was involved with two wars, there was a global recession and unemployment rates were rising with each passing day: was this really the time to be thinking about these underhanded snake-charmers, filling their pockets by stepping on the heads of transvestites, groups of burlesque dancers and teams of young black dancing men in army fatigues? He’d begun to believe that the television schedule had been remodelled to take the country’s mind off of its financial situation...