To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles...
Hamlet, Act3, Scene 1, Shakespeare, c1600's
I love that line - to take arms against a sea of troubles - the boundlessness of anxiety when it feels overwhelming, the crashing of waves over one's head - and the thought of madness, to take one's sword and slash at this mass of water, a futile act. This is a visual thing, a dramatisation to evoke a picture in one's mind, for me, as strong as shattered Ozymandias,
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies...
Ozymandias, Shelley, 1818
Powerlessness gives rise to anger and madness, and makes for great entertainment if one chooses to see the funny side of a man slashing the waves with a sword in his despair, and Shakespeare was good at that and all. Today, we have the Simpsons to poke fun in our eyes, laugh at our social and cultural values and vastly entertain us, soothing us into the illusion that there isn't an agenda, unlike the BBC which is quite unmasked in its Auntie kind of way, to feed us morally upstanding stuff like The Bill. I actually know people who live that dream, that idealisation of being the statistical average and dutifully shopping where and when they are told to with their loyalty cards and their mail order catalogues. Nothing new there.
So, what is new? Heston Blumenthal. www.channel4.com/hestons-mission-impossible. Predictable in his always having something new - but how Channel 4 have chosen to edit this series of four programmes, prepackaged with the right balance of information, presentation, narrative- introduction, emotional journey, conclusion, pat on the back, thanks Heston, time to go home. This man isn't media-savvy, not slick in his reading from the autocue, is self-contained and lives in a world of creatives in a laboratory in Bray, and has his eye on only one thing: how food works. "Mission Impossible" is the madness of taking arms against a sea of troubles - and food is the least of his challenges. I can't believe the high-handedness, the derision, the patronising attitudes, the rudeness with which he is met. A personal challenge he meets with grace and understanding is how threatened others feel, how misunderstood he is in terms of how he works, and what he does. The double-edged sword: our lust for celebrity, and then misunderstanding why they are famous - not for snail porridge but for visionary talent and the hard work to see it through. There is an impetus in others to kill that kind of person, but in his humanity, rises above it all and develops good relationships with people to achieve his aims. A truly great man, and a David to society's Goliaths.
