Identity Crisis by Ben Elton

I want to convict Samuel Pepys
in a court of law, Cressida said,
and I want that court to impose
an appropriate, if theoretical,
prison sentence on him.

Strange and upsetting though it is to be once more single and homeless, I do wonder why the portents of impending doom, so large and loud, went unremarked, given as they included receiving from my ex-partner such service station-quality birthday and Christmas gifts as a bright red t-shirt with a terrible and tired grammar pun on it in size XXL (I stretch an M*), and this book by Ben Elton. I was either oblivious or simply hoping it would all go away.

Drink will do that to you.

Living with underlying anxiety, as I must have been, is all too common these days**, so feeling that anxiety reading Ben Elton’s satire, about identity politics and social media, I attributed to two things: first, it’s a fucking minefield***, gender identity and politics, isn’t it; and second, social media, eh, just, blurgh, yeah? Love it, hate it, you know what it is and are probably aware of it’s insidious reach into all our lives, either via the rolling newsfeeds on TV or because you’re fucking looking at Twitter now, aren’t you?

Yeah, me too.

I’m not pious about it – in fact I am susceptible to the odd doom-scroll and it was a common refrain in my old life that I was always on my phone but never talking to anyone (d’oh! Another missed sooth, sayered into the ether) – but I don’t like social media. It offers intangible benefits whilst mashing-up your head. It gives the illusion of connection without the lasting feeling of inclusion.

And it’s full of cunts. Just like a Ben Elton Novel.

There is no-one and nothing with whom or which to identify in this novel. All the risk he takes in calling out, in no particular order, wokery, incels, bigots, homophobes, transphobes, the confused and cisgendered (cis is the new white male aged 40-50), White Privilege, algorithms, cancel culture, Germaine Greer, is mitigated by the fact Elton is a flag-waving klaxon-sounding satirist, and it feels like he’s subscribed to the Mail Online and written in a ‘comedy bit’ about each new outrageous headline across which he stumbles. It’s one long lead-in to him standing there shouting, “It’s a maaaaaad world yeah?” to which rather abrupt denouement his white, middle-class audience is expected to rise up in rapturous applause and drown out their ubiquitous anxiety about shelling out O2 arena comedy tour ticket prices for a tired routine by a comedy hack.

To be fair to him, I’m being really harsh as the book made me quite angry. It’s fast-paced, smart, actually funny in places, and does shine a light on some aspects of society, particularly the data tracking and trend monitoring done by Big Data, which should alarm and disgust us all. He doesn’t spare the lash, even on the unreconstructed neo-luddite detective (whose name, illustrating the instantly forgettable nature of all of the characters, I have instantly forgotten) attempting to investigate the various media-worthy murders which are the narrative thrust of the story.

If you love Ben Elton novels, then I assume this is a welcome return to form. If you don’t, it is not totally without merit, but I wouldn’t bother if I were you.

*Maybe an L these days, what with all the eating and beer

**Always instantly reminds me of the Stewart Lee bit on his Comedy Vehicle about the taxi driver - https://youtu.be/XkCBhKs4faI.

***Just ask the various bits of J.K. Rowling’s persona which have been blown up across the Twitterverse by her indelicate tread

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