Published in The Age Newspaper March 16, 2011
There’s a website called Stuff White People Like. The list includes, black music that black people don’t listen to any more, having gay friends, expensive sandwiches, promising to learn a new language, appearing to enjoy classical music, being the only white person around, knowing what’s best for poor people, the Toyota Prius and Ikea. Naturally I assumed Midsomer Murders would be on the list.
But it wasn’t. I alerted my white people to the glaring omission and they explained it’s because no one actuallylikes Midsomer Murders. They just watch it because there’s nothing else on and the only other option is talking to their partner. And, quite frankly, they’d rather boil their head and drink the residue than do that. Not my line that one. Nicked from my mate The Caucasian 2000. A man so Anglo he wears cumberbunds, collects atlases, breaks out in hives at the mention of humus and claims to be violently allergic to public displays of emotion. If you cut him, he’d bleed marmalade. Spot of tea? Shall I be mother?
Midsomer Murders? If you’ve seen the ad you’ve got the drift. A variation on a theme by Hamish Macbeth, Ballykissangel and Monarch Of the Glen. Fetishisation of the fictitious close knit rural hamlet featuring an embracing yet slightly eccentric community you can count on when times are tough. The constant threat of a greedy developer or dodgy politician glues them together. Uptight white honkies who need uptight white honkies are the luckiest uptight white honkies in the world!
Midsomer is a Ye Olde Worlde English county wall to wall with manicured lawns, fine china and people called Phylidda, Ivan, Hector and Clarissa. Sherry drinkers who consider it terribly common to construct a sentence without the use of, frightfully, indeed, dreadful, loathe, apropos or jolly well. Neckless, chinless inbreds, every single one. Not a wog, chink, darky, towelhead or currymuncher to be seen. If Prince Phillip had designed his dream town it would be Midsomer.
The inhabitants of Midsomer are all very pleasant and avuncular as they chat with the vicar and admire each other’s cows amongst the chutneys, Morris dancing and prize-winning marrows at the village fair. But they all snap eventually when the emotional trauma of being raised by sexually frustrated nannies, sadistic boarding school masters and repressed emotionally crippled parents in quilted parkers and gum boots overwhelms them. So they kill their neighbors in their sleep for cutting the bread the wrong way using the wrong knife. And who’d blame them?
In the first five minutes of my Midsomer Murder Madness Marathon I can’t say I was surprised to hear the phrases, “Come along Timmy,” “England’s clean and pleasant land”,” You run along dear” and “He’s nothing but am interfering buffoon” woven through an exhilarating story about a stolen goose. Nor was I surprised each show had an average death toll of 3 per episode. The disproportionate amount of killings in this small village can be explained by one simple fact. They’re all cunts.
Personally I’d prefer to watch some red hot uptight white honky on uptight white honky action But honkies with hankies stabbing, garroting, strangling and drowning each other is the next best thing.