Marcus Brigstocke is not a very funny comedian, but he is a great, funny, passionate speaker.
Last Friday he had yet another angry, seething, hilarious rant on The Now Show on Radio Four (a regular in my download list).
If you want to listen to it, and I highly recommend you do, you can find it here (complete with chuckle-worthy images to correspond with said rant).
Brilliant, right?
And how great is it that there are people out there, like him, who are angry enough and intelligent enough to make their voices heard.
While last week's rant isn't a brilliant example of his attempts to strike up revolt in the proletariat, you get a good idea of how he is the kind of person who tries to show people that other options are available, that they don't have to grab their ankles and take what is dished out to them by the banks/government/train services/inland revenue/other public-fucking body while sighing "oh, there's not point in trying."
But... yea, but... the majority of people just just gonna carry on as they are, aren't they?
Despite the warnings, lots of people took out loans they couldn't pay back. They opened up store cards despite the fact that they are a blatant con. They fed their children fish and chips through the school gates. They voted for the BNP for a few games of bingo and handouts. They just kept paying for the train fares that steeped higher and higher and..
I used to work at The Glee Club in Cardiff. Great job. I got to watch all the free comedy I wanted by the best stand ups in the world while doing a maximum of four hours work in a night. Win.
One night, Marcus Brigstocke passed through on his national tour and I made sure I had the night off work so that I could watch him like a regular person.
He wasn't that funny... He's great in a Radio Four studio and at The Apollo, sure, but Cardiff weren't really going for it (even though they paid £17 specifically to go see him in the first place).
He did his ranty poster-boy for the environment thing very well, but there was one bit of audience interaction which illustrated quite vividly how people will nod and smile but the information doesn't necessarily go in.
Marcus had been singing the praises of energy saving light bulbs.
He had statistics, figures, anecdotes, examples. It was very impressive and everyone in the room, even the people who weren't that impressed with him in the flesh, we're coming round to his way of thinking. Then he asked a woman in the front row a direct question.
"Madam, will you buy energy saving bulbs?"
"Umm... no."
Brigstocke looks momentarily stunned.
"Why? You could help prevent global warming."
"Yea but the regular ones are really cheap down co-op."
He visibly despaired. He very nearly collapsed to the stage floor in exasperation.
How, HOW when the facts and consequences are staring you in the face, when you have paid £17, no less, to have someone you admire TELL you that there is such a simple thing you could do to help make your future a bit better, do you figure that the cheaper energy sucking ones will be better? So you can put that extra 50p towards paying off your store card?
Just that little extra effort could make all the difference. If EVERYONE bought energy bloody saving bulbs and turned lights off when they left rooms, we'd all reap the benefits.
"...Meh."
Shout all you want Mr. Brigstocke, and we love you for doing it, but more often than not it falls on... not so much deaf ears, but ears that are attached to apathetic bodies.
Now pardon me while I don't sort my recycling, but, ugh, there's no special recycling bin in this building and I can't be arsed to go find one.
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