The British media ethics panel, that hallowed body of grey suits and unspilled tea, has issued a clarion call for 'balanced discourse' regarding a certain Hollywood actor who has apparently traded his star map for a compass pointing directly towards the manosphere. This actor, a chap whose filmography includes roles that required more bicep curls than line learning, has recently reinvented himself as a philosopher king for the online male grievance industry. The panel, in a statement so carefully worded it could have been knitted by a committee of maiden aunts, urged media outlets to 'present multiple perspectives' on this fellow's pronouncements.
Now, I have seen some strange things at the edge of reality. I have interviewed a taxidermist who claimed to be the reincarnation of Napoleon. But this takes the biscuit, or rather, the whole bloomin' bakery.
Imagine a panel of people whose idea of a risky move is using a semi-colon, trying to impose 'balance' on a man whose arguments have the intellectual depth of a puddle in a drought. This is like asking a congregation of Trappist monks to provide a balanced view on the benefits of mosh pits. The actor in question, let's call him 'Gymnasium Gandalf', has been spouting wisdom such as 'women are like farts, if you have to force them, they are probably shit'.
I am not making this up. I could not make this up if I injected my keyboard with pure insanity. Yet the panel, in their infinite wisdom, believes that the solution to this torrent of toxic tripe is to give it a seat at the table.
'Let us have a debate,' they cry, 'between someone who thinks the Earth is round and someone who thinks it is a giant turtle!' And they will call it 'balance'. Meanwhile, the real issues of the day, the quiet desperation of the working class, the hollowing out of public services, the creeping dystopia of surveillance capitalism, these are swept under a carpet of carefully moderated airtime.
But fear not, for I, Barnaby 'Biff' Thistlethwaite, will not be silenced. I will continue to report from the fever dream. And if the ethics panel comes for me, I shall greet them with a gin-scented sneer and a volley of alliteration.
Because the truth is not a balance. The truth is a scalpel. And it cuts through bullshit.
