Games Makers: A Satire on 2012 – part one: There’s No There, There
Prologue: courting appearances
His face on screen. My best friend Tony looking out at me, impersonally.
This is not a case of iPhone4, face to face, intimacy on a stick. This is the news; and that’s where Tony is – in the news, big time. The stuff that’s right now is happening to him; and it’s not good.
Every news story must have its icon. In this instance it’s the police station mugshot of Tony, taken when they brought him in. I guess it was leaked to the Met’s favourite blogger, and now it’s spurting through every media outlet.
But the face in the frame is no bug eyed bovine. He ain’t cowed by the camera. This is Tony Skance, looking back, appraising you, Mr Police Photographer, and the millions standing behind you. Appraising himself looking back at you taking his picture.
They’ll say his expression is cool, calculating. Already have: Tony Skance, alleged mastermind of Olympic Games bomb outrage (broadsheet version). Sicko Psycho (tabloid).
‘Alleged’ seems unnecessarily circumspect. Not as if Tony will be suing anyone for blotting his escutcheon…
The countdown to Games Makers: a satire of 2012 has begun. Read the whole of Part One on Friday 8 April, with Parts Two and Three over the following two days, only on spiked.
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