BLOG: THE FAMILY 28 December 2009

Goodbye The Family

Hello bishi world,

I hope you all had a great Xmas. Once I start to ignore that incessant festive aggression & those dictatorial consumer windows begging me to buy buy buy – I get well into it.

Getting pissed on more Prosecco than a stuffed pig while hollering to Bohemian Rhapsody – that was me on Christmas Day.

I loved driving up the hackney road, doing minor celebrity spotting. The Queenz of Noise, Princess Julia, Dee from Divine Incest & that bloke from The Horrors….were all caught scavenging for their Christmas Dinner….Not bad day’s spotting!

I’ve eaten so much, I feel like a giant toad. Maybe watching the original, ‘Clash of the Titans, has encouraged this feeling of something surreal on epic proportions.

Oh, to be a Ray Harryhausen toad, rrrrbbbbit!

Before Xmas eve, Channel 4 aired their last episode of ‘The Family.’ It’s an 8 episode series, following the lives of The Grewals; a Punjabi family all living near the flightpath of Heathrow.

Astonishingly, all 3 generations live under one roof. We are privy to some amazing events, spiced with some classic tv comedy.

There was a marriage, a birth, a near death & enough emotional drama to put Corrie to shame. The Production team must have been having kittens with all their good luck.

It’s been great to see a modern Indian family on the telly who have manged to smash any old cultural stereotypes. I believe, they have elevated all that is best about our culture to Its own level.

I’m not usually a fan of ‘reality tv.’

However, their warmth, the respect & the sense of all being in it together rebel against the continuous freak show that makes up most unscripted television.

And for that I salute you, the Grewals, new icons of Brit TV. In a country with Katie Price, Kerry Katona, the Daily Mail & Simon Cowell all shake their cash hungry fists, you stand as defenders of something true.

Long live The Grewals!