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What If? Documentary: Can I give you a word of advice? Never ever allow yourself to take part in a documentary film. Here’s why: in the cutting room as the footage is rolled back and forth your worst features will be laid open for caricature by the editor and director. As the weeks go by they will exercise a squalid and secret power by inventing cruel soubriquets for you — you might end up as "The Wally" or "Ginger Tosser," or "Hitler’s Uncle." The best you can hope for is something like "Little Big Knockers" or "Vampyrella the Dark Princess of Mediocrity". All these names have in their time belonged to real people, I promise you. I have brought this up because I think there is a general principle in operation here — it is much much better to name yourself than to let others name you when you are not around to object. The principle works equally well with historical ages. Some ages get the chance to name themselves: around the year 1400 some scholars proudly announced that they were in the Renaissance. The next time they needed a name the picked on "The Enlightenment." Later there was "The Modern Age" and then the slightly unimaginative "Post-Modern Age." Others are not so lucky, they get named in the dark by the editor of history. Nobody ever thought of themselves as part of the "Dark Ages" any more than people thought of themselves as "Pre-Socratic Philosophers." The "Middle Ages" never saw itself as a stop-gap. I guess the moral is, whether you are a person or a historical period, never let anyone make a documentary about you:
THE HISTORY OF THE JUNK AGES Part 1: The Flowering of the Junk Ages Part 2: Life and Death in the Junk Ages Part 3: The Waning of the Junk Ages This proposal to be completed shortly
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