For those tip-of-the-tongue moments when you're surfing the Zeitgeist but can't quite remember where you are, here is malapropism for the 21st-century. Compiled by Christopher Norris. All views expressed are my own
Someday in the distant future there will be a bestselling, warts-and-all biography on the life and times of Oprah Winfrey. But 'distant future' is the defining phrase here, even as arch-reputation puncturer Kitty Kelley's book hits the stores.
When this mortal coil forces Ms Winfrey beyond the reach of her lawyers, publishers will finally have a field day. Protective shields around stars create mystery that the media loves to destroy. The second law of thermodynamics applies to celebrities too: the entropy of the universe of gossip is always increasing.
All of the above ideas have been inspired by fiction, written and visual. Perhaps even more creative work can be achieved where artists have yet to tread? Unless, of course, the artistic visualisation of a gadget has to precede the need to create it.
The relentless push for eyeballs means content gets dragged to the gutter in an unregulated market. Hence the internet and the likes of Fox TV can dream up grotesque virtual and reality freak shows with impunity from regulators.
The licence-fee arrangements in the UK enshrine public-taste standards, which at least keeps some of the wildest ideas off our screens. A constant barrage of tasteless programming eventually become boring, so it always needs to recruit new viewers and participants; hence the relentless, deliberate content pitched at children.
This is the media content equivalent of the drug pusher, and it isn't a pretty sight. The logical extension of such forces to give the mob want they want is ever more graphic sex and violence aimed at progressively younger audiences. This vision of society celebrates a regression to a pre-Enlightenment, violent past.
But perhaps, as the internet is so pervasive, the gloves are already off when it comes to content: at least until the next swing of the pendulum that attempts to impose a moral framework on a feral, free-for-all society where anything goes ... and frequently does.
