Slash of the Titans
By Mark Daniell
06/11/2009
Is it just me, or is the word slash popping up a lot more frequently than it used to? Next time you listen to the radio or watch TV, keep an ear out for the number of times the word is flung out there, it’s disconcerting. Back in the eighties you’d occasionally get prices slashed at Athena, but on the whole Guns ‘n’ Roses ran the monopoly and everybody was happy. Now things are different: everyone from tweeners to the homatose is perpetually backslashing this and forwardslashing that. If you want to see what the Pope has to say, you have to go to www.vatican.va ‘slash’ holyfather. I mean, Jesus!
But if it was initiated by the internet, the spread of slash hasn’t stayed in its spiritual home. Jobs are increasingly described as a fusion of industries: actor slash model, architect slash interior designer, teacher slash mother. Everybody is slashing themselves in two and slopping the halves together. Meanwhile rooms are developing multifunctions: kitchen slash lounge, boxroom slash study, loo slash Youtube broadcasting studio.
Slash. Listen to that word. It’s not a nice word, slash. I don’t think my grandfather said the word once after the Africa campaign. And you can’t help but wonder, mightn’t this proliferation be having a desensitising effect? Isn’t there already a well-documented increase in knife crime? Not gun crime, or lead piping crime, but knife crime? Is that a coincidence? I’ll let you decide.
The real question is, where is it headed? I’ll tell you where: televised Roman Gladiators, that’s where.
It’s complicated, but bear with me. For a while now various sports clubs slash multinational corporations have been recruiting future players at younger and younger ages, while parents or legal guardians have been all too keen to sign away their progeny. Meanwhile, genetic profiling is improving to a level where soon the physical ability and marketing potential of an unborn child will be accurately foreseeable. The net result is obviously baby sponsorship, right? Okay. But of course not all of these sponsored babies will live up to expectations, and so companies will find themselves with a large supply of seemingly useless recruits. And what’s the only thing you can do with a large supply of seemingly useless recruits? That’s right: Roman Gladiators.
It ticks all the reality TV boxes, it’s had well documented success (if perhaps in the classical age) and it’s franchisable all over the world. The only problem is people are a bit squeamish when it comes to having some guy’s torso slashed open in their drawing room. For the time being.
I’d give it fifteen years before we have: Saturday night SAW live. (brought to you by Banham security.)