Even Better Than Da Real Ting

How times change. When I were a lad, the only time young middle class white boys put the words Staines and Massive side by side in a sentence was when they were bragging about the rancidity of their bedclothes in the wake of a particularly gratifying wank.
These days, however, mention of the Staines Massive prompts maximum respect from anyone who is not fick or a Mong or whatever, for the most notorious posse in if not Europe all of Berkshire. From Tooting Broadway to Langley, through Iver Heath and Chertsey, its leader s name is whispered in the kind of hushed, reverential tones normally reserved for such iconoclastic street gurus and bad-asses as Busta Rhymes, the late Tupac Shakur and, closer to home, Father Brian D arcy.
Clad from head to toe in his Tommy Hilfiger hat, designer shell suit and state of the art trainers (no Reeboks he s not a homeless), he is lord and master of all he surveys through his tinted wrap-around shades. Prowling the streets, with one hand cradling his warrior and the other his Uzi, he wheels and deals, bones and hones before taking it back to Julie in da crib. He is Ali G. Recognise!
A few, but not many, comic creations have gripped the British and/or Irish public imagination with the same vice-like intensity as Sacha Baron Cohen s alter ego. It was on Channel Four s thrice weekly news alternative, The 11 O Clock Show, that Cambridge graduate Cohen first unveiled Ali G, a middle-class white youth affecting the lifestyle, mannerisms and street slang of a black gangsta rapper.
Rumour has it that Baron Cohen s inspiration was Tim Westwood, the BBC Radio 1 dance DJ who was famously the victim of an apparently motiveless shooting (a flesh wound in the arm from point blank range tee hee, I m saying nothing!) last year. The son of a vicar and as white and middle-class as they come, Tim Westwood s whole demeanour suggests that here is a man who wishes he was black and from South Central LA. When he is not talking over the big beat, earnestly sending a big shout out to the Balham Sainsbury s Massive, he bandies about expressions like keepin it real and in da house far more often than is necessary for any human being.
Needless to say, this is not an exclusively English condition. For proof, if proof were needed, that this affliction has spread further afield, look no further than Shane Lynch, or any of the sad, self-delusional cabals of white niggaz that comprise the Irish dance scene.
For all that, Baron Cohen has chosen to remain as tight-lipped about the source of his inspiration as he has about everything else, steadfastly refusing to give interviews in order to protect what little mystique and anonymity he has left.

Ali G first came to public attention upon being handed the Youth Affairs brief on The 11 O Clock Show. Prior to broadcast, an array of interview requests were dispatched to potential targets recognised as experts in their respective fields: science, the arts, sociology, law, politics, religion etc.
To the best of my knowledge they were informed that the interview was for a late night Channel 4 entertainment programme called The News Alternative, revealed one insider on the show. They knew that they were being interviewed by a bloke called Ali G, and they were told that he was a bit ignorant of current affairs, but that he was trying to learn so that he could help educate the viewing public. Technically, there was no deception involved, so if they fell for it, it was their own tough shit. The beauty of it was that although quite a few of them raised an eyebrow, hardly anybody realised that they were being made to look stupid.
And how. Whether it was asking eminent physicist Professor Heinz Wolff whether the Big Bang was louder than drum and bass, or enquiring of Rhodes Boyson why clever people go to university when thick people clearly need it more, Ali G s deceptively naove line of questioning covering such diverse topics as Devolution, the Church, Northern Ireland and Class quickly made him a household name. Ironically, the one interviewee who refused to allow his chat with Ali to be broadcast was the aforementioned DJ, Westwood, who smelt a rat during their profound discussion on the finer points of dance music.
Ali G soon became the undisputed star of The 11 O Clock Show, a fact which was driven home to me when I landed a casual gig as a joke writer on the programme s last series. Is it true you re writing for The 11 O Clock Show? friends would enquire, before inevitably asking if I was mates with Ali G. Bo selecta! I d reply, with the appropriate palsied hand gesture, thereby intimating that I ranked high among his homies, despite the fact that my every contribution to the show was made via e-mail from the comfort of my living room.
With the successful execution of each jape, the cloak of obscurity from behind which Baron Cohen directed operations became increasingly transparent. Like maverick media terrorist Chris Morris before him, Baron Cohen discovered that his increasing celebrity status made it impossible to continue as a one-trick spoof interviewer and opted to quit The 11 O Clock Show upon being offered his own series, Da Ali G Show, by Channel 4. Trawling further afield in search of fresh fish, Ali G landed some unwitting whoppers in exotic locales such as Cannes and LA, while closer to home, an assortment of media whores and good sports such as Gail Porter, Neil Hamilton, Mohammed Al Fayed, Chrissie Hynde and Gaz Coombes, among others, aided Ali s longevity by agreeing to participate, despite being all too aware of the enormous potential for humiliation.
Baron Cohen s other alter ego, Borat, a depraved Eastern European documentary maker, has also enabled him to unmask what somebody clever once described as the mortal fool which lies beneath the husk of every human, while the show s occasionally side-splitting monologues, pet projects (bringing drum and bass to the Third World) and musical interludes, proved beyond any reasonable doubt that somewhere within the dark recesses of Ali G s fetching Tommy Hilfiger hat, lies a razor-sharp comic mind.
Quite what the future holds for Sacha Baron Cohen is anybody s guess. For the time being, however, a far more important issue remains unresolved: who is the greatest artist ever: Rolf Harris or Tony Hart?

ASK A
STUPID
QUESTION?
Ali s undoubted strength as an interviewer is that many of his questions aren t actually
particularly stupid.
For example, what about the time he asked . . .

. . . if Ulster Unionist Sammy Wilson was Irish. Upon being told in no uncertain terms that he was not, Ali enquired if Wilson was just in Ireland on holidays.

. . . Jacob Rees Mogg to define class. Upon being told, he promptly asked: What class is a paki?

. . . a decidedly scruffy Gaz Coombes, why you dress like that if you are not a
homeless?

. . . Harrods owner Mohammad Al Fayed why he didn t entice more customers into his shop by selling everything for a squid .

. . . why kids were taught the metric system when everyone deals in ounces, quarters and eighths.

. . . John Humphries if his early morning Today programme on BBC Radio 4 was designed mainly for people coming home from all night clubbing.

IS IT BECAUSE
I IS
BLACK?

A HIGHLY publicised and decidedly one-sided war of words broke out recently, when a number of Britain s leading black comedians accused Ali G creator, Sacha Baron Cohen, of being racist. I find both him and his material offensive, announced Curtis Walker, presenter of BBC2 s Urban Heat, in the New Nation newspaper. I don t like the idea of a white guy playing a black guy anyway, and when he is playing to a stupid stereotype it is even worse.
Walker s colleague Felix Dexter (an absolute gent, I might add), who will be familiar to fans of The Real McCoy, took up the baton: I can appreciate the humour of an innocent confronting an expert and neither understanding what the other is on about. But a lot of the humour is laughing at black street culture and it is being celebrated because it allows the liberal middle classes to laugh at the culture in a context where they can retain their sense of political correctness.
While Baron Cohen refused to be drawn into the row, a Channel 4 spokesman had this to say: Ali G satirises the way white kids try to copy black street culture and look ridiculous. If it is offensive to anyone it s offensive to white people.