Screenburn by Charlie Brooker

(Faber & Faber: London, 2005)

Screenburn is a witty anthology of TV commentary from the dawn of the new millennium (circa 2000-2004) and is well worth a visit if you’d like to find out what has changed in broadcasting since then.  During these early years we eagerly awaited holographic screens and smell-O-vision, but these dreams never came to pass, instead we got ONDIGITAL, BBC Choice and a strong dose of reality, a word that terrified T.S.Eliot and one which also terrifies Charlie Brooker, not in the reality of the here and now, nor in a virtual sense, but in the growing obsession with Reality TV.