Charlie Brooker has retired from being mean :(

[Cain]

True story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/16/charlie-brooker-leaving-screen-burn

That's it, I'm off. Kind of. After over a decade of scribbling weekly TV reviews for the Guardian's Saturday supplement The Guide, I'm hanging up my hat – the hat with "Screen Burn" stitched into it.

Since I started writing the column, back in August 2000, TV has changed beyond all recognition. Big Brother, The Wire, 24 and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross came and went. Doctor Who, Noel Edmonds and Battlestar Galactica returned. Celebrity humiliation became a national sport. Johnny Rotten fought an ostrich. Timmy Mallett drank a pint of liquidised kangaroo penis in front of Ant and Dec; Jade Goody received her cancer diagnosis in a Diary Room. Ambitious US drama serials with season-long story arcs enjoyed a renaissance. The Office, The Thick Of It, and Peep Show popped up. Stewart Lee got a BBC2 series. The cast of The Inbetweeners sprouted sex organs. Glenn Beck occurred.

The way we watch changed, too: from peering at a cumbersome box in the corner of the room to basking in the unholy radiance of a 52-inch plasma screen buzzing quietly on the wall. The images leapt from SD to HD and now 3D. Time itself began to collapse as YouTube, Sky+ and the BBC iPlayer slowly chewed the notion of "schedules" to death.

At the start of the decade, I was receiving shows to review on clunky VHS tapes. By around 2005, roughly half the offerings arrived on DVD. Now online previewing is the norm. In five years' time, most shows will probably come in the form of an inhalable gas which makes visions dance in your brain.

So why quit now? Well partly because I'm afraid of that future, but mostly because 11 years of essentially rewriting the phrase "X is an arsehole haw haw haw" over and over until you hit the 650-word limit is enough for anyone.

See, I was never a proper critic. In my head, a "proper critic" is an intellectually rigorous individual with an encyclopaedic knowledge of their specialist subject and an admirably nerdy compulsion to dissect, compare and analyse each fresh offering in the field – not in a bid to mindlessly entertain the reader, but to further humankind's collective understanding of the arts. True critics are witty rather than abusive, smart rather than smart-arsed, contemplative rather than extrovert. I, on the other hand, was chiefly interested in making the reader laugh. And the quickest way to do this was to pen insults. Oh, I tried to make the odd point here and there, but the bulk of it – the stuff people actually remember – consists of playground, yah-boo stuff.

I was horrible. I fantasised about leaping into the screen and attacking a Big Brother contestant with a hammer; then, without a hint of irony, announced that Nicky Campbell exuded the menace of a serial killer. I also claimed Jeremy Kyle (who struck me as "a cross between Matthew Wright and a bored carpet salesman") was the Prince of Darkness himself – almost ("Look at his eyes: there's a spine-chilling glint to them ... Not that I'm saying Kyle himself is an agent of Satan, you understand. I'm just saying you could easily cast him as one. Especially if you wanted to save money on special effects.").

The moment anyone appeared on screen, I struggled to find a nice way to describe their physical appearance. David Dickinson was "an ageing Thundercat"; Alan Titchmarsh resembled "something looming unexpectedly at a porthole in a Captain Nemo movie"; Nigel Lythgoe was "Eric Idle watching a dog drown". I called Alan Sugar "Mrs Tiggywinkle" and said he reminded me of "a water buffalo straining to shit in a lake". What a bastard. And I'm no oil painting myself, unless the painting in question depicts a heartbroken carnival mask hurriedly moulded from surgically extracted stomach fat and stretched across a damaged, despondent hubcap. I think that constitutes some form of justification.

Looking back at the earlier columns I see that when I wasn't preoccupied with looks, I was quite bafflingly angry. I've either mellowed since then, or simply grown a soul. For instance, these days – to pick a random example – Jamie Cullum strikes me as a harmless, twinkly eyed, happy sort of chap. But back in 2004 the mere sight of him on an episode of Parkinson sent me into an apocalyptic tailspin.

However, there is good news.  Grace Dent, who was possibly born without a soul, is taking over from him.

[LMNO]

How is it possible that this is the first time I've ever heard about this guy?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

How is it possible that this is the first time I've ever heard about this guy?

Took the words right out of my keyboard...

[Roaring Biscuit!]

you don't live in england?

[Tempest Virago]

I like it when people are self-aware, even if it takes awhile. It gives me hope for humanity.

[Iason Ouabache]

How is it possible that this is the first time I've ever heard about this guy?

Really? Surely you've seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59OJ17raqWw

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyg2a72uV4

[Payne]

Geting married has roont Charlie Brooker. He's broken from the hate gland up.

DAMN YOU, HUQ!

Also, Jamie Cullum causes unspeakable and unreasonable rage in me too. I like that rage and I'm NEVER letting it go.