I don’t know what it means but Brooker is a very credible source and the title sounds very Curtis-like. The title is the same as a poem by Richard Brautigan, which begins:

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

So it’s almost certainly going to be something about how computers are impacting upon – and perhaps dominating – the human experience (I’m guessing not in a good way). Brooker also mentions that Twitter will feature in the series, which perhaps points to themes around the broadening of the private life into the public/digital sphere. I’m betting Jeremy Bentham’s theory of the Panoptican crops up somewhere.

Brautigan committed suicide in 1984, at the age of 49, by shooting himself in the head. This tends towards the sort of mysterious characters and violent events Curtis favours as a way into his films. Most recently, It Felt Like A Kiss exhibited a fascination with both Rock Hudson and the assassination of JFK. It also used a literary work to suggest an underlying tone – in that case Philip K Dick’s 1959 novel Time Out of Joint.

The concept of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), meaning an integration of human-computer interaction into everyday objects and activities, perceived by some as a natural evolution of the world wide web, would seem to be at the centre of the series. The same title crops up on this article on the concept of ubicomp from 2004.

Admittedly this is all pure speculation until Curtis says more on his website, which is probably worth keeping an eye on.

Salford (the Eccles bit was recently bolted on to the constituency) is Labour through and through but during the time I’ve spent there during the last few weeks, it’s become obvious that there is little real backing for the party or its candidate. On polling day, I witnessed a Labour canvasser bawling in favour of the pint-sized MP through a megaphone and an old lady on the pavement mutter, quick as a flash, “I’d rather vote for Adolf ‘Itler”. Nonetheless, many people were happy to admit that they will vote for Blears anyway because they don’t want to open the door to anyone else.

On the night, Blears’ share of the vote fell by 15%, off a 55% turnout. Out of a constituency of around 75,000, just 16,655 people actually voted for the victorious MP, who singled out the Conservative candidate, Matthew Sephton, in her thank you speech.

Despite Blears’ declining share of the vote, the traditional left doesn’t seem to be winning the argument in Salford. David Henry, whose Hazel Must Go ticket was backed by the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, did manage a respectable 730 votes. But that was less than a third of the total achieved by the BNP candidate, Nick Griffin’s PA Tina Wingfield, who racked up 2,632 votes. Blears has promised to listen to her constituents as never before and her most pressing task now is surely to win back support from those whose disillusionment with her brand of politics and house-flipping antics has resulted in a rise in support for the far right. Unless the issue of immigration is properly discussed and debated by the main parties, I really fear for places like Salford, where anti-immigrant sentiment on the doorstep is regularly fairly shocking.

As for what happens now, it would be nice to see some form of proportional representation come out of the situation. In Salford, the votes of 60% of those who voted counted for nothing, which simply can’t be right. I have a feeling, though, that despite honourable intentions, Nick Clegg and the massed ranks of the Liberal Democrats will be no match whatsoever for the entrenched political elites who want to preserve the power base afforded by first past the post.

I finally escaped Buile Hill Visual Arts College, where the count was held, at 5.43am. Towards the end, under the fluorescent lights, the atmosphere got very unusual indeed. Although the only chemical about the place was adrenaline, there was this really odd feeling of a bizarre all-nighter populated by wide-eyed, rosette-wearing geeks.

It’s not especially likely that David is going to win. Despite the problems Hazel Blears has faced, Salford is an extremely strong Labour heartland and the latest odds from Ladbrokes rate a Labour win in Salford at 1/12. Still, I’m hoping that there will still be some drama in this David versus Goliath battle. Either that or we will end up with quite a pessimistic film in which, despite the ingredients for change being very much present, everything eventually ends up being the same.

From what I’ve seen so far, apathy and disenfranchisement from the political process seem to be a major problem for all the candidates. Among the few issues voters really want to talk about is immigration. Where disillusionment with Labour is to be found on the doorstep, people admit that they are considering voting for the BNP, whose candidate, Tina Wingfield, is Nick Griffin’s PA.

We’re going to be filming for the whole of the campaign in an observational style. It should be an interesting process.

Anyway, by far the funniest film I saw was Winnebago Man, which charts the efforts of filmmaker Ben Steinbauer to track down Jack Rebney. This erstwhile star of bootleg VHS tapes and latterly YouTube achieved foul-mouthed infamy in the early 1990s and has been labelled the angriest man in the world. Initially he seems reluctant to accept his cult stardom and dismisses those who are interested in his life. But as the film unfolds he appears genuinely touched by the enthusiasm. One of the highlights of the festival was when Rebney took questions via Steinbauer’s mobile phone, which resulted in some predictably unpredictable responses.

If you’ve never seen the original YouTube video, have a look at this. It is very sweary but also contains a number of stone-cold classic catchphrases (“Accoutre-mah”, “Would you do me a kindness?”, “My mind is just a piece of shit this morning”) that I intend to use in my daily discourse henceforth.

EG is a fine publication but I figured it was about time that I did something else with my career, after spending virtually the whole of my professional life there. I’ve always had an interest in documentary and have been lucky enough to find myself in a position where I can take a year out to (hopefully) forge a new career.

I will also be performing a “launch” of myself, as marketing people say, in the field of freelance journalism, copywriting and (possibly) blogger-for-hire. I know there are lots of high-powered people who for some reason look at this blog, so if you fancy giving me a job (after mid-August, natch) then please get in touch. As part of my “launch”, I have created a new website, catchily titled davidquinn.co.uk, which is now live. Go and have a look at it, it’s completely and utterly amazing. No, really.

(Note: This review does not contain spoilers. But if you want no hints at all about the contents of the show, you may want to look away now.)

At its centre is a new 35-minute documentary by Curtis, which, unlike much of his previous work, steers clear of a concrete ”storyline” and does away with the director’s trademark voiceover. That’s not to say there isn’t a theme: Curtis somehow manages to weave a plausible, if deliberately hazy, narrative connection between chimps in space and the collapse of the Twin Towers via Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The film, as one might expect, is a masterpiece of montage. Curtis revels in his trademark splices, which, as usual, are coupled with deliberately disarming sound effects and music. Fans, like me, will be blown away.

To reach the documentary, viewers must walk through the vacant office building where the show takes place via a series of spaces that are richly packed with items that hint at what’s to come. If I had one quibble, it would be that there was a tendency for participants to dawdle a little in the early stages, seeking to attach meaning to every object on show - like a game of live-action Cluedo - rather than take in the overall “feel” of what was being presented. This inevitably led to later bottlenecks and a “running time” that clocked in at two-and-a-half hours, rather than the 75 minutes suggested.

Curtis has said IFLAK is about “how power really works in the world. To show that power is exercised not just through politics and diplomacy – but flows through our feelings and emotions, and shapes the way we think of ourselves and the world.” It’s about both ”enchantment and menace”, he says.

At one point, the spotlight – literally – falls on Philip K. Dick’s 1959 novel Time Out of Joint, the story of a man whose existence is ultimately revealed to be a “constructed reality”, created by society’s powerful elite. While the early stages of the production force participants to consider this conundrum at a distance – poking around in safety and unearthing the nuggets that have been left hanging around for signs of some kind of meaning - the latter stages put them at the heart of a nightmare. B.F. Skinner and his idea of Relative Behaviourism loom large, while Curtis ultimately returns to the themes of individualism and freedom that were explored in Century of the Self and The Trap. After an astonishing sound installation in the building’s basement, one is forced suddenly into the night, wondering what the hell just happened.

While the content of the show is spectacular, it’s fair to say their were some teething troubles at last night’s preview. An unfortunate queue midway through left us stewing in a sweltering corridor with 15 other people for around 20 minutes. Air conditioning would have helped – unless, of course, borderline heat exhaustion was the director’s way of unsettling us for the final section.

Overall, though, IFLAK is a remarkable, ambitious and brilliant production. Curtis is a rare maverick genius of the video age. Entering this world is something very special.