The Wire with FerretWatch

You know, the Wire is a little like FerretWatch in that little by little, devilish detail by devilish detail, levels are built, layers that overlap, interlock, fuse,and merge and these layers begin to form a whole and as that shape extends, morphs and assumes its own direction, the composite parts pull together and then pull part like waves in a rough sea, irrigating and pummelling, polymerising and fracturing so that as the tower builds upwards gasping for more air, the wretched resultant godhead, ornate in complexity, soars tall above the universe, creating a new one in entirety.

I'm sure David Simons and Ed Burns would wholeheartedly agree.

Speaking of which, FerretWatch happened across an appearance by Mr Simons at the BFI down by the crashing waves of the murky Thames last week. A phlemagtic Mr Simons was present to talk over his fierce, startling and intricate behemoth of a TV show to the unusually ungarrulous Charlie Brooker.

Mr Brooker, who was heard upon his arrival to declare his nervousness and demand some alcoholic lubricants to loosen his whipcracker of a tongue, presided over an interview with Mr Simons and introduced a premiere of the first episode of season 5. Which is, fyi, a beaut.

It opens with such grace and comic poise that it feels like the writers, so at ease within their fictional and vocational spheres, are casually unwinding and easing themselves back into the fray where the viewer is, detail by detail, slowly let into the farce unravelling. A photocopier, a lie detector, a MaccyDs, Jay and needless to say, the Bunk are all involved.

Simons spoke in disarmingly passionate and erudite fashion on the parlous state of American and British journalism, the abandonment of the working classes, the destruction that untempered capitalism causes and the evolution of the institution in preference to the rights of the individual.

He's also a very funny fucker.

Noted in attendence - Aiden Gillen (Tommy Carcetti in the show, you'll know him from Queer as Folk), Alexei Sayle (nope, me neither - big fan though apparently), Lauren Laverne (no doubt getting the Culture Show's angle) and a massive dude with a Wire T-shirt who grabbed the mike for the first question.

All the pieces matter.