Yes during the scene of a polar bear’s birth the documentary actually filmed the scene in a zoo. The run up to the scene was in the wild, and the actual cub being born was filmed in a Dutch zoo. I feel so mislead.
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Friday, 16 December 2011
America vs. Wild.
Yes during the scene of a polar bear’s birth the documentary actually filmed the scene in a zoo. The run up to the scene was in the wild, and the actual cub being born was filmed in a Dutch zoo. I feel so mislead.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
The perfect preparation for a 10km run.
I ran the Manchester 10K again on Sunday which was a gruelling battle between man and road. It was a good race that left my legs heavier than a pair of Americans after Thanksgiving and my ankle in quite a bit of pain. But I made it! All be it in a longer time than last year, a whole six minutes more, meaning I have some work to do for next year. Six minutes in a 10K is a week! Although my time was disappointing, I did manage to raise a lot of money for CICRA (Crohn's in Childhood Research Association) which is always great!
Of course being involved on Sunday meant that my Saturday night was spent indoors watching Saturday night tele. Lucky for me it wasn’t just any Saturday night, this one was special, it was of course Eurovision night!
Of course being involved on Sunday meant that my Saturday night was spent indoors watching Saturday night tele. Lucky for me it wasn’t just any Saturday night, this one was special, it was of course Eurovision night!
Thursday, 28 April 2011
A Right Royal Shindig.
The royal wedding is fast approaching, so far I’ve been lucky enough to escape the media coverage, but this week it is impossible to avoid. Absolutely impossible. It’s all starting to feel a bit like Glastonbury with people pitching up little tents along the streets of London, the brave little blighters.
I don’t really mind the royal wedding to be fair, I don’t dislike the royals and I don’t dislike the fact that the future prince is marrying. But my God, do we have to have constant wall-to-wall coverage of the royal wedding on every channel!? I wouldn’t be surprised to turn on Cartoon Network and find Ben 10 stood outside Buckingham palace telling me which Hanna-Barbera characters haven’t been invited.
I don’t really mind the royal wedding to be fair, I don’t dislike the royals and I don’t dislike the fact that the future prince is marrying. But my God, do we have to have constant wall-to-wall coverage of the royal wedding on every channel!? I wouldn’t be surprised to turn on Cartoon Network and find Ben 10 stood outside Buckingham palace telling me which Hanna-Barbera characters haven’t been invited.
Friday, 25 March 2011
BBC Three does politics.
BBC Three aired a special version of Question Time on Wednesday, the same day as the budget. They made it especially for youths (hence its BBC Three appearance) and named it Young Voter’s Question Time. It was actually pretty good, I hope they do this sort of thing more often as it gets young people involved in politics. Which can only be a good thing.
To keep it down with the kids the Beeb decided to remix the Question Time theme into this weird sped-up version that wasn’t patronising at all, invited 150 under-25s to be in the audience and threw in Richard Bacon to host it. He was actually not too bad, he did sometimes argue with the panellists when he was supposed to be chairman but whatever, I didn’t really care. He otherwise kept a lid on it well and stopped the audience from killing many.
To keep it down with the kids the Beeb decided to remix the Question Time theme into this weird sped-up version that wasn’t patronising at all, invited 150 under-25s to be in the audience and threw in Richard Bacon to host it. He was actually not too bad, he did sometimes argue with the panellists when he was supposed to be chairman but whatever, I didn’t really care. He otherwise kept a lid on it well and stopped the audience from killing many.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Adverts are getting worse. Nine out of ten people agree.
Well the January sales are way in the past now and television is starting to get a bit of normality back into itself. If only that was a good thing.
With Christmas and Valentine’s Day done with advertisers have changed their focus, trying new and exciting methods to fool, I mean entice the poor general public into buying into their product or service. But my God, they’re terrible! Alright it’s not sofas, but some companies aren’t even trying anymore!
With Christmas and Valentine’s Day done with advertisers have changed their focus, trying new and exciting methods to fool, I mean entice the poor general public into buying into their product or service. But my God, they’re terrible! Alright it’s not sofas, but some companies aren’t even trying anymore!
Friday, 11 February 2011
Token Feature Writers.
Twitter brought an article to my attention yesterday. It was in The Guardian and was written by one of their feature writers Deborah Orr.
Now, in the article she critiques the 10 O’Clock Live show, Channel 4’s Thursday night satirical comedy and current affairs show. The show itself is an okay piece of television featuring Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr. It’s funny in parts but I’d much rather they hadn’t bothered and used the money on more episodes of The Daily Show, which has been horribly axed from More4.
Now, in the article she critiques the 10 O’Clock Live show, Channel 4’s Thursday night satirical comedy and current affairs show. The show itself is an okay piece of television featuring Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr. It’s funny in parts but I’d much rather they hadn’t bothered and used the money on more episodes of The Daily Show, which has been horribly axed from More4.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Eleventh hour bargain deals/rip-offs.
Well the end of January was one to remember wasn’t it? Egyptians took to the streets in order to remove president Mubarak from power, Nelson Mandela was released from hospital after a long illness, and back home Gideon Osborne told us all a story about how the weather is becoming a terrorist threat, contracting the economy by 0.5%. Sorry, but if a bit of snow caused our economy to contract then Australia is about to fold indefinitely.
But let’s face it, no one knows anything about any of that, because who has been watching BBC News 24? Nobody. Everyone was glued to Sky Sports News watching as they slowly and ever so painfully ticked down the nanoseconds until the end of the world, or the closing of a window, one of the two.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Were you saying something? Look, I don't speak Spanish.
Picture the scene, you’re a hot-shot TV personality who is number one at your organisation. Nobody defies you; you may have ridiculous opinions and your dress sense is a little dated but you’re the best. Then one day someone writes the F-word on your teleprompter and Ed is forced to fire you.
Okay that’s Anchorman but there’s really little difference between Ron Burgundy and Andy Gray. Apart from Ron Burgundy being funny, and the moustache, and the popularity, and the fact that there was no teleprompter, and Ron Burgundy respects women a little more but still the similarities are uncanny!
Okay that’s Anchorman but there’s really little difference between Ron Burgundy and Andy Gray. Apart from Ron Burgundy being funny, and the moustache, and the popularity, and the fact that there was no teleprompter, and Ron Burgundy respects women a little more but still the similarities are uncanny!
Friday, 31 December 2010
Death by Sofa.
Christmas is all wrapped up and done with now so turning on the television is officially outlawed just on the off chance that someone left it on ITV.
If you’re unfortunate enough to be in ITV’s demographic, then you’ll feel my everlasting post-Christmas pain. Every year it’s sale sale sale! And what could you possibly want after Christmas? A sofa of course! Why is it after Christmas they think people will be after sofas, or beds for that matter!? Where is the logic? Have people been sleeping on newspaper for the past twelve months or something? “Oh look darling, turns out beds are readily available now! Hooray!” I mean, don't people usually watch TV whilst sat on a sofa? Maybe people spill red wine on everything over Christmas and need new ones, even so I’m sure Cillit Bang would get rid of it.
I think people are trying to avoid the inevitable VAT increase coming in January, because the sales this year have been served with an extra portion of insanity! People are mad, bonkers, loopy, crackers, off their rocker, and they need help! Who in their right mind would queue up in the hours seen only by owls and insomniacs, all the way down the high street in bitterly cold surroundings to be greeted only by a puddle and a drunken tramp? All to buy the tat the shops couldn’t sell throughout the year.
The very same shops that still make money selling the tat for half price. How much do they make when they’re selling at 100%, interesting thought. Either way in 2011 you’ll be paying 20% VAT on said tat, instead of 17.5% 2010 was plonking on top of it. I’m not entirely sure if shoppers will be deterred from the high street because of the extra 2.5%, they probably won’t be, which will delight Gideon no end I'm sure.
The big shops are still advertising though, Argos, Tesco, and many others are still trying to catch your attention coming into the new year. And it just wouldn’t be right if M&S weren’t ramming themselves down your throat with their pretentious adverts featuring that pervy woman. God help us, there’s another ad you’ll find on dear old ITV.
As I said, for your own safety you should outlaw television post-Christmas, and if you really must watch it, for the love of God make sure you don’t leave it on ITV. It's bad enough that they have nothing to watch on it, why do they have to torture us with their bloody annoying adverts as well? If I bought everything that was advertised during a normal ad-break on tele at the moment I’d come out with three sofas, a double bed, a Nintendo Wii game and a side helping of car insurance. All of which I would not need. But I’d take the Wii game, why not, and you don’t even need a sofa to play on it! Brilliant!
Happy New Year! Keep spending everyone, Gideon needs it.
If you’re unfortunate enough to be in ITV’s demographic, then you’ll feel my everlasting post-Christmas pain. Every year it’s sale sale sale! And what could you possibly want after Christmas? A sofa of course! Why is it after Christmas they think people will be after sofas, or beds for that matter!? Where is the logic? Have people been sleeping on newspaper for the past twelve months or something? “Oh look darling, turns out beds are readily available now! Hooray!” I mean, don't people usually watch TV whilst sat on a sofa? Maybe people spill red wine on everything over Christmas and need new ones, even so I’m sure Cillit Bang would get rid of it.
I think people are trying to avoid the inevitable VAT increase coming in January, because the sales this year have been served with an extra portion of insanity! People are mad, bonkers, loopy, crackers, off their rocker, and they need help! Who in their right mind would queue up in the hours seen only by owls and insomniacs, all the way down the high street in bitterly cold surroundings to be greeted only by a puddle and a drunken tramp? All to buy the tat the shops couldn’t sell throughout the year.
The very same shops that still make money selling the tat for half price. How much do they make when they’re selling at 100%, interesting thought. Either way in 2011 you’ll be paying 20% VAT on said tat, instead of 17.5% 2010 was plonking on top of it. I’m not entirely sure if shoppers will be deterred from the high street because of the extra 2.5%, they probably won’t be, which will delight Gideon no end I'm sure.
The big shops are still advertising though, Argos, Tesco, and many others are still trying to catch your attention coming into the new year. And it just wouldn’t be right if M&S weren’t ramming themselves down your throat with their pretentious adverts featuring that pervy woman. God help us, there’s another ad you’ll find on dear old ITV.
As I said, for your own safety you should outlaw television post-Christmas, and if you really must watch it, for the love of God make sure you don’t leave it on ITV. It's bad enough that they have nothing to watch on it, why do they have to torture us with their bloody annoying adverts as well? If I bought everything that was advertised during a normal ad-break on tele at the moment I’d come out with three sofas, a double bed, a Nintendo Wii game and a side helping of car insurance. All of which I would not need. But I’d take the Wii game, why not, and you don’t even need a sofa to play on it! Brilliant!
Happy New Year! Keep spending everyone, Gideon needs it.
Friday, 24 December 2010
'Tis the season.
Are you feeling Christmassy yet? You should be, because it’s Christmas Eve everyone! Meaning only one thing: tomorrow is Christmas Day! Sounds obvious but apparently some people don’t know this.
Take Amazon for example, it’s now Christmas Eve and they still haven’t delivered my packages, but they have guaranteed me that I’ll receive them before tomorrow. Yep, I’m fully expecting a knock at the door at 23.59 tonight. If not, then there will be hell to pay!
I chose to shop online, mainly to avoid the horrible queues over Christmas. There’s nothing worse than standing in a queue down at HMV or Game, meandering around the entire store thinking of all the wonderful things you could be doing with your time instead of listening to an old woman complain about the lack of batteries in some lame plastic product.
Plus Amazon is open 24 hours. Well, there’s Tesco of course, but with Amazon you can browse and shop without any trolley rage and you can simply get into the store without being hassled by a bunch of spotty chavs asking if you can buy them some cigarettes. It really is bad for your skin sunshine.
Forget Christmas cheer! Amazon have stolen my money! I ordered my pressies over the net on the fifth of the festive month and have I received a sausage? No, I haven’t. Yes, my dad likes sausages what do you want from me? It’s blatant theft. This is treason of the highest order! And an email saying they’re very sorry isn’t going to cut it!
They must be punished for this outrage. I am hereby declaring the dismemberment of Jersey from the British isles! France can have it. Tough luck Amazon but that’s what you get for treason against me and our Queen. Au revoir.
Ah well, here’s hoping I’ll receive it before the day is out, but I won’t be holding my breath. So what can be done to ease the Christmassy stressors? Well, there’s always the trusty TV.
There’s not a great deal on tonight, the main highlight is probably QI, which is probably the best thing on the beeb right now. On just before that is a My Family Christmas special which is always a fun jaunt. The soaps are on, dishing out the daily serving of depression. Ho ho ho. And Paul O’Grady is on for an hour at 9pm.
As for Christmas Day itself there’s a few things on. BBCs traditional animated flick of the day this year is not a Pixar one unfortunately, instead it’s Shrek the Third, which I’ve never bothered to watch, so that’s in the maybe pile. Doctor Who is on at 6pm and could be worth a watch as, well, Doctor Who is actually pretty good drama these days and not only that Michael Gambon is in it! Dumbledore for crying out loud! Strictly Come Dancing might be worth a watch too, it features the same usual no name cast, but Vince Cable is on it! How utterly random, there could be murder in the dance floor if his partner secretly works for the Telegraph.
Top Gear is on again, so if, like me, you didn’t even realise it was on the other day, it’s repeated at 7pm and there's another special on Boxing Day too. Should be a laugh. More of a laugh at least than the Royle Family that’s on at 9pm on BBC1, don’t bother, this show used to be so good, now it’s awful and is about as subtle as a cock-flight in a petting zoo.
That’s about it really, there are plenty of movies on over the festive period. Avatar is on Sky Movies pretty much all the time, in 3D apparently. Forget that. Other film highlights on Christmas Day include, The Muppet Christmas Carol at 8.50am on Channel 4, Madagascar at 12.25pm on BBC1 , Stranger than Fiction at 6.45pm on Five and of course Die Hard is on at 9pm on Film4!
As for Christmas Eve, well, there’s Uncle Buck at 9pm on ITV3, Prince Caspian at 5.15pm on BBC1, but if you’re in the mood for a classic Christmas film look no further than Scrooge with Alastair Sim, on Five at 4pm. What can I say about this movie? Other than it is the best version of a Christmas Carol that’s ever been made. I defy you to find me a better Scrooge than Alastair Sim, no one has ever come close to capturing the essence of the character quite like him. I think I’ll be giving that a watch this year again. I watch it every year, that’s how good it is!
So yes, plenty to watch over Christmas, why was I angry again? Time to sit back with a smooth beverage and a mince pie, put my feet up and wait for Santa to come. Ah sweet relaxation. Holy crap was that the doorbell!?
Take Amazon for example, it’s now Christmas Eve and they still haven’t delivered my packages, but they have guaranteed me that I’ll receive them before tomorrow. Yep, I’m fully expecting a knock at the door at 23.59 tonight. If not, then there will be hell to pay!
I chose to shop online, mainly to avoid the horrible queues over Christmas. There’s nothing worse than standing in a queue down at HMV or Game, meandering around the entire store thinking of all the wonderful things you could be doing with your time instead of listening to an old woman complain about the lack of batteries in some lame plastic product.
Plus Amazon is open 24 hours. Well, there’s Tesco of course, but with Amazon you can browse and shop without any trolley rage and you can simply get into the store without being hassled by a bunch of spotty chavs asking if you can buy them some cigarettes. It really is bad for your skin sunshine.
Forget Christmas cheer! Amazon have stolen my money! I ordered my pressies over the net on the fifth of the festive month and have I received a sausage? No, I haven’t. Yes, my dad likes sausages what do you want from me? It’s blatant theft. This is treason of the highest order! And an email saying they’re very sorry isn’t going to cut it!
They must be punished for this outrage. I am hereby declaring the dismemberment of Jersey from the British isles! France can have it. Tough luck Amazon but that’s what you get for treason against me and our Queen. Au revoir.
Ah well, here’s hoping I’ll receive it before the day is out, but I won’t be holding my breath. So what can be done to ease the Christmassy stressors? Well, there’s always the trusty TV.
There’s not a great deal on tonight, the main highlight is probably QI, which is probably the best thing on the beeb right now. On just before that is a My Family Christmas special which is always a fun jaunt. The soaps are on, dishing out the daily serving of depression. Ho ho ho. And Paul O’Grady is on for an hour at 9pm.
As for Christmas Day itself there’s a few things on. BBCs traditional animated flick of the day this year is not a Pixar one unfortunately, instead it’s Shrek the Third, which I’ve never bothered to watch, so that’s in the maybe pile. Doctor Who is on at 6pm and could be worth a watch as, well, Doctor Who is actually pretty good drama these days and not only that Michael Gambon is in it! Dumbledore for crying out loud! Strictly Come Dancing might be worth a watch too, it features the same usual no name cast, but Vince Cable is on it! How utterly random, there could be murder in the dance floor if his partner secretly works for the Telegraph.
Top Gear is on again, so if, like me, you didn’t even realise it was on the other day, it’s repeated at 7pm and there's another special on Boxing Day too. Should be a laugh. More of a laugh at least than the Royle Family that’s on at 9pm on BBC1, don’t bother, this show used to be so good, now it’s awful and is about as subtle as a cock-flight in a petting zoo.
That’s about it really, there are plenty of movies on over the festive period. Avatar is on Sky Movies pretty much all the time, in 3D apparently. Forget that. Other film highlights on Christmas Day include, The Muppet Christmas Carol at 8.50am on Channel 4, Madagascar at 12.25pm on BBC1 , Stranger than Fiction at 6.45pm on Five and of course Die Hard is on at 9pm on Film4!
As for Christmas Eve, well, there’s Uncle Buck at 9pm on ITV3, Prince Caspian at 5.15pm on BBC1, but if you’re in the mood for a classic Christmas film look no further than Scrooge with Alastair Sim, on Five at 4pm. What can I say about this movie? Other than it is the best version of a Christmas Carol that’s ever been made. I defy you to find me a better Scrooge than Alastair Sim, no one has ever come close to capturing the essence of the character quite like him. I think I’ll be giving that a watch this year again. I watch it every year, that’s how good it is!
So yes, plenty to watch over Christmas, why was I angry again? Time to sit back with a smooth beverage and a mince pie, put my feet up and wait for Santa to come. Ah sweet relaxation. Holy crap was that the doorbell!?
Friday, 17 December 2010
Darling... You are a complete arse!
Well the festive season is well and truly upon us. What comes to your mind when you think of Christmas? Father Christmas? Coca-cola? Jesus? Well no Christmas wouldn’t quite be Christmas if it wasn’t for a bit of pantomime!
And this year has been no different, the BBC and ITV have been dishing out their annual pantos starting months ago. I talk of course of Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor! Strictly has pulled out some big names this year, Kara Tointon… nope, Michelle Williams… of girl band fame, and of course Scott Maslen… wasn’t he in The Bill once? Audiences spent the first couple of weeks remembering who Paul Daniels was, and once they did he was swiftly voted out. Okay, so the biggest star was Jimi Mystry, by default, but the biggest personality of Strictly this year was of course Anne Widdecombe.
Now, looking at Anne you wouldn’t really think she was built to be a dancer. And you’d be right. Her partner, the more than creepy Anton du Beke, spent most weeks snapping his back in half and dragging her around the dance floor until the public took sheer pity on him and voted them off. Expect him on an accident at work ad soon enough. Poor lad.
Eight eliminations she escaped. Eight! Is this show even about dancing? Well, obviously it’s not, since John Sergeant managed to fumble his way through last year’s show until eventually quitting, the show has been deemed about ‘entertainment’ rather than dancing. Even head judge Len has declared the show to be about entertainment now, no longer are we hearing: “Darling! It’s a travesty Darling!” They still give low scores but I think the judges have realised that they’re as redundant as a spare button on a zip coat.
Ah the judges, that’s what it’s all about. Four bored know-it-alls sit behind a desk stolen from ITV News look blankly onwards as an out of work actor twirls around the dance floor with a professional dancer from High School Musical. Sounds good doesn’t it? 11 million viewers watch this stuff!
The judges are there for a reason though. They give people a reason to watch, as once the dance is done the couple head over to Brucie who waves his chin at them and herds them to the judges for their weekly grilling. Judge number one is panto baddie Craig Revel-Horwood (boo-hiss) a man who could condescend Christ if he wanted to, sits right on the end and generally finds faults with everyone and has no qualms with ripping into the rubbish contestants. He is quite camp, knows his stuff, and likes to use the word ‘darling’ a lot. Generally what he says is right, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it!
Judge number two, is head judge Len Goodman, who’s spared the title of oldest man in the room thanks to Brucie. Len has the deciding vote and holds most of the authority. In previous seasons he’s been a bit like Craig in that he told the truth but nowadays he just grins at you like the gawping fish at the end of Mario Kart and says “thanks for playing.”
Next judge is Alicia Dixon, who replaced Arlene Phillips last season much to the bemusement of everyone except Arlene Phillips. I think Arlene fell out with the BBC producers and to embarrass her even further they threw in their answer to Cheryl Cole. Alicia plays the part of Widow Twanky, not the lead character but the one who just has very little to do except smile and say well done.
Last but not least is Bruno Tonioli, the most eccentric man on the BBC since Jimmy Savile. Bruno essentially plays the comic of the panto, he sits on the end and yells at the dancers exclaiming how hot they are “Scott-t!” Even if it wasn’t Scott dancing it’s “Scott-t!” that’s all he says. And God forbid if Bruce should get to him last, then he just acts like a sticky spring toy forbidden from jumping only to then be released as if by surprise, to which he ends up stood bow-legged on the desk yelling “It was magnificent! The best thing I’ve ever seen! I orgasmed twice! Marry me now! Exquisite! 10! 10! 10! 11!” The crowd obviously laughs it up while the evil Craig shakes his head condescendingly from the opposite side.
As for the dancing itself, it’s been alright. But what I have noticed this season more than others is that the dancers are using the judges' desk a lot more as a part of their routines. They’ll start by standing on the desk and waiting for the music to kick in and then leap off it. Sounds alright only the camera shot at the start gets to see four of the most awkward people sat looking up at the dancer. It’s just bizarre, I’m fairly sure Bruno farted one week just to relieve some of the tension as Len randomly chuckled for no apparent reason.
There are some decent dancers, but they could be better. Next year I want John Bishop on it! I went to see him live earlier this week and that man got moves! Get him on it and I might actually watch it!
All in all Strictly is a lovely family evening filled with favourites, bad guys, a cheering and jeering audience and Billy Connolly. Which is more than I can say for the other show sat across the road in the studios of ITV.
Yes, X-Factor, the newly crowned ‘most tired show on television’ since Big Brother finished earlier in the year. I can sum this show up in a word. Awful. No wait I can do better than that: Terrible. No that’s not good enough: atrocious. No that’s still not covering it: Harrowing. Yeah that’s a bit more like it, shouldn’t have really given myself a one word limit there, but I’d have been here all day if I didn’t.
I can’t stand X-Factor, I genuinely hate its existence. Especially the first few weeks where ITV literally round up people with serious mental health issues and throws them out on stage where they proceed to sing a crumbling rendition of Ronan Keating’s ’When You Say Nothing At All’, which is then followed by Simon Cowell and his motley crew calling them the worst thing they’ve ever seen (amazing how it keeps getting topped isn’t it?) and the audience laughs deliriously at them. They walk off in shame, crying, and are greeted by a smirking Dermot O’Leary who then takes a huge handful of salt and rubs it in their faces turns them round and boots them out onto the streets again. It is actually appalling. This is entertainment? Laughing at mental disorders on a Saturday night?
Well anyway, it bloody well finished last week, thank God, it’s the main benefit to Christmas falling on a Saturday this year. The winner was not Gamu, it was Matt Cardle, who I’ve only just now realised exists on this planet. He used to be a painter and decorator but now he’s the one being decorated by pretty much everyone in the UK media.
I’ll admit, I know nothing about the man, I only found the painter and decorator fact in the Metro where I read up on the amazing final that 20 million people watched. 20 million, that’s over 25% of the British population sat in front of a flashing box watching a bunch of nobodies crawl about on stage desperately clawing at the fabled 15 minutes of fame. I mean who was watching the other channels? Watch could’ve just shown hardcore porn and no one would have noticed!
To me, Matt looks a bit bland. Okay, he’s more memorable than last year’s winner (answers on a postcard), who incidentally entered the chart with his new single at number 68 on Sunday, but he seems to have the charisma of a moth-eaten cardigan. I don’t know, maybe I’m not being fair, I’ve only seen him sing once, and yes he can sing, but who cares? I’ve seen overweight middle-aged women being thrown around a dance floor dressed as a matador’s cape that have entertained me more than this guy!
Apparently Matt beat a girl called Rebecca and a band called ‘One Direction’, which is a brilliant name I have to say, I’m sure they’ll go on to great things. Anyway the cardigan won it and subsequently released his single: Biffy Clyro’s hit record ‘Many of Horror’. That’s when I thought: hang on a minute, according to an interview I read a few weeks ago Matt said he would only release new material, but what’s this? Looks to me like a cover version of an all round popular chart hit. So you lied to us Matt? How could you? Oh no wait, they changed the song title to “When we Collide.” Ah right well that’s alright then.
How gullible is this man? He seriously thinks he has his own life now, where he makes his own decisions. No, you are no property of Simon Cowell and you will go out there and you will sing and dance to the tune of whatever he sees fit until he gets bored of you and simply gets someone else from next year’s X-Factor! Idiot.
Matt was mentored by Dannii Minogue, the less famous of the two sisters, she’s the one who didn’t marry Jason Donovan on Neighbours. She’s one of the four judges and plays one of the more well liked ones. Cheryl Cole is the other female judge, who, to be honest is looking more and more thin by the day. I’m actually worried about her, has she forgotten how to eat or something? She looks like Olive Oil! If she turns to one side she bloody disappears! I’m not entirely sure why Cheryl is on the panel, given she’s an expert in pretty much nothing but she sits there anyway.
Either side of the lovely ladies is behemoth Cowell and Louis Walsh. Cowell, who is still looking more and more like a Pez dispenser by the day, is the meanie of the gang, Officer Dibble if you will. Louis Walsh, well, he’s just Bennie. Louis makes no sense to me when he talks, all I hear is the same thing. Maybe because it is the same thing! Every week he comes out and says to one of the performers “That was the best performance on X-Factor EVER!” If this show gets any better he’s going to end up having a heart attack! Every week it's: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” Until the week after when he says: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” Succeeded by the following week’s show where he says: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” You get the idea.
The X-Factor judges are boring. They have no personality, except for Cowell, they have no talent, and none of them say ‘darling’! At least on Strictly they have a bit of a laugh, alright it’s all aimed at Brucie and Anne Widdecombe, but fair play to them, they all take it with a pinch of salt and they're all good sports. They obviously want to win the show, but if they don’t they don’t go and cry about it. X-Factor contestants treat the show as if it’s the biggest thing that will ever happen to them. I walked into a KFC once, as crap as it was, it was still a better experience than being on the X-Factor. Get over it you bunch of ungrateful idiots. “I’m doing this for my pet goldfish who died when I was only twelve.” Oh Boo-hoo, why don’t you get a job! I’m sure Blooper would be chuffed with that more than this abomination!
Of course X-Factor, like Strictly, is just a panto in disguise. From the tacky set to the stereotypical panto characters sat behind the desks. It’s just cheap, crappy, pointless, soul destroying television. You can actually feel your self respect dripping from your ears whilst watching it, and if you close your eyes you can see your high school form tutor shaking her head disapprovingly at you.
Strictly is okay, good casual viewing, a bit of a laugh and not treated too seriously. X-Factor is rubbish, and you can say “Oh no it isn’t” all you like, it won’t change my mind, because it bloody well is.
And this year has been no different, the BBC and ITV have been dishing out their annual pantos starting months ago. I talk of course of Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor! Strictly has pulled out some big names this year, Kara Tointon… nope, Michelle Williams… of girl band fame, and of course Scott Maslen… wasn’t he in The Bill once? Audiences spent the first couple of weeks remembering who Paul Daniels was, and once they did he was swiftly voted out. Okay, so the biggest star was Jimi Mystry, by default, but the biggest personality of Strictly this year was of course Anne Widdecombe.
Now, looking at Anne you wouldn’t really think she was built to be a dancer. And you’d be right. Her partner, the more than creepy Anton du Beke, spent most weeks snapping his back in half and dragging her around the dance floor until the public took sheer pity on him and voted them off. Expect him on an accident at work ad soon enough. Poor lad.
Eight eliminations she escaped. Eight! Is this show even about dancing? Well, obviously it’s not, since John Sergeant managed to fumble his way through last year’s show until eventually quitting, the show has been deemed about ‘entertainment’ rather than dancing. Even head judge Len has declared the show to be about entertainment now, no longer are we hearing: “Darling! It’s a travesty Darling!” They still give low scores but I think the judges have realised that they’re as redundant as a spare button on a zip coat.
Ah the judges, that’s what it’s all about. Four bored know-it-alls sit behind a desk stolen from ITV News look blankly onwards as an out of work actor twirls around the dance floor with a professional dancer from High School Musical. Sounds good doesn’t it? 11 million viewers watch this stuff!
The judges are there for a reason though. They give people a reason to watch, as once the dance is done the couple head over to Brucie who waves his chin at them and herds them to the judges for their weekly grilling. Judge number one is panto baddie Craig Revel-Horwood (boo-hiss) a man who could condescend Christ if he wanted to, sits right on the end and generally finds faults with everyone and has no qualms with ripping into the rubbish contestants. He is quite camp, knows his stuff, and likes to use the word ‘darling’ a lot. Generally what he says is right, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it!
Judge number two, is head judge Len Goodman, who’s spared the title of oldest man in the room thanks to Brucie. Len has the deciding vote and holds most of the authority. In previous seasons he’s been a bit like Craig in that he told the truth but nowadays he just grins at you like the gawping fish at the end of Mario Kart and says “thanks for playing.”
Next judge is Alicia Dixon, who replaced Arlene Phillips last season much to the bemusement of everyone except Arlene Phillips. I think Arlene fell out with the BBC producers and to embarrass her even further they threw in their answer to Cheryl Cole. Alicia plays the part of Widow Twanky, not the lead character but the one who just has very little to do except smile and say well done.
Last but not least is Bruno Tonioli, the most eccentric man on the BBC since Jimmy Savile. Bruno essentially plays the comic of the panto, he sits on the end and yells at the dancers exclaiming how hot they are “Scott-t!” Even if it wasn’t Scott dancing it’s “Scott-t!” that’s all he says. And God forbid if Bruce should get to him last, then he just acts like a sticky spring toy forbidden from jumping only to then be released as if by surprise, to which he ends up stood bow-legged on the desk yelling “It was magnificent! The best thing I’ve ever seen! I orgasmed twice! Marry me now! Exquisite! 10! 10! 10! 11!” The crowd obviously laughs it up while the evil Craig shakes his head condescendingly from the opposite side.
As for the dancing itself, it’s been alright. But what I have noticed this season more than others is that the dancers are using the judges' desk a lot more as a part of their routines. They’ll start by standing on the desk and waiting for the music to kick in and then leap off it. Sounds alright only the camera shot at the start gets to see four of the most awkward people sat looking up at the dancer. It’s just bizarre, I’m fairly sure Bruno farted one week just to relieve some of the tension as Len randomly chuckled for no apparent reason.
There are some decent dancers, but they could be better. Next year I want John Bishop on it! I went to see him live earlier this week and that man got moves! Get him on it and I might actually watch it!
All in all Strictly is a lovely family evening filled with favourites, bad guys, a cheering and jeering audience and Billy Connolly. Which is more than I can say for the other show sat across the road in the studios of ITV.
Yes, X-Factor, the newly crowned ‘most tired show on television’ since Big Brother finished earlier in the year. I can sum this show up in a word. Awful. No wait I can do better than that: Terrible. No that’s not good enough: atrocious. No that’s still not covering it: Harrowing. Yeah that’s a bit more like it, shouldn’t have really given myself a one word limit there, but I’d have been here all day if I didn’t.
I can’t stand X-Factor, I genuinely hate its existence. Especially the first few weeks where ITV literally round up people with serious mental health issues and throws them out on stage where they proceed to sing a crumbling rendition of Ronan Keating’s ’When You Say Nothing At All’, which is then followed by Simon Cowell and his motley crew calling them the worst thing they’ve ever seen (amazing how it keeps getting topped isn’t it?) and the audience laughs deliriously at them. They walk off in shame, crying, and are greeted by a smirking Dermot O’Leary who then takes a huge handful of salt and rubs it in their faces turns them round and boots them out onto the streets again. It is actually appalling. This is entertainment? Laughing at mental disorders on a Saturday night?
Well anyway, it bloody well finished last week, thank God, it’s the main benefit to Christmas falling on a Saturday this year. The winner was not Gamu, it was Matt Cardle, who I’ve only just now realised exists on this planet. He used to be a painter and decorator but now he’s the one being decorated by pretty much everyone in the UK media.
I’ll admit, I know nothing about the man, I only found the painter and decorator fact in the Metro where I read up on the amazing final that 20 million people watched. 20 million, that’s over 25% of the British population sat in front of a flashing box watching a bunch of nobodies crawl about on stage desperately clawing at the fabled 15 minutes of fame. I mean who was watching the other channels? Watch could’ve just shown hardcore porn and no one would have noticed!
To me, Matt looks a bit bland. Okay, he’s more memorable than last year’s winner (answers on a postcard), who incidentally entered the chart with his new single at number 68 on Sunday, but he seems to have the charisma of a moth-eaten cardigan. I don’t know, maybe I’m not being fair, I’ve only seen him sing once, and yes he can sing, but who cares? I’ve seen overweight middle-aged women being thrown around a dance floor dressed as a matador’s cape that have entertained me more than this guy!
Apparently Matt beat a girl called Rebecca and a band called ‘One Direction’, which is a brilliant name I have to say, I’m sure they’ll go on to great things. Anyway the cardigan won it and subsequently released his single: Biffy Clyro’s hit record ‘Many of Horror’. That’s when I thought: hang on a minute, according to an interview I read a few weeks ago Matt said he would only release new material, but what’s this? Looks to me like a cover version of an all round popular chart hit. So you lied to us Matt? How could you? Oh no wait, they changed the song title to “When we Collide.” Ah right well that’s alright then.
How gullible is this man? He seriously thinks he has his own life now, where he makes his own decisions. No, you are no property of Simon Cowell and you will go out there and you will sing and dance to the tune of whatever he sees fit until he gets bored of you and simply gets someone else from next year’s X-Factor! Idiot.
Matt was mentored by Dannii Minogue, the less famous of the two sisters, she’s the one who didn’t marry Jason Donovan on Neighbours. She’s one of the four judges and plays one of the more well liked ones. Cheryl Cole is the other female judge, who, to be honest is looking more and more thin by the day. I’m actually worried about her, has she forgotten how to eat or something? She looks like Olive Oil! If she turns to one side she bloody disappears! I’m not entirely sure why Cheryl is on the panel, given she’s an expert in pretty much nothing but she sits there anyway.
Either side of the lovely ladies is behemoth Cowell and Louis Walsh. Cowell, who is still looking more and more like a Pez dispenser by the day, is the meanie of the gang, Officer Dibble if you will. Louis Walsh, well, he’s just Bennie. Louis makes no sense to me when he talks, all I hear is the same thing. Maybe because it is the same thing! Every week he comes out and says to one of the performers “That was the best performance on X-Factor EVER!” If this show gets any better he’s going to end up having a heart attack! Every week it's: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” Until the week after when he says: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” Succeeded by the following week’s show where he says: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” You get the idea.
The X-Factor judges are boring. They have no personality, except for Cowell, they have no talent, and none of them say ‘darling’! At least on Strictly they have a bit of a laugh, alright it’s all aimed at Brucie and Anne Widdecombe, but fair play to them, they all take it with a pinch of salt and they're all good sports. They obviously want to win the show, but if they don’t they don’t go and cry about it. X-Factor contestants treat the show as if it’s the biggest thing that will ever happen to them. I walked into a KFC once, as crap as it was, it was still a better experience than being on the X-Factor. Get over it you bunch of ungrateful idiots. “I’m doing this for my pet goldfish who died when I was only twelve.” Oh Boo-hoo, why don’t you get a job! I’m sure Blooper would be chuffed with that more than this abomination!
Of course X-Factor, like Strictly, is just a panto in disguise. From the tacky set to the stereotypical panto characters sat behind the desks. It’s just cheap, crappy, pointless, soul destroying television. You can actually feel your self respect dripping from your ears whilst watching it, and if you close your eyes you can see your high school form tutor shaking her head disapprovingly at you.
Strictly is okay, good casual viewing, a bit of a laugh and not treated too seriously. X-Factor is rubbish, and you can say “Oh no it isn’t” all you like, it won’t change my mind, because it bloody well is.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
If Radio 2 wore slippers.
You know, I haven’t watched television for a bit. So I thought I’d have a browse on Friday night to see what was gleefully entertaining the nation. I stumbled upon Children in Need! That snuck up on us didn’t it?
I don’t know how I’d managed to forget it was on, but I did. So I was quite surprised when I saw it on the box. I just flicked to BBC One and there he was in all his glory, father to the nation, like an old slipper with a chequered inlay. Terry Wogan in high definition. Bless him.
It’s like the one day a year Britain sees him now, he’s like some sort of softly spoken Irish Santa Claus. He was presenting with Tess Daly who as I write this must be nursing a very painful jaw, she’s be smiling even more than usual on tele this weekend; Children in Need and Strictly. Plastered onto her face, she has the expression of a lonely check-in desk worker at the least busiest airport in the world if Brad Pitt came wandering up with his passport.
All in all it was a decent show, from what I saw of it anyway. Most of it is celebrities generously helping to raise money and then there are always those who are just flogging an album. Mastermind was pretty funny, and Strictly was a lot better with Wogan as a judge. I saw some sort of Eastenders and Coronation Street collaboration which wasn’t actually that good at all but it had a funny moment where Gail and some other woman tried to get one over on each other by saying what they’d been though. A clear mickey take of the writers, well executed. The rest was rubbish.
What else was there? I missed the newsreaders do their usual dance about. How did I manage that? I’ll YouTube it…
Yeah it was pretty average, looks like this year they went with a Lady Gaga theme. Nobody dressed up as meat, out of respect for Ross Noble (she really is a thief), instead they dressed as a satellite, a cleaner, a microphone and Storm from X-men. It was pretty average, I think the producers knew this as they literally dressed a random guy as a Direct Line red telephone and pushed him onto the stage! Seriously what’s that all about? It wasn’t that funny to be honest, I think the funniest thing about it is the audience’s obvious fatigue about half way through after clapping along to the music, by the end they were clapping as frequently as it rains in the Sahara.
I did manage to see Doctor Who invite a couple of kids into the Tardis for tea, which just sounds wrong but it was actually a really nice piece. After which they showed a sneak peek at the upcoming Christmas special which I wasn’t interested in until I saw who was in it! Michael Gambon! I love Gambon, he is quality, I don’t know how the producers got him but a congratulations is in order! Welcome to the Layer Cake indeed.
After the Doctor they went off to see what people had been up to in your area, which for me was London as I was watching on BBC HD and I’ll be darned if I’m putting in the effort to change to normal BBC One! There really were lots of people generously fundraising, B&Q giving lots of money, and Pudsey himself working in some sort of warehouse in a high-vis vest! Hang on. Why does he need that? Who’s going to miss him? That’s health and safety gone mad! I mean he’s big and yellow for crying out loud! They should make cyclists dress as Pudsey the bear! That’d help me out a bit as all they seem to wear round here is a helmet with a tiny blinking red light on it!
Whatever, it was all ruined anyway when I saw the loathsome annoyance that is… I can’t actually bring myself to write her name. I’ll give you a clue, she works on Radio 1, she did Top of the Pops and she did a Nintendo DS advert with her mate Holly Willoughby as well. Anyway, she appeared after that so it was time to change channel.
That’s why I missed the newsreaders!
Well it didn’t turn out to be the best idea I’ve ever had anyway as all you do is end up on ITV watching adverts. And yes I’m greeted with the usual DFS advert. Another sale? Wow, who’d have thought it! It’s not the same sodding sale you’ve had all year round is it?! This isn’t even the annoying part. The annoying part is it’s November 19th, 35 days away from December 25th and it‘s a Christmassy advert!
Every year it seems to get earlier and earlier. This year has to be a new record for me. On October 8th I heard a Christmassy advert on the radio. 78 days before the actual day! I’ve no idea what it was about now but yes jingle bells and all that, for crying out loud it’s ages away! It drives me insane! I know people who have their Christmas tree up already! What’s the bloody point? You might as well just leave it up from last year!
That’s all you get, once the calendar flips over from September to October. Christmas thrown in your gormless face like a soggy custard pie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, it’s probably the best day ever, even if it isn’t as good as it was when you were a kid. It’s just that I only really start to feel Christmassy a little into December, because, well, that’s when Christmas is! All the promotion and constant barrage of the Pogues just ends up making it anti-climatic rather than the crescendo it’s supposed to be.
I just want to walk into a shop in November and not be treated to Noddy Holder shouting “It’s Chriiiiiiiistmassss!” at me. That’d be nice. And I’d love to turn on the TV without seeing Peter Kay dressing up with the M&S girls at a party with Jamie Redknapp on the decks. Yes, you haven’t read that wrong, it exists. It really does. Well it beats webuyanycar at least. God help us if they make a Christmas advert.
Oh well, it’s not like I have anything to do with deciding when Christmas starts. That’s Coca Cola’s job. This year they have decided upon November 12th to kick of the merriness with their ‘Holidays are coming’ advert. Holidays. What is that about? This isn’t America. We need our own version of it here in Britain where Terry Wogan drives it round wearing a cardigan, no pants and slippers smoking a pipe throwing Boots 3 for 2 deals at people as he drives by. Much more realistic. Oh well, such is life.
Happy Holidays one and all.
***
I'll post the Marks and Spencer advert below, see if you can spot Peter Kay's body double.
I don’t know how I’d managed to forget it was on, but I did. So I was quite surprised when I saw it on the box. I just flicked to BBC One and there he was in all his glory, father to the nation, like an old slipper with a chequered inlay. Terry Wogan in high definition. Bless him.
It’s like the one day a year Britain sees him now, he’s like some sort of softly spoken Irish Santa Claus. He was presenting with Tess Daly who as I write this must be nursing a very painful jaw, she’s be smiling even more than usual on tele this weekend; Children in Need and Strictly. Plastered onto her face, she has the expression of a lonely check-in desk worker at the least busiest airport in the world if Brad Pitt came wandering up with his passport.
All in all it was a decent show, from what I saw of it anyway. Most of it is celebrities generously helping to raise money and then there are always those who are just flogging an album. Mastermind was pretty funny, and Strictly was a lot better with Wogan as a judge. I saw some sort of Eastenders and Coronation Street collaboration which wasn’t actually that good at all but it had a funny moment where Gail and some other woman tried to get one over on each other by saying what they’d been though. A clear mickey take of the writers, well executed. The rest was rubbish.
What else was there? I missed the newsreaders do their usual dance about. How did I manage that? I’ll YouTube it…
Yeah it was pretty average, looks like this year they went with a Lady Gaga theme. Nobody dressed up as meat, out of respect for Ross Noble (she really is a thief), instead they dressed as a satellite, a cleaner, a microphone and Storm from X-men. It was pretty average, I think the producers knew this as they literally dressed a random guy as a Direct Line red telephone and pushed him onto the stage! Seriously what’s that all about? It wasn’t that funny to be honest, I think the funniest thing about it is the audience’s obvious fatigue about half way through after clapping along to the music, by the end they were clapping as frequently as it rains in the Sahara.
I did manage to see Doctor Who invite a couple of kids into the Tardis for tea, which just sounds wrong but it was actually a really nice piece. After which they showed a sneak peek at the upcoming Christmas special which I wasn’t interested in until I saw who was in it! Michael Gambon! I love Gambon, he is quality, I don’t know how the producers got him but a congratulations is in order! Welcome to the Layer Cake indeed.
After the Doctor they went off to see what people had been up to in your area, which for me was London as I was watching on BBC HD and I’ll be darned if I’m putting in the effort to change to normal BBC One! There really were lots of people generously fundraising, B&Q giving lots of money, and Pudsey himself working in some sort of warehouse in a high-vis vest! Hang on. Why does he need that? Who’s going to miss him? That’s health and safety gone mad! I mean he’s big and yellow for crying out loud! They should make cyclists dress as Pudsey the bear! That’d help me out a bit as all they seem to wear round here is a helmet with a tiny blinking red light on it!
Whatever, it was all ruined anyway when I saw the loathsome annoyance that is… I can’t actually bring myself to write her name. I’ll give you a clue, she works on Radio 1, she did Top of the Pops and she did a Nintendo DS advert with her mate Holly Willoughby as well. Anyway, she appeared after that so it was time to change channel.
That’s why I missed the newsreaders!
Well it didn’t turn out to be the best idea I’ve ever had anyway as all you do is end up on ITV watching adverts. And yes I’m greeted with the usual DFS advert. Another sale? Wow, who’d have thought it! It’s not the same sodding sale you’ve had all year round is it?! This isn’t even the annoying part. The annoying part is it’s November 19th, 35 days away from December 25th and it‘s a Christmassy advert!
Every year it seems to get earlier and earlier. This year has to be a new record for me. On October 8th I heard a Christmassy advert on the radio. 78 days before the actual day! I’ve no idea what it was about now but yes jingle bells and all that, for crying out loud it’s ages away! It drives me insane! I know people who have their Christmas tree up already! What’s the bloody point? You might as well just leave it up from last year!
That’s all you get, once the calendar flips over from September to October. Christmas thrown in your gormless face like a soggy custard pie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, it’s probably the best day ever, even if it isn’t as good as it was when you were a kid. It’s just that I only really start to feel Christmassy a little into December, because, well, that’s when Christmas is! All the promotion and constant barrage of the Pogues just ends up making it anti-climatic rather than the crescendo it’s supposed to be.
I just want to walk into a shop in November and not be treated to Noddy Holder shouting “It’s Chriiiiiiiistmassss!” at me. That’d be nice. And I’d love to turn on the TV without seeing Peter Kay dressing up with the M&S girls at a party with Jamie Redknapp on the decks. Yes, you haven’t read that wrong, it exists. It really does. Well it beats webuyanycar at least. God help us if they make a Christmas advert.
Oh well, it’s not like I have anything to do with deciding when Christmas starts. That’s Coca Cola’s job. This year they have decided upon November 12th to kick of the merriness with their ‘Holidays are coming’ advert. Holidays. What is that about? This isn’t America. We need our own version of it here in Britain where Terry Wogan drives it round wearing a cardigan, no pants and slippers smoking a pipe throwing Boots 3 for 2 deals at people as he drives by. Much more realistic. Oh well, such is life.
Happy Holidays one and all.
***
Sunday, 31 October 2010
This is Halloween.
It’s Halloween ladies and gentlemen, the best holiday ever. Or not. There’s about as much point to Halloween as there is to a scented candle in a cesspit. If you haven’t noticed it’s Halloween, where have you been? You’ve clearly been indoors all week, and you definitely haven’t been on Facebook where you will find several photos of people dressed as zombies and Beetlejuice again for your viewing pleasure.
Okay, so I don’t like Halloween but it is naturally more appealing to kids. The very same kids you’ll find knocking on your doors later asking you for some food or something. Now, I don’t mind trick or treaters, in fact I think it’s great. For kids to do. Not spotty teenagers with their broken voices and a gormless laughs. Having young kids dress up as scary beasts and monsters go round with their parents is cool. It’s not cool for a group of chavs, with one can of Stella between seven, to come knocking on your door asking for sweets. Get a job!
Speaking of Chavs, this week I’ve been unable to walk into the local convenience store or visit a cash machine without falling over some scally sat cross-legged on the floor with some dummy made out of a broken stick and an old reebok jumper. Penny for the guy? It’s a broken ironing board wearing a sweater you little moron! Shouldn’t he be in school anyway? The kid not the ironing board but I suppose by today’s standards you might as well send an ironing board to school.
So yes to escape the Halloween shenanigans I decided to head out on Saturday night, but that wasn’t as successful a night as it should have been as I’ve never seen so many sixteen year olds wandering the streets dressed as Scooby Doo acting drunk in all my life. Naturally you’d think that upon arriving home everything would be fine again. But I was stupid enough to turn on the television, and someone had left it on Living.
Living. You don’t get a more lacklustre channel than that. And to be honest, I don’t see why it’s even called Living. It should be called Dead, because every single show on the sodding thing has got something to do with death in one form or another. Their flagship shows: Ghost Whisperer, Medium and Drop Dead Diva. Those psychic shows like Psychic Sally, 6ixth Sense with Colin Fry and Crossing Over with John Edward (which is about crossing over into the spirit world, not a show where John Edward helps old ladies across busy streets). But the show that put Living on the map really was Most Haunted.
The basic concept of Most Haunted was basically to just to send a frightened woman into a dark eerie house, turn the lights of and scare the living hell out of her. This woman went by the name of Yvette Fielding and she was at times genuinely entrancing to watch. Whether she was acting or not the way she jumps seven feet in the air after mistakenly touching a crew member’s arm is hilarious. Okay, the show did look pretty fake, especially when Derek Acorah was on the show, but it was still entertaining to watch.
Derek is a self-proclaimed medium but an everyone else-proclaimed actor. Every time I caught him on the show he was being possessed by some evil being. The guy cant go down the road for a loaf of bread without getting possessed by a passing bakery ghoul. I was on a plane with the guy once, luckily there were no spirits in transit else it would have been a very long flight.
So when I turned on the TV and found Living I thought I’d found Most Haunted. But instead I found Paranormal Investigation Live. The difference? Nothing really apart from a few more bells and whistles thrown onto it.
The show consists of two teams: Team Impact and Team GPS. These teams search the insides of a selected haunted house for anything out of the ordinary. The house in question isn’t so much a house but a Castle. Castle Menzies in the Scottish highlands, home to plenty of spirits, ghosts and of course Sir Ming Campbell. Not really but that would be pretty frightening, I’m sure you’d agree.
We’re introduced to the two teams with the usual juddering camera angles and eerie slow-playing piano in the background. Impact introduce themselves first as Paul, Anthony, Ola and Chloe. They search haunted venues across the UK in their spare time. GPS (named after a sat-nav presumably) are the same in every way, except their names are Barri, Phil, Laura and Matt and they use all this fashionable equipment.
The major difference to this show though is that there’s no Yvette. Instead we have Naga Munchetti presenting the show, and she doesn’t go in the house with the investigators. Instead she stays outside in a random sports centre erected just for the purpose of watching the two teams wander aimlessly around the interior of the castle.
Watching with her are two ‘experts’ which I mean in the loosest sense of the word. Expert number one is Ashley Cowie, a historian. We’re introduced to him in a short video where he introduces himself while we get to watch him caress a stone wall and read a small archaic book in slow-motion. Why in slow-motion? I don’t know probably to make it more spooky I suppose but there’s only so much you can do with an upper-class male, a book and a library. Expert number two and probably the most pointless of them both is Dr Rebecca Knibb of Derby University. She plays the role of psychologist, commenting on the reactions of the individual team members and all that malarkey. Again we get an introductory video showing her sat at a desk writing as if she were a GP, which she isn’t, she’s a doctor in something completely different. Of course there’s the background piano making it all seem a bit suspenseful. Maybe.
Anyway, the two teams show up in their overly large vans. Impact emerge dressed as some sort of army marines while GPS look like they’ve come as Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell series. After that we head back to the sports centre to hear the experts talk about myths and legends, including a dragon and such. I got bored and went in search of refreshments.
After making a brew and returning, I found the two teams are in the house. Impact are the first team to get the limelight as they ramble round the kitchen trying to get spirits to come out. And of course, they do all this in night-vision cameras. Thank God. Now I feel like I’m watching Most Haunted again. The pointless dark rooms and the whites of their eyes glaring at you through the screen. Maybe we’ll finally get to see some action.
Actually this has got me thinking. Why do ghosts only come out in the dark? Are they scared of light or something? I don’t get why they have to do this in the dark. But I digress. Impact finally identify that their in a kitchen and one girl says that the fire is warm. Gripping stuff.
GPS aren’t much better mind you. They get to wander around the great hall in pitch black. One team member calls it a little foreboding. Foreboding?! I’m scared to death when I’m left in the darkness of my own house, put me in there and I’d be climbing the walls looking desperately for a box of matches! As for doing something, they don’t. They just get cut off by the sports centre and we’re treated to an ad-break. Great, 20 minutes into this thing and the scariest thing I’ve seen so far is Jennifer Ellison’s acting in that Daz advert.
Turns out I missed nothing during the break, what a surprise. And instead of going back into the house, they keep us with the sports centre again. Argh! What’s the point. I love the way they have Ashley and Dr Knibb sat at desks looking at monitors and typing stuff into their keyboards as if they’re doing something. As far as you know Ashley’s playing solitaire and Dr Knibb is updating her Facebook status: ‘Can’t believe it’s come to this. Happy Halloween lol’
Finally we’re back in the house with team Impact, who are now playing bagpipes as apparently spirits come out when they hear music they used to listen to. So we get to listen to two minutes of that until the track ends and one of the blokes calls out to the ghosts. “If there are any spirits here, please make yourself known, we mean you no harm.” What the? Why do they always say that? “We mean you no harm” what are you going to do to them? Why the heck would they be scared of you? They’re dead. What, have they seen Ghostbusters the night before and now they’re too scared to come out incase Bill Murray appears and zaps them into a tiny Tupperware container?
Anyway they get nothing. So we get to see if GPS are having more luck. They’re not but at least they have cool devises including an ovilus, which is a machine that can pick up spirits. Clever. Unfortunately though they don’t use it, they get out their CD player. Oh no, not the bagpipes again! Crap it is. They try the bagpipes trick. So after another two minutes of nothing they whip out the ovilus. Hurray! But all that does is blurt out random words. How is that helping? Oh the spirits are talking through it. It says worry, smell, fell, eye. Yes! We’re getting somewhere finally. An ad break?! Not cool. Oh well my brew went cold anyway.
We finally get back to the show and it’s the sports centre with Ashley talking about a story where someone fell down the stairs. How interesting, thanks Ashley. Anyway back to the house where the ovilus calls Barri a dick. Easily the best part of the show. The ovilus literally says “you dick.” Simply brilliant! But the team think it says “you check” what a bunch of idiots. Only Laura thinks it said the obvious but she doesn’t want to repeat the foul mouth ghoul’s rhetoric.
To be fair I bet these ghosts get so bored of crap like this. Every year at Halloween they have to put up with a bunch of people and a camera crew loitering around their home. Maybe they’ll come round your house on a random non-holiday. Valentine’s Day could be fun next year.
The show pretty much goes along like this for the rest of the night. The teams throw herbs into fire, put their hands in water, point metal prods at each other, all in the name of science. Well not science. All in the name of TV ratings I suppose. Of course it all happens at about 2cm an hour, to add to the suspense probably, but the constant back and forth between the sports centre and the two teams gets so annoying I’m going out looking for that historian with a black cloak and a big scythe. My goodness he talks so much rubbish it is untrue. Literally. I mean… dragons: seriously?
So that’s it, I sat through about an hour and a half of it and couldn’t take much more. So I went to bed. This was actually the scariest part of the night as upon entering the bedroom the neighbours’ security light etched a shadow of what appeared to be one of hell’s own demons onto my wall leaving me swinging from the lampshade for forty five minutes. Turns out it was only a crisp packet and a silly straw. Such is life. Happy Halloween. I guess.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Dear Britain: Get a grip!
What a week it has been. Ed Miliband chose his front benchers set to fight to the death with their Tory-Liberal counterparts; Nato troops were deprived of fuel supplies as Pakistani Taliban fighters destroyed tankers headed for Afghanistan; the Commonwealth games kicked off in Delhi; and the Chilean miners look close to being released from their underground prison.
Of course nobody cares. Because they’re far too busy protesting radically about the goings on at their football club. I am of course talking about the sale, or non-sale, depending on how you look at it, of Liverpool football club. They’ve been bought by another American firm, NESV, owners of the Boston Red Sox. And of course current owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett like the idea of making money, so they’re attempting to block the sale.
Now, it’s fair to say Liverpool fans don’t quite like them two. So I wasn’t really surprised to find a video on YouTube of Liverpool fans addressing Tom Hicks, telling him and his mate George to get out. Of course the video is given a bit more clout and publicity by having a few celebs pop in to give their two cents on the matter. I say celebs, there’s Ricky Tomlinson, Sue Johnston and John Bishop. There are others, you can tell who the celebs are as they act like they’re important, but I don’t know who they are from Adam.
This is all well and good but they manage to go way, way over the top. One bloke (maybe a celeb) says: “The only way you‘d understand it, how much we feel about this club, is if someone came to your house and burnt it down.” Really? You bloody idiot, so you’re telling me what they’ve done to a business is the equivalent of someone burning your house down?
Then Ricky T comes along half way through to say that they’ve not just stolen their club, but they’ve stolen the game from them. Now, I love Ricky Tomlinson, but that’s just stupid. How can you steal the game of football from someone? Apparently the football fields in Liverpool are deserted, you won’t find kids running around the streets kicking a football about, and Sky Sports is only available to Everton fans. Thanks Hicks I hope you’re happy.
But the one thing that really annoyed me after watching this video is the inconsiderate moron who stands there with his hood up, wearing sunglasses indoors, and spouting: “Imagine if your family, which is what Liverpool Football Club is to most people, especially the real fans who go home and away, it‘s like you‘re raping all of them at once.”
This needs to end now. People need to stop the use of the word rape to mean ‘casually attacked’. It’s one of my big hates, when someone substitutes words like attack, tackle, beat et al, with rape. I mean, how offensive is that? To even imply that rape is just a casual act of violence or offence is just down-right wrong. Yes Hicks has run Liverpool into the ground, but you can’t come out and say he’s a rapist. It’s ridiculous. Rape actually happens, and I’d hardly think those women would liken what they went through with Liverpool Football Club losing money and being unsuccessful. Such an idiot. Anyone wearing sunglasses indoors is, but this guy is something else.
And what was all that about the “real fans who go home and away”? Some real fans would give their left arm to get to watch their football club at home, never mind home AND away! See, the ‘real fans’ are priced out of watching their own team they once supported from the stands, just as their parents did, and their grandparents and their great-grandparents. All because football, since it’s a business, got greedy. Now your average supporter drives a Merc and drinks fine wines as he watches on. Football clubs don’t care who supports them, as long as they have money. Who cares if Liverpool aren’t successful on the pitch? The real fans, once the lifeblood of the team, don’t get to see that pitch anyway.
So yes, I’d like it very much if these melodramatic fools would stop moaning about Liverpool's situation. I think John Bishop put it best when he said “jog on.”
However, these protests have been dwarfed by the backlash that was found after the weekend’s reality TV show evictions. Sigh. This week it's the plight of Gamu, yet another girl shot into a week’s worth of fame by the juggernaut of light-hearted entertainment that is the X-Factor. Now, I first caught wind of this on Monday morning when someone told me how ‘insane’ it was for Cheryl to reject Gamu and choose two other generic cyborgs instead. Of course I brushed off this ‘news’ story and went about my day.
But it didn’t go away. A couple of days passed and Gamu’s face is up on ITV News with the shocking headline ‘Gamu to be deported’. Wow is this what it’s come to? Sorry, you’re not worthy of half-arsed fame brought by the X-factor, please get out of this country and don’t come back (unless you bring money). But no, it turns out the reasoning behind it is the fact that Gamu’s mother’s visa application was turned down. Seriously that’s why it was on ITV News.
Now the country is up in arms! There are people stood outside her house in Scotland, presumably to protest, although they’re not so much protesting but trying to get themselves on TV which is why this whole story even exists in the first place. Then we have a reporter, who must be dismayed that she went to university for this, waving a microphone at the closed door of Gamu’s house interviewing the mother about paper-work.
Okay, first of all, people need to stop complaining about Gamu’s rejection. The show is called X-Factor, it is not a talent show for crying out loud! I mean, Cheryl Cole is one of the judges! She couldn’t find a haystack if you placed one on top of a needle, so why do you think she’ll be able to pick someone talented from a bunch of clowns? Obviously I’ve heard Gamu sing in the last week as I haven’t been living underneath a rock for seven days, and yes, she can sing. But so what? A lot of people can sing. She hasn’t exactly made Cheryl’s water turn to wine has she? Will.I.Am did that. Annoyed.I.Am
Secondly, just because you have a Facebook group it doesn’t mean you can change the law in the UK to allow her to stay here. This must happen to hundreds of people every week. But do people care about them? No. But Gamu was on X-Factor, she’s a national treasure just like Joe McElderry and Kerry McGregor (yes, I just did a Google search). It actually got to the point where new Labour leader Ed Miliband was actually asked his opinion on the matter. Of course he stated the bleeding obvious saying that they can’t make exceptions for X-Factor contestants. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting that question when he was elected.
Scotland's Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop has actually written to the Home Secretary regarding Gamu’s situation stating the following:
You hear that immigrants? Want to stay in the UK? Get yourself on the X-Factor. You want to know the real winner in all this? Simon Cowell, who “really feels for Gamu's situation.”
People need to stop for a minute to look at what they’re bothered about. Aid worker Linda Norgrove, who was taken hostage by terrorists in Afghanistan, was killed this week in a rescue attempt. She had dedicated her life trying to help others who desperately needed aid. If you interviewed the population of Britain and asked them if they knew who Linda Norgrove was, very few would know. But ask the same people who Gamu Nhengu is and a heck of a lot more would be able to tell you. I certainly didn’t see a massively publicised Facebook group campaigning for the release of Linda Norgrove.
***
The full video of the whining Liverpool supporters is below. See how far you can get through it before stopping it.
Of course nobody cares. Because they’re far too busy protesting radically about the goings on at their football club. I am of course talking about the sale, or non-sale, depending on how you look at it, of Liverpool football club. They’ve been bought by another American firm, NESV, owners of the Boston Red Sox. And of course current owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett like the idea of making money, so they’re attempting to block the sale.
Now, it’s fair to say Liverpool fans don’t quite like them two. So I wasn’t really surprised to find a video on YouTube of Liverpool fans addressing Tom Hicks, telling him and his mate George to get out. Of course the video is given a bit more clout and publicity by having a few celebs pop in to give their two cents on the matter. I say celebs, there’s Ricky Tomlinson, Sue Johnston and John Bishop. There are others, you can tell who the celebs are as they act like they’re important, but I don’t know who they are from Adam.
This is all well and good but they manage to go way, way over the top. One bloke (maybe a celeb) says: “The only way you‘d understand it, how much we feel about this club, is if someone came to your house and burnt it down.” Really? You bloody idiot, so you’re telling me what they’ve done to a business is the equivalent of someone burning your house down?
Then Ricky T comes along half way through to say that they’ve not just stolen their club, but they’ve stolen the game from them. Now, I love Ricky Tomlinson, but that’s just stupid. How can you steal the game of football from someone? Apparently the football fields in Liverpool are deserted, you won’t find kids running around the streets kicking a football about, and Sky Sports is only available to Everton fans. Thanks Hicks I hope you’re happy.
But the one thing that really annoyed me after watching this video is the inconsiderate moron who stands there with his hood up, wearing sunglasses indoors, and spouting: “Imagine if your family, which is what Liverpool Football Club is to most people, especially the real fans who go home and away, it‘s like you‘re raping all of them at once.”
This needs to end now. People need to stop the use of the word rape to mean ‘casually attacked’. It’s one of my big hates, when someone substitutes words like attack, tackle, beat et al, with rape. I mean, how offensive is that? To even imply that rape is just a casual act of violence or offence is just down-right wrong. Yes Hicks has run Liverpool into the ground, but you can’t come out and say he’s a rapist. It’s ridiculous. Rape actually happens, and I’d hardly think those women would liken what they went through with Liverpool Football Club losing money and being unsuccessful. Such an idiot. Anyone wearing sunglasses indoors is, but this guy is something else.
And what was all that about the “real fans who go home and away”? Some real fans would give their left arm to get to watch their football club at home, never mind home AND away! See, the ‘real fans’ are priced out of watching their own team they once supported from the stands, just as their parents did, and their grandparents and their great-grandparents. All because football, since it’s a business, got greedy. Now your average supporter drives a Merc and drinks fine wines as he watches on. Football clubs don’t care who supports them, as long as they have money. Who cares if Liverpool aren’t successful on the pitch? The real fans, once the lifeblood of the team, don’t get to see that pitch anyway.
So yes, I’d like it very much if these melodramatic fools would stop moaning about Liverpool's situation. I think John Bishop put it best when he said “jog on.”
However, these protests have been dwarfed by the backlash that was found after the weekend’s reality TV show evictions. Sigh. This week it's the plight of Gamu, yet another girl shot into a week’s worth of fame by the juggernaut of light-hearted entertainment that is the X-Factor. Now, I first caught wind of this on Monday morning when someone told me how ‘insane’ it was for Cheryl to reject Gamu and choose two other generic cyborgs instead. Of course I brushed off this ‘news’ story and went about my day.
But it didn’t go away. A couple of days passed and Gamu’s face is up on ITV News with the shocking headline ‘Gamu to be deported’. Wow is this what it’s come to? Sorry, you’re not worthy of half-arsed fame brought by the X-factor, please get out of this country and don’t come back (unless you bring money). But no, it turns out the reasoning behind it is the fact that Gamu’s mother’s visa application was turned down. Seriously that’s why it was on ITV News.
Now the country is up in arms! There are people stood outside her house in Scotland, presumably to protest, although they’re not so much protesting but trying to get themselves on TV which is why this whole story even exists in the first place. Then we have a reporter, who must be dismayed that she went to university for this, waving a microphone at the closed door of Gamu’s house interviewing the mother about paper-work.
Okay, first of all, people need to stop complaining about Gamu’s rejection. The show is called X-Factor, it is not a talent show for crying out loud! I mean, Cheryl Cole is one of the judges! She couldn’t find a haystack if you placed one on top of a needle, so why do you think she’ll be able to pick someone talented from a bunch of clowns? Obviously I’ve heard Gamu sing in the last week as I haven’t been living underneath a rock for seven days, and yes, she can sing. But so what? A lot of people can sing. She hasn’t exactly made Cheryl’s water turn to wine has she? Will.I.Am did that. Annoyed.I.Am
Secondly, just because you have a Facebook group it doesn’t mean you can change the law in the UK to allow her to stay here. This must happen to hundreds of people every week. But do people care about them? No. But Gamu was on X-Factor, she’s a national treasure just like Joe McElderry and Kerry McGregor (yes, I just did a Google search). It actually got to the point where new Labour leader Ed Miliband was actually asked his opinion on the matter. Of course he stated the bleeding obvious saying that they can’t make exceptions for X-Factor contestants. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting that question when he was elected.
Scotland's Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop has actually written to the Home Secretary regarding Gamu’s situation stating the following:
“As you will also no doubt be aware, Ms Ngazana's daughter, Gamu Nhengu, has been participating in the X Factor television show. Gamu has demonstrated that she is a hugely talented singer, and potentially a great asset to Scotland's cultural community… I would strongly urge you to take a personal interest in the family's circumstances, to ensure that all relevant factors are properly and fully considered, so that any options which would allow them to stay in Scotland are fully explored.”
You hear that immigrants? Want to stay in the UK? Get yourself on the X-Factor. You want to know the real winner in all this? Simon Cowell, who “really feels for Gamu's situation.”
People need to stop for a minute to look at what they’re bothered about. Aid worker Linda Norgrove, who was taken hostage by terrorists in Afghanistan, was killed this week in a rescue attempt. She had dedicated her life trying to help others who desperately needed aid. If you interviewed the population of Britain and asked them if they knew who Linda Norgrove was, very few would know. But ask the same people who Gamu Nhengu is and a heck of a lot more would be able to tell you. I certainly didn’t see a massively publicised Facebook group campaigning for the release of Linda Norgrove.
***
The full video of the whining Liverpool supporters is below. See how far you can get through it before stopping it.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Switch it off standby.
One hundred and forty five pounds and fifty pence. That’s how much a television licence will set you back for one year of flickering light from your idiot box. So for that amount of cash you would probably expect at least something for it wouldn’t you. I mean, when you walk up to an ice cream van you pay a pound and you expect a 99 right? You don’t expect the ice cream man to take your quid, scarper to the driving seat and speed off towards the border do you? So why is it okay for the BBC to take £145.50 from you and do exactly that?
Now, recently the BBC Trust decided to put a freeze on the licence fee, so you will pay £145.50 for the next two years until it goes up again in 2012 where you should probably expect a bit of a hike thanks to the Olympics and of course the end of the world. So for now you can count yourselves lucky.
So where does all the money go? Well, according to the BBC Trust’s figures for 2009/10, 66% of it goes towards television, 17% on radio and just 6% online. The remaining money goes towards such things as investments in new technology and general running costs, not to mention the whole digital TV switchover malarkey.
As you can see then, the bulk of the money goes towards financing the television channels. These channels are: BBC One, Two, Three, and Four, BBC HD, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC News 24, and BBC Parliament. Oh and BBC Alba for the Scottish, something else Scotland can have from the rest of the UK, I’m hoping we get a good Christmas present from them this year.
So obviously there’s a lot to pay for, hence the charging of extortionate amounts of money via the licence fee. Now I don’t mind the BBC too much, I just feel that they are ripping us off really. I just don’t feel we get very much back from it. Unfortunately the Beeb can’t please everyone. For example, I hate Radio One so therefore I don’t listen to it, but some thirteen year old girl might love Radio One so she will listen to it (and probably text in as well while she’s at it telling Jo Wiley how much fun she had at the weekend). I’ve been known to watch Match of the Day, but that very same thirteen year old girl probably doesn’t because she doesn’t understand what’s so enthralling about 22 blokes kicking a ball about a field. It’s okay she’ll learn.
But even taking that fact into consideration I still feel we’re being ripped off! Over the last few years all the BBC has really produced is Doctor Who and Sherlock which are decent enough shows, but they don’t really warrant the fee and Sherlock was only three episodes long and it was basically a Doctor Who spin off! Speaking of which they refuse to be original, all you’ll find on their channels are continuing shows such as Top Gear and repeats of BBC shows from yesteryear. Now this is all very nice but I can find these two things on Dave and UK Gold so for crying out loud do something else!
When they do finally find something else to do, they go and flog it to death. Take Mock the Week for example, which I managed to catch the other night in it’s new graveyard slot. Honestly this show should stop now, it used to be really funny and topical. But now it’s a platform for some of the worst new comedians to yell out some of the most pointless drivel you’ll ever hear. Dara O’Briain doesn’t do anything anymore, Frankie Boyle has gone now and it seems Russell Howard has too. Meaning Hugh Dennis is forced to carry it single-handedly. If I was him I’d be out of there by now, he is far too good for what that show’s become. I mean, what’s the point? You get the same thing on Radio 4 and that costs much less to produce. It needs putting down, it doesn’t know when to quit.
Speaking of not knowing when to quit. Harry and Paul was back on our screens last week. Cheap television: take one idea that’s kind of funny and run with it, and run with it, and run with it, and keep on running with it. Yes, unfortunately it wasn’t the best watch. The past two series were very funny and they were a good social commentary on modern Britain. However, the sketches they do are now redundant, they’ve done all they can with them. The ‘Seen you coming’ sketch, in which Harry Enfield plays a man running a shop in an upper class area selling tat to dim witted women, has now lost its appeal. It’s all been done now, so stop doing it. Instead they have created a rival for him across the road, played by, yes you’ve guessed it, Harry Enfield. There was a prolonged sketch about the Beatles that was terrible, it was literally a filler, they had 5 minutes to fill and did so with this. Lazy and just plain awful. And don’t even get me started on the weird bloke asking a woman if she’s a model sketch. Honestly, what was that about?
It wasn’t all bad, the Dragon’s Den sketches are still funny, but even that was dragged out too much. And Lenny Henry was in it briefly, along with Simon Greenall (Alan Partridge’s Geordie mate). This was the first episode of the series so it may get better. But I doubt it will. It’s the new Little Britain, only with less of the annoying catch phrases.
To be fair to the BBC, it’s not just them who are doing this. Look what ITV have on offer: X-factor, a show so tired Simon Cowell now wears dark glasses to cover up his mid-show snoozes; Family Fortunes, a show so ridiculous they might as well get that 'Rev' Terry Jones’ moustache to host it; and Emmerdale. Then there’s Channel 4: The Inbetweeners, which is what happens when you give E4 writers an 18 certificate, Deal or no Deal, so cheap to make the phone bill is the biggest expenditure, and everyone’s favourite time waste: Big Brother. They all do it. So, comparing them to all the other channels, BBCs television is far superior. But is it really worth £145.50? No, it’s not.
But what are the options? Abolish it completely and have them raise money through advertisements and such is one avenue but that will just create even worse tele than we’re watching right now. We could also have a subscription like service in which you only pay for the programme types you want to watch. Drama or sport for example. That might work. The problem you have really is that the BBC runs programmes and services for a whole range of demographics. It has to supply many things, such as news, sport, kids shows, drama, educational shows and parliament broadcasts for example. It’s not as easy as being say The Disney Channel where all you have to do is make shows to keep teenagers entertained for 20 minutes at a time.
What I would do is simply lower the fee and get rid of the dead wood. It’s not hard to see what they’re wasting money on. Remember the World Cup coverage? So much waste there. They had Chris Moyles and ‘Comedy’ Dave do commentary on a random group match. That was fun. More pundits and reporters than you can wave a red card at went to the tournament, as well as a massive studio for them all. But the worst was paying Emmanuel Adebayor money to be an analyst. Why? Why do this? He knows very little, he’s annoying, he brings nothing to the team and he cant even turn his phone off! Why was he there!?
What else can we bin? Well the whole of BBC Three for a start, Casualty, there’s one, do we really need Holby AND Casualty? How about Eastender’s budget, get that down, the same people would watch it if its budget were 50 pence a year anyway. Sack a few pointless people: Bruce Forsythe, Scott Mills, whoever writes Miranda. Before you know it we’ll have cut expenditure by half and hence we can cut the fee by half and we might even have better quality tele in the process.
It is highly unlikely that we wont have to pay a licence fee in the future though. It’s an effective way of generating cash, and Britain doesn’t have a society that would actually do anything about it anyway. If you look at the big European picture we don’t pay that much for the privilege of TV. Iceland for example have to fork out 32460 króna (£183) a year for it. And our mates over in Germany have to pay 204 euros (£178) a year. Yes, some pay a lot less than us (Ireland, France and Croatia for example) and some don’t even pay anything (Spain, Portugal, Hungary to name but a few) but that’s how their countries are run and they don’t share the same extensive service the Beeb provides. And hey, we could be like the Italians where they show adverts as well as charging for a licence. Well done Italy.
So looking at that it’s not a lot of money really considering what you get for it. But I think my main problem with it is the fact that a wealthy family with seven flat screen LED televisions pays the same amount for it as a much poorer family with only one basic television to all huddle around. Yet so many people of all social classes are always complaining about their money troubles in these hard times, surely it's harder to be poor right? You know some morning radio DJs only get paid £40,000 a month. Keep it in perspective people. Now, where’s my 99?
Now, recently the BBC Trust decided to put a freeze on the licence fee, so you will pay £145.50 for the next two years until it goes up again in 2012 where you should probably expect a bit of a hike thanks to the Olympics and of course the end of the world. So for now you can count yourselves lucky.
So where does all the money go? Well, according to the BBC Trust’s figures for 2009/10, 66% of it goes towards television, 17% on radio and just 6% online. The remaining money goes towards such things as investments in new technology and general running costs, not to mention the whole digital TV switchover malarkey.
As you can see then, the bulk of the money goes towards financing the television channels. These channels are: BBC One, Two, Three, and Four, BBC HD, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC News 24, and BBC Parliament. Oh and BBC Alba for the Scottish, something else Scotland can have from the rest of the UK, I’m hoping we get a good Christmas present from them this year.
So obviously there’s a lot to pay for, hence the charging of extortionate amounts of money via the licence fee. Now I don’t mind the BBC too much, I just feel that they are ripping us off really. I just don’t feel we get very much back from it. Unfortunately the Beeb can’t please everyone. For example, I hate Radio One so therefore I don’t listen to it, but some thirteen year old girl might love Radio One so she will listen to it (and probably text in as well while she’s at it telling Jo Wiley how much fun she had at the weekend). I’ve been known to watch Match of the Day, but that very same thirteen year old girl probably doesn’t because she doesn’t understand what’s so enthralling about 22 blokes kicking a ball about a field. It’s okay she’ll learn.
But even taking that fact into consideration I still feel we’re being ripped off! Over the last few years all the BBC has really produced is Doctor Who and Sherlock which are decent enough shows, but they don’t really warrant the fee and Sherlock was only three episodes long and it was basically a Doctor Who spin off! Speaking of which they refuse to be original, all you’ll find on their channels are continuing shows such as Top Gear and repeats of BBC shows from yesteryear. Now this is all very nice but I can find these two things on Dave and UK Gold so for crying out loud do something else!
When they do finally find something else to do, they go and flog it to death. Take Mock the Week for example, which I managed to catch the other night in it’s new graveyard slot. Honestly this show should stop now, it used to be really funny and topical. But now it’s a platform for some of the worst new comedians to yell out some of the most pointless drivel you’ll ever hear. Dara O’Briain doesn’t do anything anymore, Frankie Boyle has gone now and it seems Russell Howard has too. Meaning Hugh Dennis is forced to carry it single-handedly. If I was him I’d be out of there by now, he is far too good for what that show’s become. I mean, what’s the point? You get the same thing on Radio 4 and that costs much less to produce. It needs putting down, it doesn’t know when to quit.
Speaking of not knowing when to quit. Harry and Paul was back on our screens last week. Cheap television: take one idea that’s kind of funny and run with it, and run with it, and run with it, and keep on running with it. Yes, unfortunately it wasn’t the best watch. The past two series were very funny and they were a good social commentary on modern Britain. However, the sketches they do are now redundant, they’ve done all they can with them. The ‘Seen you coming’ sketch, in which Harry Enfield plays a man running a shop in an upper class area selling tat to dim witted women, has now lost its appeal. It’s all been done now, so stop doing it. Instead they have created a rival for him across the road, played by, yes you’ve guessed it, Harry Enfield. There was a prolonged sketch about the Beatles that was terrible, it was literally a filler, they had 5 minutes to fill and did so with this. Lazy and just plain awful. And don’t even get me started on the weird bloke asking a woman if she’s a model sketch. Honestly, what was that about?
It wasn’t all bad, the Dragon’s Den sketches are still funny, but even that was dragged out too much. And Lenny Henry was in it briefly, along with Simon Greenall (Alan Partridge’s Geordie mate). This was the first episode of the series so it may get better. But I doubt it will. It’s the new Little Britain, only with less of the annoying catch phrases.
To be fair to the BBC, it’s not just them who are doing this. Look what ITV have on offer: X-factor, a show so tired Simon Cowell now wears dark glasses to cover up his mid-show snoozes; Family Fortunes, a show so ridiculous they might as well get that 'Rev' Terry Jones’ moustache to host it; and Emmerdale. Then there’s Channel 4: The Inbetweeners, which is what happens when you give E4 writers an 18 certificate, Deal or no Deal, so cheap to make the phone bill is the biggest expenditure, and everyone’s favourite time waste: Big Brother. They all do it. So, comparing them to all the other channels, BBCs television is far superior. But is it really worth £145.50? No, it’s not.
But what are the options? Abolish it completely and have them raise money through advertisements and such is one avenue but that will just create even worse tele than we’re watching right now. We could also have a subscription like service in which you only pay for the programme types you want to watch. Drama or sport for example. That might work. The problem you have really is that the BBC runs programmes and services for a whole range of demographics. It has to supply many things, such as news, sport, kids shows, drama, educational shows and parliament broadcasts for example. It’s not as easy as being say The Disney Channel where all you have to do is make shows to keep teenagers entertained for 20 minutes at a time.
What I would do is simply lower the fee and get rid of the dead wood. It’s not hard to see what they’re wasting money on. Remember the World Cup coverage? So much waste there. They had Chris Moyles and ‘Comedy’ Dave do commentary on a random group match. That was fun. More pundits and reporters than you can wave a red card at went to the tournament, as well as a massive studio for them all. But the worst was paying Emmanuel Adebayor money to be an analyst. Why? Why do this? He knows very little, he’s annoying, he brings nothing to the team and he cant even turn his phone off! Why was he there!?
What else can we bin? Well the whole of BBC Three for a start, Casualty, there’s one, do we really need Holby AND Casualty? How about Eastender’s budget, get that down, the same people would watch it if its budget were 50 pence a year anyway. Sack a few pointless people: Bruce Forsythe, Scott Mills, whoever writes Miranda. Before you know it we’ll have cut expenditure by half and hence we can cut the fee by half and we might even have better quality tele in the process.
It is highly unlikely that we wont have to pay a licence fee in the future though. It’s an effective way of generating cash, and Britain doesn’t have a society that would actually do anything about it anyway. If you look at the big European picture we don’t pay that much for the privilege of TV. Iceland for example have to fork out 32460 króna (£183) a year for it. And our mates over in Germany have to pay 204 euros (£178) a year. Yes, some pay a lot less than us (Ireland, France and Croatia for example) and some don’t even pay anything (Spain, Portugal, Hungary to name but a few) but that’s how their countries are run and they don’t share the same extensive service the Beeb provides. And hey, we could be like the Italians where they show adverts as well as charging for a licence. Well done Italy.
So looking at that it’s not a lot of money really considering what you get for it. But I think my main problem with it is the fact that a wealthy family with seven flat screen LED televisions pays the same amount for it as a much poorer family with only one basic television to all huddle around. Yet so many people of all social classes are always complaining about their money troubles in these hard times, surely it's harder to be poor right? You know some morning radio DJs only get paid £40,000 a month. Keep it in perspective people. Now, where’s my 99?
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Morning is Broken.
The most depressing thing has been happening over the past couple of weeks. Something so disheartening that even Carole Smillie goes into hibernation. No, I’m not talking about the X-Factor I am of course talking about our big, bold, beautiful sun. Yes, as I write this at 7.45pm the sun is a distant memory over the horizon of nothingness, which can only mean one thing. Winter is upon us.
So much for waiting for the summer. I genuinely can’t remember any summer at all. I seem to recall a week long warm patch back in May but that’s about as good as it got. Now before you know it it’ll be wet, windy, freezing and pitch black as you leave the office to head back to your dreary little town house.
Co-incidentally this horrible series of events has happened just as Daybreak has begun on ITV. It’s not exactly making life any easier for us now is it. You now wake up in the morning all boggle eyed, scrambling for the remote in order to get your first bit of sustenance from your trusty television, only to find Adrian Chiles and Frank Lampard’s girlfriend greeting you with a cheery grin. I say cheery, Bleakley seems to have mastered it but Chiles seems to be visiting the same smile doctor as the Right Honourable Gordon Brown. It’s like watching a bear wipe its arse with a pine cone.
You may have heard that the big transfer news over the summer was Chiles and Bleakley from BBC’s The One Show to ITV’s brand new morning annoyance Daybreak. Chiles went first complaining about Chris Evans (which is fair enough, we’ve all been there) but Bleakley took a while to make up her mind. In the end she left, but she stuck around long enough for the Beeb to take a cell sample from her and clone her. Yes the BBC have replaced the dynamic due with a burly Manc and Bleakley 2.0.
Now, the burly Manc I speak of is none other than comedian Jason Manford, who suffers a bit from ‘northern comedian syndrome’. He’s a bit like a poor man’s Peter Kay. He’s not that bad to be fair to him, to put him in perspective he’s not quite as good as Peter Kay but he’s still miles better than Paddy McGuinness. And if you don’t know who Paddy McGuiness is, he’s from the Greggs adverts, looks like John O’Shea, about as funny as a JCB running over your feet. Twice.
ITV didn’t just steal the presenters mind you. The got the set designer too. Daybreak’s is pretty similar to The One Show’s except it’s purple, very purple. The set has a massive glass window showing off the city of London in all it’s smoggy glory. Seriously you can see bugger all through it. The times I’ve watched it all I’ve seen is three seagulls fighting over a falling cigarette end one of them dropped and what looks like cranes building what I can only assume is a giant green screen so ITV can just put up a pretend sunrise instead of the bleakfest Londoners are subjected to these days.
Now, to be fair, I’m all in favour of Daybreak. I do kind of like it, a bit of a guilty pleasure I suppose, but I’ll take anything to alleviate the horror that was GMTV. A morning show so simple it was just plain insulting at times. Remember when they used to send Keith Chegwin round to some poor sod’s house first thing in the morning. I used to love it when no one answered the door. I’d rather answer the door to Noel Edmonds than that little git. As for the other presenters of sheer bland I’d rather line them all up and catapult them to a far away land using a giant slingshot just so that no one can be subjected to their drivel any longer.
But of all the absolute morons that presented GMTV my absolute worst was always Andrew Castle. I just cant stand the man. He’d be given special treatment, instead of the oversized slingshot I’d have to build a trebuchet just for him, one big enough to send him into orbit. Let’s see you belittle your audience from there you smug ferryman. Every morning I’d turn on the TV and there he was sat upright, next to whoever drew the short straw that week, with his smirking face and hidden eyes talking at you with his innate attitude of sheer patronization, argh it’s enough to make me watch Breakfast.
So thank goodness it’s gone. No longer do I have to put up with the horrible 80s set. No longer do I have to watch the painful chemistry between Kate Garraway and Ben Shepherd. And no longer do I have to sit and watch Andrew bloody Castle every morning. For that reason alone Daybreak is absolutely brilliant in my eyes. Now I only have to put up with him during Wimbledon.
Daybreak’s supporting cast are also better than GMTV's, yes Garraway is still on it, but she’s been given a minor role in entertainment thankfully. As for the weather girl she isn’t really the best, I’d imagine she’s a graduate, or a Blue Peter presenter because she has no idea what she’s doing. I’ve seen her a couple of times and each time I’ve found my self looking over my shoulder because that’s where she’s staring in to. She looks like she’s reading her lines off a large piece of card being held by an unusually tall man slightly to the right of the camera. What is she gawping at!? I really want to know! Is it a mouse? Jim Davidson? The apocalypse? What are you staring at woman!?
Old favourite Dr Hillary is still on it, giving out some mild advice, that can be found in leaflets, to the general public. John Stapleton’s been sent out into the field to find news, gives him something to do I suppose. And they’ve kept GMTV newboy Dan Lobb to read the sport, which is great news for him as he must have been having nightmares of going back to Sky Sports News to repeat himself over and over again to the unemployed.
As for Chiles and Bleakley they’re as much a married couple as ever. They’re not too bad. Better than the previous generation were. It’s pretty much The One Show's setup only it’s found during cereal time rather than tea time. The content is pretty much the same as GMTV: news, sport, ads, a guest, a chatette, ads, weather, ads, feature story. You get the idea. I have noticed though that a lot of their content is just ripped straight off YouTube, like the penalty save that wasn’t or the running dreaming dog. They cut short the YouTube clip and invite you the audience to text in and let them know which one you want to see more of. Which leads me to question: why don’t they just go on YouTube and watch them all yourself. It’d save you a text, and save you the adverts, actually no there’d probably be more adverts. Fair enough keep on texting.
Yes it could be improved. They could have an actual backdrop, they could have bettered the content of the actual show and they could stop trying to cosy up to me whilst I’m still trying to get the sleep out of my eyes, but otherwise I’m pretty happy it’s on.
What I’m not happy about is the fact that at the start of The One Show the great outdoors looks exactly the same as the start of Daybreak. It makes me feel so sad, so very very sad. I’m looking out into the darkness, dreaming of what could have been, wondering if the sun will rise tomorrow morning. All being well it will, but that's the least of my worries right now, Cheggers is at the door.
***
(Seriously though, Alex Jones and Christine Bleakley have got to be twins, or at least sisters.)
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Soapstar Superstars.
Believe it or not soap operas are the most popular thing on TV right now. Usually found sitting in the prime time slots of weeknights, like an unwanted tramp pondering around the Chelsea flower show looking for a damp cigarette, soaps feed on the poor souls who can’t leave the house on a school night.
Some people have their favourite, whether it be BBC’s Eastenders, ITV’s Coronation Street, Five’s Neighbours or Channel 4’s…. wait what do Channel 4 have? Not Brookside the other one. Oh yes Hollyoaks. I’m not even going to get into Hollyoaks right now but for a brief synopsis it’s thirteen out of work manikin doppelgangers talking to each other about how to make an omelette using only left over Shreddies and a broken wine glass. Titillating stuff.
Yes soaps have been wasting our precious hours on this Earth for quite a while now and to be honest I just don’t understand why they’re still going. Well, they get such high ratings so it isn’t a massive surprise actually. It’s like some sort of hypnotic monotony that, if your subjected to it too often, will take over your body and force you to sit and watch every night until you start empathising with the characters on-screen as if they were real family members. No you cannot adopt them. People get so obsessed with these things to the point they think they are actually real. But I must stress, they are not.
I know a few people who don’t watch the soaps themselves but stay updated with what’s going on via a tabloid newspaper with nothing else better to do then tell their hard working journalists to write about Dev’s love life or how many times Grant blinked in last night’s episode. I say journalists but to be honest it’s just a few badgers and a Speak & Spell.
Not all soaps are bad though. My favourite, which I have to admit I follow in the tabloids, is the one about the footballers. I’ve forgotten what it’s called but it was on over the summer, they went on holiday to South Africa, Adrian Chiles was in it. Doesn’t matter. Anyway I’ve loved this soap for a while now and yes I’ve got my favourite characters I like to follow.
We’ve been treated to some great storylines over the years. Remember when Fergie kicked that boot at Beckham? It was so intense. When Glen Johnson was caught stealing from B&Q. I was shocked. How about when Martin Keown jumped around on Ruud van Nistelrooy. I always knew he was a baddie. The writing is so fantastic, you would actually believe that footballers are idiots! Recently though I feel the scriptwriters have tried to up their game but it‘s gotten a little too far-fetched. It started when they gave Darren Bent a Twitter page to enhance audience interaction. That didn’t go down too well. They had to write him out of it in the end and the easiest way to do that was to send him off to Sunderland. Unfortunate, as I thought his character had potential.
After that they subjected us to that wearisome love triangle storyline with Wayne Bridge and John Terry. Team-mates at club level and international level, married man and general love-rat Terry stabbed Bridgey in the back and slept with his ex girlfriend and mother of his son, Vanessa. It sent shockwaves throughout the world, time stood still, people were starting to question not only Terry but themselves. It was gripping stuff. Alright it was over the top but the masses loved it.
They did drag it out for far too long though. There was the drawn out non-handshake, merchandising went mad with the creation of Team Bridge and Team Terry t-shirts (one of which didn’t sell too well) and then they wrapped it all up by having Terry’s wife actually take him back and sending Bridge off to football purgatory (Manchester City). Rubbish ending that. They never even told us what happened to the kids, oh wait I forgot, nobody cares about them.
Since then though we’ve kind of been starved of a good storyline. Nothing to get your teeth into really. Gazza turned up to a stand-off with a KFC bargain bucket, they tried to re-create the non-handshake and there were some boring changing room bust ups in the South African holiday special. Nothing other than that. But lo and behold the scriptwriters have gone back to one of the show’s favourite characters: Wayne Rooney.
Now, I don’t want to have a go at the writers but they’ve gone with another prostitute story for him. I’ll give you the gist: Wayne, fresh from entertaining and generally wowing audiences over the summer in Shrek Forever After, has once again been found cheating on Princess Fiona whilst she was pregnant with his son. He did so in a five-star hotel with a prostitute, who stayed quiet for a while only to reveal her client’s evil intentions to a group of badgers in exchange for a pot of money and a free lunch.
Not the best storyline I’m sure you’ll agree, Wayne’s been put in this situation before with some other prostitute. Now, in that storyline Fiona took him back and that was that really. So you’d expect her to dump him this time round. It’s hard to judge, there’s been a few cheating storylines recently: Ashley Cole, a man who says ‘lol’, ‘rofl’ and ends every sentence in a conversation by saying ‘text back kiss kiss’, has recently divorced his handbag Cheryl; and Peter Crouch was involved in something but that storyline died a horrible death due to lack of interest.
I for one hope that whatever she decides to do it’s dealt with quickly as I’m bored of the cheating stories now. As long as Wayne doesn’t do too many speeches to the media I don’t care what happens to him. I don’t think he’s allowed anymore anyway. Ofcom get inundated with calls every time he opens his festering hell-hole of a mouth. We have a watershed for a reason! I want better stories guys, c’mon, you guys used to be great. I remember when Adrian Mutu was forced to pay his former employer £14 million for shovelling narcotics into his nostrils with a trowel. Such an expensive habit. Or when Ben Thatcher straight up assaulted Pedro Mendes and we had Pedro-cam for about three weeks until something better came up. Bring back those days.
It’s just lazy writing really. We, as fans of this long-running soap, expect more. In tonight's episode Wayne and friends are playing away in Switzerland and I expect someone to be hit by a steel chair at the very least. Don’t worry, it’s on Sky tonight so you won’t miss Corrie.
Some people have their favourite, whether it be BBC’s Eastenders, ITV’s Coronation Street, Five’s Neighbours or Channel 4’s…. wait what do Channel 4 have? Not Brookside the other one. Oh yes Hollyoaks. I’m not even going to get into Hollyoaks right now but for a brief synopsis it’s thirteen out of work manikin doppelgangers talking to each other about how to make an omelette using only left over Shreddies and a broken wine glass. Titillating stuff.
Yes soaps have been wasting our precious hours on this Earth for quite a while now and to be honest I just don’t understand why they’re still going. Well, they get such high ratings so it isn’t a massive surprise actually. It’s like some sort of hypnotic monotony that, if your subjected to it too often, will take over your body and force you to sit and watch every night until you start empathising with the characters on-screen as if they were real family members. No you cannot adopt them. People get so obsessed with these things to the point they think they are actually real. But I must stress, they are not.
I know a few people who don’t watch the soaps themselves but stay updated with what’s going on via a tabloid newspaper with nothing else better to do then tell their hard working journalists to write about Dev’s love life or how many times Grant blinked in last night’s episode. I say journalists but to be honest it’s just a few badgers and a Speak & Spell.
Not all soaps are bad though. My favourite, which I have to admit I follow in the tabloids, is the one about the footballers. I’ve forgotten what it’s called but it was on over the summer, they went on holiday to South Africa, Adrian Chiles was in it. Doesn’t matter. Anyway I’ve loved this soap for a while now and yes I’ve got my favourite characters I like to follow.
We’ve been treated to some great storylines over the years. Remember when Fergie kicked that boot at Beckham? It was so intense. When Glen Johnson was caught stealing from B&Q. I was shocked. How about when Martin Keown jumped around on Ruud van Nistelrooy. I always knew he was a baddie. The writing is so fantastic, you would actually believe that footballers are idiots! Recently though I feel the scriptwriters have tried to up their game but it‘s gotten a little too far-fetched. It started when they gave Darren Bent a Twitter page to enhance audience interaction. That didn’t go down too well. They had to write him out of it in the end and the easiest way to do that was to send him off to Sunderland. Unfortunate, as I thought his character had potential.
After that they subjected us to that wearisome love triangle storyline with Wayne Bridge and John Terry. Team-mates at club level and international level, married man and general love-rat Terry stabbed Bridgey in the back and slept with his ex girlfriend and mother of his son, Vanessa. It sent shockwaves throughout the world, time stood still, people were starting to question not only Terry but themselves. It was gripping stuff. Alright it was over the top but the masses loved it.
They did drag it out for far too long though. There was the drawn out non-handshake, merchandising went mad with the creation of Team Bridge and Team Terry t-shirts (one of which didn’t sell too well) and then they wrapped it all up by having Terry’s wife actually take him back and sending Bridge off to football purgatory (Manchester City). Rubbish ending that. They never even told us what happened to the kids, oh wait I forgot, nobody cares about them.
Since then though we’ve kind of been starved of a good storyline. Nothing to get your teeth into really. Gazza turned up to a stand-off with a KFC bargain bucket, they tried to re-create the non-handshake and there were some boring changing room bust ups in the South African holiday special. Nothing other than that. But lo and behold the scriptwriters have gone back to one of the show’s favourite characters: Wayne Rooney.
Now, I don’t want to have a go at the writers but they’ve gone with another prostitute story for him. I’ll give you the gist: Wayne, fresh from entertaining and generally wowing audiences over the summer in Shrek Forever After, has once again been found cheating on Princess Fiona whilst she was pregnant with his son. He did so in a five-star hotel with a prostitute, who stayed quiet for a while only to reveal her client’s evil intentions to a group of badgers in exchange for a pot of money and a free lunch.
Not the best storyline I’m sure you’ll agree, Wayne’s been put in this situation before with some other prostitute. Now, in that storyline Fiona took him back and that was that really. So you’d expect her to dump him this time round. It’s hard to judge, there’s been a few cheating storylines recently: Ashley Cole, a man who says ‘lol’, ‘rofl’ and ends every sentence in a conversation by saying ‘text back kiss kiss’, has recently divorced his handbag Cheryl; and Peter Crouch was involved in something but that storyline died a horrible death due to lack of interest.
I for one hope that whatever she decides to do it’s dealt with quickly as I’m bored of the cheating stories now. As long as Wayne doesn’t do too many speeches to the media I don’t care what happens to him. I don’t think he’s allowed anymore anyway. Ofcom get inundated with calls every time he opens his festering hell-hole of a mouth. We have a watershed for a reason! I want better stories guys, c’mon, you guys used to be great. I remember when Adrian Mutu was forced to pay his former employer £14 million for shovelling narcotics into his nostrils with a trowel. Such an expensive habit. Or when Ben Thatcher straight up assaulted Pedro Mendes and we had Pedro-cam for about three weeks until something better came up. Bring back those days.
It’s just lazy writing really. We, as fans of this long-running soap, expect more. In tonight's episode Wayne and friends are playing away in Switzerland and I expect someone to be hit by a steel chair at the very least. Don’t worry, it’s on Sky tonight so you won’t miss Corrie.
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Whatever you say, Mr. Billboard.
Have you noticed there’s not much happiness going around at the moment. Seems like everywhere I turn there’s a woman sobbing on her knees, or a tormented policeman trying to coax a man down from an open window, only to end up climbing the stairs himself and swan-diving into the concrete abyss. You don’t think anyone’s happy? Well may I direct your attention to the megalomaniacs making a tidy sum of off the brainwashed masses who buy their meaningless tat. How do they do it I hear you ask. Advertisements (See dictionary definition ‘scourge’).
Advertising has come a long way since the very first entrepreneur caveman started spouting about the tar pit he was offering a dip in for a mere 7 strands of hair and a jagged rock. Of course he looked like a loveable little rascal, but upon looking a little deeper and you’d find he only owned the tar pit because he killed the previous owner with a stone rose and a Gillette razor. Oh and the tar pit killed you. Gruesomely. Small print didn’t exist in those days.
Of course nowadays there are standards so no sneaky little bugger can trick you into killing yourself for a buck. People who have stepped in and told McDonalds it’s not okay to make kids fat, and BT’s Adam and Jane that they’re too boring for television. These heroes of modern society are knows as the ASA - the Advertising Standards Authority. They’re the guys who patrol the entire broadcasting network of the UK. Expect a charity to pop up for them soon.
Cigarettes for example, have been around for a while, torturing humans and making people excessively rich in the process. Fag companies used to advertise everywhere, billboards, television, radio, you name it. I’m fairly sure they went to the moon before Armstrong and set up an advert just for him (and Buzz) to see when they got there. Thankfully for humanity though they were forced to put warnings on their adverts and products. But thankfully for the cigarette firms, people are idiots and will smoke anyway. So it didn’t take too long for them to be banned from advertising entirely.
There is of course the inevitable loopholes. The ASA are self regulatory and are therefore run by the advertising industry itself. So realistically anything is allowed really. It’s a bit like having a guard dog, but instead of choosing a Doberman they’ve got themselves a Tamagotchi. I found a Rizla advert on my msn before, it’s rolling paper, not necessarily for tobacco you see, but yes based on that fact you should expect an increase in puff pastry commercials. Oh and there’s also the number one advert that makes such an impression on kids they’re puffing away before they‘ve even sat their first sex education class: smoking parents.
Television (see scourge) brought with it a massive boom in the ad-game. Now companies could beam themselves directly into your poxy little living room and invade you like the French did, leaving you feeling violated and nibbling the corner of a stale baguette. It all kicked off a bit of a revolution. Creative people in suits and ascots holding a croissant in one hand and a fountain pen in the other, set out to create 30 second long clips of charm and pure persuasion for the moneybags who couldn’t be arsed doing it themselves. Hence the rise of advertising companies.
They’d create all sorts of gems like the Cadbury gorilla, the big ad for Carlton Draught or the Xbox bang bang advert, which was banned actually. Typical, I‘m not giving to your charity now. Nike have produced some decent ones in the past, as have Coca-Cola. Remember that Snowman ad for Irn Bru? Brilliant. Or the one where Brains from Thunderbirds danced like Christopher Walken on crack. Epic. Or when Apple did that 1984 advert where that woman threw a sledgehammer into her oppressor's beaming face. Ironic. Some I never really liked were the Guinness ones, they were just tiresome, superficial and pretentious but they always got massive acclaim. “Tick follows tick follows tick follows tock” boring! The recent one with the domino effect is better.
But recently advertisements have got a bit, what’s the word? Pathetic. The creative swanks who left the country for better rewards have been replaced by retarded walruses in mustard stained t-shirts who scribble all over an A3 piece of paper with a piece of fudge brownie and hand it in to their boss who looks at the paper, tries to pretend that he isn’t drunk, and gives it the green light. Advertisers now pretty much resort to annoying the hell out of their target audience and anyone else who’s unfortunate enough to be caught in the crossfire. Because tedious annoyance is memorable.
Exhibit A: we have the Go Compare man. Yes you know him, the obese younger brother of the Pringles bloke who runs around telling upper class women they can save daddy’s money and gallivanting around a desert island telling anyone who happens to be marooned there they can save a few quid. Sorry but if I was deserted on a paradisal island I tend to think I’d make up an imaginary character like Wilson from Cast Away. Not a fat bloke in a tux running around telling me to compare! My therapist told me to stop comparing.
Exhibit B: we have the fabulous piece of creative genius that is the advert for webuyanycar.com. I feel I must genuinely apologise for bringing this up. It starts with a normal looking man behind a news desk, nothing bothersome here, but then all of a sudden from nowhere, a sneak attack of pure evil emanates from him. He stands up and starts singing a song about the unnecessary service they offer. Imagine Westlife wrote their own songs, you’re not even close. It is the most aggravating commercial on the box right now, it’s the only advert that will make me flick to the next channel. As soon as I see his obnoxious little face and his news desk I’m off. Gone. I’m on Channel 4 watching the ultimate Big Brother, and by Joe I’m not going back, not for at least 45 seconds in which I’ll probably forget what I was watching and therefore miss the last 15 minutes of Poirot. Sigh.
In short it’s not only horrendous advertising but it’s costing commercial television money. Say you own a tambourine company and you’d like to advertise your new bad-ass percussion instrument on ITV during the final episode of The Bill (because hey, the viewers will need something to entertain themselves with now). Okay, so now imagine the nice lady on the other end wants to schedule you straight after a webuyanycar advert. Are you going to do that? Hell no! The best place to be is on the very next channel, three seconds into the webuyanycar ad. This company annoys me so much I’m thinking of giving them a call and seeing how much I can get for my micro-machines. “Hello yes, a small hatchback it is, how much? Size? Erm I‘d say about one and a half centimetres.” Actually I’ve realised a flaw in my scheme already, it’s online. Crap, I bet they don’t have a micro-machine option. But I bet they do have a Jazz option! Ok here’s what we’ll do: we’ll all go on their site and offer them a big talking transformer called Jazz. If enough of us do it we should be able to shut them down forever or at least make fifty quid and cause mild discomfort at their headquarters. Why do I get the image of the Death Star when I imagine their headquarters? Weird.
You must be wondering how this kind of advertisement is actually successful? I’ll tell you how. People are idiots. Like the smoking ads of yesteryear they could write ‘Warning! Going on Go Compare will cause Aunt Bessie to come round your house and kill you with a pair of oven mitts’ and people would still go on it. If a advert during Corrie wrote ‘JUMP’ in big letters across the screen, the UK would witness an earthquake so powerful the Earth’s very core would implode and God himself would get a sun tan from the aftermath. Okay maybe a slight exaggeration, but you have God to thank that they haven’t done that during the Superbowl broadcast over in the States.
The future of television isn’t all that bleak though. We have Sky+! Or V+ if you’re on Virgin. I’m not 100% sure on what the plus means. I’m just guessing it means positive, because you can record stuff and whiz through the ad breaks! This thing seriously made me so much happier. It’s like every channel is the BBC. Happiness reigns! Now that very same woman is on her knees crying tears of joy, and that guy just jumped into the policeman’s arms and they’re going on a romantic getaway to Cyprus. This can only mean one thing. The evil bosses at Tat inc. are not happy, money’s not coming in as quickly as it used to, and rent on the inside of a volcano isn’t cheap.
So they have to find new ways of getting your attention. Putting an advert in the actual show is one way of doing it, I hear in the next Britain’s Got Talent Ant will have a Burger King billboard pasted to his forehead and Dec will just dress up as the King himself, not sure which will be more obvious. Celebrity endorsement is usually a winner for advertisers too. Depends who you get mind you. John Smith picked a winner with Peter Kay, can’t say Iceland did the same with Kerry Katona. It’s used in the political world too, remember when Oprah Winfrey told us Barrack Obama would fix the matrix? Look who’s in the White House. It’s like celebrity top trumps. Now we know that Oprah beats Chuck Norris. Mike Huckabee had Chuck Norris. Chuck friggin’ Norris and he still lost. I suppose it depends on your party though. Eddie Izzard couldn’t even get Labour to lose with dignity earlier this year.
A favourite weapon of the overlords that cant be avoided like an ad-break however is product placement. You just have to train yourself not to notice it or be mentally corrupted by it. The odd bottle of Sprite on the set of Emmerdale. Innocent enough isn’t it? Wrong! It’s pure evil! I like to think I’ve managed to be immune to this sort of thing. Okay so I watched the Premier League match at the weekend on ESPN and I might have seen an advert for ‘liking’ Manchester United on facebook, and I might have ‘liked’ them afterwards. But that’s just one time, and besides I do like United, don’t I? Oh God they’ve got to me. Before long I’ll be in Clown College.
I wouldn’t mind adverts if they weren’t so darn painful and annoying. They’re not all bad, sometimes a good one will appear from nowhere and surprise you. But we need more of them to stop this horrible oppression! Sledgehammer to Steve Jobs anyone?
Advertising has come a long way since the very first entrepreneur caveman started spouting about the tar pit he was offering a dip in for a mere 7 strands of hair and a jagged rock. Of course he looked like a loveable little rascal, but upon looking a little deeper and you’d find he only owned the tar pit because he killed the previous owner with a stone rose and a Gillette razor. Oh and the tar pit killed you. Gruesomely. Small print didn’t exist in those days.
Of course nowadays there are standards so no sneaky little bugger can trick you into killing yourself for a buck. People who have stepped in and told McDonalds it’s not okay to make kids fat, and BT’s Adam and Jane that they’re too boring for television. These heroes of modern society are knows as the ASA - the Advertising Standards Authority. They’re the guys who patrol the entire broadcasting network of the UK. Expect a charity to pop up for them soon.
Cigarettes for example, have been around for a while, torturing humans and making people excessively rich in the process. Fag companies used to advertise everywhere, billboards, television, radio, you name it. I’m fairly sure they went to the moon before Armstrong and set up an advert just for him (and Buzz) to see when they got there. Thankfully for humanity though they were forced to put warnings on their adverts and products. But thankfully for the cigarette firms, people are idiots and will smoke anyway. So it didn’t take too long for them to be banned from advertising entirely.
There is of course the inevitable loopholes. The ASA are self regulatory and are therefore run by the advertising industry itself. So realistically anything is allowed really. It’s a bit like having a guard dog, but instead of choosing a Doberman they’ve got themselves a Tamagotchi. I found a Rizla advert on my msn before, it’s rolling paper, not necessarily for tobacco you see, but yes based on that fact you should expect an increase in puff pastry commercials. Oh and there’s also the number one advert that makes such an impression on kids they’re puffing away before they‘ve even sat their first sex education class: smoking parents.
Television (see scourge) brought with it a massive boom in the ad-game. Now companies could beam themselves directly into your poxy little living room and invade you like the French did, leaving you feeling violated and nibbling the corner of a stale baguette. It all kicked off a bit of a revolution. Creative people in suits and ascots holding a croissant in one hand and a fountain pen in the other, set out to create 30 second long clips of charm and pure persuasion for the moneybags who couldn’t be arsed doing it themselves. Hence the rise of advertising companies.
They’d create all sorts of gems like the Cadbury gorilla, the big ad for Carlton Draught or the Xbox bang bang advert, which was banned actually. Typical, I‘m not giving to your charity now. Nike have produced some decent ones in the past, as have Coca-Cola. Remember that Snowman ad for Irn Bru? Brilliant. Or the one where Brains from Thunderbirds danced like Christopher Walken on crack. Epic. Or when Apple did that 1984 advert where that woman threw a sledgehammer into her oppressor's beaming face. Ironic. Some I never really liked were the Guinness ones, they were just tiresome, superficial and pretentious but they always got massive acclaim. “Tick follows tick follows tick follows tock” boring! The recent one with the domino effect is better.
But recently advertisements have got a bit, what’s the word? Pathetic. The creative swanks who left the country for better rewards have been replaced by retarded walruses in mustard stained t-shirts who scribble all over an A3 piece of paper with a piece of fudge brownie and hand it in to their boss who looks at the paper, tries to pretend that he isn’t drunk, and gives it the green light. Advertisers now pretty much resort to annoying the hell out of their target audience and anyone else who’s unfortunate enough to be caught in the crossfire. Because tedious annoyance is memorable.
Exhibit A: we have the Go Compare man. Yes you know him, the obese younger brother of the Pringles bloke who runs around telling upper class women they can save daddy’s money and gallivanting around a desert island telling anyone who happens to be marooned there they can save a few quid. Sorry but if I was deserted on a paradisal island I tend to think I’d make up an imaginary character like Wilson from Cast Away. Not a fat bloke in a tux running around telling me to compare! My therapist told me to stop comparing.
Exhibit B: we have the fabulous piece of creative genius that is the advert for webuyanycar.com. I feel I must genuinely apologise for bringing this up. It starts with a normal looking man behind a news desk, nothing bothersome here, but then all of a sudden from nowhere, a sneak attack of pure evil emanates from him. He stands up and starts singing a song about the unnecessary service they offer. Imagine Westlife wrote their own songs, you’re not even close. It is the most aggravating commercial on the box right now, it’s the only advert that will make me flick to the next channel. As soon as I see his obnoxious little face and his news desk I’m off. Gone. I’m on Channel 4 watching the ultimate Big Brother, and by Joe I’m not going back, not for at least 45 seconds in which I’ll probably forget what I was watching and therefore miss the last 15 minutes of Poirot. Sigh.
In short it’s not only horrendous advertising but it’s costing commercial television money. Say you own a tambourine company and you’d like to advertise your new bad-ass percussion instrument on ITV during the final episode of The Bill (because hey, the viewers will need something to entertain themselves with now). Okay, so now imagine the nice lady on the other end wants to schedule you straight after a webuyanycar advert. Are you going to do that? Hell no! The best place to be is on the very next channel, three seconds into the webuyanycar ad. This company annoys me so much I’m thinking of giving them a call and seeing how much I can get for my micro-machines. “Hello yes, a small hatchback it is, how much? Size? Erm I‘d say about one and a half centimetres.” Actually I’ve realised a flaw in my scheme already, it’s online. Crap, I bet they don’t have a micro-machine option. But I bet they do have a Jazz option! Ok here’s what we’ll do: we’ll all go on their site and offer them a big talking transformer called Jazz. If enough of us do it we should be able to shut them down forever or at least make fifty quid and cause mild discomfort at their headquarters. Why do I get the image of the Death Star when I imagine their headquarters? Weird.
You must be wondering how this kind of advertisement is actually successful? I’ll tell you how. People are idiots. Like the smoking ads of yesteryear they could write ‘Warning! Going on Go Compare will cause Aunt Bessie to come round your house and kill you with a pair of oven mitts’ and people would still go on it. If a advert during Corrie wrote ‘JUMP’ in big letters across the screen, the UK would witness an earthquake so powerful the Earth’s very core would implode and God himself would get a sun tan from the aftermath. Okay maybe a slight exaggeration, but you have God to thank that they haven’t done that during the Superbowl broadcast over in the States.
The future of television isn’t all that bleak though. We have Sky+! Or V+ if you’re on Virgin. I’m not 100% sure on what the plus means. I’m just guessing it means positive, because you can record stuff and whiz through the ad breaks! This thing seriously made me so much happier. It’s like every channel is the BBC. Happiness reigns! Now that very same woman is on her knees crying tears of joy, and that guy just jumped into the policeman’s arms and they’re going on a romantic getaway to Cyprus. This can only mean one thing. The evil bosses at Tat inc. are not happy, money’s not coming in as quickly as it used to, and rent on the inside of a volcano isn’t cheap.
So they have to find new ways of getting your attention. Putting an advert in the actual show is one way of doing it, I hear in the next Britain’s Got Talent Ant will have a Burger King billboard pasted to his forehead and Dec will just dress up as the King himself, not sure which will be more obvious. Celebrity endorsement is usually a winner for advertisers too. Depends who you get mind you. John Smith picked a winner with Peter Kay, can’t say Iceland did the same with Kerry Katona. It’s used in the political world too, remember when Oprah Winfrey told us Barrack Obama would fix the matrix? Look who’s in the White House. It’s like celebrity top trumps. Now we know that Oprah beats Chuck Norris. Mike Huckabee had Chuck Norris. Chuck friggin’ Norris and he still lost. I suppose it depends on your party though. Eddie Izzard couldn’t even get Labour to lose with dignity earlier this year.
A favourite weapon of the overlords that cant be avoided like an ad-break however is product placement. You just have to train yourself not to notice it or be mentally corrupted by it. The odd bottle of Sprite on the set of Emmerdale. Innocent enough isn’t it? Wrong! It’s pure evil! I like to think I’ve managed to be immune to this sort of thing. Okay so I watched the Premier League match at the weekend on ESPN and I might have seen an advert for ‘liking’ Manchester United on facebook, and I might have ‘liked’ them afterwards. But that’s just one time, and besides I do like United, don’t I? Oh God they’ve got to me. Before long I’ll be in Clown College.
I wouldn’t mind adverts if they weren’t so darn painful and annoying. They’re not all bad, sometimes a good one will appear from nowhere and surprise you. But we need more of them to stop this horrible oppression! Sledgehammer to Steve Jobs anyone?
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