Sunday, March 29, 2009

Light Entertainment

Parminder is sitting down, watching telly. Which part of her body is most in contact with the sofa? Is it:

(a) her arse

(b) her elbow

Only answer (a) or (b) not both.

Now turn over.


I'm pretty much OK with them drafting O Levels so that even the least sentient students are capable of being marked. It's questionable whether they challenge the brightest/hardest-working but still.... that's a whole nuther argument. Why, though, must the BBC follow this trend and make all of its programmes appeal to the dimmest viewer when doing so turns off those who might be worth a Grade C or above?

Cutting edge documentaries, on the Beeb, now go no further than sending some old buffer tootling off along the Wye Valley in a '56 Morris Oxford, grumbling about how much has changed. Rogue Traders, the other night, even had a sidekick for the presenter - a Portuguese bloke whose function it was to act dumb while words of more than two syllables were explained to him ('him' = proxy for the target audience). Oh, how the Diversity Dept. must have agonised before they came up with a nationality it was alright to patronise.

I can't bring myself to watch a whole programme... there was one about Ethiopia the other week that dealt with some fairly deep facts about population growth. But the gushing pubescents presenting it got the better of me before half-way. The one-time 'flagship', Panorama, now fronted by a Radio2 DJ, with its shallow subject-matter, cut-cut-cut photography and that damned ubiquitous low-bass urrrrrrrrr music to ominously underscore every serious point in case we're too thick to get it, is unwatchable.

According to many in the Blogosphere, it's all a plot to avoid letting the populace know how bad things are. That could well be true - that and the fact that "inclusiveness" has to include not only the half-wits but also those in the foreign community who've only recently arrived and can't speak the language.

Years ago (or so it seems) ITV was for the people who loved nothing more high-brow than Coronation Street and Hughie Green, while the rest of us sat nodding at the wisdom of Dr. Bronowski, ogling Joan Bakewell, or getting our kicks via The Old Grey Whistle Test. That was as it should be.... the commercial channels need mass audiences for flogging staples of the poor like Jaffa Cakes, Wonderloaf and Cadbury's Smash. The BBC doesn't. Leave it to them, I say.

5 comments:

Anne said...

Blimey ASU, you're getting more Meldrewvian every day!

I agree with you though. Aunty Beeb has gone senile. Heh. I don't watch the gogglebox much these days. Radio still has its moments.

"inclusiveness" has to include not only the half-wits but also those in the foreign community who've only recently arrived and can't speak the language.

But erm, do you have a problem with foreign people? We are going to have to get used to them. And think differently about nationality and territory.

What with the oceans rising and the Sahara advancing into southern Europe, we aint seen nothing yet.

All Shook Up said...

I am, aren't I? Ironic, really that it was Richard Wilson tootling along the Wye Valley - post-Meldrewian, then, me.

Nah.. I like foreign people. Some of the culture they bring with them is a problem, though.

When you going to start your blog??

Selena Dreamy said...

"I can't bring myself to watch a whole programme..."

I can't even bring myself to switch one on...

Instead I've decided to try and will myself to death. We're doomed and I've accepted it!

Anna Raccoon said...

Leave Coronation Street alone - it is positively high brow compared to the rest of the rubbish - and at least you are allowed to laugh occasionally, lately at some one with a (whisper) darker skin - that would never be allowed on the BBC!

Andrew Marr on The Origin of the Species was a flashback to the good old days though - I actually learnt something, and I can't remember the last time I could say that of a TV programme.

Mind you, if they were any good, none of we bloggers would have an audience!

All Shook Up said...

Don't do it Dreamy - losing the will to live isn't the same as willing yourself to die!

Oh, Anna... Dark people in Coronation Street! What would Ena say... and poor Mr Swindley must be turning in his grave.

Did Marr give any clues as to what he evolved from?