This is the last post I shall ever do on a TV show. Some years ago I switched off the telly when Vanesa Feltz was featured as a panellist on an afternoon current affairs programme, on the reasonable basis that I wanted no part of a society in which Vanessa Feltz was a cultural arbiter.
Gradually I drifted back to the box. Well, no more. I've had another such Damascan moment. Celebrity Big Brother:
The rapid and ludicrous escalation of something so artificed to some sort of international incident would have had Swift and pals chuckling and slapping their thighs at yet another victory for Dulness...
The 'row', according to BBC correspondent currently in India Nick Robinson, is 'damaging Britain's reputation'. Indeed it is, but only to the extent that it's internationally embarrassing this has become the most important topic of debate of the moment, apparently across the entire populace. Did we of the UK suddenly forget the old global warming, war everywhere, 'mysteriously' dropped Saudi Arabian fraud investigations, road and rail infrastructure decaying exponentially, building on greenfield sites so that every last square metre of land can be tarmac'ed..?
Well, apparently 'we' did, racist in-breds that we all are. The scant minutes I've endured of the programme illustrate nothing more than people [some of whom did not attain 'celebrity' through their intellectual acumen and discursive acuity, it might be observed] in an awkward and deliberately intensified atmosphere not coping very well with each other - what a surprise.
The show's producers must doing a little tv exec jig of glee at all the attention their show is now getting [if I can use the word jig in this context]... The whole 'game' - as Sylvester Stallone succinctly dubbed it -and how dismal is the field of reference when Sylvester Stallone is a voice of reason? - is predicated on an accepted exploitation of 'them' the slebs and 'us' the plebs, for the benefit of tv co Endemol, which sounds like a haemorrhoid cream, except they're the pain in the arse. I have otherwise intelligent mates watching it, stroking their chins and saying 'yes, yes...' with knowing nods and narrowed eyes. Total herd manipulation - and here I am baa-humbugging like everyone else. Baa! And bah!
Allegory:
[Geordie Accented Voice-Over]: 'Day 14,602,555. America is kicking the Middle East to death in the garden. Britain is in the diary room.'
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1 comment:
I think Sly's a pretty clever fella. (he said, breezily)
He understands how people tick on the most instinctual, emotional level, so who better to get to the bottom of BB?
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