Posted by tigertom on Nov 29, 2005 in
General As I get older, I find more television programmes unbearable. It’s not entirely the programme makers fault. Instead of an evening’s viewing, there are now 24 hours to fill up, across umpteen channels.
So they have ‘filler’. Currently, it’s ‘Reality TV’. Except nothing on TV is real. It should be called ‘unscripted documentary TV’.
Surely there is no more room for property, ‘make-over’ or romance-based programs. How about this: "Fat Single Woman With Hooligan Kids Renovating Property in Provence".
A quintuple whammy. The kids’ psychotherapist becomes her boyfriend and helps her renovate the house, in an idealised foreign setting, while she drops two dress sizes.
[It's MY concept! I thought of it first! The rights belong to MMEEEEEeeee!.]
UK soap operas. Have some fun: flick through the five UK terrestrial channels between 6 and 10pm. Score a point if a woman is crying. Score five points if a woman is reproaching a man. Score ten points if he whines pathetically in reply. Score fifteen if she then storms out of the room.
In reality, your average red-blooded British male would say "Aw, piss orf, ya silly cah!" before she’d got two words out, and then head off down the pub.
UK TV dramas are full of misery. As an Irishman, I can’t believe that people enjoy these. I’ve lived in London’s East End. Real Cockneys occasionally smile and crack a joke.
Directors have got a bad habit of using blue filters as well, to ‘heighten’ the miserable mood. It’s terrible crap. Thank God for the programmable video recorder. Record the shows you like, fast forward through the ads and ‘talking about our feelings’ segments.
Posted by tigertom on Nov 26, 2005 in
General Aw, geez, for the luvva …
It is scarcely credible that the President of The United States could seriously consider bombing a TV station whose views he disagreed with. Especially one in the domain of a friendly power (Qatar). His advisors seem to have the mean-spiritedness of Richard Nixon, while he has the bumbling demeanour of Gerald Ford.
A lot of people witter on about President Bush. He’s this, he’s that. He seems to me to be a ‘good ole’ boy’, with firm Protestant moral convictions (except in business), out of his depth when dealing with countries that have hundreds of years more experience of skullduggery, venality and cussedness.
I think he’s being prodded by advisers who are looking to their own short-term business interests, rather than the greater good.
He has the same problem as Tony Blair; not rich enough to say "get stuffed" to those more powerful than him. No military experience, again like Tony Blah, so he doesn’t realise the terrible consequences of thinking you can have a ’short, sharp war’.
I suppose it’s the difference between Hollyword propaganda and reality. The media defines our view of the world beyond our doorstep. American news is full of crime, so American are paranoid. UK news is full of political woe, so Briton are depressed. Show business was always the business of the beautiful, gilded lie. American media churns out thinly-disguised morality plays. Their themes are ‘family’, ‘teamwork’ ’stick up for the little guy’, ‘prejudice is wrong’, ‘Go USA!’, ‘we’re sorry about all that slavery business’, "I love you Dad", "I love you too, son!", and my pet hate ‘It’s good to talk about your feelings’ (actually it can be very BAD, if those feelings are negative, but that’s a topic for another day). And a lot of people world-wide believe in it. I think Americans do too.
The reality is armed, fearful Biblical literalists holed up in the mountains, afraid of their own neighbours. Poor black people living in ghettoes. Poor white people living in trailer parks. Americans don’t seem to know much about how the other half lives, or other countries. One Arab country is probably very much like another. Except Saudi Arabia. America guarantees its security, and in turn the Saudis supply the oil, and the occasional generous donation.
I wonder what would happen if America and China ever fell out? America covets China’s markets. China owns a lot of American debt. America is a democracy. China is a dictatorship; they wipe their nose on the idea of civil rights. Funny thing is, because the only foreign currency most people are aware of is the dollar, America’s economy is probably safe for the time being. It’s unlikely its creditors will start offloading its currency, for what else could they put it into?
See? Advertising works. 
Posted by tigertom on Nov 15, 2005 in
General http://www.telediscount.co.uk
Telediscount.co.uk give very cheap calls via your normal land line. Probably not
as cheap as Skype, but no fiddling with software involved, excellent
signal quality.
I can usually tell I’m being called on a cheapo VOIP line, as they’re
often half-duplex, so if you talk, the other guy can’t. Or have they
changed?
Another trick is if you pick up the receiver of a ringing phone, and say
‘hello’, and if you hear nothing but a slight hiss for half a second,
that’s your cue to say "I’m sorry, I don’t want any financial products"
and put the receiver down.
[The half second is the voice-recognition software kicking in]
Probably old-hat to USA folk, but starting to be more common in the UK. I’ve also had some auto-dialled ads. ‘Phone spam!
Posted by tigertom on Nov 15, 2005 in
General Let’s see:
- Expense of a foreign war,
- Consumer spending down,
- Slowdown in lending as it approaches saturation point,
- More personal bankruptcies,
- More repossessions,
- A Chancellor who wants to make the poor middle-class by giving them tax-payers money,
- Insane increase in Government staffing levels, approaching Indian levels of inefficiency,
- Bodged Private Finance Initiatives,
- Mediocre politicians desperately clinging on to power, before getting a final shove.
On a positive note:
The housing market will stabilise, as there really isn’t anything else worth investing in for Joe Public.
The stock market has been exposed as a crooked gambling den, pensions have been blighted by bloated expectations and the Chancellors idiotic taxation of them. There’s nothing else to invest in.
Tony Blair’s third term will be overshadowed by scandal and his abdication of power by announcing his retirement too early. Should taxes go up (as is likely), and the economy down (quite possible), his exit may be speeded up by a populace coming down off its credit ‘high’, and realising it is, to all intents and purposes, skint, save for the roof over its head.