Let me explain something to all you poor people out there who aren’t British like what I am. It must be awful for you.
OK, I’ll start again.
Let me explain something about British TV. We have five free-to-air, terrestrial, analogue TV channels in Britain, two from the BBC and three independents. There are still a lot of people over here, including me, who rely entirely on those five channels for their TV viewing.
Last night, one of the commercial channels ran a scheduled interview with Prince William and his girlfriend (they got engaged yesterday, remember?) Damn me if three of the other channels – including BBC1 – didn’t run the same interview at the same time in place of their own scheduled programmes. Now, I’m not an avid TV viewer, but if I were I’d be hopping bloody mad at this unwarranted presumption. The only alternative to ‘William and Kate’ was an episode of Coast on BBC2 that’s already on about its fourth repeat.
Let me explain something else. The British monarchy is a constitutional tool. As I said yesterday, it’s an alternative to a dictatorship or a republic. In that respect only, it’s sort of useful. The individual members of the royal family, however, are singularly unimportant. They have no real power; they’re just there to give body to the constitutional tool. They’re figureheads, pure and simple. So why the hell must we put up with having 80% of the terrestrial TV programming devoted to an interview with one of them?
What prompted me to make this post, though, was the discovery that this silly little saga is to plumb new depths tonight. Channel Five is running an hour-long documentary entitled ‘William and Kate. Where did it all go right?’ Oh my giddy aunt! I feel inclined to cast random expletives to the wind, but they wouldn’t be strong enough. I feel moved to reach for the sick bag, but it wouldn’t be big enough. This is Mills and bloody Boon made manifest. And do you know what? I’ll bet millions of people will be glued to their TV sets with a box of tissues on one arm of the chair and a box of chocolates on the other. And their pink-rinsed poodles will probably be beaten into cowering submission if they presume to so much as snore at any point in the proceedings.
All this silliness does serve one useful purpose, however. It provides full vindication for my feelings of disconnectedness from this ridiculous culture and its absurd values.
7 comments:
You're too much Jeff, I'm in tears. It is absolutely ridiculous but it's all over the newspapers here too, bumping news of a raised terrorist alert in Berlin to page two. One headline actually reads, "Kate William" with the "Will" italicized which is the word "want" in German, thus creating the pun auf Deutsch: "Kate wants him." Oh, brother. I hope you survive your T.V. viewing, I suppose you'll stay away from it. I would!
I'm actually thinking of emigrating before the wedding, Della. That just might push me over the edge. But where to go? I gather the story is big in America, and now I find that Germany seems to think it warrants attention, too. Heaven knows why. If only I could believe the German sense of humour was ironic.
I wouldn't go to America under any circumstances. For one thing, the media circus there is possibly even worse than in Britain (have you ever experienced Fox News?). Here the media tends to be dryer, the politics more mundane, and everything just a few notches down from remotely enthusiastic (which suits my personality better anyway). Hopefully the interest in W&K is just a momentary glitch. This isn't to say we don't have our versions of Ian Duncan Smith – I'm sure you've heard the nonsense talk lately about die Ausländer. Some lessons are never learned.
There was actually a little feature on Brit TV recently about how wild, silly and partisan some American news channels are becoming, but I've been waiting for a backlash ever since a black man got elected President. But I wonder what would happen if a person from an ethnic minority group were ever to be elected as leader of one of the major parties. Old prejudices are still only a little way beneath the surface.
Haven't heard of die Auslander. Is that a bit of a 30's revival movement?
Frankly, I remember American media being awful back in 80's when I still lived there, so this is an evolutionary thing really. I'm sorry, I always think everyone knows more German than I do (even those not living here :) Auslander just means "foreigner," (– or were you just joking?)
Firstly, Della - I meant to write 'one of the major parties in Britain...' in my last comment.
And no, I wasn't joking this time. Presumably then, the 'auslander' thing is all about migrant workers, a large number of whom are only there because Germany and France invented the Common Market (as it was then known) for their own economic benefit. As for the rest, I think all the major European countries have a bit of a cheek complaining about foreigners, given their own expansionist ambitions over the last few centuries. And I think the same applies to Americans when you consider what they did to the natives.
Off soap box.
Oh, I get it now :)) Yes, well said. See you on next soap box.
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