The BBC

The BBC is a public service broadcaster, designed to bring the best in television and radio to the United Kingdom. Tonight I decided not to watch the too smart know-all kids on 'Junior Mastermind,' and the snooker is too slow for my mood. Turning to 'Freeview' I discovered that in spite of the indoor aerials inability to show a complete picture every time a vehicle passes by I could obtain a clear picture from BBC 4. What delight do we find on the channel, set up at enormous cost, for the intellectual elite? Batman! Batman! a series that began in 1966 and was too stupid for the five year olds of the nation! Now it is presented to the adult twenty some things who BBC 4 is aimed at! Stone the crows! 'Clunk' and 'Kapow!' Bad acting and cameras at odd angles. I believe there is a story line, but I could be wrong. Something is wrong somewhere!

I am paying something like £138 a year, which I can hardly afford, for a TV licence. This money goes towards paying for the BBC. This money I am happy to pay if I could find some programmes worth watching. Instead I find soap opera after soap opera, each the same, the good guy, the bad guys (mostly bad these days), the tense story line - adultery, jealousy, anger, malice, maybe murder if the ratings are slow and a disaster every so often. 'Emmerdale,' set in a country village, appears from the intro to have around twenty seven house, a church, a pub and a village hall. There are one or two farms around, employing maybe three people at most, and little else. In its time there has been around 300 divorces, fifteen murders, several fires and car crashes and on top of this, so to speak, a plane fell on the village! The intro has never changed! OK, that one is on ITV not the Beeb, but they are all the same. The Beebs 'EastEnders' has the record of fewest smiles in a programme. In nearly twenty years nobody has ever smiled or grinned, ever! Although 'Dirty Den' may have smirked after punching someones lights out occasionally, but that's different.

Drama in days of yore used to mean a cop series or what was then called a 'play.' Today drama is no more than a soap opera under another name. Usually a woman is in a man's world fighting male oppression or the barmaid is chasing a priest, and the usual good guys and bad guys fill the screen Even historical programmes are reduced to this dumbed down level. No matter who the historical character may be the trailer for the programme will feature an aggressive man, a stern faced man and a slapper ripping her bodice. Doesn't matter who is the hero, facts are reduced to fit what the audience wants. Factual documentaries are reduced in this way by turning them into dramas with the introduction of actors failing to convey the person they portray.

Now this is a shame. The BBC at its best produces the best documentaries, the best comedies 'Hancock,' 'One Foot in the Grave,' 'Only Fools and Horses' and the like, the best news coverage and yet has for the past twenty years, after Conservative politicians demanded ratings improve if the licence fee should stay, has dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. This is not good enough.

Of course the British part of the name is a misnomer. It really means 'English,' and always has. Some would say it is indeed only the so called 'Home Counties' that matter, the rest can stick as far as London is concerned. They have a point, how often do you hear a Birmingham voice, or one from Norfolk or Cornwall, and there is now way a Geordie would ever get on, nobody could understand them! Scotland of course has a separate BBC up to a point, but only up to a point, the money stays in London. While the Scotland team play games at Hampden Park, Glasgow, the Scots have England shown on their TV! London will not allow enough to buy the rights, so Scotland's home games go to 'SKY!' Shocking!

Nothing funny so far eh? No, but it has filled a few minutes of your life. You sad creature you!
TV is poor, some days I see nothing on a wide variety of channels. Now as you know, TV is a good thing, but let's be honest, while God Creates the devil perverts, and so much is just not worth watching. Talk shows in which people's broken lives are held up to world scrutiny really make me mad! They are happy to use daft folk to get ratings and make money. I would love to help these folk and hate seeing them ridiculed by an audience of cretins. This is not right!

Television is a wonderful invention (a Scot was the inventor by the way) and has many uses. Parliament debates on one hand live football on the other, it educates kids as well as bores the parents. It keeps us company when alone and saves many in our fragmented society from despair. It can be good, so why is it I find myself so often looking for a book? Oh well.