Ridiculous TV wages

I used to be something of a TV addict, which was possibly something of an achievement as I don’t have any interest in any of the slops such as the soaps or reality (have you ever seen anything less realistic?) shows. Probably more of a drama, factual, documentary, comedy person, this used to include quiz and game shows until they were taken over as showcases for nobodies that wanted “5 minutes of fame”.

As it is, I don’t even bother to wire in any of my video recorders into the system any longer, and I used to have four (together with a home cinema system to control them all), and just watch what comes along when it suits - and that generally means something from the past, probably the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s. That’s probably the period before the talentless discovered they could become famous by belching, farting, or smashing themselves in the face with a hammer.

Channel 4’s Countdown was a nice simple bolthole that one could take refuge in, and has largely avoided most of the irritating jazzing-up that producers seem to think is necessary with each new series. The only thing it really suffered from was the guest commentator, or celebrity, although the mild nature of the show at least ensured they appeared much as themselves, rather than their persona, so they were largely bearable.

I recall Carol Vorderman’s first appearance on TV, as a presenter on Tomorrow’s World, soon deserted. She kept on popping up, and we learnt she had earned millions from writing books years and years ago, so she’s never been short of a penny or two, or in need of another paying job. But, that didn’t stop her, and it seems she’s been coining it in for 26 years on Countdown.

Now that she’s leaving the show - and there seems to be all sorts of nastiness being stirred up around this - her wages have come into the news: Vorderman’s agent said on Saturday that the star felt forced to step down from the show when she was told to take a 90% pay cut from a salary understood to be in the region of £1m. The reason appears to be in dispute, but no-one had jumped in to dismiss the figure given.

I don’t think I’ll be watching Countdown again - whether it’s Vorderman or a replacement, the idea of someone being paid £1 million per year for placing nine cards into a grid a few times over the course of the programme, occasionally solving a simple mental arithmetic puzzle, and laughing on cue at the host’s jokes is just something I can’t take. And this million is on top of whatever is still coming in from the books, and any other exhorbitant fees for the other TV programmes and appearences she makes, and any celebrity jollies she’ll pick up a penny for showing her face at.

Nice work (that’s work?) if you can get, as they say.

If she enjoys the job so much, she can easily afford to do it for nothing, or at a nurse’s wage level. I don’t fly the flag of nurse’s pay, but it’s a handy comparison in terms of reward with regard to the value of the individual concerned.

To reuse the word “ridiculous”, that’s the only way to describe a comment made by Kathryn Apanowicz (Richard Whiteley’s ex-partner) who said of a 90% cut in that £1 million wage: “She was even contemplating taking this ridiculous figure that they offered her”.

I could probably be talked into shuffling some cards for £100,000 per annum.

It will be interesting to see if the truth about whatever is going wrong with the programme surfaces, since the current host, Des O’Connor, also handed his notice in at almost the same time, and I thought that was something of a coincidence - and started waiting for the conspiracy theory to appear in the news.

Boiled Horse and Cat

No, not spotted on the menu during an evening out on the town, but a pic spotted on the net of Sarah Jessic, oops, a potential boiled horse grooming an innocent little kitteh, just look where that long is pointing:

more cat pictures

Dragons Dens Series 6 Ep 1

The sixth series of BBC2’s Dragons’ Den kicked off tonight, and managed to deliver the now familiar mix of worthy cases for some funding, together with a dash of hopefuls that have you wondering if there is a team of orderlies in white coats  waiting at the exits with those jackets that are tied shut at the back, and have no holes for the hands to exit the sleeves.

But first, a word about the camera operators - are they ex-Top Gear employees? This programmes, also BBC2, used to suffer from truly atrocious camerawork as the operators seemed to view with one another from week to week to see how could produce the most irritating and intrusive and fades while moving from scene to scene, leaving you eyeballs feeling as if someone had used them to play ping-pong. Dragons’ Den seems to have the same problem now, with jarring step focus changes, odd angles, and unnecessary changes of view. We can only hope the operators are spotted by a music video producer, and moved on quickly.

There’s really one team of cowboys to comment on this week, and its the pair of con artists that turned up caliming to produce water from air. When you’re presented with crap that like from the moment they open their mouths, you know you’ve got trouble, and they went on to prove this in style. They were full of it every time they opened their mouths, even suggesting that producing water by using electricity to condense it by chilling the air was green and environmentally sound - as one of my colleagues used to say when presentations like this started “At least Dick Turpin wore a mask”.

Deborah Meaden- was spot on when she picked on the browbeating techniques of the “super-salesman” and pegged him as a Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman, not only was he willing to admit that he had been such a bully, he was ready to boast about it. You can go find Kirby yourself, I’m not advertising for them. This has to be one of the most reprehensible companies around, and you may remember them for their repeated appearances on That’s Life with Esther Rantzen. As far as selling goes, Kirby’s salesmen had one tool, get in your door and don’t leave until you’ve made a sale, if that means browbeating the customer for hours (the pitch can be 2-3 hours once they’re in)  until they’ve been beaten into submission, then so be it. And the deal is not cheap, neither are Kirby vacuum cleaners, finance is preferable, and they choose area where their victims will need finance to purchase their cleaners at vastly inflated prices - how else would they make their money? They just loved to people to who had no money to sign up for finance, then chase them for payment for years. Then there was the service, or lack of it, as those same folk who were being chased for their payments had no cleaner - once it broke, it was a case of weeks and months for service, if it was ever delivered.

I’m genuinely stunned that anyone standing in front of the Dragons would even admit to being involved with Kirby, worse still, the idiots with the water-from-air machine even described their operation as pyramid selling, and various other reprehensible descriptions too. It’s a wonder the Dragons didn’t call security and have them thrown out on their ears.

I have a special place reserved for people like Mr “super-salesman” - First against the wall when the revolution comes!

I’ve always been amazed to see that a tiny little Kirby shop stays open along the road from me. I only found it by chance some years ago, when I decided to go exploring down streets I don’t usually have a reason to go down. I didn’t even associated it with the Kirby con, and went to have a look in the window, and there were the cleaners, looking as ancient as they ever did. I don’t know if they’ve ever been updated, I haven’t been back for years, but they looked like escapees from the 1940s or thereabouts, as if they just kept churning the same stuff out year after year, until the machinery wears out. While they may be lovely aluminium castings, they have a price tag somewhere in the £800 or more (maybe lots more now since I haven’t come across then for years now) range, for an obsolete machine, to be paid at £10 a week, plus a suitably exorbitant rate of interest. Not a bargain, or even a good deal.

I went into that little shop once, not for anything Kirby of course, but it had a big sign over the window advertising service for a vacuum cleaner I do own - and I was looking for a part after a coin had trashed a blade inside one of its turbine brushes. When I eventually managed to get the less then intelligent girl minding the store to understand I wasn’t in the shop for anything to do with Kirby, but because of the sign, realisation dawned, but I was then informed that “He didn’t do that anymore, but had just left the sign up”.

I’m glad “He” was out that day, or it might have taken me 2 or 3 hours to get back out the door!

Whatever, the chancers were ejected with not a penny, and their plan to fleece their sales staff and customers was more than quickly uncovered.

The participants that won finding in this opening programme weren’t from the usual genres either, so the Dragons may be looking to invest in different areas in the the current economic climate, so it will be interesting to see if this is a one-off, or of the trend continues next week.

On reflection, I think they missed a trick, and should have kept Mr Kirby super-salesman there for another three hours or so, trying to talk his way into the money before they turned him down. He was already sweating buckets just from starting his pitch, and would have melted away to a wee greasy spot, or had a stroke or something if they’d kept him going. He would have deserved it too, for providing a sample machine that hadn’t been properly purged or set up, and was producing cat’s pee for the Dragons to sample.

Sex and the Boiled Horse

In keeping with the anolgies drawn by one of my heroes on Dragon’s Den, I’d rather have my eyelids sewn open with a rusty needle threaded with rusty barbed war and have paint stripper poured on them than watch “Sex and the City”. God knows where they find the mindless zombies that must be lined up to provide viewing figures, and now we have to watch adverts sponsored by this rubbish and featuring the tarts that appear in it.

I never thought I’d have anything even remotely complimentary to say about this programme, but I’m prepared to eat my words and thank it for one of the best images I have had conjured up for me in years.

I’ve never understood what the attraction of Sarah Jessica Parker was. All I see whenever she appears on screen is big wart which, combined with the rest of her face, just makes me want to throw up - sex is the last thing her appearance bring to mind for me.

And I’m not alone…

Thanks to Jeremy Clarkson’s inspired review of Sarah Jessica Parker’s appearance, I now have his description of her as “A boiled Horse”, so I now have a mental image of her that doesn’t make me want to puke when I see her.

Thank you Mr Clarkson.

I tried to find a quote of his description on the net, but came up with this instead:

Horsey pics

Time to fire the ASA

After reading an article that listed  the Top 10 most controversial ads, I’m even more convinced in my belief that the Advertising Standards Authority ranks amongst the most useless of organisations, and is chaired by a bunch of old women with nothing better to do, and no grasp of reality.

The top complaint (774 complaints) was about anti-smoking ad, of which we are told: “Many of those who complained said the adverts were offensive, frightening and distressing. The largest group of complaints related to the poster ads and the effect they could have on children.”

That sounds to me like the very reasons for creating and showing the ads, it was (or would have done) what it was supposed to do if the old women at the ASA hadn’t been around to interfere, and they proved they have no grasp of reality, when they upheld the complaint instead of laughing it out of the room.

There’s a time for “glove’s on” and there’s a time for “glove’s off”, and this was clearly  a time for “off”!

2. TRIDENT GUM - 519 COMPLAINTS

Upheld on basis of unintentionally offending a significant minority.

3. RUSTLERS - 219 COMPLAINTS

Partly Upheld as it was shown during a children’s film.

4. MFI - 217 COMPLAINTS

Upheld for showing actual domestic violence.

5. QUORN - 181 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

6. COCA COLA GREAT BRITAIN - 180 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

7. BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION - 122 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

8. JOHN WYETH & BROTHER LTD - SMA NUTRITION - 109 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

9. PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS (PETA) - 68 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

10. NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD - THE SUN - 56 COMPLAINTS

Not upheld.

I’m not wasting time repeating the finding, you can read the original article for that, but look at the spread of numbers: 774 for the top item, down to 56 for number 10.

Given the population of the UK, isn’t it ridiculous that the old women at the ASA can influence ads, with only a literal handful of complaints? And just who are the complainers, individuals with nothing better to do than watch adverts (hell, there’s so many now I feel I’m having to work hard to avoid them) or is it groups with agenda’s, and reasons to make these complaints and have the ads pulled?

As I intimated at the start, the ASA’s little more than a joke, with no real purpose and doing nothing to maintain any sort of standards in advertising.

Witness the dreadful USwitch advert that typecast a black Gospel choir with a a bunch of black people miming (badly) to the words - I can’t believe that rubbish hadn’t generated more complaints than the above.

Then there’s the mobile phone and texting adverts that areclearly little more then procurement services for prostitution or sexual services. Near naked teenage girls filmed in extreme close-up with husky voice-overs encouraging the viewer to text and chat and meet etc etc, or to receive videos. If you are an insomniac, then you get bombarded with this  trash all night. Item 10 above, the Sun ad, is laughable by comparison.

As for standards, if the ASA was really maintaining any sort of standards within the industry then they’d do something about the sponsor tags that are repeated incessantly between the programme breaks and the actual adverts. On long programmes or films, these are little short of brainwashing, being repeated 12 or more times in a single hour when a particularly popular programme is broadcast.

The ASA should do a proper job, or shut its doors and stop being paid to do very little of any value.

F1 on ITV - advertsing gone daft

F1 on ITV has to rank as the one of the worst slaves to advertisers, possibly coming second only to all the crime/drama programmes ruined by the endless AXA sponsor tags that ITV sold its soul to.

Qualifying has been mode boring enough by the change to this daft multi-session format produced to supposedly make it more ‘interesting’ (for which read ’short sessions to allow adverts to be jammed in without having to find a gap in all that inconvenient qualifying stuff that is getting in the way of the ad breaks’), and what used to be a programme that took little more than the old ‘Qualifying Hour’ has now grown into a 2 hour plus grind of  tittle tattle about the drivers, teams, managers, and the sport (and of course, the ad-breaks).

Selling out to money-mad Sony as sponsors was never going to be good, and we now have the pleasure of eac ad-break being punctuated with a plug at each end for ITV, F1, some driver’s face, Sony, and some crappy piece of music they’ve chosen, which appropriately features the word ‘Madness’ in its interminably repeated showings.

The programme segments aren’t even worth staying still long enough to watch in some cases. I made the mistake of getting up to investigate a noise at my door just as one part of the qualifying programmed began after the blasted Sony music - I only had to wander to the door, check there was nobody there, or anything suspicious happening, and wander back to my seat - I don’t own a mansion, but in the time it took to do that, when I sat down again, all I was treated to was the blasted Sony ‘Madness’ score yet again, and another batch of adverts.

Why bother squeezing in a programme section of a minute or two? Just make it all adverts and at least we’d know we had time to go make tea or coffee, or write War & Peace, while the ads were on!

Bionic tat

“Bionic Woman,” an updating of the 1970s show featuring Lindsay Wagner, first appeared on NBC in the fall. It was approved by something called the Family Friendly Programming Forum, a flock of 40 advertisers seeking more “family-friendly” programming.

In confidential casting information, the producers, seeking to add fresh concepts to a three-decade-old idea, had been searching for an actress to play the important role of Becca Sommers, teenage sister to the star (Michelle Ryan, pictured). Among the requirements: Caucasian and sexy.

That is, we guess, one description of “family friendly” - given it was decreed by advertisers, some of us might say something else.

For my part, there’s little on the small screen (or is that big widescreen nowadays?) that bothers or offends me, but the choice of a star that appears semi-naked in publicity shots would be something I’d expect a body called the Family Friendly Programming Forum to use as reason to cross her programmes off their list, unless their real agenda is something else, driven by dollars, and (shhhh) s**-appeal.

Formulaic Rubbish

One of the notable things about ‘new’ TV series, such as the aferementioned Bionic Woman, that marks the noughties is that it all seems to follow the same formula, presumably laid down by the marketing teams that want to catch the sponsor’s eyes and ensure they get their client’s a slice of the current round of funding.

I should be enjoying this series, and Blade: The Series, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but all seem to have been produced by the same mincing machine, and all I feel is that each subjects me to the same 50 minutes of shouting, screaming, fighting, arguing, and false moralising by ‘The Hero’, which varies only by the character. Close your eyes, and there’s little to distinguish them.

The other thing that’s noticeable is the desperate attempt by the writers to make their female leads ’strong’.

The end result is more like a 1950’s B movie, based on typecast concepts of male/female role reversal, where rather than simply swap around the male/female dominance of the time, the scriptwriters created a dystopian society ruled by women, and enforced by thuggery. The modern equivalent with the New Bionic Woman and Sarah Connors gives is the same thing packaged up in character that refuses to be lead, and takes the lead ‘with attitude’, not interested in listening to anyone else, because they have decided to make a stand, and ‘Be Strong’, and if a man should dare to advise her otherwise, he’d better watch out, as he’s likely to get a thick lip, or smashed through a door and thrown out for his trouble. Our heroine is ‘Strong’, and doesn’t need anybody’s help, especially a man’s.

Maybe all these ‘formula writers’ and ’sponsor whores’ will have died by the tens or twenties, and we might get some decent TV programmes again - if we don’t die waiting.

The sixties and seventies

This was brought home recently, when ITV started to show original series from the 1960s and 1970s, in between their adverts. The writers I refer to above mock these programmes because they weren’t produced on anything like the budgets they have, and without the technology (neither of which improve a rubbish concept incidentally). In reality, by not having more ‘Bang for Their Buck’, writers of that time had to get their sponsorship by providing an interesting theme.

Whereas programmes of that time had “A Beginning, A Middle, and An End”, a plot, characters, storyline, and theme that the viwwer had to make at least a token effort to follow, most modern series bow to the great god of the ‘Three Minute Culture’, and one can land anywhere in any programme and start to follow the (non-existent) plot, as there will be a noisy fight, argument, or special effect scene along in a few minutes, as these programmes are often little more than an excuse to string these events together.

Don’t believe me? Try it with the Blade TV series. I’ve been ‘watching’ this for weeks, since it started, and only with my one bad eye. The reason being the good one is busy working on some some software. I haven’t watched an episode properly, yet the plot is so shallow I’m still up to speed on the whole thing and its characters, even though I’ve barely watched more than 10 minutes of any episode.

Try doing that with vintage TV, written by proper writers, rather than sponsor magnets.

Johnny Smith go home

Watching Channel Five’s Fifth Gear motoring programme is becoming really depressing. Woolly mop head Tom Ford is becoming the best full time presenter, as Vicki Butler Henderson’s endless guffaws are becoming more numerous during her reports, and are very tiresome and irritating. However, turn the sound down and her driving is still entertaining, even if you lose the point of the report as a result.

No, the depression comes every week when the pointless Johnny Smith makes his appearance.

What’s he there for?

In terms of intelligence, my cat demonstrates more sense and intelligence than this moron. Ever since he turned up, his items have been characterised as being little more than the rambling of an immature schoolboy, and every time I see him, all I can think of is the time this boy genius bolted a Smart car on to the roof of another Smart car, in the name of making a four-seater, and was then surprised when the pair rolled over as he demonstrated his driving skills.

His items are all in a similar vein, making you wonder how much he is paid to waste the programme’s time.

The thing I’ve never understood is what he thinks he looks like. Generally a shabby mess, he dresses in what looks like clothes rejected by a charity shop, and that they would have burnt as ‘irrecoverable’. From a distance, his face looks as if he sits with a black ‘Magic Marker’ and draws silly shaped sideburns on his cheeks, and a comical sliver of a beard down his chin. The reality is worse, and when the camera offers a closeup, then the result can only be described as horrific. The ‘beard’ and sideburns are real, but his skin looks like something that would send a beautician running for the hills, with the pores blocked solid with blackheads - or at least that’s what the director’s chosen camera shot and angle make it look like like.

No wonder the talent of the show, Tiff Needell and Jason Plato, make light of their appearances, and don’t appear in the main stream, just articles. They’ve probably got terms written in their contract to ensure that the programme is structured such that they remained distanced from direct association with the the other three, which could ruin their credibility… more.

I wish we could get back to simple motoring programmes, where the presenters aren’t chosen to be ’stars’. Top Gear’s too full of itself and its larger than life presenters, AND has sold out to the cult of celebrity with free publicity for a ‘Star’ every week. Recent addition Vroom Vroom is so puerile, using an assortment of bimbos to flesh out its brainless car tests. The Used Car Road Show largely manages to hit the spot, but suffers some from vacuous moments (the dolly bird and the superfluous auction story each week, where she advises the buyer with gems such as - “Jason says it’s a good idea to start the engine and see of any warning lights come on, and listen to the engine” Duh!), and being stretched to fill an hour long slot. Possibly the best offering that manages to avoid celebrities, not insult the viewer, review real cars -with supercars appearing only occasionally for a little spice - is Pulling Power. The only problem seems to be the director’s overuse of the same piece of musical punctuation and logo between items - it seems to appear every time the presenter paused for breath, and the shortness of the programme. Little time is left for it in a half hour slot once the starting and ending credits and adverts are allowed for, and the ad-break takes place in the middle.

Fire this useless representative

In a world where we have to worry about which ‘Yoof’ walking along the road has the biggest knife or gun under their jacket, one can only be grateful that we have people like Joseph Jones, a spokesperson for the Romany, Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network, looking after our interests (or is that just the interests of those that are Romany, Gipsy or Irish Traveller).

I wonder if this fine, upstanding member of the Romany, Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network, would be making quite the same fuss about racist remarks being made by Romany, Gipsy or Irish Travellers?

Joseph Jones should be hung out to dry by those he represents, as he’s clearly not the man for the job if the best he can do is watch children’s TV and pick on something that was created six years ago, when attitudes were quite different to those prevalent nowadays. His approach is typical of nothing less than coward that wants to be ‘Seen to be doing something’, while doing little more than indulging some ‘Points Scoring’, and discrediting those that do the job properly.

Want to bet he’d be nowhere to be seen in the face of a street full of yobs hurling racial abuse at some poor individua, but will be at the head of the queue waiting to complain about a defenceless glove puppet?

In my home country, Travellers et al are referred to as Tinkers (something I only learned from another discussion - I only ever used Gypsy), a term I see is missing from his organisation’s title, which means that I will probably be next in line for his attention, even though the term is our usual reference, and not used as an insult.

Basil Brush is being investigated after a complaint was made about an alleged racist joke in the puppet’s BBC series.

A complaint was received by the police following a recent screening of an old episode that features the fox telling jokes about gypsies, reports Metro.

The episode, which was originally shown six years ago, features a sketch where a gypsy woman tries to sell Basil some wooden pegs.

A police spokesperson said: “We can confirm we have received a complaint about a TV show featuring Basil Brush from a member of the public in February. The complaint was logged as an incident of a racist nature.”

Joseph Jones, a spokesperson for the Romany, Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network, said: “Racist abuse of black people is quite rightly no longer deemed acceptable, but when a comedian makes a joke on TV about pikeys or gypos, there’s no comeback.”

The Romany, Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network want to get a grip of their spokesman, have a quiet word, or get someone with sense of reality and responsibility into the job post haste, before they become a laughing stock.

Quality Telly 2

When I noted the ending of Secret Army’s recent complete rerun on UKTVHistory, I recalled that Tenko had recently precede it, but that I hadn’t watched it, and could only remember it vaguely. At that point, my recollection was that although it was in a similar vein, it didn’t have the same feeling of reality that former series seemed to enjoy.

At the time, I suspected this was because Secret Army had the easier job in so far as it was easier to recreate the setting of wartime Belgium, and have the cast made up with appropriate fashions and make-up to look as if they were of the period, adding to the atmosphere of the series. Tenko, on the other hand, was tasked with recreating Japanese internment camps, and internees that were maltreated, exhausted, undernourished, starving, and lacking medical attention, where the action was set in soaring temperatures and extreme humidity (but was filmed on a set in ’sunny’ England).

Now that Tenko’s complete run has concluded, I think my original thought that it didn’t succeed in the reality stakes in the same way that Secret Army did was valid, but irrelevant. I don’t know if I watched the original series through to their conclusion, but did so on this occasion, and believe that short of starving the cast, it did as well as Secret Army, especially with its conclusion, and even the later two part ‘Reunion’ episodes.

Once again, I’m left with the belief that the 1970s saw a rise in the quality of television material, which was followed by a its demise during the 1980s.

It’s almost as if those two decades saw all the good ideas being discovered, and produced when real imagination and creativity were at their peak, and ever since then, as we passed into the 1990s and beyond, the explosion in the number of television channels demanding quick content, and technology that makes it increasingly easy to produce ’standardised’ Special Effects’ in increasing numbers, has resulted in little more than repackaging of the most popular material in ‘New Clothes’, and its dispersal to the masses as fodder to attract sponsors that want a ‘Sure Thing’ to guarantee a return on their investment. Very few will deviate from safe programme formats, and take a chance on losing their money.

And that’s a shame.