Television & Radio

He Likes His Women Fat & Far Away

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

We, that is L and I, were talking yesterday about TV adverts. She’s noticed how all the kids in adverts these days seem to be pushy little miniature adults who boss grown-ups around. Look at the new Werther’s Original commercial or the latest Fruit Pastels ad for examples of that. Another issue with adverts these days is the portrayal of men. Commercials have turned men into a bunch of wimpy girls.

Cosmetic companies have been selling expensive gunk to women for years in collusion with magazines such as Cosmo using BS science made up in some marketing department. It seems you can’t buy a bottle of shampoo anymore, it has to be a total hair nourishment treatment. Magazines eager for advertising money have colluded with the cosmetic companies to rip off women in this way for a long time. But now they are doing it to men too. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen moisturiser adverts aimed at men with the same kind of patronising pseudo-science they normally try to fool women with. (more…)

Annoying TV Personalities

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

It’s a lovely sunny afternoon here in Essex, I’m enjoying a lunch of cheese and onion toasties and feeling all relaxed and happy. So what better time to stick the knife in to the various folks on TV that have been annoying the hell out of me recently.

There are some people whose very appearance on the TV screen not only has me reaching for the remote, but considering doing a Led Zeppelin and throwing the TV out of the window. But who are the most annoying people on TV at the moment?

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British TV Is Rubbish

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

What on earth has happened to television in recent years? Yes I know we’ve always had plenty of guff on TV such as Mind Your Language and Allo Allo, but looking at the current TV schedules I can’t remember a time when there was so much utter rubbish on the television. Even the established genres are going down the pan.

First let’s look at the sitcom. Recently we’ve had Blessed from Ben Elton, the arch-sellout has created a real stinker with this one and I feel sorry for Ardal O’Hanlon starring in a second tat sitcom in a row. It’s bilge, and made worse by having a naturalistic cast destroyed with an over-the-top completely unrealistic character.

It’s the same story for Hyperdrive, the new BBC sci-fi comedy that began this week. There were some good elements, but it was hardly laugh out loud funny. And once against this sitcom suffered from having one over the top and over acted character played by the consistently annoying Kevin Eldon.

Oh and before I forget, the terminally unfunny third series of Little Britain. It really was truly awful, hardly raising a titter. Compared to recent shows from years past such as Big Train and The Fast Show, the latest run of Little Britain really was a snoozefest of poor ideas and pointless repetition.

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Dumbing Down Science

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

There’s a very interesting article about media attitudes to science over at The Guardian Online today. While regular readers of the blog will know I have very little time for religious groups who attack science I hadn’t given much thought to the way the mainstream media uses scientific research.

But just look at the whole MMR jab scare. While the media doesn’t report the issue anymore there are millions of parents or prospective parents who still believe the hysterical claptrap about the immunisation programme, and this has resulted in people putting their children at risk thanks to mass hysteria.

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Bagpuss – The Chocolate Biscuit Episode

Posted on by Grumpyrocker

Remembering a childhood classic now, in the form of my rant about the political ideas behind a certain episode of Bagpus.

Well as you remember, Emily, the little girl who seemed to have somehow become a shop owner, goodness knows how, judging by the Victorian setting she should have been up a chimney somewhere, or losing fingers under a Spinning Jenny. But I’m digressing. Erm… so Emily would bring broken object d’art along to her shop and her demon possessed toys would renovate them so she could sell the items at hugely inflated prices. Great scam isn’t it? The junior necromancer conjures forth life from an organ, some stuffed toys, and a bookend and uses them for her own nefarious capitalist means. And some Christians complain about Harry Potter. At least he didn’t breath life into a wooden bookend to give it a superiority complex and to oppress working class possessed mice.

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