If you regularly read the British news you will no doubt have seen a lot of newspaper space and television time given over to the fact that the BNP were on question time. Utterly predictable, uninteresting and sadly no Jerry Springer style tear up.
But what gets me about question time is the audience participation. The majority of responses from the public in the audience are badly articulated and often shambolic. It can be embarrassing to watch and often their point is lost, if they had one, or just doesn't make sense. I wouldn't fare much better if I had to speak on live television but then I'd avoid this situation.
One other thing about that particular program was that while it was more than appropriate to scrutinize the politics of the BNP leader and call him out on various dubious and peculiar quotes, they let the Conservative shadow minister for community cohesion and social action Baroness Warsi off pretty lightly when the subject of her apparent homophobia came up.
Saturday 24 October 2009
Blackboard jokes
Someone with utterly insipid internet garnered humour decided to write some jokes on a blackboard in the coffee room. I wrote "NOT FUNNY" in huge letters underneath, a day later someone had wiped away the "NOT" leaving the "FUNNY", way to defend your lols guys!
Monday 19 October 2009
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais is not as funny as he likes to think. His early appearances on the 11 o'clock show were painfully unfunny and his stand up is just a series of mildly amusing observations with an arrogant tone. The Office and Extras were funny though, my point is that he just isn't as funny as he or a lot of other people would like to think.
Sunday 4 October 2009
National Pride
There is something I don't quite understand about national pride or national identity. People often seem proud of things associated with the nation they live in that they have no hand in actually contributing to. Sporting events, old battles, inventions and discoveries from 100s of years ago.
The nation seems like quite an artificial and mainly political construction with a sense of national identity being promoted for the sake of obedience and cohesiveness. So what is it that people are actually proud of? The history? The national psyche?
The English seem quite proud of the fact that England once had a large empire whose existence caused the deaths of more people than the Third Reich. The Scottish seem quite proud of what is essentially a "200 year PR exercise" aimed partly at tourists. Other than this they seem quite proud of the fact that they make the English language incomprehensible to the rest of the world, that they eat trash tasteless food, that they look down on education, that their capital city has been made to look like a shortbread tin and the violent reputation.
People will actually talk with pride about the violent reputation Scotland and in particular Glasgow has. The type of violence that generally happens is really quite pathetic; drunken one sided knife attacks by an uneducated and marginalized underclass.
I often hear Scottish people go on about how you should be proud of where you are from with no way of qualifying this. I think it shows a lack of thought and character that you attach much of your ego to such a poor construct.
The nation seems like quite an artificial and mainly political construction with a sense of national identity being promoted for the sake of obedience and cohesiveness. So what is it that people are actually proud of? The history? The national psyche?
The English seem quite proud of the fact that England once had a large empire whose existence caused the deaths of more people than the Third Reich. The Scottish seem quite proud of what is essentially a "200 year PR exercise" aimed partly at tourists. Other than this they seem quite proud of the fact that they make the English language incomprehensible to the rest of the world, that they eat trash tasteless food, that they look down on education, that their capital city has been made to look like a shortbread tin and the violent reputation.
People will actually talk with pride about the violent reputation Scotland and in particular Glasgow has. The type of violence that generally happens is really quite pathetic; drunken one sided knife attacks by an uneducated and marginalized underclass.
I often hear Scottish people go on about how you should be proud of where you are from with no way of qualifying this. I think it shows a lack of thought and character that you attach much of your ego to such a poor construct.
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