egafd.com

I guess you're too young to remember what shite TV we used to tolerate in the 70s and 80s. Yeah, we're bombarded with shite now but there's so much choice that there's loads more good stuff to watch than in the old days. Yeah, Minder was good. I liked it. But better than 24, The Street, The West Wing, Life On Mars?

Would you rather watch Cannon & Ball or the Two Ronnies than Green Wing or the League of Gentlemen? Be my guest.

There's more good TV on the few "good" channels (like BBC4 and More4) than there used to be on all 4.

Bigoldowl wrote:
> The BBC is required, by it's charter, to present the news in a
> netural and impartial manner. Here's just two examples of the
> ever growing catalogue of misinformation, politically motivated
> bias, and down right lies they offer as accurate "reporting".

You're right on this. In theory, the BBC should be neutral in its Iraq coverage - but they give the insurgency very little serious coverage and always err on the side of the US/UK forces. The question is should they be "patriotic" and put the British case, or should they be completely even handed?

Channel 4 news is always good and they never shy away from controversy. Shame it's not watched by more people.

As for the general state of British television, agreed it's is pretty awful. Especially when you compare it the shows that come out of the USA, especially HBO. I know UK don't have the same funding, but that's no excuse for good story telling and execution.

If anyone has watched Layer Cake, that was shot on a relatively small budget and easily competes with it's Hollywood counterparts, so why we can't compete with American television I'll never know.

Sadly, the BBC is neither neutral nor impartial. Nowadays, it has a barely suppressed anti-America undercurrent and a rampant middleclass, politically correct, agenda. One commentator recently pointed out that because they are pretty much all youngish and middleclass at the Beeb - apart from the doorman and the tea lady (Oops!..This is the BBC, so it's - 'door person and tea person') they all think that their intellectual left of centre world view is the only valid, right thinking, world view and anyone outside, who has a slightly different view, is a dangerous, wrong headed, extremist, to be sneered at and misrepresented. In sort, they are all arrogant middleclass knobs.

Should they be patriotic, or should they be neutral and objective? Well, they should be both. Surely there needs to be at least one respectable news source that can simply report the news instead of putting a spin on it. The BBC aren?t as bad as some but what they report and what they omit to report simply reflects their anti-American, hand wringing, PC agenda. What I want from the Beeb are dispassionate facts and unbiased analysis. But what I also want to hear are the many unreported tales of heroism and daring do by the British troops in Iraq. I want to hear about their military successes, I want to see exciting dramatic footage of them shooting the shit out of wild-eyed fuzzy-wuzzies and insurgents. Never mind the politics, lets properly celebrate our team?s goals. The British army have been regarded as one of the best in the world. They are pretty much the people who put the ?great? in Gt. Britain. So when they are risking their lives out there and at the same time being sneered at by the Tristrams, the metrosexual middleclass Nancy boys (and 'wimmin?) of the Beeb, who only highlight the negative stories, it fair makes me want to twat the nearest Guardian or Independent reader.

Apart from that, the BBC is still a byword for quality TV. Though of late they have been pandering to the chavs to an alarming degree and there has been some superb TV coming out of the States (Desperate Housewives, Sopranos, CSI etc), while the Beeb seems to have been stagnating.



Officer Dibble

?Sorry Officer D. if you think the BBC news is a shade pink and anti-establishment?

No need to be sorry, Keith. I?m sure it?s not your fault. But the BBC is quiet a gaudy shade of Pink. Though I wouldn?t say it?s anti-establishment, I would say it, nowadays, IS the establishment. This is because nowadays ?pinko? philosophises and views are permeating (via the middle classes) even the older more reactionary institutions like the police, army, judiciary and even the corporate world.


?you really need to read between the lines.?

Oh, but I do. Always.


?I'd accept what you say if the BBC said or even hinted at the fact that British troops (we don't question the calibre of the people involved or their aims for a moment) were there for the wrong reasons.?

Are you seriously suggesting that the BBC is not anti-war or anti-American? Oh, of course they?ve never publicly stated that this is their position. It?s not in the BBC Charter. It?s just perfectly obvious in the way that they gleefully report any American setbacks or accidentall killings of wedding party guests - ?Today the American?s bombed a civilian wedding in North Baghdad? Instead of ?50 people were killed today when American forces accidentally bombed a wedding party in North Baghdad. The sly and snidey way the BBC worded it would subliminally suggest (to those who aren?t attuned to these things) that the Americans set out on a specific mission to bomb and kill innocent people, at a wedding party. But it is an absurd thing to suggest, for what could be gained by doing so? What military advantage would it bestow? I mean, wouldn?t it be a PR disaster, playing into the hands of the Jihadists and snooty intellectual middleclass sorts in Europe? Anyhow, if you want conclusive evidence of the BBC?s middleclass ponciness and anti-Americanism, you don?t have to look further than Fiona Bruce?s curled lip when she has to read a story about George Dubya.


?I was talking about the way the news is manipulated in a very sly way and the way news is buried, a classic PR trick.?

Yes, that?s what I was talking about as well.


?If PC means trying not to offend other people and being more tolerant then I'm all for it.?

More tolerant? More tolerant of who and what?

Do you want to be more tolerant of the chavs that screech round council estates in stolen cars at 3.00AM in the morning crashing into other folk?s cars and houses and setting fire to the whole lot? (This was the early hours of Friday morning on my mum?s council estate ? sadly, not an unusual occurrence nowadays). Do you want to be more tolerant of them, Keith? Don?t you want offend the chavs?

Do you want to be more tolerant of the feckless bad brains who can?t hold down even the simplest of jobs and instead live on handouts and benefits, swigging cans of White Lightening in the precinct of the local shops, while verbally abusing the old age pensioners? Don?t you want to offend those poor didums, Keith? Do you really think such lowlifes are respectable? Do you think they are worthy of respect?

Do you want to be more tolerant of stupid 16 year old mother ?Shazza?, impregnated at 15 by divi, baseball cap wearing, Darren. Shazza and Dazza are too stupid to understand such concepts as contraception. But hey, it doesn?t matter, because all those silly middleclass people who feel guilty about their cozy pension protected life and university education have fixed it so that stupid Shazza gets a free house and living expenses (Benson & Hedges money). Of course even low IQ Shazza knows she?s onto a good thing here and is even now thinking about tricking Dazza into making her preggers once more! Should be a cinch ? he won?t be able to resist ? what with her in her new Asda jeans and thong. So, do you want to be tolerant of Shazza, Keith? Do you respect her right breed more social problems and have the taxpayers fund it?

And what about young Leroy ?Raassclaaaut? Brown? Ethnic gang leader on inner London sink estate. Leroy thinks it?s cool to take the mobile phones off posh white kids, just because he can, just because they are frightened of him. Since Leroy is not very bright, and therefore feels inferior to the white middleclass kids, this gives him a sense of power; a sense of worth and the respect he will never get in a society focused on complex commerce and IT. Maybe next week he and his gang will stab a banker in Chelsea or kick a tramp to death in the park. Hey, why not even shoot a policewoman? Yeah, that would be ?wicked?, Mon! And they could film it on the phones they took off the poofy middleclass kids. So, should we respect brainless sociopaths, like Leroy and his gang? Should we give them the nod to carry on as they are and be respectful of their wonderful contribution to society?



And what about the asylum seeking Somali couple ? here from the desert at the taxpayers expense, because there are some unsavory chaps in their country and it s, er, ?dangerous?. They are keen to be ?culturally diverse? and keep the old traditions alive ? so they tie up their 10-year-old daughter and circumcise her with a rusty razorblade. Now, do you think we should respect these desert people and their barbaric medieval traditions? Or should we say ?Bollocks!? You and your culture are backward and shite. You?ve grievously offended the British people with your barbarity. You?ve well overstepped the mark, so we?re putting you back on the next plane to Dafur?. You?re no good to us.

So, Keith, are you suggesting we should be more tolerant of the type of people I have mentioned? Should we respect them and their ways? Should we celebrate their ?alternative? lifestyles? Should we give them more taxpayer?s money as a token of our approval and respect? Or maybe you had never considered all this? Maybe I have opened your eyes and you are even now reevaluating your worldview?


?It's a war about oil,?

Of course it is. But so what? You speak as someone standing on the outside looking in? Don?t you use oil, Keith? Does your care run on steam, then? Don?t you use any of the myriads of pharmaceutical and plastic products that are derived from the components of oil? Keith, do you have any idea of what would happen to our society were the taps to be suddenly turned off? Do you remember the fuel protests? Do you remember how quickly civilization evaporated in New Orleans? Our society is just three days without bread away from anarchy, insurrection, and barbarity. Wait till you are fighting to the death with your neighbor over the last tin of Spaghetti Hoops on the floor of a ransacked supermarket. You?ll have forgotten all your silly middleclass anti-American pretensions. You?ll be fighting for your life and the life of your family. At that moment you will give your most precious blessing to George Dubya Bush to kill every last Fuzzy-Wuzzy standing in the way of oil and the cozy civilized life you once knew.


Note: Keith, (or anyone else) please don?t take my virulent anti-middleclass rants personally. As individuals taken in isolation I?m sure you and the rest of ?em are decent, agreeable, well-meaning, folk (with harmless naive or eccentric ideas). The problems come when the busy-body middle classes get together and start making rules, regulations, and laws based on their barmy misconceptions and ariy fairy ideas. It tends to make things much worse.


Officer Dibble

strictlybroadband wrote:

> Would you rather watch Cannon & Ball or the Two Ronnies than
> Green Wing or the League of Gentlemen? Be my guest.
>
>

Yes, as LOG and Green Wing are both overrated shite.