Friday, May 19, 2006

Well did you?

One of the things I was talking to the children about on Wednesday was how good stories had conflict - so we had goodies and baddies in our work.

There was nothing else on and we were sitting in front of the tele reading papers so we watched. Seemed like a good idea at the time. We watched the procession of weirdos, grotesques and cartoons (human beings, that's the phrase) being wheeled in, anticipating from their words what they would find:

'I don't like outrageously gay, camp men.' Oops, there's two in there.
'I don't like posh people,' Oh dear; check two of them also.

And:

Hello I'm Bonner
Hello Bonner
No, Bonner, with an i.e. Bonnie (repeat 12 times)

Took me back to my Nottingham days and being Steve Tiller for 7 years.

The annual freak show has begun. Watch and learn. There is conflict, for sure, but who are the goodies?

5 comments:

Jonathan Potts said...

After the third read of this posting, my slow mind is reckonning that you're talking about "Big Brother"? Am I right?

Though I try to avoid the programme like I might try to avoid syphilis or large monsters wielding chainsaws, I still failed to be unaware of the programme's horrible resurgence last night. Though I am pleased it took me a whole three readings of your posting to get the reference. I work hard at being ignorant of certain strands of pop-culture. And feel smugly pleased that last night at 9pm, I was reading a book about theoretical physics.

Steve Tilley said...

Shouldn't imagine that theoretical physics will be the topic of conmversation over the next few weeks in the BBH (yes, you were right Jon). I'd be happy to put money on it.

Martin said...

Steve, you should have been watching House on 5. Much better than big bro will be this year. (If you can't get five, change you ariel, and position it to use the sutton coldfield transmitter instead of the leamington one - much better, and gets you freeview too)

I don't know why Big Brother is now rubbish. I enjoyed the first couple of series (The last decent thing that happened was Sandy escaping - not sure what series, but got bored after that one). I think it might be that they are trying too hard to be exciting, by getting complete nutters into the house. Although some conflict may be interesting, too much conflict can just be plain annoying.

As for theoretical physics, it could happen. Based on the likely inteligence of the housemates, they will start by taking the micky out of Stephen Haking's voice, and end up having an incredibly ill informed discussion about black holes.

Jonathan Potts said...

Of course theoretical physics won't be the topic of conversation over the next few weeks in BBH. One of the many reasons why I'd rather not watch BB. And I'm glad: it allows me to keep up the smugness and intellectual arrogance instilled in me during my private school education and boosted in the ivory-tower confines of academia. ;)

Stewart said...

I had it on in the background whilst doing some work on my laptop - but found that it increasingly became my main focus of attention, as I repeatedly found myself thinking "Where on Earth did they find THAT person? They HAVE to be the most objectionable person on the show this year."

Of course I ended up thinking this about pretty much every contestant as they were gradually revealed.

I wish I could believe that these 14 people weren't representative of the human race as a whole... but deep down I know that they are.

At least it was reassuring to see that Bonnie could actually pronounce her own name properly when she really tried, even if it did take her five attempts...