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What's Good On European And African TV v. Baking Bread

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Benefits street: ive not watched it yet but it looks like channel 4 are giving the poor a savaging, rather than a sympathetic portrayal, according to The Independent. Definately gonna watch this. I may well end up turning it off in anger if it's as bad ad The Independent makes out.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...s-targets-the-poor-and-voiceless-9046773.html


"Benefits Street: A healthy media would stand up to the powerful and wealthy. Ours targets the poor and voiceless

A long, slow handclap for TV executives turning communities against each other



How edgy Channel 4 must think it is, courageously reinforcing widespread prejudices, heroically hammering away at a message that is heard relentlessly already, bravely echoing the Government mantra about skivers. I hesitate to write about Benefits Street, their miserable programme which aired this week, knowing as I do that I’m partly satisfying its producers’ lust for attention. After all, these are people who seemingly show little concern for people’s well-being in their stampede for ratings. Columns like this one could be passed off by disingenuous TV executives as a sign of the “debate” that their trash has helped to provoke. But the only debate to be opened is why we let our media get away with it.

Benefits Street followed a now-predictable formula. Television producers hunt for unsympathetic examples of unemployed people – in this case, on a street in Birmingham; they portray them in the worst possible light; and they fuel the pervasive sense that people on benefits are feckless scroungers. According to some of those used as fodder for the show, they were misled into appearing and told that they were featuring in a programme about community spirit. “They have edited everything to suit their own needs – taken a positive and turned it into a negative,” says Dee Roberts, a support worker who featured in Benefits Street.

The company responsible is ironically titled Love Productions, but their sensationalist programme produced a tidal wave of hate. Social media abounded with calls for those who appeared on the show – and people on benefits more broadly – to be shot, hanged or gassed. Some Twitter users pledged to assault the show’s participants if they saw them. A long, slow handclap for these TV executives trying to make names for themselves and turning communities against each other in the process.

A healthy media would stand up to the powerful and wealthy. Not ours, though: instead it stands up to the poor and voiceless. Skint was another, similar Channel 4 offering, this time kicking a community in Scunthorpe struggling with deindustrialisation. Channel 5 broadcast a three-part series focusing on criminal behaviour: Shoplifters and Proud, Pick Pockets and Proud, and Benefits and Proud, as though being on benefits was somehow not lawful. Again, extreme examples were hunted down, including Heather Frost and her 11 children, who the media have already turned into a minor celebrity.

When BBC 3’s People Like Us targeted an estate in Harpurhey, Manchester, angry local residents staged a meeting, decrying the “biased and distorted” view of the community. One local council worker, Richard Searle, claimed that his daughter had been given alcohol before filming, and called for the Beeb to stop “propagating this harmful and misleading image of the working class”. Take another BBC offering, The Future of the Welfare State, which was presented by veteran interviewer John Humphrys and which claimed that Britain was living in “an age of entitlement”. It was slammed by the BBC Trust for breaching impartiality and accuracy rules and leaving viewers “unable to reach an informed opinion”.

This dross has left the public woefully ill-informed. Polls show that people on average estimate that 27 per cent of social security payments are lost to fraud, when it is just 0.7 per cent; that 41 per cent goes to unemployed people, when it just three per cent; and that the value of benefits are far higher than they are. Neither is the public aware that most social security spending is, rightly, spent on pensioners who have paid in all their lives; or that the Government’s freeze on benefits mostly hits working people. Large families are passed off as typical, even though just 190 out of the 1.35 million claiming an out-of-work benefits have 10 kids or more. A healthy media would challenge myths and prejudices; ours is determined to fan them.

Here is the world that is missing from our television screens. The poverty-wage-paying bosses and rip-off-rent-charging landlords milking our welfare state dry as we subsidise them with tax credits and housing benefit. The low-paid workers struggling along on in-work benefits and falling wages, who make up the bulk of Britain’s poor. The 6.5 million people looking for full-time work, in many cases sending out CV after CV and not even getting a reply. The £16bn worth of benefits unclaimed each year – benefit evasion, if you will – compared to £1.2bn lost to fraud.

Conveniently, too, TV shows are shifting our glare away from the real villains of modern Britain. Where are the shows about the wealthy tax-dodgers who deprive the Exchequer of £25bn each year, even as millions have to both pay their taxes and be pounded by austerity? What about the bankers who plunged the world into economic catastrophe and continue to thrive as others suffer the consequences?

This isn’t a conspiracy of politicians and producers cackling around the table together as they devise devious new plans to pummel the poor. A culture of redirecting blame has been encouraged by our political rulers, one that is happily perpetuated by our ideologically-driven newspapers. As unpaid internships and expensive Masters’ qualifications become gateways to TV careers, it is the privileged who are commissioning the shows who are airbrushing out the reality of modern Britain.

The poison must be stopped. Let’s make Benefits Street the moment that they overreached themselves and start demanding television give a platform to the reality of life for millions which – to the relief of those in power – is ignored and safely hidden from view."

Im surprised and disappointed at CH4 though i should really reserve judgement until ive seen it for myself. They seem to be lowering themselves into ITV and CH5 mindless pap territory, i thought they were meant to be aiming higher than that. The proof will be in the viewing. I dunno if i even want to watch it now, i have a suspicion its going to make me very very angry. I may turn green and start rippinng the seems of my clothes. :\

I think i ought to tryto start reading The Independent occasionally, I dont like The Guardian, i find it far too negative and critical of everything and unreasonably so. The Telegraph youve got to be kidding, do i sound like a 60 year old at the pinnacle of career success, The Times has good qualty positive articles and reporting, though the right wing bias is clear as day. As long as you know its there, and recognise it for what it is whats the problem. The tabloids; i wont mention what uses i put them to.
 
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There's some nature ting on tonight, Spy in the Pod, shows dolphins chewing on puffer fish so that they (the puffer fish) release just the right amount of toxin for the dolphin to trip and not die. Some amazing footage of spazzed out dolphins apparently. Oh, and they share the puffer fish around between them. Communist dolphins on acid.
 
I saw that puffer fish party thing being discussed on some PooToob clip recently. I don't usually watch those "Spy in the..." series but I do loves me a lil dolphin action (not in that way) cos they are fascinating creatures so was meaning to watch this one. Think it started last week cos saw the first episode on iPlayer (didn't get around to watching it yet though). The PooToob clip said something about the dolphins passing round the poor (and no doubt deeply confused) puffer fish then going up to the surface and staring at their reflected image on the "underside" of the ocean surface. I didn't realise there was a reflection. Perhaps you need a puff or two on a puffer fish to see it.
 
Watched Apples, Pears and Paint: How to Make a Still Life Painting on iPlayer this afternoon (dunno how much longer it's up for). I do believe we have a few art lovers around and about the place who might also enjoy it. I've never really been that into still life painting - it's always seemed kinda irrelevant and uninspiring to me however technically impressive it may be (and it certainly can be very impressive from a sheer craftsmanship point of view). However, it was good to learn a few things about the background and context of the genre - it makes a lot more sense when you know a bit more about the whats, whys and wherefores of it all. It's never gonna be my favourite genre but I do think I can appreciate it a bit more for knowing a bit more about it. And the examples of artists currently producing still life work were properly good. Well worth a watch if you like a bit of art :)
 
Please can someone explain an early episode of Breaking Bad in Season 3 without giving anything away about what is to happen in future.

I didnt get that thing about the tortoise and that mexican cartel guy getting beheaded. I mean that happened ages ago in season 2 or something, when hank went to the scene and all the Mexican DEAs got blown up with the exposive device with that guys head on the tortoise. But it fits in with the current timing of events on season 3 also, so im very confused, without giving away anything about what is to happen in future episodes wtf is going on, i dont get it at all. :?

Do i just need to be patient, and that 'annomoly' will start to make sense ?
 
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Some very interesting questions being put to the DWP on Parliament TV channel up until 3.30pm today.
Apparently 4 people a week die within 6 weeks of being passed as fit for work by the Work Capability Assessment.
What a disgusting fucking situation,now that cunt IDS is speaking his usual shite!
 
Louis Theroux is class, very deep and intelligent. Not afraid to ask 'awkward' and difficult questions of people and face issues head on, but he doies it as politely as possible. One of the best investigative feature reporters of this day and age IMO.

His programs on meeting Ann Widecombe and Paul Daniels were brilliant, as were his programs on Americas Most Hated Family.
 
I like the way that Louis Theroux comes across as geeky & inoffensive which puts his subjects at ease and they answer questions they may not have done had he been a bit more hard nosed in his approach.
His programmes on the American porn industry were very good.
 
Louis Theroux is excellent at what he does. Although he's probably a bit too old to still get away with the wide-eyed innocent thing these days. The ones he's done since have also been excellent (for the most part) though so still watch anything and everything he does <3

Earlier, I did dun watch the first two episodes of Treasures of Ancient Egypt. One more still to come but first two are still on iPlayer in the meantime. It's a bit different to yer usual Egypt-based proggy as it's mainly focussed on Ancient Egyptian art (with a smattering of historical context) which has traditionally been written off as being generic shite. I suspect a lot of whether one likes this series or not will come down to how one deals with Alistair Sooke as a presenter. He is deeply fey and pseudoponcesque (as in he's clearly from similar stock to "traditional" art proggy presenters - public schoolboy either revelling in this fact or trying to hide it (he's in the latter camp)) but I think he's one of the better ones. In fact I'd go so far as to say I like him and every series he's done thus far.

I've longtime (since nipperdom) been fascinated by Egyptology and indeed art in general, so have often been somewhat irked when the art of ancient Egypt gets written off as being formulaic and staid. I've always thought there's more to it than that - if there wasn't there'd be nothing to debate and it never would've influenced Western art so heavily - so is nice to see a series that agrees with me for once. That and I've gotten to see a few pieces I've never come across before and even those familiar to me (and indeed everybody probably) are given a different spin to usual.

Good stuff, looking forward to the final episode.
 
Oh, and in totally unrelated news, I can't believe nobody's mentioned the new Vic & Bob series yet. The first episode of House of Fools had me doubled up in pain with laughter throughout. Admittedly I am of "that era" so was always gonna be a winner with me unless it was actually shite. It's not shite. Prime Vic & Bob material from beginning to end <3
 
Louis Theroux seems like a gentle and understanding sorta guy, best interviwer ive ever seen he distances himself, no tone of judgement in his voice, even at the badass prisons n stuff he went to the inmates seemed to warm to him etc
 
Watching Ray Mears. I'm a big fan, he's so relaxing to watch.
If you enjoy his programs you may also like Les Stroud's series Survivorman. He's like a Canadian Ray :)
 
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