This originally appeared in the Bath Chronicle on Thursday, July 21, the week after former Bath student Tom Pellereau won the Apprentice...
Like I'm sure a lot of people with Bath connections, I let out a hearty cheer on Sunday night when one of our own scooped the The Apprentice title.
Tom Pellereau, a former University of Bath graduate, defied all the speculation to win the top prize and become a business partner with the enigmatic Lord Sugar.
The combination of Tom's brains and inventiveness with the 'good' Lord's famed business acumen should make for a winning partnership and it is certain we'll be hearing a lot more from our former graduate in the years to come.
But it wasn't only because of his local connections that I'm sure many people were pleased Tom had won the contest.
In among the usual collection of ego-driven, cliche-ridden candidates, Tom stood out as being a decent and honourable chap who, unlike some of his fellow colleagues, probably wasn't prepared to sell his granny and all her possessions to win. He had a steel that he revealed when needed and never lost his dignity en route. So well done to our Bath grad.
One of the things I like about The Apprentice is that it is the one (and I think only) television programme that truly unites our editorial office. Even people who would normally rather put the proverbial pin in their eyes than admit to liking reality TV seem to really warm to The Apprentice and it is for that reason I've long regarded it as the middle class Big Brother. It is reality TV for those who don't like reality TV.
In our office if you come into work on a Thursday morning the first thing you do is pick up a copy of this excellent newspaper (of course) and the second thing you do is discuss the previous night's Apprentice You can feel like a bit of a social pariah if you missed the edition and there seems to even be a pecking order in terms of your credibility about whether you watched the follow up You're Fired programme as well. Your kudos goes up if you watched The Apprentice but dips slightly if you didn't watch Dara O Briain's excellent sister act show. It's just that kind of television programme - you have to watch it with the same commitment as the candidates.
Inevitably perhaps, because it is a show we all seem to like and talk about at our office, you do wonder if you and your colleagues and friends would do well in it.
Personally, I have to admit, I don't think I'd be a very good candidate. I like to think I have a few ideas, I can work well as a team member and will happily project manage, but I'm not sure if I would really score with some of the practical tasks that are required. In saying that, however, I am pretty certain that unlike in the programme this year, I would know that the concept of popcorn being the new biscuit is ludicrous, that the French do indeed love their children and that you don't impress people who love their pooches by urging them that they want to give their pet a food called Every Dog.
So I'll stick to watching, I think. After all, if I don't I might not be allowed in the office of a Thursday.
Showing posts with label Reality TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reality TV. Show all posts
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Using Big Brother to solve all our problems
This is an edited version of my column in the Bath Chronicle of 15 January.
But what if it was different? What if that free time was used for what they called in Hot Fuzz - “the greater good”?
There are so many issues in our city, our country and the world as a whole that need the sort of full and undivided attention that the equivalent of the Big Brother house could offer, that I can’t help thinking that the Big Brother concept is wasted on the Big Brother contestants. Just imagine if we threw out all the fading pop stars, wannabees-who-will-neverbees and has-beens-who-were-never-really even ‘been-beens’ and put into this locked, distraction-free house a group of experts with a real, important task – one where they would not get “voted out” until they had solved it?
And if we can do it with transport in Bath then we can do it with everything from world peace to why can’t Gerrard and Lampard play in the same team together.
I came to the surprising conclusion this week that there may be a very simple way to solve the majority of our problems - be they local, national or international. And bizarrely, perhaps, it was reality TV that gave provided that Eureka moment.
OK, reality TV isn't to everyone's taste (although have you noticed that many people who pooh-pooh Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here for example still enjoy the likes of Strictly Come Dancing or The Apprentice which are cut from the same cloth?) but it just may help the world too...
It was while watching the admittedly rather dreary ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother this week that it struck me just how incredibly boring it must be for those who are caught up in this curious jail without bars. Each night we are shown an hour’s worth of ‘highlights’ which are supposed to be the best bits of 24 hours of conversations, tasks, debates, arguments and philosophical discussions. And yet many of these so-called highlights are mind-numbingly trivial which begs the question – what were the other 23 hours like?
The reason that the people involved find it so hard to keep their own pulses racing (let alone ours) is because life inside such an environment lacks all the ingredients that normally make life interesting and challenging. Most of us find our source of debate and conversational interest is centred around the things that all the housemates are deliberately deprived of – their families, their friends, their hobbies, their jobs, sport and, of course TV, newspapers, films and all other forms of media and entertainment.
But what if it was different? What if that free time was used for what they called in Hot Fuzz - “the greater good”?
There are so many issues in our city, our country and the world as a whole that need the sort of full and undivided attention that the equivalent of the Big Brother house could offer, that I can’t help thinking that the Big Brother concept is wasted on the Big Brother contestants. Just imagine if we threw out all the fading pop stars, wannabees-who-will-neverbees and has-beens-who-were-never-really even ‘been-beens’ and put into this locked, distraction-free house a group of experts with a real, important task – one where they would not get “voted out” until they had solved it?
Imagine, for example, in a local sense, if we were to put all the key players in the city involved in transport into the Big Brother house, switched off the TV cameras (so they were not playing to them) and not allow anybody out until they got a workable plan for the city’s transport future? Perhaps they could find a way of avoiding the traffic pictured here....
And if we can do it with transport in Bath then we can do it with everything from world peace to why can’t Gerrard and Lampard play in the same team together.
The idea has certainly worked before. In the 1970s, when unions and bosses were forever at each other’s throats, I can remember that all-powerful organisation called Acas being used to find compromises, and they worked round the clock to find them.
More recently, I recall reading Alistair Campbell’s diaries about the Blair years when he talked about the historic agreement in Ireland which was forged in similar circumstances where people locked themselves in a room and didn’t come out until they had something tangible. He refers to former president Bill Clinton being asked to talk to people in the middle of the night to keep things on track. and that is exactly the kind of “no -one gets outta here until we’ve achieved something” policy that I think could have some legs.
So, as you look around the world and see problems, why not join me in putting forward the idea that a possible solution lies within the most talked about reality house in Britain?
Could it work? As Big Brother would say - you decide!!!
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Saturday night TV mania
This is my column in the Bath Chronicle of November 27 2008
Have you ever wondered how your life would be described if you were deemed sufficiently important to warrant an obituary in our leading national newspapers?
You would, no doubt, want to be remembered for your greatest achievements – the things that really mattered in your life.
Here for example is a potential ‘obit’ of someone who has done an awful lot in his life, someone who would clearly deserve many column inches in all our leading papers.
This man is regarded as one of the foremost journalists of his generation. Educated at Oxford, he went on to be an outstanding reporter working in 25 different countries – many of them war torn – before becoming a distinguished political journalist which saw him present Today and The World At One. He then graduated to the biggest, most prestigious reporting job in British political journalism – that of the BBC’s chief political correspondent. If that wasn’t enough, he then joined rivals ITN as their political editor. What a CV.
But it means nothing.
For on the day that a certain John Sergeant goes to visit the great politician in the sky, I envisage that the first paragraph of his obituary will talk about a time he toodled around the ballroom stage rather than on the Westminster one. For, as we all know, Mr Sergeant walked out on hit BBC show Strictly Come Dancing last week prompting more headlines, debate and column inches than most of the hugely important political stories he covered in his distinguished career.
The sheer scale of the publicity caused by John’s decision to throw in the top hat and tails is, to me, indicative of the fact that the whole country seems to be rediscovering its love of television – and in particular Saturday night television.
When I was growing up my favourite children’s programme was the delightfully anarchic Tiswas starring a somewhat less cynical Chris Tarrant, Lenny Henry, Spit the Dog and the delectable Sally James. For those that don’t know, Tiswas stood for ‘Today Is Saturday, Watch And Smile’ and that is certainly how people seem to be reacting now to the pleasantly old-fashioned Saturday night onslaught of TV light entertainment that hits us from the end of the football results until Match of the Day.
If my family are anything to go by – and I rather suspect they are – last Saturday night was a continual stream of Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor, I’m A Celebrity, X Factor results plus ITV2 or BBC2 post-show discussions. The surprising thing about this Saturday night feast is how universally appealing it has become.
People who I wouldn’t imagine for a second would have the slightest bit of interest in dancing have confessed to me that they are avid ‘Strictly’ fans, music fans who normally regard even Mozart as a ‘bit commercial’ are ‘fessing-up’ to being X Factor devotees and people of all ages seem to be revelling in the jungle antics of the likes of Robert Kilroy-Silk and the truly appalling David Van Day.What is actually quite nice about all this – and one of the reasons why I think this relatively easy entertainment has started to mean so much to so many – is that it takes all our minds away from the increasingly depressing news we hear, day in, day out.
The savage effects of the credit crunch are already being felt by the minority (and the majority also feel nervous that it is just around the corner for them as well) so to be able to lose yourself for a few hours at least in watching Rachel Stevens do her foxtrot, JLS attempt to sing a Take That song or even an ex-member of the EastEnders cast being asked to eat the penis of a kangaroo can be a helpful (if disturbing) distraction.
In fact, thinking about it, maybe I am wrong about Mr Sergeant. With the news being so depressing maybe he will be pleased that his future obit writers will remember him as a man who brought a smile to our face as he dragged his partner around the stage rather than as a deliverer of the nightly gloom.
Happy viewing folks.
Have you ever wondered how your life would be described if you were deemed sufficiently important to warrant an obituary in our leading national newspapers?
You would, no doubt, want to be remembered for your greatest achievements – the things that really mattered in your life.
Here for example is a potential ‘obit’ of someone who has done an awful lot in his life, someone who would clearly deserve many column inches in all our leading papers.
This man is regarded as one of the foremost journalists of his generation. Educated at Oxford, he went on to be an outstanding reporter working in 25 different countries – many of them war torn – before becoming a distinguished political journalist which saw him present Today and The World At One. He then graduated to the biggest, most prestigious reporting job in British political journalism – that of the BBC’s chief political correspondent. If that wasn’t enough, he then joined rivals ITN as their political editor. What a CV.
But it means nothing.
For on the day that a certain John Sergeant goes to visit the great politician in the sky, I envisage that the first paragraph of his obituary will talk about a time he toodled around the ballroom stage rather than on the Westminster one. For, as we all know, Mr Sergeant walked out on hit BBC show Strictly Come Dancing last week prompting more headlines, debate and column inches than most of the hugely important political stories he covered in his distinguished career.
The sheer scale of the publicity caused by John’s decision to throw in the top hat and tails is, to me, indicative of the fact that the whole country seems to be rediscovering its love of television – and in particular Saturday night television.
When I was growing up my favourite children’s programme was the delightfully anarchic Tiswas starring a somewhat less cynical Chris Tarrant, Lenny Henry, Spit the Dog and the delectable Sally James. For those that don’t know, Tiswas stood for ‘Today Is Saturday, Watch And Smile’ and that is certainly how people seem to be reacting now to the pleasantly old-fashioned Saturday night onslaught of TV light entertainment that hits us from the end of the football results until Match of the Day.
If my family are anything to go by – and I rather suspect they are – last Saturday night was a continual stream of Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor, I’m A Celebrity, X Factor results plus ITV2 or BBC2 post-show discussions. The surprising thing about this Saturday night feast is how universally appealing it has become.
People who I wouldn’t imagine for a second would have the slightest bit of interest in dancing have confessed to me that they are avid ‘Strictly’ fans, music fans who normally regard even Mozart as a ‘bit commercial’ are ‘fessing-up’ to being X Factor devotees and people of all ages seem to be revelling in the jungle antics of the likes of Robert Kilroy-Silk and the truly appalling David Van Day.What is actually quite nice about all this – and one of the reasons why I think this relatively easy entertainment has started to mean so much to so many – is that it takes all our minds away from the increasingly depressing news we hear, day in, day out.
The savage effects of the credit crunch are already being felt by the minority (and the majority also feel nervous that it is just around the corner for them as well) so to be able to lose yourself for a few hours at least in watching Rachel Stevens do her foxtrot, JLS attempt to sing a Take That song or even an ex-member of the EastEnders cast being asked to eat the penis of a kangaroo can be a helpful (if disturbing) distraction.
In fact, thinking about it, maybe I am wrong about Mr Sergeant. With the news being so depressing maybe he will be pleased that his future obit writers will remember him as a man who brought a smile to our face as he dragged his partner around the stage rather than as a deliverer of the nightly gloom.
Happy viewing folks.
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