Born in the UK

In a desperate bid to try and make money from my blogs and retire in a sunshine paradise with a harem of prostitutes all coated in mint chocolate chip ice cream, here’s my attempt to become a travel writer. Enjoy.

Back in April I was lucky enough to go on a work trip to the United States of America, this was only my second visit to our trans-Atlantic friends. My first visit was back on the 9^th of September 2001, and so I was pleased that this visit didn’t happen to coincide with any acts of international terrorism. Which has trips abroad go, is always a plus. Before you get too jealous of my amazing trip, here’s a photo from the rooftop of my hotel, which as you can see is terrible, yes this truly was an awful trip:

America sort of tricks you into thinking it isn’t really abroad. We’re so used to American culture in our films, television and brands, combined with the similarity of language, that you could be forgiven for thinking initially it will be no different to home. However America isn’t a mirror of Britain, more Britain painted in a cubist style – there’s the odd element of familiarity in a veneer of confusion. A bit like when you walk in a designer clothes store, there appears to be familiar looking shapes of clothes, but for some unknown reason they’ve been displayed in a pile of straw on a load of broken computer equipment sprayed with purple poster paint (it’s artistic I’m told).

The main thing that struck me about America is the scale on which everything is done. And I’m not just talking about people’s waistlines before you misinterpret for comedy effect, though by this point you’ve probably started added in your own jokes just to keep yourself from slitting your wrists in this barren wasteland bereft of humour. Try sitting opposite me at work, if you want to know true tedium. Everything in America is done on a huge scale, where in London land and space has to be conserved to such an extent that I spent my entire university career folded away in the space occupied by an edition of travel Yaztee. In America space is abundant, why have terraced houses when you can put a kilometre of space between each building? Even in smaller towns and suburbs large buildings dominated the skyline, only dwarfed by the humungous advertising hoardings. It’s if the latest movies have sponsored the very sky itself, to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d seen clouds formed in the shape of the McDonald’s golden arches wafting across the horizon.

I went to the post office in order to purchase a stamp so I could send a postcard to my mother – being that she’s unable to distinguish the difference between a work trip and a holiday, the primary difference being the former does not provide any time to visit post offices to send postcards. Even the post office is a hugely crafted multi-story building:

In Britain this kind of building would be reserved only for the town’s mayor, and only then if they’d fiddled the public accounts to get it built. For comparison here’s the Post Office in Clapham:

It’s not quite the same is it?

The same principal of course applies to American food, the food is lovely but the concept of portion control couldn’t be less American if it was daubed in a Taliban flag and burnt live on Fox News. Why have a Lasagne for one, when you can have on the size of a double bed. You could quite easily slip between the layers of pasta sheets and have 40 winks in a nice tomato base. America is probably the only nation whose lasagne is available in a 13.5 tog rating. The average American breakfast, in the hotel I was staying at, required the lifetime’s work of several chickens and the death of an extended family of pigs. Looking for a light option, I thought I’d try out the pancakes with banana choice on the menu. This will be light. I was wrong.

It was less a stack of pancakes more a skyscraper, each pancake could have been an individual storey, and I was tempted to install an elevator through the centre (look at me with the American lingo!). In fact here’s the same picture but with an average-sized human shown to scale:

Although of course that said, some types of food are always welcome in extra large scale:

I was in Los Angeles, apparently the most westerly major city in the world. There you go fact fans impress your mates down the pub with that gem, I would but I have no mates and the idea of socialising appals me.

Of course the major attraction of Los Angeles is the Hollywood sign, and here’s some photos I took of it, which to you will be at least 3% more exciting than seeing any other photo you’ve seen of it anywhere else. Why? Because I took it, I was there.

And to prove that I am vaguely intellectual here’s the famous Griffith’s Observatory:

And to destroy any respect I gained from that last sentence, I’ll tell you that the observatory is very exciting because it featured in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager (hashtag geek).

Another key site of Hollywood is Hollywood Boulevard:

I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting Hollywood Boulevard to look like, I think I imagined it would be a gold plated street with impressive marble film studios all along it. And in fairness some bits are like that, well maybe not gold-plated. But there are few plush looking film studios, swanky hotels and amazing restaurants. However large sections are stars just outside tatty souvenir shops and rundown cafes.

It’s a bit like the first time you visit Oxford Street expecting it to be a glittery shopping paradise, only to be disappointed to discover that amongst the big department stores there’s an Officer’s Club and a Sports Direct. It somehow lets the whole thing down. Though on Hollywood Boulevard, you can have the indignity of being the film star whose name happens to be outside the newsagent with the filthy, broken windows. I am guessing that would only happen if you weren’t a very good film star. I suppose the Oxford Street equivalent would be writing Shane Ritchie’s name on the pavement outside Primark with a blue aerosol spray can.

While we are talking about Hollywood Boulevard, I should give a mention to the amazing Cirque du Soliel which I saw in the Kodak Theatre (after fighting my way through a number of street entertainers wearing suspiciously bad costumes, such as Darth Vader in a blue cloak – presumably because the factory reject costume was so much cheaper). The Cirque du Soliel performance was absolutely amazing, well at least I imagine it was. Problem was I’d worked through the previous night and only had three hours sleep, so as soon I sat down in a darkened theatre my eyelids dropped faster than Katie Price’s underwear. Still I imagine it was really good. If you’re ever in Los Angeles I urge you to go sleep through it.

And with that I think covered every single aspect of the fifty states of America, you can’t possibly have any more questions. Though I should imagine reading this blog you’ll soon be expecting to me get my own travel blog. I for one and am all for the prospect of free trips. Like all good travel writers I will sign off with a summation line encapsulating the whole American experience. “If you like America, go to America.”

At Least There's Somewhere Now to Keep the Brooms

This week please indulge me on a topic that is both close to my heart and has kept me clothed and fed for seven years, as I discuss my passion for children’s television – that’s my passion for children’s TELEVISION you dirty minded selective readers.

The BBC Trust, if that’s not an oxymoron (I personally find it difficult to find trust in anyone who puts Homes Under the Hammer on our television screens), have completed their latest Putting Quality First spending review. Putting Quality First is nothing to do with ensuring that Snog, Marry or Avoid? is in the latest possible scheduling slot, but in making sure that as the BBC tries to save money it puts its quality programmes first.

The main nugget of news that hit the headlines last week when this broke, was the decision to move children’s programming off BBC One and BBC Two, keeping it all on the CBBC and CBeebies channels. There’s a good logic to this decision, by the time the changes are made every television in the country will have access to the children’s channels, the vast majority of kid viewers already use CBBC and CBeebies. And critically the children’s department loses no funding, in fact by not having to provide content for the former terrestrial channels it has more money to spend on its main channels.

This decision has come under a lot of fire, from those who believe this is some kind of snub to children, that this somehow is a sad day for the children of the nation. Actually it isn’t. Children’s programmes in the afternoon on BBC One are traditional in your childhood, because then that was the only option for children’s programming – we didn’t have dozens of 24 hour children’s channels, we didn’t have DVDs and an endless supply of on demand programming. To children today the end of children’s programmes on BBC One means a little less choice in quite a busy programming landscape. Kids aren’t going to get lost and not find the CBBC and CBeebies channels, they’re more across remote controls than the average adult! For the majority of today’s children the concept of four channels is something studied in history alongside the Vikings and the Romans. In actual fact the terrestrial channels to children are the odd channels, channels that sometimes show news, sometimes kids’ programmes, sometimes entertainment and sadly sometimes Dickenson’s Real Deal.

All that said the decision is a little sad, but I am acutely aware it is sad as it represents the end of something I held in high esteem as a child, a tradition for my childhood not today’s children! Yes a sad, but logical decision. It’s a bit like the death of an elderly relative, it’s sad but you know logic is saying you can now sell their house and make lots of money.

For many people of my generation, a lasting memory of their childhood will be children’s programmes on BBC One (or ITV) in the afternoons, my incarnation being The Broom Cupboard, and the big Saturday morning shows – Going Live and Live & Kicking being the ones I most remember. And to me as a child, there was something special about those programmes being on BBC One, it was saying this is the time for kids. Afternoons were the kids’ version of the evening primetime, and Saturday mornings the big entertainment extravaganza mirroring Saturday nights. And the fact these were on the primary channels was part of the draw.

Of course such nostalgia doesn’t concern today’s kids, and it’s important than children’s television evolves for today’s kids – not old f**ts like myself. I’d love to be making massive Saturday morning children’s shows like Live & Kicking, but today’s children don’t want them. The idea of sitting in front of three hours of Saturday morning television is as arcane to them as sending in an answer on the back of a postcard. Kids today are busy, they can’t give up their precious time to watch several hours of a phone-in with Judi Dench and Phillip Schofield laugh his way through a cookery item with his puppet sidekick. And in fairness if they did want to see that, they could just watch This Morning – apologies to Holly Willoughby.

However it still seems fitting to mark the passing of the children’s afternoons on BBC One for us children of the eighties! To do that, I’d like to have a quick nostalgic trip through some of my favourite children’s programmes of my time. The shows that made up the gaps between Phillip Schofield, Andy Crane, Andi Peters, Toby Anstis, Simon Parkin, Phillipa Forestter, Edd the Duck, Gordon the Gopher, Wilson the Butler and many more I’ve probably forgotten. So here is a non-exhaustive look at some great children’s telly shows!

Maid Marian & Her Merry Men – Essentially Blackadder for children, apparently this remains the most expensive children’s programme ever made in the UK. The 22½ residents of the muddy village of Worksop (an early Glastonbury) are protected from King John’s temper tantrums (modelled on myself after I’ve missed an edition of The Apprentice) by a cowardly Robin Hood.

Blue Peter – Everyone has a different generation of Blue Peter they remember, your parents probably remember Lulu pooing on the studio floor (the elephant not the singer) during a time when Blue Peter was presented by wholesome forty-somethings. Nowadays the presenters are so young, that the current ones are actual foetuses that would show you how to make a model of Tracey Island out of the placenta and the umbilical cord, if it weren’t the fact that they’re too young to remember Thunderbirds. My generation was Mark Curry – when he was busy knocking the heads of LEGO men and not dying a death on Catchphrase; Anthea Turner – between getting blown up in an explosion, and becoming annoying; John Leslie – before he allegedly starting showing the ladies “something he made earlier” whether they wanted to see it or not; and Caron Keating – who it’s very hard to write anything funny about.

The Girl from Tomorrow and Escape from Jupiter – Nowadays we’re used to American imports dominating our schedules, but these were two excellent Australian sci-fi dramas. The Girl from Tomorrow, which centred around a girl from the year 3000 who chose to travel back in time to the year 1990 (presumably to be niche, as everyone else was going back to 2000). Her time machine being the Crystal Dome stolen from Richard O’Brian. Escape from Jupiter featured an unlikely group of children (led by a ginger kid - controversial) escaping from a mining colony on Jupiter’s moon Io. I remember being particularly annoyed when an episode was taken off air to cut to a newsflash announcing Margaret Thatcher’s resignation ahead of a leadership challenge. I’m sure as an adult I’d be much more tolerant now if a programme I was enjoying was taken off-air to go to David Cameron doing something.

In my mind the special effects were better as a child than they appear now!

Newsround – Newsround has been, and continues to be, an amazing show for kids. I regret not appreciating it more as a child, and making it an appointment to view. The show’s never shied away from explaining the complex issues of quite an unpleasant world to younger viewers. A few years ago explaining the suicide of a CBBC presenter.

Around the World with Willy Fog – Around the World Willy Fogg was the cartoon serialisation of the Jules Verne novel Eighty Days Around the World, with one minor plot point – Willy Fog was a lion and the world was populated by animals. This excellent cartoon, conveyed the excellence of the story, whilst including the fun and excitement required to keep it suitable for kids. Although the cartoon never did explain why no one ever complained about Fog smelling – despite the fact he wore the same suit for eighty days, nor why Transfer had a disco ball for an eye, or why the Governor of the Bank of England was allowed to gamble away all his wealth (fortunately today’s politicians could never be that irresponsible). I remember sending off for a song sheet with all the words to the theme song, from then broom cupboard presenter Andy Crane. Ahh how easily I was pleased back then.

I’m sure there’s many other highlights you remember. So here’s to the end of CBBC on BBC One. Whilst I totally understand the decision, the kids of today probably don’t realise the significance of the change. I for one will be a little sad at the passing of an institution of my childhood, that later went on to inspire what I laughably refer to as “proper” job and career!

And whilst I’ve sung the praises of programmes past, it goes without saying that today’s children programmes still feature some excellent content, particularly the programmes I’ve produced! As a final note I would like to say that all the programmes made and shown by my current employer and any future employers are excellent and well worth watching by children and adult alike – especially if you own a Barb box.

Is a Fascist Dictatorship really that Bad?

This week’s blog is entirely about the thorny subject of voting and democracy, I tried to write this in time for the London mayoral elections a fortnight ago, but failed. Voter apathy there, in action.

Two weeks ago many of you across the country will have been lucky enough to vote in one or more elections to choose councillors for your local area. Those of us in London were lucky enough to have three votes we didn’t care about – London Mayor, London Mayoral Assembly Members and our own local councillors. In fact in London there was more box ticking than in a United Colours of Benetton advert, well there would have been if we hadn’t been crossing boxes – but the gag about more box crossing than at a Noughts and Crosses convention didn’t seem as funny.

Fortunately for the BBC, exactly the same three main candidates ran for London Mayor, as in 2008. And the voters were kind enough to generate exactly the same result, so the Beeb were able to just put on a repeat of the election coverage from four years ago. While someone explained to Boris Johnson what “second term” meant, Ken Livingstone vowed never to return to politics (whilst plotting his 2016 election campaign) and Brian Paddick sweetly presumed his electoral demise was down to the unpopularity of Liberal Democrat coalition policies – no Brian, we’ve haven’t forgotten I’m A Celebrity… an appearance that puts you in a category alongside just George Galloway, though at least you weren’t meowing in a Lycra cat suit.

One of the big comments on modern elections is the poor voter turnout – according to some statistics I just googled now in a highly checked piece of research voter turnout was 31.8%, meaning just under seven in ten people didn’t vote. Commentators say this is a bad thing, but is it?

You see in my opinion, what is held up as the guiding principal of democracy is its biggest weakness – the fact everyone can vote. I’ll let that earth-shattering statement sink in as you judge me entirely. I should point out I don’t have a problem with allowing everyone to vote in principal, in a perfect world everyone casts a well-thought out vote for the party whose principals they truly believe in. However in the real world you allow people who have no idea what they are voting for a vote and you allow people to vote on spurious reasons. No one has to justify to anyone why they vote, so you can based your opinion on who has the best haircut, who seems like a nice person, or whose face doesn’t clash with your curtains.

I consider myself the perfect example, whilst I had a vague idea of the effect my box crossing would have in the London Mayoral vote (based largely on a significant proportion of the main candidates having already had a go), I had no idea what the other two ballot papers do. I couldn’t tell you what the position I was electing actually did, I knew nothing about the candidates, other than the party name scrawled next to them. Though as anyone with a passing familiarity with politics will know, a group of people representing one party is less unified mass with one vision, more bickering crowd of infighters who resemble a group of friends trying to decide which take-out menu to order. Despite all of this and my lack of background knowledge, I still diligently filled out each ballot paper, following the dictatorial anti-origami ruling and posting them in the voting box. I didn’t really know who or what I was voting for, but I did anyway, I voted on what felt right.

And that’s the problem with democracy anyone can vote without really thinking about it just based on image. It might sound draconian, but wouldn’t it arguably be a lot better to let the 10% of people who can be bothered to engage in politics to vote on our behalf and choose the best outcome. Why let the ignorant masses, who let’s be honest don’t really understand the minutia of fiscal policy, have an uneducated say? We certainly should react to the claims that the only way to counter poor voter turnout is to force everyone to vote. Forcing those who know nothing to choose a box at random in some kind of political lottery would be awful and inefficient. Surely best to have people pass a small politics quiz before they were allowed to enter the ballot box and have a say in who runs the country – it is after all an important decision.

Politics nowadays has reacted to the fact that most people aren’t properly scrutinising their actions, the main parties fighting not to give you any substance or policy but to just leave that instinctive feeling that you should vote for them. So that when average Matt public (i.e. me) heads to the polling station he feels the need to put the cross in the right box because it feels right. Not because he’s examined in depth the range of party lines and policies and knows it’s the right decision.

Image now for politicians is everything; take the last general election in 2010. Now while I’m not saying you couldn’t find potential fault in the previous Labour government’s policy, a lot of fault finding was taking place with the image of Gordon Brown. Admittedly the man’s smile looked like it had been generated via the use of strategically placed electrodes, but is this reason he shouldn’t be Prime Minister? I know I look awful when I pose for a smile in any photo – my Facebook album looks like a collection of Barbara Cartland’s death masks, but is that reason enough for me to lose my job? Shouldn’t we should be judging our politicians on slightly tougher criteria than facial expressions?

And then there’s the inevitable gaffs. Remember when Gordon Brown infamously left his microphone on as he left an interview and describing voter Gillian Duffy as a “bigoted woman”? OK a P.R. disaster, but there was something about the incident that made him ultimately more human. We saw fully through the (admittedly cracked) politician’s veneer and saw someone who ultimately makes the same mistakes we do. I know I say awful things when I think people have left the room, or when I’m reading something someone’s written. You’re probably reading this thinking “What an absolute t**t? Why do I give a toss what this needy spiky haired pillock is thinking about politics?” And that’s ok, you’re allowed to think this, because I guarantee I am thinking far worse about you dear reader as I type J

My point, and there is one in case you’re thinking that this is the literary equivalent of Where’s Wally?, is that surely for politicians ability is more important than both image, and even their own moral standards. If it’s a choice between, for example, a chancellor who is rubbish at running at the economy but who lives a squeaky clean life, or a chancellor who is excellent at the numbers stuff but routinely cheats on his wife with animals, then I know who I’m voting for. It’s Mr Goat-Shagger for office here. What?! Really you have a problem with that? Why would I be bothered? After all I’m neither his wife, nor a goat, just a citizen looking for a well-run economy.

So there we go let’s make a stand here, politicians should be elected on substance not style, by the 10% of people who have done their homework and know what they’re voting about. Not by people who know nothing like me. And certainly not by the same tedious people who consider “engaging with politics” to be e-mailing into BBC Breakfast. Outlining their pointless opinions on matters which are of no concern to them, like should NASA be dumping sofas on the Moon? Because stupid people always have an opinion, a stupid opinion. Stop asking for it, and certainly don’t let them choose the leader of the country.

Failing that we could always go for a fascist dictatorship. Don’t get me wrong the invasion of Poland was awful, but at least Hitler was able to get on do things. Under a democracy he’d be too busy worrying about which side to part his hair for his appearance on the Nazi equivalent of The One Show to get any conquering done. And that surely is a bad thing? I think.

The Prophet of Doom

In olden times there were always prophets of doom, people who foretold of the end of mankind, be it for religious or cultural reasons. Perhaps even the coming of war or disease, or maybe they correctly predicted that human civilization would reach its low point in the twenty-first century with the birth of The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Either way in the present day, we rarely see people wandering the streets chanting about the coming of the end of the world, the collapse of civilization or the death of all mankind. The main reason for this, is that their role in society has now been entirely replaced with Sky News. In fairness all twenty-four hour news channels have a fundamental flaw – on the vast majority of days there isn’t twenty-four hours of news to fill them with. So they have to be filled with repetition, speculation, deliberation and hypothesis, all the things banned on the Radio 4 show Just a Minute. However Sky News seems to be the worst for using this as an excuse to explore the worst case scenario in all possible situations in a desperate bid to keep panicked individuals watching across the break lest they miss out on a vital piece of information that would keep them alive. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eamonn Holmes actively told viewers to stay tuned because after the break they’ll be explaining how not watching the commercials can kill you. He probably already has, I’ve not see Sunrise.

Breaking news is Sky News’s big thing, their tagline is “First for Breaking News”. Obviously it doesn’t matter if the news isn’t quite right, exaggerated to the point where it is blown out of all proportion, or just plain wrong. The news is first and it broke here. Everything on Sky News is breaking news, in fairness every event is breaking news at some point – Christmas Day after all was breaking news at one point. But I strongly suspect the Three Wise Men and the Shepherds weren’t alerted to the birth of Jesus by a giant, colourful strap slapped across the bottom of their vision, followed by a “festive” expert discussing how the birth of the Son of God is likely to cause complete economic collapse and a rise in the value of house prices.

I remember a few weeks after the tragic London bombings, having my attention caught by a Sky News strap titled “Gas Attack” – panicked I looked up to see what terrible event had transpired. It turned out that gas prices had gone up, seemed a rather dramatic, misleading and dare I say it “factually incorrect” headline to me!

Last Friday represented an excellent example of this, when Tottenham Court Road (a road very close to my office) was briefly closed. For those of you unaware of this story, basically a man stormed an office on Tottenham Court Road, claiming to be armed with an explosive, and started throwing office furniture and computers out of the windows. The police, understandably, sent a large response force, closed the road evacuated the area and talked the man down with negotiators. Now without wishing to trivialise what would have understandably been a traumatic experience for those involved, as a news story my two line summary pretty much covered everything that happened. There was no more detail than that.

And that’s basically how the channel everyone calls News 24 that isn’t called News 24 reported it. The BBC simply mixed it into their rotation of stories, and on the BBC News website for a while it was even entitled “Man throws office furniture out of fifth floor window”, until the bomb threat aspect became clear.

Of course this wasn’t the case on Sky News where four hours of rolling coverage was leant to dissecting every single unperceivable nuance of this story. Under the title of “Armed Siege in London” we went live to various rooftop camera and helicopter shots of London, all of which showed absolutely nothing happening. It was bit like watching live coverage of the London Marathon the day after it had happened.

The only shot of any interest was when we saw a filing cabinet being thrown out of a window, on an extreme wide angle. And then the most gripping point of that shot, the point where the filing cabinet hit the street below, was completely obscured by the “Breaking News” strap. Meanwhile Kay Burley was busy in the studio discussing the impact of the “hostage” on the upcoming Olympics, clearly visibly creaming herself below the desk at the excitement that she would be the reporter on duty when London would be destroyed by a crazed terrorist – at least in Sky’s prophet of doom-esque mind anyway.

The climax of the discussion occurred when an “expert” came into the studio, labelled an expert presumably because he had the ability to use Google. He’d discovered a forum, where contributors had claimed that the company whose building had been stormed had been engaged in some disreputable behaviour over the issuing off HGV licences. Kay Burley then instantly announces “Well that explains the actions, it doesn’t excuse them, but it at least explains them.” Well thanks very much Kay Burley, who has instantly declared herself judge of all things moral. And whilst I’m sure her words were chosen carefully to avoid any form of litigation, she’s effectively bad-mouthed the reputation of a company entirely on the basis of something someone else has read on a random internet forum. It may be correct information, it may not, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure Kay Burley doesn’t either, but at least she was first with the breaking “news”. The fact that most of this conjecture didn’t turn out to be correct, and the fact that the coverage seemed to do a better job of whipping everyone up into a panic than the actual event did seem to be secondary concerns. And surely that is not the point of news.

I hope you enjoyed this blog, if you did why not tell Sky News, I look forward the entirely plausible strap that reads “Breaking News: Some people like DraMattics – Al Qaeda links not ruled out.”, appearing on my television screen soon.

Please note any inaccuracies in the information contained in this blog entry are simply a tribute to Sky’s own newsgathering output!