Archive for May, 2011
Friday, May 27th, 2011
Breaking a Female Paedophile Ring – Let ‘em Swing.
Last nights Channel 4 programme ‘Breaking a Female Paedophile Ring’ documented the story of Colin Blanchard and four women and their sexual offences against children which made media headlines in 2009.
The programme was very well recorded, showing how the story unfolded in the headlines. All starting from Colin Blanchard accepting a friend request on social networking website facebook. The programme was very hard hitting, featuring audio footage from the police tapes whereby the sex offenders were questioned.
The story itself is absolutely sickening. Hearing that a nursery worker who worked so closely with other peoples children was taking indecent photographs of them when left in her care made my stomach turn. When asked why she did it, she replied ‘I dont know’ and ‘I did it for Colin’s attention’. All I could think about the harm that was caused to the innocent children and how it will affect them in later life. What kind of monster does this to such young children?
The story continued and we found that four women were in fact involved in this paedophile ring. Married women, women with full time jobs, women with children. You name it, they seemed just ordinary people. There is no excuse for any of the things these women did, but the worrying thing is what made them do it? One of the women was filmed performing sexual acts on a child as young as 18 months old. At this point I nearly turned the programme off. How can these sick people be released from prison? These sort of horrible, evil people need to be hung. Let ‘em swing!
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Who Else Misses Sky Sports News On Freeview?
Is it just me? Am I the only one left who hasn’t sold me sole to the devil and stumped up the cash for a Sky or Virgin Media package for 12 months? As the final game of the Barclays premier league season approaches, I cant help but reminisce about a time when I could wake up on a Saturday at 11:55am, turn on my Freeview box and watch 3 hours of entertaining build up to the weekends football. That’s right, I am of course talking about Sky Sports News when it was available for free on Freeview.
With quite simple the best pundits around, Sky Sports really do wipe the floor with anything BBC offers. Football Focus really doesnt cut it on a Saturday. They focus on about 4 clubs in their 50 minute slot, sometimes not even discussing all the Barclays premier league games. Instead they just natter about what has already been discussed in the papers and on the news all week, making it a rather dull watch.
So come on, who else misses sky sports news on freeview? and is there anyway we can somehow get it back?
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Do British Soaps Make The Nation Depressed?
I am not a soap watcher. I find the whole thing a rather dull and an unproductive way of spending an evening after working hard during the day. Why would I want to watch a bunch of fictional characters live their lives on one road with all the apparent problems they face. This isn’t a film, it isn’t going to end. You’re going to spend your whole life watching someone else’s life. Turn the TV off, and go and enjoy your own life. The soaps are on week in, week out. What I ask is what is their purpose? They sure as hell don’t make people feel good about themselves. Instead I think it teaches people all the wrong things, go to the pub every night, have a few drinks, have a row, have an affair with the person across the road, and escape to the airport in a black cab.
I had a mate once who lived their life according to the schedule of the soaps, you name it, she watched it. Coronation Street, Eastenders, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale. The lot. Sometimes she would leave work excited to get home to spend the entire night watching soaps from the week. The saddest part of this story is when Sky+ was created, she started recording the soaps, so she never missed another episode. The key to this little anecdote is ‘I had a mate’, ‘had’ being the operative word.
Friday, May 13th, 2011
Graham Norton – The Best Talkshow On TV
The BBC has had many talk show hosts over the years. Parkinson and Ross being the stand out two. But for me, the best of the bunch has to be Graham Norton. His show is different, its not like Friday Night with Jonathan Ross where he used to flirt and make crude jokes towards his guests one by one. I didnt like his personality at all, but to give him credit, he did get some big names on his sofa.
As for Parkinson, how could I possibly write a blog post slating his talk show. It ran for centuries bringing in the biggest names across all areas. It was a great talk show.
The new kid on the block has to be Graham Norton. I really like the way he gets all the guests on the sofa at the same time. Puts a drink in their hand, and the lot of them interact. Its not just about Q&A. Everyone joins in on the questions, giving their views, telling their similar stories. I also like the audience participation, sometimes its just a case of members of the audience simply shouting out. Its like the show really is in your lounge. The show finishes with ‘The Red Chair’ where members of the audience try and tell an embarrassing story before being ejected off the seat if it sucks. This is where Graham Norton comes into his own. Simply destroying the member of the audience with a look, comment or just pure laughter. It does make for rather good television and an excellent talkshow.
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
FA Cup On ITV and ESPN
It was announced this year that the FA Cup would be shown only on ITV1 and ESPN. Every round went by and I saw the two broadcasters picking quite clearly the WRONG games to televise. The magic of the FA cup is that giant killers can happen. However when the 3rd round draw was announced, ITV1 decided to televise the rather standard clash between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford.
The thing that really bothered me was the Semi Finals of the competition when the two channels had to decide which game was to be shown on which channel. ITV1 got the Manchester derby on the Saturday. Meaning Manchester United had been on ITV1 for every round except one (the one they were not shown on ITV they were shown on ESPN). Meaning the other Semi Final between Bolton Wanderers and Stoke City was on ESPN. Ive spoken to many football fans about this and the general consensus is why on earth were both Semi Finals on terrestrial TV? Not only that, they were on a Pay Per View channel meaning there was more fans watching the Premier League game between Arsenal and Liverpool then the magical FA Cup semi.
Roll on the Final on ITV1 next weekend. Can Manchester City finally get their hands on some silverware?