The Voice vs BGT

Say what you like about the state of the British tabloid newspaper and what ‘it’ regards as ‘news’ currently but it doesn’t pick a front page story if it isn’t going to engross a potential reader into picking up the paper and then parting with some change to read said story.

And lo, it came to past yesterday that a dispute between a middle-aged man, a septuagenarian man, a woman that says “beautiful” a lot and two TV shows and TV channels was splashed across the front page of the Daily Mirror as the “battle of primetime, Saturday talent shows” started to warm up.

This is the TV equivalent of Blur vs Oasis back in 1995 with Amanda Holden launching a “death slur” at Sir Tom Jones (“death slur” certainly being an out of proportion description), Jones biting back about the essential purity of his show and Cowell sitting back ala Sir Alex Ferguson, pulling the strings and making his puppety rivals, and indeed his own puppety people, do exactly what he wants them to do; generate some 'buzz'.

But here’s the thing, ITV and Cowell are obviously rattled by the BBC’s challenger for two reasons. Firstly, Cowell sat out Britain’s Got Talent last year in what was widely perceived to be a failure of a series but whose launch still got more peak viewers than last night's party starter. You don’t return from the USA to bolster a show that was still pulling in the viewers if there isn’t an exterior challenge to your superiority.

Secondly, Britain’s Got Talent historically began towards the end of April, reaching a overblown conclusion as May drew to a close. This time around, it began on exactly the same day as The Voice was launched, presumably in  a bid to nullify the effect of the latter reaching its final stages when the former begins in earnest. It’s all about viewer numbers of course.

But, well, actually, it isn’t now, what with on-demand services and Sky+. The figures may show that Britain’s Got Talent had a higher peak audience and that The Voice had more viewers in the 20-minute slot in which both shows were being broadcast but all of that is neither here nor there as, in the world of Sky+ and on-demand, people can and will watch both shows. 

There is no real winner here. Britain’s Got Talent will inevitably get a higher peak viewing figure as it’s in the optimum slot where people are not eating dinner, the kids are still awake, people on a night out are still at home and so on.

The Voice probably got that 20-minute slot of dominance as viewers wanted to watch the end of it whilst Sky+-ing through the adverts of Britain’s Got Talent to catch up. One wonders whether advertisers will continue to pay extortionate fees to advertise on Britain’s Got Talent if so many viewers of both shows (4 million or so with some basic maths and assumptions using these figures) can Sky+ through the adverts to catch up with the broadcast (hence the peak five-minute slot being around 9pm) or go on-demand, but that’s another story.

The really interesting part to come out of last night is just how different two things that are essentially the same can be.

The Voice has made a big song and dance out of its format of the ‘coaches’ (like judges but not) not being able to see the contestant and so judging them solely on their voice (an admittedly ingeniously simple idea in marketing and pitching terms). This concept of it as a ‘nice’ alternative to Britain’s Got Talent´ is continued as very few acts are sent home and even the ones that are packed off are lavishly complimented on their talent and given a handshake from will.I.am for their troubles. Perhaps the only nasty thing about it is the logo which occasionally gets spun around over the visuals, inferring a solid “up yours” directed at Cowell in the most ostentatious attempt at subtlety ever and the balls-out lying about there being no sob-stories. There was. Lots.

On the other end of the scale, Britain’s Got Talent powers on over the seas of ordinary people’s dreams, captained by the Dark Lord Cowell, crushing the hopes of people all around the country with said people giving up their time voluntarily for the privilege. Even the good ones are ridiculed for their looks before they display their depths of talent (note Jonathan the operatic singer last night), showing how Black Mirror wasn’t a dystopian parody but actually a documentary about contemporary life (to paraphrase a Daily Mail line about 1984). But hey, come on, we don’t always like ourselves for it but we come back every week as it crushing a soul underneath a size-9 does make some good TV. Michael McIntyre was just too nice and we can’t be having that so back came Cowell and in came David Walliams who does a good line in bastardry beneath the cheeky exterior.

In many ways the two shows complement each other perfectly and in whichever order one watches them (Sky+ again) can probably provide you with an insight into what kind of person you are. If you watch The Voice first, you need the dream destroying aspect of Britain’s Got Talent to get over all of the faux-niceties of the former. Meanwhile, observing them vice versa provides you with a nice fluffy detox.  It’s all up to you.

Thoughts ahead of Blackpool

A gloriously sunny day with temperatures touching 20C and a game of football to look lustily forward tomorrow can only mean one of two things; it’s August or it’s nearly April.

If it were August, we would be full of anticipation and dreaming that starry-eyed dream of glory and promotion before, nine times out of ten, those dreams are broken before the clocks go back let alone when they go forward again.

Nine times out of ten that is, if you support someone other than Reading. For someone my age, coming into this stage of the season with something to play for is to be expected rather than to be shocked at (not that I’d take anything for granted as a Reading fan). Over a decade has now passed since we haven’t had something to play for going into the last eight games of the season.

So yes, it is nearly 20C, it has been sunny all day long and we can look forward lustily to the game against Blackpool tomorrow, still with those glory-based dreams in our mind, unbroken by the bitter winter of football now passed.

But now, now its crunch time. The winter months build character in a squad of players but now is the time when that character and those lessons learned are tested to the extreme and many are found wanting.

Without wanting to put too much of a point on it, it is now crunch time big for Reading. At the very base level, there are eight games left to secure promotion. Insert squeaky bum time reference here, naturally. Eight games where the pressure is at its intense.

Factor in that of those eight remaining games, seven are against the current top twelve in the Championship and three of the away matches are at St Mary’s, Upton Park and St. Andrews. More pressure. It’s not exactly the easiest run in but you’ve got to prove you’re better than the rest and there is the opportunity; come through those with your dream still intact and you’ve earned your glory.

On top of that, Reading will be going into the game against Blackpool in a situation they haven’t faced in 11 games;  coming off the back of a defeat in their last match (against Peterborough) in addition to being the hunted rather than the hunting in the race for the two automatic promotion spts.

Blackpool will be a similar proposition to the Posh; open, expansive attacking football. One look at the stats shows this with the Tangerines knocking in more goals than anyone else on their travels but also conceding the third highest away from home. However, it wasn’t the openness that did for us on Tuesday night but some uncharacteristic bad defending.

A similar proposition to Peterborough perhaps but there is the notable added advantage of being at home. We’ve lost just once in the league at the Madejski since the middle of November (and that in dubious circumstances vs Hull).

Looking at historical precedent, 70 points is very close to being the benchmark for a play-off place but the noises coming out of the club have been anything but settling. The players sound up for the run-in and determined to see it through and the bringing in Benik Afobe to bolster the attacking ranks sends out a message to those around us that Reading are up for the fight in the sunshine, just as they were in the rain and snow.

The Anti-Social Network @9pm, Monday, BBC3- 8 out of 10

And so once again I return to a favourite reviewing ground of mine; the BBC3 documentary at 9pm on a Monday evening. Great to be back.

So, let’s run The Anti-Social Network stacks up against my BBC3 documentary checklist (patent pending). Celebrity presenter? Check. Fellow celebrity guests? Yup. Real life people like you or I interviewed? That’s there too. Content aimed at a young adult audience? Oh yeah.

Formula stuck to but that isn’t much of a problem. These days BBC3’s documentary making style has come on leaps and bounds since the bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping that was Hotter than my daughter. Hardcore issues are tackled and brought to a wider audience.

The celebrity in question hosting this show is Richard Bacon who, I’m not saying it to kiss arse, is a talented broadcaster from the hard broadcasting of Five Live in the afternoon to the slightly less hard broadcasting of...ummmm... “Richard Bacon’s Beer and Pizza club” on ITV4.

Everyone in the entire country now knows what trolling is as its no longer a phenomenon stuck to the Internet. It’s all over the national newspapers, including the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph which means old people now know what it is now and have something else to fear.

As the show explains a concept we all already know, there are two types of trolling. The first is random, usually anonymous abuse toward both celebrities and regular people over the Internet. This consists of largely mindless drivel but also real threats, all delivered from safely behind a monitor.

Most of us who post creative items on the Internet (whether as a writer or artist or whatever) have been there; this blog has a couple and another blog I write for takes on loads of awful, terrible, lame attempts at trolling. Easier enough to deal with but rather unpleasant to deal with.

However, other trolling of this type is seriously vindictive and includes abuse aimed at Bacon, his wife and his son. Elsewhere, it led to a 15 year-old boy hanging himself due to online abuse.

The other type is just as harrowing and involves tribute pages to young people who have tragically died being hijacked and causing distress to family and friends.

The documentary itself is, in a similar way to Britain’s Gay Footballers, the issues covered are largely common knowledge but greater exposure to the issue is always welcome, particularly when it’s done well.

And done well it is, aside from the frequent intermittent footage of iPad and Mac use (Apple had better of paid for this product placement) and Bacon on his phone to show off some modern technology to appeal to we yoof. Largely, the public infomercial element of the show isn’t too overbearing as to make it unbearable.

There are some fascinating insights into the murky world of trolling where there is something of an arms race between trollers and the law going on. As the former take over innocent people’s accounts, creating fake accounts, covering their tracks and so on, the police struggle to catch up with them. They’re success is obvious as only two trollers have ever been arrested under the 2003 Communications Act.

There is also the awesome sounding passion of troll hunting, such as a man by the (fake) name of “Michael Fitzpatrick” who tracks down trolls but fears for his safety as a result. The almost military planning that goes into trolling tribute pages for children Fitzpatrick outlined was particularly disturbing.

Bacon accuses suspected trollers but when they are confronted they do pretty much what they expect you to do; deny, deny, deny. Obviously it’s easier to be assertive and in your face when sat at a keyboard and not in person. Either they deny or their strange justification from trolling that largely a sympathetic comment from a random person on a tribute page isn’t right so needs readdressing. Twisted logic thy name is the Internet.

Making a statement

Ten days ago, I wrote a meandering, dreadful piece of writing about the perceptions of the 1-0 scoreline in football. Really, do not read it at all unless you do literally have all the time in the world to burn.

The main point of the piece was to talk about how 1-0 wins in football are talked up by managers, pundits and commentators (no one-size fits all use of the word “media” here, friends) as “the sign of a successful team”.

This cliché is, inevitably, bollocks. The only time a series of wins by the odd goal looks good is come the end of the season, when hindsight becomes 20:20 and one can look back at that run of wins and say “yeah, that was where the confidence was built and promotion/title was really won”. At the time of those wins, confidence is never there, in the stands at least, to think a win is inevitable.

Much more confidence in your team comes from when you give another club a real dicking. It demonstrates a marked superiority, particularly when you add a clean sheet to the offering too. You can see both on the pitch and on paper that you are a lot better than a fellow team.

And so we come to Reading.

As we’ve quietly gone about our business since the turn of the year, picking up 31 points from 39 available (or 43 points from 51 since December 10^th), we haven’t  really destroyed anyone. Largely single goal or two goal wins have been the order of the day, built on solid defensive performances.

Whilst looking impressive, multiple games in which one unlucky break or piece of magic and the story could be completely different have, for myself at least, doubted how good we might actually be.

Nothing quite breeds confidence like some good solid numbers combined with an impressive performance. Winning well whilst playing badly is good and winning at the very least is also good but a superb performance married with a huge margin of victory is the business.

But, the game against Barnsley was so much more than some confirmation that we can destroy a team when we want to. There were a myriad of other factors to consider.

With our winning run coming to an end in midweek at Doncaster, it was interesting to see how we would bounce back from the smallest of setbacks. My own theory was that the pressure might have been released a bit as the overbearing nature of wanting to keep that run going would be lifted; an extended unbeaten run is a far more common occurrence than a long winning one. That would appear to have been the case.

Secondly, as is so often said, being the hunted is quite a different kettle of fish to being the hunter and Saturday marked the first time this season we were in that position with Reading going into the game second ahead of West Ham. Against a team in a decent run of form, we responded to this new challenge by hitting four goals, taking our goal difference above that of third-placed West Ham and briefly going top of the league.

On the other hand, our East London rivals have felt the pressure and slumped to three draws in a row. It would appear our squad has taken on the experience of last-years late-season pressure and how to cope with it. Pushing on for the whole 90 minutes to grab an extra goal to secure that improved goal difference also shows this experience coming to the fore.

There is still a long way to go this season and I’d still make us third-favourites for promotion thanks to our tricky run-in and the quality of our rivals but quietly going about our business is what we do and there still seems to be some reluctance to take our promotion push based on a “better-than-the-sum-of-our-parts” team approach. Long may it continue that way.

1-0s and time-shifting perspectives

The final score in football is always the most important piece of information to come out of a game. The way in which the score is achieved is quite irrelevant. As long as you get the right result, that is all you need. Even West Ham fans with Sam Allardyce, perhaps the most contrasting manager to an assumed historical ethos around right now, appreciate that.

But the problem with scorelines are that they can be deceptive and misleading. A 1-0 win can come as a result of utter domination from one team and putting away just the one chance or utter domination from that same team and the opposition doing a “smash and grab”. That’s the thing with numbers; they only tell you so much.

In theory and on paper, a 1-0 win is the perfect scoreline for the victorious team. It would appear to indicate minimal effort expended to get the advantage and the prevention of your opponents from achieving their primary aim of scoring.

However, the now clichéd “football is played on grass not paper” argument is the correct one here as anyone who has ever sat through a 1-0 win will attest. That slender advantage is under constant threat; every time the ball gets even remotely close to your team’s penalty box your heart beats increases and your bowels get that feeling usually reserved for that split second between saying a chat-up line and finding out whether it landed or not.

This might just be my in-built pessimism, developed over 15 years of supporting Reading, kicking in but even with a resolutely and proven solid defence, a 1-0 win never looks secure until the final whistle. A team that’s conceded just the one goal in the last seven games or so should be able to hold on to the slenderest of leads as they’ve done it before.

Indeed, we have on the majority of the games in our recent winning run which looks great, once the results have been secured. Sat watching it, one can’t help but feel that the odds of probability mean the equaliser has got to come soon, even with the best teams.

It’s commonly assumed that 1-0 wins that are ground out in the middle of the season are what indicates a successful team on the march to promotion or a title. But they sure as hell don’t feel that way when these wins are being accumulated, even on a regular basis as Reading are doing right now.

Maybe just the Reading pessimism again, seeing as only in THAT season have I ever approached Reading games with a lot of confidence in a positive outcome, but I can’t shake the feeling we will get found out soon. I said the same thing last season mind and Reading are an awful lot more well rounded side than this time last year.

1-0 wins may well be the benchmark of a good team but you just don’t know if the team is really that good, at Championship level anyway, until the season is drawing to a close. Come the end of April, we may well be saying that this period right now is where we won promotion but, right now, each single goal lead still brings the same fear.

Some thoughts on KONY2012

Waking up this morning, in a cosy warm bed with the opportunity to sleep a little more, have a shower, eat some breakfast or watch some TV all available to me, I went on Facebook and Twitter, my usual way of starting the day. How modern of me.

Quite often, there is always a dominant theme going on that people are talking about. I fully expected it to be the Arsenal game last night on a nationwide trend or, more locally, the Reading game last evening (as that’s a shared interest of myself and friends) and the ongoing Student Union elections at my old university, as I remain both interested and in touch with people involved there.

However, this morning, it was none of these things that were the dominant topic on my social media networks of choice. The overwhelming focal point of interest was an embedded YouTube video entitled “KONY 2012” and accompanying messages saying how moving and powerful it was.

For the first six hours of my day, I did not watch it. The reason? My entrenched cynicism.

I could recognise it was a campaign of some sort, most probably for a good cause with universal appeal. However, my cynicism prevented me from watching it as it looked to me, initially, that it was something of a basic approach to looking deep and caring. The kind of thing people could share on their Facebook to show how in touch with issues they are. An easy, almost lazy, way of showing how right on you are and that you want to make a difference, but only if that difference isn’t too difficult to achieve and you can do it by clicking “share” on YouTube or buying yourself a bracelet. A very worthy cause taken on and popularised, very briefly I assumed, that would not go anywhere.

After a while though, I saw that this video was not going away and my interest was very much growing, in retrospect, considering the aims of the project, a very apt way of me eventually watching it.

And yes, just yes.

This is the kind of thing the Internet has the power to do, connect people across the globe on a campaign. The “Cover the Night” events are not everyone’s cup of tea but that is merely one form of the attack plan of Invisible Children, in my opinion.*

For those of us in the UK, we haven’t gone through the massive ‘getting-in-touch-with-the-politicians’ campaign that the American branch of Invisible Children did that resulted in the military advisors being dispatched to Uganda. If you see the “Cover the Night” campaign as condoning vandalism (or similar arguments) you don’t have to do that to support that event.

Get in touch with politicians or just talk about the issue with people at work or online. That’s the point, not even to spread the word of the campaign itself, but to make Kony’s name known.

Is it something of a trend? Possibly yes but that should not make one iota of difference. If turning a campaign for a good cause into something that’s trendy among people rids the world of a Joseph Kony, that end justifies this particular means a billion times over. Posering that people are jumping on a bandwagon to look cool or look worldly is neither here nor there; getting the world talking and more people caring about the subject is all that matters.

Will all of the people who have currently pledged to go on the “Cover The Night” events across the country actually turn up? The fact is that in the modern age, attention spans are short and we all have leapt from one idea to another without following the former through. But, hopefully a fair number will turn out but even a handful is a handful more than would have turned up they had not seen the video in the first place.

Will it result in Joseph Kony appearing before the International Criminal Court? I have my doubts on this due to way the world seems to work. As the video says, the pressure applied by US military advisors helped the first time around so there is hope there.

Ultimately, the best thing for Kony is not being talked about, the worst is being talked about. Make that happen.

*For the record, I myself am unsure about whether to attend a “Cover the Night” event. Deep down, I would like to think so but I am equally as sure that I am as big a product of the Twitter generation (i.e. move on from things swiftly) that I may well lose interest, a depressing self-recognition that I might be able to alter.

EDIT; And thus we have the problem with the Internet and viral marketing. Much has come to light since this blog was posted about the activities of Invisible Children and their operation. This has changed my view of the situation somewhat though I still believe there is scope for large-scale campaigns using the Internet to orchestrate them.
I most certainly got caught up in the emotional pull of it all, which was of course the aim of the situation. This is clearly a huge issue and one that the international community has been attempting to combat over the years. It is also a complex one that a single aim group would struggle to solve.
Lastly, it is a shame however that, when people show an interest in a campaign such as this (despite it's faults) they are shot down for showing passion for something by others.
Remember kids, showing an interest in something isn't cool. Apathy and lethargy are what you should aim for.

Three positives and three negatives from the new series of 10 O'Clock Live

We’re now four episodes into the new, streamlined version of last year’s hugely trumpeted, all-star casted 10 O’clock Live so now is probably a good time to see what’s been good so far this series and what could do with some improvement.

The Pluses

1. Streaming down to 45 minutes worth of content

The first series weighed in at only 10 minutes longer per episode than this series but the slim down has done 10 O’clock Live the world of good for three main reasons.

Firstly, the over-reliance on David Mitchell for both serious interviewing and humour has been reduced now that he anchors just the one leg of the show, instead of his previous three. Although this meant cutting the usually amusing “Listen to Mitchell” segment, it does allow a stronger debate with the experts section and means he can contribute to the roundtable discussions more (more on that later).

Secondly, as a result of the loss of “Listen to Mitchell”, Charlie Brooker now has the sole ‘ranty’ section of the show and with good reason to as it’s what he does best. Dropping his to-camera, fast-as-a-bullet-but-still-eloquent rants from two to one an episode has allowed him to refine his piece and the show is not overloaded with to-camera shouty-ness.

And thirdly, 55 minutes of live, largely unscripted television is a difficult enough task for long running programmes, let alone a new kid on the block. As such, the show felt overextended with not enough content spread too thin. Whilst the reduction in running time has meant certain positive elements of the programme have had to be cut, it is to the benefit of the show as a whole.

2. Increased frequency of group, roundtable discussions

Along with the reduction in running time, using a roundtable discussion (technically a square-table discussion I guess) to bookend each segment of the show before the ad breaks has given greater structure to 10 O’clock Live, helped bridge the gap between the political and the humour aspects of the show and given the presenters greater scope to showcase some rapport and eliminate any lingering clunkiness from the first series.

3. Better usage of Lauren Laverne

As the only presenter with real experience of how live broadcasting works, Laverne was given the role of leading the show in the first series of 10 O’clock Live and she has, rightly, been given even more responsibility this time around, being charged with leading the discussions and steering the show in the right directions.

Whilst her pieces aren’t quite as humorous as the other presenters (naturally, as she is a broadcaster by trade rather than a humorist) and she sometimes struggles to keep the discussions on the straight and narrow (in fairness, God’s own job with three men trying to out-humour each other), her role in the programme is the most important of all the presenters and she has risen to the challenge.

The Minuses

1. Questionable usage of Carr

The first series of 10 O’clock Live had a clear role for Carr which consisted of; get the show off to a flier with some near-the-knuckle topical jokes at the start and interview someone newsworthy that week (a skill which he proved surprisingly adept at). Towards the end of the first series, a strange, weekly attempt at putting Carr into a sketch came into place, an element of the show I was hoping would be quietly dropped seeing as Carr is a comedian and presenter, not a comic actor.

However, this second series, his interviews have been abandoned to be replaced solely by these weekly sketches which, if last night’s was anything to go by, are getting worse; even worse than that ill-conceived Vladimir Putin impersonation in the first episode, somehow.

Better use of Carr’s talents should be made. The ambiguity of his political leanings should be made better use of in an otherwise very left-leaning presenter line-up.

2. Equalling out the humour/politics ratio

Perhaps the biggest challenge still facing the show is consistently keeping a balance between the humour and political aspects that the programme wants to get across.

By vacating the Thursday 10pm slot, Channel 4 has rightly pulled 10 O’clock Live out of the firing line of juggernaut Question Time and so might be able to gain some politically-minded viewers from the rescheduling.

However, segments like the Putin sketch feel a bit too lightweight (almost patronising) for a show aiming to attract a more political audience, if indeed, that is the aim.

3. Continued issues around the live aspect of the show

Whilst this is less of an issue than in the first series, where the presenters lack of experience on live TV (despite their Alternative Election Night together) was clear to see, there still remains some slip-ups, whether it be with slight fluffing of lines or presenters appearing in the background of someone else’s piece.

But this might be something of a harsh criticism as it is live TV and there never will be a 100% gaffe-free live TV show as we’re all humans and we make mistakes. That’s why they put editing suites at TV studios…

Blast from the past- The "ill-off-school" slot on Nickelodeon

As alluded to last week, being part of the generation that grew up with widespread access to cable and satellite TV had a profound effect on people of my age. Mostly, it made us a collectively fatter, frightened of the great outdoors and nature and helped, somewhat inadvertently and wholly regrettably, make being a nerd cool.

But were all of these new kids TV shows filling up the hundreds of new broadcasting hours worth the aforementioned consequences? No, is the simple answer to that, not one little bit. But that’s not to say the 90s marked a dearth in quality of kids TV, just the opportunity of playing innocently with your contemporaries everyday is something you really don’t appreciate until a decade or so after it finishes.

In fact, the 90s might even be a watershed for animation at children anyway. But first, a history lesson.

As anyone with the slightest knowledge of TV knows, the 1970s was the highlight of kids TV (in Britain at least) with shows like Bagpuss, The Clangers (basically anything by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin) and the wealth of American imports from Warner Bros and the like; all of which remain as entertaining today as they were then. Or I expect they were then, being only 21 means my personal experiences of the 70s were rather limited.

However, for my money, in terms of animated kids TV, the 90s was something of a high-water mark. Sure there was some real dross (Fat Dog Mendoza springs immediately to mind there) but there were some stone-cold classics in the mix.

Mention Nickelodeon cartoons and immediately you’ll most likely get two responses; the Rugrats or Hey! Arnold and rightly so; both were well written, identifiable at the respective ages, aimed at children but not patronising and easy to follow. They’re only downside being they were both American and so continued the Americanisation of the English language in Britain.

However, a ‘Blast from the Past’ article shouldn’t focus on TV shows everyone knows and remembers so let us take a wander down a quieter road and get closer acquainted with something a little more niche.

Aside from the unusual head shapes in Hey! Arnold and the weird hair colours and faces of the adults in the Rugrats (and possibly Phil and Lil as twins are scary as), there was no real what-the-hell aspect to either of these TV shows. All kids’ cartoons should have an element of abstract oddness as said concept very rarely works in other TV aimed at older audiences, as evidenced by the career of Noel Fielding on TV.

So, on the basis for sheer balls-out, what-the-fuckery, this blog post will, somewhat belatedly, look at two animations that occupied the coveted “off school ill” slots on late 90s Nickelodeon; Arthur and Doug.

We’ll start with Arthur, now into its 15^th series (with another two in the pipeline), a show that, in retrospect, was incredibly crammed full of moral messages. It is made by PBS in America, mind.

For starters, Arthur’s extended circle of friends contains an individual from every conceivable socio-economic background and a large number of the problems Arthur and his chums encounter are often solved by a trip to the library or opening a book in some manner. Elsewhere, Arthur’s parents work from home as a chef and an accountant, respectively. Thus, we have arguments for the benefits of multi-culturalism, reading/publicly funded libraries, the nuclear family set up and running one’s own business (in the form of his father).

Elsewhere, Arthur also doles out advice on real-life social issues too from the death of pets and how to deal with dyslexia to advice on coping with loved ones with cancer, Aspergers and Alzheimer’s which is also nice and cheery.

Somehow, as well as throwing in moral crusades and advice on social issues into a kids’ TV show, there is even a steady stream of pop culture references made that keeps the at-home-looking-after-the-kids crowd mildly interested. How Arthur managed to fit in any of his shenanigans when all these other themes were cramping his style is a mystery.

Thankfully, all these other, more adult elements were delivered using an anthropomorphic aardvark, (although if you knew he was an aardvark at the age of 9 you were a super-genius) with lots of fun being had so we were all but putty for the messages to seep in, especially after that intensely catchy, reggae-style theme tune. There is probably a link between the amounts of Arthur a person my age watched in their youth and how left-leaning they are now.

At the other end of the covert influencing of young minds scale we have Doug a show which, from my memory at least, was notable for two things.

Firstly, the obsession Doug and his friend Skeeter had with the Lipps Inc. tune ‘Funkytown’ and going to a theme park called ‘Funkytown’ that presumably played ‘Funkytown’ over the PA 24/7 in a distinctly unfunky dystopic version of the early 1980s. Chilling.

Secondly, that the show either had the worst budget in the history of animation and could therefore only afford one box of crayons a series or, the writer had never seen human beings before and so had no idea at all what they looked like. I say this as nobody in Doug had the skin colour of a real human being, besides Doug, his family and his love interest, Patti Mayonnaise. Yes, that was really her name. Incidentally, ensure SafeSearch is on before Google image searching “Doug”. I really mean that; I’ve seen things, terrible things.

Anyway, yeah, skin colour. The aforementioned Skeeter was an aqua-green colour, nemesis Roger was also green, and neighbour Buddy was purple, as were twins Al and Moo.

Perhaps kids’ TV of today is equally as strange and bizarre and full of underlying socio-political messages but, quite frankly, I don’t care as things were always better in one’s own day (and that’s a fact) and, furthermore, I’m not going to watch hour upon hour of CBBC as its hard to sell that as “research” to those close to me.

Happy dawn of Spring day

For a person with self-diagnosed-but-unwilling-to-have-it-confirmed-as-medical-fact seasonal affective disorder (SAD indeed!), today was a quite momentous personal day.

Today marks the first day of happy weather season, medical term incidentally, for a number of reasons.

For those who mark their calendar based around sporting events, i.e. every sane person on this planet of ours, today is the football League Cup final day which, along with the first Grand Prix of the year and the end of the Six Nations, marks the dawning of Spring to cheer up our depressingly tedious little world. Largely cheering us up by allowing us to guffaw at randy farm animals boning everything that moves as we fly by on the motorway. Anywho, soon enough we’ll be hearing the sound of leather on willow and Frisbee on forehead and that’s a very warm thought indeed.

Secondly, you may have noticed that it was a tad unseasonably warm today, unless you’re from the North East in which case it’s warm all day, every day. Despite ridicule from my co-workers as I completed my exhausting 6 ¼ hour shift, I strode purposefully and manfully from my place of work to my car (which was parked at good 20 metres away) with nothing but a t-shirt to protect my skinny torso.

Amazingly, my mighty man nipples did not turn into the world’s most useless pair of orange juicers and thus, upon reaching my car, I was allowed to look magnificently cool (or a humongous douchebag, depending on your interpretation of the next few words) as I drove home with the window down and my driving arm resting on the window frame. Like I said, magnificently cool…in my mind. If only I had the foresight to have taken a pair of sunglasses. Alas.

As an aside, how nice of God (omnipotent and omnipresent Rupert Murdoch) was it to ensure that the first edition of the Sun on Sunday was met with some sun on Sunday. Way to win us all over again Rupert!

Thirdly, and most importantly as this just affected me and no-one else, the drive to work this morning was in something approaching broad daylight. The last time the sun rose before I did, the world still possessed Muammar Gaddafi, Whitney Houston and only one type of KitKat Chunky*. There is something quite uplifting about not having to graft one’s way to work through darkness so thick that it attended special classes, to deploy a rather awful metaphor.

So, I hear you not asking, how did I celebrate this wondrous day whereby the incredible changing of the seasons that our planet produces? Staying indoors all day and getting unhealthier, but of course. Money is required to be able to enjoy ciders in the sunshine and anyone who sunbathed today really should have had some funny looks aimed at them (yeah, I would have sunbathed today, but self-consciousness issues and all that).

 Happy dawn of Spring day y’all.

*For the purposes of that joke, we’re ignoring Christmas and New Year booze-induced lie-ins and any of my days off work. Why? Because I’m lazy and I’m not going to do a rewrite so there.

Blast from the past; pain with your cereal

Growing up around the dawn of the age of widespread satellite TV had many benefits; not having to go outside and the sacred ten minute freeview being two positives that immediately spring to mind.

Another advantage was the sheer breadth of viewing options covered for that vital period between waking up and going to school/college. This wealth of viewing alternatives meant you were never short of something to watch whilst you ate that retrospectively foolish chocolate-heavy cereal.

For the golden age of your childhood innocence, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon were all you need with their bright colours, jaunty theme tunes and mild flirtatious banter between the presenters that largely went over your innocent head.

However, come the age of 11 or 12, secondary school had changed the way you saw the world. Laughing at other people’s misfortune became far more fun and we hedonistically hunted for something to appease that particular urge, a skill that would come in handy again around the age of 16 when another urge began to strike.

Uniquely, Challenge TV and, less uniquely, Japan, provided the solution to our morning schadenfreude craving; a man taking a football to a place where objects travelling at a high velocity hurt (his tescticles) was the perfect addition to our somewhat more adult, though still heavily-sugared, cereal of choice.

I am indeed talking about Takeshi’s Castle, the show that (may have) saved the (probably) floundering dental and chiropractor industries in late 80s Japan.

For those select few who are not familiar with niche, Japanese game shows from nearly two and a half decades ago that were only ever broadcast on satellite TV in the UK, here is the basic premise of the show; Japanese sadists smiling, laughing and only occasionally screaming as they have pain inflicted on them in a startling varied number of cruel, mad, ingenious ways.

The pretence for the biggest public display of pain-infliction since last John Terry last took a penalty, was a fictional Count Takeshi laying down a challenge; 100+ mad Japanese folk had to storm his ‘castle’ which was constructed out of what appeared to be cardboard and firework remnants, defended by dignity-free guards armed with water guns. These water guns were later upgraded to rather sad and pathetic looking lasers, presumably to match the sad and pathetic costumes.

To sort the wheat from the chaff and to prevent 100 very 1980s looking Japanese people breaking aforementioned cardboard castle through sheer weight of numbers, a series of challenges had to be overcome by the victims/contestants/ mental patients. These challenges often included the risk of facial disfigurement, permanent limps or loss of ability to bear child. Loss of dignity was never an issue however, as this was the 80s so uni-colour jumpsuits and God-awful hair were par for the course.

What was quite remarkable about Takeshi’s Castle was the staggering number of variations on challenges and games the producers managed to twist out of the term ‘ritual humiliation’.

There was a game where people ran through a maze of doors, being chased by men who looked as if they should have been on a government-enforced register, before having their faces blackened (for no discernible reason) or running through a door into some water. The Benny Hill theme tune was thankfully absent.

Elsewhere, people lost teeth and broke ribs as they skipped along stones, risked cranial damage by having giant balls dropped on their heads, ran headlong into potentially solid walls and received footballs fired from cannons into their unwelcoming testicular zone. Sadly, the challenge where contestants wrestled

Inevitably, more fails were shown than successes because, as the internetz knows, fails equals fun. However, a handful of victims made it through to the final showdown where leader of the assault on Takeshi’s Castle, the suspiciously dark-haired and dangerously inept military leader, General Lee led to them certain failure. Only nine contestants ever won the show, meaning you probably had a better chance of winning the lottery, although the constant hope-disappointment cycle of the lottery is less painful than a one off headlong dive into some mud.

Probably the one real flaw of the show, aside from the Craig Charles commentary, was that it eventually spawned in the UK Total Wipeout, 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow and about a million other programmes with the same basic premise but all without the certain special something Takeshi’s Castle had; most likely a 1980s Japanese woman in her 20s making the peace symbol before cheerfully setting off at a brisk pace and the scene ending in her bouncing off of a wall that looked like a door.