Saturday, November 01, 2008

For the past week, the British mainstream media has been busy discussing a story of foul-language prank played by two BBC radio broadcasters. I don't buy the newspapers but I see them lying on the streets, and read the headlines as I cycle passed shop fronts. So these are the front pages: Will the broadcasters they be suspended? will they resign? will they... whatever? I don't even know what the whole fuss is about (I guess the use of words like fuck and cunt before 8pm).

I cannot express my amazement at this trivial pursuit while on the edge of a precipice. Here we are on the verge of a deep recession, possibly a depression, the collapse of an economic paradigm, and this is what they talk about? Here we are, with a new report backed by Virgin and other companies saying we are five years away from peak oil - but let's talk about foul language, and BBC policies, and celebrity bad boys.

Is this burying heads in the sand? A symptom of denial? Or a truly provincial navel-gazing attitude? I'm not sure.

5 comments:

Simon J. Cook said...
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mink said...

in what way does this qualify as fun? they don't even quote the foul language. It's just boring, boring celebrity gossip pretending to be moral outrage.

British media is often parochial and mind numbing, but at other times it is excellent in asking hard questions and putting people in positions of authority in their right place. Fun, as you say.

Now is a good time to ask hard questions. Now, and not in a year or five, when we will see hysteria and melodrama in their full glory.

Simon J. Cook said...
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mink said...

surely the 'good time to ask hard questions' was before the present financial crisis?

No, while hard questions should have been asked before, this is far, far from being over. What actions governments take next is of enormous consequence, and is hardly debated.

Simon J. Cook said...
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