Yippee! I like to start the day with a yippee. It seems positive and upbeat, which is how I am feeling. You might wonder why I have never started my other blogs with a yippee but that is just because I have usually said it just before I start typing. Anyway, this morning’s little outburst of positive energy is because I managed to sleep for 6 hours STRAIGHT last night. Despite being desperately tired, I still stayed up too late, which is something I do, and got to bed at nearly midnight. Part of that was me cleaning up after dinner but mostly I blame the TV. Anyway, DW came to bed shortly after me and woke me up and after a little while we went back to sleep at about 12:30am. Then my alarm went off at 6:30am and Little Man went off at 6:32am. That’s six hours! It has made me feel… well, refreshed may be overstating it a little but at least I don’t feel like stabbing myself in the leg with a fork just to stay awake.

Other things make me feel like stabbing myself in the leg with a fork. The current crop of ads for Big Brother for instance. It is billed as Reality TV when it is actually just a bunch of pretty wannabes (I think “wannabe” is now a word) who exist on the fringe of society playing unscripted roles for the entertainment of people who think they are seeing how “real” people behave, if they could be edited and have their daily life summarised in their five minute slot of a half hour show. You may think “Well, just don’t watch it if you don’t like it!” and that is fair enough. I don’t watch it. And I don’t even particularly mind the concept or the show itself, but I don’t like the ads. I don’t get as much choice when it comes to watching the ads. They just pop up and slap you in the face like a big face-slapping popper.

I am pretty open-minded about entertainment. I think watching people interact is fascinating and Big Brother does do that to some degree. I watched some of the previous series and particularly liked watching “Big Brother Uncut” you know, for the articles. However, the problem is that the same type of people apply and get on the show. Because of the constraints of time and TV ratings and duty-of-care, the Network responsible is forced to be very choosy and the result is a “type” of person that fits a very narrow bill. There is definitely scope within that type for a vast range of individual temperaments and characters but this is further hampered by more constraints such as the rules of the show. The comedian Ross Noble once said he thought a good way to spice things up would be to release a black panther into the house and see what the pretty people do. I personally don’t want to see anyone get mauled to death, but he makes a good and funny point.

Watching people jump through hoops is not actually as interesting as people struggling in their real lives, even with things as unlikely as a panther attack. Again, I’m not looking for blood here. I mean, how do people react when the choices they make affect their own future and their loved ones? What about when the choices of others affect us? I know most (all?) of the contestants are looking at BB as a way to the Fairy Tale life of celebrity and red carpets and in that way it can be argued that they fit the bill, but I don’t agree. I think our society has elevated celebrity status to that of “above and beyond” the daily lives of ordinary people, where worry has no meaning. But for most of us, it will never come. And I personally think that is a good thing.

Mt Thomas may be the body-count capital of Australia but it is closer to reality than Reality TV, because at least the writers are trying to make characters that we, the humble audience, can connect with. These people have lives not unlike our own, aside from all the death. BB may well be entertaining, but it is not nearly as close to reality as the promoters would have us believe. It comes down to my own personal belief that Reality TV is a misnomer. The News is Reality TV. If it comes to watching unscripted TV then I prefer "Thank God Your Here" (sans Tom Gleisner). I wonder if they'll do an "Uncut".

Gotta run!

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: Tic tacs are not Proton Pills. They are tic tacs.