Progressive Thoughts - Day 27

Today’s song is Incommunicado by Marillion.

The song is about fame, specifically somebody who wants to be famous but isn’t too happy about all that being famous entails.

I know for a fact that I would be a terrible celebrity and I have absolutely no desire to be famous in any way. I would definitely not want people to stop me on the street and ask for my autograph, nor would I like to be disturbed while having a meal in a restaurant or while travelling on holiday.

I would definitely not want paparazzi to stalk me relentlessly in order to capture me on photo in an embarrassing pose or situation, resulting in my face (and possibly worse) being splashed over the internet or in the tabloid news.

Worse, I wouldn’t want people from my past selling terrible stories about me to the press for money and their own fame.

It would be a nightmare.

And, to be honest, I can’t believe that people crave fame so much, Do they know what they are letting themselves in for?

I laugh when certain celebrities constantly seek the spotlight, prostituting themselves for recognition and then, when they have had enough, lash out at the very people they are trying to impress when caught at a low point.

I’ve seen so many celebrity meltdowns when a paparazzo has caught them off guard or when a shy fan catches them in a bad mood. It’s a paradox I can’t explain.

I realise that everybody deep down has an introverted part of themselves that needs solace in their own company but surely if you are the kind of person who throws yourself out there for adoration and fame, you must realise that this part of you will rarely get a chance to surface.

I also don’t understand why somebody should be famous for absolutely nothing, that is the kind of person who has nothing in their portfolio other than making an arse of themselves on a reality television show like Big Brother. These people are mostly just arses who are willing to humiliate themselves to gain fans but have absolutely no discernible talent.

And what of the fans who love these sad attention seekers?

Why would anybody be a fan of Kim Kardashian????

It is beyond belief.

In my view, a true celebrity is somebody who should be celebrated for having done something worthwhile – even better if they did so without even trying. Musicians who make people happy through their music, actors who whose talents move people in movies and plays, authors who write brilliant books, comedians who make everybody laugh; there are many more examples of people whose work should be celebrated – that’s the origin of the word “celebrity”, for crying out loud.

What I really hate are those celebrities who assume that they are better than normal people like me. You know the kind I mean; the kind of person who walks up to restaurants and say:

 “Get me a table now! Do you know who I am?”

There are many examples of “divas” who seem to think that the rest of us are sub-human. Here are some examples of laughable diva behaviour:

Justin Timberlake has one of his staff disinfect every doorknob he comes into contact with every two hours.

Britney Spears threatened to sue a London venue $5000 if the phone rang in her dressing room.

Any chauffeur who drives Kanye West must wear cotton clothes. Man-made fibre is not allowed.

Adele sent hotel staff on a 140 mile round trip to fetch pizza from her favourite pizzeria at 11pm. When it arrived finally a few hours later, she was asleep so it remained uneaten.

Mariah Carey had to be lowered onto a sofa on a TV show so that she wouldn’t crease her dress.

Jennifer Lopez has to have everything white including flowers, tables and tablecloths, candles, settees and curtains.

There are hundreds more if you care to look.

Personally, I rate myself higher than each of these bozos.

Why?

Because I am a nice guy – and that’s probably why I would be the world’s worst celebrity.

Telly Hell

What is going on in Britain? We’re all cracking up and going mad – MAD I tell you.

I know why we are going mad – and I have a cure. The people of Britain will not like it one iota but in my view, you sometimes have to be cruel to be kind.

My plan is to purge our television of all programmes that turn people into dribbling imbeciles whose common sense seems to take a holiday for the duration of the garbage they are watching.

What has caused this outburst, I hear you cry?

I was reading about what people like to complain about on the TV and I came across an article that said a number of people had complained about the use of the phrase “soggy bottom” on a programme that seems to have turned the UK into a bunch of maniacs. The programme is called “The Great British Bake Off” and is basically a cookery programme where amateur bakers compete against each other to win some form of pathetic prize – what the prize is, I don’t know – I would never watch such rubbish.

The programme should be removed from prime time telly because, quite frankly, it turns people into brainless goons who find excitement in truly awful entertainment; some people become obsessed with such trash telly and feel the need to write about how the phrase "soggy bottom" upsets them enough to write a bloody letter to the BBC.

What is wrong with these people?

What turns normal every day pleasant and intelligent people into these sad obsessed complainers?

I'll tell you the answer: programmes made in telly hell.

Here are some programmes or types of programmes that I would relegate to the early hours on an obscure television channel or, better still, wipe off the face of the earth, in order to save humanity.

Cookery Programmes

Cookery programmes should be relegated to a specialist channel and not be shown all day every day (or so it seems). Such programmes are becoming more prevalent every single second of every single day, making celebrities out of bizarre people like Jamie Oliver, Anthony Worrall Thompson and Delia Smith. Such shows have turned these so-called celebrities into megalomaniacs – like this:



Yes – Delia claims she wasn’t drunk but wanted to use her “status” to get the crowd behind her favourite football team simply because of who she was.

She just made a fool of herself and of those who thought such a rant was a good idea.

Soap Operas

Soap operas do not reflect real life – if they did then society would break down into total anarchy, particularly if real life reflected soaps like Eastenders.

I have a confession; I used to watch Eastenders, Coronation Street and Brookside religiously (as they are on all the time or so it seems). Thankfully, I had a Eureka moment on 5th July 1991 and said to myself “Hang on! What the flump am I doing watching a programme where every character is a flawed arse who wants to con, shag or kill everyone else?”

Soaps are responsible for inflicting Jason Donavon and Kylie Minogue on us. Thanks Australia for Neighbours and Home and Away. And what about Dallas and Dynasty? America is just as culpable.

And of course, I am absolutely certain that we are totally blameworthy for inflicting Eastenders on our American and Australian friends, making them all believe that every cockney is a depressed gangster who screams at every other one and then kill themselves.

Talent Shows

The X Factor is still on for what seems like the gazillionth year. It is a show that dominates Saturday and Sunday night television, exposes us repeatedly to Simon effing Cowell and his equally talentless judges, and presents to us a bunch of lame karaoke singers who are “on a journey”, “have a deep trauma in their lives” and who all sing shit songs in the style of a bad boy band singer or in a bad impersonation a croaking warbling oversinger. Equally deplorable are The Voice, the BBC equivalent, and Britain’s Got Talent, a show that unequivocally proves that Britain has NO talent whatsover.

Such shows are gold dust for tabloids because they fill their pages with bilge about the contestants - which is apt really because I would probably ban tabloids too.

Reality TV Shows

I do not want to watch Z list celebrities trying to dance on a Saturday night in Strictly Come Dancing. Nor am I remotely interested in any other Z list celebrities who want to be dumped into a jungle in Australia. The only time I would be interested would be if they exiled Piers Morgan on a desert island – but only enough to see his smug face crumble when he realised that there would be no cameras to film him, he wouldn't actually get paid and he had to stay there for six months.

I am equally uninterested in the bunch of oversexed Geordies trying to get their end away in Geordie Shore and a bunch of posh pratts in Made in Chelsea.

I can got to the city centre late on a Saturday night to watch that kind of garbage.

Freak Shows

If I woke up and discovered that I had piled on 500 lbs or developed and embarrassing and totally horrendous bodily ailment that made me look like The Elephant Man, I would immediately call the hospital and beg them to fix me behind closed doors. I would not ring Channel 4 and say “Can I be a contestant on Embarrassing Bodies” and subject the entire horror of my condition to the whole of the UK, including showing the full gory details of all operation I need to rectify the situation.

Mrs PM is a sucker for these kind of programmes and usually watches them when it is my turn to cook (having recorded them the previous week). When I walk into the lounge, I then find myself confronted with my tellybox showing me an explicit operation, complete with blood and gore, of a man just at the point where the surgeon is going to puncture his swollen scrotum. I look at my plate and see a lovely meal but the sight of a bloated ballsack about to be sliced somehow turns me off my dinner and makes me want to throw up.

That is not entertainment.

And Finally...

There are lots more programmes I want to consign to TV Hell. I will tell you more in a future post.

Over to you, dear reader.

What TV programmes make your blood boil?

Which TV programmes would you consign to TV Hell?

Am I being weird in my choice or am I the crazy one?

Actually – perhaps you shouldn’t answer that last question.

Reality TV Is Rubbish

A few years ago I found myself watching a television programme. It featured a house filled with people, none of whom I had heard of, and they were ranting and raving and their behaviour was, quite frankly, depraved and idiotic.

I turned to look at Mrs PM who was catatonic having been fully been sucked into the nonsense in front of her.

I realised that I, too, had been totally enthralled by the antics of these strange people.

Something happened.

I had a feeling in my stomach gradually began to take control. My brain, which was close to shutting down, began to react and found a new lease of life. My common sense slowly began to exert its influence on my comatose sensibility and suddenly I found myself blurting out the words that would save me:

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE WE WATCHING THIS GARBAGE FOR?”

My outburst shocked Mrs PM back into the real world and instead of watching a bunch of idiots on the TV she had to endure a massive rant from the man in her life. It wasn’t long before she ushered me out of the room to rant to the cats instead.

For me it was a Eureka moment. I had seen the light. I realised a basic concept that I should have grasped years before. It became my mantra:

REALITY TV IS RUBBISH.

It was a life changing moment.

The programme we had been drawn into was Big Brother 2, the second series of one of the worst programmes ever to grace our TV screens.

Why was I watching it?

I don’t know, is the honest answer.

I had purposely missed the first series and caught part of the start of the second series on a Friday night after returning home, under the influence of a few beers from the pub. I still can’t fathom what possessed me.

I hated the contestants who were largely people who simply wanted to be famous but possessed absolutely no discernible talent.

Yet I still watched it.

The contestants were either extreme egomaniacs, deeply annoying at a primeval level, totally and utterly stupid, had no shame whatsoever or were a combination of all of the above.

And now we are inundated with programmes of a similar variety. In fact, it’s worse than that because now, failed celebrities desperate to kick start their careers, are humiliating themselves in the name of entertainment.

Big Brother has had its celebrity version and I’ve really never heard of many of these so-called stars. And not content with being locked up in a house for weeks, other celebrities allow themselves to be carted to a jungle in Australia and expose themselves as arses as they are forced to eat bugs, crawl through pits of snakes or wear a helmet full of cockroaches.

Yes – I’m talking about I’m a Celebrity! Get Me Out Of Here! – except, in my view the “celebrities” aren’t really celebrities – they are the dregs of the cult of celebrity, Z list celebrities, celebrities who have had their day and should just retire.

With the advent of satellite TV we now have approximately 1000 channels, most of which have nothing worth watching, but which the TV producers seem content to fill with reality rubbish.

I came home from the pub on another Friday night and caught a programme called Geordie Shore which features an obnoxious bunch of male arses from Newcastle who just want to “get pissed and pull women” and their female counterparts who would make any woman ashamed to be female.

Rant?

 It was so dreadful I didn’t know where to begin and for the first five minutes, at least, I sat there, so stupefied, my brain so focussed in disbelief at the chaos on the screen in front of me, that my mouth dropped opened and I drooled like a madman.

And then I said:

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAP?”

Geordie Shore is based on a similar American show called Jersey Shore, which I have never seen but I can imagine is just as dreadful.

Equally appalling is Made In Chelsea. I have never seen this show but the cast members have appeared on other TV shows as guests – as if they are really famous. And guess what? They are arses too.

What I find really sad about shows like this, is that if you want to be famous these days, all you need to do is switch off your brain and become an outrageous, egotistic, flamboyant narcissist and somehow convince a television producer that you have talent - even if you don't have any whatsoever.

All the TV producer then has to do is put together a whole bunch of these arses with the instruction:

“Just be as offensive and despicable as you can be and I will turn you into a star”.

Incredibly for some of these people such a ploy actually works. We see them on panel shows and on the front of tabloid newspapers.

How can “TV personality with no talent” be a job?

It makes my blood boil.

And that is why, dear reader, Reality TV is rubbish.

Of all of the items I have labelled as rubbish, this is the one that genuinely makes me angry. Such is the appetite for this car crash TV that audiences crave more and more. Each time a new show appears it is more depraved, more annoying and more shockingly dreadful that the last one.

Our TV airwaves are diseased because reality TV is spreading through the like a virus from country to country, gradually turning the human race into a species of catatonic brain-dead halfwits..

Big Brother is still going strong.

This is a crime against humanity. 

The show was finally dropped by Channel 4 in the UK but Channel 5 have bought the rights and we are currently in the middle of Celebrity Big Brother with a new series destined to start in the summer.

Heaven help me! Can you believe that?

Perhaps I should work myself into a ranting frenzy and apply for the next series – and destroy the programme from within.

I would be tempted to become so obnoxious that the producers would sign me up in an instant.

“This is Plastic Mancunian, a 50 year old ranting arse who loathes Big Brother and all it stands for. He hates all of the other contestants by default.”

No – it’s just not worth it.

I don’t want to be famous for being famous.

I don’t want to walk into posh restaurants and say “Do you know who I am?” when they refuse to give me a table at the last minute.

I don’t want to be mocked mercilessly by comedians on late night panel shows.

I don’t want to have my face splashed over the front of tabloids for months and months.

I have a life.

Oh – and please don’t get me started on The X Factor – my cats will never forgive you.

Who Reads This Crap?

Yesterday, my good lady, Mrs PM, bought a magazine called “Celebrity Pants” (or something like that). Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, I picked it up and was immediately struck by the fact that I didn’t know who half the people in the magazine were. Either that or I couldn’t believe that these people were still famous.

The magazine described celebrities, some of whom had achieved nothing more than appearing in a reality TV show baring all their emotional baggage for all to see, still in states of extreme trauma in their personal lives due to fashion disasters, excessive weight gain, excessive weight loss, boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife trauma (delete as appropriate), pregnancy, loss of confidence and displaying all the misfortune that we all have to suffer as part of our daily lives.

Who the hell cares?

I ask this question because quite frankly I do not care one iota and furthermore I can’t see why anybody else should care. I don’t go to a random town in England, stop a complete stranger in the street and say to them “I’m slightly overweight and am really struggling to shift those extra pounds – you see I’m addicted to bacon and eggs and can’t stop eating it. I think I might go into rehab …” They would be quite justified in telling me to eff off to be honest.

The magazine basically told me that Kerry Katona is gorging herself into ugliness and her bloke is telling her that she is a fat cow – including pictures of her scoffing a burger; that Letitia Dean is so slim now that she can attract a toy boy; that Jordan and Peter Andre are arguing all the time; that Kate Moss’s arse is getting fat; that Lembit Opik and his cheeky girl have split up; that other supposedly famous people are vaulting mountains to stay in public view.

I ask again; who the hell cares?I also have another question: WHO READS THIS CRAP?

Well I know that Mrs PM does – occasionally. She justifies buying such magazines, saying that she loves a little sleaze, a little juicy gossip, celebrity self-destruction and what some women are wearing.

I couldn’t give a damn. Why would I want to read about Jade Goody and her latest dress? This is a woman who is famous for showing us her worst side on national TV, not once but TWICE. What else has she done? If she faded into obscurity overnight would anybody care? To give Jade Goody her due, at least I’ve heard of her. But on the other pages in “Celebrity Pants” I found myself staring at images of wannabees and has-beens who are strangers to me. I’ve never heard of them. And when I asked Mrs PM who they were she struggled in a lot of cases to tell me (a) who they were and (b) why they were famous.

The magazine would have been as useful to me if it had consisted of a series of articles about random people in London, who they were shagging and what they were wearing. In other words it would be totally and utterly pointless; a complete waste of a tree and ink.

The sad thing is that these magazines are best sellers. People buy them and people love them. WHY?

I just don’t get it. What’s more, I don’t get why the national newspapers are submerged in the cult of celebrity either. The tabloids are full of this kind of nonsense and make these so-called celebrities even more famous.

You read things like “All eyes were on ”. Well let me tell you something; that is a lie. My eyes weren’t on whoever it was. If the person who finished fourth on Big Brother two years ago said to me “Do you know who I am?” I would say – “No – who the hell are you and why should I give you more than a nanosecond of my attention?”

It’s all gone too far in my view and I hate shows like Big Brother and the like that are fuelling this obsession with fame and being famous when the people involved have as much talent as my cat.

I would much prefer to read about unsung heroes and people who deserve the adulation that these so-called celebrities receive. It is these people who deserve the riches that come from celebrity not some former singer of a crap band from the eighties whose now so fat she can’t crowbar her bulk into a limousine, or a winner of a reality TV show whose only claim to fame is that he doesn’t know the capital of France.