Dear Auntie Beeb,
Can I call you that? It’s just that I’ve known you since I was a wee
boy, ever since Brian Cant was the coolest thing on the telly. It’s like we’re
family.
Anyway, you might have heard I’ve not been too well, recently. Just a
spot of light brain cancer, nothing to worry about, but it has meant that I’ve
been spending quite a lot of time in front of the TV. I get quite tired, you
see, and it's as good a place as any to have a slump.
But I can’t say I’ve been very impressed.
I have an established pattern, which is to come home from work knackered,
watch the news, have my tea, then fall asleep during the One Show, which you
seem to have designed for that purpose. I then won’t surface for an hour or
more, until around the time the grown-up telly starts. Unless it’s an
Eastenders night, in which case I will wake up to change the channel; these
people have voices like Stihl saws and even I can't sleep through that. Our
cats are convinced the ’Stenders theme tune goes dum-dum-dum-dumdumdumdum-urgh-bloodyhell-click-zzzzzz.
It’s not the most exotic or productive way to spend an evening, but it
suits me. And you’ve spoiled it, Auntie. This summer, there’s been nothing on.
Nothing I even want to sleep through.
First there was football, all that Euro 2012 nonsense that Scotland
wasn’t even in. You even moved the news for that. You can’t do that: the news
is at six o’clock – there’s a law or an old charter or something. Moving it is
wrong.
Then there was tennis: Wimbledon , the
All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club’s annual knockabout. Tennis is boring
and goes on for hours; I hoped for a bit more tension from the croquet finals,
but you didn’t even show them.
After that there was golf. Some blokes went for a walk, hitting little
white balls in front of them, and eventually one of them was given a claret jug
and some money. Whoopie-do, Auntie, whoopie-do.
And through all this, there was the building threat of the Olympics.
The run-up alone seemed to last most of my adult life.
The run-up alone seemed to last most of my adult life.
The torch relay just went on and on and on, and it's not even
traditional: the Nazis started it in 1936. And I didn't even bother to watch
your rowing drama Bert and Dickie; it looked like a damp Chariots of Fire and I
can't help suspecting it was partly responsible for holding up Dr Who this
year, which is unforgivable.
I watched the opening ceremony, of course, but I did so on iPlayer,
mainly because it has a fast-forward button and I couldn't face three hours of
bombastic special effects that night; I went to see The Dark Knight Rises
instead. Bits of the Boyle-fest were quite good – it really annoyed Morrissey,
for instance – but it did leave me feeling that both Paul McCartney and the
monarchy have now had their day.
After that, though… well, the thing is, I don’t like sport, so the
Olympics have been a bit of an entertainment dead-zone for me.
Maybe I should explain: I have never liked sport. I know, I know, you
don’t understand or don’t believe me. That’s most people’s reaction. Others
just look at me like I have just admitted to being a Scientologist or a snail
fetishist, or are incapable of processing the information and commence The
Football Chat anyway.
I don’t know why I don't like it. I was never good at sport and went to
a school at which being bad at games ranked you lower than amoebic dysentery,
so that might be part of it. But I suspect it’s because I don't get sport. Don’t understand it. No
comprendo.
In my defence, there's quite a lot not to get. Like the scoring in cricket,
for instance: I played the game (admittedly under duress) every summer for
about six years and I still don't understand that.
Or football. Why is that interesting? The plot's broadly the same every
time, it has no soundtrack (well it does, but it seems to consist largely of
songs about Irish history and Victoria Beckham's bottom) and there is very
little chance of a car chase. Yet I've met people who can barely spell IQ but
who can and will talk at massive length about the intricacies of a game in which all I have seen has been some very highly-paid haircuts kicking a ball about for
rather longer than seemed necessary.
So the Olympics are just the grand culmination of the general sense of
boredom and incomprehension you’ve inflicted on me all summer, Auntie.
Why would I feel involved? Why does every other armchair-bound slob seem
to gain some sense of personal achievement from the success of highly-tuned
athletes who happen to have been born in the same country as them? What have
they done to deserve this vicarious thrill, apart from pulled up the roots
their buttocks have sent into their couches and wobbled to the fridge and back?
Why are they all so offended when Frankie Boyle Tweets that Rebecca Adlington has an unfair advantage as
a swimmer because she has a dolphin's face? I'm sure Rebecca is a lovely woman
and a fine athlete, but she is also a celebrity and uses her media profile to
make money; which is fine, but it makes her fair game until she stops taking
cash from British Gas. "Eek. Eek, eeek. Eeeeek!", as she said
herself, while being awarded her medal and a herring.
Nonetheless, I have watched some of the Games; I haven’t had much
choice. But that has just raised more questions.
Why do we now have uneven bars? Is “asymmetric” too difficult a word
these days?
Why, Auntie, did you spend so much money moving to Salford, then just
weeks later head back to London
to broadcast from a glass box balanced on some freight containers? And what’s
with the black marble altar surrounded by geometric patterns? Is this so Gary
Lineker can boost Team GB’s medal count by raising the aid of a dark, demonic
force and interview Bradley Wiggins at the same time?
And what makes Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian of all time? He must
be, all your presenters have said so. And yet, while 22 medals is quite a lot,
all he does is swim; Daley Thompson had to get blisteringly good at ten sports
to get just one of his. And he did it to an Iron Maiden soundtrack. How cool
was that?
You don’t need to answer, Auntie. I really just want to know one thing:
why is it that, with everyone now receiving digital TV and 24 channels of
Olympics available, can’t people like me keep BBC1?
Just in case you change your mind, here’s what I’d like to see on a
typical night’s viewing for the rest of the Games:
8.30pm Javelin
Catching with George Osborne
Short but sweet. Tune in tomorrow for the Michael Gove episode. And the day after for Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. You see where we’re going with this?
Short but sweet. Tune in tomorrow for the Michael Gove episode. And the day after for Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. You see where we’re going with this?
8.35pm My Great Big
Gypsy Website
Sequel to My Great Big Gypsy Wedding in which the happy couples find their new marital homes on a special mapping app comprising a huge arrow pointing to Jeremy Clarkson’s garden.
Sequel to My Great Big Gypsy Wedding in which the happy couples find their new marital homes on a special mapping app comprising a huge arrow pointing to Jeremy Clarkson’s garden.
9:30pm The Only Way
Is Wessex
The casts of various reality shows of the last few years are all put in a house without food, drink or spray tan and not allowed out until they’ve read the complete works of Thomas Hardy.
The casts of various reality shows of the last few years are all put in a house without food, drink or spray tan and not allowed out until they’ve read the complete works of Thomas Hardy.
10:00pm News &
Weather
Followed by Reporting Scotland and Newsnight, with proper interviewees who don’t wear Lycra for a living, and no abrupt cut off to the cheap local version until the real one is finished.
Followed by Reporting Scotland and Newsnight, with proper interviewees who don’t wear Lycra for a living, and no abrupt cut off to the cheap local version until the real one is finished.
11:30pm The Late
Movie Double Bill
A couple of old classics back-to-back. Maybe The Maltese Falcon, or Gregory’s Girl, or something from The Godfather trilogy. Not Chariots of Fire.
A couple of old classics back-to-back. Maybe The Maltese Falcon, or Gregory’s Girl, or something from The Godfather trilogy. Not Chariots of Fire.
3:00am All-Star
Indian Wrestling
With Dale Winton and Archbishop Philip Tartaglia. This doesn’t actually need to be broadcast, we just need to know it has happened.
With Dale Winton and Archbishop Philip Tartaglia. This doesn’t actually need to be broadcast, we just need to know it has happened.
It’ll be ratings gold.
Love,
Graeme.
Graeme.
I think you are on to something with Javelin catching.....
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