BLACK ROLE MODELS Saturday, Aug 11 2007

There is no more evidence that the UK government continues to lose the plot than the idea that African-Caribbean boys should have role models such as teachers, lawyers, and even politicians such as Paul Boateng.
In recommendations presented to Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, this is the best way to attract black boys away from the gang and gun culture. Which is, of course, absolute rubbish.

ROLE MODELS

It may be true that rap stars and footballers present incorrect role models, but what must be understood is that these influences are part of ‘culture’, not professional life. Hence, the best way to achieve the desired effect is to use culture to its full extent.
This requires role models within culture who actually start off as these kids do, and not those who are perceived as the ‘lucky ones’ who got a break, or those who have abandoned black culture for white.

CULTURE

Programmes such as Eastenders should get their act together here. Indeed, they have a perfect role model in the character, Gus. A young black lad who managed to escape gang culture through his brother, he is a poor, but decent, honest person.
Gus has not abandoned who he is, but has managed to be a fully functioning member of a decent society. He hasn’t had lucky breaks, or refused to accept who he is. A perfect fictional role model, except – at present he is seen as a loser.
What brilliant opportunities are missed – by culture, and the idiots in government who think they understand the problem.

© Anthony North, August 2007

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THE GOODY AND MORGAN SHOW Wednesday, Aug 1 2007

If you want to know what’s wrong with modern culture, you couldn’t have done better than watching ‘You Can’t fire Me, I’m Famous’ on BBC1, 31 July 2007. Watching Piers Morgan interview Jade Goody was quite nauseating.
You couldn’t have two people more representative of the death of culture – one, a celebrity without talent, the other a fired tabloid editor who did his own fair share in imposing this trashy, trivial, pointless celebrity culture upon us.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against celebrities, as long as they have excelled at something. But celebrity for celebrity’s sake offers everyone the false dream that modern culture can enrich you.
It cannot. All it can do is enrich big business, who fuel the celebrity dream to entice the consumer to spend. And the tabloids are the main media through which this pointlessness arose.
I can, infact, feel sorry for Jade – to a point. She believed the dream and it shot her down. It always will. But for the culture that produced the Morgan’s of this world, I can think of other words.

© Anthony North, August 2007

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ANTI-BBC Monday, Jul 16 2007

The recent controversy over the trailer for the up-coming documentary on the Queen lays bare the reality of the BBC. In incorrectly insinuating that she had walked out of a photo-shoot, their hatred of what Britain stands for is laid bare.
The Anti-British Broadcasting Corporation needs to take a close look at itself, and the ideological commissars that have spread like an infection through it. Expressing the spleen of the rabid anti-British liberal, it is doubtful they still deserve the word ‘British’ in their name.
With a hatred of tradition from family to Royalty, they are decimating the culture of a country that already had, at its heart, a tradition of compromise and fair play. Perhaps this is what it is all about.
After all, why do we need a new liberal credo if it already existed?

© Anthony North, July 2007

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BIASED TV NEWS Sunday, Jul 8 2007

Ofcom has advised that people think TV news in the UK is biased. Only 54% of people believe the BBC is impartial, whilst only 41% believe this of ITV. Rather, broadcasters self-censor subjects they think to be unpalatable.
To a certain extent, this is inevitable. News is gathered by people, and all people hold biases. But a point comes when bias in general becomes more than a natural inclination, and turns into a serious problem.

BBC
Is this really the case with UK news? Let’s begin with the BBC, the public broadcaster that was created to be impartial. Unfortunately, you don’t have to view it for long to realize this is not the case.
Liberal values have impregnated British culture over the last 30 years to the point that, to many, it is as natural as life itself. This is rubbish. Liberal values are a definite ideology which moved on from allowing correct freedoms for minorities years ago.
Liberal values have now become a ‘globalisation inspired’ form of social engineering, hating tradition and the past. The BBC is at the forefront of this form of control. The problem is, employees see this way of life as a self-evident truth, so cannot even conceive of it as ideology – and an ideology based on the individual.

ITV

In such a way, ideology becomes hidden, making it even more difficult to identify and rectify. And ITV news is suffering from another form of ‘globalisation inspired’ control mechanism that is equally dangerous.
Over recent years ‘emotion’ has crept into ITV news. Whole news stories can now be devoted to the ‘feelings’ of victims. Emotive words now appear in headlines, such as this ‘evil act,’ etc.
The problem with emotion is that it should form no part of law-making or balanced news, for indoctrination of emotion in the media leads to people demanding laws that include the emotive element.

IN CONCLUSION

The similarity between these two approaches to news is that they move news, and, by implication, future law, away from the community they are supposed to serve, and on to the individual, who is faddish and only interested in what benefits him or her.
Both these stances pander to a globalised world, in that the powerhouse of globalization is big business, which requires the consumer to move away from long-lasting traditional values, and into a faddish mind-set which continually requires new products to buy.
Both BBC and ITV news moved away from pure news years ago. They are now vessels of a globalised world. And they have been at it so long that they don’t even realize they are doing it.
© Anthony North, July 2007

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MURDER IN THE OUTBACK Monday, Apr 9 2007

Murder In the Outback (ITV1 – UK – 8 April 2007) followed the story of Joanne Lees, from escaping a would-be kidnapper to the eventual trial of Bradley Murdock. Joanne and her boyfriend, Peter Falconio, were touring the Australian Outback in 2001 when Murdock shot Peter dead.
Joanne managed to escape and spent hours in the Outback. The story of her escape seemed unbelievable, and her distrust of the media, and inability to open up emotionally in public, led to a disgraceful media campaign suggesting she might be the murderer.
The killer was found and tried four years later. Joanne had picked him out straight away on photo ID and DNA evidence of his involvement was given. Found guilty, Joanne was vindicated. Peter’s body has still not been found.
The drama correctly showed one of the most disgraceful trial-by-media episodes of modern times. Just because a woman is not media-savvy, a vicious campaign can so easily be the result, and the media needs to look closely at itself to make sure such incidences do not happen again.
Of course this review must mention the brilliant Joanne Froggatt, who played Lees with the same excellence she brings to all her roles. In this drama I didn’t see an actress. I saw Joanne Lees. Acting cannot come better than that.

© Anthony North, April 2007

This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics and links). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.

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THIS IS THE EMOTIONAL NEWS Friday, Apr 6 2007

I remember the news from my youth. A straight-faced newscaster sat emotionless in front of the camera and delivered the news in a matter-of-fact way, the emphasis being on facts. The bulletin was orderly and never deviated from its purpose.
Compare that with today. Today, newsreaders talk to each other, adjust their expressions dependent upon the item being reported, and most of the news is follow-up reports on how a particular story affected someone.
The usual scene on such reports is for someone to be expressing deep emotion. I am not a cold person and can understand the emotions being expressed, but I must ask a question: what has this to do with the news?
If we want a regular emotion-fest, then by all means. But we should not put it on the news, which is for facts about current affairs, not opinions or emotional outcomes. But why do such items infect our news today?
The beauty of emotion is that it diverts the mind from rational thinking. Be emotional and you do not think straight. And I have a nasty feeling that this is why emotion is used so much on the news today. It diverts us from the real issues. I wonder why?

© Anthony North, April 2007

Psycho-TV

This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics and links). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.

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NEW LINGO, INNIT Thursday, Mar 29 2007

Young people are, it seems, losing their accent. Local dialects are supposedly being eradicated as a ‘new speak’ becomes the norm. Presumably, as these young people grow older, they’ll take the new tongue with them, innit.
The birth of a new language may well be on the way, and it is not the first time this has happened. Aided by mobile phones and a pervasive media, this time, though, it may well be different to any language birthed before.
Language and accent usually comes from ‘place’, representing a local identity. This new language form is the opposite of this, fuelled by an international media. We could argue it is the beginning of a new world language, the ‘place’ being the planet, but this could hold severe problems.
Modern media seems to subvert local identity and meaning, hence the new language. But does the nature of this new global language provide anything above consumerism and celebrity-worship? If not, the new language holds no meaning in itself, so a whole generation could be lost to trivia and waste.
Maybe the planet should speak in one voice – but not like this.

© Anthony North, Mar 2007

This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics and links). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.

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ARE SOAP CHARACTERS REAL? Wednesday, Mar 28 2007

We tend to laugh at people who think SOAP characters are real, but should we? Are they the same as normal fictional characters, or do they hold, within the concept of the SOAP, a greater degree of reality than the norm?
Fictional characters traditionally have a simple role. They exist due to, and only for, the story being told. They are nothing more than a tool of the storyteller to get the story across. But SOAP characters break this rule. They exist above and beyond the story.
In SOAPs stories are written for the characters. Psychologically, this is very different. But more than this, SOAP characters can appear daily, we know their habits, we become ‘friends’ over many years.
Okay, SOAP characters such as Ken Barlow or Peggy Mitchell may not be real, but they have more reality than other fictional forms.

© Anthony North, Mar 2007

This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics and links). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.

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THAT OLD SOAP RELIGION Wednesday, Mar 28 2007

From Ken Barlow to Grant Mitchell the SOAP stars are household names. From Emily Bishop to Stacey Slater they enter our living rooms almost daily. But are SOAPs like Eastenders and Coronation Street more than mere entertainment?
One of the oldest forms of social control and moral education is the daily dose of guidance. Christianity perfected this with the Bible and ceremony, offering a Christian occasion for every day, constantly wearing you down to compliance.
Unlike any other form of drama, SOAPs seem to carry out this same sociological role. So we must ask if SOAPs are actually more than entertainment. Could it be that they are the new religion? With, of course, a very different moral theme.

© Anthony North, Mar 2007

This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics and links). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.

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WE WILL REMEMBER COMEDY Saturday, Mar 17 2007

Rumour has it that the BBC are planning a return to family sitcoms. This is to be welcomed as alternative comedy was always a false premise. Indulging mainly in insult and bad language, it never was very funny.
Real comedy is subtle and comes in two main forms – double-meaning and illogic. The former is self-explanatory, the latter requires an event or statement that assaults, and confuses, our sense of reason.
These aspects of comedy must be accompanied by timing, and if done correctly, the laughter that follows is actually a mild form of hysteria – an involuntary reaction to the assault upon our reasoning.
Bad language and insult does not satisfy the methodology of comedy. Rather, laughs are cheap, and the person tends to be laughing at something or someone, rather than on the assault on the rational mind.
I hope the BBC are moving in this direction, for comedy is no laughing matter.

© Anthony North, Mar 2007

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