Poor Man About Town

I was reading this article in The Times about the Tate Modern. I never liked Tate Modern, I could not put my finger on why. Then I saw this photo in The Times - it had New Model Parents wearing sunflower head-dresses along with their sprogs - they were playing an enlarged board game. I guess it was designed to help their sprogs learn about art. There is this ironic notion that we are culturally starved and therefore we should turn art into a form of junk-food in order to stave off our hunger for it - dumbing down. Children and families have been starved of modern art and therefore Tate Modern has been turned into a Theme Park for Modern Art. This is no great shakes but when you consider a programme like Robert Hughes' Shock of the New that was dedicated to many of the genres on display at Tate Modern, you think that this literal toying around with the said exhibits loses their shock value - they become not so much tame but resigned like circus animals - packaged as flat-pack art, mugs, t-shirts etc.

There was a time when you could go to places for grown-ups, you found only grown-ups and you felt at home, away from the Hell that is Bratdom and its consequent consort of parentdom; there is an insistence in this country to turn every single place and adult sanctuary over to the tyranny of Family Friendly and you know what that means - intolerable brats with their intolerable parents. Cheese Pleeze.

Labels: art, art market, cheesy, dumbing down, family friendly, Lifestyle, museums, Parents

What is it about the BBC - not content with making BBC1 its own trash channel (and that includes the News)as well as a large part of BBC2 also showing crappy programmes, it has done some navel gazing and believes that it is far too high brow. A review has been ordered by the Director-General, Mark Thompson. What this means is that a large sum of money is going to be spent on researching something of which we will already know the outcome anyway - more trash on BBC!

Labels: BBC, dumbing down, media, review, Television, trash

I have been checking out New Labour's web site. I noted that it describes itself as "a democratic socialist party" who are they trying to kid?

In addition to all this, the site has a merchandise shop, where you can buy New Labour trinkets, bawbels and beads. I was quite surprised to note that they had Tony Benn's books on sale along with "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist".

I really find this quite annoying, as I have said in an earlier post, Blair had jettisoned any pretence to socialism that the Labour Party had, he considered it an election liability. So why carry on with the pretence.

Labels: dumbing down, New Labour, politics

I had to watch Red Nose Day on BBC 1, my daughter was involved in this exercise in some minor way - so I had to sit and suffer.

I would like you to share in my suffering, this clip will make you cringe - what did I say - roll on Celebrity Big Brother!

Worst thing is that he can't bloody act.



and he ain't bothered...

As for David Cameron, he recorded the following in his blog:

Can't imagine Gordon Brown doing something like this!

Goes to show what David Cameron meant about TB having a good sense of humour. Always nice to see in politics!

Yes, we are in the region of political dumb-down, expect more of this shit if Cameron gets elected.

Labels: dumbing down, New Labour, politics, Television

This was completely pretentious; it copied and pasted old footage along with new - woman with child through the age of the tube. There was a cockney narrative through the significant life events of the tube. I thought that I would tune into something into informative and designed for anoraks such as myself. I was wrong - the programme turned out to be one of those dreadful "let's not say an awful lot, just bullshit our way through 50 minutes of airtime. It was complete shiiiit.

Labels: BBC, culture, dumbing down, presenters, Television, twelve year old