Archive for the ‘television’ Category
We Should Encourage Peter Hitchens In His Bombastic Ways.
Peter Hitchens clearly doesn’t realise what a turn off his rude, boorish behaviour is to 90% of people who watch him on TV. Of course, to the small minority who agree with him, it’s very effective rabble rousing just like an Islamist fanatic or a hard right hatemonger. That’s exactly how he looks to most people and really we should encourage him to do more of the same.
Peter’s performance on BBC Sunday Morning Live followed a pattern all too-familiar to those who understand his tactics. Through such occasions his tone becomes increasingly strident, he interrupts everyone repeatedly, complains that no one has read his book, throws in a wild and dishonest claim about cannabis and mental health, then goes into full tantrum mode complaining he’s never allowed to finish his point.
He was accompanied today by David Raynes, the retired-in-disgrace, ex-customs officer who is well trained in Hitchens’ techniques. With a career one step up from a security guard, he now holds himself out as some sort of scientific and medical expert and has a ready made reefer madness story to add in while partnering with Hitchens on the interrupting, talking over and hectoring of other guests.
The moderation of the debate by Sean Fletcher was weak, ineffectual and really rather pathetic but I do sympathise. Hitchens is a Machiavellian, calculated subverter of debate and only the very strongest can handle him.
But it’s clear that nowadays he digs himself deeper and deeper the more hysterical he becomes and the angrier he is, the more the weakness of his arguments is exposed. Carry on Peter, you’re doing our job for us now.
Another Magnificent Masterpiece From Masterchef.
Giovanna Ryan, Steve Kielty, Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed
For year, after year, after year it is my favourite telly. The perfect antidote to days full of stress and idiots. Nothing but nothing enables me to turn off and immerses me as completely as Masterchef in all its variants but this one, the main one, that turns amateur cooks into professional chefs is the best.
As usual I’ll stick my neck out and pick the winner. I’m usually wrong but my controversial choice this year is Saliha.
More Misguided Expenditure From The Monkeys At The BBC.
The BBC can mount a year-long investigation into the trade in baby chimpanzees and drown us all in heartbreaking, sentimental images for days on end.
But when it comes to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in pain, suffering and disability in the UK, in constant fear of a knock at the door because they use medicinal cannabis, the BBC are just stooges and slaves to government misinformation.
The only time the BBC covers the medicinal cannabis issue is when it’s forced to by proceedings in Parliament or when its promoting the work of cannabis oil scammers and rip off artists as it has done on BBC3 recently.
One properly funded documentary, interviewing patients, scientists, doctors and people involved in the genuine campaign could force our government to change its wicked and cruel policy. That wouldn’t suit the BBC’s paymasters though would it? They’re the same people as enforce the evil policy in the first place.
It Sticks In My Throat But Theresa Is Magnificent.
The Andrew Marr Show. 2nd October 2016
Ms May’s performance on the Andrew Marr Show today was a triumph.
She delivered common sense, wit, an inclusive vision and very broad appeal. In a “country that works for everyone” she is undermining the incoherent left. She is showing true leadership in excellent style.
Now all we have to do is get her properly informed about cannabis and drugs policy. I cannot believe that someone who is so rational and considered can fail to understand. I think the truth is that prejudice and years of propaganda is so entrenched, even in sophisticated, intelligent people, that some politicians, including Theresa, have not had the evidence properly presented to them.
We must do better to get our message across and somehow we have to get Theresa May properly to consider our arguments.
Chip Somers, Drug Therapist Charlatan. Ignorant? A Liar? Or Both?
It takes a lot to get me angry these days about attitudes towards cannabis. Many people are simply misinformed and are themselves victims of a relentless propaganda campaign by governments and the gutter press. Today though I watched the Victoria Derbyshire show on catch up from last Tuesday, the day that Parliament published published its report on medicinal cannabis. In the studio were CLEAR member Lara Smith, UPA member Faye Adams and Chip Somers, described as a ‘government advisor’, was on Skype from his home in Hampstead.
You can watch the programme on BBC iPlayer here. The segment runs from 1:22:09 to 1:33.58.
Now this is the BBC, which is always pro status quo and has a dreadful record on inaccurate reporting about cannabis. It’s also the Victoria Derbyshire show, which is a long way from serious news and is more like a cross between Jeremy Kyle and Woman’s Hour – but give them credit for covering the issue
You can’t blame people who have been misinformed and whose prejudice is deeply ingrained from years of brainwashing. This applies to many MPs, journalists, even doctors and scientists. Remember, the endocannabinoid system. one of the most important physiological systems, isn’t even taught in UK medical schools, so ignorance is widespread, even amongst those you would expect to be well informed.
Chip Somers
There can be no excuse for this mendacious and wicked man, Chip Somers, though. He is, you will remember, the addiction therapist who grandstanded over his work with Russell Brand a couple of years ago. He advocates the total abstinence route to recovery which has been so eagerly embraced by the judgmental puritans at the Home Office and has led directly to the highest ever rate of drug overdose deaths, only released last week. Is the man simply a complete fool or is he deliberately dishonest? I think it has to be both. No one with the experience he claims could be so stupid. For some reason: misplaced morality, corrupt influence of money, government pressure, self-promotion of his therapy business – he is engaged in deception.
I’m not going to analyse every one of his miserable words. Watch him for yourself but prepare to be appalled. Suffice to say that his only tactic was to argue against medicinal use with ‘dangers’ that apply only to recreational use by children – a transparent disinformation strategy. He was also nothing less than abusive to Faye’s and Lara’s testimony and his dismissal of Professor Mike Barnes’ evidence review, which analyses 20,000 scientific papers, was just laughable.
Chip Somers is a liar, a charlatan, a confidence trickster and a deceiver. If only some such donkey of a faux therapist would seek recourse in the courts for such descriptions of him. Then we would have the opportunity to prove that he is a man of bad character and evil motivation.
The Fat Lady Is Singing And She’s A Soprano.
I’m not sure whether it’s my second or third time through but I’m now halfway into the sixth and final series and I really don’t want it to end. I feel like I’m about to enter mourning with only half a dozen episodes left.
‘The Sopranos’ is magnificent drama. In my opinion, it is, without doubt, the best of them all. ‘The Wire’ was great, ‘Breaking Bad’ was good but nothing comes close to the tale of Tony Soprano and his family. I’m not a fan of violence on film or TV but it’s all in context and appropriate. The story of an Italian, organised crime family in New Jersey contains everything you would imagine but a whole lot more. It is sensitive, intelligent, insightful, funny, frightening . The acting is superb and the characters are marvellous. Once you get to series three or four they have been so well constructed and developed that the script becomes very subtle and the issues tackled transcend the storyline and become poetry, parables, allegories for our time and our lives.
James Gandolfini, who plays Tony Soprano, is a great actor, now sadly passed. He could have done so much more but this iconic role is a masterpiece. The rest of the cast is fantastic too, different lives portrayed in all their humanity, good mixed with bad, venality mixed with morality. There is much to learn from enjoying this wonderful, masterful exposition of TV drama.
I give ‘The Sopranos’ my highest possible recommendation. Don’t miss it. It is extraordinary.
The BBC’s ‘Traingate’ Attack On Corbyn Is Both Hypocritical And Unfair.
Every single day of the year, BBC news crews do exactly what Jeremy Corbyn’s video crew did on his train journey the other day. They ‘set up’ a shot to make the point or illustrate the story they want to communicate. When the interviewer nods thoughtfully in response to an interviewee’s wise words, it’s all acting. On a single camera shoot you do the cutaways after the interview and edit them in afterwards. If you can’t get the shot you need at the time you’re there, you set it up for the camera.
There’s nothing new, clever or dishonest about this. What is dishonest is the BBC’s use of it to smear and abuse a man who was just doing his job in exactly the same way as a BBC journalist. Of course the anti-Corbyn Fleet Street Mafia has leapt on it with alacrity, a lot more dishonesty, abuse, exaggeration and bile – but what would you expect from the British press?
Self-Serving Hypocrite
As for Richard Branson, I used to be fan like most of the rest of the country but in the last five years I’ve realised that he is an entirely self-serving, selfish and self-centred individual. Nothing the matter with that either, except that he presents himself as a pious, altruistic and groovy guy who’s down with the common people and on their side. There’s as much truth in that as there is Branson in Branston pickle. It’s rubbish. On drugs policy Branson is grandstanding and nothing else. His loose change from yesterday’s jeans would transform the British cannabis campaign but he’s too mean to come up even with a tenner. Seeing him wade in with the mob beating up Corbyn and kick him two or three times while he’s down is truly sickening.
The far more serious matter though is the BBC’s hypocrisy and dishonesty which must be a breach of its Royal Charter obligations. The BBC is composed of soft-left Blairites with a powerful built-in default to the status quo. While I don’t support any of the multiple, confused versions of the Labour Party, I’m in even less support of corrupt, dishonest conduct by our national broadcaster.
Today Would Have Been My Mother’s Very Special Day.
Wimbledon, 2015
Mum would have been thrilled. Surely Andy Murray is to take his second Wimbledon title today. In truth, her real, crush was on Tim Henman but Wimbledon fortnight was the highlight of her year when she even took precedence over my father with the TV remote control. For those two weeks she was glued to the telly from late morning until bad light stopped play.
Every year Mum applied for tickets in the wheelchair seats and most years she was successful. I had the privilege to take her last year to her last Wimbledon. We saw Roger Federer amongst other, more lowly players.
Mum would also have been made immensely proud and happy by the Wales football team’s success in the Euros. The scenes in Cardiff when our heroes rode an open top bus through the city would have delighted her. She was strange sports fan, my mother. Not what you would have expected from this petite but fiercely intelligent woman who built her life around her husband and children. It came from her father, Jack Evans, who was a physiotherapist and perhaps the first ever sports medicine specialist in Wales. My father, three brothers, sister and I were all keen participants in sport when we were younger and Mum put in the hours taking us to games and practice sessions. My very last memory of Mum and sport was when I returned to her in the early hours of the morning from Twickenham after Wales beat England in last year’s Rugby World Cup. Her joy was unconfined. It was glorious.
So it will mean great a deal to me if Andy Murray lifts the trophy today. As far as I’m concerned, he’ll be doing it for my Mum.
BBC. The Truth About Healthy Eating.
For all you food fad fashionistas, vegans and vegetablists, with your gluten-free, organic, quinoa, tofu, dairy-free and right-on, overpriced naaaturaaal, whole and holy foods, this is the day you got found out!
Only the BBC could do a great programme like this which exposes, gently but unmercifully, the giant confidence trick that is the health food, supplement and superfood business.
It’s all a load of codswallop. You’re being cheated into spending tens of pounds on rip-off products when you can eat healthily for pennies.
Watch it and weep for those have been taken in by the goji berries and coconut oil scam. A pack of butter and an apple is a far better buy.
It’s Masterchef Finals Night.
Jack, My Tip For 2016 Masterchef Champion.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, again and again, Masterchef is my favourite TV entertainment programme. Every year it just seems to get better. The producers do an excellent job of adding little twists and new ideas to the format and it never fails to keep me entranced. For the contestants, getting to the final is an almost guaranteed pass into a shot at a restaurant business. That’s how influential it’s become.
I like it in all its varieties: the celebrity show, the professional show but the original, where amateur cooks elevate themselves to a professional standard, remains the best and the most inspiring.
I just love the music, often highlighted with the sound of chopping onions or a blast on a food processor. It’s somewhere between house and trance and I often find myself doing a clumsy boogie around the lounge as I’m watching.
This year has been poignant for me because my mother shared my love of the show and we would watch it together or chat about each episode on the phone. I found myself talking to her about it last night as I watched the penultimate episode and there she was sitting with me on the sofa once again.
My tip for this year’s champion? It’ll be Jack, a very talented young man.
Peter Reynolds 