Reflections on TV these days

I’m not a great watcher of television. Never have been, really, but in the last few years most of the TV channels churn out “reality” TV shows – cheap to produce and I suppose they must be popular.  I remember quite a few years back, Pete and I were returning from Brisbane to Melbourne on a Sunday afternoon. Our car was parked in the long term car park, which is serviced by a fleet of small buses going between the car park and the terminal. We caught one of these buses and listened to the conversation between a large group evidently travelling together. They had been to the Big Brother house, where the reality show was being filmed. They were right into it, talking about the … what do you call them… contestants? in the house as though they knew them. Pete and I exchanged a few looks with each other. I think we managed ten minutes of the show, maybe twice. But we must be in the minority, because reality show ‘stars’ seem to be able to make a fortune out of this stuff. The Kardashian shows have been around for a decade. You can buy the DVDs in Big W etc. And Kim Kardashian’s butt and boobs must be around the most-photographed in the world. Particularly by herself.

Apart from that, we have reality shows following the activities of customs officials, road patrol cops, the dog squad, vets – you name it. We get to see the versions from overseas, too. New Zealand airport arrivals, UK immigration officers etc etc. Then there’s the real set-ups. Married at first sight, the seven year itch thing, the biggest loser, survivor, I’m a celebrity – get me out of here.  It’s pretty hard to find any decent drama on the box these days. Unless you buy a subscription service, or you’re prepared to sit through the endless commercials on each channel’s extra services where they air the old shows.

Even the news has plummeted. The ABC is so far left that it might as well join the Labor (sic) party. With the exception of Aljazeera, which still employs journalists, the other channels seem to revolve their news broadcasts around dolly birds with long hair standing outside places like the law courts or maybe the scene of a crime, telling us what the studio announcer has already told us, with a few guesses at what might happen next. During the recent tropical cyclone Debbie there must have been at least a dozen ‘reporters’ scattered along the coast. One idiot was filmed at Airlie Beach, rain-soaked, with the wind howling, exhorting people to stay inside their houses. As for the morning breakfast programs – I get out of bed and log on to Facebook, while Pete watches TV. I reckon I know about most of the important stories before he does, and I don’t have to listen to the inane banter.

Apart from the obligatory news and weather, just about the only programs I like to watch are cooking shows. I hasten to add that does NOT include the egregious My Kitchen Rules. That’s a contrived program about people set up to present interpersonal dramas (a reality show). ie it’s not about the food. I do watch Masterchef. Yes, I know it has its set-ups, especially when the team competitions take place. But that show IS all about the food. That said, I’d rather watch Maggie Beer, Rick Stein, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and the like. My particular favourite was Two Fat Ladies. One of the ladies was an ex-lawyer who was a reformed alcoholic, the other liked a drink and a smoke. She rode the motorbike, while her ex-lawyer mate sat in the sidecar. They made smashing food, with not a low fat alternative in sight. It was always butter, cream, and lard. Real food.

And on the subject of food, have you noticed how weight loss has come full circle? When I was young and slim and conscious of what I looked like in mini skirts and jeans, if I put on a couple of pounds the drill was to stop eating carbohydrates such as bread and potatoes. If you wanted a snack, you ate a stick of celery, or a chunk of cheese. Now, after years of manufactured rubbish like low fat yoghurt and cheese, soft drinks loaded with aspartame, margarine (remember ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter?’), fat meticulously cut off everything before cooking, and no more than three or four eggs a week (because cholesterol), we’ve come back to real (unadulterated) food in moderation. That transition has taken about forty years. I recall my mother always had a jar in which she collected the drippings from cooking meat or bacon. It was a staple of her cooking, as well as a good way of using a valuable resource. Maybe we can start doing that again.

Okay, rant over.

In other news, I haven’t done much writing, although I’ve started a new story. But while I was doing some computer housekeeping, I ran across a blog post I wrote six or seven years ago, about the evolution of my earliest books. You’ll find it at Space freighters’.

Now for pictures. These are some of my favourite bee pictures.