Thought Picnic: Big Brother contributing to the decline in human civilisation

An appeal to the savage

If reality television had an audience like me, that genre of entertainment would have long since died out like the dodo, never to be revived again, except for a retrospective on one of the darkest ages of humanity, where the surfeit of education and enlightenment, along with significant technological innovation, has made our behaviour resemble that of wild animals driven by nothing but survival instinct.

Readers of my blog are likely aware that I am hardly a fan of these unscripted interactions that caricature the worst of a few for the spectacle of the many. I have allowed myself the occasional glimpse into talent shows, experiencing some surprise or shock, especially from the unexpected gems that can bring tears of sadness or joy.

Our escape is not enviable

Everything I observe is usually through snippets and playback on YouTube, because something has crept into my social media feed, or it has been granted more importance in the news than is ever necessary, considering everything else happening in the world. Yet, these are seen as an escape or distraction, and somehow these fleeting shots of the dehumanisation of our civilisation have become hot topics of public engagement.

By now, you may have realised that one aspect of this reality television series encompasses every variation of the Big Brother shows, whether featuring celebrities or everyday people. At times, one might think that the money paid to celebrities to subject themselves to scrutiny, or the prize offered to public participants, lures them into this macabre theatre where humans are caged for titillation and entertainment. It is popular culture, sadly.

There is more to this—a quest for a spectrum of notoriety, alongside the cohesion or dispersal of virtue, expressed in word, deed, contest, chicanery, or some other unwholesome thing. People have gone on to forge careers from either fame or infamy displayed in these settings.

This theatre of the worst

In my view, Big Brother represents the absolute worst of everything; the house is, in fact, a cage. The 24-hour camera focuses on everyone, with edited versions of the sensational and controversial being spewed from a broadcast drainpipe, reeking of sickening human waste on our televisions.

It contains every element of an animal zoo, where curiosities taken from their natural habitat are brought to a location for our fascination. I have long since eschewed visiting zoological gardens or sea life centres that are nowhere near the sea.

I see in Big Brother a schemed setup that gathers many people with issues and problems better kept from view—opinions that should barely be invited into thought, fragile egos, those too easily offended, and others with rather forthright views considered too confrontational for the baseline of the insipid inclusivity that defies essential common sense.

Imagine placing a chicken, a fox, a cat, a mouse, a crocodile, a venomous snake, a mongoose, a lion, a deer, an elephant, a horse, and a hyena in the same cage and observing what occurs. Like prey and predator, the vulnerable and the inviolable, the aggressive and the docile, the fearful and the bold—every characteristic on display, all while the intervention against nature punishes each animal for acting out its known role.

Utterly thin-skinned lionhearts

Everyone knows that Big Brother does not present a paradise of easy coexistence, and this is where it gains its gawping audience, peering through the cages to observe examples of themselves portrayed by others. It is utterly, utterly loathsome, but then, each to their own.

The current Celebrity Big Brother, which features a range of forgettable has-beens, has invaded my timeline, leaving me to wonder how people fall apart at simple criticism of their abilities. The truth cannot be told about too many individuals who, due to their lack of communication and basic social skills, take offense at a look or a comment. The total absence of nuance or irony in a situation that participants have willingly subscribed to shows how ill-prepared they are for the kind of life many of us face.

Is that all he said? Or is that what they did? Then, there are many more questions along that line of thinking within the context of feigned political correctness, orchestrated niceness, and playing to the gallery.

Big Brother is both a reflection of a microcosm of the basest instincts of its participants and, for those of us engaged, either explicitly or by scant observation, we have become so civilised that we have lost all means of understanding what the advancement of civilisation truly means. Our brains are better stimulated by this tragedy of the jungle in a zoo of humans.

Nigeria: On the #BBNaija disqualification, let's not be conflicted

Alright, it’s Big Brother

Last night, the irksome menace of the Big Brother franchise flooded my social media space with the news of a disqualification from the Nigerian version of the competition being filmed in South Africa.

Now, I am no fan of Big Brother which I think is a zoo under the intensity of Klieg lights with every move and activity beamed into the living rooms of voyeurs in denial of their appetite for watching people express themselves with the basest instincts.

Then again, it does provide a welcome distraction for many minds that cannot find any other productive activity for their time when ogling the ‘animals’ of the Big Brother zoo is fulfilling entertainment of a sort.

However, the disqualification came about because one of the contestants, Ekemini "Kemen" Ekerette, 27 (some say that is a football age), had sexually molested another housemate, "TBoss" Tokunbo Idowu, 32. I did see a snippet of the molestation, but the opinions about it appeared to be both divided and conflicted, in some cases the victim was termed Machiavellian and scheming as the perpetrator appeared to gain sympathy and pity.

Licence is no permission

The issue must be addressed head-on and there should be no room for equivocation on the matter. The facts are self-evident and the rest is sophistry seeking a conjecture towards exculpation which should attract excoriation with respite.

There is no doubt that the Big Brother environment provides a licence for lasciviousness, that licence must however never be construed to be the excuse to abuse anyone, emotionally, physically, sexually or verbally. Whatever excess becomes the expression of base and primal instinct, agency, self-control and consideration are not suddenly passé.

The Big Brother viewing audience is huge, within the spectacle of histrionics and restraint, there is a competition to win the hearts of the audience and thereby the competition. There is no clear path to success, but eventually, the true personality of the participant would be revealed to a global audience. There is no hiding place.

Without consent

So, in that setting, Kemen crept into TBoss’s bed without invitation, as if he had entitlement to her body, he began to caress the lady without having obtained consent and was well into the criminality of sexual abuse when the lady appeared to turn away from these apparently imposed upon and unwelcome advances.

Whether Kemen could take the hint and desist is for anyone to decide and whether TBoss should have violently fought off the encroachment into her private, personal space is open to debate, but that is not the matter at hand.

Kemen, without invitation or consent, violated a woman asleep in her own bed, that is the end of the story and the beginning of judgement. Whatever happened after he got under the sheets was an imposition borne of the aggressive persistence of a man who thought he could have his way and never face consequence or sanction.

No excuses

Maybe, there is some cultural schooling that not only excuses the violation of the woman or the child by those who take sexual favours off the vulnerable for their pleasure, we appear to acquiesce to and tolerate it too.

Much as TBoss was the victim of a wanton sexual violation, there were some ready to paint her as a Jezebel, suggesting she should have fought off the attack on her person and having not done that, she had tacitly given consent. There was no consent, none whatsoever. What happened without putting a finer point to it was at the very least an attempted rape and in the severest case, a rape.

Any sympathy that might have been felt for Kemen must dissipate without remnant, the man is a predator lacking any sense of self-control. That he allowed his urges to get the better of his senses is by no means worthy of pleas of mitigation. The disqualification was probably the minimum sanction acceptable in the scheme of things.

Don’t be conflicted

Those who think Kemen’s professional prospects have been destroyed, Kemen alone is responsible for his actions, he chose to violate a woman and he must face the consequences of his actions and whatever entails from his despicable act.

To all us who have a view on this matter, we cannot afford to be conflicted on this issue, when Kemen conceived the idea of entering TBoss’s room, he could have resisted the urge. When he entered her room and saw she was asleep, he could have turned back and waited until the morning to apologise for entering the room without invitation.

However, the moment he climbed into that bed, he had crossed the line, he had reached the point of harassment, violation, molestation and every reprehensible term of sexual misconduct anyone can muster and for that alone, his disqualification was merciful and more than deserved, his disgrace was assured and as we wait for his apology, I do hope that any other women within reach of this beast are not subjected to this entitlement complex of sexual violation, especially where there might be no evidence to prove this atrocity.

The Big Brother farce continues and I hope the setting offers a mirror on society and lessons to be learnt.

Facebook unwittingly The Truman Show II

Booking an about face

In the last two days I have read about the dangers Facebook poses to my privacy and life. Don’t get me wrong, Facebook has its uses and it has reconnected me with lots of old friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

Beyond that, I have wondered about my readiness for the torrent of the past that overwhelms you as one connection leads to another to another to another till memories long forgotten revive with almost nightmarish consequences like a genie that has been let out of the bottle and in the process broken the bottle never to return to captivity.

The articles I read were one giving reasons to quit Facebook [1] and the other about committing Facebook suicide [2], hara-kiri to give it the exoticism of Japanese.

Only me, only one, only I

After reading the first, I started to close down sections of my museum of the absurd, the exposure I had unwittingly allowed by default was way beyond comfortable and I started to click away at privacy settings and making a good deal Only Me, must less to Friends, the basics to Friends of Friends and the barest minimum to Everyone.

A few week ago, I found a tool that allow me view a good deal of Facebook detail without being logged in, I should have known, but without getting to technical, I like solutions and especially software solutions and applications to imitate life.

In life, I have control

For instance, I can choose not to have my telephone number and address listed in a phone book, it means no one can randomly pick up the telephone guide for my city and find me, for all sorts of reasons – so on Facebook now, if you do not find me through another Friend, you will not find me.

In my home, I have doors, rooms and utility areas, friends are welcome to visit and they would be entertained in my living room, they would normally not be in my kitchen except when we have decided to be there and definitely not be in my bedroom except if they are visiting as guests – in which case, they would have my guest room.

I would be concerned if my friends, talk less of strangers were rifling through my cupboard and like draws out of drawers, even familiarity breeding contempt would not go that far.

In the open without clothes

That is where I have a problem with Facebook, you are a ready material for global voyeurism, your so-called home on Facebook has not walls, no doors, no windows, you are in full view, your living area just as exposed as your bed and your underwear – your secrets are public property – in fact, you unwittingly in The Truman Show [3] with the crassness of Big Brother [4] entertainment over which you have as much control as a prisoner in jail.

The cameras are focused on every bit of information you put there and if you are not technically savvy, someone has got your number and probably more.

Suddenly, you realise you want something called privacy, your own business being yours alone and a few secrets to take away that unpalatable aura of predictability that people know your history better than you that your identity has gone on an adventure long before you stepped out of your door.

Get back in the closet

I am not asking you to get off Facebook, but start slamming some doors, closing some rooms, locking your cupboards and keeping your linen out of view.

For once get back in the closet where you can secretly pleasure yourself without the fear of someone looking – surely, we all want a secret place for peace, quiet, tranquillity and discretion – the open book I had become on Facebook in the space of just over 4 months was frightening enough.

I am not yet committing hara-kiri but I do have the cyanide capsule ready for what might be the inevitable if Facebook does not begin to respect the fact that the last vestige of individuality is to have complete control on my privacy, I should be opening the doors to let people in, not finding out that the wind has blown off my doors, windows and roof as I scramble to keep life and property from total annihilation and destruction.

Sources

[1] rocket.ly - Blog - Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook

[2] Contemplating FaceBook Hara-Kiri | Tech Broiler | ZDNet.com

[3] The Truman Show - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Big Brother (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bailout: Manufacturing Consent for a rotten deal

Ramming the bailout in

When your government desperately wants to do something that they flog so vigorously as best for the people, reach out for Noam Chomsky [1] because the Orwellian Big Brother [2] looms large and you are probably being buttered up too far.

Now, I have not been convinced by the bailout package and each time it transmogrified from downright outrageous towards absolutely unacceptable, I have found myself yet less persuaded of the scheme, it still smacks of a letdown, a let off and a let loose.

However, as the day progressed with debates and supposed agreements, I really did think that the bill, that whopping bill that many large countries would be hard-pressed to foot would pass without much rancor – I saw it all and I was wrong.

They voted it down

The House Republicans voted down the bill [3] by two-thirds of their representation whilst the Democrats supported it by three-fifths of their representation and the stock markets went into free fall.

I have no democratic responsibility to vote for measures that affect markets and people in any appreciable way, so, I cannot really be too bothered with my stance that is resolutely against the bailout – if I were a constituent I would have been calling my representative threatening vote loss.

These representatives had a duty, a great call to service has been made to these people to appreciate a crisis situation and respond appropriately and they failed to rise to the occasion.

Tumbling to the greater good

With it came the largest tumble ever of the stock market even beyond that which happened soon after the terrorist attack of September 2001 giving some truth to the idea that democratic forces can exhibit menaces more devastating than a terrorist attack and still benignly be viewed in the light of the greater good.

There is no greater good in this bailout, because we have hardly heard the real truth of why we are where we are today. Rather than speak the truth we have had propaganda heaped on the issue that people are being railroaded into acquiescing to a travesty and an extortion of the American people for the benefit of the banking institutions.

Manufacturing Consent

Consent has been manufactured [4; 5] to meet despicably unprofitable ends; this bill is bailing out Wall Street, period! All this stuff about making loans affordable or cash available for salary, homes, cars and careers of the people on Main Street is the manipulation of people to want things they do not need by linking the bill to their fears – we all know that no bank would be as sympathetic to the people on loan issues again.

If would not trust each other, why would they ever trust customers even if their toxic assets have been safely taken off their hands without repercussion?

Manipulating events

After the vote, the Republicans came out and literally called ever observer a fool, having not had the votes to even secure anything near a majority, they gambled on the pressure of the moment in the hope their colleagues would do the “right” thing – the right thing was, if you are up for re-election and “Yes” was political suicide.

Maybe Speaker Pelosi’s speech did not help, but what she said was no different from what was on mainstream news, if she so varied from that rhetoric she might have been branded a hypocrite of sorts, it however should not have swayed the Republican from doing the right thing – if left one Democratic representative drawing laughter when he offered to talk uncharacteristically nicely to the offended Republicans so they could put their country first [6].

Do I remember that the Republican convention was all about putting country first or was that just patriotic hogwash masquerading as the fervent love of the fatherland and the cult of war?

Source

[1] Noam Chomsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] BBC NEWS | Business | House votes down bail-out package

[4] The Engineering of Consent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] Political Spirit Returns to Republican National Convention

Childhood: My aunts saw red

They were with us

As we settled down in Nigeria we never were a nuclear family, we always had relations most especially paternal relations staying with us as my father was somewhat a patriarch and pioneer of sorts, later on, it was friends and cousins.

When we were in Jos, my uncle affectionately called Unculu had moved with us from Kaduna, then my aunt, my father’s kid sister and his niece who was much older than my aunt.

The deluge of ridiculous names

One interesting Yoruba culture that probably still persists is that when a wife is brought into a family, the wife never refers to any of the younger ones she meets in the new host family by name.

As a sign of respect or deference for being a new inductee which probably paints the wife as a rank outsider, each person gets a name or nickname they cannot refuse and are known by for the lifetime of the marriage in most cases.

My uncle who we affectionately called Unculu and I think I came up with that name for him was called Eyin Afe (Which I think translates to having the teeth for a good life of enjoyment), my aunt was Modesty; I thought that was after Modesty Blaise and the father’s niece was Idi Ileke (Connoting ideas of Nubian beauty with a waistline of strings of beads).

The more people the wife had to name, the more ridiculous the names became, in fact, for names given in Yorubaland, they were probably the most trivial and meaningless set aside for traditional purposes separating blood relations of the feminine sex from those who had become relations through marriage.

Catching up

I remember a conversation I had with Unculu when he was 22 and I was 8, always playful, friendly and giving me lots of his time – I asked if he could wait from me to catch up to him at 22 – I suppose, it was just a sign of how much I adored my uncle.

Elopement from terror

The girls, my aunts had a tougher time; there was always the fear that girls might get involved in all sorts of unspeakable activity that they were given the impression that their lives would become unliveable if they got entangled in anything of a sexual nature.

My father, gave them the strictest upbringing and he was a disciplinarian of the order of a sadist to my little mind – in all the time I have incurred his wrath, I have never experienced any of the punishments those girls had.

Idi Ileke was well passed puberty and was put into vocational training to become a seamtress, I would suppose whilst she was busy sewing zippers to dresses someone took her fancy and in one of the most distressing times for the adults in my family she eloped with the man.

It probably took a few days to find her, at which time, my father had had enough and he sent her back down south.

I cannot say if she eventually married the man, but we never did see much of her after that.

A mattress ripped apart

Modesty was the younger, I think she was just about 7 or so years older than I, saw her eldest brother in shades of light that would represent terror, fear, anger, violence and control.

Again, in Nigeria, these shades of light were supposed to be read as signs of respect from the protégé and the mentor saw this fear as deference and exacted control as a sign of love – bizarre as it sounds.

When she first tried learning Hausa, it was so funny to hear her completely off accent as she started counting from one – diya, biu, uku, hudu and so on.

But the most tarrying times for her were when somehow my father found that her mattress had been ripped probably by using a blade and he could not get to the truth about how it had happened.

The Spanish Inquisition was visited upon her with tortuous punishments and my father never got any closer to the truth of what really happened – we all heard the cries, the noise, the howling and so on, we were just as terrified and dreaded any circumstance where my father would ever have to be so un-nice to us.

The sweet fruit of tattoos

The cashew fruit tree on grounds was a tree that grew into some sort of shapeless both artful natural thing, we could sit on its splayed out branches and it never grew into anything tall. In season, its fruit were low-hanging; I could just reach out and pluck the fruit.

Versatility of the fruit was revealed when I found out that pod-casing on the succulent fruit could be harvested and dried out for cashew-nuts, however, before the pods were dried out, there was a sap that could be applied to the skin which was used for tribal marks.

Modesty then applied some to her thigh that spelt out her name – over the first few days it blistered, it became septic and then it dried up, healed, leaving an indelible black mark representing the letters of her name.

A whisker away from death

It was then that my father found out and all hell broke loose for her – I saw her lay face down in an incline, her feet on the side of the cupboard and her hands on the floor. She was flogged in that position till I think my father was exhausted.

Could men be so capable of dishing out discipline in that way and still be human with the excuse of preventing the child from having a life less ordinary?

But these are the kinds of rights and authority our elders and seniors in school had the liberty to exercise on us without being accountable to anyone for their actions.

In fact, people were lauded for being this sadistic in the name of discipline and I have read many obituaries where part of the eulogy included a phrase like “strict disciplinarian”, a euphemism for be a brutal brute with a merciless streak all couched under the impression that it was all for the good.

Between discipline and torture

In all, I suppose, there were always a fine line between discipline and brutalisation, in many cases, I have seen parents seriously brutalise their children whilst believing it was just maintaining order through discipline.

The fact that the grown up children still bear physical scars that the parents were probably too ashamed visit the hospital and seek treatment for belies the feeling that parents sometimes never think they can inflict grievous bodily harm on their kids because they love their kids too much to see them devoid of punishment.

This is where I would sometimes agree with the lobby against hitting children because the few times I have been struck across the face in anger when it would have been better parenting to smack me or ask me to do some mean task just shows many parents are confused about discipline, order and control.

They did what they knew

Again, on the whole, my parents did their best, and parenting does not come with manuals or certificates – I am still proud of my upbringing though hindsight does indicate that maybe some things could have been done better.

My uncle and aunts went on to live their own fulfilled lives, sometimes fearful of big brother, sometimes in awe of big brother and over time, big brother has become cuddlier, lovelier and well fatherly-er? Modesty stayed with us till she got married some 8 years later, Unculu had left 6 years before.

All Choirs Standing

The bane of reality television

The genre of reality television has had me reaching for the sick bag many a time as intrigue, spontaneity and imagination which comes from professional craft is lost to the dregs and rawness of the everyday person with warts and all.

What would normally be spared us for the reason of it happening behind closed doors no matter how disgusting is revealed for public viewing that one is praying before watching two minutes of the show that certain representations of the human race become extinct post haste.

The one that really has you wishing the cast belong to the long extinct dinosaurs can only be the Big Brother [1] genre that takes voyeurism to another level well beneath contempt.

The cry of the banshee

The caterwauls that portend to determine good musical talent in the various transmogrifications of musical performance are as subjective as they come – where a whole range of has-beens are given new limelight to shine as judges.

The idle public who need more excitement in their lives get fleeced of millions as they phone in to premium lines thinking they are in some participatory exercise of community think to the end that something gets crowned as the best of barely talented lot that has percolated to the top.

One can sympathise because the compelling television viewing allows from nastiness to be expressed as a form of mentoring and encouragement, if you did not have thicker skin than a hippopotamus after running the gauntlet of a reality show, you have no hope in this world – nada.

Come dance with me

Out of this morass of nonentity seeking adulation has come some rather inspiring work in this reality genre as Strictly Come Dancing [2] where left-legged and flat-footed celebrities are paired up with professional dancers to create really good entertainment.

Through the weeks you see the celebrities become so fancy-footed, watching their performance has you doing either a Fred Astaire [3] or Ginger Rogers [4] in your day-dreaming before your are jolted out of the mesmerism but a rather unkind comment by a judge.

So recently on television there has been this new entertainment thing called Last Choir Standing [5], obviously a pun on last man standing – here, choirs gather to sing impressing a number of judges who seem to be contemporary, knowing their trade and giving a bit of insight into what tone deaf people like me would never pick up.

Singing their hearts out

Having watched two episodes, I have been drawn into the humanity and human expression that comes out of singing together with all sorts of conservative to daring arrangements.

By now, I know that I should have to hand a box of tissues as sometimes, a tear or two roll down my cheeks in empathy – I have found each personal story and consequent performance a realisation of what makes us amazing human beings and gives one hope about the creativity of man that makes them the most unique being that has ever inhabited the universe, as we know it.

The Open Arts Community Choir [6] stole my heart and made me cry as I saw beyond the frailty and disability to people who could do whatever they were determined to do regardless of what others might think about them and excel.

Imagine a choir where the tenors were ladies and that does not begin to express the raw emotion of their rendition of Something inside so strong [7].

In all, even out of deprecating expression masquerading entertainment, there are gems, I commend with all fullness of encouragement and admiration – All Choirs Standing.

[1] Big Brother (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] BBC - Strictly Come Dancing – Homepage

[3] Fred Astaire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Ginger Rogers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] BBC - Last Choir Standing – Homepage

[6] BBC - Last Choir Standing - The Choirs - Open Arts Community Choir Profile

[7] Labi Siffre - Something Inside So Strong [Nelson Mandela/Racism theme] - YouTube

Open Arts homepage

The wonder of a man and his maid(en)

Too wonderful for me

I can only reflect on these sayings of the man of Proverbs.

From the King James Version – Proverbs 30:18-19

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:

The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

The first two are elements of nature and still a matter of wonder, the soaring of the eagle and the time it took for man to master the science and art of flight which still fills me with a bit of wonder, as for the serpent on a rock, we do not have a vehicle that glides over terrain the way the serpent does.

The way of a ship in the midst of the sea is now a no-brainer except when you lose power for satellite navigation and you have not learnt to use the sextant – but for people of those times – getting from one place to another mostly using sails still remains a wonder of seamanship.

The warmth of companionship

The last however is a dynamic that still defies explanation, what is between the man and his woman is just not something you can get instruments out to measure.

I learnt years ago that one should never interfere in that dynamic, it is a force that can be both overpowering and endearing, I have had opportunity to observe the Prince and his Princess, the husband and the wife, the boyfriend and the girlfriend, the boy and the girl and always been overcome with wonder.

Yesterday, I was out to Puerto Rico, one of the coastal towns of Gran Canaria where the ode to the built-environment reads like a thousand stanzas of concrete verse. All the hills built into with white beautiful and ugly hotels just because Europeans of temperate and arctic climes seek warmth in the sun on a European island as far South of Europe as possible.

Big brother

As I walked back with the bus stop with ice-cream cone in hand, he said, “Would you like an ice-cream”, she said, “Oh! Yes, please”. They were probably in their sixties and full of fun – the Prince was playing big-brother, it looked and sounded so nice, though I did not expect to see them skipping hand-in-hand to the beach.

Playmates

Then, you wonder why the older generations go to dance classes, I could answer that question – they were dancing the night away – waltzing, fox-trotting, tangoing and whatever makes ballroom dancing exciting.

The decorum of this kind of dancing sweeps away from sight the grotesque antics of embarrassing middle-aged dancers. The Prince and Princess were playmates – I could not dance with myself, I need to consider dancing lessons too.

Protector

Walking through the nature reserve of Maspalomas, one can walk the dunes bare-footed but on the firmer ground of dried plants with footpaths to negotiate, there are dangers. Double-sided prickly disc-like seeds which adhere firmly to your shoes or sandals – the preferred footwear in those places – so, this couple were on an adventure to encounter pain when I warned them of the dangers.

The Prince answered back gruffly, obviously slighted by the fact that I may have pointed out that his was leading his Princess into danger. The Protector was not really being smart. Maybe afterwards, after picking out the barbs from her soles, kissing it better might salve the pain – I interfered.

Patriarch

The restaurant serves a buffet, which means people have to walk around the food tables to get what they like. In most cases, they walk around, have brief chats about the food and then make their choices before returning together to their tables.

However, there were some Princes who were too princely to walk around, their Princesses did all the running around and served their masters who almost expressed impatience for the lateness of the plate and dismissively waited for the plates to be cleared. The man does have a maid here, reminds me of a cheeky comment someone made when he asked if I had laid the maid, (talking about my cleaner) some people can never attain comportment. Oh! There were quite a few Patriarchs in the house and these are Europeans.

Partners

They were looking for the beach promenade and had walked around in circles till someone decided to ask questions – they even had a 5-month old boy in the pram shielded from the sun because you could not really apply sun-tan lotion on the skin of a toddler.

In fact, it was he, who asked the question about directions and I found out that unlike the commonly accepted view that the men never ask for directions, in this dynamic, it was the lady who would never ask for directions.

They shared the joy of helping each other; he pushed the pram through the difficult terrain of pavements without ramps for wheelchairs or trolleys as we walked to the promenade and all the way down to the Playa del Ingles beach where we parted ways. The Prince and Princess were partners.

A-Partners

The last night, he literally wailed as she began to put a distance between herself and him by running. He said, “You find their jokes funnier than mine”. Any Princess would be to rid of such a pathetic Prince. Somehow, there is still a dynamic at work, there is still an attraction that manages to tolerate the insecurity, but would this go on for much longer? The Prince and Princess were beginning to look like A-Partners.

A-partners, coined by the Sun newspaper to describe couples who get on well after separation.

The Big Sickening Hoax

All for new donors

Well, what can one say? It transpired that The Big Sickening Show (de Grote Donor Show) was a hoax after all, or was it?

The show did take place the only difference the horribly expected and what occurred was that the supposed terminally ill kidney donor was just an actress and the kidney patients were in on the act.

It would appear there was a studio audience of the unshockable who participated in this charade before they learnt that not much of this was reality as pseudo-reality.

Interviews with the producer of the show indicated that 12,000 prospective organ donors had applied for a donor card - the net gain of this event is that they brought a serious issue to public awareness and this is a positive.

Some have already rationalised saying that the non-appearance of the so-called terminally ill donor means no harm was done - in fact, Endemol promised never to cross the limits of acceptable decency by making such a show.

It was a bad kite

It still leaves me unimpressed, hoax or not, there was intent and a possible attempt to completely outrage public decency - they flew a kite (they assessed reaction by being suggestive) and what is to say if there was not such uproar from sections of the public and politicians, that reality would not have been visited upon our screens?

In my book, the end just does not justify the means and in this case, if the intention was to bring more awareness to the organ donor issue, other ways of doing this might have been involved and difficult, but this shock tactic method is beyond the pale and patently unacceptable.

As an almost "vibrant" democracy, the freedom of expression is upheld and protected, but if we give the impression that there are no bounds of decency and sensibility in the exercise of this freedom, what great surprises would we be preparing ourselves for in the near future?

I can assure you, this is not the last we would hear of another edition of The Big Sickening Show genre. But if this is the evolution reality television; to stimulate debate by threatening unethical, reprehensible, atrocious and morally bankrupt human depictions on television, we have arrived a new stage of human de-civilisation and it is as far from nirvana as the East is from the West.

The Big Sickening Show

Big Brother don't bother

When I first saw Big Brother and the rave accompanying it many years ago, I felt we could not plumb any further the depths of depravity, I was wrong.

Big Brother has excelled exceedingly in scraping the dregs of all that is humanly and socially despicable, deplorable and disdainful.

Only last week, Channel 4 in the UK and implicitly the producers of Big Brother - Endemol - which has a Dutch progeny were upbraided for making "serious editorial misjudgements compounded by a serious failure of their compliance process".

This was in relation to the Celebrity Big Brother 2007 show where racist bullying by poorly educated celebrity dunces was aired as they laid into a more sophisticated and successful ethnic minority contestant.

There is no doubt that the producers allowed the rotten behaviour dressed as controversy to continue, they also allowed it to thrive despite the fact that people were losing lives in India because of the events on the show - it was amazingly free publicity and wanton ignominy that could not be paid for or garnered by any other means, they cynically exploited it to the extent that their sponsors cringed and pulled out of the show.

Inspired of mendicancy

Now, the makers of this rotten tat genre have descended into a bottomless pit that digs deeper than the misery of hell, nothing can be as desperate as begging to notoriety far beneath the most unacceptable cause or whim.

The new reality fare has three contestants vying for the healthy kidney of a terminally ill cancer patient. I cannot begin to think of how this format would involve the public in phone-ins and voting - So, nastily named that it translates from Dutch into The Big Donor Show .

The "O" in Show is the shape of a kidney, these people are sick and they make me violently, regurgitatively and retchingly sick beyond respite, they are too obviously certifiable.

Suffice it to say the producers have rationalised this event and stated that this would highlight issues with organ shortage, organ donations and the needy recipients, but this can also be handled in a series of documentaries on the matter. O! Really?

This is NOT Liberal

The Dutch are known for being liberal, but I would be darned if this fits into any definition of liberal and not a less appealing depraved bastardisation of humanity.

Unfortunately, the outrage to this affront to all that is good and decent gives undeserved oxygen and priceless publicity to a programme which might go ahead in the name of free speech, scheduled for this Friday.

It is left to be seen if the contestants will be wheeled on stage on gurneys all laden with intravenous medication from the four posters as the dialysis machines hum with terrifying distraction in the background just as the cancer patient writhing in pain, half-sedated on morphine plays eternal benefactor of a life restoring miracle - a badly needed kidney.

The fallout without responsibility

Then what counselling or consolation would desperate and O so desperate patients receive from the disappointment of losing out and the winner finding out that there is no type match as some unscrupulous doctor is paid to perform the transplant probably for another spin-off show?

If during the show, the terminally ill patient dies, who assumes the Power of Attorney to make the donor choice or would that have been written in a will thus giving the impression of a pre-determined winner?

This opens up too many issues of ethical, moral, social, psychological and legal import, but the quest for publicity and notoriety has probably subsumed this wholesomely important matter.

This all makes for entertainment ever so gross, but the fact is; there is a public who will be entertained and titillated by their quest for material to sate their interminable voyeuristic lusts. No one however, to take responsibility afterwards for psychological and emotional fallout as patient and donor experience how life ends in humans suffering from incurable diseases.

Before long, it would be childless women vying for donor eggs or who handles the pain of labour best before asking for an epidural, maybe some puppy-eyed kids vying for adoptive parents, or imagine the Big Heart Gift - it just does not bear consideration - if this show gets through and gets aired; the human race would have gone too far down the lane of degenerative evolution; apes would probably be more principled in their approach to social issues in their primate communities.

It must be stopped forthwith without any mitigating circumstances whatsoever.

Methinks, this protest is futile.

A cad kisses a pretty woman

Oh! Brother

At the earliest opportunity they were out on the streets burning effigies, pictures and chanting all sorts of abuse.

That in itself contributes to the greenhouse gases but this also seems to be a common type of displaying displeasure in civil demonstrations in the Asian sub-continent.

And would have brought this about? Shilpa Shetty of the UK Celebrity Big Brother 2007 fame and shame was hosting an AIDS awareness event in India and she pulled Richard Gere on stage.

It transpired that after a brief talk Richard Gere took her hand, kissed it, then pulled her towards him, hugged her and then kissed her and kissed her again repeatedly as he leaned well over her.

The audiences applauded until some right-wing Hindu organisation, politicians and lawyers decided this was seemingly outraging public decency and now; Shilpa and Richard have to answer to a judge with the possibility of serving time.

Mr. Gere was no Officer and a Gentleman in his actions, he was playing out Pretty Woman to the extreme such that one felt a bit squeamish after viewing the first kiss.

The backlash is however interesting considering this is the country that gave us Kama Sutra; one would be forgiven for thinking the way India got to be the second most populous country in the world was by thinking of the birds and the bees.

Such rank hypocrisy belittles a people with a long, varied and interesting history; backward, illiterate, regressive and ignorant are words that come to mind; but they can never be used to describe India in this context, however, I might be wrong.

Could have danced in a dress

When Reality is Good

There are aspects of Reality TV that have served as entertainment, for instance, Strictly Come Dancing on the BBC had me looking for my dancing spirit as my body twitched as I imagined myself twisting hips for the Rumba and all that footwork for the fox trot.

I would not have minded being in a coat and tails or some regal dress – don’t get ideas – doing one of those many moves, it was good clean fun and the judges were not mean-spirited humourless know-it-alls, it is unlikely that a complaint was ever registered for that show.

Not really me at all

I watched a few episodes of the UK version of The Apprentice, but I could not identify with that naked ambition and the Jekyll & Hyde nature of teaming up at one time and back-stabbing later on – I expect better of humanity in all walks of life, which is me being naïve.

The US version of The Apprentice was a complete turn-off, if The Donald does not have an honest friend or employee to tell him to get rid of that comb-over then, they are either so fearful of him or he is completely intolerant of basic truths – I cannot work in such an environment.

I have been through a lot less for better paying jobs that would not carry that much stress and would be just as challenging.

Another reality wreck

However, it would appear Channel 4 reaches for the underbelly of what is all too rotten in human expression; Celebrity Big Brother would appear to be just the tip of the iceberg of revelations that might soon reach your screens in the expected episode of Shipwrecked.

In Shipwrecked, groups of people are supposed to be marooned on islands and through survival skills and other activities get voted off till the team with the largest number wins the prize. There was a similar genre episode that plumbs the depths of bad history when the teams were separated by race and pitched against each other.

If we could, the future, see

However, from the snippets we have seen on television of the one to be aired, an 18-year old gap year student – the gap being where her brain should be – has been schooled in the vitriol of race supremacy when she says things like, “When I look out at what Britain is, it's just a complete mess. I don't appreciate how people come into our country and take over our country. Britain's really not Britain anymore. My mind is completely open to different cultures, but I don't think they should bring them to Britain.”

Well, I have news for that girl, I do not like what Britain has become either, such unschooled, pig-ignorant, brainless kids being born into my country by irresponsible parents without an iota of societal responsibility or any gumption to bring up their kids properly, animals in the zoo present themselves in better light.

Neuter them all

And I have been a Briton for at least 22 years before that oaf was born, I am utterly distraught, if we could see into the future, no greater service could have been done for the memory of the British Empire than for her parents to be sterilised.

Then she goes on to say, “I'm for the British Empire and things. I'm for slavery, but that's never going to come back.” Well, I wonder what history book she has been reading and since it is possible she has been reading history backwards, I’ll give a version that sits well with me, I will bring back the old times, I am also for slavery and I’ll have her for a slave, not for a nickel, not for a dime, not for a farthing but for a shovel of guano and I would have paid too much.

We are told she was redeemed during the show as her views changed after she was challenged by other contestants, I wonder if that is good or it is better she had never been born.