Monday, December 19, 2005

Saturday night's alright... for dancing?

Twenty million viewers tuned-in to watch Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor go head-to-head. Is Saturday evening TV back?

Quentin Letts, writing in today's Daily Mail, is the most vociferous proponent of the idea that we've all been subject to a tyranny of metropolitan media luvvies giving us increasingly family-unfriendly television. Now, according to Letts, TV bosses have been shocked to learn that actually what the nation wanted all along was wholesome entertainment that was engaging but easy on the brain. Watching hopefuls, both celebrities and nobodies, trying to turn themselves into dancers and singers is just the ticket. 'Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor have been watchable, popular family telly,' says Letts. 'They have been doing what Saturday night television should do, which is to provide a central entertainment which all generations can quietly enjoy.'

It's not as if TV bosses haven't been trying. They've been absolutely desperate to drum up the kind of viewing figures enjoyed in the past by The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game or The Val Doonican Show. These shows were banal but previous attempts to find their modern successors have frequently been rubbish: think Celebrity Wrestling, or anything presented by cheeky ex-footballer Ian Wright. Thankfully, now that people have a few more options on a Saturday night, the audiences for such televisual anaesthesia are in long-term decline. What Letts wants to resurrect is old-fashioned family life and the kind of shared national experience that is rarely found on television outside of sport these days. It's going to take a lot more than a hot-stepping cricketer and a soulful shoe-shop salesman to manage that trick.

Now That's Entertainment!, Daily Mail, 19 December 2005

Friday, December 09, 2005

Killed by the war on terror?

Air marshals aboard an American Airlines flight shot dead a man claiming to be carrying a bomb - the latest deadly consequence of the hysteria about terrorism.

Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old American, had an argument with his wife at the rear of the plane which was still on the tarmac at Miami airport. He then grabbed a piece of hand luggage and shoved his way off the plane, claiming he had a bomb inside his bag. When challenged by air marshals he refused to surrender. James Bauer, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service, stated in clumsy but rather chilling terms that air marshals 'fired shots with the result that he is deceased'. There is no suggestion that the marshals did anything other than follow the guidelines laid down by their superiors. But the man's wife had been shouting that he was mentally ill and that he had not taken his medication. Also, his behaviour was described by another passenger as 'frantic, his arms flailing in the air'.

Perhaps in the past, security staff would have used their judgement to assess that the man was not a threat. But tension about terrorism has been cranked up over the past few years, with a palpable sense of panic emanating from the highest levels of authority. There are parallels with the London shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July. The message is 'when in doubt, shoot to kill' but this is more a 'shaking hand' than an 'iron fist'. Under such pressure, law enforcement officers are 'doing it by the book' - which can mean killing people even if it is not clear that they are a genuine threat. Ratcheting up fear about terrorism does nothing to prevent terrorist attacks, but the list of unwitting victims of the war on terror continues to grow.

Mentally unstable man shot dead by air marshals, Guardian, 8 December 2005