How to break a story at midnight
August 29th, 2009 at 01:31

Poor journalists. It must be a pain in the arse when a story breaks at around midnight, so you have to cut them some slack for, perhaps, not living entirely up to proper Woodward & Bernstein-esque journalistic practice at such an hour. Especially on a showbiz story…

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Religious TV channel in money-grabbing non-shocker
August 22nd, 2009 at 20:42

It’s Saturday night, I’m watching TV and on screen I can see a singing and dancing extravaganza that it making me feel a little bit sick. No, I’m not watching the X-Factor, as I’m far too elitist for it. And besides, I’m annoyed as it’s not fair that when I suggest they parade the mentally ill on TV to be laughed at I’m labelled a monster, yet when Simon Cowell does the same thing, it is apparently labelled a ratings smash.

No, I was watching one of the obscure religious channels on Sky, Inspiration TV. I know I shouldn’t be surprised at the transparent money-grabbing and the open contempt they show towards their viewers – after all, I compiled a video of much the same thing a couple of years ago – but it really reminded me just how sickening the whole thing is.

I tuned in to see a large man of about 60 wearing an expensive looking suit, hosting something akin to a church service on what looked like the set of Blind Date. At the bottom of the screen was prominently displayed phone number and a message soliciting for donations – or for viewers to “sow their seed” in religious channel parlance. Apparently a £120 donation will get you a free “Prophecy Bible”, because obviously the eternal love of God isn’t a big enough draw on its own.

What’s interesting about the language of “sowing seeds” to describe donations is that I’ve heard it before on other religious channels, where the on-screen charlatan will promise miracles in return for donations. Presumably there must be a loophole in the Ofcom broadcasting code that makes it acceptable to promise undeliverable rewards in exchange for money, as long as you express it as an agricultural metaphor.

What made this even more remarkable though was that the text occasionally changed to say that if the caller makes a donation of £1195 ($2400), then they are guaranteed to get a miracle that is ten times larger. That’s right: £1195.

So somewhat bemused by the precision at which indulgences were valued I sat and watched a large man, who must have been somewhere between 60 and 70 years old tell a long, rambling story about a trip he made, interrupting himself every few sentences to ask a man off-camera how many people had called in so far – as they were trying to find 12 people to make the big $2400 donation. What he lacked in charm and charisma he made up for in shouting.

To cut a long, rambling story short, the gist of it seemed to be that he got back something he gave away one time – the moral being that donating can only be a good thing. He said at one point: “Call in now and sow your seed of $2400! I’ll give it back…” which sounds surprisingly generous, but he then added “…but it’ll be by miracle”.

He kept referring to how he himself was a prophet, but I’m still sceptical that of all the people in the world that God would choose him, and even if he did, whether God would let this man write black miracle cheques as he seems to be doing.

The most enjoyable part though was as the end of the programme neared, he became more visibly anxious about not getting enough callers – the checks with the man off stage became more frequent and the presenter/reverend/pastor character became more visibly ratty. “You gotta act tonight” he said, slightly exasperated, “NOW!”.

He sounded pretty angry that people seemingly weren’t willing to send him over £1000 at the drop of a hat.

As the programme began wrapping up, the huge choir behind him started to sing “Yes Lord, Yes Lord” over and over whilst the man shouted “Pick up that phone! In Jesus’ name, pick up that phone!” repeatedly, whilst the cameras cut to the people taking the calls.

Having not hit the targets they were aiming for, right at the end another man appeared and informed us viewers (I’m assuming it wasn’t just me watching) that lines were going to remain open after the programme, and that we should “obey the voice of the holy spirit, obey the spirit of obedience”.

And at this point I got a little bit depressed thinking about the naked profiteering that these charlatans manage to get away with, and the poor, credulous people who buy into this shit and throw away their money.

It was still better than Children in Need, though.

• Check out my video about religious TV if you haven’t seen it already.

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Musings on American healthcare
August 21st, 2009 at 20:43

If you’re British, you’ve probably spent the last few weeks staring at the TV in something of a bewilderment as President Obama tries to push universal healthcare reforms through Congress. Bewildering because I was under the impression that universal healthcare was pretty much a settled issue – we’re all agreed that it’s a good idea. It is faintly amusing though that the argument American politicians are having we had in 1948. It’s almost as though America are 60 years behind us. Maybe this means in a few years time they’ll be an American fit enough to run a four minute mile?

The almost universal admiration of the NHS (Hannan excepted) that we’ve seen in response shouldn’t be much of a surprise though. It was created after a long, punishing war that hit the working classes the most. That may sound like there are parallels with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but it’d be most uncharitable – after all, World War II only lasted six years.

What amuses me about the whole debate going on in America though is how easily defeated the arguments of Republican and conservative opponents are. They question how the government can run something so big – but seem perfectly happy with the government running their untouchable sacred cow: the army. You’d think they’d get more worked up about the government run army – after all, it’s the army who are more likely to actually have “death panels”.

But alas, the American army is a lot like our NHS: those who criticise it are immediately the villains. Though to be fair, our army is a lot like the American healthcare system too: overworked, not really good enough, but pretty good at killing poor people.

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Just testing ipadio embedding
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:26

Don’t worry, I’m just testing to see how easy it is to embed phlogs… There might be more in the future!

Just testing!

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