I happened to read a ‘house’ copy of the Daily Mail (not something I would pay good money for) whilst having lunch at Pret a Manger today and saw with some incredulity that the news seems to be dominated by some particularly ugly ‘celebrities’ I have never even heard off insulting a very attractive Bollywood star who I have indeed heard of, in the dismal ‘Big Brother’ reality TV programme. Questions in the House? Comments by the Prime Minister and Chancellor? Some of the breathless reports act as if an exchange of nuclear weapons with India is in the offing. Organs of the state threatening to get involved because of ‘racism’? Clearly someone must have put something in the water. Is this really that important? Even on its own terms the whole thing is bizarre, though it does appear that to many ‘racial equality’ means only being allowed to be a jackass to members of your own race. That does not sound very equal to me. Surely the only ‘punishment’ required for the gorgeous Shilpa Shetty’s tormentors is to be revealed as ignorant trailer-park trash to the millions of people who inexplicably watch this programme.
My incredulity factor peaked later tonight however when the top story on SkyNews was the ‘Big Bruvvah racism row’. Oh what drivel, particularly when there is a real ‘human interest’ story to report on, namely the astonishing action by some Royal Marines and Army Aviation in Afghanistan. How on earth could this not be the lead news story?
What’s even weirder is that not being able to pronounce somebody’s name is now considered deeply racist.
The BBC’s coverage of this ‘racism’ story this morning showed a clip of two ‘celebrity’ bimbos wondering whether it was people in China or India who ate with their hands. I don’t watch the programme but if this was the best example of racism they could come up with then it’s a closed case.
Shilpa Shetty has class. Her only mistake was appearing in the stupid programme in the first place.
Well it’s probably easier than having to face the fact that Muslim preachers are calling us “dirty kuffars” and making pig noises whilst referring to Jews. The country can throw it’s collective hands up in horror at the antics of Jade Goody and co., then pat itself on the back afterwards for not tolerating such unpleasantness. At least not from anybody who isn’t a member of a Government Approved Victim Group™.
There’s a thought Gina,
How about the next series being
Big Imam Brother!
With Abu Hamza ( a contender, when you come down to doing pointless tasks, like opening locks with your bare hands). But of course there must be the grit in the oyster, a couple of Rabbis of thought of the day fame should do…
Then for a bit of catch all celebrity raunch
Garry Glitter and Johnathan King…
This is all teacups and storms
Oh and Massive bad taste
The Belgians invented it you know!
Would you believe this even made it onto the nightly news here in Oz? A slow news day or what?
It also made its way into Canadian news. Strange coincidence. Or is it?
It is politically correct to abhor ALL racism, no matter how minor or imaginary. It is the most important thing in the world.
It is not politically correct to glorify combat soldiers engaging in combat, regardless of any heroism displayed, unless it was the very courageous refusal to follow orders or report for duty, which is the epitome of PC courage.
Your confusion is understandable, as you try to view the world right side up. The PC view is entirely the opposite.
That’s the second time today that I’ve read an article describing the contestants as ‘ugly’.
Now, I’m more of a brunette man myself, but even I can appreciate that Danielle Lloyd is fairly easy on the eye!
Unless your aesthetical standards are higher than mine, Perry?
Perry
You sound like my father! ‘Yoof of today’..tut… tut..’the world’s gone mad’..tut.tut..
The sad reality (no pun intended) is that more 18-35 year olds vote in Big Brother eviction polls than in the General Election.
A society in terminal decline?
A society too used to the comforts of peace and prosperity provided by the American umbrella and free trade?
Or a symptom of the state of our state schools?
I have never seen the programme, James, so I am only going by the pictures in the papers and none of them that I saw were of Danielle Lloyd (who I have googled as I had never heard of her). I can see she is a professional babe, but what the hell is this ghastly Jade’s claim to to a ‘celebrity’? Second thoughts, I do not really care…
I too am disgusted by what is chosen for top stories these days and applaud the preference for the “astonishing action by some Royal Marines and Army Aviation in Afghanistan.”
Long term, however, the type of story which will have the biggest impact on human life on this planet is stuff like this (which I personally would prefer to see get top billing on any day WITHOUT astonishing actions performed by people-that-matter to report). –>
Is this the same Dr. Bussard who will invent the propulsion system used in Larry Niven’s Known Space? Looks like he’s off to a good start.
As India made a formal protest and demonstrators there burned effigies of the programme makers, a landmark visit by Gordon Brown to the country was derailed.
What, no Bush effigies? These Indians have no sense at all.
Is this the same Dr. Bussard who will invent the propulsion system used in Larry Niven’s Known Space?
And in other places as well
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Zero
Looks to be the same bloke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard
Perry, old man. The Marines NEVER NEVER leave their dead or wounded behind.
Be they US or Royal, Marines NEVER NEVER leave their dead or wounded behind.
So, it’s not really heroism, per se. Just SOP.
But, yes, goddamn that was some hot shit stuff, strapping themselves to an Apache and going into a very hot LZ.
Well Done, gentlemen! Well Done!
An exchange from earlier in the show:
Jade: “soow then Shuuwlpa do you live in eh, some sowtah of shack then?”
Shulpa: (very crisply) “actually we have the entire 17th floor”
That little exchange reveals to me more about the current dynamic of the relationship between Britain and India than any of the flapping, supine comments offered up by the political classes.
I agreed wholeheartedly with Perry regarding the astonishing story from Afghanistan. This morning my radio brought me Gordon, Tone & iDave all talking about responsibilities and obligations (presumably an obligation not to be racist) and in the Marines demonstrating what responsibility and obligation actually mean.
How on earth could this not be the lead news story?
Quite. It is deeply saddening that this kind of thing barely gets a mention. I’ve got a lot of friends fighting out there now, I’ve been wondering for a while if they should bother for all anyone else cares.
Perhaps they should put Mary Ann Rand on the show, opposite a member of the Taliban. Sarcasm has to be done well to be amusing, dearie. Get lost.
Seriously, all this show does is to demonstrate the utter stupidity of the human race. One of my complaints about it is that it has turned the expression “Big Brother” from being a serious term to describe the intrusive state into a daft “real life” freak show.
The subject of Big Brother (a programme I never watch and am not in the slightest bit interested in) has taken over BBC radio entirely, it would seem.
It has been practically the only subject on Radio 5 for the last two days. I keep switching it on, hoping for something else and rapidly have to switch it off again.
And what about this. Really quite significant. Even more so than violence in Afghanistan.
Exactly Guy – I think we could in this case reasonably have applied the same principle here as is being called for from the fish and chip wrappers. Goody et alare pond life of the lowest order, best ignored completely
Exactly Guy – I think we could in this case reasonably have applied the same principle here as is being called for from the fish and chip wrappers. Goody et alare pond life of the lowest order, best ignored completely
Actually I’m glad that this story has recieved some degree of prominence, albeit way over-the-top. Basically an attractive intelligent young woman with a strong sense of morals is being bullied, mocked and demeaned by a bunch of vile thick chavs on live TV, alll in the name of “entertainment.” The fact that so many people are expressing revulsion at this is something I find heartening. Perhaps I’m being over-optimistic but maybe people are finally waking up to what an ugly nation we have become, one in which ignorance and crudity are held up as desirable traits. I agree however that the racism aspect has been blown up out of all proportion.
Ok, could somebody help me down off this soapbox please?
Sir,
I concur entirely with the comments in your post. Now who’s for dinner?
Shilpa’s making shish kebabs!
Well just to balance this up a bit.
I read a piece by Germaine Greer the other day on this(Yes I know she’s barking these days, but she has actually been on the prog) and she recons that Shilpa is playing a blinder!
Shilpa is very skillfully winding up the chavs with her cooking and Divaish ways.
All I see is huge all consuming ignorance (about just about everything) coming from the Jade massive. All they see in Shilpa is an asian woman. They have no idea that they have the indian equivelant of Jamie Lee Curtis in the house.
These folk are even thicker than Chantelle, last time’s winner, only certainly not as sweet.
I despair for our Nation folks, I really do.
The chickens of the Sociofascist elite are coming home to roost in the lumpen shape of Jade. She is a product of a society that has been tinkered and “engineered” so that ignorance, aggression, rudeness and sloth are not even punished but indulged and rewarded.
I do suspect the roots of the sectarianism is down to envy and “difference”, but comments that can be seen as racist are only escaping because the ground has been prepared.
I think Ken Russell summed them up quite nicely:
“We were all kindred spirits in there, then they sent in the evil spirits. I grew up in the slums of Southampton and we had a word for people like that — guttersnipes. There should be a Devil’s Island where we can send these people, they’re all going to Hell anyway. I’ve met people from all walks of life — but no-one so vulgar. It’s almost as though they’ve been programmed to be vulgar, horrible and objectionable. They speak in a language which is deliberately limited. They didn’t even seem to know how to use a knife and fork.”
Ken nails it – they have been programmed. It may not be direct programming, but the programming from an encouraged inaction – entropic conditioning. They were allowed to degrade whereas in the past most would have been shown or learnt the error of their ways and understood consequence.
Any more and I will enter an “Uncle Jimmy” moment.
P.s Shilpa appears to be a lovely woman. Jade is, at best, “female”.
Very convenient how this story has buried the 21/7 trial and Dispatches programme (that was featured prominantly on Drudgereport and was the no.4 downloaded video on Youtube – yet the BBC never filed a report about).
The PC fascistas in the MSM are desperate to ignore the violence of radical islamists so what better way than to concoct a “racism” row of ignorant white English girls?
That people are lapping up this absurd tabloid trash is the real story of stupid Britain, not a handful of girls nastily cat fighting.
“That people are lapping up this absurd tabloid trash is the real story of stupid Britain, not a handful of girls nastily cat fighting.”
I cannot agree. The real story was hit upon by the lovely Shilpa last night when she asked, “Is this what the UK now is?”
It is just a shame that it should take allegations of racism to stir the populace from its torpor long enough to see what has been apparent for days: namely that Jade and her crue of cackling hyenas are indeed representative of our country, racist or not, and that their behaviour damns us all.
Oh, it will do only temporary harm to her career, prior to the inevitable mea culpas.
PS. Is Danielle Lloyd really the best crumpet competition like Miss GB can throw up …? I don’t wish to be ungallant, but then she is scarcely a lady.
They are burning effigies of Jo from S Club 7 in the streets of Bangalore.
I’ve been pondering that fact for almost 24 hours now, and I am no closer to understanding what it means. I do, however, find it immensely fascinating.
I think it’s probably a positive step, even if it is being done for all the wrong reasons.
They are burning effigies of Jo from S Club 7 in the streets of Bangalore…
This drivel is still going on!
Channel 4 just had a press conference
and Vodaphone have pulled the sponsorship.
Carphone Warehouse.
Where on the streets of Bangalore would you getan effigy of Jo from S Club 7 ?
It would be nice to think that when these British bints leave the house they will be greeted by total silence from the waiting crowd, which will en masse turn its back to them as they pass.
Instead, the idiots convening outside the house will implicitly endorse the behaviour of Goody and co by whooping it up in a manner every bit as unbecoming as the bints who will be leaving.
Also, I am a little bit in love with Shilpa Shetty.
Well, I’m deeply staggered by the prominence given to this. Somehow I suspect that C4 have oxygenated this fire because BB is getting to be a rather tired format. “Day Five in the Big Brother House and fuck all happened”.
I don’t actually see this in terms of race. This is a class* issue. Shilpa is a genuine star with poise and elegance and the Goodys et al are living proof that it isn’t always the cream that rises to the top. The wilful ignorance displayed about India isn’t racism as such – more pignorance of the highest order. Second most populous country on the planet and you’ve never thought to find out anything about it? You don’t even need to read a book or anything, there’s tons of stuff about India on TV. For me that tart from (the now defunct) S-Club 7’s question, “They eat with their hands in India? or is that China?” was more revealing of the spectacular level of imbecility of today’s “Celebs”. Has the woman never seen a chopstick? Or perhaps the celebtocracy just eat directly from the trough and have it removed surgically later.
The thing which amused me most (honestly, cross my heart and all, I’ve seen half an hour of this cavalcade of jackanapes, tops) is that certain people have gone up in my estimation. I can’t stick Ken Russell’s films** but he went up a notch in my estimation for calling the Goody a “guttersnipe”. I thought Jermaine Jackson would have the usual J-clan lunacy but he appeared to be quite a decent bloke. Of course there has been a counter accusation of racism due to him referring to the Goodys as “White Trash”***, which they are.
What we see here, folks, is what happens when “celebs” boot-strapped from nothing to faux fame meet a genuine star and display (in the only way they can) their naked envy and self-hatred.
Perry, you were spot on to contrast this shite with the heroics of our lads in the ‘stan. Never leaving anyone behind may be standard procedure but that detracts nothing from the heroism of the individual acts required to ensure that happens.
* I mean class as in “classy”, not class in the Socialist Worker sense. Think Jessica Rabbit rather than Arthur Scargill.
**Except I have a soft spot (well not that soft) for Amanda Donohoe in “Lair of the White Worm”. I have a weakness for vampires, belly-dancers and cheerleaders. I have many weaknesses.
*** An interesting “racial” slur. If it is racist at all, it’s racist against black Americans.
Edward – turning their backs is exactly what I was thinking people should do. Deathly silence and no faces…not even the reaction she can cat-fight against.
Yes. But sadly, so doing would require dignity.
‘revealed as ignorant trailer-park trash’
I hear ordinary English people discussed like this every day. I don’t like it. I often don’t like the way other English people behave, but the constant demonisation of working class English people has got to stop.
Briefly to summarize then, Shilpa is beautiful, rich, virtuous and foreign, and Jade et al are ugly, poor, bad and English. Oh, and England sucks in pretty much every way and India is pretty much a paradise on earth.
I live in working class North London, and most of my neighbors are working class white Londoners. I want to tell you people right now that your caricature of white working class English people as chavs and ignorant idiots is just that. A caricature.
Take it easy. I don’t think that most of the people on this board assume that all of the English masses are like the contestants on BB. (If they were, we’d be in serious trouble). I take a fairly optimistic view of most of my fellows. I expect many of such folk are as revolted by the antics of the BB contestants as anyone else.
Chav culture is not specifically about class in the sense that you mention. “Chavs” are yobs: and the yob culture, with its shallowness, violence and lack of grace, is often common among people who are actually quite rich by any objective yardstick. The old-fashioned English working class cared a great deal about the virtues of “respectability”, self-discipline and so on: an old-style factory worker, shopkeeper or bus-driver would have been as contemptuous of chavs as any toff in his Belgravia flat.
The problem is not class, it is culture. It is about a culture where achievement, beauty, heroism, refinement, gentleness, wit and self-discipline are held in contempt. That is what the problem is. Class is a red-herring.
Here endeth my lesson.
Andrew Lale, ever since what should have been condemnation of these oiks’ behaviour was, several days ago, hijacked by arguments about purported racism, I have been waiting to see when someone would come out with the old ‘elite condemnation of salty British types’ argument.
Congratulations, you are the first (to the best of my knowledge).
Goody et al. are rightly condemned for their behaviour. But more, their behaviour is intrinsic to the kind of people they are.
The argument from salty virtue might have held good in the era of Methodism and a copy of Shakespeare on the kitchen dresser but, whether or not there remains a genuine English working class (which I rather doubt), these particular individuals are millionairesses, or as near as damn it, not virtuous horny-handed forlock-tugging miners doing their best up against the cruel hand of an uncaring fate.
And as for, “Shilpa is beautiful, rich, virtuous and foreign, and Jade et al are ugly, poor, bad and English. Oh, and England sucks in pretty much every way and India is pretty much a paradise on earth”, please to explain why Jade is not ugly and bad and in what way you think England does not suck.
I’m no afficionado of India, but Jade would appear to be a household name here in much the same way that Shilpa is over there. Is there not something broadly informative about that?
I’ve got a little bit of a problem with the net at the mo. My ISP has taken some storm damage and is so KO-ed that it ain’t even taking voice calls!
(I thought hurricanes in Hertfordshire hardly ever happen).
And, my previous comment on this was “smite-controlled”. C’mon Perry, stick it up. It was in no way offensive to the Samizdatistas!
I hate it when that happens. Especially because it now means TimC got in there earlier then I would have done. Well, mixed feelings on that one. It’s nice to know others agree with you but I wanted it on the record first goddamit!
TimC. Thinking people should turn their backs on the Goody mob when they’re booted outta the BB house. Unfortunately, do you think that many thinking people turn up in the crowd for BB evictions?
Let’s bring it down to brass tacks. If you had the choice between your nice warm house, a cheeky merlot and a DVD or standing in the rain and cold in East London while Davina shrieked inanities for hours on end while you were marshalled by C4 goons merely for the glimpse of a slag what would you select?
I think this shows quite how shallow the MSM is. There was a BBC kids show about S-Club 7 in LA a few years back in which the Sclubbers recited the usual PC rhetoric. How shallow that now sounds! I’ve grounded my LiLo on less.
Of course, sage heads will write in the Indy and Guardian about how this shows more “racism awareness” is needed. This isn’t really about racism, It’s about stupidity and a lack of grace, dignity, humanity…
C4 has hoist itself upon it’s own petard.
I mean, for fuck’s sake, “H” from Steps has emerged as some kinda hero from this sorry fiasco. It’s not exactly strapping yourself to an Apache is it?
Clearly.
Clearly.
… And which bit of that are you contending is not true?
And where did I (or anyone else) say that?
The problem with that is that we are not talking about the entire working class in North London, we are talking about some specific ignorant (demonstrably) chavettes (demonstrably) on a TV show.
Smite control is handled by a bot, not a person, and we cannot watch the comments 24/7, so some delay is sadly unavoidable in getting comments the bot has filtered approved. As it is I spend several hours a day keeping an eye on the blog.
I just can’t help myself from stating the obvious, but I think I have standing to do so, because I have actually been an on-air participant in a US reality-TV show. Not as wild and woolly as Big Brother, to be sure, but a reality-TV show nonetheless.
And I can state, without ambiguity, that the instant that you turn on the wireless mike and the lights come on – You Leave The Real World Behind. A Long Way Behind.
What you see is not the totality of what happened. What you are seen to say is not the totality of what you said. What you are seen to do is not the totality of what you did. Ever. Whenever mrs llamas and I throw the DVD of the show I was on into the player, we always laugh anew at some glaring disconnect from reality which is just staring the viewer in the face. The one I always like is a purported back-and-forth conversation between myself and another participant where it appears that I changed my shirt four times during the exchange. Because it was pieced together from different bits of film, shot at different times. That’s how ‘real’ reality TV is.
All TV is some Heisenberg-driven parallel universe, and ‘reality’ TV is another three parallel universes over. Why can the viewers not even detect a hint of this fractured reality?
I think it’s interesting to note also that the really off-the-wall ‘reality’ shows are all the progeny of a European production company (Endemol) and they really only seem to have legs in Europe. Big Brother, for example, was briefly popular in the US, but has not been broadcast here for several years. I wonder whether this quick demise is due to the naturally-greater skepticism of Americans, who can generally tell when they’re being conned.
Confused, offended, outraged by reality TV? Don’t be. It’s no more real than , say a historical drama, where noone ever had smallpox, the clothes are always clean and the horses never crap when they’re pulling the carriage.
llater,
llamas
The problem with that is that we are not talking about the entire working class in North London, we are talking about some specific ignorant (demonstrably) chavettes (demonstrably) on a TV show.
Precisely. Jonathan also outlined much of what makes Jade not working class but, as Ken said, “guttersnipes”. The word is very apt and for good reason – it implies someone in the gutter attacking others verbally in a way to pull them down. It sums up Jade and Co.
Old fashioned “trad” Working Classes were respectable, honest, hard working and wanted, in general, to better themselves or at least their kids. They saw the middle classes as a goal and eduction, manners, general behaviour and propriety as the means. I, like most, are decended from Working Class backgrounds. It is something to be proud of!
People of Jade’s ilk see any good in people as something to tear down. They are multi-dimensional vandals. They smash and break. They litter the psycological environment with their bad manners, vulgarity and uncooth behaviour. I did not call it entropic for nothing.
As for England sucks…for me people like Jade are the tip of the iceberg, the visible part of what is ripping the guts out of the country. The MSM and those who inhabit and nurture it are the unseen dangers.
p.s. Sorry, Nick. C’est la guerre.
Piss off, Pearce!
You wouldn’t know sarcasm if it bit you on your chancre ridden arse.
Marines do not leave their dead behind. Period.
Ok, I got a bit carried away… in my zeal to defend my neighbors, I may have got a bit red-misty.
I am not defending the behaviour of the ‘chavettes’. And I’m definitely not accusing Samizdatists (?) of a campaign of vilification against the trad working class. I do believe that there IS a campaign of vilification against the white working class, but not here.
As for what is responsible for ‘ripping the guts out of England’, I’m not sure I’d put the contestants of Big Brother near the top of my list. How about the long list of people taking out of the system without any feeling of responsibility for putting something in? How about politicians who live in nice leafy green bits of England while their constituents live in crowded, unpleasant and sterile bits? How about journalists who feel that they and their paper/station are actually bigger than any facts they may discover?
I hope I didn’t peeve anybody too much, as I enjoy reading this blog and would not like to feel that at the very moment I started to contribute my tuppence to it that I alienated you all.
Andrew, your response was very gracious and I accept all your points.
It is true that some of the attacks on the “chav culture” have a touch of snobbery about them, and that reflects ill on the people making them. I deplore snobbery in all its forms, whether it is poking fun at poor people, or for that matter attacking people who happen to have posh accents.
Mary Ann Rand, your comments looked pretty sarcastic to me, and I of course judged what you said on the basis of the rather overwrought comments of yours about the military actions in the Middle East in the past. If you are suddenly becoming a sincere defender of the Marines or whatever, well, that’s wonderful.
It seems to me that this is another expression of the traditional English refusal to be deferrent towards one’s social betters, especially if they’re foreign. It’s not always pretty, but its probably done more good than harm over the years. There’s even something slightly Shakesperian about it.
I watched the first episode and it was clear that it was going to be a rubbish series so that was the last I heard of it till this blew up, but, from what I saw, Shilpa, while plainly an attractive lady, is a distilled version of everything that I find unpleasant about (pseudo-)nobles. I have no idea whether she is aactually a Brahmin or not, but she is certainly an ostentatiously obnoxious snob. (If she had a tenth of the class she credits herself with, she wouldn’t, of course, have appeared on the programme). The fact that some oiks have reacted to her highness as they have gives me some hope that the descent into a police state isn’t totally inevitable.
As Orwell said, if there’s any hope at all, it lies with the proles.
P.S. Of course, the Indian Jane Goodys have reacted, not with crass insults, but by having a riot and burning stuff. I know which I prefer.
“Racism” (globally hot issue indeed these days which would not have failed to attract attention of many a TV viewer not only in Britain) in the “Big Brother” (one of those proved TV shows viewed by the greater part of TV viewers worldwide) seems to have been well orchestrated.
Every time there is a vociferous and yet much-ado-about-nothing attention-grabbing celebrities-involved development in the media it seems something really important is like meant to be missed by the general public.
It is like crying over one’s messed hair minutes before having one’s head chopped off.
I think it’s worth pointing out here for the record that the Mail agreed with many of the commenters here. I don’t have a copy to hand, but the essence of the headline was “with everything that’s wrong in this country, this is what the political leaders consider to be the most important?”
Steve P: I wish I could find it heartening. But the only reason people are getting their knickers in a twist is because it’s “racism”, the modern world’s ultimate sin. (To clarify for the hard of thinking – yes, of course it’s wrong, but bullying anyone is wrong; the reason is irrelevant).
The BB audience has happily watched the same sort of thing – and worse – doled out to countless hapless contestants over the years, and considered it, for some reason, to be tremendous entertainment. (Indeed, most of the conversations I’ve overheard between fans make the “celebrity” fishwives seem positively benevolent.) And, provided C4 isn’t hounded into cancelling the show completely, they will again. As long as it’s only because the object of their venom is fat. Or short. Or ginger. Or bookish. Or northern. Or old.
“Hypocrite” is such an easy accusation to throw at people. It’s a favourite of the sort who are getting so agitated about this. There’s irony for you.
Rone Aone,
You noticed. Great. Could it be a well coordinated diversion from that uncomfortable video about that British mosque going around?
Somehow I doubt a fat, ignorant, ugly piece of work like the Jade character is quite what the Great Bard would have applauded.
No, the idea that this issue shows the plucky Brits sticking it to some preening foreigners does not persuade me. It is more about jealousy, envy and dislike of someone who is attractive, pleasant, etc. It is the hatred of the good for being the good.
Falstaff? Lucio? You’re evidently more of a Claudio fan. Perhaps you think Angelo gets a bad press?
No, the idea that this issue shows the plucky Brits sticking it to some preening foreigners does not persuade me. It is more about jealousy, envy and dislike of someone who is attractive, pleasant, etc. It is the hatred of the good for being the good.
Shilpa is not remotely pleasant and I have seen no evidence that she’s good. What she is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is a priggish snob. It’s hatred of the vain for being vain. Like I said, not pretty though.
I messed up the formatting of that one.
Gabriel: Having watched beyond the first episode of CBB (sad I know, what can I say? morbid fascination I suppose) Shilpa has become an increasingly sympathetic character, particularly for the way she has managed to rise above most of the abuse that has been hurled at her from the witches coven. If being well-mannered, respectful to others and having poise and elegance is considered snobbish (as indeed it seems to be by the Jade Goodys of this world), then that to me seems like a pretty sad state of affairs. The real snobbery on this programme is of the inverted kind displayed by Goody and Co.
Got a bit of chip of the shoulder, haven’t we?
She seems fairly pleasant to me, but I cannot really judge her one way or the other, and in the absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, she seems nice enough as a person. (I have not watched the programme). Priggish? Well, compared to the foul-mouthed heffalumps on the show, she is, I suppose. Vain? Well, that is a pejorative way of saying that she takes pride in her appearance and way of conducting herself. Good-looking people are often vain.
At least Falstaff was actually funny, which is why Shakespeare created him. There is nothing funny about the sort of trash on the BB show, at least not intentionally funny, anyway.
Shakespearian?
WTF! The Bard wrote about the two gentlemen of Verona not about the two fat slags of South London.
And no, the argument from Falstaff is bollocks too. Falstaff was funny. Jade is just a thick fat slag – a San without her Tracey. Her Ma is an evil cow and clearly unhinged and the boyf is a vicious looking Bertie Blunt.
If you’d made a comparison to Viz it might just have had some merit.
Also, Shakespeare is fiction and this is (almost) reality (yeah, llamas I know…) You can get away with a lot more in fiction… Conflating the two will end up with theatre-goers lynching the bloke playing MacBeth! We’re all glad that the fictional character of Basil Fawlty exists but I very much doubt any of us would like to spend a week at his hotel.
Perry, I apologise. I know “smite control” is a good idea. I remember when you first put it up and it certainly nixed some of the monomaniacal nut-jobs who were boring us all senseless. I had a bad day with my ISP and I was just narked by any roadblock on the infobahn.
h2o273kk9 could you explain your screen name? I’m intrigued.
Chips on shoulder aside, its possible that I shouldn’t pass judgement based on one episode, but what is neyond dispute is that if she was one iota better than the Goodys of this world she wouldn’t be on BB.
Wherin lies her vanity. Whether she looks in the mirror or not is neither here nor there, I mean that her supposed superiority is entirely too pharisaical for my tastes (and, hell, I’m a pharisee!).
Off the top of my head, a fat slag from Vienna pops up, though, and gets rather more sympathy than the Shilpa-like Isabella.
Anyway, I hear Miss Goody apologised so perhaps there is no hope in the proles after all.
Gabriel, I really could not care less and that was my main point. That some low-life chavette acts like a low life chavette does not much surprise me… that a classy Indian star acts with class also does not surprise me. That all of this dominates the news astounds me.
Yes, I did look into the Palantir and see the car crash.
AFAICT Jade was tipped off behind the scenes a day or so ago to unilaterally voice her own concerns about her own words. She probably heard about her products being pulled, says I. BB contestants beinng informed about their actions in advance to manage “the experience” = BB is a busted flush…please.
What is the name of this “key Taliban commander”? If it is not “Mullah Omar” I doubt it is of any great importance.
However, I agree it is still of greater importance of antics on “Big Brother”. I remember some years ago (when it was still legal for me to work as a security guard) that I volunteered to do extra partrols in order to avoid seeing this show – which was on the television in the guard area (it was a multiman site).
What was odder was what happened on Friday.
Front page news in the Daily Telegraph was the Chinese space warfare capacity (the shooting down of the satellite) and the general Chinese military build up – but on Sky the top news story was still “Big Brother” the television show.
Thankfully Fox News does not cover British Big Brother (and if there is an American one I have never heard anyone on Fox News mention it) – so it is fairly safe to turn to my normal news station.
I really should stop this, but I feel strangely compelled to point out that one of the basic elements of having class is that you never, ever, not even for a second, mention your class, (or your number of servants, your superior breeding etc.) Shilpa has about as much class as Mariah Carey.
Then please tell me she does not sing as well…