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It will come as no great revelation to most of us when I write that television programs are fast becoming worthless, inept, and utterly banal vehicles designed merely to market the products of the corporations that own the TV companies making such crap. And, what’s more, they expect us to be entranced by them.

But, do they?

These days television is aimed at only one market: the young. People of mature years (those of us who’ve had to suffer the insulting and crass label, ‘baby boomers’ – a phrase no doubt originally invented by a twenty year old with a brand new degree in ‘social psychology’, or some other equally inane and worthless qualification) are no longer of interest to TV programmers. Unless, of course, the sponsor is marketing incontinence pants, or ‘senior citizen’ cruises to the Balearic Islands.

Kids today, and by ‘kids’ I mean anyone under thirty, have no idea what quality entertainment is about. Those of us who have dried out behind the ears, remember when comedy was actually funny. Yes, even American comedy.

Admittedly, Americans of any age have missed out on top British comedy shows like ‘Eric & Ernie’, or ‘Only Fools And Horses’, but they still managed to produce and export some of the funniest shows on television.

Not least among these was, ‘Cheers’, with Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman – and, Kelsey Grammer who went on to star in the equally long-running and hilarious sit-com, ‘Frazier’.

Today’s generation know nothing of these classics. They’re fed a diet of cheap, cliched, often badly acted, rubbish because today’s market is all about profit. Quality is irrelevant. And, if you’ve never known quality, you never miss it.

Marketing TV programs in the 21st century, however, is about more than churning out tat. First, get your audience hooked. How many American comedy series start off promising quality, only to deteriorate into dross by series two?

When a new comedy sit-com starring Jane Leeves (she played Daphne, the English live-in physiotherapist in ‘Frazier’) was advertised, I hoped the writers would do her justice.

‘Hot In Cleveland’ got off to a good start. The tale of three women from Los Angeles marooned in Cleveland, Ohio, didn’t sound promising, but the first series managed to maintain a well-scripted plot-line, leaving viewers ready for more.

Sadly, though oh-so-predictably for American television, series two rapidly dived into a toilet bowl of cliched one-liners, coupled with scripts unworthy even of that most dire of all US soap operas, ‘Days Of Our Lives’.

‘Hot In Cleveland’ Series one was merely the bait. From now on it’s just thirty minutes of cheap tat, and that includes the commercials.

Today’s kids probably won’t even notice any deterioration in quality. Why should they? They’ve never known anything different.

Filed under: Not so classic comedy

Posting has been light of late as I’ve been involved with other projects. Not the least of which was attempting to sort out a reputable removal company, to shift all our belongings north to the Michigan Upper Peninsula, this coming June.

Surely, not a difficult task, I hear you say?

Don’t believe it. It appears the moving trade is now riddled with snake-oil salesmen and scam artists, all out to relieve you of your hard-earned cash, and quite possibly, your most valuable possessions in the process.

The first mistake I made was using one of those, “Get three instant quotes” websites – “Orbitz Moving”, I believe it was. You know, one of those bright, shiny, websites with lots of happy, smiling, faces reminiscent of satisfied customers. Distantly reminiscent, in the case of this bunch, at least, judging by the vast numbers of dis-satisfied customers airing their grievances about the companies contracted to this outfit.

I’d used ‘Orbitz’ for many a flight booking in the past and always been satisfied with the service. Mistake number two was assuming some connection. First rule of the internet these days: never assume anything!

‘Orbitz Moving’ doesn’t move anybody. It simply passes information on to any nefarious moving firm prepared, no doubt, to cough up a percentage of the takings if you’re daft enough to sign with them.

Of course, my email inbox was inundated with offers, phony contracts, crazily low ‘estimates’, and voicemail messages from hard-hitting sales staff determined to entice me into their web.

It didn’t take too much research before I hit the ‘delete’ button on every one.

After eight hours or so of total time-wasting I eventually short-listed two that seemed reliable. I would have preferred a choice of three, but in today’s ‘make a fast buck and to hell with customer service’ America, there wasn’t one other I could find that didn’t have a host of complaints laid against them.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Watch this space.

Filed under: Conmen on the move

I was browsing blogs recently and one I hadn’t seen before attracted my attention. It belonged to a British doctor, a general practitioner (known in America as a ‘family doctor’).

One particular post caught my eye. It was a short, yet definitive, statement on Britain’s National Health Service, entitled – “Why The NHS Works”:

I saw a patient last week, who has recovered from major surgery. He has had brain surgery and is now likely to do very well. I am pleased. He is well.

The whole process worked beautifully. He was diagnosed quickly and effectively. He was assessed further at the local hospital who referred on to the Regional Centre where he was well looked after, nursed excellently, and when he came to see me, he and his wife were delighted.

He is an ordinary working-class bloke from Dullsville, who has been looked after.

His care, I reckon, would have cost around £200,000. He knows that. We, the healthy, paid for him to have his treatment.

This is the NHS that I joined as a Junior Doctor 36 years ago.

I get a bit fed up of politicians and journalists telling me that the NHS needs reform.

It blinking well doesn’t. What it needs is aforesaid politicians to go away and do something else with their time. I’d rather they dredged their moats, or tended to their duck houses.

Leave us alone.^[1]

The British National Health Service is under attack yet again, by politicians who’ve no idea how to organize a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a complex organism like the NHS. The government is responding to pressure from corporate industry to privatize the NHS and move it towards the ‘American’ system.

For those still in any doubt, the ‘American’ system is one of the largest cash-cows in the United States for multinational drug and insurance companies, private hospitals, and certain medical professionals who’ve sold out their Hippocratic Oath in favor of a very fat bank balance.

Unfortunately, the ‘American’ system is a complete and utter disaster for the average patient, who stands to lose his home, belongings, in fact everything he owns, when the debt collector calls about his recent hospital bill for appendicitis or open heart surgery.

The doctor who wrote the post, highlighted above, estimated the cost of his patient’s treatment at about two hundred thousand British pounds, or $320,000. The patient paid nothing out of his own pocket. Every working person in Britain chipped in a few pence and paid his costs for him, just as he will do for others now that he’s fit to return to work.

The cost per person per month is minimal, a fraction of the charges imposed by even the most affordable of medical insurance companies in America (though, I’ve yet to discover one).

Recently, there’s been much ado from certain Republican members of Congress about the ‘Obama Healthcare Bill’, passed last year. They want it withdrawn. Killed. Dead.

In order they not be criticized for partaking of the (relatively) cheap medical insurance available to members of Congress, certain of them have refused it and taken out their own private insurance, like most American citizens have to do if they need cover.

Yesterday, one of those Republican members was interviewed on the Public Broadcasting Service. I believe it was Joe Walsh of Illinois. He was asked how much it cost to insure himself, his wife, and one child, given that he had turned down the Federal policy.

His answer was: $1,200 per month. For the sake of British readers, whose jaws I can guarantee will drop, that’s 750 British pounds every month.

Of course, Walsh can well afford it. A Congress member earns $170,000 a year -just over 106,000 British pounds. He was asked how working class people could afford to pay those sorts of sums.

Being a politician, his response was way too long to reproduce here, and anyway, it completely failed to address the question.

Politicians in America have much in common with their European counterparts. In particular, allegiance to corporations who willingly subsidize their already overblown salaries.

There are many Americans who’ve been hoodwinked into believing ‘socialist’ medicine is inspired by the Devil. Quite why the Devil would want to heal free-of-charge is beyond my comprehension. It sounds more like something Jesus of Nazareth might do.

Socialist medicine: Where the healthy pay a little…so all who are sick may get well.

^{[1] “Why The NHS Works” The Jobbing Doctor, January 30th 2011}

Filed under: Don’t dare get sick