Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Banning stuff that matters

Although the post arises from the very serious matter of Turkmenistan's cultural bans on opera, ballet and recorded music (amongst other things), Skuds brings a wry smile with his little list of proposed cultural bans:
  • TV impressionists who start a sketch with (for example) "Hi, I'm Mark Lawson". If the impression is so bad you need to tell us who it is, then don't do it! And if half the audience don't know who the person is anyway, telling them the name won't help much.
  • Chat show interviewers who ask questions longer than the answers could possibly be, and then interrupt the answer anyway just to make sure.
  • The clip-art of a duck hitting a computer with a big hammer. It wasn't that funny in the first place and its just boring now, even if its used ironically.
  • Biographies of celebrities, released within a week of their death. Have a time limit of at least 6 months before publication.
  • The use by any one person of more than one TV comedy catchphrase per day.
  • Publishing football league tables after the first Saturday of the season, before all the teams have even played a game - even if that is the only chance I ever get of seeing West Ham at the top.
Nice list Skuds: can I add...
  • Withdrawal of programmes without notice from the schedules - at least have the courtesy to tell us.
  • Bumping programmes around the schedules and then claiming they "never got an audience" - even hardy fans get bored of this crappy attitude towards viewers and find something else to watch
  • Nicky Campbell - sorry, the man just irritates the hell out of me
  • Radio5 phone-ins, especially that dreaded 9am slot. I thought nothing could compete with the rampany stupidity and fascistic attitudes expressed on late night radio phone-ins but this just suggests they're now getting up earlier
  • In agreement with JustJane, any use of the phrase "political correctness gone mad" should incur severe penalty

Sure there must be others we could add...

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