Forced Viewing - Week Two

It's been a bit difficult to catch many trashy shows this week, partially because I have had guests around for pretty much all of Saturday and partially because I sort of failed to find too many. It's really hard to force myself to watch some of the tripe on the TV right now, I have to reward myself with spoon fed TV treats (Big Love and Everybody Hates Chris at the moment).

I did catch the end of Big Brother's Little Brother on E4 on Friday, just enough to see the incredibly poor choice of camera angle for the final shot. The segment I saw had three people (presenter and guests I think) in front of a crowd of onlookers who were stood behind a railed fence. Nice to see some people turning out!

Then the camera switches to a wider shot and we see that there is a total of one railing, in the middle of the yard and a total of just six people behind it. Seems like BB is beginning to outstay it's welcome, maybe reality TV shows will start to drop in number over the next few years. We can hope.

I also watched Big Brother's eviction night and while doing so I pretty much reversed by opinion on the Cairon/Sree thing. Sree's a horrible little passive aggressive whinge and Cairon was well within his rights, no he was obligated to give Sree what for and should have done more. Unfortunately it's clear that the public hasn't had the same realisation that Cairon's actually just really, genuinely funny and as such he's out. Kind of a shame that just as I warm up to him he's gone, but then again I did ask for him to get thrown out last week...

Speaking of which, with any justice Sree will be up and out next. I suspect the housemates are fed up with his obsessive stalking, bitching and if he hits the public vote I can't think of anyone who would get thrown out over him. Frankly, good riddance - Cairon was an entertaining clown, Sree is just creepy - I'm sure he doesn't mean to be, but he is. He seems half formed emotionally.

While I'm on the subject of Big Brother, has anyone else noticed Marcus Bentley seems to have lost the will to live? At times his narration of events seems almost suicidally depressed. Someone needs to keep an eye on him in the studio where he's giving these narrations and confiscate his belt and shoelaces!

Oh dear, I'm starting to sound like I'm watching BB10 avidly, I'm not! It's just on in the background for less than an hour a week. Honest!

I'm not sure it entirely counts as occasionally it's funny, but I also caught Russel Brand's Ponderland - Russel's stand up can be a little hit and miss. He has a real energy to him and a sometimes unique take on things. Unfortunately this week's piece on science and technology was pretty bland (Bland Brand - heh) with only a couple of funny moments, I suspect he (and his writers) are stretched a little thin having to come up with a whole series of these shows.

I attempted to watch Total Wipeout for a second time, but as there seems to be no variation in the obstacle courses from week to week I immediately became bored with it and switched over to watch The Fat Bribe: Revisited. A show which goes back to see how two groups of people manage to lose weight - the only difference between them is that the "red" group were bribed ten pounds per 1% of weight lost. This is a scheme which apparently the government is thinking about implementing.

The results are not the least bit surprising (to me anyway - but my academia is in human behaviour). Basically the group who were bribed did better until the money dried up and then piled the pounds back on. The other group lost less weight, got angry about not being bribed, but then kept more weight off. Money is no substitute for good old fashioned human determination.

I suggest the following if the government does implement this system of rewarding weight loss. Eat lots of cakes, crisps, doughnuts and sticky buns and become morbidly obese. You'll have a slight advantage in losing the weight again (as long as you're determined) and you'll get paid to do it. Net result, at the very least you break even - which is effectively being paid for a having government sponsored pig out session.

And that's just one reason why bribing people just to lose weight is a dumb idea - why can't people who are already thin just have reduced rates for everything where their smaller size saves money. Like clothes, public transport and so on. We could call it a thin living rebate, because the words fat tax are just mean...