Topic: Television
Caught a new show on Monday night called 'Broken News'. I highly recommend it. It consists of a series of spoof news programmes and the effect is to create the feeling that you're surfing through all the rolling news channels on digital television. It was utterly hilarious throughout. I hope that it stays this good.
I also watched Property Ladder. The show itself is made quite well, but I despise the very concept of a 'property ladder': the idea that everyone can get rich by developing properties. Perhaps that's because I missed out on the great boom from the mid 90s to a few years ago. Am I the only person who watches the show hoping to see people go broke? The plethora of property development programmes on the box at the moment screams at me as a classic sign of a peak, rather like the moment when the elevator boy is giving you stock market tips. Many of the people on the show go over budget and still make money because they have blundered into a rising market. This can't go on, surely?
Indeed, has it already stopped? I recently went to a charity dinner and was seated next to a letting agent. She told me that she was having to turn away many people who'd bought and tidied up something to let and were desperate for her to find a tenant to cover the outlay. When she confronted them with the harsh reality that the market wouldn't bear the sort of rents they expected, some would stamp their feet, scream and even cry. She blamed programmes like Property Ladder for creating unrealistic expectations.
Lastly I watched Peter Oborne's Dispatches documentary from Iraq. I will address this in a separate piece later this week. My inital feeling was that it lacked perspective.
_ DY
at 4:06 PM GMT
