You don't say
It's funny. I've been getting the Sunday Times for years, and always scan the Culture section, but only this weekend did I notice YOU SAY in the bottom right hand corner of the TV listings. It invites you to email in YOUR VIEWS on the telly, and they print them. Let's assume these are real. My eye was drawn, self-servingly, to one about Not Going Out. It pleased me. This is what it said:
BBC1 comedies Not Going Out and The Old Guys have excellent scripts and are well cast. They both liven up the weekend viewing.Now, apart from the unlikely name, this was a pleasant little comment. It made me feel fleetingly flattered to have had something to do with a programme praised by a Sunday Times reader. What a refreshing oasis of reason this section must be, I thought. Good on the British public. Then I read on. This is what the next YOU SAY said:
Tudor Williams, Cheltenham
What hold does Jo Brand have on the BBC? She is crude, rude and yet appears on so many programmes - she is even choosing photos for the Countryfile calendar. Her choices shows she has no knowledge of photographyWhat?! Her choices show she has no knowledge of photography? That's really sticking it to her - a woman who obviously has photos of the BBC Trust in uncompromising positions, hence her fruitful career. I couldn't help but check out the other entries in this intriguing corner section. I'm afraid they rather give the impression that Sunday Times readers are thundering nutters.
Peter A Rushforth
I agree with people who have written about Gregg Wallace on Masterchef (BBC2). I find the absurdly named "ingredients expert" a total waste of space.That can't be a real name, surely? And if it is, and Mr Gurmley-Grennan finds Gregg Wallace a "total waste of space" why does he persist in torturing himself by watching the programme? He is a food expert. Food is ingredients. He is an expert in them.
Tony Gurmley-Grennan
We agree with the recent comments about Today (R4). We switched off after the Gordon Brown interview. Humphrys's patronising tone was very annoying. It ruined what would have been the start of a pleasant day.Who writes joint letters apart from the fictional characters Howard and Hilda on Ever Decreasing Circles? And if you want a pleasant day, my advice is: don't listen to Today at the start of it; it's all about war and recession and politics and John Humphrys is usually on it.
Clive & Eileen Walton
The first Red Riding (C4) was intolerably violent. The journalist playing the lead was brutally attacked many times. Also, I could not understand a word due to the dialect. Very depressing.The journalist playing the lead? Surely the actor playing the lead? And do some people in Worthing still live in a world where "dialects" are difficult to follow? That really is depressing.
Clare Chatham, Worthing
Re Lindsay Duncan's appalling turn in Margaret (BBC2). She was repetitive, robotic and android-like - a sub-Harold Pinter leftie. Had she mixed herself up with her script for a coming Doctor Who? She was truly embarrassing. Best raspberry, surely?Tories with an axe to grind, by any chance? You'd think a descendent of Lord Reith might have a better grasp of how TV drama is made. (I'm not sure Patten was important enough for airbrushing out, but I like the Stalinesque paranoia.) And as for Mr Smith in Grimsby: was Margaret Thatcher really played as a leftie? Worse, a sub-Harold Pinter one? (They're the worst kind: lefties who aren't even as good as Harold Pinter at being lefties.)
David Smith, Grimsby
Why was Christopher Patten airbrushed out? His name wasn't even mentioned.
Edina Reith, London N19
I think the Culture should recruit some of these definitely real readers as TV critics. It would make a refreshing change from all those reasoned, articulate, knowledgable, TV-loving lefties the papers usually employ! I can't wait for next Sunday now . . .
posted by Andrew Collins @ 11:25 PM
37 Comments
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37 Comments:
I loathe all this too, apart from on something like Points of View on BBC1, which has an, er, point. Michael Bywater wrote about this 'your views are important' culture in Big Babies, where he quoted the BBC News website on something like a Canadian airport disaster, which wanted 'your views' and opined if a reader would write 'Brilliant crash; more, please!'.
I used to work with a guy called Tudor Britton, so Tudor Williams seems quite normal by comparison.
Ah, readers contributions are always worth a read, just so we can see the sheer volume on nutters out there on teh interwebz.
I can highly recommend a read of "Speak you branes", which picks out the best comments from the BBC's Have Your Say site:
http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/
Having had a few weeks out of work I've spent more time than is healthy reading online news feeds and the comment sections are just terrifying. I'm not sure whether the unreconstructed opinionation or the ad hom poison gets me most depressed. Your allusion that the letters may be made up is probably very true, but whoever puts that column together won't have to look far for material.
If you've not seen it already David Mitchell writes about this stuff in his latest grauniad piece. He points at the excellent ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com from which the following example of a post on the BBC's Have Your Say pages. On the death of Michael Crichton
Why ask me for my reaction - I’ve no idea who he was.
Douglas Lee, London
Thanks for the tip-off. spEak You're bRanes [sic] is a very funny site. handy link.
Let's face it, if they're not writing to The Times, they're posting on the Word site, eh Andrew?
Rather interesting that you were all for it until something appeared that you disagreed with.
Isn't it funny how only the people we agree with are allowed to have opinions..?
I saw that David Mitchell peace. To be honest, I think it just goes to show you can't be too careful.
I'm not sure if you're accusing me of some kind of hypocrisy or selective judgment here, Bright Ambassador. Are you? I was totally upfront about the fact that I liked the nice comment about Not Going Out, which is why I read on.
But the difference between the comment about Not Going Out and, say, the comment about Jo Brand is that the comment about Not Going Out does not give the slightest hint of being from a slightly unhinged petty-minded green-ink user. (Unless ha ha you think you'd have to be mad to like Not Going Out!)
Over on sPeak You're bRanes, the examples tend to be from right-wing nutcases, but I'm sure comments from left-wing nutcases are included. They're just less amusing.
Bright Ambassador, that's an extraordinary interpretation of Andrew's piece, like a newspaper online commenter would make. If it was a subtle parody, well done!
This post has been removed by the author.
Starngely enough I've been reading these comments for a while now and Sunday's were the first that put me on swivwl eyed green crayon alert.
Hoops and Gladys McCann
Ah, but don't newspaper editors like 'petty-minded green ink users' because they help fill their obsolete pages?
Actually, the 9/11 blog link was a bit scary.
I also think Homeopaths are evil.
I'm starting to feel somewhat out of step.
Penry
Keyword: fulpler
Fulper Pottery was begun in 1814 in Flemington, New Jersey by a young Samuel Hill
Penry, you are scared by the wrong things. Two old blogs entries by me?
You don't have to be "in step" with all my views to enjoy my TV reviews and other benign blog entries. There's no membership form to fill in. If it makes you feel any better - and less scared - I hardly know a single soul who agrees with me fully on the issues of 9/11 or homeopathy. You should be more scared if you agreed with me.
Also, I'm not looking for a fight, but: slightly hysterical use of the word "evil" there. If people who offer complementary medicine are "evil" where does that leave people who kill other people, for instance? (I know you wrote that line flippantly, but it's not exactly adding to the gaiety of the collective experience, is it?)
Those aren't really public tv reviews. They're messages left for me and my organisation by MI6.
*puts foil hat back on*
I'll tell you what's worrying me, BBC2's Grow Your own drugs is starting to make me think there might be something in this homeopathy lark.
I read The Times on a Sunday and hadn't noticed the section you mention before. I'll keep an eye out for it.
It's a strange paper, The Times, but it doesn't make me as furious as The Observer.
Been over to the Word site and caught up on the back story. Congratulations on your response which was polite, robust and seemed to calm the whole thread down.
As you say, you put yourself and your opinion up on this forum to stimulate discussion. Comment moderatation gives you a measure of control (which I know first hand, you excercise wisely) but only from what is displayed. You're still exposed to the nasties. It's this aspect of the whole blog thing has has seen me teetering for ages on the brink of starting my own blog and dropping my fatuous pseudonym once and for all. And yet, I teeter on ...
Somewhat guiltily, the description of Richard H being "obsessed with anal tomfoolery" made me laugh quite hard.
Very funny stuff, Andrew, thank you. Nearly a decade on mags and newspapers has taught me there's nowt so queer as folk who pick up their pen to make venomous or wrong-headed observations. Just last week, someone wrote in to the mag I work for and asked if my name was a "sick joke". No, me either.
PS I know a Tudor Evans, if that helps.
Valentine Suicude is half correct. I wrote the whole lot. But to say that they contain secret messages fo him, well, that's just unbelievable.
AC: I have just stopped reading the comments on newspaper websites as they never enlighten any (it’s hardly news that there are mad bitter people in the world). Comments pages are no long about illustrating mixed opinions or debating important issues just about driving traffic to newspaper sites to appease advertisers. Also RE: the assumption that posters on CIF or Mail are “readers” of said papers, I have a growing suspicions they are the reverse, both sites are just a mass troll seeing as to post online all you have to do is log in I bet if you had to pay 90p a day the abuse would reduce. As to abuse of yourself on The Word site I thought it was very poor. I might not agree with everything you say but we all do need to grow up a bit abusing someone via an off line “spouse” is very suspect. Having said this I’m never give up my right to gently rib Moon face from Keane this being a part of my religious beliefs and therefore no one can challenge me for doing it.
Hi Andrew
If it helps I also think Not Going Out has an excellent script and is well cast and I'm a wooly liberal.
John
@Swineshead: Homeopathy is almost entirely unrelated to growing your own herbal remedies. I will be entirely factual with no axe to grind on the issue, and don't intend to start another battle on whether it works (though personally I'm with Mr Herrin on the issue):
Herbal remedies are based on taking measurable doses of particular plant extracts, containing sizeable quantities of active ingredients, because they have/are believed to have a direct effect on reducing the symptoms you are suffering e.g. willow bark contains measurable quantities of aspirin's active ingredient and reduces a headache. The more you take, the more effect.
Homeopathic remedies are based on taking *extreme* dilutions (e.g. thousands-to-one or millions-to-one) of substances that, in far higher doses, *cause* similar symptoms to the ones that you wish to reduce.
So a homeopathic headache remedy is a vanishingly small amount of an ingredient that would *cause* a headache if you took lots of it.
It's repeatedly diluted and succussed (i.e. shaken) with water or alcohol which is believed to 'remember' the energy pattern of the original ingredient. The more it is diluted and succussed, the more potent it is believed to be.
Make of that what you will, but don't confuse herbal remedies with homeopathy.
[WARNING: sycophancy alert]
hi andrew
may i say you come across very, very well in your measured and thoughtful response over on the word forum. sadly for such a fantastic publication, their boards seem to attract a fair share of internet idiots (i work for a small indie music mag that the word very kindly ran a small piece about online a while back only for a load of pricks to brand it 'pretensious' - along with a load of other words they couldnt spell correctly)
anyway, im getting sidetracked... i just wanted to say you came across very well andi hope you continue to make great books, articles and podcasts! hold your head high and steer the course AC, youre a talented fella.
regards,
someguyontheinternet
Never mind Jo Brand, I would be writing in to complain that James Corden's fat belly seems to have some sort of monopoly on BBC at the moment.
Except by the time I've written the letter I feel calmer and change my mind about sending it.
Eric - thanks for that.
*stuffs flowers in mouth*
I take guilty pleasure in enjoying reading such odd reader comments.
The best (apart from those excellent ones collected on the speak you're brains site) tend to be letters to the editor in small local newspapers.
Comedy gold.
I like the idea of someone called Tony Gurmley-Grennan actually daring to use "absurdly named" in an insult. And who would criticise a representation of Thatcher for being "repetitive, robotic and android-like"? (Good to see the distinction between robots and androids being clearly drawn there. Too many people get that wrong.)
Presumably these have been heavily edited. Perhaps they would seem a little less... pointless in their original form. Or perhaps not. They do look made up but what would be the point of that? I've mentioned before Big Brother's Big Mouth running a whole set of "texts" along the bottom of the screen that were reactions to someone having been evicted. Only that person hadn't been evicted; someone else had. They looked like genuine viewer messages but they weren't. In that case the point was obviously to make money from expensive texts and nothing more. But what's the point here?
They might help to fill space but what message does it send out to the reader? "Other people who bought the paper you bought thought these comments were worth making. And - seriously - these are the best ones. Have you considered a subscription?"
Incidentally, I like Look North. It is very good.
It is very easy to be angry and hateful on the internet because it is so immediate.
In much the same way that people look at more porn now because they don't have to get up, get dressed, go to shops, peruse porn, buy porn,return home,watch porn, it is so much easier to email an angry note when you don't have to hunt for a pen,and paper,no the good quality paper,write legibly(while livid) then get a stamp and go and post the letter.
The anonymity shield is also a big deal too obviously.I have occasionally posted replies on forums when drunk that while I have never regretted what I said in the morning I sometimes wish I could temper the language, or the tone of my posts.
Dear Aunty Beeb,
Why oh why oh why oh why must people insist on expressing their opinions that I disagree with in various public fora?
Why do they bother? They should just chill out.
That wasn't the real Tudor Williams, it was a mock Tudor.
(Coat, I'll get my)
I am Goatboyuk69 and I cant allow Andrews comments above to go unchallenged. They're inaccurate and misleading.
I did start a thread on the Word website about my girfriends "irrational hatred" of Andrew. It was a thread about irrational hatred not necesarilly Andrew Collins. What followed was hardly my responsibility.
I wasn't shamed by your intervention. I was mildly embarassed on your behalf to be honest. I didnt apologise in full. I apologised for your hurt feelings. I didnt cause them.
I didnt say anything particuarly hurtful about you at all (and if you think I did, grow a pair) and the opinions and comments of lunatics are hardly my responsibility.
I realise my virtual identity is not as important as my realworld one but I dont like being misrepresented in this way.
Ta
To make things better, Goatboyuk69, I have removed the comment above which you felt misrepresented you, as it was only a hastily typed comment, and not intended to misrepresent the way the Word thread played out.
(If anyone wants to read the entire thread on the Word forum, they can, and make up their own minds. I wouldn't bother if I were you, it's as long as a novel.)
Although I clearly don't hold you responsible for the comments that followed your original thread on the Word message board, I was hurt by the very fact that you'd started a thread with my name at the top of it which led off on a post about hatred of me. I would ask "How would you like it?" but since you choose to hide behind a pseudonym, that can never happen. Yes, I happen to write and talk in the public domain, and I accept that I am "fair game" to a degree, but believe me, it's not especially nice to have a thread on a forum started up with your full name at the top of it, and a frankly negative post to kick things off.
I'm sorry I embarrassed you, and you are no longer misrepresented on this blog, although you're right, I find it hard to take the idea of "misrepresentation" seriously when we're discussing someone who doesn't actually have a real name.
Also, "grow a pair" is a pretty offensive piece of advice. But who cares? Nobody knows who you are. You can say what you like.
Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.
Anonymity isnt that big a deal. I use a pseudonym because I've been using message boards since God knows when when real world names were never used. That was "netiquette" at the time. I never grew out of it.
For what its worth my name is Alistair Cowan, I'm 39, I live in Prestwick in Scotland.
Please feel free to start a blog with my name but I cant see many takers.
I have to say though, after swallowing my astonishment at participating in a discussion with someone who's writings I've been following since I was a teenager, is that you're a nationaly known figure. Theres you (the actual bloke who seems perfectly nice) and then theres Andrew Collins. The bloke off the telly who exists at a remove and can be freely criticised as you would a book or play.
Its the price of even a little fame and I'll apologise again for your hurt feelings but, again, I didnt say anything particuarly nasty about you.
Thanks for removing the post(It gave an impression of me as a celebrity baiter which is quite false) and best wishes to you.
I like your stuff even if Goatgirl doesent. She has no taste as can be seen from her preference in men.
Cheers
Sorry, I've been in an awfully bad mood just lately. Not your fault.
The real Tudor Williams of Cheltenham is a writer and friend of mine. If he hasn't already read this blog, I will direct him to it immediately.
I'm sure he'll be very amused by the whole discussion.
KarenC
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