richard vodden’s blog

For those of you are culturally less aware of the exciting goings on in our little ol’ media ridden country, last night BBC2 showed the record breaking “Jerry Springer the Opera”. Wasn’t that exciting! Acording to Media Guardian the show pulled in 20,000 complaints before it even aired. I watched it. I was offended.
Before you shoot me down as a trite old “stick in the mud”, listen to (or read) what I have to say. I can see why people would find the show offensive: it has a huge number of very naughty words in it indeed, they even use the “c-word” to excess; it portrays Jesus; it portrays Satan; it portrays God. It also mentions (but does not feature): chicks-with-dicks; lesbians; gay people; pooping your pants for relaxation; dressing up as a baby for sexual pleasure; and all kinds of other nasty nasty things which many people would find offensive. I didn’t find any of that offensive. In fact I found Jerry Springer telling Jesus to “grow up and wear more clothes” hillareous; and the concept of a choir full of well trained opera singingers singing “cunty-cunty-cunt” did somewhat appeal to my boyish sense of humour.
Having made sure that none of you will respect my opinions, I shall now voice them. I was deeply offended, not by the play itself, but by the critics response. The play was effectively a remake of “The Witches of Eastwick” with all the funny bits removed and replaced with an expletive. The plot was unsubtle, unitelligent and very very thin indeed. Yet, not a single critic I have read has thought to point this out. They have either shot it down, or even praised it, simply for being very very offensive. They’ve completly glossed over the much more fundamental issues of the show’s down right plagarism and complete lack of creative content. It feels to me like the artistic community of the UK, and indeed World, media have completely forgotten their roots and have gone into “tabloid mode”. Churning out reviews like “I don’t like it because its bad!”.
The British public also responded terribly. If you don’t want to watch it, then don’t watch it. There are many other things on the BBC that you don’t want to watch. No-one complains about the mindless drivel that is put out twice a week when the lottery is drawn! OK, it doesn’t protray anyone or swear, but surely it insults some peoples intelligence. There is no need to complain in your thousands because you can’t be bothered to change the channel, or you don’t think you have enough control over your children to ensure that they won’t watch it.
I think I’m going to stop ranting, just in case I break my keyboard

I’m not gonna say much about this. Worth a read, slightly didactic though!

I’m still bored, and don’t go back to work until Monday. I have therefore decided to do something a little bit different and learn something useful. I have set my sights on, by the end of the week, being a world authority on UML. I agree that this is reasonably unlikely, but that aside I intend you use this to teach me. Its very good. So. If you don’t know UML and you want to, I suggest that you read it. Then again, if you know someone who knows everything about nothing, and not too much about that, then you must know Henry’s cat.