Mark Daniels: The Beer Tie, Big Brother, and Clarkson for PM!
Should MPs Decide The Fate of the Pub?
Watching the Government melt before my very eyes on the news last night I couldn't help but think that a similar thing is happening in our trade at the moment with the furore over the beer tie.
Certainly, the tie needs to be reviewed, but anarchy isn't going to help anybody. An independent body with knowledgeable individuals from every sector of the industry, should be discussing the future of the beer tie sensibly.
The last people we need talking about it right now are MPs...
Big Brother - Don't Bother!
It wasn't until I was flicking through the pages of the Cambridge News last night, looking for the TV schedules to see if Question Time was on at its normal time or whether it had been moved again in a shameless attempt to garner more viewers, that I realised Big Brother is about to burst back on to our screens in a just-as-shameless attempt to make money from our telephone bills.
These days we're barely able to take a breath between so-called reality TV shows.
When I was ten years old, Saturday nights were all about sitting on the sofa with my Dad, a sonic frequency remote control in hand and only three TV channels (the fourth was about to be launched) to choose from. Knight Rider was usually the programme of choice and my Dad and I would sit and laugh at David Hasselhoff's exposed chest wig and the slight campness of KITT's voice.
Today, a twenty-first century Knight Rider can be found: Val Kilmer's interpretation of the car's voice is still a little effeminate and Justin Bruening is as much about tight tops and sucked-in-stomachs as Hasselhoff was, and the programme appears to have been made using exactly the same budget as it was in 1982. But watching it with my son makes me feel ten years old all over again.
The trouble is, it's on the Sci-Fi channel at 8:00pm on Tuesday nights. Pretty rubbish when my boy's got to get up for school the next morning, but at least these days we've got Sky+ instead of Betamax.
The mainstream channels, however, have decided that what we really want to see on prime-time TV is Amanda Holden, reducing a ten-year-old girl to tears.
Just last week we saw the final of Britain's Got Talent see a dance troupe who'd only ever played a live gig once before getting on the telly beat the viewers' favourite, Susan Boyle, to the £100'000 prize. Poor Susan was as shocked as a bookies' bank manager and ended up having to go and have a lie down at The Priory, resting spot for any starlet who's had a bit too much of the front pages.
Barely seven days later and we're about to be subjected to thirteen weeks of sixteen wannabe "contestants" lazing about as they try to achieve their Andy Warhol moment. A quick snapshot of these people shows that the house will comprise a female Russian boxer; somebody who's clearly modelled himself on Russel Brand; an unbelievably attractive 21 year old model who's been in FHM magazine yet, unfortunately, lauds Simon Cowell as her favourite celebrity; a pierced, tattooed, mohican sporting unemployed sexual predator; and a carpenter who looks a bit like a wolf.
As usual, Endemol have gone all out for onscreen ridicule and antics in a ratings attempt for their tenth season of Big Brother and it leaves me wanting nothing more than a drink. Preferably a large, stiff one.
Once again, my pub will be a Big Brother free zone, happily willing to accommodate those lost souls who have to wander out in the evening to prevent staring at a house full of sleeping zombies for the next 91 days.
Clarkson for PM?
As the throng of departing MPs grows ever larger, embarrassed in to resignation by their determination to claim for a second toilet brush, the growing gaggle of Z-List celebrities eager to take their place makes me shudder.
If you've been struggling to choose between Animals Count or UKIP in the European Elections, perhaps it's time for the celebrities to form their own party - and who better to lead them than Jeremy Clarkson?
I've heard worse ideas...
