Wednesday 19 January 2011

Old but Gold


For those of you with better things to do than watch the news, the BBC has had to apologise to one of it's ex-employees after they lost at an employment tribunal.
Miriam O'Reilly was booted off Countryfile along with Juliet Morris and Michaela Strachan in 2008 when the show was given a reboot and shoved on at Sunday primetime.

She claims that her removal was down to 'ageism' and the BBC has had to issue an apology and hold it's hands up to this.

Now losing your job after 8 years is going to be painful but didn't she realise that she is in the televison entertainment industry where looks are massively important?

This is an industry that is making a drama about the last days of Fred West, a man who looked like a potato with hair and playing him will be Dominic West from The Wire who is so handsome that it should be illegal.

Miriam was on the show for 8 years as it dozed away in it's Sunday teatime slot. The BBC decided that it was time for a revamp so it cleared out the old presenters except for John Craven (who is starting to look like a Badger) and brought in Julia Bradbury and Matt Baker.

This happens all the time in the TV business but because of the BBC's unique position it becomes the whipping boy. You don't hear any public outcry when other broadcasters do the same.

Did Miriam think she was entitled to the job for life? The fact that Countryfile's ratings have improved since the change shows that it was the right thing to do.

I know I prefer watching Julia Bradbury's arse wandering around the rural bits of the UK than Miriam's saggy 53 year old one.

Friday 7 January 2011

I don't need to know your life story.


Matt Cardle has got his biography out in the shops. Everyone must have been waiting to hear the facsinating story of how he was born, went to school, became a painter and decorator then won a talent contest.

Obviously the marketing machine that runs X Factor will do everything to squeeze as much money as they can while he is still in the public eye bit this is stretching it a bit. People who have been in the public eye for a nanosecond think they have a story to tell.

One person who has been in the public eye for a bit longer is Jordan, who last time I looked had got four autobiographies out and she's only in her thirties.

Now she must be an astute business woman after making millions by basically getting her knockers out in Nuts magazine but after reading one her autobiographies she doesn't appear to be self aware.

She goes around saying she wants this or wants that when plainly she doesn't know what she wants.

She arranged her wedding to that nice but dim drag queen like some ruthless business transaction, organising exclusive rights for photos and catering and vetting the guest list so it was full of celebs who would raise her profile the most.

Then on the wedding day she ends up crying in a cupboard because the whole thing seems cold and impersonal.

Gazza's revealed that he was a chav with a drink problem who happened to be a stunning footballer with a sponging family and mates who took advantage of him.

Biographies can be very illuminating and entertaining but you need to either have had a full and eventful life or be able to write about the most mundane things in an interesting or funny way.

Matt Cardle needs to bring a biography out in a few more years when he's grown some hair on his chest.