Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Oxygen of Publicity.
I'm just watching George Galloway on Newsnight. Its only to be expected that he would give his unqualified support to a brutal dictator. He's just compared George Bush with Adolf Hitler. Why does the BBC give this man airtime? Its almost as bad as the revolting coverage that has been given to Mohamed al Fayed over the last day or so.
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watching him on Newsnight? Get with the program man, he had an interview on Channel 4 tonight that will probably annoy you a lot more!
http://couchtripper.com/forum2/page.php?page=6
How very naive of you Glyn! And should you not be even more surprised that there are still programmes on the BBC that give the idiotic Lembit Opik coverage? That actually seek his view on issues, as if he is a man of substance and not the publcity desperado he truly is. Georgous George and Grope-it Opik are both monster egos, addicted to your oxygen of publicity. Of course the BBC use them - they are extreme people who live on the edge and as such provide good value for money. But rest assured, the BBC will cover their downfall with equal relish. And that, let's face it, is only a matter of time.
George Galloway used to be my MP in Glasgow (Hillhead, I lived in Kelvinhaugh Street about 15 minutes walk from Hillhead metro stop). Never met him, but I did go to his surgery - there was a nice lady there who ran it on his behalf. The lady would listen carefully, take notes for George Galloway and you got a letter signed by him. Great stuff.
Imho, I think George Bush decided some time ago to pretty much ignore what people say about him. I remember Reagan getting an awful lot of stick and now people look up him. History will eventually decided GB's worth to the nation. So Glyn, I wouldn't "sweat it".
apologies for my earlier post - I was wrong about what I said... I jumped the gun.
If you listen to the debates on George Galloway's TalkSport radio show, archives on http://www.spiderednews.com/GeorgeGalloway.htm , you will see why a huge number of people agree with him. As a reminder, George was right about Iraq, and the pro-war faction were disastrously wrong.
all - The problem is that the more of an idiot you make of yourself, the more your value rises on the celebrity circuit - and inevitably this encourages idiotic behavior. I accept that its also important not to be so boring that people will not listen to what you say. But Galloway! I still recall his publicity seeking meeting with Saddam Hussein. Ironically, his reputation was damaged more when he immitated a cat on a reality TV show that his support for dictators.
anon - I have never doubted his capacity for performance - but Newsnight is supposed to be a serious news programme - and the Telegraph is supposed to be a serious newspaper, which was questionable when its front page was covered in a huge photograph of Mohamed al Fayed and his crazy accusations.
And we all look forward to the moment when the part-time MP for Montgomeryshire does his first reality TV show........Hang on, does he need to? We've already seen him in bibs and braces playing the mouth organ on a Z-list C5 show (where he got off with the Freaky Girls), he's already performed an excrutiating duet with one of the aforementioned on a political programme(!) and just the other day he made a complete fool of himself on the dreadful Al Murray Show, ditto Have I got New for You, when he got ratty with Hislop. The mistake you make, Glyn,is to think that just because he's on these programmes he's doing himself some good. Have faith in the public - they see him for the big embarrassing joke he is.
anon - The issue of self promotion is not easy to judge. But its fair to say that my interpretation of what's sensible is different from the MP who currently represents Montgomeryshire. I remember when I took part in a Strictly Come Dancing fundraiser last year, I insisted on not being photographed when wearing the folk dancing dress. It would have looked utterly ridiculous in another context.
An issue for me is whether I continue to allow comments attacking the MP through. On one hand I like to approve everything except any deliberate attempt t be gratuitously hurtful, while on the other hand I've decided to completely ignore the activities of my opponent. I did think that your post was OK because it did comment on the use of 'celebrity' as a political tool.
Galloway is a plonker and I have never had Castro as a political role model. However, having been to Cuba there is a unique charm to the place. This does not hide the poverty or lack of democracy, but in comparison to many democracies of Central and South America, the citizens are actually better off.
I would not describe Castro as a brutal dictator. Saddam was such a case and I note that the previous Tory Government were firm supporters of him during the Iran-Iraq war, even supplying him with arms.
If there is to be a gradual transition to more democracy in Cuba, then I hope that the US play no part in it. Drugs and organised crime (which struggle to get any foothold in the present Cuba)will spread like a cancer from across the water and much of the charm created by the eclectic mix of Affro-Carribean, Spanish and revolutionary history will be gone forever.
The US are so paranoid about socialism that they ignore the positives of the revolution. Having said that, I'm no fan of Castro and I'm no communist. However, I am a 'Cubaphile' and dread the prospect of unbridled western capitalism wiping out a unique culture.
anon - I don't know Cuba at all - exept for the amazing Teofilo Stevenson, Alberto Juantorena and Auf wiederzehen Pet. Your comment matches my rather uninformed impressions - except where you go back to the 80s when I wasn't much interested in foreign affairs.
Castro and his henchmen are a dictatorship, and as with all of such regimes their brutality will only become known when they are replaced by another regime which will not be afraid to let us see the truth.
We need some old-fashioned eccentrics to add colour to our lives!
As the mission-impossible team desperately try to defeat death ‘one more time’ one of them is busy looking on the world-wide-web for the answer to a cryptic clue. "I am trying to find what 'Ich bin ein dummer mann' means, but I keep getting redirected to Lembit Opik’s webpage".
Thanks to Peter Black for providing the raw material.
Mr Galloway's contributions are always interesting - and he has after all written a book on Castro.
There were plenty of opinions on that programme which were very different to Galloway's.
Mr Opik's contributions to television programmes are less easy to defend. So I am not going to bother.
I was a little concerned when I saw the headline on this post. It reminded me of Margaret Thatcher's idea to deny Gerry Adams the "oxygen of publicity" - a policy which resulted in the BBC broadcasting interviews with Adams dubbed with an actor's voice.
Would you like to see the same for Galloway, Glyn?
Perhaps he could be dubbed by Ken Stott.
greg - Must admit that I didn't know that he had written a book about Casto - which changes things a bit. Perhaps he did have some credibility after all. I just thing that anyone stupid enough to do the reality show that he did, makes it look as if he is being interviewed because he is likely to say something outrageous and provide what's called 'Good TV'. And No, I wouldn't want to gag anyone, just as I wouldn't want to stop anyone (including me) from questioning the choice of interviewee. We all pay the licence fee. So no appearance fees for Ken Stott.
Glyn
And I was just coming round the Ken Stott idea.
Greg
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