Strictly Come Dancing, and why it can't/won't last.

The following is a boring rant with lots of unsubstantiated reactionary guesswork and pathetic self-indulgent opinions on culture.

I hate Strictly Come Dancing. But I don't hate the people who watch it.
It's entertainment. It's made to be entertainment. I'm sad to say that for a long time, I was a bit delusional about hating it.

I think I'm just so used to liking things that, in general, most people don't like that I begin to associate things that I don't like with stupidity.
And that's not to say I think I'm more intelligent than people who watch Strictly, I'm not saying that at all. (I'll do a blog about intelligence later). But in general, I tend to find that counter-culture tends to attract a more intelligent level of person than the mainstream.
But my new thinking points me in the direction that perhaps there is just a lot more people counting as "mainstream" and so it has a wider range of intelligence.

As an example, I can use comedians.
My favourite comedian is Stewart Lee.
My favourite comedian is not Lee Evans.
Using a basic straw poll of my life I can tell you that I know more people who like Lee Evans than I know who like Stewart Lee.
I can also tell you that everyone I know who likes Stewart Lee, I would count as intelligent. And of all the people who like Lee Evans, I know some who are very intelligent, and some who are very stupid, and most variations in the middle.

Now, these days, Stewart Lee might be becoming a bit more mainstream. But he definitely has limited appeal. Lee Evans definitely counts as mainstream. I'm not having a go at him. I don't mind Lee Evans.

But anyway, so the point is, lots of people like Strictly Come Dancing and X-Factor and all that other stuff that I think is rubbish. Lots of people who are much more intelligent than I am.
But I realised I am factoring intelligence far too much into the debate. It is just entertainment, that's all. It doesn't have to have intellectual properties. It doesn't need to make you think.

That's the first point I wanted to make: an acceptance that I was wrong, as usual.

The second point, however, is that Strictly Come Dancing has a limited life span.
Now, I suppose this is obvious. Nothing last forever, especially in fickle TV land.
But it hits home this series with the success of Ann Widdecombe, who is clearly the least skilled dancer, and the least attractive person on the show. And that is the reason she has been successful.

It is a glorified freak-show.
"What shall we do tonight for entertainment?"
"Let's laugh at the fat ugly woman making a fool of herself on TV again"

If you want proof, the exact same thing happened in the last series with John Sargeant. He quit the show for exactly the reason that he had a real chance of winning. Winning on the basis that he was the least talented and people just wanted to laugh at him a bit more.

So the problem arises as what's next for Strictly?

How do you top the entertainment factor of Ann Widdecombe?
We've had a fat, ugly man. Now a fat, ugly woman. What's next?
The American version has already used Heather Mills... she was the next logical step (forgive the pun).
Stephen Hawking perhaps? And then what? The rotting corpse of Michael Jackson? Hitler's skeleton?

It can't last. And it won't.

Practice, and how you can't do it.

Here's something a lot of people get wrong. Including me.

Practice and practise.

Practice is a noun.
"I've got basketball practice in the evening"

Practise is a verb.
"I'm going to practise basketball this evening"

Kinda silly really.

Rich cultural history.

You would not believe how many travel guides I read which contain some reference to a "rich heritage" or "rich cultural history". Every guide to anywhere features these words... and they tell you nothing!

Everywhere and everything has a rich cultural history.

I can tell you that this blog has a rich cultural history.
So does the office I'm sitting in.

"Rich cultural history" doesn't mean anything. It's just a phrase with no tangable quality that can be copy-and-pasted into any document about somewhere to make it seem interesting.

The Gay Side, and how it definitely existed.

Trying to explain "the gay side" to people who didn't go to Manor Hall Middle School is something of a challenge.

Walk into the boys toilets and there are a series of cubicles first, followed by two long, steel urinals, one on the right hand side, and one on the left.
Everyone went to the right hand side.
This is because the left hand side was "the gay side".

Even if there was a queue, everybody patiently waited.
Those poor kids who were not aware of "the gay side" on their first visit, would be mocked insessantly.
"Look," said the chorus from the right side "he's on the gay side!"
Those kids learned quick. We all did.

No-one questioned "the gay side". No-one, no matter how badly they needed the toilet, questioned the ludicrousness of this unwritten rule.

Perhaps the rule was true. I mean, I never used the gay side, and have remained straight. Although I don't think the gay side ever implied that it was exclusively for homosexuals, or indeed made someone a homosexual.

It was just "the gay side", and it was avoided.