Reality TV and Spain

Now that we are well into 'I'm a third rate cretinous loser get me out of here', back for another season, I'm glad to say that I have avoided it completely. I still can't believe that these cheap, pathetic, excuses for entertainment are accepted by the public. I realise that in the age of specialist viewing that terrestrial television has to try to cater for the widest possible audience i.e. the lowest common denominator. This is evident from the sponsor, Kerry Katona's favourite shop, Iceland. It's ironic how her financial affairs have mirrored the country of the same name, shame she hasn't been blown up and grounded, much. This reality show aside, the competition isn't that great either. Strictly come gardening, or Britain's new apprenticeship new model, or the old favourite The Eggs factor; what do they all have in common? Apart from being shite they are all relatively cheap to make. At a mad point of my professional life I worked for an outfit that dabbled in outside broadcast, their intentions were good but the practice was a completely different affair. I didn't help as I didn't fit the transmission monkey profile they wanted. In fact by tis time I had been the technical manager at an ESA site in Kourou, ran a failed innovative satellite consultancy company (we were the first to do a live video webcast transmission directly via satellite in the UK) and fathered an other brilliant young life. I suppose after my company folded I was grateful that I was offered a lifeline, under normal circumstances I would have laughed at the idea. Anyway after working 20 hour days on and off for a year I was made redundant, two days after I had returned from my Nanna's funeral. That's all very interesting but I am deviating from my original point, time for a new paragraph.

During my time as a transmission monkey I worked on a couple of reality TV shows for Endemol UK, 'The Farm' (both series) and 'Space Cadets'. The first is self-explanatory, a reality show where celebrities were forced to live on a 'real' working farm. In fact the farm was a convincing mock-up constructed in the old stables of a property owned by 'The real meat company' located just outside Warminster. I had to turn up for the live transmissions and also to transmit edited highlights back to the transmission suite at Channel 5 (how many times can you transmit the transmission word?). The most interesting thing about the production was that the common canteen area saw all teams coming together to air their thoughts suggestions and grievances. One morning I found myself sitting with a young runner who had been assigned to the writers, a really intelligent young guy he was so enthusiastic about his job. It transpired that the remit of the writers on this, and indeed any show produced by Endemol (Big Brother included), was to induce, expose and aggravate any conflicts between the idiots on the show. Rebecca Looes wanking off a pig was one of the highlights, this coupled with Orville the duck verbally abusing Paul Daniels made the time I spent on the production bearable.

At the other end of the spectrum, Space Cadets contained no celebrities and in fact no brain cells. A bunch of really thick losers were duped into thinking they were training at a top secret Russian space facility when in fact they were isolated at an ex-American base in Suffolk used predominantly as a turkey farm. I saw the turkeys a lot, in fact I had to run an armoured optic fibre through three inches of turkey slurry, thanks to my employer. The ultra irony was that I was the only person on site who had been involved with a space mission. No real highlights on this one.

I do sound like a bitter toss-pot but believe me when I say that reality TV is a convoluted, planned, scripted venomous pot of bile.

Spain? My next planned sausage trip is to the Requena, Spain. My idea of Spanish sausages was limited but thanks, again, to big Johnny W, I now have a firmer idea of what Spain has to offer.