A thought long fermenting in what I am pleased to call my brain makes an interesting historical link between the curates of the Victorian era and the linen-suited denizens of Broadcasting House's corridors today.
Under the Great White Mother and Kaiser-i-Hind, Oxford and Cambridge produced a surfeit of vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps who lacked the drive and physical fitness to go off and join the army or indeed any discernable professional skills, but who nonetheless thought of themselves as part of a God-chosen elite destined to order others about. The only appropriate career thus open to them was the Church, in which they could stand in pulpits and lecture the population at large about the moral, aesthetic and intellectual deficiencies of their hard-labouring, poverty-haunted lives.
Oxford and Cambridge - never institutions to go charging ahead with radical reform - still manage to produce a worrying surfeit of vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps and similar young gels who share the desires, ambitions and lack of appropriate talents of their Victorian forebears. But nowadays, alas, the C of E provides very little in the way of full pews to harangue.
And in any case, the church today provides very little for anyone in the way of career benefits besides camping about in fancy tat and drinking free wine, qualities which have led the priesthood to become colonised by inverts to a degree that makes it impossible for the weak-kneed Silurian buffoon occupying the throne of St Augustine to avoid giving them pointy hats and crooks.
Where was I?
Oh yes - the decline of the church has led to ever decreasing cushy job opportunities for vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps to lecture the rest of us, which is where the BBC comes in - as an employer of first resort for vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps and a bully pulpit for telling everyone else how to live their lives in a patronising but uncomprehending manner. I rest m'case.
8 comments:
At the risk of being sacked, I'd have to say that this is a prophecy that has already come to pass. I've lost count of the number of Ruperts and Jontys that have called me with random requests over the years.
Boyo - I share your pain. Still worse are the braying Camillas and Harriets who phone you up five minutes before they go on air demanding "that clip of the Chinese president" filletted from a 2-hr speech (he was in a hurry that day).
"So you're asking me to find a specific quote from the middle of a two-hour speech in a language I don't speak, in five minutes?"
"We're on air in five minutes so it'll have to be quicker than that!"
They also infest the Department of Clutter Mediocrity and Spare. Luckily they rarely actually descend from Olympus, they just issue inane communiques that nobody reads any more.
How ghastly. Is it them what makes the crud that I watch on BBC Entertainment (sic)? If I have to look at another episode The Weakest Frigging Link or another hospital-based soap opera featuring posh actors playing common people permanently on the verge of tears then I (and Mrs Dilo) will personally come and close the BBC down and replace ALL programmes with neo-realist Romanian cinema and folk dancing. Feel my pain.
p.s. Thanks heavens for Jonathan Ross, that's all I can say.
:)
the bbc isnt made for brits, you silly duffers!
(did i get that right?)
its for foreigners who want to gush and marvel at how thorougly british everything is.
from the hideous lighting on the soapie sets, and the cockney accents that can start a mexican guffaw...and - from my corner anyways- to hear people calling tall, balding men 'basil' and 'nigel' and 'graham'.
BUT.. we watch it Mainly to hear someone say 'spotted dick' so we can point and tell the rest of the crowd that we didnt make that up.
(or maybe thats just me)
Those highly educated types are exactly the sort of dynamic thinkers we need to come up with novel telly ideas.
Why, just today, I saw advertised a programme about, and you'll never believe this, antiques! And later, one about cookery! And later still, there was one about buying houses, where people went and looked at houses before, and this was the clever bit, sometimes buying them!
Amazin' stuff.
The licence fee is worth it just for that.
Kevin - I once met some people from the DCMS, and concluded they were useless within 30 seconds. It's saved me a lot of time over the years...
Gadjo - try BBC4 for near-realist Romanian cinema and folk-dancing. Simultaneously.
Pserean - You've rumbled us. Stay tuned - I'll have soomething right up your street in a couple of postings...
Jules - don't blame me, I came up with the idea for bird of prey contest Britain's Got Talons (which still awaits funding...)
Wordver: noriesse - the quality of being a French nori.
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