Reality TV - Opium for the masses, or just another facebook page?

You may have heard references in the past from conspiracy theorists about this thing or that thing that have been served up for public consumption by 'the establishment' to keep the masses under control by drip feeding them brain numbing drugs (in the added fluoride don't you know), sub conscious messages or whatever the latest pseudoconspiracy.com site says is the flavour of the month for mind control.
For your consideration, tonights offering from (most likely) your local commercial TV channel which may be centered around any number of the following:

1. Cooking
2. Dancing
3. Singing or other 'entertainment'
4. Some kind of strange matchmaking or dating arrangement
5. Renovating a condemned building or series of rooms
6. Losing weight
7. Locking several people into a remote location or somehow isolated house
8. So called 'celebrities' that you may never have heard of
9. Any combination of the above

For example - you may be about to experience the ultimate in televisual entertainment as a 'celebrity' you have never heard of, in their aim to lose weight, waltzes across your screen on ice (the drug most likely, but possibly frozen water) whilst singing and tossing a pancake, looking for a wife and all presented for your delectation from a remote jungle location.

What has happened to imagination?

I heard a similar phenomenon years ago at the time when commercial radio started to become franchised. A song you hadn't heard before would be played several times during a short period via a number of commercial radio stations, because it appeared on a list that decreed it would sell product X. It was the beginning of marketing overtaking taste.

Now we see this formulaic TV production because it appeals to the masses and of course - the advertisers.

I get to meet a lot of people during my working day, and have exposure to social media in my free time. I get to overhear a lot of conversations within the workplace and via facebook about how someone 'had been so good - I was brought to tears' or how 'so and so was really good, did you see the programme last night - you must see the next episode' (or EP as they are now called as we are all so busy we can't find the time to say the full word any more).

On the odd occasion when I have been sucked in to a colleagues enthusiasm, and actually consented to watch a segment of one of these programmes, I have been totally underwhelmed by the thing or person they referred to, which has often been repeated ad nauseum in the trailers aired in every ad break, for next weeks thrilling installment.

I don't know why this stuff doesn't appeal to me. I feel joy. I cry. I laugh.

I refuse to be manipulated by a programme editted for maximum reaction with a musical soundtrack designed to provoke some kind of emotional response in a world where we are all so numb we have to be spoon fed stuff like this to tell us how to feel.

If reality TV of this kind isn't presented that way, then it's often a modern equivalent of a freakshow.

In a world where we have to respectfully say RIP to every poor bugger that has died whether we've heard of  them or not, and public outpourings of grief have become the current style since the death and subsequent funeral of Princess Diana, I think people should show a bit more respect to themselves and not feel that they have to follow the crowd when it comes to their emotional responses.

Read a book or listen to some mind expanding music, and decide for yourself when to laugh, cry or whatever rather than being manipulated into doing it by some poor 'so called' entertainment. Go to the pub. Get involved in your own life, instead of being told how to think and react by others.

I guess this is yet again an example of my cynical nature. Ben Elton has written a couple of good books based on similar ideas showing how people let themselves get manipulated into the cult of so called celebrity. Often people who are famous for having no apparent talent other than self publicity and so forth.

I don't know if there is a link here or not, but our parents used to deal with problems by tackling them in whichever way they thought would be most effective. Small problems were not blown up out of all proportion because they didn't know the appropriate emotional responses to a situation - they had never been led by media - just peer group and family. A drama would not be turned into a crisis.

While I'm on the subject, how long until the next social media development, where by using our mobile phone with integrated camera we can all be online, all of the time, sharing our highs and lows with others who only really want to show you their highs and lows.

I'll sign off now by quoting one of my facebook friends status updates:  "May your life one day be as awesome as you pretend it is on Facebook....."

2012 - A New Beginning or More of The Same?

Well here we go. Happy New Year to you dear reader.

My inner editor told me that I had to do a few words for this months contribution rather than just pinch and rehash something I had already written, so for your approval and delight (really?) my first efforts for 2012.

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The dust of Christmas and New Year celebrations has well and truly settled and the feeling of impending doom before the first Monday back at work that I have often felt on a Sunday afternoon certainly doesn't feel any different from that of any other year.

How many New Years resolutions lay smashed in pieces on the ground on the eighth day of the new year? How many smokers have returned to the solace of their tobacco habit, how many dieters have thought that "I'll start the new diet tomorrow" and of course as we all know from anonymous quotations 101 that tomorrow never actually comes. How many filled with good intent have started an exercise regime only to find that it's actually not that easy to change your life in one day?

In 2012 I turn forty seven years old. Or as I like to look at it as master of the cliche, forty seven years young.

Whilst the body doesn't necessarily do everything it used to, and hangovers take longer to recover from, my mind doesn't really take these things into consideration and thinks that I can still keep up with twenty somethings in the physical department. So as I've got older, I still feel the same inside, but when I look in the mirror and see the odd extra white hair and new wrinkle, or the effect of the continual pull of gravity (everything starting to sag...), the outside isn't as great as it once was. A good example of this was when I spent a couple of vintages working amongst young lads in a winery. My work ethic and physical efforts were actually greater than most of those around me (with  a few exceptions) yet I don't know of anyone else that came away with a free hernia operation special souvenir and surgery scar to remember "Vintage 2008" by.

I recently spent some time at a party with similarly aged friends who had 'twenty something' offspring, who had in turn invited several other 'twenty something' friends. As a 'forty something' I don't even register on their collective radar. Strange to feel like the invisible man in a crowd of people!

I'm sure that this is all normal.  Now I see elderly people and instead of thinking something clever and dismissive, as only the young can, I think; "That person is going through this too for only their first and last time - they haven't always been old, and it's as new to them as it is to you or me."

With some, it's the body lets you down, with others it's the mind.

It's hard to imagine what someone who loses their memory may be thinking. They may be very happy in their own world whilst it's only others around them that feel the pain and upset of being forgotten or otherwise let down. This of course may not be the case. Alzheimer's is a very sad form of dementia which seems to be on the increase. Whilst we live in a world where we can increasingly live to a ripe old age with medicines and procedures that keep us alive and our bodies reasonably healthy, but we are still waiting for a significant remedy for dementia. Encouraging work has been carried out with stem cell research, but even this has its opponents due to its controversial nature.

I recently carried out some work for a man who was in his nineties, who had been a respected scientist in his field, with at least one technical publication to his name. Sadly, he hadn't got a clue what was going on when I visited him, and once the job was complete I had to contact his daughter to let her know what had been done. Whilst speaking to her she confided that he had been assessed eligible for full time care due to his dementia, but he wouldn't surrender his independent lifestyle and go into care. He lived in a remote location, and apparently often calls tradespeople in for minor or imagined jobs, which was costing them a small fortune. Not to mention the worry that he could end up harming himself accidentally, or become victim to some criminal element living alone and so far away from family or neighbours.

It certainly left me questioning things I had never considered before, and although I felt sorry for the old man and his family, I'm sure they are not alone in this or similar circumstances.

So, I guess the moral to the story if there is one, is to enjoy what you've got while you can. Take good care of yourself, but not to the extent that you deny yourself having a good time, and try and live within your means, both physically and financially. Cliche number 298a fits the bill - "Everything in Moderation"

Dr Deepak Chopra prescribes 10 simple rules for ageing with health and happiness in his book: Ageless Body, Timeless Mind - A Quantum alternative to growing old. 
It's a good read, and I urge you to find a copy and check it out.

I actually believe that the rules are simpler, and that we need a few basics in place and the rest should follow:

1. Something to eat and drink.
2. Sufficient money.
3. Friends to share with. Love. Friendship. Be nice to each other.
4. Something to occupy your time.
5. Something to look forward to.

That's my forty-two I suppose - my answer to the great question of life, the universe and everything.

When I started this topic an hour ago I didn't know it was going to lead here, but that's the nature of blogging

Recycelage and the recycle age

I've discovered a new phenomenon this year - I've always been one for taking up the gauntlet of recycling household waste, checking every little thing over for the recycle logo before consigning it to the appropriate bin, or repairing or adapting old household items that still have life left in them. When we moved to South Australia I was very happy to find that most bottles, drink cans and containers have a compulsory 'deposit' which can be redeemed at certain places in the state - a wonderful by product of this is that it helps to reduce littering as those less fortunate can pick up from public bins and roadsides and make themselves a few dollars which reduces litter and landfill. Even my home-brew bottles have been around for a few years, after I was given them by a friend who runs an RSL some time ago - I've lost count of the number of times I've rewashed and refilled them - my only concession to the modern age is that they are all screw top bottles so when I press on the crown caps 'hey presto' I have bottle tops that don't need a bottle opener. Of course the crown caps are metal and can be recycled too.......

This year I have noticed an unusual phenomenon and embraced it to the full. Being a roadside recycler of long standing (when we lived in the UK I couldn't pass a skip without looking to see what was inside that might be useful to me) I still have trouble meeting the speed limit in an area where there is a hard rubbish collection scheduled, and have been tooted up by many an angry motorist as I drive slowly past someone else’s rubbish pile looking for that little piece of Eldorado. Amongst some of my best wins have included a 'butlers sink' which the local wildlife and our bees love to bathe in, and drink from, and some heavy metal posts ideal for creating retaining walls, other items too numerous to mention have graced our house or garden over the years.

This year I booked our own council hard rubbish collection as I was having a good clear out of items that had been cluttering the garage for several years that we no longer had any use for - for example, when we moved in to this house there was a fake fireplace which we replaced with a real fire - ideal for keeping us warm on cold winter nights and more functional than for just looking at.

Our instructions were clear.

Put the rubbish you want collected out in the morning from 5.00am on the day that it has been scheduled to be collected (5.00am???) and not before otherwise you may be ticketed for tipping offences(!). When I booked the pick-up, I was very specific with the items we would need collecting, as I had recently demolished and built a new home for our chickens. Items would include, perma-pine posts, planks, corrugated iron roofing, fencing and chicken wire, and other more 'household' goods. When the paperwork arrived stating what items were permissible it was a fairly exhaustive list stating that pretty much everything I needed to get rid of couldn't be collected. Luckily, either the guys that carried out the collection either hadn't been informed what was actually on the list, or had enough sense to turn a blind eye, and took everything that was left for collection.

Now, you notice I say - everything that was left for collection. I deliberately flaunted (I live on the EDGE man!) the rules and put the hard rubbish items out a few days early to see what would be taken by others similarly minded to myself, i.e. those dumpster divers, Australian Pickers, or whatever you want to call us.

I was amazed.

A large pile of items had been whittled away to a small pile, and items that had been taken included an old and extremely heavy punch bag (that I saw being dragged into a very small car by a very small lady), some really worn out matchstick blinds, a number of small rolls of carpet, and the said fake fireplace.

I had put this item out first, whilst clearing the garage, and had clearly left it out for someone to take and put to good use. I had been out tidying the garage for over an hour with no apparent interest, but when I went inside to get a glass of water (warm work), and came out again maybe five minutes later, it had gone!

Fantastic!

I'm really happy to see this happening, and items we have no use for starting a new life with someone else, it saves on landfill and makes everyone happy - I was just a little puzzled that items only actually disappeared when no one was apparently watching. It was almost as if this was part of the thrill, and to be caught taking something would be taboo or otherwise unacceptable.

This week we had a clear out of our guest bedroom, and put some old and very used bedside cabinets out for 'free collection'. I put them outside on the pavement, and we had a visitor whose car was obscuring the cabinets from general passers by. Even so, they were gone within two hours. It was odd then to think that cheap items we'd bought from MFI, or Argos, and home assembled, that had made their way from England with us, and been in our care for something approaching twenty five years, were now going on to a new life in a new home with new owners. Maybe a garage, maybe a young person starting up home, who knows. I hope they get as much use as we did from them.

Long live the roadside recycling revolution!!!