Readers of my old blog will surprised, but I agree with Damian Whitworth:
Anyone for tennis? Sorry about the cliche, but it's a serious question. Anyone out there fancy watching some tennis? You know the game. The one where chaps and chapesses biff a ball back and forth across a net, using an array of clever shots to outwit an opponent.
It's a great game to play and thrilling to watch, but I'm having trouble finding it on television, even though it's Wimbledon fortnight. The BBC seems to be taken up with some sort of absurd fashion parade.
When I say I agree, I don't mean that I agree with him about tennis. No, no, no. It's a truly awful sport, mind numbingly boring, and - as I've written before - the sport for people who don't like sport. (My latest evidence is that my wife, who proudly boasts that she cannot stand any sport, likes watching tennis. QED.)
But I don't want to start that row up again. The angry yelps of the tennis fans are just too boring, like their sport (sorry, I couldn't resist that).
Talk about 'absurd fashion parade'. Five days of, literally, fashion parade - this year they installed a catwalk and asked racegoers to walk on it, and made this the highlight of their coverage. Some caricature fashion queen was making bitchy remarks about the ladies' dresses, and models were commenting about what was 'in' this year. Every so often they showed a race.
I wanted to run up to TV Centre and saw the transmission cable in half and stick a big note on the screen saying 'For Royal Ascot coverage, switch to At The Races on 415'.
There's a serious point behind all this. The BBC works from the assumption that all viewers are morons with nothing more than a superfcial interest in anything, and so they ensure that programmes are designed up from the lowest common denominator. Racing - needs another peg. The news - needs to be explained as if to six year olds. The arts - needs to be sexed up.
And we are forced to pay for this, whether we watch it or not, or sent to prison.
