Celebrity Voting

Have found myself wondering today why the U.K. has such culture of celebrity. There I was innocently waiting for Dr Who to start and what am I confronted with but the end of a programme called "Strictly Come Dancing" From what I can gather a bunch of wanna be dancers compete in ballroom style dances and are voted for by the public until one (or a couple?) of them are the champions and along the way some of them get lucky breaks - in the bit we saw a girl was given a part in a show as a professional dancer. Then last night there was of course dear old "Big Brother", this year they seem to be a bunch of absolute no-hopers although who knows maybe they will grow on us...

When I was young (and doesn't that make me sound old) a lot of us did aspire to be famous, but those aspirations were firmly attached to the idea of earning it in some way - becoming a pop star, famous artist, politician, racing driver, actress etc. These days though the younger generation just seems to aspire to be famous - famous just for fames sake. It's all about getting on tv, getting in the papers, getting off with someone famous, winning the lottery etc. It's like we have built a society where we all want something for nothing, noone wants to work for it anymore and tv does it's utmost to perpetuate this state of affairs with programmes such as Big Brother, Paris Hilton's Road Trip and The Simple Life (truly one of the most awful programmes of all time - I would be so embaressed if they were MY kids, they are so foul!) - kids just see these programmes where people get money thrown at them for behaving badly and of course they wanna do the same. There are Nicole and Paris tiptoing through the mud in their high hells going ewww this farm work is so gross, and all the kids in the real world think yes why should I have to to do that work if they don't.

Well in my opinion everyone should do some hard work in their lives. It grounds you for a start, it gives you an appreciation of where money comes from and what it means to REALLY earn it. I was recently appalled by an American mother on Wife Swap who was retching because she had to clean a toilet - well welcome to the real world - why shouldn't she clean the lav - she takes a crap doesn't she? or don't rich people go to the toilet like the rest of us? I have done some hard work in my time and I am proud of that - if I ever buy asparagus I appreciate it even more because I know how hard those women work who pick it.

And while I'm having a rant want about this fad for voting on everything. Every other Tv programme including the news(!?) asks you to phone in and vote about something, every magazine you pick up has a poll. It seems we are a country that's voting crazy - well if that's so how do you explain our poor turn out at election time. Maybe the government should introduce a new system of telephone voting or if you have digital tv just press the red button........Click on the word voting above for a fun voting site!