The wrong Neville #worldcup2014

You can understand how the mistake happened but pity the poor minion who is going to pay for the error. A couple of years ago Gary Neville retired from playing football and took the pundit's chair at Sky Sports for their Monday Night Football show. Many questioned Sky's judgement but Neville soon won over the critics with his detailed analysis, incisive comments and in-depth knowledge of the game based on a footballing career with honours that include 8 Premierships, 2 Champions League trophies, 3 FA Cups and 2 Football League Cups amongst many other achievements. Neville also has the qualifications to talk about international football having played 85 times for England. So when the BBC were looking for a new summariser to replace the world weary Mark Lawrenson for England's World Cup matches, Neville was an obvious choice. Imagine the delight at the BBC when they discovered Neville was available and the champagne corks will have been popping at BBC Sports when he signed up for the gig.

Unfortunately, the BBC got the wrong Neville. It had escaped their notice until too late that they'd signed Phil Neville not Gary and the consequences were played out in high definition, surround sound glory for all to hear last Saturday night as England's opening match against Italy kicked off. And that strange sound you could hear at half time, that was Mark Lawrenson chuckling as he sipped his Ovaltine.

Neville Neville

P.S. Truth be told, I thought Phil did a decent job, offered some good analysis and his CV is a lot more impressive than many on the airwaves at the moment. O.K. his delivery was fairly monotone and he needs to work on his microphone technique but he offered a lot more insight than most of the other summarisers on offer. If you want an over-excited airing of ignorance turn over to ITV or tune in to Robbie Savage and don't get me started on Jonathan Pearce's meltdown for the BBC covering France v Honduras.

Drug of the Nation

I first came across the song Television, The Drug of the Nation by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy when it was played at the beginning of U2’s Zoo TV extravaganza at Wembley in 1993. I thought it was brilliant then and nearly twenty years on I haven’t seen anything to change my mind .

Prime Time (rant alert)

I’m fairly relaxed about programme and film content on T.V. but there are limits. On Saturday night those limits were tested during the prime time family viewing slot on ITV 1 and to a lesser extent earlier on BBC 1.

First up Strictly Come Dancing: BBC1 6.30pm. Over recent years we’ve enjoyed watching Strictly as a family, confident in some genuine light entertainment as well as some heavy stomping entertainment. True, one has to cope with Bruce Forsyth’s decline and the producers keep messing about with the format. However, it’s great fun watching the likes of Anne Widdecombe and John Sargeant staggering round the stage, desperately pursued by professional partners trying to discover some semblance of rhythm or poise. Then there’s the pleasure in seeing someone emerge who discloses genuine hidden talent. This year has been no exception and we are looking forward to the final with, as Dr. Frank-N-Furter would say, anticipation.

Yet, I’m becoming uneasy with certain aspects of Strictly and I don’t just mean the sexism and ageism that led to the dumping of Arlene Phillips as a judge. There is a slight desperation about the way some of the male celebrities are encouraged to reveal their muscular spray tanned torsos before you can say the word Fleckerl. Certain female professional dancers appear to be in a competition to see who can wear the least without suffering a ‘wardrobe malfunction’. Then there are the dance moves that go beyond the subtly suggestive to the down and dirty. That’s fine in a film like Dirty Dancing (I think it was shown later in the evening) where it does what it says on the tin, but I’m not so keen on watching Matt Baker making sexual grinding motions towards his dance partner as she lies splayed on the dance floor at 7pm. Interestingly, the judges criticised Matt and Aliona for this particular contribution to their choreography, suggesting it was rather gratuitous.

Then it was over the channel for The X Factor: ITV1 7.30pm. This show is hard to watch and even harder to listen to at the best of times. It’s made more bearable by following the Twitter stream and full marks to a certain bishop from Liverpool who left the Twitterati in no doubt about his views on the qualities of the finalists. The kids enjoy X Factor and I’d rather watch it with them and discuss the merits of the latest victims of Simon Cowell’s bid for pop world domination, than abandon them to his machinations. What I hadn’t anticipated was just how far Cowell and chums were prepared to push the boundaries when it came to the performances of the guest singers.

Take That were O.K., though I nearly had a coronary when my wife declared that she wished she had tickets for their latest tour. Rumour has it Cowell stopped them singing a number called Kidz accompanied by dancers dressed as riot police. A spokesman for the band is quoted as saying: ‘It was decided after (the) afternoon's rehearsals that the timing and content of the performance was not appropriate so soon after the violence that erupted at protests in London’. Probably a wise move.

Rihanna and Christina Aguilera were a different story. I really don’t understand how anyone can say that this was suitable prime time viewing for the family. I can do without my young son being exposed to the joys of lap dancing clubs and burlesque shows at 8.30pm on a Saturday evening. I can do without my young daughter being encouraged to think that the only way for a female singer to get on in the music industry is to take off her clothes and bump and grind her way across the stage pressed between the bodies of other scantily clad women. And don’t give me the argument that Ms Aguilera was promoting a film; if she’d provided the soundtrack for the Exorcist I wouldn’t expect to see her covered in sores, strapped to a bed, head spinning and spewing all over the stage. All that was missing were the interminable adverts promoting Babestation and dodgy phone chat lines.

If broadcasters are going to schedule and promote these shows as prime time family viewing then they need to exercise some judgement and restraint when it comes to content. Both these shows were heavily trailed in the preceding days, attracted massive publicity and were likely to draw huge audiences given that one was a semi-final and the other the final. I don’t care if this is how these artists perform on tour, or if this is a taste of what their videos are like, I don’t expect it to be shoved in my children’s faces on early Saturday evening television.

Saturday evening was a good reminder that as a parent I shouldn’t delegate responsibility for my children’s television viewing and I can’t trust programme producers to observe mainstream broadcasting standards. It’s no surprise that the X Factor has attracted over 5000 complaints making it the most complained about show in ITV history.

I left blogging about this for a couple of days in order to avoid a rant. Sorry, I failed.

Life without Limbs

I happened to catch part of comedian Russell Howard’s Good News on TV last night. Howard is a regular on Mock The Week and his show is a fairly standard format in which he comments on different topics often related to stories he’s come across on the news or in the media. The twist is that Howard always tries to finish the show with a video clip which is positive and life affirming. It’s strange because you watch the clip and wait for the cynical comment before the closing credits but it never comes.

On last night’s show Howard finished with a clip of a young man with no arms or legs giving a talk to a group of high school students in the U.S.A.. As I watched the clip I couldn’t help wondering whether the speaker was a Christian; there was a book on stage with him which looked like a Bible though he didn’t actually refer to it. After the clip was shown Howard simply said how inspiring he found the young man and said goodnight. I couldn’t find the clip used in the show but did find another one of the same young man. His name is Nick Vujicic and his organisation is called Life Without Limbs. Nick is a Christian and I thought it was so refreshing both to hear his story and to see his video being used by a mainstream comedian on television. Well done BBC and thanks Russell Howard.