I have a confession to make to you, while just the two of us occupy cyberspace on a muggy August afternoon. Here it is: I never watch any of those television programmes that purport to show allegedly real people competing for the kudos they crave for excelling at all sorts of skills they clearly lack. Think baking cakes, ballroom dancing, survival in the wild, modelling, stand-up comedy, singing and entertaining – and no doubt a myriad more which have eluded my notice.
And being of advanced years with time for reflection, I ask myself why? Other folk clearly watch the programmes or the telly lot wouldn’t broadcast them. You’ll say the competitors seek fame and fortune, the modern antidote to being ordinary. They want to be seen, heard and appreciated on a stage bigger than the local church hall’s, because local is no substitute for global, is it? And you are right. But what happened then to the natural human sense of shyness or modesty that stops most of us exhibiting our inadequacies? Don’t mothers say ‘Don’t show off, dear!’ any more? Of course they don’t, because it’s my human right to make a total prat of myself without shame, whatever my obvious shortcomings. Nobody will think less of me!
Really? Well, call me weird but I disagree. I cringe at the thought of watching.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I watch dramas and documentaries on Netflix when they’re cooperative and my bank doesn’t have a fit. I really can’t be bothered to watch television.
I can’t be bothered with ‘Bake Off’ or any of the other cooking shows. A load of pretentious nonsense. My own ‘Signature Dish’ is beans on toast and I am a master at it.
Jazz, I have scored 95% for my boiled egg but admittedly it was an easy test. 🙂
My own clear preference is for live sport – on telly that is, not in the kitchen.
The only time I ever watched ‘real’ TV was when my son-in-law was in a BBC Talent Programme some many years ago… To be honest, I couldn’t understand why he bothered – it cost him a fortune to participate and it was pretty obvious to me (the cynic of the family) that the final outcome had been pre-determined from the first ‘trial’ program.
I wouldn’t get so hot under the collar about the way he, and, I suspect, a lot of other hopefuls, were treated if it weren’t for the fact that he still (all these years later) supplements his ‘day job’ (running his very successful business) by playing in his own band with a large dedicated following – while the ‘Star” of the program sunk into obscurity almost as soon as the Finale was broadcast.
While there is a call (not unreasonably) to look into the enormous wages that are paid to media-personalities, I think it is also time to investigate how much ‘reality shows’ cost the ‘ordinary people’ who participate in them.
As for cooking shows – forget it! Half the ingredients need a day-and-a-half to find and at the end of the day it’s eaten and forgotten…
Beans on toast is great, Jazz, – but until you’ve eaten Bearsy’s beans on fried bread you haven’t lived… 🙂
Well done Janus, but I claim the prize for being the only person to have managed to burn boiled eggs… it’s a great achievement and one of which I am extremely proud…
Boadicea: I am afraid that I will have to impinge on your glory. I have also, more than once, managed to burn boiled eggs. I simply didn’t pay attention and the water boiled away leaving the eggs touching to pot’s bottom for long enough to burn.
Hahaha! Yes!
With you all the way Janus, except for Strictly. Well, everyone should be allowed one quirk. 🙂
Way back when, such “competition” was pretty much confined to “game” shows, quizzes and the like, that drew an audience even though it was widely accepted that they were “rigged,” with the winners chosen beforehand. Contestants were chosen mainly on the basis of their “entertainment” value, of their natural proclivity for jumping up and down and generally acting silly no matter what. We (my family and I) were not amused.
Then there were some shows from which one might actually hope to learn something. I used to enjoy watching cookery shows, not for the recipes but rather to harvest such ideas and learn such techniques as I could. All of those were reasonably serious-minded.
Today, everything seems to have turned into some kind of “competition” (although Jacques Pepin can still be found on TV here). Instead of expert chefs demonstrating their art, we now have the likes of “Bake Off.” If you ask me (nobody did but I’ll say it anyway), those who are sucked in by such things ought to be left to starve to death.
Indeed! At least Strictly is based on celebs making idiots of themselves. Never a bad thing.