Sunday, 4 April 2010

What Happened In March?

Not a lot really if I'm honest and I have struggled to find subjects to write about. There were no major events that will change the world in which we live in (unless you count me passing my driving test, but then that only really effects me) and it has just generally been a very slow month for news, which is why we have yet again heard so much about Katie Price and Alex Reid. Luckily in March, I completely ignored everything that was said to me about her. Like I said, nothing worth writing about has happened, so sorry if this gets slightly boring - hopefully April will be better.
Sports relief ruined our lives for a week, forcing people to do lots of sporting activities and watching hours upon hours of fundraising programs, in order to raise £31,633,091. I was ‘lucky’ as that was the week I became very ill, so I spent two days in bed for sports relief and raised sod all, whereas, across the country people made fools of themselves by dressing up or hula-hooping and done sponsored runs. You have to admire the people who did go 'the extra mile' to raise money, whether they were a celebrity or not. Whether it was a group of celebrities cycling from one side of the country to the other, Eddie Izzard running 43 marathons in 51 days, or some fat, balding presenter from The One Show shaving his beard off, they are all examples of different extremes achieved to raise money, but all worked.
I watched a huge majority of the Sports Relief coverage (purely because I was ill) and like all BBC charity shows, it was pretty rubbish and the same. The main show includes two presenters (usually an annoying pair of 'celebrities' who try very hard to have a bit of funny banter but fail, while constantly saying the number that has been on screen for 5 hours and still someone gets it wrong) in between the videos of famous people pointing at poor people why crying and the little sketches from shows that are popular at the time to neutralise the sadness. More often than not, you will find that these little sketches are rubbish, and you find yourself sitting their feeling more sympathy for those poor actors being forced to suffer like that, than the starving, dying, African with HIV. We had that again this year, for example the Ashes To Ashes sketch. However, there was one sketch, which however, was 15 minutes long and was possibly the funniest bit of telly I have seen so far this year. Of course, I am referring to James Corden's 'Smithy' sketch with various sportsmen and women.
I am not much of a fan of James Corden, and I never really got into Gavin And Stacey but even someone without a sense of humour would have to confess that his sketch was very good. Okay, it wasn't really funny because of the writing, purely for the outrageous scenes. James Corden and David Beckham in a bath - How Outrageous. James Corden training the England football team and singing with Wayne Rooney - How Outrageous. James Corden and Jenson Button celebrating together by hugging - How Outrageous. James Corden and Tom Daley diving into a swimming pool together - How Outrageous. James Corden shouting at a stadium of sports stars and telling them they need to sort themselves out - How Outrageous. It was funny because of how unbelievable the scenarios were, not for any other reason.

Also on TV towards the end of the month was 'Ask The Chancellors'. This, incase you did not watch it because you either have a life or were busy watching Coronation Street, was a program in which the Chancellors from the three major political parties stood at podiums for an hour and answered questions. The questions were asked by members of the public who sat in the audience. The suspicious people amongst us might think that Channel Four stole this format from the BBC's Question Time but I suppose that does not matter as it was quite an interesting program. I was surprised that when the show finished, I thought to myself (however, I tweeted it, so I didn’t exactly keep it to myself) that Vince Cable, from the Liberal Democrats, seemed to have the best attitude to pull us out of this economic depression.
We have more of these sorts of TV debates to come over the next month, with the election soon looming, and it is pretty obvious that the Liberal Democrats will not get into power, but Vince Cable really did not do a bad job at increasing their chances. George Osborne (Conservatives) done a pretty rubbish job, and if the show was longer than an hour, I imagine that there would be a high chance of him slipping on the pool of sweat that dripped off his face. As for Alistair Darling, well he may as well have said nothing. Infact, him and Gordon Brown might as well go on holiday for a month because any attempt they have at becoming popular seems to work the opposite way to what they intended.
Gordon Brown is expected to announce in the next few days that the election will be held on the 6th May, and because of this fact I actually do not care about the election anymore. Before, I was interested and was taking it seriously, but now I have realised that it will take place 21 days before I am 18 and allowed to vote - I could not give a crap anymore, and I was looking forward to voting as well...
The new season of Formula 1 started in March as well, and along with its return came a lot of major changes. I understand that a lot of people do not actually like it and find it very boring, but I have always found it thrilling and the highlight of my weekends. However, thus far I am disappointed. New regulations mean they have to carry a full tank of fuel and are no longer able to re-fuel during the race, and this has absolutely ruined it. One of the best times of the race used to be the pit stops and would be exciting to see whether the strategy would work for them and if so-and-so get out in front of whoever. Now it's just boring with them casually going in for a few seconds whenever they please for new tyres - they have ruined it.
Then Michael Schumacher, well I made a bet that he wouldn't win the first race (I'm £5 up), but I never realised how badly he would do. This is a man who was the greatest driver in the world, and now because he had a few years off, he is doing pretty rubbish. He should not have come back, and that is what I said when I heard he was returning. He has now pretty much ruined the persona he had before this return. He is ruined. Other than those things, it is promising to be an interesting year, but hopefully next year they will revert back to being able to re-fuel. I shall grit my teeth and bear it for now though. So far, I'm disappointed with the season.

I say not much happened during March, but rumours from the Catholic Church about priests that sexually abuse choir boys is hardly something new. However, this escalated during March with the Catholic community having to dig their way out of this rather big hole they have found themselves in. It got so bad that even the Pope had to get dressed and talk about it. Really, there are so many jokes that can be made about this subject, but none of them would be original, so I will not even bother trying. The Times did have a crack at making a joke of the whole thing. Think about it, you have a major news story about Child Sex Abuse and a journalist called 'Roger Boyes', how tempting must that have been?
Very, because the journalist who covered this news story for The Times was 'Roger Boyes'. You would have thought that someone must have thought that inappropriate in the offices, but clearly not. If it was not for that, I would have paid no attention to this story because it’s nothing new; just because German choir boys have decided to finally start telling people does not make it new news. If it was not for Twitter telling me about this, I would be ignorant to the fact The Times tried to be funny.

Then finally, Jade Goody. I was happy, yet disappointed with the media coverage she got. I wrote my usual blog slagging her and everyone who loved her off, only to find no-one really paid much notice to her anniversary. It was not that much of a big deal to the tabloid papers and ITV news paid no attention. All she got was a show on Living TV and her mum swearing on This Morning. Maybe it is just me who obsesses over her still? Either way, I'm cutting back on the Jade Goody moaning. It will no longer be something in which the name ‘Stuart Collyer’ will be associated with. I will try my very best (but of course sometimes it just is unavoidable) to not mention her name in one of my blogs again... There is no point keep crusading against someone no-one cares about anymore and doesn't actually bother people.

And on that bombshell, it is time to end.

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