The past week or so has been a bit weird. A combination of eating lots of junk food, drink and stress lead to me taking Thursday off university. Unable to sleep I spent most of that day (and the next) watching programs on 40d. On a side note I love how internet based television has taken off. Both the Beeb and Channel 4 have woken up to the fact fewer people have video recorders (and fewer still know how to work them) and have started putting programs on their websites so people can catch up with them. Channel 4 has some subscription based access whilst the Beeb is free. I still maintain the Beeb is one of the best government based media outlets in the world. Even the Chinese government thinks so
Enough rambling. Back to my topic line. I had exhausted more of Channel 4's database and turned to my guilty pleasure of telly: Wife Swap. Yes I know it spouts on about how it's a "sociological" experiment but we all know it's really so people from totally diverse backgrounds can shout at each other. The episode I dipped into had a Spanish theme. Ex-pats had migrated to Spain (I wonder if they bothered to learn Spanish?) and both families lived very different lives. Family no. 1 were rich bastards who owned 3 million cars and a vast arrangement of servants to run after them. They spent money like no tomorrow and were all bleached to perfection. Oh, and this becomes important, Mummy dares to use a vast range of GM foods and nasty cleaning products. Family no 2: read eco warriers who lived on a boat and were as self sufficient as possible - to the extend of recycling their own wee. I settled down for some top telly clashes.
For those who don't know the format, halfway through the swap each wife gets to run the household the way they want to. In the rusty tin of a boat, socialite mummy dared spray some air freshener around their hovel of a living room. Eco Warrior Dad (complete with bandanna) went off on a huge rant about how she was poisoning his baby and how dare she bring chemicals into his home? Meanwhile, at the other home, Eco Warrior Mum is telling one of the younger children how much pus goes into pre-packed supermarket milk. I'm all for making people more environmentally aware but they were doing it in such a self righteous manner I wanted to tie them down and washed them in SLS shampoo and soap.
But what Hypocritical Eco-Warriors I hear you ask? Well, fast forward the program around ten minutes. Eco Warrior Dad is perching aforementioned baby on his hip and is trying to hide smoking a roll up from the camera. So, smoking tobacco around a baby is very healthy? And one skoosh of an air fresher is going to kill him?
Pot, kettle, black?
