Both.

I just struggle to understand what people like Jade Goody or the scouse cow can contribute to my life. The only conclusion I can draw is that they are put there by sneering TV producers, hopefully so that we can sneer at them. The alternative is that the TV producers are sneering at ‘us’ for being gullible enough to waste our time watching this stuff, which is only filler-between-the-adverts.

OTOH, I came across a blog the other day whose sidebar said basically “This blog is devoted to celebrities because all celebrities are better than us. Jade Goody is better than you or me because she is a celebrity.”

I guess there are people who really believe that.

What??? You’ve never heard of Dirk “Face Man”/”Starbuck” Benedict? Turn off that radio and watch more 80′s television, Daisy!

It’s interesting that you raise the Jamie Oliver School Dinners thing. I think the only reason that was a “success” was because he confronted politicians about it and when faced with a television cameras they’re like rabbits in headlights and said “yes, yes, of course you’re right, we’ll do something about it right away!” – after all what else would they say?

But my overriding memory of the whole thing was the pictures of ignorant, poorly educated people getting off their fat arses just so they could push take away food through the school gates to their offspring saying “we don want no fackin’ veg’tabbuls or fackin’ green stuff on our plates, we just wan’ our deep fried pizza, chicken mctwizzles ‘n chips.”

anxious: “At “posherâ€? schools, they tend to have debating societies and the like which give people confidence”

At “posher” schools of the boarding variety, confidence was a defense mechanism. If you showed signs of fear or weakness then you’d be a victim and preyed on by the cliques of popular/in-crowd types. You had to learn to stand up for yourself and look out for yourself because it was very rare that anyone else would. It was a lot like Lord of the Flies in that respect.