Monday, August 13, 2007

Shock horror - ITV forget all about England in new show.

Well there is a surprise - new show, same old ignorances.... Britain's Favourite View hit the airwaves last night. Anchorman Sir Trev' McDonald introduced different champions of viewyness, from different parts of 'the country'.... And as everyone knows, 'the country' is divided up into 3 different parts - Scotland, Wales and Britain...

Championing the magnificent Seven Sisters in Britain, those huge white cliffs majestically thrusting out into the British Channel was Irishman, Des Lynam... As Des confirmed, "The Seven Sisters is the gateway to Britain"... Cue grainy scenes of the RAF, Spitfires, Tally Ho-ing into the Luftwaffe over the South Downs…. Then we were back to the present day, Des confirmed that this view was Britain’s gem……"This is Britain’s gem", he said.

Next came Edinburgh in Scotland. We knew it was Scotland because there was a bloody enormous picture of a fluttering Scottish Saltire plus a skirling skirl played by a Scottish piper in a kilt to introduce the piece..... This view was introduced by Edinburgh-born Rory Bremner...

Rory waxed lyrical about Scotland’s heritage, magnificent scenery and national proudyness…..

And then we’re back with Sir Trev’ in his chopper, hovering above Britain – Trev tells us we are off to Wales ….

And indeed we were off to Wales and the Gower Penninsula. We knew it was Wales because there was a bloody huge Welsh Dragon fluttering away on screen - and Welsh song-totty, Katherine Jenkins did the business of trying to sell us the Mumbles.... (I'd always thought was a dodgy disease of the older gent)..

Katherine waxed lyrical about Welsh heritage, magnificent scenery and national proudyness…..

And then we seamlessly hove into Blackpool. Orange man, David 'Jaffa' Dickinson is trying his very best to sell us this holidaying jewel of Britain's coast, in Britain. He has a hard job. .

And that was it. An alien watching would have had no idea that there was a country missing from the entire programme…. England was a no-show. Surprise, surprise....

2 comments:

Gareth said...

Same impression that I got of the programme.

I have to agree with Rory Bremner's choice - not Calton Hill but Blackford Hill the first hill he went up. I lived half way up it for several years and never tired of the view. It was the first place we visited when we went back to Edinburgh recently.

Chris said...

Here's Des Lynam on his fave:

"The Seven Sisters cliffs sum up everything that makes Britain great: ravaged by the English Channel, witnessed historical battles and have some of the most dangerous cliff edges in Britain."

Get that - "RAVAGED by the English Channel".

The only mention of English sounds very negative, doesn't it? Even our channel is a brute.