Emma Chisset
Full Back
Who gets chosen for the plum job of jetting off round the world to present TV Travel shows? And why does it always seem to be self-satisfied, no knowledge, smug middle/upper class simpering neo-colonial twits who get selected to don the cream linen suit and fedora while sauntering around foreign marketplaces and palm-fringed beaches patronising the locals?
The worst of these is mum's favourite Simon 'bloody' Reeves, who seems to have had 5 star trips to just about everywhere in the world at the licence payers' expense, doing his trademark staring into the distance moodily at sunset, faux Palestinian scarf a-flappin', everywhere he goes.
He knows nothing and we learn nothing about the history or culture of the countries he visits. He doesn't speak the languages. He finds luxurious destinations great fun and joins in the high rolling enthusiastically. He's less happy when venturing in to the poorer districts for a bit of poverty tourism, but he furrows his brow and looks concerned as he tells us how simply awful it all is. He doesn't explain though why the problem exists and he doesn't have any solutions to offer, apart from simpering into the camera about how we all ought to buy fair trade tea to solve the problem of the little ragged barefoot kids with no school or doctor and carrying huge bundles of tea on their heads all day. With that one solved, he tossed his Palestinian scarf over his shoulder and he's off back to the hotel.
Reeves is one of the worst, but there are other smug cosy presenters who are just as bad - coma-inducing ex-Tory megabore Portaloo. Sickening Oxbridge multi-millionaire Tory unfunny man, Rhys-Jones. Who chooses these people?
Why can't we have people who know about the country going instead? Ones who can tell us something about it. Perhaps they could be proper historical or political programmes or instead, a simple travelogue/holiday show, rather than mangling them both in together and serving neither.
The worst of these is mum's favourite Simon 'bloody' Reeves, who seems to have had 5 star trips to just about everywhere in the world at the licence payers' expense, doing his trademark staring into the distance moodily at sunset, faux Palestinian scarf a-flappin', everywhere he goes.
He knows nothing and we learn nothing about the history or culture of the countries he visits. He doesn't speak the languages. He finds luxurious destinations great fun and joins in the high rolling enthusiastically. He's less happy when venturing in to the poorer districts for a bit of poverty tourism, but he furrows his brow and looks concerned as he tells us how simply awful it all is. He doesn't explain though why the problem exists and he doesn't have any solutions to offer, apart from simpering into the camera about how we all ought to buy fair trade tea to solve the problem of the little ragged barefoot kids with no school or doctor and carrying huge bundles of tea on their heads all day. With that one solved, he tossed his Palestinian scarf over his shoulder and he's off back to the hotel.
Reeves is one of the worst, but there are other smug cosy presenters who are just as bad - coma-inducing ex-Tory megabore Portaloo. Sickening Oxbridge multi-millionaire Tory unfunny man, Rhys-Jones. Who chooses these people?
Why can't we have people who know about the country going instead? Ones who can tell us something about it. Perhaps they could be proper historical or political programmes or instead, a simple travelogue/holiday show, rather than mangling them both in together and serving neither.
