The BBC is a strange and wonderful place, where amounts of money that seem abstract to the layman can be lavished on subjects beyond their comprehension. Take this, its most recent giddy-eyed scheme – the corporation is spending <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/04/bbc.television1
“>half a million pounds (that’s a million dollars in new speak) to teach its employees how not to deceive the public. Isn’t that essentially a class on how not to lie? The Security Services teach operatives how to dissemble convincingly, the BBC has suddenly realised that it would be best if its news operation did not do the same thing. Isn’t the world an odd place? (Fox fearers, look at this story on Rupert Murdoch buying a share in religion and tremble.)
Perhaps it would be a more intriguing place if the BBC spent its money on developing genre-bending programmes such as this, the mind-blowing Who Wants To Marry A U.S. Citizen. It is exactly what it sounds like, but sadly the producers are unable to offer any substantial assistance for the hapless applicants in actually obtaining a green card. Given that the U.S. immigration authorities would presumably be suspicious of marriages made through a portal of convenience – how much faith do you have in longevity of relationships from The Bachelor, et al? – the whole thing is surely little more than a circus.
Much like the deteriorating love triangle between Marc Bannerman, Sarah Matravers and Cerys Matthews. Having flirted shamelessly with Matthews on-screen in I’m A Celebrity, Bannerman confessed himself ‘a rat’ for betraying the relationship with Matravers, who has since upped the ante by claiming both of them can ‘rot in hell’ for all she cares. Having said her piece, this woman wronged is now planning to leave the country. A rebuttal seems unlikely, considering which way the moral high ground is sloping.