Monthly Archives: May 2003

Entertainment At The Start of May

Well, May already and I’ve not had a great deal of time to write. It’s been a difficult week at work so I’ve been concentrating on that because, after all, it pays the bills.

Some events can’t go unmentioned, however. Firstly, can you believe it’s Big Brother time of year again? They’re already showing journalists around the house. The BBC are advertising for Fame Academy contestants and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here has Ant and Dec watching over a jungle full of minor celebrities and their tantrums. When will television companies realise that this is overkill and it’s not interesting anymore?

Then there’s Madonna’s album and her appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. She was much more reserved than I imagined. Nothing loud or abrasive. Oh, and the album’s pretty good.

The best find of the week was an online version of BBC One’s Rush Hour promo.

A bit of frivolity to end the week – makes up for the stress I think!

On this day…

2003: Visit Rye

Stupid White Men

Probably the most famous of America Liberal thinkers at the moment, Michael Moore is a US treasure and they should treat him as such. Instead, the land of free speech tried to prevent this book being published following the attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Thankfully, this book made it out. It’s certainly very US centric (it was, after all written for that market) but many of the points apply too much of the western world. While suggesting that “we live in a society that rewards and honours corporate gangsters”, Moore does it with a humour that’s accessible and easily read.

Much political writing is hard to read whereas this written in small chunks and is easily digested. For those familiar with liberal writings much of Moore’s work may appear superficial but that’s to do with the style rather than the content. It is Moore’s style that has made this book number one on so many book lists but it’s the content that people will remember. For the British reader the challenge is to see where our democracy is following the US lead.

Why should you read this book? Because it puts the greed of the consumption society into perspective and genuinely makes you think about the society in which we live.

You can read other people’s opinions of the book at Amazon UK

On this day…

2004: The New Europe