Frenetic ramblings from the start of the "War on Terror" logging my attempts to film outside Finsbury park mosque over 3 years and sitting through all the subsequent court cases. These days I am usually on Post Factual Society on Facebuk. Do visit Youtube.com/malungtvnews
March 18, 2006
WRIGHT, WRONG AND STUFFED.
Yeah anyway apparently someone from Peace Not War had been in the audience of the Wright Stuff and one of the producers had given her the idea that she could bring along a whole load of "Peace Activists" in Peace Not War T-shirts ahead of the demo today, which, I think she had also got the impression would be a topic on the show. Can't varify any of this, smoke signals etc.
This meant getting a load of hippies up and outside Whiteleys in W2 by 8am. I had seen the Wright Stuff a few times and thought Matthew Wright a bit more switched on than most daytime TV people and was interested to see what he'd be like in the flesh so I rocked up with Jo and sure enough there were 15 or 20 Peace Not War people ready to go with T-Shirts. We were let in to Whiteleys and sat having coffee with some of the producers and the girl who puts the phone-ins through from behind a screen. They handed around the topic's which would be discussed that morning which were
1. Should we do drug experiments on prisoners
2. Express or repress? If you feel something should you get it off your chest? Are you sick of people who moan about things etc etc
3.can't fucking remember, but it was boring.
4. Open relationships- with the shows "relationship doctor" blah blah blah
Anyway. Nothing about anything people thought they had been dragged out of bed to discuss and someone said
"Princess productions have stitched us up."
Various excusses about producers etc and buck passing were meekly put into the air as someone came around asking us if we had anything to contribute on any of the subjects. I wasn't bothered as I am not really an "activist" anymore, I was happy to sit and watch how the Wright stuff was put together.
I mentioned that I liked to get my feelings out on my blog, and that I was loosely involved with three girls, was happy to fuck people who fucked other people a lot of the time and had various successes and faliures with "Open Relationships" particularly when I took a lot more acid 10 years ago. As long as all involved were confident with themselves there was a higher morality involved in these things which was dificult to maintain against the accepted culture around us, but it was there nonetheless.
"If we come to you, talk about the rest of it, but leave out the acid."
I was offered a Peace Not War T-Shirt to wear but said I was happy with the hentai cartoon T-Shirt I was wearing.
So we were led upstairs where one of these Tiswas style "floor managers" came out shouting
"Is everybody happy? Mobile phones switched off etc. If you shout out I'll throw you out etc."
I can never tell if people put on this "Zany TV" act or if it is cocaine.
We were led into the tiny two row audience space which we filled. Matthew Wright was there sitting next to some painted barbie, a comedian I vaguely recognised and.. as I sat down next to Rob Rub I asked him
"Thats Carol Thatcher isn't it?"
Matthew and all of them fairly much ignored us, the comedian made a joke about everyone getting out of bed wearing the same T-Shirt. They all seemed to be overacting in the same patronising manner. I couldn't tell if it was "Zany TV" or cocaine.
As the show started, someone had obviously complained enough for Mr. Wright to quickly plug the next days demo before he set about talking to the bimbo who was apparently called "Ce-Ce" about thousand pound handbags. It felt as if I was actually watching TV. There was a gulf between us in the audience and the "panel" in front of us that I dearly wanted us to smash. I canvased the opinion of those around me whispering
"Hijack! Come on! Lets do it! Its fucking live TV! There's more of us than there are of them! Come on!"
As they all discussed the papers the floor manager was "fake cackling" in a ridiculous manner. I couldn't tell if it was due to "Zany TV" or cocaine. We all struggled to laugh.
"We need a plan." said Rob "The Rub" Rub who was sitting next to me.
I looked across the other side at Magic Dave who was actually laughing along to all this bollocks. I motioned with my eyes in what I hoped was a Come on! Lets do it! sort of way. What fucking plan? What happened to spontenaity?
Who took over the Wright stuff and got it taken off air yesterday? Oh it was those fucking Peace Not War activists. Why? They were fukcing pissed off at getting conned into being part of the studio audience for nothing so they ran around like idiots in their Peace Not War T-Shirts...
Its not as if TV shows suffer from this kind of publicity either.
In one of the breaks the Tiswas floor manager shuffled us around and asked a few people to cover up their Peace not War T-Shirts.
"You sit where I tell you." he said to someone.
"Your mum scared my life!" I shouted out to Carol Thatcher fixing her with as evil grin as I could muster, the coffee they had given us kicking in somewhat. She looked back at me, her eyes glazing over a bit, unsure what to say.
I got swapped up to the middle of the audience next to the guy with the microphone, to be ready to talk about blogging. I chased a few butterflies around my stomach and put my hands together focusing my energy between them in Johnny Wilkinson manner.
I couldn't really hear what was being said in front of me from the phone-in's or from Matthew as the voice in my head was coaching me.
"Blah blah blah blah blah a view from the audience...blah blah.... the internet.."
"Yes Matthew I like to get my feelings out through blogging. People can read or not. Its up to them."
"Do you find this helps?"
"Definately I'll be blogging about all this, especially meeting the daughter of the evil one.."
"Would you like to come back on that Carol?"
"Maybe after the show..."
I don't think she does spontenaity either.
"Ha ha. She's going to kick your head in." said someone next to me.
In the next break Matthew gave me a wink and a thumbs up and Carol Thatcher gave me a very sporting smile which I returned. The panel were all demicrophoned as Matthew went across to another couch with some blonde American "Relationship doctor" on it. I didn't see Carol come over until she was right in front of me.
"I'll send your love to "the evil one."" she said.
"Nice one!"
As she walked away I thought I should have followed her and talked to her some more. I really do have an irationally huge hatred for her mother. There is going to be such a party when she dies.
The audience camera came back to me.
"You realise it is the same guy..." said the audience mike guy into his headset.
The camera went away.
As we left I let it out a bit louder.
"You fucking shower. There were more of us than there were of them. We could have had that fucking floor manager easy. How plastic was that woman? Fucking hell. It was like she was made of cardboard, you'd push her and she'd fall flat."
I didn't realise there were still media interns around with Wright Stuff T-Shirts and apologised.
"No, don't apologise.." they said, more or less showing they agreed with me.
If any protest group with balls wants to hijack the Wright Stuff it would be very easy. They are desperate for audience members at that time in the morning. Plan or no plan, its live TV. Go for it. Knock yourself out.
I'm going to the demo today, but only to boo George Galloway.
UPDATE: Spoke to Carol from Peace Not War, she said that Matthew Wright argued for them to be there in the days running up to this, and on the morning itself. She says he's a nice guy and as a group she would rather prove to these people that activists aren't all leary protesters and have a positive contribution to make in the mainstream. Not sure if it'll work with Princess Productions, can only wish them all luck really. An interesting morning anyway.
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1 comment:
at least you've been having fun. if i had a tv i'd probably watch daytime (early morning for me) tv.
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