May 31
2004
We need a Pap Freedom Day to save our sanity (The Times)
» Posted on May 31, 2004 12:00 AM » Category: The way we live

You may not realise it, but yesterday was your first day of the year. Your first day, that is, rather than the Government’s. Yesterday, you see, was Tax Freedom Day — the day when you stop working for the Government and start working for yourself.

It is now, according to the Adam Smith Institute, six days later than when Labour took office in 1997. Tut-tut, and all that. But if Tax Freedom Day is getting later and later, so too is another day which deserves equal obloquy: Pap Freedom Day.

Not a day is free of the pap that infects British culture. Last week saw the start of Hell’s Kitchen — a programme that rounds up D-list celebrities who can’t cook, puts them in a restaurant kitchen and then builds hours of mind-numbingly dull TV on the shock revelation that the food isn’t very good.

This week — and for the next ten weeks, too, God help us — we have the even deeper stimulation of Big Brother. Turn on BBC One any night of the week — not to mention the daytime pap — and you can but weep at the thought that, through your licence fee, you are paying for — to take tonight — EastEnders, Changing Rooms and Murphy’s Law. Pap.

So I have a proposal. Instead of the drip, drip, drip of pap that suffocates us from January to December, why not push it all together, morning, noon and night, from January 1 every year. Then — this is critical — take action to ensure that, instead of merely charting its progress, Pap Freedom Day is, literally, the day on which we are freed from pap. Between January and Pap Freedom Day, you know never, ever, to turn on the TV. But from then onwards, it’s safe: The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The West Wing. No soaps — pap; no reality programmes — pap; and no lifestyle makeovers – pap.

I use TV as an exemplar. But Pap Freedom must be an across-the-board measure. Next month it will be impossible to escape that most dreaded phenomenon, Henmania. Instead of allowing the virus to escape in the middle of the year, confine it to January. Confine, indeed, the entire Wimbledon fortnight to January. And when it is rained off, so much the better.

The news, too, needs to be brought to heel. Is there anyone who has the slightest interest in the sexual antics of Lord Coe?

Or in the sexual antics of whichever other TV or sport personalities are to be fingered playing away over the rest of the year? Or in most of the minor political nonentities who are the usual subject of exposés? Confine all the sex scandals to before Pap Freedom Day.

And why do we have to listen to Charles Kennedy throughout the year? The undiscriminating might, I concede, see no harm. The rest of us understand that a second of exposure is a second wasted of our lives. He has a democratic right to be heard. But we have a right not to stumble upon him unintentionally. So confine him to before Pap Freedom Day. That way safety lies.

But forget all the above. There is one compelling reason for the introduction of Pap Freedom Day and criminal sanctions against those who infringe it: Harry Potter. The latest film will unleash, once again, the embarrassing and worrying spectacle of grown men and women proclaiming their love of the books and the films. They need help. They are plainly in the grip of a disease that is steadily rotting their brain.

Removing all access to Potter items might well be too great a shock to the system. Instead, references to the stories should be confined to before Pap Freedom Day. That way, with additional professional help, they stand a chance of being weaned off as the year progresses.

If you value your time on this planet, and you resent being force- fed a diet of pap, join me in my crusade to introduce Pap Freedom Day. You know it makes sense.


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Comments

My only problem with this idea is that, given the amount of pap that actually gets produced, "Pap Freedom Day" would probably be December 31 or thereabouts.

Stated by: Dave J on May 30, 2004 10:39 PM

"Is there anyone who has the slightest interest in the sexual antics of Lord Coe?"

Considerably more than are interested in your rants and stories of slow racehorses I suspect. A Pollard sex scandal might be just the ticket, eh? (and I don't mean Eve....ugh!)

Stated by: Wally on May 31, 2004 12:14 AM

I've been thinking for some time about what "culture" is. I reached a workable definition: "stuff people do". The more different stuff people do, the more culture. Places are cultural wastelands only when the people there do very little.

Pap, as you define it, is merely your opinion of crap TV. Take Hell's Kitchen, for example. You might find that it's quite good TV if you use Sky+: the program takes about 4 minutes to watch when you whiz through the copious tedium. So I've just engendered a bit of sub-culture: Sky+ makes ITV watchable.

We have more culture now than we had 10 years ago. There's so much more to get interested in and do than there was. You decline to become involved in "pap". That's your choice (I happen to agree with your taste, actually). But it's not right for you to sneer at the choices of others. I cannot understand the attraction of planespotting (rather like Greek judges). But I can't deny that lots of people find it fun. The Harry Potter books you sneer at. I found them a good read.

So Sneery Boy, go and create some cuture of your own.

Stated by: K on May 31, 2004 10:59 AM

The Adam Smith lot have got it all wrong. The day of the year to be celebrated is actually 3rd August. This is the day of the year when we all stop being selfish bastards by spending only on ourselves, and chip in cheerfully to the common weal. From that day till the end of the year we can be falsely modest and self-satisfied in equal measure. Worth every penny. Where's my self-assessment form?

And you are much too complacent about Henmania. It's started early this year in Paris, and the wretched man is now in the last eight. Another byproduct of global warming no doubt, and we can't claim we weren't warned.

Stated by: Bob Doney on May 31, 2004 11:15 AM

Pap? Lovely word that. Paps? Even better.
I like your idea. Now we just need to turn it into a reality television programme.
Pap Idol?

Stated by: Raised by Chaffinches on May 31, 2004 4:02 PM

I turned on the telly last night for a few minutes and saw some of the Hell's Kitchen stuff. Utter drivel.

To Wally (appropriate name), K and the rest; yes, the output of culture is big and one is free to choose. But like Stephen, I resent this garbage being funded at my expense via the licence fee. If you want to watch visual chewing gum like soaps and the rest, fine. Pay for it yourself.

Stated by: Tom on June 1, 2004 10:15 AM

Don't particularly like Big Brother, but Hell's Kitchen is Okay. Tom, my man, all of this stuff is on the independent channels. So no subsidy, Seems that Stephen Pollard forgets that he is the great champion of the Free Market when it doesn't suit him. I believe that the Harry Potter books weren't subsidised either, nor the Movies - so nothing much to see here except some old codgers whining about the TV licence, and other stuff they don'e like.

Next topic will be Stephen and Tom on magazines they don't like and why they should be banned. And youngsters today, don't get them started on that.Back in their day .. well you know the drift.


Stated by: eoin on June 1, 2004 9:25 PM

Eoin, how do you infer that I favour banning things like magazines and the like? I have been involved in libertarian political circles for years and defence of free speech is a sort of non-negotiable principle of mine. You are right that the particular crap shows Stephen mentions are not on the BBC, but the Beeb has screened a fair diet of rubbish in recent years, so my point still stands.

One of my main problems with such shows is that they are so depressing and vicious. At least the Italian tv shows do pap properly, with lots of stunning women. Heh.

Stated by: Tom on June 2, 2004 9:41 AM


Fine Tom. But now that you know that they are not on the BBC you do not have much real argument left. There is a lot of stuff on satellite I dislike , so I don't have it, but have no wish to ban it.

On a side note why is the anti-spambot turing code difficult to read with the criss-cross lines? That can't harm any bot, but makes it difficult for us.

Stated by: eoin on June 2, 2004 12:24 PM

Eoin, I have no wish to ban this stuff if it is provided in the free market. You are still implying that I would.

And there has been a lot of crud on the BBC in recent years. You can't really deny that. I'd scrap the licence fee tomorrow.

Stated by: tom on June 3, 2004 10:20 AM

Tom,
Subscription is cheaper to run and de-nationalisation of the BBC could pay for every TV set to have a free decoder!

Why don't they do it? Simple, they are scarred we won't pay for BBC Pap.

Stated by: Rob Read on June 3, 2004 6:03 PM

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