Tonight I went where I haven't been for many moons - I tried to watch an entire episode of The Weakest Link. It was loaded with Apprentice rejects, featuring such legends as Tre and Paul, and a genuinely unsettling spat between Kristina and Katie Hopkins. It should have been fine early evening fare, but there's just one problem - I can't stand Anne Robinson. I literally can't bear to watch her without barking at the TV. So what is it specifically, I hear you cry - well, where do I start. There's the whole 'ice maiden' schtick, and the way she relentlessly attacks contestants until they're actually rendered speechless; there's the way she always says the amount of money they've won in a weary sigh, even when they bank about 75% of all possible winnings.
The cherry on the cake of hate, however, has to be the horrible puns - "who's Alan Sugar free?" "Who's going to get their P45?" etc etc. There must have been a thousand episodes of this show by now, and she's still rolling them out, with an impressive strike rate of zero amusing/clever puns to her name. Imagine what a great show The Weakest Link would be if she stopped swivelling that bloody screen about and just acted like a normal person. It sickens me. Still, if nothing else, sitting through the 15 minutes that I could bear taught be the following:
Balaclavas take their name from a village in the Ukraine.
Balaklava was the scene of a battle in the Crimean War (that I did know) and were worn by British soldiers. I didn't know that Balaklava was still a town today - it's in the environs of the city of Sebastapol, with a population of 30,000. OK, as learning goes, it's pretty shaky, but it brings new information to what I knew before. Whatever, I can't allow that I watched that stupid programme for nothing. The Weakest Link of facts it may be, but I'm not voting it off.
No comments:
Post a Comment