I do not have television. I listen occasionally to the radio but for the most part, the Internet is my window through which I view our world. Frequently I access sites such as YouTube in search of music, documentaries and films. This is all quite free of charge and thanks to the wonderful Ad-Block, free of those infuriating advertisements.
On one memorable occasion a few years ago, I watched a documentary on YouTube that had originally been broadcast on British Independent Television. I do not remember very much about the documentary in any detail and I am aware it was already quite an old recording; it was not at all a new programme. I can’t remember why I chose to watch it and its memorable nature was not derived from it being particularly well-made, although it was. Rather it was the disturbing content that I remember.
In a series of interviews with a number of celebrities, none of whom I can remember now and many of whom I had never heard of then; I was guided through the childhood memories of various non-entities. In these thumbnail interviews we endured a mixture of quite insightful recollections and perhaps a few banal ones. It was one interview in particular that shocked and distressed me.
On the evening of Monday the 21st of November 1983, the Blue Peter Garden inside the grounds of the BBC Television Centre in London was shamefully vandalised. Blue Peter was at that time, a major and influential television programme. It was broadcast in the early evening, with its target audience being older children and young teens. Blue Peter had been an important part of my own childhood.
I remember the incident because, although I was by that time nineteen years old, I did by chance watch the episode of Blue Peter broadcast later that week. In that programme a shocked programme presenter and the visibly distraught garden designer Percy Thrower, viewed the carnage. The majority of people in Britain were justifiably disgusted by the act of vandalism.
In the interview I was now watching, this ‘celebrity’ described how he had also watched that same broadcast of Blue Peter. He went on to describe how amused he had been watching that programme and at how people had then, become so upset over what was ‘just’ a garden. He considered the episode to be quite a joke and showed no empathy for the distress caused to those who cared for that garden. His entire attitude to the affair and the opinions he expressed were disgraceful.
‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.’ Isaiah 55:8 King James Bible.
I do not share the opinions of this celebrity, nor do I derive any amusement from that shameful act of vandalism itself. I do not share his perspective on the affair, nor can I share his humour. Every thought he expressed in that interview and his manner in doing so, I found repugnant. There has been no change in my opinion, I am now as I was then, shocked by his behaviour. He represents an element within British society that disgusts me and with which I wish to have no dealings. I share neither the values nor the principles of such people, we have nothing in common.
Daniel Bran Griffith - The Chattering Magpie 