And another thing…

What in the wide wide world of sports is going on? Just what is it that makes the current crop of TV presenters, particularly weather reporters and those fronting documentary programmes think that it is acceptable to address the viewing public as though we are stone-deaf retards?

Condescending delivery with certain words painfully enunicated at volume as though they were shouting down some deaf dowager’s ear trumpet is a characteristic trait. “RAIN … tomorrow … It’s going to RAIN!” – Peter Cockroft of BBC South East’s weather team being by far the worst offender.

Then there is the ‘Sexing up’ of  what would otherwise be agreeably dull documentaries by a team of academic ‘pin ups’ Exciteable  media-savvy types such as Neil ‘the hair’ Oliver (hon. Phd) , Dr Alice ‘Breathless’ Roberts, Prof. Brian ‘Big Bang’ Cox over-enthuse like children’s TV presenters (imagine the Blue Peter studio full of puppies)

Big Bang

Hair

Breathless

We are hooked and reeled in by same with the promise of the revelation of long-hidden secrets. Well when I finally do see a documentary which really does tell me something I  don’t already know about the Valley of the Kings, I swear I will eat my Doc Marten boots: Bouncing soles and all.

Is there a special department of the BBC which trains them all to be so intolerably enthusiastic, in the same way BBC announcers were coached in the dark art of Received Pronunciation back in the 40s and 50s?

Thank Goodness for Mary Beard.

Copyright Andy Daly 2013