h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Am I the only one who is irritated by the BBC's self promoting advertisments, especially the one with the Indian dancing ? I am not in the lest bit Racist, but this country seems to have forgotten it's heritage. What does this have to do with the thousands of years of interesting history and culture Britain has ?
True, we do have a very large immigrant population, but isn't it their responsibility to adjust to our culture (just as we would have to if we moved abroad)? I wouldn't expect to move to Asia and have Radio and TV stations that catered for me as an English speaker.

Hello Researcher and welcome to h2g2,

A couple of things. In order for people to leave you messages on your personal space you need to 'activate' it. You can do this by clicking on the edit page button in the top right corner of your space, or by using this shortcut>> <./>UserEdit?masthead=1</.>

Just type anything - hello will do! And then a friendly <./>ACE</.> will leave you a welcome message and a few tips about how to get started in h2g2.

As for your question - if you want community feedback then a good place to post the message would be <./>askh2g2</.> or if you wish to make a complaint then the official BBC complaints procedure would be the way to go. (i dont have the email address to hand, but if that is what you meant then i will dig it out for you!)

Which heritage was it you are referring to? the Nordic/germanic/Roman/French bit of the British that made us Britain?

As for the dancers - i dont know for sure but i should think many of them are at least 2nd if not third generation Brittons!

But as i say you will get great feedback if you post this at <./>askh2g2</.>



Mort

PS dont forget to activate your space

Funnily enough, the whole of the BBC has just come from a live discussion with different divisions worldwide. BBC Delhi employs over 100 people as part of the World Service and BBC online, for example.

I suppose the feeling is that, just as we accept jousting (from our Norman conquerors), beer (from our Viking conquerors), and roads and a water system from the Romans, we should surely reflect differences within modern British culture and embrace the cultures of people invited to live here after the disollution of the British Empire. Indians can be British too, after all

You'll move this thread to askh2g2, right?

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'h2g2 Feedback' to 'Ask the h2g2 Community'.

Maybe.

Mina

Once upon a time, before the advent of the dancers, we had a globe. How silly, It should have been edited to show just Britain, adrift in an ocea of emptiness...

I think you've all missed my point, or maybe I didn't explain myself properly. Yeah, i'm not disputing that everyone benefts from influences inherited from other cultures...what i'm talking about is cultural dilution. No one has any pride in being British anymore, and i'm sure adverts like that don't do this any good. I'm all for embracing other cultures, after we embrace our own.

Oh, and Mort did raise a couple of good points....what i'm annoyed with isn't the dancers, it's the dance. I'm sure India would be annoyed if we put morris dancers on one of their channels that wasn't meant to have adverts in the first place! :P

But the advert to whicvh you refer is only one of a series- others feature things sucha s abllroom dancing I believe- the adverts all seem to reflect different things which makes up what "British" now is- British culture is an amalgam of different cultures- Indian culture being one. Indian culture now *is* part of British culture. m I think it was Jimster who made the point earlier about us absorbing aspects of culture from the Romans, normans, Vikings, Saxons etc., this is just another example.

You mean like having morris dancers instead? Can you define British culture?
The difficulty is that we have a very mixed heritage & it is continuing to evolve, embracing aspects of other cultures. Probably all the dance sequences shown have derivations from other cultures - isn't that good in showing the BBC as an outward looking organisation rather than just focused inwards?

I'm just fed up with all these ing adverts on the BBC!!!!!


Where are the programs???? We must lose at least half an hour a day to these things!!!!

No we haven't missed your point . We're just trying to tell you, very gently, that the answer to your question "Am I the only one who is irritated" appears to be no, but you're one of very few who do think that way.

You say you're not racist, and I believe you but you might want to ponder on the thought that racists would, in fact, agree with you.

In my opinion, Britishness isn't diluted by Indian dancers on tv or by Lurpak adverts, for that matter.

Amy

As a non-commercial station what are the BBC doing showing *any* adverts.

Some BBC services are available almost worldwide, IMO the BBC should go commercial, so we don't have to pay over £100 per year, as far as I know, only the Britsh pay the licence.

Foxy

There are more indian/curry restraunts in the UK than fast food places, and Chicken Tikka Masala (invented in Birmingham) is considered by many to be our national dish. I personally think Indian and British culture blend very well indeed.

But anyway, what is this 'cultural dilution' you talk of? Why would we want to keep our culture 'pure'? A culture that is unchanging is one that is stagnant and will die.



Foxy,

I moved from Britain to the US a couple of years ago and I would GLADLY pay $150 per year for the quality that the BBC provides. I miss it very much (apart from Saturday night TV). Making the BBC commercial would be the biggest mistake.



Ste

There's almost 100,000 Chinese take-aways/restaurants than Indian - there's more fish and chip shops (staffed by most nationalities on Earth, most of the ones where I grew up were Greek/Cypriot) than both put together...

I'm hungry.

i'm not sure i'd class these as adverts...if they are, what exactly are they advertising?
they're just the random things that come on before programmes...
^. .^
= ' =
Guru
CommunityArtist

The BBC advert that gets up my nose is that one for "eight new BBC channels" with Gary Lineker with boobs. I quite like the two old dears in the shelter though.

I will confess to being slightly irritated by the promotional sketches, but then again its partly because i dont have digital/satellite etc tv - just the 4 channels (i cant even get channel 5 [who can?]) and i dont want to know about all the stuff i cant have! but i have no problem with the variety of modern cultural representation that is depicted in them.

i think that we tend to see lines drawn between cultures, in history and still today, but in actual fact when you look at it more closely these lines have been crossed many times by the 'British' - for instance - body painting and jewellery are the ones that spring to mind as current examples, and given earlier, historical were ones such as beer!!

I think as a nation the Brits are quite arrogant and think they invented the wheel. (ok i am stereotyping now too)

Mort

The only advert for BBC that has ever irritated me (and only a little) is a blue fish on a bike in the corner of my screen.