Talk About Saturday Night Fever!

Implacable weather! (A very dickensian phrase, mind you!). Damp, moist, wet, dreadful, endless. Nothing better to do than stay conveniently at home (hubby went out for a coffee but Blonde is not in the mood to face the dampness outside). TV was on a while ago, not anymore. Blonde doesn't watch that much TV (gosh, it's still dickensian!), just the news occasionally. But she watched the news today. In fact, she watched, listened more than she watched would be a better description, part of the 8 o'clock news on RTP1.

And was that time well-spent! (No, this is not dickensian anymore!).

The atrocities in Kenya were covered in a matter of seconds. However, the extreme cold weather in the American East Coast, the floodings in California and Australia and the intense Winter in Eastern European countries were given immense minutes of broadcast. And right at the end, surprise, the astounding news that President Sarkozy and singer-model Carla Bruni were visiting Petra in Jordan as a couple. In-between pieces of news that don't last in anyone's memory and shouldn't occupy precious already overloaded neurons.

Naturally Blonde was informed of whatever important and interesting is going on in the world today. Of course, that, being this January, it's always very relevant to know that it is very cold in Northern latitudes. And, obviously that being the mutinies and the overall rebellion in Kenya a very nasty, ugly, violent subject, the issue should be aired with as little attention as possible not to harm viewers susceptible nerves. Not to mention the fact that not knowing the latest love affair of the French President is equivalent to utter ignorance (and Blonde wouldn't want that now, would she?).

After the news, Blonde was home alone. TV still on. A most educational and interesting programme followed, something like "Provedor do Cliente" but in a TV viewers' format. And yes, this was extraordinary (or so Blonde thought). The topic under scrutiny in the programme was precisely how should the news be broadcast (and here Blonde would most definitively have something to say, opinionated as she is).

Everybody complained about the excessive amount of time devoted to football, and within football to those three clubs everybody knows, everybody was resented at the excessive coverage of the Maddie affair, everybody said that cultural events are not given coverage (actually someone even suggested that the news should open occasionally with a news about theatre, but c'me on let's not go over the moon, ok?) and so on and so forth. Blonde's question: if they know this at RTP, why do they persist with the fait divers format that makes news seem like a vaudeville show?

The best was yet to come and Blonde really had a few laughs.

In that same very instructive programme, Blonde got to know that RTP Internacional and RTP África broadcast each day 5 and a half hours of "Praça da Alegria" and "Portugal no Coração". This was a treat Blonde wasn't expecting on such a lifeless Saturday evening. What fun and joy! Blonde imagining the immigrant communities being treated to shuch enlightened shows that have everything to do with the places they live and which present an image of a very developed, culturally productive and stimulating country! And 5 and a half hours every single day! Wow, that was entertainment at its very best! Blonde had as much fun as if she were watching "Black Adder". And the comments of the Portuguese living in Canada... That was hillarious! And what the people in the PALOPs had to say... Blonde was really amused. So amused she couldn't have all this much fun to herself and had to come and share it.