Tv
RT IS A 24-hour news channel in English. It is the international mouthpiece – and mouthpiece in this case is a euphemism for an entirely different bodily orifice – of the Putin regime.
RT is where you go to find out about things that never happened, informed by experts no one has ever heard of.
The general tone is one of dismissive sneering, and this from a country that is an economic disaster, with a colossal heroin epidemic.
But they do have all sorts of nuclear weapons, plus a leader who holidays in the warmer bits of Siberia where he goes shirtless. He swims with pikes, he rides horses, he is neither a bird nor a plane. This is indeed an ubermensch whose image is constructed from the long-lost top half of Ozymandias.
My favourite RT programme is Watching the Hawks. This is a collection of revelations mostly about the decadent West and the vile US.
It is a kinda, sorta youth programme populated by three chatty pseudo-americans called “Tyrel Ventura”, “Sean Stone” and “Tabetha Wallace”. Something tells me these are not the names known to their parents. They speak English with American accents using small to smallish words, as if – just maybe – English is not their mother tongue. What they do have in excess is scorn.
Content is largely irrelevant, except for breathless updates on the general collapse of American society. It seems – and I quote only one issue out of many – that the Hawks are watching the American chemical industry which is poisoning the entire population of that blighted land.
Expert opinion on this topic comes from a group called – and I promise you this is a direct quote – “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity”.
Please spend some time with this programme. You will be so grateful for my recommendation.
But then, who needs RT when we’ve got CBS Reality and its current Dstv show, Dog the Bounty Hunter? Bounty hunting is an American profession in which heavily armed retail pseudo-cops are licensed to chase and capture bail breakers. Dog is the nickname of such a person and he and his family are the stars of a reality series.
Like all the best reality television shows, this one begins with a disclaimer. “The following program depicts real bounty hunters chasing real fugitives. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Do not try this at home.” Try what?, one wonders.
Dog is an unnatural blond with the all-over skin colour that suggests a major allergy reaction to spray-on tan. Is this man pink? You better believe it. Everyone in the family, regardless of age or gender, dresses like professional wrestlers.
Dog even talks like one. Mrs Dog, however, is the brains of the operation, directing events and speaking in complete sentences. So, back to the beginning. The Dog family are chasing a fugitive. Mr Dog checks his tool kit and speaks. “Need a can of mace. Let’s go to the mace store!” And off they go, picking up some little extras in an impulsive sort of way while they are there. Then there’s a chase, made up of dead ends, mistakes and general falling about.
Mr Dog checks rubbish bins. Suddenly… there’s the fugitive! The Dog family spray him with mace! They lock him in the back of the van! Overcome with gratitude, the Dog family form a prayer circle. “Bless this mace,” prays Mr Dog. “In Jesus’s name, amen.”