No Time For Complaints

'...there are many people out there who aren't happy until they're angry'

FORTY-FIVE-THOUSAND people are said to be killed in the Congo every month, many pensioners can't afford to pay heating bills this Christmas, and people are being stabbed to death in the streets. Yet there are a certain number of people who still find the time and effort to call Ofcom and complain that Have I Got News For You is on the same time as Midsommer Murders and 'it's just not fair'.

When we hear that over thirty-thousand people have complained about comments made on a Radio 2 show; we imagine crazed, Dawn-of-the-Dead-style riots with angered townsfolk carrying pitchforks and firebombs on their way to Radio 2 studios to end this 'crime against humanity.'

And when the Prime Minister spontaneously takes a break from disillusioning the country to make an announcement, we would expect him to make a speech about ending child poverty or preventing knife crime. Instead, he condemns Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross for 'inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour'.

Of course, the deplorable comments of Radio 2 presenters should bring the whole country to a standstill. The flag at Buckingham Palace should be flown at half-mast and Bob Geldof should organise a Brand Aid concert on account of Brand and Ross being placed on the Sachs Offenders Register. A necessary ministerial grumble if ever there was one.

Suddenly, thousands of people feel the need to complain about the childish answer phone messages. But, if any of those thirty-something-thousand complainers saw Andrew Sachs being beaten with a golf club in the street, they would probably find a really interesting particle of dust in the other direction.

Perhaps the situation wouldn't have been so challenging if the calls were made to the phone of another 'edgy' comedian. But Andrew Sachs? With his crossword-by-the-fire lifestyle and his pockets full of Werther's Original?

If people put even half of their complaining-effort into real issues affecting Britain; the economy, violent crime and war, we would be closer to finding solutions.

We accept bankers running off with our money, not being able to leave the house without getting mugged, and paramedics carrying body bags in our streets. But if Jeremy Clarkson comes on and makes a joke about prostitutes, he should be burned at the stake, or worse; be made to present Songs of Praise.

There were also several hundred complaints when ITV's Central Tonight announced plans to merge with the East Midlands broadcast.

However, those people who like their daily dose of inane, drip-fed regional television and have been complaining about the merger, will be glad to hear that; instead of having overweight diplomats of free-thinking mindsets wearing 'Save our school' t-shirts on news bulletins in Birmingham, we will soon be having the Melton Mowbray equivalent counterparts fighting to save a school sixty miles away. Oh great.

Whilst we must admire the deep sincerity of local news television, (placing a story about a soldier killed fighting for his country between a feature regarding a cat who's swallowed a ping pong ball and a middle aged woman who's entering a pie-eating contest to raise money to have her sister's bunion removed), it may not always be the most informative news medium.

Yet people complain when they think they won't be able to watch it any more. 'It's an infringement of our civil liberties.'

Let's face it, councillors with the personality and intellect of a frying pan talking about new 'cost-effective' recycling plants, have never really been the cutting-edge of regional broadcasting.

You wouldn't really think the country's in a recession and at war overseas. You wouldn't even think we've witnessed the end of the biggest and most expensive presidential election result in history. It seems that there are many people out there who aren't happy until they're angry. Complaining about trivial issues when there are bigger things at hand only ends up in the same old situation where it's usually the wrong heads that roll...