The Backstory to the Google Suggestion

This was originally published on a site that is no longer online, so I've retrieved it from my sent emails and am posting it here for posterity - you never know, someone might want to look at it sometime soon ;) 

In the beginning of publicly transmitted television, here in the UK we just had one channel.  The BBC. They provided all of our entertainment and programming, and it was only available at certain times.  Transmission ended at 11pm (or whatever time it was) and that was it for the day.  Soon most homes had a TV set, and the family would gather around to find out what was going on in the world, to watch the moon landings, and whatever else the BBC decided would be good viewing for the family as a whole.

I was born in 1970, and without spending any time researching for facts, I can tell you my memories of television as a child.  When I first started at nursery school I was 3, almost 4.  I don't have many memories from that time, but I do remember that I went to nursery in the afternoon, and before we had to set off to get there, I always had time to watch Rainbow while my mum was doing whatever she needed to get done. Even the theme tune was inspiring (and I remembered all the words as soon as the intro started.. "up above the streets and houses, rainbow flying high, everyone can see it shining, over the sky.  Paint the whole world with a rainbow!")  

Later on I went to school, and because mum was working, I went off to the childminder's until mum came to pick me up.  Now at home we always watched BBC1 in the afternoons, but when I was at the childminder's house, they preferred ITV.  So instead of watching Playschool and Blue Peter, I had to watch Tiswas.  I didn't really like Tiswas, it seemed really silly and messy.  Lots of gunge tanks and messing about - I was used to Blue Peter, where we learnt about new things, learnt how to make really cool stuff using old washing up bottles and sticky back plastic, and were encouraged to organise and attend "Bring and Buy" sales to raise money for good causes.  Then along comes ITV and Tiswas, and everyone's throwing custard pies at each other and behaving like idiots.  Little did I know it was a glimpse into the future!

I was no older than 7 years old when I was feeling internally annoyed about this disparity, but I was in someone else's house so I was a good little girl, remembered my manners, said nothing, and watched the inane tv with everyone else.  I doubt I could have managed to explain myself then anyway.

TV as a child was mostly governed by my dad, as well as the BBC (and ITV had it's place as well I'm sure).  I remember watching Dr Who, hiding behind a cushion for the scary bits, but knowing my dad would protect me from the Daleks etc anyway.

We watched The Goodies, Monty Python's Flying Circus (I didn't really understand that either, more silliness really, but Dad loved it), every David Attenborough programme available, and lots more besides.  I learnt a little bit more about the planet and the animals on it, learnt about recycling before it was something people talked about as being a necessity - it was just something we did.  Good clean fun, and education that wasn't labelled as such, so we learnt without feeling like we were at school.

Then as I got a bit older, we got a VHS video recorder and a membership to the local video shop.  This article I wrote last week explains that side of the story (now re-posted on my new blog, here)

I've been thinking about this quite a bit since I wrote it and how it relates to the ills of the world.  Watching this Ted Talk last night about changing the world galvanised me into action

When I was little, entertainment was made for the whole family.  The original Star Wars trilogy for instance.  That was proper family viewing!!  We all sat down together to watch them, and I carried on playing Star Wars games until I was about 14... Things had changed a lot in those few short years - and they've continued to go downhill since.

Where there had once been ONE TV channel, there were now 4.  Each of those 4 stations had something of a theme.  BBC1 was viewing for all the family, BBC2 was a bit more for grown ups, but still educational and more themed towards the arts (loosely, and remember I was a child at this time, but that's my impression)  ITV was family entertainment, but with advertising, so it was funded by whoever paid for advertisements. There was (and still is) a lot of entertainment in there, but BBC1 on a Saturday night in the 70s was the absolute epitome of family entertainment.  The Generation Game with Bruce Forsyth - a game show where family members of different generations would play together, eg Mother and Son, Grandfather and Grandaughter etc. and they came up with new creative games each week.  Copy this artist and make a vase like the one they've made, or learn how to do this short dance routine in the next 15 minutes - every week was different, and obviously different people had different skills, so it was next to impossible to predict who'd win each game. Then at the end there was a conveyor belt with lots of different prizes, and the winners took home everything they could remember from the conveyor belt as their prizes.  These could be anything from a foot spa, to a new game, and every single conveyor belt contained a cuddly toy - that was Brucie's catchphrase for a while... "Cuddly Toy!"  The whole family loved that programme!

Then there was Dr Who.  Dads loved it and introduced their children, and the vast majority of us who watched it as little kids still love it today.  There's really no end to the imagination of the writers, and certainly no shortage of new writers with new ideas.

However, we now have hundreds of channels being beamed into our homes either from satellite or cable.  The entertainment has been spread so thinly that it's a real struggle to find the good stuff, and children are so exposed to advertising that it can easily seem that all they want is the latest gadget.  In all honesty, that's all a lot of kids DO want!  But there are so many children who want so much more than that.  They want positive and real change, they want to cure the world of bullying, or hunger, or homelessness, or poverty... that list of their wants really does go on and on.  I know, because despite the constant bombardment of adverts, my youngest daughter came home at the age of 16 and told me she's not standing by any longer for children to be driven to suicide by bullying, and she was going to do something about it.  She then spent the rest of her summer organising a Summer Fair, and that raised over £800.  

The problem she then had was getting access to schools to talk about the work she was doing.  Her old high school said all their assemblies were planned for the next x number of months, so she couldn't come in to talk to the pupils.  This is a school that utterly denies that it has a problem with bullying, but the reason she wanted to do something was because her best friend committed suicide when he was 12 years old because he was being bullied.  He went to that school at the time.  There has been a stabbing and another serious incident involving bullying since she left two years ago, and probably (almost definitely!) many more minor incidents that I have no knowledge of.

Back to Star Wars - the middle set of new films, the prequels... I did go to see one of them, but I hated it.  All that CGI meant there were millions in the battalions, and it was all about war.  Yes, I know, Star WARS, but war isn't family viewing.  I didn't take enough notice really, but I remember Queen Amidala as being really miserable and not at all a like-able character, but Princess Leia had been a female lead character that any little girl loved to emulate, and most male fans loved for different reasons lol.  She was a really good, positive female role model.  Queen Amidala just wasn't.

The reason the trailer got me so excited was because I could immediately see the metaphor between today's world and the Dark Side vs the Light Side - and the words "There has been an awakening - have you felt it?" 

Over the last few years there has been an awakening.  More and more of us are seeing through the lies of our governments.  We're seeing beyond the lies of the massive corporations that are pulling the strings of our governments, like Monsanto and the petroleum companies.  We're finding references to years old data about renewable energies, and ideas for positive change are being uploaded on a daily basis.  We're starting to find them, and there are a LOT of us that are being vocal about these ideas, as well as a lot of people trying to get the masses to see the reality.  Unfortunately most of those particular people are labelled as conspiracy theorists.  Look at Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.  When I first heard about them, I thought it was ridiculous that they weren't just handed over to the authorities by whichever country they were hiding in at the time.  Why did I think that?  Because mainstream media told me that's how I should feel, that's why!

Those companies (Monsanto, petrolithic companies etc - AKA the Dark Side) are spreading their lies, with the aid of mainstream media, and a lot of people are still believing their lies.  The problem is, The Dark Side involves an awful lot of governments as well.. Let's just use the UK/European and US governments as examples for now.  They're trying to push the TTIP and other international trade agreements through behind our backs.  The uninformed masses are going on with their lives, completely oblivious to these agreements and their consequences, and by staying uninformed, they're unwittingly helping them to be agreed and signed, thereby helping The Dark Side, because they're still voting for the baddies with no real idea that they're baddies!!

On the other hand, we have the Light Side.  The Dark Side refer to them as "conspiracy theorists" in many cases, so they (we!) don't get listened to by the masses.  

But the Light Side have a lot of REALLY good ideas!  They know about how to make renewable energy into an affordable reality, but they don't have the money of the petrolithic industry.  They know how to make life easier for people with disabilities, with new inventions and herbal remedies, but they don't have the money of the pharmaceutical industry.  

Look at the benefits of cannabis as an example.  It's not the big bad "drug" it's made out to be - there are states in the US where it's legal, and it's bringing in ridiculous amounts of money in taxes (IMHO the problem there is that the money is almost definitely going to the Dark Side).  However, the plants themselves are creating oxygen for us to breathe, they can cure all kinds of illnesses, including cancer, and the hemp from what's left over when they're harvested can be used to make practically anything that's currently made out of plastic.  Bags, rope, bridges, homes, roads, even concrete!  

I could go on all day about the great ideas that are available on the internet - mainly thanks to my good friend Google.  I can find anything I want to, thanks to you!

So here's my big idea.