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The Men Who Made Us Spend
KennyT
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available as a premiere on iPlayer (all 3 eps available) or watch when it's broadcast next Saturday 12th.
Very interesting!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-1
K
Very interesting!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-1
K
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I only discovered it on I player the other day.
I like Jacques Peretti's documentaries .
I was surprised when they were talking about the light bulbs and when manufacturers make things that deliberately break !! I never knew that.
I'm not surprised. I digress slightly, but there's a classic 1951 satirical Ealing film called "The Man in the White Suit" which stars Alec Guinness as a scientist who creates a fabric which resists wear and tear, which is rather apt. I heartily recommend it.
K
Wow, does it?! I didn't know!
3rd episode, starts slowly, but gets more interesting as it goes on.
All in all 9/10...
K
It's really disturbing how people saw the danger in advertising sugary foods to children and tried to put a stop to it when it started, but "liberty" won out. And now we are paying the price for it. At least a third of adults obese, very high childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, putting a strain on health services and productivity, high levels of personal debt and a very consumerist society.
Now governments are being forced to take action, like not allowing advertising of sweets during children's shows, maybe taxing sugar in the future, limiting credit availability. What a shame the right decisions hadn't been made when it would have counted, in the 70s and 80s.
For some reason I seem to be immune to all of this - the advertising and marketing, the urge to buy new things or have the latest model, the inability to stop eating delicious foods, the inability to control your spending or buying on credit instead of saving. I guess with enough intelligence and willpower it's possible to resist.
You know this is a BBC documentary?
Oh, the only surprise to me about that was that it dates back to the 1920s; I'd had said the 1970s at the earliest, if pushed
Yes but its one of the better ones.
The tendancy of the right is to excuse big business from all responsibility.
I didn't watch this programme, did it excuse the individual from all responsibility?
Not sure I'd go so far as HIV being deliberate, but its certainly likely big pharma will look to develop treatments rather than cures - after all if you cure someone, you've lost a regular customer!
K
Obviously he doesn't normally talk like this, as you could hear on sections where he was talking to someone else on camera. So why does he need to declaim everything on the voice over, just speak to the viewer normally FGS. Someone should tell him, because it is bloody annoying!
Agreed, but he does make good documentaries despite this. I first heard his voice on one of those sex documentaries Channel 4 and Channel 5 used to show a lot of years ago. Back then, I just thought it was a deliberately sarcastic voice in step with the lighthearted tone of the programme, but he really does narrate this way, all the time! Like you say, when he talks to people on camera, you can hear a more ordinary tone coming out of him, why can't he apply the same logic to the narration? You can't take what he says entirely seriously because of it! Jeez! I just wish he could do a "planned obsolescence" of his voice!
I can't believe that none of the TV professionals he is presumably working with have said anything, though.
It's a shame, as it really puts me off, and yet the programmes are very interesting.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=phoebus+cartel+myth&start=20&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&imgil=H1CLGAFrPJWotM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQ429gXRM_7a8tvCmBcMJptLDZ85AaYA7zPjRw1jL4Awn66cri7IA%253B1114%253B735%253BnQy4zDTAzGDcYM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fphoenixaquua.blogspot.com%25252F2013%25252F04%25252Fconsumption-vanity-disorder-cvd.html&source=iu&usg=__rXjQGI-g2fCmD0KMxTQ5uAQ0ato%3D&ei=KMTGU8ngEcjQ7Abf1oGgCg&ved=0CEwQ9QEwBTgU&biw=1920&bih=958#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=rRgodyTyeP7YYM%253A%3BJGyRt8wZBwd_xM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252F4.bp.blogspot.com%252F-Cftlw53sgEY%252FT6WVocWvV9I%252FAAAAAAAAAoM%252Fv4RHmXRifDU%252Fs1600%252Flightbulbconspiracyletter_725_850.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ffreedomlightbulb.blogspot.com%252F2012%252F05%252Flightbulb-conspiracy-documentary-by.html%3B725%3B850
K
Edit: A scripting issue was stopping me seeing the image I assume you wanted me to see, which is a 1929 letter about a particular lamp having its design life changed from 300 hours to 200 hours.
So how does this support the 1000 hour conspiracy? It concerns a low voltage (6V) automobile headlamp, and we don't know why the design life was changed.
K