Hear hear.. Luckily, in my family, being a weirdo loner misfit has always been Ubercool. Gets lonely sometimes in the "Muggle" world though

Well! What a load of old curmudgeons we have on board in the wee small hours! Fortunately, this thread dropped off the first page before the daytime teenies got out of bed, otherwise we’d have had a load of ‘get a life, you boring old f@rts!’ comments. Has anybody else noticed that the average IQ of posters seems to double after midnight?

Anyway, thanks for your comments, folks. I worried a little when Jason called my little effort ‘more of a thesis than a paragraph’. Would it upset the Tickle-haters? Would the more rabid Tickle fans complain, as I wrote it as a general piece rather than ‘I LUV JON’? Fortunately, you’ve all taken it in the spirit it was intended.

John Michaels, old curmudgeon (bravely posting at midday)

Well, I liked it anyway. Shocked to see how low your post total is. It's all good though.

I thought it was a professional piece written in a paper and I've been searching the guardian and the likes to quote it to Jons sceptics. Well done John you are wasted.

I say bring back "HOW?"

(and have Jon and Fed hosting it )

emzi
(who thinks science is sexy)

With Gail McKenna? And would Fed refer to her as a 'Scouse slag'?

Aaaaaaaaah the days when a Blue Peter badge was a coveted possession......when Battleships was a hi-tech game......and when footwear didn't matter at all......

I'm not sure I'd blame the education system so much as the relentless march of consumerism. Increasingly, it seems, and from a younger and younger age, the message is that you are valued only as far as your disposable income and therefore buying power stretches. If you are measured and judged only by what you accrue, the only value in knowledge is how much of it you need to secure the resources to be able to consume to the desired level. New Labour clearly sees education as simply a route to employment, which underscores this trend.

As a society we seem to admire people who can consume conspicuously, not those who achieve meaningful things: whilst physicists, biochemists, engineers, planners, social scientists etc are usually comfortable, they/we are not in the Prada-bag bracket (unless they sold those dot.com businesses at the right time). Which is why so many bright young people nowadays see sitting on a daytime-tv pastel sofa, rehashing press releases written by other bright young people, as a better career option than doing something useful and mentally challenging.

I'm glad I was educated before all this really took off, and had a solid working-class respect for knowledge and studying dinned into me. I know not all young people are like the above, but if I had a teenage child I would be afraid for them - the influences seem so strong now.

Could the route of this "don't try too hard", cool and selfish behavior have been started back in the 50s? The invention of the teenager?

You could even go back further and say that teenagers were a reaction to WW2

Yes! It's Hitler's fault that jon was evicted!

In my mind that makes perfect sense.

Terrific stuff....................
My congratulations to John Michaels also... Well done!

People are way to influenced by television, mankind has been on this earth for how many years?....television has been around for how many years?.....what did people do before tv arrived?...they thought for themselves thats what!!! ...you only have to look back to see the genius of our society....i ask you.....where is the next william shakesphere?...the next einstien?..the next michael angelo the next bach?......we are so lost in our need to conform and its sadly due to our lack of motivation to do something constructive.. the blame lands firmly on the doorstep of companies like endemol and the like...but alas i see no change unless it is US that instigate that change...hoorah for Jon...a man who's mind goes against the grain, stands up for what he believes in and highlights the fact that we have become a society that represses our appetite for curiosity and creative thought....who cares who wins BB...who cares about fame?...who cares about celebrity status?....i for one am comforted by the fact that people like Jon still exist.

Unfortunately the packaging has become more important than the content.

Image is ALL

An empty box beautifully wrapped with gold shiny paper and ribbon generates more excitement and expectation than a plain brown paper, sellotaped parcel..... containing solid gold.

It's also quicker to open..... and move on to the next empty box....

Tania will generate far more column inches in the tabloids and celeb magazines than Jon..... sigh

Well to be fair... Tania does have better boobs.....
Get your point though... but we arent all like that... I gave up on wrapping paper when it hit 50p a sheet, most of my clothes are older than Anouska, and anyone who sneers at that has no place in my world

champagne4all's point about the relative lifespans of humanity and television got me thinking that maybe television has done little more than recently highlight the shallowness that has always existed in society. Before television the 'intellectual underclass' had little way of being noticed and so the past can be viewed today is if it were completely full of 'Jons'. Mainly playing Devil's advocate here.

Oh, incidentally ludovica, I notice you don't confirm that a disproportionately large number of the wittiest, most interesting and thoughtful...etc.

The TRIGAN EMPIRE!! YESSSS!!!

Hehe. I understood that many Scots liked Fishing....

Ah, but plain brown wrapping denotes taste and also 'old money'

In my case, mere denarii I'm afraid

An excellent topic of discussion prompted by an excellent tribute.
I am sure I am not alone when I say I watch BB with absolute horror at the lack of character of the majority of those in there.

I remember the Trigan Empire, that strip rocked!

ludovica, can you refresh my memory?

I can't remember if there were any other strips in Look and Learn, besides the mighty Trigan Empire (how that rocked I've not mentioned that before have I? )

Just done a google search for Trigan Empire, 417 results, happy reading for me, oh yes!!!

Cant remember too much.. diagrams of coal mines and space rockets..I loved it. The Trigan Empire rocked though

<BUMP>
Following Domino’s quite uncalled-for bumping of a post I was trying to forget, this is a blatant attempt to regain a little respect (or at least, self-respect).
John Michaels
<\BUMP>
ps: It's ok, Dom. I've been looking for an excuse, however thin, to bump this one. It's the nearest I've ever come to having a fan club. So, thanks

Excuse my ignorance... but are you a well known person? When I read the quote I really liked it but when I was trying to find out who John Michael is... there were lots of John Michaels

I missed this first time around.
Brilliant post.

Just thinking, although Jon and Fed introducing How would be class but I reckon whoever it was who also first suggested Jon would make a brilliant BP presenter was simply inspired.
He's the natural successor to a dynasty begun by Mr J Noakes.

Nope - just a humble FM, with pretensions of intellect. But thanks ... that's another fan (makes about five, I think...)
I have posted a novelette on the internet, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to read it.