I cannot express enough irritation at Holiday Showdown- can you?

I just feel the non sailing family would have had a far better time if they were allowed to have a fag on the leeward side at the transom and had been given a beer or three after anchoring, after all, that's what arrving is all about. I know I should just shut up and accept that any media portrayal is going to be crap and irritating, but wouldn't it be nice to see aan episode where the other family say " I actually enjoyed you holiday, I might give it a go" I know they have to get the extremes to make good TV, but come on.

The non sailors could have been good fun and possibly woul dhave behaved differently if they had been treated as adults.
 
It is just Reality TV !!

I agree with Talbot. I cannot understand why anybody would allow themselves to appear on TV. The producers of reality TV programmes have the morals of alley cats, they are out to ridicule ordainary people in the name of "good television". The reason that reality TV works is that the non-professionals do not have the discipline to keep their mouths shut. As the "celebs" have become media savvy and refuse to say anything other than bland rubbish, producers have to exploit people who have not had media training and so will behave like fools on TV.

Having said that last nights Holiday Showdown was like shooting fish in a barrel. The researchers who selected the two families to appear on the show obviously realised that these two groups of people were never going to work together.

The nasty side of me did find some of it very funny though. Shouting skippers always cheer me up, largely because they remind me of how I used to behave when I was learning the ropes.
 
Exactly right. There was time after time when a little bit of flexibility by the sailing family would have helped make the experience more fun.

They crying shame was the way they treated the teenager who showed all the signs of really enjoying sailing on the first day, then was highly teed off to be given a "Galley Slave" t-shirt at the end of the day and expected to do catering the following day. He ended the programme by saying he'd "sail much better than you can" but you just knew he'd probably never get a chance again and was more likely to be nicking cars in a couple of years than crewing.

The hierachical T-shirts they all got just emphasised how little fun the sailing family actually had and I wasn't surprised to see their daughter saying how much she preferred Benidorm to sailing.

Compelling viewing for me, I'm afraid.
 
It was always a foregone conclusion that the participants would be made to look bad. I remember saying the same when they advertised for it on here. There are always some who will do anything for the chance to be 'on the telly' like the chavs who go on morning TV to appear as 'I screwed my mother-in-law/brother/neighbour's dog'.

AFAIK, the next offering will be sailing family dragged off to make pavement pizzas in Benidorm. Now won't that be fun?
 
Ah, you obviously missed the first half which showed exactly that - and that the sailing dad was as scared and uncomfortable with sandy beaches and paddling as he turned out to be with sailing. Much sudden scared shouting at the kids. The chavs seemed far nicer and kinder to their kids during the day and much more spontaneously fun, although they did fill them up with junk.

I was actually shocked though to see how the chav parents brought their kids with them throughout the late night drinking, keeping them up until the early hours each night, sometimes left outside the "adult" strip pubs. I'd expected the drinking sessions but somehow thought that the would be childminding services back at the hotel.
 
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I was actually shocked though to see how the chav parents brought their kids with them throughout the late night drinking, sometimes left outside the "adult" strip pubs.

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Didn't you know, foreign places don't have paedophiles? It's perfectly safe.
 
Yeah, big shame. The nice chavs could easily have been shown how to sail the boat pretty much on their own.

Bit barmy to ban smoking anywhere on the boat, imho. Almost g'teed to raise the tension.

Also i don't believe the guy had had 7pints and was still coherent. In fact standing up was pretty good. Whatever.
 
Strangely enough - not really my worry on this one. I think the paedophile thing is totally overblown and overstated now compared to the dodgy teachers, priests and general flashers you'd see a few decades ago.

It's more being overtired and surrounded by drunken, sexual and/or agressive adults, night after night, and all with pounding music and flashing lights. Not much of a holiday.
 
Why oh why do people keep watching this type of programme.
No-one seems to have a good word for any of these style programmes, yet they still watch them.

The sooner they stop, the sooner the programme makers will stop churning out reality this or reality that.

STOP IT NOW, please.

Less channels, more quality - you know it makes sense.
 
It's human nature to hate other people on TV.
That's why "Barry Cook" advertises Cillit Bang. We all hate him. but people buy the stuff.
If the chavs went on the boat and had a jolly good time and all decided it was better than throwing up in Benidorm, and all waved at other yachts and managed every manouvere without shouting, who would watch next week when a bin-man and pigeon-fancier from Rotherham (no offence intended) goes to an opera festival in darkest Italy?
 
7 pints of a quaffing ale or more likely 'standard' lager isn't exactly excessive..........have watched many on here (forumites) have that as a quick warm up before the aperitifs /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Oh - and non of them actually reckon to be drinkers!
 
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Remember last year when there was a blanket ad on the forums for families to take part in a holiday swap.

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So, who was it? Don't be shy, step forward that man and make yourself known!

Mark
 
It was a nauseous program, that I turned off once I had appreciated how contrived it was... Both families were awful in there own way. The sailing family looked miserable, and the other bunch were the pits... My wife watched it and recognised Salcombe but I would have been very nervous on a 50' yacht with that guy as skipper...

Just awful!!!
 
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He should, however, have gone to that pub! Silly sod.

Pops

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I looked on Google for the main event they were going to see at that pub, 'sticky Vicky Benidorm'.
Good job they didn't get to see her, I would say
 
The stupid thing with this program is that it actually has the potential to be good viewing. The genuine holiday programs don't seem to struggle for viewers and AFAIR you never saw Judith Chalmers have a bad holiday. If they actually made an effort to make a program where people enjoyed trying something new on holiday then i'd watch it without fail.
 
That was nearly me!

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I agree with Talbot. I cannot understand why anybody would allow themselves to appear on TV.

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Oops hands up here. I did get into discussions with RDF media about being the sailing family in this production. Twas summer 2004 (don't actually remember it being that sunny or calm for the week they chose though - we had our real holiday then and it barely blew below a 6 all 10 days!).

It was a very tempting offer....chance of a 50' yacht all - and I mean all even the cattery - expenses paid. What finally turned us off was the persistence of the researcher trying to find out what really wound us up (not very much actually)and his constant reasurrance that the aim of the programme was to watch two families having a very good time (oh yes !) with the hope that we would convince the non-sailors to take up sailing. Now I'm quite naive but even I couldn't really fall for that one. HWMO was put off by the thought of being only one of two on a fifty foot boat crammed with a non-sailing family and camera crew who knew what he was doing.

I missed most of the programme myself, but did see the Salcombe tea shop versus pub issue. What were they thinking of...isn't alcohol part of the RYA syllabus /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Our log book sometimes reads like the good pub guide!

But very glad now that we backed out...I'd never be able to show my face on the forum again.

Sharon
 
Re: That was nearly me!

I did'nt see any of this, but could someone tell me, is all TV now this reality (stage managed) stuff?

We hardly put the box on these days, if we do its because we want to watch a film on DVD. I was going to try and watch some TV this winter to get an idea myself what is on but clearly I'm missing nothing.

So should I just take the box up to the dump, get a large flat panel monitor for the PC to watch DVD's and save the licence fee?
 
Re: That was nearly me!

yep. Radio news if you need it is packed with far more info - listening to telly (even so-called intelligent programs) with no pic reveals just how dimwitted it actually is in comparison.
 
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