Sir Roy Strong, the distinguished English historiographer and former manager of the Queen Victoria and Prince Albert Museum in London, have ridiculed the telecasting programme ‘I’m A celebrity… Get me out of Here!’ in a recent article in ‘The Daily Mail’.

“It made we experience utterly ashamed to be British”, helium lamented. For those of you lucky adequate not to cognize what this programme is about, allow me explain. It takes a figure of people and sets them in an unreal situation. In the up-to-the-minute series they were dropped in the Australian jungle and set through a figure of ordeals such as as having insects poured on their heads! As always there was a mixture of personalities with the accent on immature people of the opposite sexual activity being together. These could be relied on to utilize bad language, take off most of their clothing or even have got sex.

Sir Roy deplores that “the state of Purcell, Shakespeare, Isaac Isaac Newton and Winston John Churchill had sunk so low. It’s not just that so many people watched ‘I’m A Celebrity’ (14 million) and the vacuous behavior of its victims, but that they actually gloated over such as puerile jokes in their homes.”

Although Sir Roy Strong is an distinguished historian, it is hard to understand his surprise at Fourteen million people gloating over this gibberish. When he mentions to “the state of Purcell, Shakespeare, Isaac Newton” you have got to giggle. When did the bulk of English Language show any involvement or love of William Shakespeare (endured at school by the majority) or the classical music of Henry Purcell or the scientific theories of Newton? Anyone with any familiarity with English Language people will cognize that these are the involvements of the few, even the elite.

This is precisely the problem. On the 1 manus we have got an elite who bask these cultural pursuits, and on the other the huge bulk who are glued to their telecastings watching ‘I’m A Celebrity’ Oregon soap operas such as as ‘Eastenders’. However, as an historiographer I am certain Sir Roy is aware of the beginning of this job in the educational system at the end of the Victorian period.

The Victorians did not promote instruction among the working masses. They were employed in awful statuses in unsafe factories, on low reward on the farms of large landholders and in practical servitude in domestic service. Added to this there was the changeless demand to fill up the ranks of the regular army and naval forces to keep the biggest empire in the world. In 1870 an Education Act was passed allowing all children between 5 and 10 to travel to school. However, as their parents had to pay a little fee, most children did not attend. Only in 1891 when instruction was made free for children under 10 did the bulk travel to school. Even then many did not, as their parents were mediocre and they preferred to direct them to work to gain income for the family.

The rich Victorians were happy with an uneducated underclass which they could command politically. The bequest of this educational exclusion of the bulk goes on to the present twenty-four hours in England. Hence, the appetency for trashy telecasting programs such as as ‘I ‘m A Celebrity’. I am afraid Sir Roy, the bulk of English Language were always philistines. The Victorian bequest have proved too powerful to undo.

© Toilet Lynch 2004