This is the true story of the weeds: the origin of the species.
A story of cultivation, exploitation, civilization.
Found flowering on wasteland unnoticed, unofficial, accidental.
A cutting was taken but weeds do not thrive under hothouse conditions & wilt when in competition with more exotic strains.
A charming naivety, very short flowering season;
no sooner has the first blooming begun than decay sets in.
Bring your camera, take photo of life on the margins.
Offer money in exchange for sex & then get a taxi home.
The story has always been the same
A source of wonder due to their ability to thrive on poor quality soil offering very little nourishment
Drinking `Nurishment`.
But weeds must be kept under strict control or they will destroy everything in their path.
Growing wild, then harvested in their prime & passed around at dinner parties.
Care for some weed?
So natural, so wild, so unrefined & someone`s gonna make a fortune one day
If only they can market this stuff right.
Come on: do your dance.
Come on, do your funny little dance.
Germination. Plantation. Exploitation. Civilization.
A sensational buzz – zzzzzz.
Crop rotation. Genetic modification. The creation of expectation. Ultimate frustration.
This is the story of the weeds: the origin of the species.

You could have quoted the “Indie” band Pulp (not that they are that “Indie” anymore) and their great song from 1997 (grim year):

She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge,
she studied sculpture at Saint Martin’s College,
that’s where I,
caught her eye.
She told me that her Dad was loaded,
I said “In that case I’ll have a rum and coca-cola.”
She said “Fine.”
and in thirty seconds time she said,

“I want to live like common people,
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people,
I want to sleep with common people,
like you.”

Well what else could I do -
I said “I’ll see what I can do.”
I took her to a supermarket,
I don’t know why but I had to start it somewhere,
so it started there.
I said pretend you’ve got no money,
she just laughed and said,
“Oh you’re so funny.”
I said “yeah?
Well I can’t see anyone else smiling in here.
Are you sure you want to live like common people,
you want to see whatever common people see,
you want to sleep with common people,
you want to sleep with common people,
like me.”
But she didn’t understand,
she just smiled and held my hand.
Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you’ll never get it right,
cos when you’re laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.”

The last line being your point – temporary shortage of cash is not the same as poverty.

I’m guessing that if you did “live in poverty” you probably wouldn’t steal cars, take drugs, engage in any level of criminality or randomly impregnate local girls. I’d also bet you could get a job and be off the estate in quick time.

I was born in 1952 on a council estate in a mining village in the North. Nobody had much and considerably less than those on council estates today. We were not “poor” nor did we live in “poverty” and nor are or do people in Britain today. There are lazy people who think everyone else owes them a living, and others too stupid to do anything to improve themselves – tough.

Poor is living in India or Africa not just with nothing but no prospects of being able to get anything no matter how smart, willing or hard working.

As for explotation, at least the TV producers pretend they are not do so – Nu Labour make no such pretence for the middle and working classes whose money they extort on a daily basis whilst destroying our liberties and forcing social engineering on us at every opportunity.

JR has the bones of a much better reality show. Actually to help guide a small trader to improve his business would be streets ahead of Gerry Robinson’s recent approach and strike a real chord with everyday folk.
Alternatively let’s see Ed Balls sent into a Headmaster’s office to help handle the incessant paperwork, Yvette Cooper into a Benefits claims office or Alistair Darling along to a small businessman ploughing through the inches-thick tax regulations!
A clock should be shown on the screen tracking the time to taken to get to grips before the participant summons his ministerial car and drives off in a complete paddy!
Great TV eh?

There’s plenty of barbeques, beer, wine, abit of fishing and a load of politically incorrect banter that the BBC would never televise, you know – reality.

TV in Britain today is not to inform, or to build or educate, it’s used to destroy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFx7lSI8srg

Suggest to the programme makers that you haven’t experienced extreme wealth and suggest that you take the reality show onto a billionaire’s yacht, cruising the Cote d’ Azur for a month.
You can come back and say how disgusted you were and push for the return of Investment income surcharge.

That sounds a lot more fun to me.

I agree with the others about the risk involved if you hook-up with a producer who just wants to make you look stupid. But any reasonable person of standing considering becoming a participant would ask to see examples of the producer’s past work. Presumably the Conservative Party must have some supporters in the television industry so one of these should be able to give you advice re: producer’s reputation, likely hazards of a reality show, and recommend a good media lawyer to represent your interests. Plus, you could always employ someone to make a documentary on the experiment and that way any liberties taken by the reality tv crew would then be on record.

I suspect (and John seems to confirm) the aim of all “reality” television is to show people from different backgrounds in conflict with each other. John is much better off avoiding anything like this. Unless of course he gets to take part in a docusoap showing the life of a senior cabinet minister…..

Reading your column everyday, you are the voice of common sense. I’m about to open a Fish & Chip Shop on Thursday 29th October 2009, it is on a council estate and has been closed down for around 5 years, I have taken the lease on it, and hope to refurbish it, breathe new life into, and hopefully benefit everyone on the estate, establish it as a community shop and in the process take a wage for myself and my wife.

With what you said in your blog today, can you come up for the opening day, and perhaps fry some fish and chips with me. I do not want to ask the local MP as she is Labour. Perhaps also you can impart some of your no nonsense approach to life when you come up. I could ask David Morris, the local Conservative candidate to come along as well.

Yours

John Wild

Reply: Good luck with it.

I would beg the makers to move a Labourite in next to me so he or she would have to navigate though the drug dealers and the gangs of thirty plus just to get to the local shop not a hundred yards away.

Let them see if you had enough money in your pocket to afford a heavily taxed beer, you have to walk over a quarter of a mile to the nearest pub as the rest have been closed and torn down to make room for immigrant housing!

Anyway, thank you for giving me the opportunity to blog something positive for a change.

Brought up in the war years I remember poverty, rationing and getting up from the dining table not having had enough to eat, no telly, no antibiotics, no NHS but it wasn’t all bad.

This lot today have no idea what hardship and poverty are.

i thought the reality show portillo did was ok, but then i dont know from his point of view if he thinks it was unbalanced

the conservatives do need to play the media war

the conservatives do come across as a bunch of public school and oxbridge folk who wouldnt be able to cope with normal middle class life never mind one of the worst council estates, never mind real poverty as a homeless person

As with the Jacqui Smith affair earlier this year we like to think we’re sometimes ahead of the game in choosing an issue due to spark public attention and we believe this ‘SUGAR’ one does.
In fact we’re interested to read this morning that several respected journalists have written to The Spectator condemning Sugar’s actions and motives.

One of the letter’s signatories, Matthew Parris, has gone further still in today’s Times.

We Essex Boys think we have a news ‘runner’ here that will rightly impact on the PM and the BBC as well as Sugar himself and we hope our blog this time makes the JR ‘cut’. At least we seem to have found a relevant section now on ‘Unreal TV’ !
Thanks.

They would be better taking these people to a household where peope work hard to get out of poverty. These peole need to help themselves.