It’s Michael Jackson’s birthday today and it’s also less than two weeks until the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but that sounds MIGHTY SUSPICIOUS to me. No, really, I’m not a conspiracy theorist but it seems with a batch of programmes set to (rightfully) honour the 9/11 terrorist attacks soon to appear on our screens that we will have to endure the ramblings of many who are.
The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - Ten Years On will be broadcast on BBC2 tonight. An annoying occurrence not just because Shooting Stars is on forty minutes later than usual, but also because it will be filled with the kind of absurd statements that are already appearing on the relevant BBC webpage.
“There’s no way a tower could collapse like that if it was hit at floor 73!” an internet access and wild assumption expert stated on the recent BBC news discussion. “You would need to hit the base of one of the towers to make it collapse like that!”
How much research this person has actually done is questionable, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren’t an expert at analysing the structural integrity of one-off skyscraper projects and how the hundreds of thousands of components in such buildings would be likely to behave in pretty much untested circumstances. Being a conspiracy theorist and so adamantly claiming the opposite to what pretty solid research suggests is like me watching University Challenge and shouting “THAT’S WRONG”, “THAT’S NEVER THE PRODUCT OF THAT REACTION” each time Paxman or one of the contestant reveals an answer. Not only would I be more annoying than usual but I’d also be wrong in challenging the knowledge and authority of people who know a lot more than me, even if these people happened to be wrong.
Then of course you get those who deny that the moon landings happened, who tend to be American men in their 60s or 70s who’ve spent a fairly little amount of time studying rocket psychics and slightly too much time studying their cousins. But they’re wrong of course, as the moon doesn’t actually exist: it’s a fabricated light beam created by the Russians during the cold war to make the Americans spend money on space technology rather than weapons technology. I mean, it’s supposed to be orbiting the earth and also rotating on its axis yet we only ever see one side of it and it’s always there and not on the other side of the planet so it obviously isn’t real!!!
It’s a shame that the internet was invented really, because it’s such an incredibly effective platform for stupid people and their terrible creations to slither their way into the mainstream (insert Justin Bieber joke here). I could quite easily create a video claiming that Bobby Moore is actually made of pasties, and assuming it avoids being taken down due to a copyright claim by West Cornwall Pasty Co, such a video could be watched by millions of the willing to believe and possibly make its way onto TV. Broadcasters who commission conspiracy programmes don’t seemed to have realised that the correlation between having a YouTube account and being a credible analyser of camera footage is about as weak as that between being Jeremy Clarkson and owning a solar panel.
Anyway, if you aren’t at all interested in conspiracies but are somehow still reading this, also on this evening is Channel 4’s ‘Stephen Fry’s 100 greatest gadgets’. I can only assume this will feel like a shortened and less hellish version of that segment in the Gadget Show where the presenters read out a list of every piece of electronic equipment ever sold as part of the competition prize. If this programme doesn’t do it for you either then there’s always ‘Jamelia: Shame about single mums’ on BBC3, but you’d be better off beating yourself in the face with a frozen loaf of bread if you want the hour to be at all intellectually stimulating.
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