Room 101

In George Orwell's 1984 we first meet the concept of 'Room 101': invented by Big Brother, Room 101 has the single most thing you fear in the whole entire world. Over time the phrase itself has slipped into our vocabulary and means, amongst other things, somewhere you'd like to put everything that gets under your skin and irritates you like nothing else.

The BBC now have a quiz show based on this premise. It used to be a kind of chat show where celebrities moaned about things they despised; now several of them compete to put items into Room 101, the most convincing ones gets that pleasure.

If I were ever to go on Room 101 I would campaign 100% to pull the lever and send Tom Daley, the diver, down to the depths. I'm not saying that I hate him enough to hope that he meets with a nasty accident when someone pulls the plug out of the pool and doesn't tell him; all I'm saying is that he really annoys me. If he appears on the television, I have to mute it. There's just something about him that makes me want to vomit.

Anyway I'm not one to have beef with people in my blogs and start hatin' on people I've never met; I'm normally not one to use words like 'beef' and 'hatin' on'. You may have guessed what's coming next: I'm going it to make a point.

Tom Daley loves to be in front of the camera - anyone that saw that ridiculous video of him and his mates in Australia knows that he likes to be the centre of attention. Err Tom, shouldn't you be concentrating a little more on your day job?

This was the fiasco that overshadowed his performance at the most recent diving championships and saw the stupid video played out on all the major broadcasters. I suppose the problem I have above all is that Tom Daley is in a privileged position - in the media spotlight, a talented young man, he can have anything he wants, yet he still wants to prat about and not put his all into his training.

Why should he? He's still young - he's got quite a few Olympics left in him. So what if he can't be bothered in the meantime, he should just kick back and enjoy what he's doing - it's not as if he's flying the flag and representing our nation... Ambassador? Pah! Of course not...

And we've reached my point. This boils down to the issue of social responsibility. I wrote a post about it a while ago when a family (having bought the Sky Movies package) said they would have to choose between 'heating and eating' if their benefits were cut under the government's rejigging of the Welfare State's allowances.

I said I didn't blame the family - I mean I confess I judged them a lot for the 'heating and eating' comment and would maybe advise buying fewer cigarettes a week, but if the government are giving them the money, then why should they bother to get jobs and boring stuff like careers...

This issue has reared its ugly head all over again with the work experience programme that the government are trying desperately to get employers to participate in. It's the one where young people on benefits do some voluntary work experience to try and get on in the company.

Oh my goodness. The poo has certainly hit the fan with that one. The coalitian is now back-peddaling at an alarming pace, the most recent concession is to drop potential cuts to jobseekers' allowance if certain terms of employment aren't met.

Ok, let's have a look at this in more detail:
Some people have called it slave labour because the young people are working for nothing: THEY'RE ON BENEFITS!!
Their benefits would only be cut if they don't finish the programme: WOHHH - YOU MEAN YOU'RE ASKING PEOPLE TO WORK FOR MONEY!?

Social responsibility. That's all it is. Young people don't want to get in on the scheme because they run the risk of losing their benefits if they start working. That is the most backwards, irresponsible, lazy thing I think I've ever come across. But why should they give up this free money that they can get, technically, until pensionable age? If the government gives it to them, why not take it...