All entries for Tuesday 27 January 2009

Pluck off, Tesco.

Not everything about Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “Chicken Out” campaign is perfect.

Getting people to pay more for the same amount of food is a tough ask, especially in a recession.

And he’s only ever persuaded the ‘working class’ to swap to better quality chickens by showing them the inside of a chicken shed.

But last night’s one-off update on his campaign made me pretty angry at my own supermarket-of-choice, Tesco.

Anyone who watched the original series will know they were less than helpful in providing an on-screen interview.

Last night, he finally got one, but it was with Tesco PR woman Darshini David. A former BBC business presenter, she came across abysmally. I suspect her job is mostly to be Tesco’s TV ‘face’, and if last night was anything to go on, she’s rubbish at it.

She claimed Tesco are ‘leading the way’ on chicken welfare.

No, they clearly are not. Sainsbury’s, the Co-op and Waitrose are light-years ahead of them, and it’s clear for anyone to see.

Why won’t Tesco admit on its packaging that chickens are grown indoors (instead of using subtle, yet blatant, marketing speak to imply otherwise)? Darshini: “We don’t want to patronise them”.

Is the nutritional information section patronising? No.

Is it patronising to give us a choice between ‘Free Range Eggs’ and ‘Barn Eggs’? Apparently not.

Is Darshini David patronising? You betcha.

The point Hugh F-W should have made in the interview (but sadly didn’t) is that many people are only aware of Britain’s chicken welfare standards because they’ve seen his show or read newspaper articles related to it.

Unfortunately that’s a very small majority of the British population. Only 2.5 million people watched last night’s show. I would imagine more than half of last night’s viewers were middle-class people who probably read The Guardian or The Independent.

So what of the other 57.5m people in the UK? Tesco doesn’t want to patronise them, but they don’t mind if they’re in complete ignorance either.

I’m seriously tempted to shop elsewhere having seen last night’s arrogant and disgraceful performance.

: 27 Jan 2009 12:24 |  Tags: Channel 4 Chickens Food Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Television Tesco |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

In Your Face

Mentioning Joe Cornish (of Adam and Joe) in my last entry sent me on a whirlwind tour of their various websites. I found this, and given it’s only had 80,000 hits so far, thought it deserved a reshowing here.

Genius.

: 27 Jan 2009 11:00 |  Tags: Adam And Joe Adam Buxton Comedy President Obama Video |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Êtes–vous un rire?

I always found Tintin a bit creepy. He just looked odd in the cartoons, and there was something… French about him.

But my interest in a film version has been twinged by reading who’s involved.

Directing: Steven Spielberg, and then Peter Jackson in a sequel.
Starring: Jamie Bell (a.k.a. Billy Elliott, albeit that’s unfair as he’s been in loads of things now)
And: Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Andy Serkis, Mackenzie Crook
Written by: Steven Moffat (the new man behind Doctor Who), Joe Cornish (of Adam and Joe) and Edgar Wright (of Hot Fuzz).

Now, that sounds like a film!

The first installment’s not out until 2011 though.

P.S. Bonus points if you can translate the title (or what Google Translate tells me the translation is, anyway)

: 27 Jan 2009 10:41 |  Tags: Daniel Craig Film Jamie Bell Movies Steven Spielberg Tintin |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Doing things differently… some of the time

Writing about web page http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/01/27/intv.obama.arabiya.alarabiya

President Obama is certainly doing things differently. His first broadcast interview was with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya, one of the most watched TV channels in the Middle East.

Watching it though, there were a few parallels with the past.

He often listens to a question, and begins his answer with “Well what I think is important is this…”

Mr Obama’s message to the Muslim world is that America’s now listening.

As an interviewee, not so much.

: 27 Jan 2009 10:26 |  Tags: Al-Arabiya Interview Journalism Middle East Politics President Obama Television United States |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem