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GW: a symptom of celebrity busyitis?
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Message 1.Â
Posted by eco_gardener (U13955786) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
A quick look through various magazines and newspapers reveals that the GW presenting team have quite a few other commitments, outside of presenting GW. Alys has at least two monthly magazine columns, is writing for the Daily Mail online, and has recently agreed a new book deal.
Joe runs a design business, and Toby appears to be a designer to the great and the good. They are all (apart from Carol, I think), on the after-dinner speaking circuit, where the fees can run into several thousand pounds.
All this suggests a simple fact: our gardening celebrities are not concentrating on the job in hand. With so many other commitments, could it be they are suffering from celebrity 'busyitis'? What's being broadcast on a Friday night seems to concur. You really do get the feeling that they've dashed from the car park, grabbed the nearest idea on the way, however naff, and leapt in front of the camera, with zilch planning and forethought.
You'd think, as it's Ö÷²¥´óÐã licence fee-payers who are paying their wage, that their contracts would veer toward getting them focused on what, after all, are the top jobs in TV gardening.
Multi-tasking makes a great meeja soundbite, but it just doesn't work when you're the highest-paid TV gardening presenters in the land. -
Message 2
Posted by TheHejhog (U7657776) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
Gone are the days when a gardener could get a good position and a decent career at a great estate.
I suspect that the GW team's motivation for taking on other jobs is mundane. The bills need to be paid. As I understand it the presenters are free-lance and do not have exclusive contracts with the Ö÷²¥´óÐã and are free to take on other work. In their situation you would do no different.
You forgot to mention that Alys has also been spotted lending personal support to the Airplot campaign, along with Monty Don. That is unpaid work.
Hejhog -
Message 3
Posted by sinbad1917 (U13978774) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
I doubt they just "jump out of the car and in front of the camera".
The GW team are some of the top gardeners in the country. You don't get there without taking pride and care in your work. -
Message 4
Posted by eco_gardener (U13955786) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
What piffle you talk Hejhog.
Bills that need to be paid are relative to the kind of lifestyle that celebrities - or anyone else for that matter - aspire to. They don't have to have bigger and better everything, then think 'Oh gosh, I'd better say yes to every bit of work going in order to support my celebrity lifestyle'.
You have no idea of how this all works, do you? Actually, in their situation, I would act differently. Celebrity status doesn't automatically equate to cranking up your levels of consumerism in line with your earnings. Don't assume you know what I would do. It's insulting, and a facile comment.
Let's not get on to Alys and Monty supporting the Airplot campaign. These celebs can sure afford the time and travel to do unpaid work, but has anyone spotted the irony in high-flying celebs supporting campaigns against airport expansion? Alys's in-laws are in the States, and Monty didn't visit his 80 gardens in a boat.
If they'd come out and say they have pledged not to fly, giving their reasons clearly and honestly, they'd gain a lot more respect and support than turning up at some stunt in a field near Heathrow. -
Message 5
Posted by omegaLexa (U7472510) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
It's a pity they don't take pride and care in GW and do things properly for a change.
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Message 6
This posting has been hidden during moderation because it broke the in some way.
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Message 7
Posted by sinbad1917 (U13978774) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
I think it's very unfair to claim they don't take pride in it.
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Message 8
Posted by David K (U2221642) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
The GW team are some of the top gardeners in the country. You don't get there without taking pride and care in your work.Â
That would be a IMHO, of course? -
Message 9
Posted by TheHejhog (U7657776) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
Eco,
You assume that, because someone appears on TV, they therefore lead a celebrity lifestyle. You say its facile and offensive of me to assume that I know what you would do if you were in that situation. But isn't it equally lazy to accuse Alys and co of leading a celebrity lifestyle? You don't know what they do, what expenses they have, what wages they need to pay. All have other businesses to run, besides being presenters. You also state that it is to the programme's detriment that they involve themselves with other jobs. That is an insult to their professionalism.
You single out Toby, Joe and Alys. Carol is excused, apparently, because she doesn't give after dinner speeches. I reckon you have an issue with the new format GW, but are using their alleged "celebrity lifestyle" to score your points. It's a bit clutching at straws, isn't it, Eco.
Further, if a celebrity lends their weight to a campaign more people will sit up and take notice and perhaps are moved to support the cause themselves. Joanna Lumley lending her support to the Gurkhas is a case in point. She used her "celebrity" status and persuaded a Government u-turn. Alys, Monty, Alistair McGowan, Richard Briers and many more like them don't want a 3rd runway at Heathrow, and they would like you to get involved with that campaign to. Attacking them over their lending support to a cause, says more about you than it does about them!
Hejhog -
Message 10
Posted by tony field (U2429972) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
oh cheeer up, if u dont like the programme go watch east enders
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Message 11
Posted by beejay (U2219592) on Friday, 22nd May 2009
Oh come on, they are not celebrities. They are just people with more than 1 job, as have many of us, some of which puts them in the public eye. How well they do those jobs is open to public scrutiny. Why are we so obsessed with the so-called cult of the celebrity?
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Message 12
Posted by eco_gardener (U13955786) on Saturday, 23rd May 2009
So Hejhog, you're now a staunch supporter of bloated celebrities. You know, I'm beginning to wonder if you're one of them.
Happy gardening
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Message 13
Posted by Colin (U2252951) on Saturday, 23rd May 2009
Thanks to Carrie Gracie, we know know a newsreader at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã is on £92,000.
As the self-styled 'Nation's head-gardeners', I doubt the GW crew are on any less. Penny-pinching times indeed! -
Message 14
Posted by martingodliman (U13761957) on Saturday, 23rd May 2009
I think (I know I do) just take to or against just about any one on the telly. I'm not sure I could explain it rationally.
I don't like Joe much I don't know why really, Alyse seems OK always a bit embarrassed about something Carols good when she doesn't squeal and Toby seems amiable enough to me. They all know their stuff I think, we should give em time to bed in........I know I will be in a minority but I didn't much like Monty, dunno quite why, just whim and unreasonable prejudice I guess.
My biggest problem is with the new 'show' format of GW. -
Message 15
Posted by TallyHo (U2364821) on Saturday, 23rd May 2009
Alys, Monty, Alistair McGowan, Richard Briers and many more like them don't want a 3rd runway at Heathrow, and they would like you to get involved with that campaign to. Attacking them over their lending support to a cause, says more about you than it does about them!Â
If you are involved in campaigning against something, like people in my area have been campaigning against another runway at Stansted for 7 years, you really welcome any famous person who decides to campaign with you. We have Jamie Oliver, Terry Waite, Will Self and (bizarrely) the Kaiser Chiefs — a right old mix, but they have helped to raise the issue splendidly.
They are just people and have a perfect right to support anything they feel strongly about. -
Message 16
Posted by artisticmelanie-jane (U13980835) on Saturday, 23rd May 2009
I was also not a fan of Monty, But the one thing that does get up my nose is...every time I switch on the TV there he is 'MY WORST NIGHT MARE'...Alan Titchmarsh. He is on The proms, afternoon chat shows, that program on the British Isles now on Chelsea, is there no getting away from the man! For me he has ruined a lot of programs. I would rather have an allotment full of Japanese knot weed than watch him.
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Message 17
Posted by Sparky (U6716422) on Saturday, 23rd May 2009
Well, I would LOVE to have AT back on GW. He is a real horticulturalist and an experienced presenter
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Message 18
Posted by Holbert (U3994703) on Sunday, 24th May 2009
I would rather have an allotment full of Japanese knot weed than watch him. Â
I have a garden full of japanese knotweed, and I have to say that although I don't mind AT on the TV, I would rather spend a weekend wrestling with the knotweed than reading one of AT's novels . Tried the novel once and will not be going back again.
His characters' lives are even more boring than mine (except my life has less toe curlingly cringeworthy events occurring in it, thank goodness
.)
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Message 19
Posted by wheatpippin (U13970485) on Monday, 25th May 2009
I was really enjoying the Chelsea coverage and then Toby appeared. The people he chatted with seemed totally spooked by his presence. He presumably must have been forwarned about being asked a question on wisteria pruning but couldn't answer. Fortunately AT bailed him out, but as it wasn't live, why didn't the producers just give him a second go? Hadn't he done his homework? Or hadn't his researchers done theirs? Was there a snide reference to his 'large' team?
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Message 20
Posted by 1stClassAlan (U2459016) on Saturday, 30th May 2009
If you spray Japanese Knotweed with a well known Glyphosate product several times - it shrivels up and disappears - I think Mr Titchmarsh would only need one application.
I find I can tolerate him quite easily - he knows his stuff and genuinely likes gardening - it's pot luck as to whether you find his smarmy style irratating or not !
Joe Swift is extremely irritating to me - he seems to regard himself as the best thing to ever happen to gardening and exudes a kind of ectoplasm of disgruntlement as he's realised that not many people agree with him. I reckon he hates playing second fiddle to A.T. and now to Toby even less.
Alys seems to embody all the worst bits of in-your-face feminist militarism along with some ginger-I-know-I'll-never-be-a-Rachel but I'm on telly so there and all that seems to detract my attention from anything good she might have to say.
So as you can see I'm not what you'd call over enamoured by celebrity but overall I find the new G.W. quite entertaining.
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