Monday nights programming on terrestrial TV was diabolical at best. But whoever was responsible for this needs a brick shoved up there arse.

Panorama: One Click From Danger was broadcast much to the dismay of most of the internets younger users. The aim was to make parents more aware of the threats that there kids face on the internet. The reality was mindless scaremongering and lies.
For starters, Panorama seemed to promote the stereotype that young people are naive and stupid on the internet. It told parents to monitor kids online activities and move the computer. What made me laugh the most was the opening line by Jeremy Vine. "Is your child in his or her bedroom right now, on their computer? If so, this is the programme for you!". To be honest, the whole programme was perfectly lollable. They were training aging parents how the internet works, and they taught the parents what "asl" and "pos" meant. That was funny in itself.
They also decided to create decoy accounts under the name of Jane Brown on Myspace, Facebook and Bebo in an attempt to see how many paedophiles tried to make contact. All fair enough, apart from the fact that the person behind the Jane Brown alias obviously didn't have a clue about teenagers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7174814.stm
That should show you what I mean. 14 year old girls are really not that frightened by the prospect of sex.
Panorama, basically mislead the public, the facts and figures they used were all grossly exaggerated and manipulative. It was a full on "Parents, save your children" propaganda punch.  The interviews were all biased, they only interviewed people who had somehow gotten into some sort of problem on the net. They didn't bother with the majority. For instance, I've met people from thei nternet at least 15 times. The thing is, we have enough common sense to meet as a group in a public place (as I've mentioned before in this blog). That's all it takes, common sense.
The comments page was overflowing with comments from angry teenagers (a lot of whom, I know) and naive parents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7176709.stm

I also posted a rant on the BBC parenting message board, which pretty much sums up my feelings and argument against such programming. Here it is:

http://seanywonders.blogspot.com/2008/01/panorama-paedorama.html

So, any parents reading this, please do take these points into consideration if you intend on doing such things to your teenagers. Any comments welcome, I'll answer as soon as I can.

Right. Let's go back to early December.  Happy days for most of us, yeah? School was drawing to an end, Christmas was getting closer, everyone had myspace christmas countdowns, everyone was out buying presents etc.
It was pretty great for me too! I suddenly had a social life! Had 2 christmas parties, missed loads of school because of technical crew and rehearsals for the upcoming school concerts, finally had my life in order.
Then it was christmas, I got some good presents and had a generally alright time, albeit missing my girlfriend a lot. It wasn't the best christmas ever, but I've had worse. Then, boxing day.
I stayed in bed the whole day, simply because of the fact that if I tried to get out, I would go all dizzy and then faint. It's the worst I've felt in my life. The day after that, I went out with my church choir, ice skating. While still feeling generally dizzy and rather out of it, I managed to force myself to have a good time, and surprisingly, given my dizziness, managed not to fall over once while skating. Then followed a trip to the cinema, and I Am Legend. A genuinely scary film, when watched at 3am (as I had done a week previously), but on the big screen, it played more like an average zombie movie.
Then, I was taken away. To the New Forest, of all places. Now, I don't mind the area, christ, I lived in it for a year, it's lovely!
But when you're stuck in an isolated holday cottage along with various other friends and their families, no internet, no London New Years party (which I intended on attending) and missing a great day out with other friends, it can get extremely, extremely tiresomely boring.
On New Years Eve, I sat watching the TV. Watching the fireworks in London. Missing all my other friends. I've never been so close to tears in the last 2 years. I think what annoyed me most was the amount of walking we did. I lived there (as I said), and every day, I did nothing but walk. So going back on "holiday" and walking every single day was not my idea of fun.
Anyway, got back from there on the 2nd, and spent 3 days with my girlfriend. ^____^ That was good.

Then, today, (Monday), back to school. That, is not good. It's fucking depressing. To add insult to injury, today we had Maths, English, Science (Bio), Maths Science (Chem). Fucking awful.

I'm sure there's more I could moan about, both politically, socially and personally, but my fingers are aching now. So I'll be back sometine soon with something else to rant about.

Bye bye!

P.S. Someone please befriend poor little me!? It get's lonely!