See the 'Anal Preventive' article in Comment.

I've just read Anal Preventive on SOTCAA and I must say that the juxtaposition of the topics thereon seems to imply that TV Cream is anti-information, anti-knowledge and anti-serious. In fact, I would suggest that this is the (somewhat inflammatory) intention of the piece.

The first seven para's set up the premise that there is a "...sneering pocket of society ...who are culturally afraid of being tarred with the 'trainspotter' brush", in itself a shaky assertion. Where do these people 'hang out'? Presumably there are restaurants with 'No Sneering' sections where 'trainspotter'-types can eat undiscovered? Personally, I've always found that conversations about TV have a great unifying force in a social setting. It is, after all, one of the few things that the majority of us (currently) have in common. I also think you're comparing apples and oranges. Someone with an in-depth knowledge of television (old or otherwise) can bring a lot of that shared experience to a conversation, whereas there are fewer of us with a shared experience of trains. I appreciate that 'trainspotter' has become a convenient catch-all term for anyone who is slightly gauche or obsessive, but I don't think that people interested in nostalgia tend to be labelled like that. (In fact, given the success of late of various nostalgia-based TV programmes - Top Ten, 100 Greatest Ads - I'd have thought quite the opposite was true.)

Anyway, then there comes what I think is the key fallacy in the piece. It is stated that TV Cream exemplifies the attitude of a member of this "sneering pocket" or, to quote directly, "Said attitude has spawned the illogical attitude that... (attitudes spawning attitudes? What an incestuous attitude-orama this is) a grown adult talking about kids' TV in a kind of misty, vague way is cool, whereas a grown adult talking about kids' TV with a big bunch of evidence and theory-quenching data at his side is desperately sad."

I think you may have possibly missed the point of TV Cream here and that has led you to leap to the conclusion that the site is trying to appear "cool". The site is not devoted to compiling information about the programmes featured, it is a resource for people who have a vague memory of a programme that they watched as a child and are looking to corroborate that memory. It doesn't set out to present vague or misty-eyed information. Indeed, corrections are invited and valued and always, eventually, become included in the reviews.

The reason the site started initially was because the writers found themselves endlessly discussing old programmes that were at the fringes of their memory and they were delighted to have found another person with whom to share them. There didn't seem to be any resource available that could "jog" one's memory in the same way. And, heck, it seemed like a fun way to spend the weekend, learning HTML and so on.

Naturally, contributions were sought - hence the request on the opening page - and it was hoped that these would make evocative and interesting reading. Rather than provide in-depth information about each programme (not because we were ill-willed towards such an approach, rather that we were - and are - ill-equipped to provide it), it was decided that the site should comprise entertaining and/or stylistic proselytizing. I had hoped that we had succeeded in that, at least, and that's why I was disappointed to see the criticism of the writing style (I am assuming that "kitschy, studenty, no-joke... humour" is a criticism!). But I guess nobody has the same sense of humour (God forbid TV Cream should ever be thought of as comedy, though I guess the reason it's mentioned on this site is because somebody thought that's what we were doing). Nobody compiling entries is a student, or aspires to their mindset. (Come to think of it, though, isn't "studenty" a bit of a lazy comedy slag generalisation since Paul Calf?) Some regular contributors, in fact, are professional writers who I think might be a bit insulted by the thought that "TV Cream humour" was a shortcut reference to the kind of writing you describe.

So to the next point, which attempts to sum up a non-existent TV Cream 'dictum' - "that the only possible way of remembering [Saturday Superstore] is by boozily recounting Matt Bianco being called wankers or the time when John Craven got kicked up the arse". I shall assume that the latter incident is an ironic invention, because I don't remember it myself. However, the fact remains that a large proportion of contemporaneous viewers of SS remember the Matt Bianco incident. Certainly more that those who remember, say, Michael Barrymore in the kangaroo sketch but probably about the same number who remember the Down's Syndrome kids winning Search For A Superstar. Were anyone to come up with a definitive SS site, TV Cream would be delighted to provide a link to it (as we would, indeed, for any such site about any programme Tx'd on British TV - there are some fantastic resources out there). Those responsible for updating TV Cream have neither the time

Oops...

There was more to that last post, but it seems to have gone missing, which is very annoying.

Rob, is there any way of rescuing the remainder of my post? It took rather a long time to compose and I thought some of it was worth saying!

Cheerio

Steve

No fraid not - if you're going to put up a long post, I recommend you compose it offline just incase you hit the file size limit (designed to stop people spamming etc)... sorry Steve

Aren't the two sites trying to do different things anyway? OK, so TV Cream is not as exacting as this site, but to slate the entire site as "studenty" isn't terribly fair.

Like SOTCAA, TVC is a mind-boggling labour of love by the writers and contributors. And some of it's very funny - alright, not as funny as TV Go Home, but it beats most of the stuff on the web.

I don't think most of it is designed to be a full stop on the world of TV - they (like you) actively encourage people to update or provide further info. It certainly beats most of what passes for nostalgic "what about the 70s then?" humour.

...where was I?

Oh yes, neither the time nor the expertise to provide such a resource (you will note that the TV Cream site code has not changed for about 2 years - we are desperate to upgrade it). We don't apologise for this, neither do we promote it as "an attitude".

There is no intimation on any part of the site that the 'only' way to remember old TV programmes is the way you suggest, "boozily". If we don't remember something, then we say so - it's as simple as that. If a lot of (or a few) people remember something then it forms part of a review. TV Cream is a sum of people's memories and is not exclusive. We applaud any effort to document a programme (or genre)informatively and definitively. The Radio Times Guide To Comedy is oft-lauded on the TV Cream mailing list, for example (as is Simon Garfield's Radio One book in the context of the Radio Cream pages). We always direct TV Cream visitors to such efforts, where applicable.

The remainder of my original post here addressed various allegations, including the one that the site dares to refer to TV presenters as legendary. Well, I've been very privileged to meet one or two of my childhood heroes, and I was totally in awe. Johnny Ball and Roy Castle to me are legends, but I would imagine it's different strokes for different folks. Maybe I am "a cunt", but I spent a large proportion of my childhood with only the TV for company, and these people were important to me. Also, this accusation is somewhat contradictory in tone from the rest of the piece. On the one hand TV Cream is derided for not being faithful to one's childhood, and on the other is criticised for remembering something affectionately. I would contest that the *strength* of TV Cream is that it doesn't get all dewy-eyed with nostalgia but struggles to be objective about TV programmes - if they were shit, we say so. I may have missed your point here (were you being ironic?) but I don't think I have.

The latter parts of the piece (including the supposed conspiracy of a "New World order" - that'd be some North American classification technique, yeah?) don't appear to apply to TV Cream, and the "alternative viewpoint" doesn't in point of fact represent an alternative, merely a poor parody TV Cream 'style' based on the same unfounded accusations present in the first piece. A niche web site satirising another niche web site? Somebody spent time doing this?

Anyway, I hope that this criticism of your criticism has addressed some of what I think are misconceptions on the part of the writer of "Anal Preventive". I think that TV Cream has been used as a stick with which to beat out a few pet hates. But the site isn't what you say it is and I don't like the way in which it has been held up as exemplary of opposition to "acquired learning" or to any kind of interest in TV.

Cheerio

Steve @ TVC

>Aren't the two sites trying to do different things anyway? OK, so TV Cream is not as exacting as this site, but to slate the entire site as "studenty" isn't terribly fair

I did find TV Cream amusing and informative. It certainly brought back some memories, though I did spot a good few errors, especially with the dates of programmes.

But what is the point of having this discussion? In fact what is the point of having any discussion on this site? Nobody is going to change their mind, or at least admit to it. The article won't be changed, and you won't get a proper explanation.

It's like Central Weekend, but a little more informed.

Actually Zaber, you need to understand that the Corpses have very limited access to the net (infact, one of the authors has no internet access at the moment) and therefore can't always as immediately or as fully as they'd like... it's not easy!

And how does that affect what I said?

Zaber:

It's nice to have a right to reply available though. Admittedly, it's unlikely that the majority of people who've read the "Anal Preventive" will read my post on the subject, but then we are only talking about a niche percentage of the browsing masses anyway, aren't we? In the grand scheme of things, it's only one person's opinion vs. another.

Cheerio

Steve

>And how does that affect what I said?

Well you may well get a proper debate on the issues, but it's a little difficult at the moment...!

I see zaber is spokesperson for the Apathy Party...