« Apple's Big News | Main | A stitch in time weighs nine? »
January 22, 2007
The Big Deal about Big Brother
I've been in London for the past week and witnessed two huge storms. One, the strongest in 17 years, saw winds in excess of 100 miles per hour, toppled trees, cut power lines and threatened (quite seriously, and with some success) to take off the roof of a hotel I was presenting in. (Quite a test of concentration.)
The other was characterized less by the strength of the wind than by the hot air it engendered: Big Brother, a UK reality show, broadcast a strongly-worded diatribe by one contestant (Jade) against another (Shilpa).
While it's always hard to tell how much news actually travels, given that it overshadowed Gordon Brown's visit to India and that circumstances forced Tony Blair to weigh in on it, it's a safe bet that this story made it to your local coverage as well.
It's easy to find fault with Jade--almost too easy--and hard not to feel sorry for Shilpa. But the force of the story isn't to be found in the source of your sympathy. Read instead as a morality play about brand England's and brand India's respective workforces coming into visible conflict it has far more to yield.
Posted by davidkippen at January 22, 2007 01:28 PM