'Howard the interview'

While we export vast sums of money to the UK in terms of broadcast licence fees the Isle of Man does not have any TV services of our own. I often marvel that a enclave like Transnistria (effectively a country within a country) one of the poorest places in Europe has four TV stations.

For the time we only have MTTV and the Manx Radio Portal and even the latter has been quiet of late almost as if the novelty has worn off.

I hadn’t looked at MTTV for a while so I thought I would snatch a glance and joy of joy there were two interviews with our ‘good leader’ Chief Minister Howard Quayle MHK. It was standard MTTV stuff I mean Paul Moulton is hardly John Sweeney but then neither is MTTV the BBC. Howard cheers me with the view (his personal one) that we should not have our property nicked of us in our old age. They ruminate over Howard and his colleagues popularity. Apparently less than 50% of people have confidence in them. That seem a bit harsh as Alf Cannan MHK always seems very confident that what he’s about is vital to our future prosperity and people like Minister Chris Thomas is busy wrapping himself in weighty statistics like a modern day Alan Turing. I mean I know that DEFA Minister Geoff Boot made a bit of an arse of himself with that barbeque but Ray Harmer MHK is always smiling and ‘The Child Dauphin’ seems to have seamlessly taken over from ‘The Lady of Shalott’ at Health and Social Care.

As for the rest well what can you expect Malarkey keeps his head down these days - a bit like a tortoise he never even poked it out over the recent Police social media travails. As to Education and Enterprise well the latter is well named - ‘beam me up’. Still to land this all on Howard is grossly unfair especially now he’s confirmed he doesn’t support ripping off the aged.

The MTTV item drones on - as they do - and Howard spoils my vision of an ageing idyll by referring to some dystopian setup that he stumbled on while visiting New Zealand on - as he terms it - his famous trip. It sounds to me like a concentration camp for the elderly - I hope we don’t go down that road and I’m relieved when Moulton suggests we may all be able to live at home with robots to look after us. I can’t take anymore of this so I’m certainly not watching episode 2 of ‘Howard the Interview’.

Fortunately the letterbox chinks and I discover a parcel from Amazon - more cinematic delights featuring Ricardo Garin I hope - you can only take so much of MTTV.

Here’s the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooecTwO_7DM&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQXhZavAoc8&feature=youtu.be

Image: Howard doing a stirling job!

Bernard Moffatt