Tonight we thought we’d watcha documentary on the island of North Uist. Some superb scenery, local characters and so on, I thought. And so it was for the first 5 minutes.
After that the tone changes and it turns out to be a long advertorial for the P”stc”de L*tt*ery. It seems that a hundred or so of the islanders have shared a £3m prize in a no-way-planned publicity stunt for the gambling encouraging scumbags.
Literally every story subsequently is an interview with one of the winners asking how they were planning to spend the winnings, with a picture of a large cheque on the mantelpiece behind. Not a pretty taste left in my mouth that’sfor sure.
Readers, have YOU any tales to tell of being suckered by some late capitalism cynicism?
There have been far too many pleasant life-affirming threads here lately so I thought I’d redress the balance a bit and let off some steam at the same time…
I didn’t see the whole programme: but I caught enough of it to think that you’re giving a bit of a harsh review of the islanders, whatever your view might be on the P.L…
Don’t think I saw the same programme! These were grounded, hard working, modest people who in almost every case made use of the comparatively small amounts of money they had won to help their families or their job prospects or for very basic replacements of equipment that was far from indulgent or frivolous. No one begrudged anyone else. An affirming sense of community. Genuinely not sure what got your goat?
Agree completely – and expressed much better than I did…
To be clear, it wasn’t the islanders themselves or the fact that they came into some money, rather the dishonest programming. If you didn’t see it as a publicity stunt for a gambling company then I guess they did their job.
Crikey, it’s a charitable fundraising organisation that costs a tenner a month… hardly Bet365.
“Corporate | Home | People’s Postcode Lottery” https://www.postcodelottery.info
Okay, I take your point. I was too busy sitting through somthing purporting to be something else and feeling like I’d been conned to do much research.
My simple arithmetical skills tells me that £3m divided by 100 works out at £30k each. That’s not life changing, but a helpful amount to make some simple improvements to life. Not begrudged.
Better a one-hour advertorial than some tedious 6-part BBC1 drama starring the same half a dozen actors who are in every bastard thing else.
£30k on an area the size of a postage stamp – gotta be good.
Best way to spend it? Collect it all together and invest in community/health services.
New carpets for the Lochmaddy Hotel would be start……..
The show’s title was The Scottish Island That Won The Lottery so you cant say you weren’t warned!
The other night we were flicking though channels in our hotel room and saw part of a programme called something like How Are Wetherspoons so Unbelievably Fucking Fantastic!?! The title alone would have been sufficient warning, but the programme itself couldn’t have been a more blatant ad for ‘Spoons. We lasted about 5 minutes of being told that they never put a foot wrong and how lucky we are to be permitted to live in the same world.
Oh, very funny 🙂
I think North Uist was the island that used to chain up the swings on a Sunday, to stop the children playing(instead of going to church). As told in the Michael Marra song.
Indeed, the North is strictly Lords Day Observance wee free presbyterianism. Fire and brimstone territory. South Uist is all Catholic: shrines and guilt.
Back in the 90s I knew someone from South Uist and he was one of the funniest people I have known. He called the place “Alcoholics Unanimous”.
Marra says there are 16 local football teams on South Uist, and they all wear Celtic strips. None wear away or 2nd strips. All wear the green and white hoops. When games take place, one team has to wear fair isle balaclavas.
I once went to SOUTH Uist about five or six years ago – lovely place. There’s a little coffee shop near the ferry terminal that we visited a couple of times. Then the very day after we left and returned home, Robert Plant had a picture up on instagram (or twitter or something) of himself outside that very same cafe, doing a wee tour of the Hebrides. So I could have met Robert Plant and missed him by a day. I was kicking myself.
Not a great anecdote, but there you are. Please carry on.