Paul O'Grady Show - 14th May 2008

[nrdonnelly]

Dear All,

For those who are around, our technical chap, Doug'Fix-It'King and his wife, Brenda will be appearing on the Paul O'Grady show to talk about the joys of caravan ownership.

Doug will be defending caravans against Paul, who is very caravan-sceptic. Doug's not slow to speak his mind either, so it should be entertaining...

It's on at 5pm, Channel 4 on the 14th May.

Regards

Nigel Donnelly

Editor

Practical Caravan

 

[BeemerMal]

Why bother....we all know the caravan sceptics will always try to turn the show round to suit their own ends. Paul O'Grady is no different but he will make light of it.

Why play to the gallery?

The same happened with Clarkson and Co on Top Gear. Just ignore them. They don't matter!

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

I tend to agree with Mal but I'm always up for a good debate, especially if the person fighting my corner wipes their noses in the proverbial.

Best plan of attack is to agree with them and tell P.O'G how much we love to have him queueing behind us. No matter how one tries to be reasonable with the anti's, like Clarkson, they are so set in their ways nothing will change them.

Thanks for the info Nigel, I will record it.

 

[see_374359698]

I agree with mal

 

[Steve_374341117]

Perhaps it's just me but does Anyone watch the Paul O'Grady show?

Steve

 

[nrdonnelly]

According to last week's viewing figures, between 2.13 and 1.7 million people watch it, depending on the day.

Doug is no wallflower, so I'm sure he'll have his say. They have a caravan in the studio, and he's sharing the Green Room with Jackie Collins...

Regards

Nigel Donnelly

Editor

Practical Caravan

 

[Parksy]

You would have thought that Paul O'Grady would have been into camping wouldn't you? :0)

Doug will never convince anyone at the BBC that caravanning is a great hobby as well as being 'green' but it's not Paul O'Grady that he needs to convince - just the ones who watch the show.

 

[JeremyClarksson]

Perhaps he is more into cottaging than camping!

 

[nelmo]

I haven't even got a caravan yet but I would say that you don't want any more people interested - it seems to be difficult enough to get site spaces, storage pitches etc.

BTW, I find Clarkson (the real one, not Mr Clark!) hysterical and the caravan piece on Top Gear was excellent. I'm sure almost anyone could see that it was a piece of entertainment and not meant to be a serious critique of the hobby. The last scene of them driving off towing a smouldering skeleton of a caravan, with the last words being 'I thought that went quite well...' was worthy of some sort of comedy award...

 

[DeliDave]

tell him he could park it in the layby when he is trawling for rough trade he would be mad for vanning then.

 

[terry_374356161]

oh, spherical objects!. lol.

i missed it.

terry

 

[Happy-Lappy]

Neil says he finds Mr Clarkson (the real one) hysterical, well I know Jeremy Clarks Son and I can assure you, he too has a good sense of humour.....he supports Bristol Rovers!

best regards, Martin

PS. Wembley or Trevornick? Hmm I'll see what she says

 

[colin(bridgend)]

Watched the show - caravan item was pathetic. It lost a golden oppertunity to highlight the quality of fittings and furniture in a modern van and the comparison in costs of holydays compared to hotels/package holidays. A caravan being more expensive to purchase initially should last quite a few holidays and there is still some residual to be made when selling it at the end of the day. Also the freedom of coming and going when wished and also eating when and what one so wished.

 

[Ian341]

I tend to agree with Colin, why did they have an Airstream there when they aren't british ??

Surely a Bailey senator would have been more appropriate.

I also thought the BBQ at the beginning was pathetic.

Well done to Doug and Brenda though they did a good job of answering the questions.

 

[papafulton]

Thought Doug and Brenda did a good job and got their points over well. Thought the remark about T5 being a great unpaid advert for caravanning was teriffic.

William

 

[rob_jax]

Why choose an Airstream? - the production team probably wanted something cute and iconic rather than a white shed on wheels - caravanning can be cute. So why not an Eriba?

But I'm afraid they were slaughtered - not by the questions - but by the image they presented. If it had been radio - it would have been OK, but since it was television...

Young perfectly dressed female guests on one side of the image - and two rather older people in (what looked like) grey cardies just reinforced the stereotype... Did no one see that coming?

Thankfully the young female guests were interested in the caravan - "Is that yours they ask?" No.... where's that stereotype again?

Robert

 

[ShadySadie]

Recorded it on Hard Disk recorder and just watched the Caravan bit. Why have that ugly American caravan? The old couple were OK'ish but lump caravanning in the old folks hobby camp. Surely somebody sharper and younger could have done caravanning a better service.

When Doug made his wife map reading quip, I just thought here we go again "silly old duffer". To many Brenda's sat in the passsenger seat twiddling map books when they could drive or use modern aids such as Satnavs do little for modern day caravanning or women profiles.

I didn't find it a good move for caravannings image, wrong couple and wrong sort of show. The likes of O'grady and Norton are only going to take cheap shots to gain a snigger.

 

[Parksy]

Recorded it on Hard Disk recorder and just watched the Caravan bit. Why have that ugly American caravan? The old couple were OK'ish but lump caravanning in the old folks hobby camp. Surely somebody sharper and younger could have done caravanning a better service.

When Doug made his wife map reading quip, I just thought here we go again "silly old duffer". To many Brenda's sat in the passsenger seat twiddling map books when they could drive or use modern aids such as Satnavs do little for modern day caravanning or women profiles.

I didn't find it a good move for caravannings image, wrong couple and wrong sort of show. The likes of O'grady and Norton are only going to take cheap shots to gain a snigger.

I saw the programme and although it didn't seem as if Paul O'Grady was sneering or having a pop it might have been better if a young family with children and pets had been featured.

I had the impression that Paul O'Grady was speaking to Brenda and Doug was jumping in to answer but I might be wrong.

I agree that they raised a good point about T5 but time ran out before much else could be said.

The Airstream is par for the course for any t.v. item featuring caravans. I've yet to see any tv programme or news item where a normal British made caravan is shown in a positive light. We had Carol Smilie at a CC site the other week in a hired motorhome and the only Bailey caravan that I've seen on T.V. was the

 

[Parksy]

I saw the programme and although it didn't seem as if Paul O'Grady was sneering or having a pop it might have been better if a young family with children and pets had been featured.

I had the impression that Paul O'Grady was speaking to Brenda and Doug was jumping in to answer but I might be wrong.

I agree that they raised a good point about T5 but time ran out before much else could be said.

The Airstream is par for the course for any t.v. item featuring caravans. I've yet to see any tv programme or news item where a normal British made caravan is shown in a positive light. We had Carol Smilie at a CC site the other week in a hired motorhome and the only Bailey caravan that I've seen on T.V. was the

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Have to agree with others comments about the airstram. How many people see those being towed behind cars? Not many thankfully, they are too ***** ugly. What was constructive about the interview, nobody even got to see inside the caravan although it wouldn't be typical of a British one. In my opinion a total waste of time but then again do we want to persuade thousands more to buy caravans making pitches more scarce.

 

[BeemerMal]

I said, quote:

"Why bother....we all know the caravan sceptics will always try to turn the show round to suit their own ends. Paul O'Grady is no different but he will make light of it."

I was wrong! Paul did make light of it and he was quite fair but the entire piece had little to do with caravanning really. Who on earth decided to use "Doug & Brenda?

Yes Doug spoke his mind but did us no favours at all. I felt sorry for Brenda. He chose to slag off Brenda's map reading skills and he sounded too much like an anorak to do our hobby any favours. When he quoted how many caravan miles he has towed since 1978 I cringed!

The entire piece lasted less than 4 minutes, it had little to do with caravanning and Doug King did us no favours at all. If anything the show is likely to have increased the number of caravan sceptics......Thanks Doug. Now take Brenda out for a nice meal and apologise to her.

 

[ShadySadie]

I've now seen a little more of the program and O'Grady repeating a quip about him being one of 18 (what ever) crushed in a caravan in wet weather.

Alluminium Airstream looks like a label-less bean can on wheels and O'Grady making jibes about bean can experience of caravanning is not the image I associate with our caravanning.

I assume that most serious caravanners have Awnings with their caravans and plenty of room for a wet day of caravanning.

My sisters girls come caravanning with their personal DVD players in the car Ipod and personal games console and their books and teddies. We have a Wii and Xbox, plus all the adult bells and whistles of modern caravanning if the weather turns bad.

We do use maps, but main routing system is by Satnav with routes assembled from Via Michelin and Google Earth, I always caravan with internet enabled Laptop and mobile phone like many people so we are not exactly out of touch with society when sat in a "field".

I found the TG spoof funny as it was obviously a send up, yesterdays show did little for caravanners or the image or silly road blocking jibes etc.

As for "not slow to speak his mind" Doug, could he engage his brain before making map reading quips about lady navigators in future. I thought Brenda was put in to the "little woman/her in doors" label. Doug is past his sell by date to me and may be PC magazine could find somebody younger and more modern day thinking to do their techie stuff and comment on caravanning in future.

Many women tow and reverse caravans on to pitches and can also navigate from maps and do techie stuff on our cars and caravans as well as set-up and use hard disk recorder to watch Doug make a bit of *** of himself.

 

[MikeAce]

Personally apart from it not being long enough i saw nothing wrong with Doug and Brenda's performance.

So he made a little smart remark about Brenda's map skills, so what? it was a harmless quip to encite a little controversy from the audience, havent we all had arguments with our other halfs on site about maps and reversing onto the pitch? its amazing my wife and i are still together!!

and as for reinforcing the stereo type, he did, thats because they are exactly the type of person that you see on site, they both are, theres nothing wrong with that, my wife and i in our 30's with a 1 year old baby we are in the minority.

Doug and Brenda were fine, the only thing wrong was the sketch was it was made silly by Paul o grady and the people at the studio who never intented it to be a debate on the joy of caravanning but a simple little time filler.

 

[ShadySadie]

"Doug'Fix-It'King and his wife, Brenda will be appearing on the Paul O'Grady show to talk about the joys of caravan ownership"

Is how Nigel started the thread.

Sorry but that was not how I saw the feature going, so why take part in a show if "Paul O'grady and the people at the studio who never intented it to be a debate on the joy of caravanning but a simple little time filler"

If Doug wanted to encite a little controversy with the audience he could have said that Caravanning is probably to technical for ***** like O'grady.

Caravan insiders should be standing up for thir interest, and no we don't all argue over maps and reversing.

 

[BeemerMal]

......and no we don't all argue over maps and reversing.

I think most of us probably do argue about many things. I know my wife and I often have 'words' but we don't look to do it on national television. And, we regularly argue when we are putting up the awning but it only lasts a few minutes. ha, ha.

...what was very wrong is that Doug did himself and other caravanners no good when he decided to belittle his wife's map reading skills in front of a live audience (I use the word 'live' very loosely) plus around 2million viewers. This is a steriotype we can all do without.