Tuesday, May 31, 2005

White band unethical, Freeview E4

You see that 'Make Poverty History' white band on the top right of my site? It has been up there for a few months now. The goal of the organisation is to make poverty a thing of the past and to make its voice heard during the G8 summit next month in Edinburgh.

White bands might be cool but it is not exactly the most ethical thing you can wear. For every one squid, 70p goes to the organisations. We do not know how much of these goes into the pockets of administrators before it actually goes into the charity piggy bank but we do know that the factories that make them employ forced labour. Workers at factories in China are paid only 9-16 pence an hour.

Make poverty history by taking direct action. Donate monies directly to local organisations instead. Apply pressure on the government to deliver the goods during the G8 summit.

This is not an anti-Oxfam post, don't get me wrong. They do wonderful stuff and I always donate old clothing to Oxfam because I can't be arsed to send it to African instead. And judging by reports, the stuff they did during the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami disaster was great.

But Oxfam needs to understand that many are disappointed that the white bands bought at their charity stores are manufactured unethically.

More here

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After two years connected to DVB-T, I am so glad that E4 has finally arrived on Freeview. More telly. No more secret longing for Sky subscription (I feel so dirty). What's not to like? There are more Big Brother shite of course but it only lasts for the next two months or so.


Speaking of Big Brother, this year's was the first I ever missed the launch show. I am no fan of the hit reality TV series but I would usually be curious about wannabees seeking fame on the series. Media TV is after all where my interest lies. It was quite liberating really and until today I have yet to know a single contestants name. The Guardian and The Independent obviously helped by ignoring the Channel 4 show.

Continuing with television, Desperate Housewives finally ends this Wednesday with its double bill season finale. I think I am going to suffer from withdrawal symptoms. No more No Angels, no more Peep Show, no more Teachers and soon no more Eva Longoria for at least the next seven or eight months.

Back to E4, I was surprised to find E4+1 has also made it to Freeview. E4+1 is basically E4 broadcasted one hour later, which is pretty good for busy people who are always late for their piece of telly.

More on Freeview... When I rescanned the frequencies on my WinTV Nova-T application I found loads of new channels. Most were bullshit stuff used by TV companies to promote their subscription only channels like Discovery, Cartoon Network and Bloomberg. I think about 30% of the channels found were occupied by such shows. Hopefully someone at OFCOM would sort it out before Freeview gets as messy as teh Interweb.

5 comments:

Kat said...

I can't get E4, but I manage to get E4+1. Strange, but I ain't complaining. This year was the first time I've caught the launch show, but it was only because my brother was watching it. Thought the sari-wearing Turk guy was hilarious. He sure makes a good-looking 'woman'.

I bought one of the white bands and gave it to my brother. I didn't realise that they are made unethically though. Geez. It makes me sick when I see people pile up on the multi-coloured bands just because they are fashionable.

Jon Choo said...

Weird that you can get E4+1. I checked the frequencies and C4, E4 and E4+1 shares the same band.

I wonder what is the record for how many one can wear those multi-coloured bands? I think the most I have counted are about five on each arm.

But most people I met only have one or two colours and they seem genuine in their charitable cause.

I tell you what annoys me more are charity chuggers.

Anonymous said...

Charity chuggers? I read about them on the newspaper. Lucky yhey havent been to malaysia yet./

David said...

well they are here now. and they are worse than what Jon spoke about.

Everyone is in it for a buck.. damn them.

Jon Choo said...

Are there charity chuggers in Malaysia? Damn... I am all for charity but the way they operate (where most of the charities actually goes to funding the operation), I can't see why the law hasn't come down on them yet.