WHY TELEVISION LIES TO US

By Bobby The Bus Driver

Television. The box that draws us in and leaves us in a state of hypnosis. I believe that television has a more sinister purpose than that of educating and entertaining. The facts are literally there for all to see. Take, for example, a jumbo jet. Now we all know that a jumbo jet is a vehicle of enormous proportions (the clue is in the title- Jumbo) and can fit hundreds of people on board. Why is it then, that we can see a whole jumbo jet on our television screen? I'll tell you- television gives a false impression of scale. Some of us are aware of this fact, but there are many who believe all that they see on the TV is real. It is these people that we must save. I urge you to write to your local television company and to the BBC and urge them to stop this practice at once. Surely, it's not beyond the bounds of reason to demand that the television companies take more responsibility for their actions. Imagine the confusion of someone who has just watched the popular television docu-soap "Airport", then visited a real airport themselves and found out the stark truth that an aeroplane is, in fact, a huge beast of a machine, and not a few inches wide, as the fascist television companies would have us believe. It's all down to scale.

If you are familiar with the popular motion picture "Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory" there contains within, a fictional account of a process called "Wonka-vision", which takes a chocolate bar of immense size and transports it, by means of television to an appropriate receiver. The upshot of this procedure is a vast reduction in size of the chocolate bar. I suggest to you that this is, in fact, not a work of fiction but the exact way that television companies broadcast to the public. They take something that is gargantuan in size and then reduce it via a complex series of potions and electronic devices, until the image fits comfortably onto the television receiver in our homes, confusing a large majority of the general public with their thoughtlessness.

So far we have only dealt in size reduction, but those highly irresponsible TV executives confuse the situation further by increasing objects in size also. A prime example of this practice is the popular nature programme "The Blue Planet". There is no doubting that the camera work is amazing and the images they produce are nothing short of startling, but they are also grossly exaggerated. The programme shows us such creatures as plankton, which are microscopic creatures, yet we can clearly see it on our TV screens. Reversing the Wonka-vision theory does this. Take something that is too small for the human eye to see and reverse the operation and, viola, we can see it on our screen. This works also for objects that we can see for ourselves. An example of this is a ten pence piece. Now we all know what size a 10p piece is, but if you want, you can make this small piece of metal larger in size by reverse Wonka-vision. This is the same principle as a microscope, telescope or a pair of binoculars. It's all done by magic and thick glass.

In conclusion, I urge you to contact your local television authority and demand that they put a stop to this grossly unfair practice. The least they can do is put a disclaimer on at the start of each offending show and inform the public that there will be scale distortion in the programme they are about to watch. This small act would erase the confusion that many people feel when watching their favourite programmes. If reflective glass manufacturers can print on their products "objects may appear closer than they actually are", thereby owning up to the fact that they are distorting scale, then I don't feel that it's too much to ask the TV executives to do something similar.

PUT A STOP TO THIS CONSPIRACY AND ACT NOW- YOUR LETTER OR CALL COULD MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE

Bobby The Bus Driver xxxxxx