Politics

You may have surmised already that I am very interested in politics, and I am in particular deeply critical of the current political situation both globally and here in my native Australia, and that I have quite radical and modern political views.

I have been interested in politics from a very young age. Growing up my family generally did not watch a lot of television, so being the nerd I am I began enjoying watching the news and nature documentaries - 'boring grown-up stuff', as my peers put it, but I liked it. I also loved political satires, the best and funniest being on the ABC - ironically, the only channel funded by the government.

One very good thing about Australia is that we enjoy an extraordinary amount of freedom of speech - in that we are allowed to make fun of the tragic pettiness that is Australian politics. A long time favourite of mine is Media Watch, which is so funny that my friends and I are attempting to parody it in Media as Mod Watch - this should be interesting.

My politics teacher, a character I admire nearly as much as my English teacher, Quin, also confesses a deeply geeky interest in political television programmes. So, I have been introduced to the Gruen Transfer, renamed temporarily the 'Gruen Nation' during the federal election, and The Chaser Decides, which has also been renamed in honour of the election: Yes We Canberra!

The Gruen Transfer is an Australian television programme focusing on advertising, especially mocking particularly hopeless ads that, sadly, pop up all the time on Australian television. The Gruen Nation in particular focuses on the cheesy ads and scare campaigns, as well as mercilessly mocking them, of Labor and Liberal, and to a certain extent, the Greens.

Yes We Canberra! is basically undergraduate humour, but very funny undergraduate humour. The Chasers really have limitless imaginations and eons of courage, and they're not ashamed of themselves, never willing to censor their controversial views - much like myself and my blog. If you live in Australia, I strongly recommend you watch these two shows - because even if you don't particularly care about politics, The Gruen Transfer and The Chaser Decides are shows like Top Gear, in that you don't have to watch Top Gear for the cars - you don't have to watch these shows for the politics to make you laugh your head off.

Other tv shows I love are the aforementioned Top Gear, Mythbusters, Q.I, Meerkat Manor and anything David Attenborough.