Ambitious But Rubbish

Sometimes as a Canadian I almost think I live in a bit of a warp. While we Canucks are generally well-liked worldwide we are at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to a few things, including (but not limited to) taxes, having things delivered (most delivery services here are utter rubbish), what we pay for cars, and of course everyone’s favorite car-related entertainment programme, Top Gear. BBC Canada will show us only an edited version of the show, and to add insult to injury it’s always at least a season late! And despite the fact that we have to pay our cable co. to get the channel in the first place, they chop about 15 minutes out of the show to show us very lame commercials.

Which brings me to torrents, which are the sole reason why people like me (viz. folks outside the UK) can really enjoy a show like Top Gear. Sure, in a sense that’s a grey area in terms of ethics. I pay my cable bill every month, I like to see current programming… yet when it comes to a show like Top Gear, that’s just impossible to do unless you bend the rules a little. I also like football (as in, the game where you kick the ball with your feet), and I happily watched the Germany vs. Spain Euro 2008 final as it was happening, live on television; why have some television executives decided that I should not be able to do the same with non-sport television shows?

There’s really no reason for that. If I’m going to sit down and watch Top Gear, I want to sell the whole show the way the Brits see it, at 8pm on a Sunday night, the day it was shot. Fortunately my ISP doesn’t make it difficult or impossible the way some other ISPs (*cough*sympatico*cough*) do, by throttling bittorrents, but I am still of the opinion that people like me really shouldn’t have to go to these lengths just to make sure that we enjoy fresh content…