Give me some credit

It's official. We're not expected to have an attention span any more.

I just about coped when all the television stations around here decided they needed to have their logos on screen all the time. Well, I coped with 4 out of 5: the first station to do it was the most popular (yes, Channel 9/WIN, I'm talking about you) which has always been my least favourite. It also decided it needed a really noticeable bright logo, that even flashed and sparkled when returning from an ad break. The other stations went for something a lot more subtle, thank God.

But now they've gone too far.

There was a time when the end credits of a show/movie involved a voiceover ad for some other show on the station - possibly the next one coming up. NOW, though, on the 3 commerical stations the credits roll in just one half of the screen (or even one quarter) while the sound switches to whatever other show they're advertising in the other half of the screen (or quarter, while some whopping great big logo sparkles in the lower half).

Excuse me, but can you just not wait? I mean, these are the same shows you've advertised once every 5-7 minutes throughout the movie I just watched. It was rather good (the movie, not the mindless advertising) and I'd rather like a chance to reflect on it - to swirl it around my mind like a fine wine - and maybe to acknowledge the efforts of the many, many people who had to work rather hard to bring it to the screen.

I realise there is a bunch of tyre-squealing impatient morons out there who might not be able to deal with the situation other than by shouting "boooooriiiiiing" and changing the channel. That's what you're frightened of, I can tell. But do we really have to live by the lowest common denominator all the time? And would you even HAVE this problem if you hadn't tried to pretend that life moves a mile a minute? How do you think they grew up without being able to concentrate in the first place?

This has being going on for well over a year, but tonight was one of those times I just couldn't cope. I haven't the faintest idea of the names of any of the people involved in bringing About A Boy to the screen except the few main stars, and I rather wanted to know their names if only for a second or two.

But then of course, I'm the only person I know who insists on staying in the cinema until the credits are over.