Charlie Bird is a national institution in Ireland. He is far from a national treasure but he is getting up there. When he dies, he will probably be deemed as such. RTE describe Charlie as their Special News Correspondent. This gives him licence to turn up on our screens with breaking news on any subject under the sun. It must really piss off other journalists dedicated to politics or crime that when something big happens in their field, Charlie has first handle on it.
Charlie has this breathless urgency about him when reporting. He can make an orderly bus queue sound like a riot; a report on flash flooding generates such excitement that the viewer expects to see Noah and the Ark in the background.
He was in Rome for the election of Pope Benedict and the resulting dispatches put Dan Brown and his TheDe Vinci Code novel in the category of boredom occupied by Becket’s Waiting for Godot. When his sources told him that the odds were on the German to win, we half expected Hitler to appear from the white smoke and announce there was no Heaven.
When his prediction about Cardinal Ratzinger proved correct, Charley delivered his “I told you so” report with all the smug pleasure usually reserved for the doctor who tells a patient they have three months to live and thumps the table in satisfaction when they die on the 90th day.
We can therefore assume that RTE place great value on the contribution of Charlie to the broadcaster’s archives. So much so that they, in effect, give Charlie a free holiday every year, at the taxpayers expense, to indulge in his hobby of exploring the great rivers of the world.
Last year RTE viewers were treated to Charlie exploring the Amazon. This year it is the Ganges. We can only imagine what all this is costing the national broadcaster, which usually brings us American junk TV.
To listen to Charlie rowing his boat down the Ganges or the Amazon, you would be forgiven for thinking he was the first person to discover the place. Looking suitably dishevelled with a nice beard growth, Charlie tells that he is approaching a place that poses real danger because of the presence of some obscure tribe who like to eat people. He informs us in hushed tones that he is all alone in this wicked place. What about the camera crew Charlie? Cue an advert break and we are left wondering (perhaps even hoping) that we may see Charlie being turned over on a blazing spit after Vodafone tells us about another great deal. But, lo and behold, there is the bould Charlie talking to the cannibalistic natives. They are all smiles and Charlie is making wild gestures when they run into difficulty with translation. They all love Charlie and before he leaves for the next dangerous assignment, they are kissing him and the women are all shaking their exposed breasts at him. Obviously, they get the RTE News out there in the jungle because Charlie is feted like a hero.
The series runs for weeks and we learn very little about the Ganges or Amazon and a whole lot about Charlie. What a load of semi-state institution cobblers. What a waste of money that could be put to better use doing real and relevant documentaries. RTE insults their viewers with a series devoid of any real information. This crap just caters to the whims and desires of their egotistical chief news reporter.
If they really wanted to provide us with in-depth information on both of these great rivers all they had to do was pay a small royalty fee to the National Geographic Channel or Discovery Channel, who both have done many wonderful documentaries about all the great natural wonders of the world.
Instead, tens of thousands of euro are wasted on paying for Charlie’s holiday.
Do us all a favour RTE: leave him out there in the jungle and hope he never comes back.
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