Forum Buzz: religion, rubbish, rags and riches

Last week Forum Buzz kicked off with youth, this week it’s the elderly. There's also religion, marriage, divorce, alternative lifestyles, rubbish, rags and riches.
The programmes the C4 forums are talking about: Heat or Eat: The Pensioners' Dilemma; Egypt's Rubbish People; Wife Swap; Divorce Sharia Style; Derren Brown: The System; Baby Bible Bashers; Hollyoaks; Big Brother 9; Deal or No Deal; Paul O’Grady and Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong.
If you missed them, Channel 4 shows free for 30 days on 4oD.

Dispatches Heat or Eat: The Pensioners' Dilemma had the Big Brother Forum and Dispatches Forum discussing what’s to be done about elderly people who are on the poverty line. One viewer sums it up, by saying: “Our society should be thoroughly ashamed.”
Meanwhile the News Forum were also debating the welfare of the elderly, as Scottish politicians vowed to stick by its pledge to provide OAPs free personal care, despite the cost.

One of the hottest forum topics is Islam in Britain. Channel 4’s Divorce Sharia Style sparked debate in the Culture Forum about the interrelationship of religious and secular law.
At the same time the Archbishop of Canterbury was making headlines as he said that it was 'unavoidable’ that parts of Sharia law come to the UK, leading to heated debate in the News Forum. There’s also an interesting thread sparked by a British man wanting sanctuary here from an arranged marriage abroad.
Unreported World had the News Forum looking at things the other way round as Egypt's Rubbish People focused on the welfare of a Christian minority in a Muslim country.
Staying with religion, Derren Brown: The System prompts the Culture Forum to debate whether Derren Brown has unravelled how religious belief works. The upcoming Baby Bible Bashers (Thursday 14 Feb) has already got the forum talking.

There's also rags, riches, rubbish and marriage, of course, inWife Swap, which had the Big Brother Forum mooting the merits of alternative lifestyles, as a rich family switched places with a family that ate out-of-date food from supermarket skips. There’s a similar discussion here.

In the Hollyoaks Forum it wasn’t so much an alternative lifestyle as a change of career, as actress Summer Shaw gets her big break as Maria in The Sound of Music both in the teen soap and in real life. Hollyoaks viewers are no strangers to stories of actors leaving, to put their – career on ice, for example – but some fans weren’t pleased to hear that Andrew Lloyd Webber and the programme makers had secretly planned this from the beginning.

For the lucky few a TV appearance can promise to be a fast track from rags to riches. That might explain the excitement in the Big Brother Forum as the Big Brother 9 auditions kick off.
Another show that is besieged by applicants is Deal or No Deal, but getting on the show is one thing, winning is another. This resourceful fan in the DoND forum has spotted that in the last year 1p has come to the table twice as often as the jackpot £250k. Oh and apparently the show is not recorded live.

Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong, according to some fans in the Big Brother Forum is not as good as seeing Alan do stand-up performances. But that won’t stop the Paul O’Grady Forum tuning in when their hero is on. The fans are pining for Paul. Oh when is Paul back?

Last week's Forum Buzz discussed Why Kids Kill, Big Brother Celebrity Hijack (the last night), City of Vice, Deal or No Deal, Hollyoaks, A Boy Called Alex, Channel 4 Political Awards, Dispatches: The Court of Ken, True Stories: No End in Sight.

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