All day today on sky news (UK's sister channel of Fox news), all that is being covered is Prince Charles' engagement to Camilla Parker Bowles. Its really hilarious to see all the seemingly "close and personal friends" of the couple (most of whom have only met them briefly once) coming on tv to put their two cents in and discuss, in vivid detail, everything there is to know about the couples private lives. I don’t mind being interested, as it is genuinely news worthy but for near 12 hours straight they have covered little else. I just can’t get my head round the fact people in UK seemingly have nothing better to do than just wanting to know every single minute little thing about another person’s life. Are their own lives so boring that they want to live someone else’s?

We see this voyeuristic fascination, manifesting itself almost on a weekly basis in the upsurge of new reality TV programs in the UK and US such as big brother etc. Why is the rest of the world seemingly more interested in other investigating other people’s lives rather than more important news worthy things going on around them? It’s becoming more and more clear that countries that are big into reality TV are becoming less secure and confident in themselves and want to feel part of a community.

A year ago in Ireland, RTE television tired a few versions of reality TV type programs. The majority of the people just found shows like the dire "Celebrity farm", "Treasure Island" and "Cabin Fever" to be totally unentertaining and boring. One by one each show was killed off and producers couldn’t figure out why Irish people didn’t love the shows as much as the rest of world did. Why are the Irish seemingly not caught up in the same reality TV whirlwind as the rest of the world? I'd like to think that we don’t have the necessity of reality TV to feel like we are part of community because we are already part of a real one and therefore can see the TV program for the crap that it is but I admit it could also just be that Ireland hasnt enough celebrities to make it entertaining enough?!. In Ireland, its very unusual if you can go anywhere in the country without bumping into someone you know. Sometimes it feels like everyone seemingly knows everyone here, even though its 3 mill population. It can really go against you especially on nights out!! But for the most part its pretty cool to be able to go into the city and be sure you’ll bump into someone you know. I’m not saying Ireland is perfect cos we sure as hell have other big faults but we do seem to have a good balance between being friendly and interested in others while not feeling the need to judge or know more.

I must admit it’s a bit ironic that I'm putting all this on a blog, where the very concept is to let other people read stuff bout you. My answer to that is while it is ok to have an interest in other people, to me it’s not ok to try and live someone else life which is what the majority of reality TV tries to do...