Been a few documentaries worth watching lately. Those on Paula Yates and George Michael were quite interesting and a reminder of a time when the allowance and acceptance of the excessive behaviour of the paparazzi (blatant phone tapping/ breaking and entering) really did have a dreadful impact on those involved. Meghan Markle has little to complain about in comparison! The press -particularly publications like The Sun and NOTW-would do anything for a story if there was money in it but what is saddening is that even today these ex editors and journalists defend their actions by claiming the stories were "in the public interest" or else they were "exposing hypocrisy" and show no remorse whatsoever for the consequences of their actions.
It was certainly true that Yates (like Diana would later do) courted publicity herself but the hounding of her and her children, particularly immediately following the death of Hutchence (whose own story is quite tragic) was bang out of order. Even Geldof seemed to agree on that. As for Michael, the press defended their actions by saying that they were only exposing his hypocrisy in not coming out before. Certainly Michael allowed his record company to portray him as the typical handsome male star to attract a loyal female following but much of this was down to the time his career took off when public fear of AIDs and the "Gay plague" was it it's highest. Such editors are being disingenuous though as it was their own papers that contributed greatly to this spread of both fear and hatred, creating the situation when no Gay person could feel safe that "coming out" would not impact negatively on their career.
The most interesting documentary though was probably Flight mh370 on Netflix, so thanks to Mick and others for the heads up on this one👍 Particularly liked the fact that it presented a range of views and theories and gave them equal-ish airtime. Tbh, whilst my sympathies of course lie with the relatives who lost loved ones, I do have some for Malaysian airlines who really did not genuinely seem to have much solid information they could share.
Whilst far-fetched, some of the conspiracy theories seem at least logically possible. Whilst the idea presented by one about being able to control the movement of the jet from the electronics room seems obviously non factual, the same journalist seems spot on when he asserted that the reasons for the aircraft suddenly going dark could only be down to either a catastrophic act (e.g. explosion ) or else the communications were deliberately turned off (which could be done either in the cockpit or from the electronics compartment).
Lots of outstanding questions , to my mind, including: why wasn't the apparent debris discovered by the woman in Florida in the South China Sea (in the approximate area where the plane went dark) investigated? and, with so much military capability in the South China Sea at the time-inc the US AWACS- why was nothing forthcoming from them? Is it really credible that with all this tech. the flight could just disappear?
It is entirely possible that the debris found by Blaine was planted in order to support the view that it turned South into the Indian Ocean but, in all scenarios, why would it even turn south into an area of pure ocean with no fuel to reach land? The delayed release by the FBI about the pilots home flight simulator holding a similar flight plan comes to look a little dodgy in this light as it is as if someone is trying a little too hard to provide evidence that this was where the aircraft was headed.
It does seem far fetched but it is logically possible that the flight was taken down-either deliberately or in error - by US or allied forces and hence the alleged debris found by the woman in Florida in the South China Sea (though missed by the initial search parties). This is the scenario heavily hinted at but whilst it would certainly be something those involved would want kept quiet it is still hard to believe that, if this did happen, that either no one has leaked it since or that other nations-Russia or China for example-would not have their own monitoring data on it and gleefully accuse the Americans .Similarly, if the journalist who at one time proposed the theory that Russian agents were to blame (in order to deflect attention from the Russian invasion of Ukraine) was correct, surely Western military presence in the area would have turned up some evidence for this too.
Whodunit then? What do others who have watched this think?
