“Grunt, urggh, Susan Boyle,” says UK resident

Yes:	- 80%
No:	- 20%

Good old Jezzer Paxman has described the British public as ‘barbarians’ who are too busy working to find time to appreciate art.

This is because of the baleful box in the corner of the room.

That bloody TV.

At Hay Festival of Literature during a talk on Victorian art he’s reported as saying: "Watching TV is the most popular leisure activity in this country now. I find this very depressing. Very depressing, indeed. I think that is a real problem.While people apparently have leisure time in greater quantities and book leisure time to go on holiday and so on, they have less time just to drop into an art gallery or museum. At work people are expected to be at the beck and call of employers all the time. You have Blackberries and other things, and they just don't leave you alone. I think that the basic problem is that we are all a bunch of barbarians really."

Funny man our £1m-earning BBC bod. We love his bolshy attitude to guests on Newsnight but he appears to be gnawing at the hand that feeds him on this one. His life-style and his freedom to say what he thinks is subsidised by TV.

Nor does it help his case that he uttered his barbarian slur whilst promoting his latest (and very good) book on Victorian art. A book which has been televised to good audiences on BBC2 that were as high as those, or higher, than most screenings of the latest Big Brother.

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Paxman’s also not done his sums. More people use galleries now then have ever done. More importantly more people from all backgrounds use galleries than ever: audiences are not just a narrow-profile of the middle-class.

Fact: we have just about the highest museum and art gallery attendance in the European Union.

Then again you can’t help having some sympathy: especially with the drivel on ITV1 at present, and the endless reality TV shows. Most of it is mindless pap. But we don’t have to watch do we?

For many reasons Confidential thinks Paxman got it badly wrong on this occasion.

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