Hector Goes - With Travellers this week RTÉ 1 9.35, 16, Jan.

Lapin

Where else to begin but the Ballinasloe Fair.

sligojoek

Ah, the travellers. Great bunch o' lads.

seanin4711

Lapin wrote: »

Where else to begin but the Ballinasloe Fair.

and navan man too

Neeson

She had enough Swiss roll on display anyway.

(Wonder where she got that?)

Happyman42

Seems to be vehicle for Hector to get as many spakes and jibes in about travellers as he can, now that he's down with them.

Lapin

Nice wee tankard made by yer man there, but if fairness who has use for the skills of traditional tinkers anymore, when you can buy plastic buckets and basins in the €2 shop.

Lisha

I just wish all sulky horse s had such comfortable living conditions

lennyloulou

am allergic to this programme. our family grocery shop robbed blind by them as my parents struggled to raise us four kids. it is a load of rubbish the angle hector is coming from.

Neeson

He won't show the dirty, rotten, infested side of the traveller at all.

Lisha

Am trying to come up with a statement like 'rosé tinted glasses' to describe this but I'm failing

phonypony

Lisha wrote: »

Am trying to come up with a statement like 'rosé tinted glasses' to describe this but I'm failing

Sure anything stronger and you'll be branded a racist...

_Kaiser_

This is very one-sided altogether. Not saying every traveller fits the (YouTube) stereotype but come on! Your license fee at work folks.

Lisha

phonypony wrote: »

Sure anything stronger and you'll be branded a racist...

I do try hard not to be .
I've no doubt that like the settled community there is both good and bad elements in the traveling community.
For the kids sake I just wish educational chances they are given would be taken on board

madrab

Good to see a show showing a softer side & not about the weddings and the communions etc

oldyouth

Lapin wrote: »

Nice wee tankard made by yer man there, but if fairness who has use for the skills of traditional tinkers anymore, when you can buy plastic buckets and basins in the €2 shop.

The lad with the bucket in the €2 shop will have a VAT Number. What are the chances of yer man doing his bi-monthly returns

Happyman42

I know he was trying to show a different side to the normal one depicted in the media, but I never got the sense he was getting anywhere near the truth, Same with the church programme. Dreadful waste of money tbh.

endswell

oldyouth wrote: »

The lad with the bucket in the €2 shop will have a VAT Number. What are the chances of yer man doing his bi-monthly returns

yawn

THENORTHSIDER

Happyman42 wrote: »

I know he was trying to show a different side to the normal one depicted in the media, but I never got the sense he was getting anywhere near the truth, Same with the church programme. Dreadful waste of money tbh.

agree with you,terrible show. Content was very poor and getting fed up of much of the stupid things Hector goes on about.

Tom_Cruise

Pretty weak i must say.

Hector is to afraid to do anything but scratch the surface - did he even interview anyone who wasn't settled/living in a house?

Give me two tinkers (they don't mind being called that btw) boxing the ears of each other any day.

road_high

Dissapointing. No real insight at all. The people seemed pretty willing and open to discuss their lives (the good and the bad) but he never seemed to delve deeper. I wanted to know what Traveller life was like back in the day but apart from old videos from RTE in the 60s there was scant reference to the past. Travellers actually had it tough back then pre the Welfare State.

ThisRegard

There was a pretty scathing review of this show from last week about the church in the Sunday Times. The writer pretty much nailed it as to why people are saying they didn't get any real insight, it's because the Hector show is all about the Hector despite the subject matter. They're just vehicles for his idiocy.

oldyouth

mfitzy wrote: »

Travellers actually had it tough back then pre the Welfare State.

A lot of people had it tough in pre-welfare state times.

JCJCJC

ThisRegard wrote: »

There was a pretty scathing review of this show from last week about the church in the Sunday Times. The writer pretty much nailed it as to why people are saying they didn't get any real insight, it's because the Hector show is all about the Hector despite the subject matter. They're just vehicles for his idiocy.

Well-put. I found him very irritating last night, even more so that usual. He needs to spend ten years as a side-kick to Paddy O'Gorman to learn how to interview people, and after that, ten years with Gay Byrne to learn how to keep his mouth tightly shut and let the person tell their story when they are up and running. He has an ignorant abrasive habit of asking the same question six times rapidly in a row using slightly different forms of words and he butts in on the answers long before the person is finished developing a point.
He made a flying reference to Rathkeale in the context of big fat gypsy weddings, bling-bling, Range Rovers and so on - well, with approximately two and a half thousand people considering themselves to be travellers from Rathkeale, they can't be dismissed so lighly.
Even his interview with Mr. David Joyce BL was trivial and shallow, a huge opportunity missed - David used the word 'oxymoronic' which Hector clearly didn't know or understand.
He kept a running theme of 'there's no such thing as a settled traveller' all the way through the show, which is a pointless argument - everybody in Ireland knows what is meant by the phrase - a literal analysis is mere pedantry.
The man he met at the fair - Mr. Miley Cash - seemed to be the very best sort of person the travellers could wish for to put their lifestyle on record, yet all Hector did was jive and talk sh*te to the man.
The single biggest mistake was to approach the whole issue as if Irish travellers were one big happy organisation, which they're not. The Rathkealers wouldn't think they had anything in common with most of the people on last night's show, and vice-versa.

THENORTHSIDER

ThisRegard wrote: »

There was a pretty scathing review of this show from last week about the church in the Sunday Times. The writer pretty much nailed it as to why people are saying they didn't get any real insight, it's because the Hector show is all about the Hector despite the subject matter. They're just vehicles for his idiocy.

said perfectly, its all about Hector and have got fed up with that subject a long time ago

zoobizoo

Watched it on RTE Player last night and from start to finish it was a show that should not have been on prime time tv. Its delivery was more of a travelogue with the camper van, the music and the vox pops.

Of course there are good travellers out there but why were no "bad" travellers interviewed or why were there no tough questions about marrying young, leaving school early, girls dressing like stippers etc.

The only recent interactions with travellers have been verbal abuse, physical threats and a break in (although he was settled).

If the show was to show any insight, it would have investigated the other side of the travelling community - not just the decent ones.

I too am tired of Hector's Shtick.... he has gotten by on it and done well from it but it has grown tiresome.

JCJCJC

zoobizoo wrote: »

Watched it on RTE Player last night and from start to finish it was a show that should not have been on prime time tv. Its delivery was more of a travelogue with the camper van, the music and the vox pops.

Of course there are good travellers out there but why were no "bad" travellers interviewed or why were there no tough questions about marrying young, leaving school early, girls dressing like stippers etc.

The only recent interactions with travellers have been verbal abuse, physical threats and a break in (although he was settled).

If the show was to show any insight, it would have investigated the other side of the travelling community - not just the decent ones.

I too am tired of Hector's Shtick.... he has gotten by on it and done well from it but it has grown tiresome.

I know many members of the travelling community in Rathkeale. They wouldn't give an eejit like Hector the time of day. They are thoroughly cheesed off with the big fat gypsy wedding shows and how they are portrayed in those, and also the other recent idiotic show that tried to show their various continental business activities - generators, tarmac etc. They have no interest in providing material for feather-brained low-budget popular/sensationalist television programmes made by independent television production companies in the hope of a sale to RTE. That's why I think only a very competent broadcaster, someone like Paddy O'Gorman or Jim Fahy, might have a chance of making a significant and useful programme on the travelling community.

peadar76

yeah have to agree with a lot of the above, a very romanticized look at things. The travellers featured were all nice decent people, not at all representative of the reality.

endswell

peadar76 wrote: »

yeah have to agree with a lot of the above, a very romanticized look at things. The travellers featured were all nice decent people, not at all representative of the reality.

so are all the people on nationwide but you wouldnt hear a comment like that

zoobizoo

JCJCJC wrote: »

That's why I think only a very competent broadcaster, someone like Paddy O'Gorman or Jim Fahy, might have a chance of making a significant and useful programme on the travelling community.

I would be very interested in seeing a show like that.

Maybe it is just the bad ones who we come into contact with most often. As in, the rest of them just get on with things.

JCJCJC

zoobizoo wrote: »

I would be very interested in seeing a show like that.

Maybe it is just the bad ones who we come into contact with most often. As in, the rest of them just get on with things.

I presume you mean the bad broadcasters ;-)

Utopia Parkway

It must be in Hector's contract that any show he does he has to go back to Navan for part of it. Last week he was in Navan. This week back in Navan again.

JP Liz V1

Is this repeated or on player? Might be worth a look for a laugh

AnonoBoy

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Is this repeated or on player? Might be worth a look for a laugh

It's on the player.

pappyodaniel

AnonoBoy wrote: »

It's on the player.

For some reason it won't stream for me?

AnonoBoy

pappyodaniel wrote: »

For some reason it won't stream for me?

Eh..... Hector hates you?

Thargor

Turn off Adblock or anything like that if you had it installed, RTE Player doesnt like Adblock these days, it breaks the 30 second ad at the start and that stops the main programme from starting.

wow sierra

The aim of the show was to do a programme about Travellers that WASN'T about Gypsy weddings, bare knuckle boxing, welfare fraud, or violent robbery etc. There is no point in complaining that it didn't show the negative - it expressly set out not to.

As a programme I found it ok. Of course it could have been better, but I found the individuals he interviewed to be interesting people. Some people complained about the lack of depth in the interview with the Barrister - but I for one had never heard of him, and I am sure many people watching hadn't either. It was good to see him featuring on a programme about Travellers.

The lady from Navan summed it up at the end when she asked people not to assume all Travellers are the same. We all got great pleasure from the exploits of John Joe Nevin in the Olympics for example.

Its easy to say someone should make a better programme - at least this is a start.

pappyodaniel

Thargor wrote: »

Turn off Adblock or anything like that if you had it installed, RTE Player doesnt like Adblock these days, it breaks the 30 second ad at the start and that stops the main programme from starting.

I know, I tried that before posting. I'm kinda glad now in a way, I just remembered how annoying Hector is.

Thargor

Actually now that I think of it I usually end up watching RTE Player in IE or chrome where I don't have any adblocker installed at all.