I was watching the kids’ TV show Bob the Builder yesterday (as you do) and was drawn into the intricate plot of Bob’s job of creating a grey water system for a client. Bob patronisingly explained what grey water is, and how the filtration ponds worked. Patronisingly, for he was talking to Scoop (or Muck, or Dizzy) and as you know, machinery can be a trifle daft when learning about plumbing and drainage. Explain how the stock exchange works and they are right with you, but drainage systems – no, they need a bit of guidance there.

Bob not only has to educate his members of the construction team, but he also needs to remember Occupational Health and Safety Standards. Apparently viewers have complained about the technical errors and a demonstrated lack of safety procedures (I’m guessing these objections came from someone other than your average 5- year old). So now Bob wears safety glasses because clearly, this show is completely realistic, and you could be mistaken for thinking it was a documentary. It’s funny how lifelike those talking bulldozers, front-end loaders and cement mixers are. I mean, their googly eyes, mechanical parts, wheels and the complete lack of arms make them so humanoid. (Thinking about the OHS issue, this picture shown reveals Bob has had a few near misses with his circular saw, I believe. Only 3 fingers and a thumb on each hand!)

Meanwhile, this brings me to my point, of what is this – education or entertainment? Because along with the usual catch cry of “Can we fix it? – Yes, we can!”, the characters also chimed in during the show, “Reduce, reuse, recycle!” What a happy bunch of brain-washed greenies. I guess the heavy machinery all operate on biofuel. I am as much pro-green as the next person, considering we live in a solar-powered house with solar hot water, a composting toilet and grow organic vegetables commercially. Well, maybe we are more green than the next person.

But still, it is funny that a TV show about what is really a lot of heavy machinery, can project the green cause in each episode. I admire the producers’ ability to have the characters weave environmental themes in their everyday dialogue. Is this life imitating art, or art imitating life? My hubby believes it is all a government PC plan to have a new generation of children who live and breathe sustainability.

All well and good, when the theme is one we agree with, but what if the Powers That Be decide the new flavour of the month is ‘Corn is Good’ and every kids’ show portrays characters munching on cobs of corn, somehow dropping into their conversation how really, really good the corn is. Corn makes you strong, corn is healthy, corn makes you a better person, and all the bad people in jail never ate their corn. Soon there will be hoards of children dragging their eyes away from the TV to ask mum to serve some corn for lunch.

Fine, but where does that stop? I’m all for corn, but will my child judge me when she asks the question, “Mummy, why don’t you like corn?” And I really don’t have an answer. I don’t like the taste of it, nor the smell, or even the way the kernels are squishy and juicy. Will I be ostracised at my child’s school events when it becomes known that I don’t like corn when everyone else does - and if they don’t, they know it is a mortal sin not to. Will I be dragged kicking and screaming to a parent/teacher cornference in which I have to apply for a special exemption as a non-corn eater, just in order to continue being seen in the community?

It makes me wonder what other subconscious messages we are being sent by the government and various departments. When my little bubby boy was newborn and still in hospital, I was given the opportunity to get his hearing tested. A nurse wheeled in a trolley that carried a computer and many wires and contraptions. A tiny set of headphones was attached to Bubby’s ears and tones at varying sound wavelengths were transmitted to bubby. Meanwhile, some electrodes on Bubby’s head measured his brain activity to see if he responded to the noise. The weird thing was, due to the use of headphones, I could not hear anything that was being transmitted. Who knows what messages were really being sent down the wires for the developing brain to ingest.  Vote Labor… vote Labor. Julia Gillard is not two-faced…. I guess I’ll have to wait another 18 years and look over his shoulder at the polling booth to find out the secret.

Meanwhile, back to my original conundrum – should Bob the Builder be used to educate/ brain-wash the masses? I reckon education is good, and if that helps to dispel the ignorance that overwhelms the world - hooray! I just hope that the information is objective and not being fed through simplistic slogan machines. Kids at school are writing about land-clearing and the issue of salinity and the rising water table without being aware of regional differences. In the area of the Murray-Darling basin, perhaps that is the case. In the high rainfall mountains to the east of Stanthorpe, tree-clearing is necessary for survival off the land, otherwise you look out your window one day and see a bank of greenery where your washing line used to be, and the cattle are wedged between tree-trunks.

There’s the question of how many psychologists does it take to change a light-bulb? Only one, but it’s got to want to change. Same goes for our country. We can have all the top-down messages about changing lifestyle and looking after the place sustainably, but unless it is supported by the groundswell of grass-roots people who really do care, it’s hollow rhetoric. Tick the box; we’ve done what we need to get our carbon credit, and now we can register our business as ‘green’.

Ah, but back to Sustainable Bob and his indoctrinating ways. I guess there are worse role models we could have for our kids. For example, Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. He is a glutton and worse still, he doesn’t even eat all the food; he just wastes it! He crushes it in his furry mouth and crumbs spray left to right, but not once do I see him swallow. What a cretin. Or there’s Dylan the rabbit from the Magic Roundabout who acts and talks quite a bit like a dope-head: “Wow, I’m tired, man.” I suspect there might be a few mushrooms around in that show… and it’s not just the roundabout that’s magic.

In light of these interesting characters, perhaps Bob has a lot going for him. Come on, kids - let’s watch Bob the Builder…. Oooh, look! He’s going to tell us all about recycled effluent! 

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