A quick Tuesday rant

Do you mind if I have a quick rant?  Just a little one?  OK, here we go.

There is a dearth of craft programmes in the UK, we generally only get an annoying estate agent who thinks she's a craft maven extraordinaire, so I was pretty excited to hear about Paul Martin's Handmade Revolution, a 2-week programme on the BBC.  I have no idea who Paul Martin is or why he would want to revolt, but it seemed right up my alley so, with it being on during the day, I Sky plussed it and finished watching it last night.

The premise behind the programme was excellent.  They got various amateur craftspeople in to show their work and talk about it, a winner was then selected from the 5 each day (10 programmes in all) to have their work on sale at the shop at the V&A.  The variety and talent was astounding, though there were a few bizarre entrants (the guerilla knitter who submitted a large, ugly rectangle of fabric didn't really fit amongst the silversmiths, wood carvers and glass blowers!).

The problem?  The judges.  Mr Curator for the V&A was OK, it was the other too.  An "entrepreneur" turned fabric designer and a snotty milliner.  They were so rude about some of the pieces, and the pieces were excellent.  One lady was told her crocheted bag (with the most stunning freeform crocheted fruit on it) was old-fashioned and no-one would want it, this was after the male presenter told her he'd been dreading seeing crochet work as he doesn't like it.  Hmmm, biased at all?  

One lady did the most amazing glass fusing but was told it was horrible!  Seriously, this is from two people who'd shown no crafting talent themselves!  A rival milliner was told by the milliner presenter her hat was "cheap looking" and the guy who made the most incredible sculpture of a robot from polymer clay was explained as using a "kiddie's play material".  So tell that to the incredible polymer clay artists out there then...  children indeed!

I think what got my back up was that they were outwardly encouraging everyone to have a go at crafts (the presenter tried a different craft each day) and get involved in the "handmade revolution" but were then criticising, quite personally, those that have already got involved.  No, it wasn't constructive criticism, it was plain rude!

Did any one else see this programme?  What did you think?