Neighbours: The Omnibus Study

(Summary)

Neighbours – the staple feature of the student life. A time of utopian apathy, awaking from a deep sleep just in time to watch the first daily screening of Neighbours, before watching it again in the evening because of its Opium-like draw on the human condition.

Over these days, months and years of slothful de-productivity, students gets acclimatised to the effects of the twice-daily dose of Neighbours. Once this beautiful phase of your life is over, it hits you like a Trainspotting junkie.

Countdown and Neighbours withdrawal symptoms combine to make the existing post-university depression a hellish experience. Everything seems like it’s changing, and you feel like you’re ageing before your time. You want to take back your youth with a vengeance. You can’t, and the depression continues for many years to eventually become the dreaded, soul-crushing mid-life crisis. By this point it’s too late to think of the causes, and you don’t even remember what Neighbours was about. It’s a terrible state.

Many times people have asked me why there is no Neighbours omnibus as they have realised that this would solve all of their problems. Failing to answer this question, I took it upon myself to find an official answer. The BBC states;

“There isn't room in the schedule to show all 5 episodes at once. Neighbours is already shown twice a day 5 times a week which is more than most shows. Available spaces in the schedule have to be allocated fairly to allow room for a range of programmes.”

I went about trying to prove or disprove this theory and came across some starling discoveries. These discoveries can be read in the full-length report available at the CenSPoNO homepage at http://www.lonegunman.co.uk – this also contains all references required by this summary. Here is my concise rebuttal.

• A full Neighbours omnibus would take the shape of a 100 minute long programme.
• BBC Three is a digital ‘Freeview’ channel available country-wide which shows the comedy programme ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ for 450 minutes per week – 4% of the entire schedule. The full catalogue of this show is shown every month.
• ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ is not even a flagship programme, despite its high airtime. The BBC Comedy Guide states of the show; “Despite the prowess of a fine cast, the plots, situation and expletives-inclusive dialogue in this sex comedy were so base and substandard that any plus points were constantly undermined, for the relentless concentration on below-the-belt antics, allied to the mostly witless sexual banter, resulted in a distinctly juvenile end-product that wasn't so much shocking as shockingly bad.”
• By replacing 50% of the weekly repeats of this sub-standard show we could show a Neighbours omnibus during the weekend at a time suitable for those of us who cannot see the show when it is currently aired.

Deduction: show a Neighbours omnibus on BBC Three on Sunday nights, making time in the schedule by showing a few episodes less of repeated ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ whilst also freeing up a 20 minute slot for a low-risk inventive programme, if desired.

So, join with me in the fight to bring a Neighbours omnibus to our screens. The world needs it – especially the middle class workers of Britain. Not only will this realisation produce record numbers of happy British workers, it shall also indirectly increase the amount of workers in Britain; those who are self-proclaimed Neighbours addicts will not be confined to watch it during the day. This shall in turn increase the GDP of this fair country due to record employment figures, making this great isle a world super-power once again. Even those who are still sceptical, join us on this – it’s for the children; their education. With more people willing to enter employment early due to the newly founded fact that they can now work and watch Neighbours at the same time, university applicants will go down, thus meaning that in the long term, a university degree will ‘mean something’ again and we can all live in a Neighbours utopia.

I bid you farewell and good watching.