Marena Manzoufas, Head of Programming at the ABC

Bent Spoon nomination by Steve Roberts

The Bent Spoon nominations for 2007 have just opened, but it will be a shoo-in to award this dubious honour to Ms MARENA MANZOUFAS, Head of Programming at the ABC. In the next 12 months, is it possible for anyone to do anything worse than waste public money on Psychic Detectives? And, worse still, to draw public attention by giving implicit recognition to this most tacky of all woo-woo endeavours, under the auspices of our national broadcaster.

I invite Mr Mark Scott, Managing Director of the ABC, to replace Ms Manzoufas with someone who has a brain and a sense of responsibility. As Mr Scott knows, the duties of the ABC Board that appoints him are "to ensure that the functions of the Corporation are performed efficiently with maximum benefit to the people of Australia, and to maintain the independence and integrity of the Corporation." Our Governmental broadcasting channel has been the pride of Australia, but now the ABC is raking over this dung. I know manure helps things grow, but the process of picking over real crimes with psychics is well-known to cause genuine distress to the relatives of crime victims. I am inclined to write to the ABC and demand my 8 cents back.

Viewers are used to seeing good science programs in the prime-time slot on Thursdays, with a variety of interesting topics, enthusiastic presenters and useful material. As anyone with bright kids knows, programs such as Catalyst and its forerunners in this time slot are instrumental in developing Australia as "the clever country" and in educating our young people to progress the world into the future. My own career in science was largely fired by interest in similar TV programs (and books) in the distant days of my youth.

I invite Ms Manzoufas to consider and research these questions: What is the benefit of showing Psychic Detectives to young people keen to learn? Do psychics waste police time? Have innocent people had their lives ruined through wrongful accusations by psychics? Did psychics diverted a search for a missing Tasmanian bushwalker from the correct direction into a wrong direction? Does Ms Manzoufas think that crimes are best solved by traditional methods, involving hard work by tireless unthanked police, or by publicity-seeking unqualified people taking a fuzzy guess?

And finally, what is the success rate of psychics in solving crimes and will the ABC be presenting us with an instance of a crime that was actually solved by a psychic? As I can predict the answers to these questions, in this, the first entry of the year I hereby award the Bent Spoon for 2007 to Ms Marena Manzoufas. And as there can be no more suitable contender, the Bent Spoon competition for 2007 is now closed; thank you for your attention.

Dr Steve Roberts