Category Archives: BBC

He has a book out.

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I was driving in the car this afternoon. I haven’t changed the CD in the player for weeks now, and I’m getting a little tired of it. Of course, I didn’t consider this before I set out on my journey, and I wasn’t about to monkey about with it whilst I was driving, that’s a really stupid and not inconsiderably dangerous thing to do, so I turned on the radio.

Immediately my back stiffened, I’d been listening to the football coverage on Sunday on radio 5 when I last had the radio on, so it defaulted to that station when I jumped from disc to radio. That was a mistake. It is hard to describe how monumentally irritating I find Richard Bacon. He is a man for whom the word ‘cock’ was invented. His interviewing style is especially irksome when it comes to covering anything with the merest controversy, his idea of ‘balance’ is to shout over all his interviewees putting a polar opposite view in his whiny voice. If he agrees with the interviewee he’ll do it the once, because the BBC demands ‘balance’, if he doesn’t agree with the interviewee (and it is obvious when he doesn’t) he’ll do it for the whole time the interviewee is on the air.

When listening to Richard Bacon I get this irresistible urge to tie him to a grating and to employ a cricket bat, baseball bat, snooker cue, tennis racquet, croquet mallet, etc, to see which makes the most satisfying sound as I smash it against his skull.

Worse still are his ‘sleb interviews, he is so sickeningly supine, obsequious and generally sycophantic that it makes one want to retch. This is especially true when the interviewee is a fellow BBC type. Today the interviewee was Hugh Dennis, a man who as far as I can make out has the BBC to thank for 80% of his income, what with Mock the Week, Outnumbered, The Now Show and sundry other stuff.

As an aside, when my annoy-o-meter hit 11 I switched stations to Radio 2, whereupon I heard the arse end of a record, and then the DJ trailing an interview with this bloke who has a new book out; Hugh Dennis. So we have a BBC employee schlepping round the BBC radio studios hawking his new book. I wouldn’t be surprised if he popped up/has already appeared on the BBC breakfast sofa, The Graham Norton chat show and one of the Radio 4 review shows. The BBC has form for this, but I understand that recently they investigated themselves over the practice and found that it was all fine.

That’s OK then. Jimmy Savile, anyone?

Anyhow, back to the interview, after the initial line of questioning which went something along the lines of ‘You have a new book out, how fantastic is it?’ and ‘You do lots of stuff for the BBC, how fantastic are you?’ and ‘You’re one of the country’s best loved comics, would you mind if I just slipped your penis into my mouth whilst you tell us all about your magnificence?’, we turned to the premise of the book. I forget the title of the book, it is a play on words on the title of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and it seems to suggest (bearing in mind I’ve not read the book) that being British is pretty cool; but only if you’re a part of the ever so clever metropolitan ‘liberal’ elite.

The starting point for the premise appears to be the opening ceremony of last summer’s Olympics. It was, as we all know, a triumph. I’m happy to accept that, I was sceptical about the Olympics and I was absolutely delighted to be proven incredibly wrong, the whole affair from curtain up to curtain down was a wonderful thing. Anyhow, Dennis was saying about how the opening ceremony got him to ponder the age old question of what it is to be British. Here things started to get a little lazy, Bacon was breathlessly talking about how we obviously all love the NHS and what a great thing it is, yada yada yada.

The conversation took a very odd turn here, with a line drawn between the bounce in the feeling that it was good to British (as long as you’re a part of the ever so clever metropolitan ‘liberal’ elite) and the increase in ‘anti-European’ sentiment, which is obviously an opinion held by those who are not a part of the ever so clever metropolitan ‘liberal’ elite.

No! I was screaming at the radio, it isn’t anti-European sentiment at all. Let me place this on the record once again; I adore Europe, it is the most magical place, there is nowhere on Earth with the diversity of our continent. Visitors from North America and the Antipodes are dumbstruck that you can drive your car onto a train in Folkestone, speaking English and doing something one way, arrive just over half an hour later in France, speaking French and doing something another way, and then driving east for twenty minutes, turning up in Belgium, speaking Flemish and doing that thing in another different way. It is amazing, beautiful, exciting, and the people in charge of the EU will not stop until every bit of joy and difference is squeezed out of it, they will not stop until everything is grey, uniform, dull and predictable, and they will not stop to ask us if it is what we want. It isn’t anti-Europe, it is anti-EU, they are two very, very different things.

It is all part of this bias which pervades the BBC. They really do believe that anyone who is opposed to the EU is a small minded bigot, they are incapable of considering any other point of view. They think that we are dangerous and unhinged.

It continued with accusations of opinion becoming insular. No! Not insular at all. The EU is a bloc, a cell. It locks us up, it prevents us from looking outside, it prevents us from expanding, from interacting. Opposition to the EU is precisely because we do not want to be insular, we want to be out there in the wilds, doing exciting stuff, getting dirty. The EU may be a bloody big place, but it is still a prison cell, with the way Europe’s economy is going it is akin to being locked inside a stately home as it falls into disrepair around you.

Then came the charge of isolationism. God, I hate that, it is so, so lazy. It is the EU which is isolationist, it is seeking to build a wall between its citizens, its member states and the rest of the world. They don’t want us to talk outside the club, they’ll look after that for us. We are a member of a bigger club, a better club, with more to offer, a club which exists to facilitate communication, business, ideas, real proper progress, it is the Commonwealth. You run a referendum on EU membership alongside a referendum on Commonwealth membership and see what the result is, you’d have to be certifiable to suggest leaving the Commonwealth, membership of it is nothing but virtuous. It doesn’t seek to dictate, it doesn’t seek to exclude or to control. It is the perfect model of what a multi-national organisation should be, it is neighbourly, friendly, egalitarian. There’s no ulterior motive, there’s no big political agenda, it is a group of countries working together to help each other out, nobody has to do anything they don’t want to, nobody is strong armed into doing anything, and we’re right at the heart of it.

Isolationism? Give me strength, we’re looking at expanding our horizons across the globe, not pulling down the shutters and pretending the world stops at Dover.

I get so angry with this lazy, prejudiced and wrong headed attitude, and the BBC promotes it unthinkingly. It isn’t about Little England, it is about Global Britain.

Needless to say I changed the CD as soon as I got home.

Stop the money.

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I’ve kept my silence over the whole Jimmy Savile thing for a number of reasons, but having seen the Panorama on Monday night and the session that Entwistle had in front of the select committee yesterday, it seems to me that the BBC has a deal to answer for.

The first issue is the question of the use of BBC facilities by Savile to perpetrate his abuse. It would be opportunistic to demand that the BBC is broken up because of the allegations. Whilst it does not excuse what went on, it is true to say that this happened a good number of years ago, and those who were active in the abuse or allowed either through ignorance or incompetence to allow the abuse to go on within the BBC estate are likely to be retired or dead.

The fact that the abuse went on within the BBC’s rooms is a stain on the reputation of the organisation, but it is not reasonable to suggest that it is still going on now. Vengefully dismantling the BBC because of what happened all those years ago will not undo the damage that was done.

It may well be that the BBC’s own investigation highlights weaknesses in their system that allowed the abuse to go on. They may well be weaknesses that still exist today, however the BBC are not alone, the same questions need also to be put to the regimes that were, and are, in charge at Stoke Mandeville, Broadmoor and Leeds General hospitals. Just from a security angle it seems a nonsense (from a contemporary viewpoint) that a celebrity volunteer could be given keys to a high security mental institution, and that the same celebrity would be blithely allowed to remove those people within to go to the taping of a TV show. Many organisations have many uncomfortable questions to ask of themselves.

I can’t help but reflect on other scandals where equally undesirable allegations have been made about public bodies. The Metropolitan Police were famously branded as ‘institutionally racist’ – this to me didn’t mean that they actively went out and recruited racists, what it means to me was that there was a culture of silence and an ignorance about the issues and indicators of racism within the organisation which allowed it to go on. That the Met was/is ‘institutionally racist’ seems to be accepted wisdom now, but I’ve always found it to be a lazy badge to pin onto the organisation. Certainly an organisation is responsible for the actions of their employees, but as an organisation gets bigger and bigger, this is not always an easy thing to keep tabs on.

Given what we heard about junior members of staff keeping quiet and that it never occurred to others to say anything about their suspicions surrounding Savile and the abuse that was allowed to go on inside its walls, would it be fair to dub the BBC, the doyen of the left, as ‘institutionally paedophile’?

Removed from the question of the abuse is the second issue, that of the whole Newsnight/Panorama/Tribute mess. It seemed amazing to me that the DG – a former head of ‘vision’, that being television to those of us who choose not to play in the sandpit of management speak, who was responsible for overseeing the content of programmes and their scheduling, answered ‘I don’t know’ or otherwise came up with generally unsatisfactory answers to the questions put to him. I don’t see how in that situation he can credibly claim to be able to do his job.

I reckon that this will probably cost him his job, and I would agree that it really isn’t his fault. But there most people and I will diverge. You see, it is all the fault of the system. The response to this for most people is to shrug their shoulders. Nothing can be done about this. And it is the BBC. That seems to be an end to it. And herein lies the problem. Just as with the NHS, the BBC’s existence seems to be the justification for its existence. To question whether that existence is proper or desirable is to commit some unspeakable heresy.

The mystique surrounding the BBC is remarkable. It is the best media outlet in the world, we are told. It is stated as fact, as certain as night following day and rain being wet. Well, I don’t buy it. Having seen the Panorama and the select committee session, I’m none the wiser as to why the Newsnight editor spiked the story and given the investigation by the Newsnight staff why it was deemed desirable to screen a Boxing Day tribute to the old perv. Don’t these people talk to each other?

The answer, rather than being no, seems to be ‘it’s complicated’. I’m sorry? That’s not an acceptable response. To blithely say that current affairs and news is very different to light entertainment is bollocks. Yoghurts and HGV’s are very different, but in order for a supermarket to function properly the person responsible for the former has to be able to talk to the person responsible for the latter. I cannot believe that somewhere at the top, or indeed on the shop floor, someone did not know that these two items, wildly conflicting in tone were knocking around. The fact that a system is in place that has prevented a satisfactory assessment of this situation from taking place is not dealt with by a fatalistic shrug of the shoulders and an ‘ahhh well, it’s the system you see.’

I was slack jawed to see the reports, delivered with great relish, that the Panorama boys would have got great pleasure from getting one over the Newsnight mob. Even more amazing were suggestions that those involved in Newsnight who gave interviews to Panorama were somehow being disloyal and could find their next few weeks in the office to be a little uncomfortable. Excuse me? So you tell me that within the news and current affairs silos that they don’t talk to each other as well? Going back to our supermarket, this is like a dairy section where the people in yoghurts won’t talk to those bastards in cream. This is insanity.

If ever there were an indication of what the BBC is, this is it writ large. It is an NGO, a quango. It just happens to make TV shows. This is how a government department works, lots of power hungry people building little empires determined to nobble their peers and opponents (normally their peers are their opponents) in some ridiculous game of politics. Competition in the workplace is healthy, desirable and goes on everywhere, but not at the expense of the organisation. Does this sort of demarkation go on in Sky? Bearing in mind that recently there was a real question over whether Sky were fit and proper to hold a broadcast licence. Well where’s the discussion over the BBC’s fitness? I’m betting Sky One, Sky News and Sky Sports talk to each other in a much more effective fashion than the BBC manages. Compare the response to the Richard Keys/Andy Gray sexism storm to the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand phone call saga. Sky acted immediately, the BBC prevaricated and dragged their heels before finally coming to a result.

The crucial difference is Sky would lose advertisers and subscribers if they didn’t act. What would the BBC lose? A bit of face. Nothing else.

The BBC is not capable of reacting, communicating or producing output in any credible fashion. I’m not even going to touch upon their bias. Yet we are pretty much obliged to fund them. On our largesse they become ever more bloated and feel ever more entitled, all the while feeding us the line that they are the best in the world at what they do.

This episode demonstrates why the licence fee needs to be scrapped, and why this overgrown and spoiled baby needs to be sent out into the big bad world on its own. Not because Jimmy Savile sexually abused children within its confines, not because at the time nothing was done to stop it, but because they are incapable of even reporting the fact in a straight forward and transparent manner.

It ain’t irrational.

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An, errrrm, interesting piece in the ‘magazine’ section of the BBC website this morning where it conducts a very swift investigation into what our neighbours over the channel think of what is referred to a ‘the British problem’, that being are we in or out?

There’s the usual feeling from the BBC that any suggestion we leave is to be treated in the same way a suggestion that you go and take a dump through next door’s letterbox would.

But there are a few phrases contained within which exasperate and disturb me in equal measure:

A commentary by Michael Stuermer in the German daily Die Welt says it is “in the German interest to keep Britain in the EU at almost any cost”.

At almost any cost. Almost? So you’re saying you wouldn’t support the despatching of troops to these shores if we should be impertinent enough to try to leave this tedious little house party under our own steam. To be honest, if Germany needs to rely on us remaining in their western Soviet bloc, then they must be in real trouble.

Mr Quatremer argues that . . . “the new generation of Conservative leaders is fanatically europhobic”.

Excuse me whilst I go and change my pants, I seem to have wet them through laughing. Conservative leaders? Fanatical? Europhobic? Oh mate, you’ve seen nothing yet, I’m supposing you think Nick Clegg amounts to no more than a disinterested bystander?

The words used really could come straight out of Stalin’s propaganda office. Fanatical. Well, I’m not the one who is determined to sweep away all the nation states and bankrupt everyone in the process, no matter what. I really want us to leave the EU, and I wouldn’t describe myself as a fanatic, to call Cameron a fanatic is stretching reality to beyond breaking point.

Then there’s the use of the word ‘europhobic’. Once again, taking me as an individual with a much harder line than Cameron, I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as a europhobe. I love Europe, it is the most amazingly diverse place and there’s few things I find more entertaining that wandering around her cities, discovering new things or new ways of doing things. The languages, the food, the national personalities, all of it, I don’t think any other continent has so much to see and do in such a small space, it is wonderful.

However, Europe is not the EU, I don’t want us to get out of Europe, that’s a silly thing for anyone to say, akin to saying you don’t want to live under a blue sky. Get us out of the EU? Hell, yeah.

But even then, I’m not phobic. My fear of the EU is entirely rational, based on past and current behaviour and their plans for the future, even their stated ultimate goal. Do I fear it? Absolutely, but it certainly isn’t irrational.

Selective reporting.

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Now, I am not a supporter of the EDL. I don’t oppose them as such, but I’m not going to bang the drum for them either. I think they’re wrong because they are going after a symptom, not a disease. The real issue is the people who enable certain sections of society to behave in a manner which is forbidden for others. As a very simple illustration, imagine what would happen if the General Synod of the Anglican church stood around demanding the beheading of those who insult Christianity. There is no equality there.

I don’t blame the EDL, they know that something is very wrong, but they’ve lashed out at the puppet, not the puppeteer.

They’re easily demonised; predominantly white, predominantly working class, they lack a certain élan, they lack subtlety. I don’t blame them, they’re angry, many are, I just think they’re angry at the wrong people. That isn’t to say that I don’t think extremists of any religion are objectionable, repulsive and wrong on pretty much every level, they are, but they are a symptom and a tool. If they didn’t exist they’d have to be invented. The idea that we could not have a common terror is one that itself fills politicians with terror, it is one of the most effective tools available to them.

Just to be certain that the fear is kept well fed and exercised, the EDL are held up as being just as dangerous as those they protest against. And, funnily enough where’er they appear, trouble seems to follow.

This weekend saw an EDL demo in Walsall, and you can be sure that the fantastically deluded UAF (Unite Against Fascism) were there as well, making sure we don’t descend into some neo-fascist hell-hole by doing everything in their power to make sure that freedom of expression and freedom of association are stamped out. Yes, yes. I know, you realise, but unfortunately they don’t. But they’re just another little tool in the toolbox, willing and/or unwitting participants in the Two Minutes Hate, and as we know, the horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible not to join in. That hate is a powerful force, it cannot be subjected to logic, it cannot be challenged, it is just as powerful as the hate displayed by the religious extremists and the EDL.

And how do we stoke the hate, the hate against the Muslim extremists, the hate against the EDL and the hate against UAF?

Simple, selective reporting.

Now, I want you to read the BBC report here, and then answer the following questions:

1. Who were the ‘other’ group?

2. Who started the trouble?

3. From which group did the arrested come?

No? Me neither, I know what the answers to the above questions are by insinuation, but I can’t say if the conclusions that we are led to draw are correct or not.

Except I’m a cynical old bugger. If the EDL were the antagonists here, I would expect the article to be crowing about it, as it doesn’t, I’m leaning towards the conclusion that it was the EDL who were the target of the violence.

Details? No?

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I’m not sure if it’s been on the national news today, but there was something of a special event in Kent this morning. Just outside the little town of Sandwich, close to the ancient Roman fort at Richborough, stands, or rather stood, a collection of cooling towers. If you’re a fan of the golf, they’re the towers visible on the telly when the Open comes to Royal St. George.

They’ve not been functioning since the nineties. Originally built to burn the coal and generate power from the coal mines in Kent (yes, we had them as well, not just the Welsh, Yorkists and Nottinghamshirers or whatever you call them), the plant turned to burning oil after the pits closed down. Much of the site had already been demolished. I have mixed feelings about the demolition of the towers. You can’t accuse them of being beautiful, but there’s something starkly handsome about them. They’re not loved, but they will be missed, they’ve been such a big part of the landscape and skyline in a very rural area for so long it will just seem odd not seeing them. Even coming across the ridge into Canterbury from Hythe you can see right over to Thanet, it’s a route I take quite regularly, and it’ll be funny looking to the east and not seeing them.

Anyhow, there’s scores videos of what was a very impressive show this morning, and people travelled from all over to see the event, the roads were busier than they’ve been since the Open was last here in the summer. Even at some considerable distance I could hear four distinct and loud booms in Canterbury at 9am, which I was not expecting even though I knew the demolition was due then.

Here’s one of the many recordings of the event:

But people can’t enjoy this, and the BBC has poured cold water over the whole affair and even for them they’ve done it with indecent haste and in an alarmingly slipshod fashion.

You see their site has their video of the event, I reproduce the article which is placed here in its totality. Unabridged, unedited, completely as is.

Ready?

 

 

Wildlife campaigners say the planned demolition of the cooling towers and chimney at Richborough power station could harm a seal colony which lives in the area.

 

That’s it.

No. Really. That is it.

No mention of which wildlife group, no mention of how the demolition could harm them, nothing. Just a simple, easy to digest message telling you to be miserable.

Now the old station is near the coast, but isn’t on the coast. It’s not like the near-by Dungeness nuke station where the guy at the gate will get wet feet at a very high tide. Look here’s an image with the station and the scale highlighted:

I’m not an expert on marine mammals, but I’m failing to understand how a demolition job on some old towers over 1.5km from the beach could harm the seals, even if the seals happened to be sat on that beach at the time.

Just for once, do you not think the BBC could leave us to enjoy the spectacle of a rarely seen event without bringing us down and trying to make us feel guilty?

No? Thought not. The sooner the licence fee is scrapped, the better.

That pesky democracy thing.

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The EU hate democracy. They know best, dammit, and it really is the most intolerable imposition when people won’t do as they’re bloody told. How are they supposed to usher in their era of utopia and solidarity when people go around voting for stuff that isn’t in the plan?

No, it must be stopped. That’s easy enough in their own institutions, there’s not a hope in hell of me or you getting a say in the selection of the Commissars and the parliament is just a large rubber stamp, like the enormous gatherings you used to see in the USSR (as an aside I attended a talk given by Nigel Farage as part of a season of political debates hosted by a local university the other night, during the Q&A session one of the Labour/Common Purpose/EU placemen who’d been parachuted in actually used the phrase ‘democratically elected’ in respect of Van Rompuy. I and a number of the audience had to take five minutes to change our under crackers after that. Farage spoke without notes whilst the placemen were reading from sheets, posing questions which had no doubt been handed to them. Farage won, even accounting for my bias.)

But how to do this with national parliaments? They’ve demonstrated they can unseat a democratic leader when the need presents itself. But how to ensure you keep control? After all, elections have to come eventually.

The answer is simple, you make all the parties sign an agreement that states when election time comes around, the electorate will have no alternatives, they will only be able to vote for what the EU wants.

I’ll let the BBC take over:

They [the Eurozone ministers] have also insisted that all major Greek parties give an assurance that the cuts will be enacted regardless of who wins a general election scheduled for April.

That’s it. No comment on that from the BBC at all. Democracy removed at a stroke. This is one step from all parties having to submit their manifestos for approval. And it merits one sentence in a BBC report.

Antonis Samaras, whose New Democracy party is a member of the governing coalition, has hinted that he would try to renegotiate the bailout deal after the election.

Reports say he has refused to give a written assurance that the cuts would be enforced.

Naughty Antonis, bad Antonis.

New Democracy is expected to win the election.

Hence the rushed insistence that all the politicians sign up to the EU’s demands. Because now it’s looking a little shaky again, the other day it was all settled, now it’s up in the air. Someone the EU doesn’t like might win and we can’t have that. Note that Samaras hasn’t said that he’d phone Olli Rehn and tell him to go stick his head in a pig, he hasn’t said he’d ensure that a dirty great default went ahead (surely the best thing for Greece), no he said that he’d TRY to renegotiate terms.

Well who does he think he is? How dare he make a statement to be put in front of the electorate, get elected on that promise and then try to represent those who put him in charge? No, no, no, that will never do.

On Sunday, Greek MPs approved extra cutbacks, but coalition parties had to expel more than 40 deputies for failing to back the bill.

Had to? Had to? Since when was representing your constituents and saying ‘hang on a minute, I don’t agree with this’ a disciplinary offence? What sanction was available to use against those parties who decided not to expel their deputies?

Just as here, never for one moment think that your MP is there to represent you, they are there to push through the wishes of their party machinery and increasingly the agenda of the EU.

It’s happened there, it’ll happen here. This is why the next time the Conservatives call round my gaff I’ll send them away with a flea in their ear. Labour only field paper candidates down here, and the LimpDims don’t call any more, because I just laugh at them when they do. Cameron’s three line whip over the referendum debate means that I would never vote for his party whilst he had any influence over it, he’s decided that we need to stay in, and therefore I can just sit down and shut up. Uh-huh, no way sunshine. Bad news for Daniel Hannan, a man I have a good deal of respect for, but that’s one vote he’s down in the next Euro elections.

As for Julian Brazier, I wrote to him a fortnight before the debate entreating him to vote in favour of a referendum, he didn’t reply until after the vote, when he voted against. In his letter he told me he was a Eurosceptic. His voting record suggests otherwise. So he can bog off as well.

There will be no orderly default by Greece, there will be no amicable departure from the EU by the UK. It will only end in violence, destruction, fire, blood and death. I am resigned to that now.

I only hope that those responsible for ensuring this response from us, the voiceless population of an entire continent, will be dealt with as traitors and criminals.

Can I have a refund please?

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There’s been much gnashing of teeth about the freezing (note, not cutting) of the licence fee in BBC circles, it’ll be the end of the world, etc. etc. Quite, it isn’t as if the Guardian has the funds to pay for their dead tree and on-line coverage to be converted into radio and TV is it? If the budget is frozen and the costs of production go up, then how are they to feed us their propaganda so effectively? Propaganda that we are obliged to pay for if we watch broadcast TV whether we agree with it and want it or not.

How to rationalise that finance stream?

Simple, sell advertising. They’ve been doing it on their website for some time, access it from abroad and you’ll see.

Now they’re going to be selling advertising space in broadcast media*.

Proposals in response to Government-set World Service target to raise £3m in commercial income by 2013-14

So, they take a service, which by dint of owning a television that acts a receiving device for signals I am obliged to fund and they then sell advertising on that network. Well, I have a problem with that.

A pretty big problem, actually.

You see the BBC reacts with horror at the thought of having to rely on anything so crass as advertising to fund itself, it seems to be of the opinion that having funding ripped from the public leads to content which is somehow morally and artistically superior to anything which is tainted by the hand of (gulp) commerce. Oh, no no no, that’ll never do. Have you seen Total Wipeout or The Queen’s Bodyguard? Don’t even get me started on Eastenders and the One Show.

I resent being forced to pay for a service that lectures and hectors me, that is entirely convinced of its moral superiority over me, that wastes money at an alarming rate employing a staff that would make a commercial operation bankrupt within a month. I resent the fact that the world view of that service is totally at odds to mine, that the service pretty much tells me that I am somehow undesirable, unhinged, evil. I resent their arrogance and their belief that their very existence is self-evident proof of their superiority over every other media outlet, not just nationally but globally. I resent the fact that their news coverage is biased to such an extent that Lord Reith is probably rotating at such a speed that if he was wired up to the national grid he could power a town the size of Ipswich. I resent the fact that their daytime TV coverage is nothing, and I mean nothing, but repeats of lowest common denominator home makeover and sales shows combined with programmes that show people hawking their tat through auction rooms. I resent the fact that their evening programmes are comprised of suicide inducing soap operas, cock-eyed documentaries/consumer advice shows and dreary dramas that are formulaic at best or ready for the knacker’s yard at worst. Occasionally, perhaps once a quarter, something of some value comes along. The cost to me per annum? £145.

Now, I don’t think they’re any worse than ITV or C4. I think Sky are marginally better and offer me a much better service for my subscription. Idiot Abroad? Their recent Treasure Island? The latter was especially good, and used to be the sort of thing that the BBC would do in their sleep. Now? Forget it. The big difference being is that I don’t fund ITV, and if I decide that I don’t want to pay for Sky’s TV package then I just have to make a phone call.

What I really, really resent is being forced to pay for their coverage and then discover that the fuckers go out and sell bloody advertising on it. This pisses me off immensely.

Wherefore your adamant declarations that the BBC with adverts just won’t work? Hmmmm? Now you want to have your cake and eat it. Well screw you. Once the first month is over, the Dept. of Culture, Media & Sport (Gawd help us) should turn up and say ‘See, it can work, so we’ll just drop the whole licence fee thing, shall we?’ Oh, if they did that the BBC staff would down tools and go out on strike, and you know what? Nobody would notice.

But… but…Eastenders! Doctor Who! Vital local radio! They’ll cry. Fine, then charge a subscription fee to access a coded channel, if your flagship shows are that popular people will pay to watch them. As for vital local radio, look at commercial local radio, which as far as I can make out is booming, but is not as narrowly defined on local grounds as once it was.

The whining will continue, local radio, I am told, will let people know which schools are closed because of snow. Really? Are we having a laugh? £110m a year for the few days when it snows? Do these schools or LEA’s not have t’internet? One of my friends is constantly bombarded with text messages from her child’s school reminding of this and promoting that.

No, I want the BBC to have every penny of public funding removed. However what I really want is for me to get a refund. You don’t take my money and then use it to sell advertising, you bastards.

There is one last point, it’ll be shown to not work. The BBC doesn’t want to sell advertising, it wants more of my money:

Figures released last July show the World Service lost 14 million listeners in 12 months.

Around 166 million people tuned in each week in 2010/11, down from 180 million in the previous year.

They’ve lost the population of Zambia in one year. I could probably make some suggestions as to why that is. You just watch, the World Service will continue to see its figures nosedive and the blame will be laid squarely at the feet of advertising.

*I appreciate this has been going over at BBC World (and that really is turgid) for some time now, but we don’t get BBC World on TV in the UK, however broadcasting the World Service with adverts means it will come with adverts in the UK.

Hackers? Amateur?

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There’s an interesting piece over at the BBC today, it’s all about people grouping together to put satellites into space and perhaps doing their own moon landing.

It sounds cool and rather expensive. I’m sceptical as to whether it will come off any time soon or not, but the concept is a nice one.

What isn’t nice is the tone the good ol’ BBC takes, it betrays their almost total lack of capacity for independent thought and how they seek to manage their audience’s reactions to story.

Let’s see what they’ve written through the . . . hmmm. . . round window. . .

Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.

Oh, they’re hackers, are they? Must be, because only hackers would seek to sidestep censorship wouldn’t they? It is only those who are doing wrong who fear censorship, it is only those with something to hide who would welcome a comms system that is not state run or regulated.

Longer term they hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon.

Oh, amateur, eh? Now I for one think that a private enterprise astronaut is as cool as can be, but are we supposed to believe that if they do this, the astronaut will be unpaid? Use of the term is such a wilful ignorance of the spirit behind this type of endeavour. The message is that only the state can be relied on to do this sort of thing.

It’s interesting because it is space exploration that has bucked the trend in the field of human endeavour, being almost entirely state sponsored. The first properly functioning steamboat, Palmipède was built in France, privately, in 1774. In 1804 Trevithick gave the first steam locomotive railway that would be recognisable today its debut in Merthyr (Stephenson’s Rocket didn’t come along until 1829) and the first passenger line, the ‘Crab and Winkle line’ running between Canterbury and Whitstable opened in 1830. All of them private enterprises.

In 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard was the first to fly across the channel in his dirigible, and by attaching a propeller to one of his craft became a pioneer of powered flight. State assistance? Nil. In 1903 the Wright brothers may or may not have been the first to use a powered aeroplane, it almost doesn’t matter if they were the first or not, like their contemporaries they had no state assistance.

As for the automobile, well Cugnot sort of got there first in 1769. Trevithick (again) developed a steam powered road locomotive in 1801 and another Frenchman, Niepce constructed what is considered to be the first internal combustion engine. In 1885 we saw the arrival of Benz’s motorwagen, the first thing that could reasonably be looked at and be recognisable as a car. Not one penny of public money involved.

So why is it so ridiculous to suggest that a private enterprise put a man on the moon? From where I’m looking it’s the evidence of history that makes the BBC looks foolish for being so glibly dismissive. As for satellites, well, there’s a similar pattern with the development of the telegraph, computer, telephone, cinema, radio, television and internet, all of which have been developed independently. The State cannot do this stuff, it does not encourage innovation, it can only appropriate. Indeed when a big idea, like a code breaking computer or a jet engine, lands in their lap they don’t see its worth until it is demonstrated with the aid of diagrams, field trips and words of one syllable.

The BBC is a perfect example of what happens when the State appropriates a really cool idea. The sooner they lose all their public funding, the better.

Epilogue

I often think it would be a cool story to document the tribulations of a fictional group of independent colonists who head off to set up home on the Moon (it’s probably already been done, but I’m not a big Sci-Fi literature buff, perhaps one of you dear readers can provide an example or two). I find myself wondering how long it would take for one government or organisation such as the UN or EU to claim Dominion over them even though they were off-world. Colonisation is probably more likely to happen than not and surely the idea of a group of latter day Pilgrim Fathers saying ‘sod this, we’re off’ isn’t too far fetched? It’ll be fascinating to watch the powers that be argue that their jurisdiction extends to celestial bodies beyond our own when it happens.

I must be a bit odd.

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I’m surprised the BBC hasn’t stopped broadcasting in mourning over Cameron’s gentle ‘no’ to the EU. I’m sure I’ve heard the strains of sombre music in the background during the Beeb’s coverage of the story. And they’ve been keen to tell us just how disastrous this whole episode is.

Thing is, I don’t think it’s disastrous at all, but then I must be a bit odd. You see, I don’t want to live under an organisation that doesn’t have its accounts signed off. I don’t want to live under an organisation that hamstrings its own anti-fraud unit and persecutes those who highlight corruption within the organisation. I don’t want to live under an organisation that says to its members ‘this is what we’re going to do, are you in or are you in?’ and then effectively says that they’ll worry about all the legal and democratic stuff, if they really have to, at some unspecified date in the future. Down that road lies the sort of place where a knock comes at the door at 3am with an invitation to attend re-education camps.

In an attempt to scare us, the BBC lists a load of quotes that actually only serve to hearten and re-assure me:

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, head of the Germany’s FDP group, part of the European Liberals, goes as far as to say it was “a mistake to let the British into the EU”.

Not quite, it was a mistake for us to apply to join it in the first place. If only we’d taken the hint from De Gaulle at the time.

Britain must now renegotiate its relationship with the EU, he said. “Either they [the British] do it on their own initiative, or the EU refounds itself – without Great Britain. Switzerland is a model towards which Britain can turn itself.”

Now you’re talking! This is the very model of what we should be. I’ve heard someone on the news talking about Britain needing to aspire to being more than a peripheral player like Switzerland is. He’s missing the point, I don’t want us to be in charge of anything, that point in our history has passed, what I want is for us to be free, happy, prosperous and respected. No more, it isn’t our job to tell people what to do. It would seem the Germans and French have yet to come to terms with this.

Meanwhile Daniel Cohen-Bendit, joint leader of the Greens in the European Parliament has labelled Mr Cameron “a weakling”.

No, you see, where I’m from, standing up to a greedy arrogant bully is a desirable personality trait. It takes strength to go against what everyone else is doing. To use that logic would mean we were weak to stand alone in Europe in 1941.

German Christian Democrat MEP Elmar Brok, foreign policy spokesman for the centre-right in the European parliament, echoed his sentiment: “If you’re not ready to abide by the rules, you’d do better to keep your mouth shut.”

No, we’d do better to walk away if we’re not ready to abide by the rules. You go and play your little game, I don’t care.

Yvan Duvant, writing to the BBC from Olargues, in France, says that as the UK is slowing down the move towards EU integration, it should leave the union altogether: “What’s the point of keeping this country in the EU? The British people should put pressure on their government to quit. Maybe the British would do better without the EU. Europe will definitely do better without the UK.”

Fair enough. Kick us out then, I’d be delighted. If you’re happy, and we’re happy then where’s the beef? Let’s go our separate ways, shall we? No hard feelings and all that. I hope you’re right about being better off without us, but I have my doubts. Still, it’s your decision as to what you do, not mine.

In Italy, too, some are angered by Britain’s failure to play ball. “There is an obstacle to Europe and it must be overcome. It’s not Germany,” Massimo Riva tells Repubblica TV. “Right now, the main obstacle is Britain.

“And this dirty game that the British are playing – wanting to stay with one foot in and one foot out of Europe – risks collapsing the entire system. London must be either in, or out. But they simply cannot sabotage everything.”

Then, once again, kick us out. Please.

The country’s main financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore, calls the move a “British bluff” which leaves the country isolated.

“The British manoeuvre [means] that London now finds itself outside, on the margins of Europe. The first European Council session in Brussels, which should have solidified and perhaps even resolved the euro crisis produced instead, after 11 hours of tense and at times dramatic talks, a deep division between member states.”

Isolated? Hardly, there’s the UN Security Council, NATO and most importantly, the Commonwealth. There’s no isolation here, indeed in an increasingly global village, we’re placed with good relationships in all sort of interesting and exciting places, it is being mired in this snooty little retirement close that is holding us back. We can be on the margins of Europe, but at the centre of the world. You look through your net curtains like an old pensioner, tutting at the youngsters on their bikes with their mobile phones and I-pods, we’ll go out and do interesting things.

Seeing things from a different perspective, Luca Gaballo, writing in the RaiNews24 blog L’Europa Errante, calls this Cameron’s “Waterloo moment”.

“All of continental Europe goes forward, leaving Britain behind – towards a common fiscal policy, rules that will govern finance, work and business. Cameron finds himself alone.”

Yes, we stood alone on one or two memorable moments before now. From a British perspective, a Waterloo moment is the moment you stand up to an arrogant, short-arsed French tyrant and give him a damn good thrashing. I’m sure Cameron will be delighted he’s being compared to the Iron Duke, although I’m not sure if he deserves it yet.

Le Figaro calls it Mr Cameron’s “dangerous game” and writes that Britain has merely honoured its reputation as a dissident nation, never intending to play along.

Yes, that’s us. Standing up for what we believe in, rather than operating as a puppet government, herding people into cattle trucks. Guilty as charged.

“No sooner did David Cameron cross the entrance to the council, on the occasion of the 8 December summit, than the sky over the negotiations darkened. He had one aim: to protect British interests.”

Guilty as charged. And? I’m sorry, is there something wrong in a leader protecting the interests of the people who put him there? If so, then we’ve been doing this wrong for, ooooh, well, longer than about pretty much every other country in the world. We’ve a bit more experience than you, don’t worry, you’ll catch up soon enough. Enjoy your bloody and violent revolution when the awful truth dawns. We’ll be playing cricket and drinking Pimms in our garden.

Seemingly keen to avoid further damaging relations between the French and English, Le Monde reminds its readers of all the things they love about the UK, which, it writes, are “impossible to number”.

“From the concept of habeas corpus to the BBC, to Elizabethan poetry to John Le Carre, from rock to the invention of the Sixties, from London springtime concerts to Wimbledon, via Liverpool FC. So many things do we hold dear from across the Channel… But Germany, France and the majority of the other EU member states were right, at daybreak on Friday 9 December, to say No to London.”

And I love, errrm, well, I think Renoir is kinda cool, Zidane was good, although as many French pointed out before the ’98 World Cup, he wasn’t, along with his other African team mates, really French. I do like a baguette, and Voltaire had some interesting things to say. London was right to say No to the EU.

Although many in the UK might disagree, Le Monde continues: “Brits are not part of this euro crisis. And they have no responsibility for the failure of its institutions to resolve this sovereign debt crisis.”

Well, we are part of it unfortunately, although thankfully not as big a part of it as you lot are. But if you think that it is our institutions that are responsible for the current €uro pickle. . . well, tell you what, cut us loose, I’m sure that’ll solve your problems overnight.

Just to prove they’re not biased, here comes the BBC balance. Don’t blink, you’ll miss it.

Carmel Magri, writing to the BBC from Malta, agrees and congratulates Mr Cameron on “doing the right thing for all European people, not like our puppet Maltese prime minister. Britain doesn’t need Europe like it did in other centuries”.

No, I’m not scared by this in the slightest. Bring. It. On.

 

Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me.

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As poor as Papandreou and Berlusconi were as Prime Ministers, we must not lose sight of the fact that they were elected in democratic elections, something their successors cannot lay claim to. I’ll leave aside my objections to these successors’ politics for the moment. What has chilled me to the bone is this from the BBC:

Who, What, Why: What can technocrats achieve that politicians can’t?

I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.

As the prime ministers of Italy and Greece exited through the revolving doors of power, in came two wise men with no mandate to govern but clutching glittering CVs.

Glittering? Really? Please elucidate.

While he was EU competitions commissioner, respected economist Mario Monti showed his mettle by taking on computing giant Microsoft, and he’s expected to appoint a government made up of other technocrats.

Riiiiiiiiight. So he was an EU commissioner, and that’s glittering, is it? He ‘took on’ Microsoft. That’s the same Microsoft who have the same ubiquitous hold on the PC software market now as they did then? I’ve no axe to grind with Microsoft, there’s a reason so many people have their software installed on computers, it is because despite of the gripes surrounding it, it is the best on offer. And he’s giving jobs to his mates. Well, so far, so the EU in microcosm.

Lucas Papademos is former vice-president of the European Central Bank.

The BBC don’t inform us of his glittering list of achievements. Probably because it contains stuff about the Euro. You know, that same currency which is to blame in a large part for Greece’s demise?

Both men now find themselves cast as the unlikely saviours of these two countries and by extension, the eurozone.

Let’s wait to see what they save, shall we? If we’re supposed to believe they’re there to save Greece and Italy, we may be disappointed. Make no mistake, their job is to save the Euro.

The following just about pushed me over the edge (I publish excerpts, for the whole context go and read the article, if you can stomach it.):

What technocrats can do is rise above the paralysing political rancour in these two countries, says Marco Incerti of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

The democratic approval will come at a later stage

The Soviet Union is sometimes held up as the world’s first technocratic government

There are several benefits to a technocrat-led government in times of crisis

there is an anti-intellectual streak in British politics

Bear in mind this article is telling us that technocratic governments are a good thing. So as far as the BBC is concerned, technocrats are better than elected politicians, they don’t need democratic backing, they are beneficial during a crisis (when is there never a crisis?) and we in the UK only vote for stupid people, thus we must assume that the electorate are stupid. Oh, and the government of the USSR was a good thing as well.

What is the licence fee for again?