La BBC et les émeutes du 8/8

La BBC convoque une réunion a Birmingham. Sous la houlette de R4.

Curieusement, elle souligne que l'audience n'est pas selectionnee, sauf sur la base de 1st come, 1st served. Un peu defensif?

Du panel de 5, 3 sont des gauchistes et les 2 autres sont moitiey-gauchistes.

Hear all sides. Bravo!

British self-deception

Part of the dream world that many Brits live in, where our mediocre society is supposedly the envy of the world, is that the English language has many more words than any other. Some idiot on the BBC said as much this morning, claiming 400 000 words. In fact the vast majority of these words are scientific compounds which exist in any cultivated language. Also, the German LEO dictionary claims to have 400 000 words. The way to deal with these idiots is to ask them to produce a word unique to English. They'll then say "chocolate" or some other word common to many languages.

The Weather

Earlier this year the Beeb announced it was changing its weather supplier from the official Met Office because of its naive performance.

It's now announced that it's retaining the Met Office. I'm preparing a Knol on the incredible BBC-Speak used to justify this volte-face.

BBC & Wealth

The Beeb likes to attack David Cameron, the Tory leader, for being rich. They constantly refer to the fact that he went to Eton, Britain's top school, at £28,000 a year (2010). About 33,000 Euro.

Nick Clegg, however, is Ok. He went to Westminster School. Current fees: 28,000 a year. In addition he has a house in Sheffield, an even bigger one in Putney, SW London, and his family have a chateau in France and a 20-bedroom chalet (?) in Switzerland. But that's OK by the BBC, he's not a Tory.

The BBC - a national f-g institution

My suggestion for the BBC's campaign to defend its licence fee (£142 - Eu 160) against possible action by the next Gumn - which will be Tory.

BBC Leyland

Reading the Guardian, a bloke is saying that the Beeb bought the Lonely Planet guidebooks for £90 million, but they're probably worth far less now.

Isn't the BBC like a nationalised industry? They can spend henormous amounts, claiming that this will increase their (pitiful) overseas sales, and if it fails, who cares? They'll get plenty more money.

Reminiscent of British Leyland, always about to make a profit and always given more money to waste. Until one day....

BBC in correct pronunciation shock

The wondrous Beeb had an interview on its BBC24 news channel with the new NATO Sec-Gen, the former dansk PM, Mr Anders Fogh Rasmussen (under a little noticed law passed a few years ago by the Danish parly (Folketing or People's Thing), all PMs must henceforth be called Rasmussen).

Amazingly, they pronounced his name correctly as Anners Fo Rasmussen.

This from the BBC (model for Orwell's Ministry of Truth, but it's not that bad) which in the 80s regularly reported from Moscow on Glaznoss, which is actually pronounced Gwassnawst. From the German word for glass, oddly enough.

Incidentally Mr Raz believes we can still win in Afghanistan. Yes, and all Hans Christian's stories are true.