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.

BBC World Service - BBC West Service

For some reason, BBC World Service is easily heard in southern England. It relays Western assumptions. E.g. if a bourgeoise woman is to be whipped for wearing trousers in the Sudan (she wasn't), this is big news. But the plight of the women of, say, the Congo is not, because rape and cannibalism are not feminist issues. Similarly, a Malaysian woman being prosecuted for drinking beer is more important than the plight of 75 million female Untouchables.



Similarly, the executions of 37 convicted criminals in the USA is an obsessive issue. The public murders of thousands of Chinese convicted after a brief trial is never an issue.

In fact the Western Assumption Service is beholden to the Foreign Office, which gives it its £150 million yearly budget.

BBC refuses to correct itself

£££££££££££££££££££££££££££

An interesting post by Mark Easton, the Beeb's Home Affairs editor. Feminists claim that the gap between male & female part-time earnings is 39%. The Govt's statistics tsar has asked the Equality (i.e. discrimination) Office to stop saying this, as they are clearly taking the figure for part-time earnings and comparing it with men's full-time earnings. They have not complied. The Beeb, however, continue to repeat this lie, ignoring their own Home Affairs editor. Nice one.

BBC Class warriors

The Govt. have published a report saying what a horrible class-ridden country Britain is. Labour's usual negativity. The BBC describe the report as independent. It is indeed. The report's author is Alan Milburn. Labour MP.

BBC's blank incuriosity

Today (Tuesday) French media are reporting the loss of an Airbus 310 in the Indian Ocean, from at least 6.30 London time. It didn't make R. Guardian's headlines at 8 a.m., but it was the 4th item on the news. It appears that 153 people have been lost.

The BBC failed to mention that another Airbus was lost 29 days ago in the South Atlantic. This was covered by the BBC in their usual tear-jerking fashion. Yet nobody at the Beeb noticed that the loss of 2 Airbuses in 33 days is CATASTROPHIC and will be the subject of intense scrutiny in the next few days. My guess is that the oh-so-wonderful Beeb employs only people with a blank incuriosity about the news. If an Airbus were lost every week, they would regard it as just random chance.

Aujourd'hui (mardi) les médias fransais annoncent la disparition d'un Airbus 310 a l'océan Indien, des au moins 6.30 heure de Londres...la "Beeb" ne fait aucune mention de la perte d'autre Airbus il ya 29 jours (1r juin), évidemment incurieuse de savoir comment on a perdu 2 Airbus en 4 semaines. Une catastrophé pour l'Aérospatiale.

BBC - can't even read the time

"6 minutes to 6" announced the hapless Jim Naughtie (sic) of R. Guardian's "Today", at 6 minutes to 8.

No-one corrected him.

The programme starts at 6 a.m.

BBC Secrecy

The BBC has been bullying MPs to get out of them how much expenses they have been claiming, and why.

Needless to say, with its effortless hypocrisy, it refuses to divulge how much its radio presenters receive - to a committee of MPs!

BBC News and its bizarre priorities

Radio Guardian's main morning news at 0800 often has odd, if not unique, top stories.

Today it's the inevitable fact that mosquitoes are becoming resistant to the current best drug.
Only 3 sites are shown on Google News with this "scoop" - 2 are specialized health sites and one is - BBC News.

Meanwhile 1000s of organs report on Ceylon/Pakistan/North Korea/GM-Opel-Vauxhall.

Gradually, during the day, the story will slip down the BBC running order and disappear by evening.

And for this we pay £3 billion!

Saturday - not really. Total number of sites covering story has crept up to 45 on Google News.

BBC and recession

Wonder if the recession will lead to the Beeb giving the Men in Black (sack) to some of its correspondents. If you listen carefully, most of them tell you nothing you couldn't get from reading the online papers. Almost every day one comes across a "Corresondent" you've never heard of. Yesterday it was a Home Affairs Corr. Presumably he works under Homo Affairs Editor, Mark Easton.

The only one who's any good is Robert "Dr Who" Peston, who's spookily well-informed on th'economy. A pact with Mephistoph?

The Bbc & the Internet

The Beeb has a curious relationship with the wondrous Web. It spends hundreds of millions of pounds on its website, but rarely references the web, or even its own site, except for giving free publicity to Facebook and similar "games", as I call them.

I suspect that its employees are discouraged from using the web. Listening to Today, on Radio Guardian, it's mentioned about once every 3 years. Recently someone mentioned that Ed Stourton (Ed Stutter-and-Pant) had a Facebook entry, abour 3 years ago John Humphreys caught out a Gumn minister by looking something up on the Web. Otherwise nothing.

Doing research on the web might make BBC-ers more skeptical. Hence to be avoided. Mustn't spoil a good story with skepticism.

Worst BBC English of 2008

A reference on the World disService to the Dutchess team. Then I thought the Duchy's team. Duchy of Cornwall? They got a football side? Then I realised he meant the Dutch team.

Why not the English's team? Or the US Olympic team could be the American's team.

How much does Humphreys earn?

Quite a lot. Lowest estimate seems to be £150,000 for the Radio Guardian "Today" programme. So £3,000 a week. But what does he do for that? Well, he's only there one day in two, so that's 3 days a week. £1,000 a day. The programme runs for 3 hours. But he's only on for about half an hour. He introduces the news 2 or 3 times for half a minute. Also he does half of the press review (or Presseschau) - 3 x 1 & 1/2 minutes. Then he does 3 interviews of 5-15 minutes each. He clearly does no preparation as you never hear him say something you don't know.

So at £1,000 a half-hour that's £2,000 an hour, or £70,000 for a 35 hour week or the equivalent of £3,500,000 a year. When a banker or footballer gets that much, he whips himself into a fury. (Under the impression that if you scold the over-paid, they hurriedly give back most of the money. Strange it doesn't happen.)

Law? Or no law?

John Humphreys on Radio Guardian is outraged that a school has banned an 8 year old girl for wearing earrings. Or at least her mother is keeping her at home because she's not allowed in the playground. On health & safety grounds.

I hope this anti-education mother is prosecuted. Since 1870 it's been compulsory for all 8 year olds to be in school. There are no exceptions, even if the school forbids earrings for 8 (!) year olds.

J Vince Cable fan club

Evan Davis, the BBC's gay economics correspondent, to George Osborne, Tory finance spokesman, on why he, Davis, thinks LibDem finance spokesman Mr Cable is infallible:

"He used to be chief economist at Shell!" Well, yes, he was 1995-7, when Mr Cable became MP for Twickenham, that cutting-edge working-class area (for those who don't know SW London, I'm being sarcastic.)

Well, that doesn't mean he knows much about politics. But more importantly, he's not LibDem leader. Nick Clegg is. & he thinks the pension is £30. Pension Credit (from age 60) is £124. You could just about live on £30. So long as you spent about £3 a week on gas & electricity.

So much for LibDem economics.

Odd fact: Mr Cable was originally SDP. Like Charlie Kennedy, the notorious Scots drinkard, whose life (lie) of deception has never been criticised by the BBC. (He was finally outed by ITV)