Monday Moan 22

Too much for the mornings

Can’t get out of the habit of listening to the Today programme in the mornings, but it’s beginning to challenge my concentration and interest levels at that time of the day, now that I don’t actually need to be up that early.

To add to the frustrations of the irritating presenters (see Moan 8) we also have to contend with so many either simply uninteresting or impenetrable pieces.  When an item hits both of those buttons then I find myself stretching for the ‘off’ switch.

Last Friday we had the joy of listening to a ‘debate’ on the topic of ‘what does the City of London have to fear from Europe?’  On one side we had Sharon Bowles, MEP for South East England and Chair of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.  On the other we had Bob Lyddon, a management consultant specialising in European Banking and author of the Bruges Group report  ‘The UK’s risks and exposure to the European Investment Bank and other financial European mechanisms’ – my heart was not fluttering with excitement.

When Sharon Bowles started talking about CRD4 and OTC Derivatives I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Justin Webb, the presenter, had the good sense to ask her to explain what they were, but Bob Lyddon failed to take the hint when answering a question about what, specifically, he thought the City needed to be concerned about, when he said “Basle 3, which is what we call CRD4, given that Basle 1 and Basle 2 caused the financial crisis…”

He was asked again “What are the Europeans going to do that the City should be worried about?” to which he responded with something about the Financial Transactions tax. Sharon Bowles jumped in to say “it’s not going to be introduced in a way that the UK is having to introduce it” – thanks for that clarification Sharon, but how would the EU stop it? “they have to make sure it doesn’t distort the single market and if it does then they can stop it and indeed if it does then so can those that are not going to join it.” Ah, I see.

Sharon was not one to hide her achievements either – “On OTC Derivatives it was me that blazed a trail in Europe to exempt foreign exchange, it was me that blazed a trail to exempt corporate end users and pension funds, it was me where I stopped retroactive clearing requirements.”  Well, thank goodness for Sharon is all I can say.

Justin Webb then gave Bob Lyddon a chance to get a word in and said “so, you can do it [stop EU regulation] and it would have been worse if we had been left on our own?”  To which the rather lame response from Bob was “well I don’t know, two lots of medicine, one is supposedly worse than the other, we’d prefer to have no medicine”

Time to hit the snooze button.

 

That's a bit of luck

Not sure if it’s a good thing to realise that all those celebrities who you used to think of as weird and slightly odd are now seemingly caught up in the Jimmy Savile scandal. Apart from the late Jimmy Savile himself, I am thinking here of Gary Glitter and now Freddie Starr.

There was something rather uncomfortable about listening to Freddie Starr being interviewed on TV  last week expressing his distaste for the despicable things Jimmy Savile has been alleged to have been doing – not that Freddie knew about them, of course. 

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it (perhaps not the best choice of words in relation to this story), but wasn’t it lucky for Freddie that schools were closed last week for half term, thus allowing his newest fiancé to be sat there at his side whilst he was being interviewed?

 

It must be important because the News teams are there

You can always tell when a news story is important because the News channels ship their anchor men and women over to wherever it might be in the world, so that they can report ‘live’ from the scene.  Superstorm Sandy merited the ITV news team going over and they are still there now to report on the American Presidential election.  No doubt the BBC team is on its way even now.

Does it add to our understanding or enjoyment?  Why can’t they just trust it to their relevant correspondents already stationed out there?  How do they feel about having to answer the questions posed by the incoming UK-based people rather than themselves being seen as the top person doing the interviewing?

  

Downton Abbey – life is quite simple really

Downton Abbey may be over for another season (although it is coming back for a Christmas Special, apparently) but I am still not supposed to say anything comical or questioning or disparaging about it (see Moan 16).

So, working within those guidelines, I think I can say that yesterday’s final episode managed to gallop through a huge number of issues with barely a pause either for breath or to apologise for the many significant changes in the way the characters were 'developed'.

And at the end, the key message appeared to be that the world would be a better place if everyone would just take up cricket. Even if the English themselves were not very good at it.