(Monday) Moan 61

PURE PFEFFEL

Boris Johnson is in Australia. I’d like to think he’s there on holiday rather than at the expense of London taxpayers, but I’m not sure on that one.  Whilst there, he manages to ensure headlines in all the UK newspapers and airtime on news programmes by calling for ‘fair treatment for Aussies and yah-boo sucks to the EU’ in terms of the right to work here in the UK for citizens of those different countries.

 

So, as well as wondering why Boris is in Australia, you might also be puzzled as to why he is saying nice things about Australians and why he is slagging off the EU.  Could this be because he has long held the view that we are discriminating against Australians?  Doubt it.  More likely it’s just a good PR move suggested to him both to ensure media coverage in Australia and to suck up to the thousands of Australians living in the UK who are eligible to vote in UK elections.  Does he really think we should treat Australians better than EU citizens?  Or is pandering to the growing anti-EU sentiment in the Conservative Party and its supporters part of his plan as well?

 

The BBC London news report about all this managed to find two talking heads to offer their views on all this. One, Alex Ivett, editor of the Australian Times (“for, by and about Aussies in the UK”) – presumably one and the same Alex Ivett who also writes for the New Zealand Times (“for, by and about Kiwis in the UK”), sounded suitably serious when interviewed - “There is a really strong professional Australian community in the UK and every Australian here is contributing to the economy by working, living, travelling, really engaging with the community so I definitely think that enhancing those opportunities for Australians can only be of benefit to the UK”.  Slightly different from her more usual young, carefree, singleton, gossip-girl style in the two Australasian publications.

 

The other talking head was Sarah Ludford, Lib Dem MEP for London, who took Boris to task for ‘cherry picking’ the bits of the EU package he wanted to enjoy, noting that he seems to want freedom for businesses but not for individuals.  And she managed to deliver her assessment of him as “talking piffle” with a straight face – resisting the temptation to smirk at her own joke of (presumably intentionally) getting in a reference to his full name of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.  

 

Who said politicians lacked humour?

 

 

 

FRACKING NONSENSE

So much hot air about fracking in Balcombe last week (enough to extract all that gas in the rocks below if only it could have been captured and re-used?), complete with PR-stunt arrest of Caroline Lucas, MP.  Rather disappointingly, this experienced politician appeared not to understand that democracy means the freedom to express views but not to break the law when your own view does not prevail - “clearly democracy isn’t working because we have tried all means of putting our views over but still they are not doing what we want”.*

 

The usual band of merry protestors turned up to demonstrate against the end of civilisation as we know it if fracking were to be allowed. Shame on those who labelled them rent-a-mob or new-age protestors, or anything similar.

 

But when Vivienne Westwood arrived to support the cause we knew the game was up.  Good old Vivienne – no protest ever allowed to pass by without an appearance from her.  After all, a little bit of publicity for her t-shirts is always a matter of serious political, environmental and educational interest.

* OK, not word for word what she said, but close enough to get the gist of it

 

 

SO THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED TO EDUARDO……….

Eduardo da Silva was a highly talented footballer whose career never recovered from a horrific injury sustained when playing for Arsenal against Birmingham City in 2008.  After leaving Arsenal he played for Shakhtar Donetsk for a while and then I lost track of him.

 

That was until last week, when he re-emerged with a new identity of David Miranda, partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was the one leaking secret documents about the NSA and other security services provided to him by Edward Snowden.

 

The amazing thing was that Greenwald and Miranda appeared more than a little surprised that Miranda had been detained by UK authorities, apparently believing that journalists were protected from the application of the law by their status as self-appointed arbiters of what is right and wrong in the world today. Journalists, defenders of all that is good in the world today,  working in league with some of our favourite whistleblowers - Assange, Manning and Snowden.  

 

Greenwald was so upset that he immediately threatened to release material about the UK that was, by his own words, highly damaging to its security services.  

 

Temper tantrum, no doubt. Maybe he’ll think better of it when he’s had a chance to think about it.

  

 

A PERFECT MATCH

The announcement that Bradley Manning wants in future to be known as Chelsea should not have come as a surprise.

 

Pretending to be something they are not, assuming they can do what they like without regard to others or the consequences, not caring what anybody thinks of them – Bradley and Chelsea are a perfect fit.

 

 

Monday Moan 60

STILL SPENDING OUR MONEY ON FOREIGN ‘REPORTING’

It’s been a while since the BBC News team had a chance to set up camp for live broadcasting of its main news bulletins from somewhere overseas.  The growing unrest in Cairo had them packing their bags and heading for the airport faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100 metres.  

I have never understood this desire to be ‘on the spot’ with the newsreader then interviewing the resident Correspondent who reports from that part of the world throughout the rest of the year.  Add to this the fact that the quality of the picture was very poor and the sound and vision were not synchronised, and you have to wonder about the wisdom of uprooting the team from their home studio. Do we feel better informed because the programme is coming live from Cairo?  Does the presence of the newsreader there make us think they are better informed and able to tell us things that the Correspondent already there could not have covered?

Or does it just make us think what's the point, and why is our licence-fee being spent in such a cavalier fashion?

 

 

TRAFFIC FLOWING FREELY? TIME TO SWITCH ON THOSE VARIABLE SIGNS

Like a child with a new toy, whoever is in charge of those roadside and overhead signs on motorways can’t seem to resist playing with them even when traffic is flowing freely.

A long trip down to Cardiff at the weekend went smoothly except on the four separate occasions where these variable signs had been switched on.  Traffic duly slowed down as the signs suggested there was congestion ahead …………………. and, therefore, began to bunch up, thus creating some congestion.  Apart from that, the road was clear, so when the last of the signs was passed a few miles further on the traffic was allowed to flow unimpeded again.   Maybe the signs had been needed earlier, but as so often appears to be the case, someone had either forgotten to switch them off or had decided it would be fun to keep them on.

The return journey was even more instructive.  Approaching the M4 junction with the M25 fairly late in the evening, when the traffic had flowed freely all the way from Wales, the dreaded warning signs sprung into action.  We merged into the M25 traffic OK and once past the overhead signs the traffic sped up and moved freely and quickly, until the next overhead sign telling everyone to slow down was reached. Cars slowed and bunched again.  This flow freely/close up and bunch pattern was repeated each time an overhead sign was approached, so that the whole section between the M25 and the M40 was negotiated like a kind of bizarre cheetah and tortoise tag team.

It probably kept someone amused back in the control room.

 

 

SEAMLESS  TRANSITION AT OLD TRAFFORD

A new season, a new manager at Old Trafford for the first time in nearly 27 years, but don’t worry about David Moyes being able to step into the shoes vacated by the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.  His whining about the fixture list being ‘fixed’ in order to disadvantage Manchester United was so reminiscent of Ferguson  at his most irrational that you begin to suspect that Moyes might even be his love-child. 

There’s something reassuring about this seamless transition from one miserable chip-on-the-shoulder manager to another – the King is dead, long live the King!

 
 

 

RELEGATION FORM, WITHOUT EVEN PLAYING

Resisting the temptation to suggest that this BBC website Premier League table is a pretty good prediction for the coming season (as the initial round of results shows all too clearly), I can’t help wondering if someone was having a laugh by initially getting the alphabetical order wrong, so that when it was corrected it had the effect of Tottenham managing to lose three places even before a game had been played ……….

Thank goodness it wasn't Manchester United involved, or poor old David Moyes would have blown a fuse!

 

Monday Moan 59

WHAT’S THE FORECAST FOR THE WEEKEND?

Maybe the weather forecasters are suffering a little lack of confidence after recent weeks where their pronouncements have been wide of the mark, but come on guys, you have to be a bit more courageous than the forecaster who last Friday could only manage to commit himself to “the weekend is looking mixed”.

10/10 for accuracy.  0/10 for usefulness.

 

NO LONGER JUST SUNDAY DRIVERS

For as long as I can remember it has been customary to label anyone whose driving appears hesitant as being a ‘Sunday driver’.  In other words, they are not used to driving in traffic like all those experienced people who have to drive every day. Even on a Sunday, when the roads are not as busy as the rest of the week, they don’t know how to keep up with the traffic, they poodle along well below the speed limit, they are hesitant about turnings or roundabouts. In other words, they get in your way.

 

It seems to me that this is now a thing of the past.  Traffic on Sundays hardly seems any lighter than the rest of the week these days. Where are they all going at all hours of the day?  Why are there so many people on the roads even at Sunday lunchtime?  Surely, if they are visiting people, or going to meet people, they should be there by then?

 

More importantly, and now that I am ‘retired’ I have to phrase this carefully, the people who might previously have been labelled as ‘Sunday drivers’ now appear to be out on the roads every day of the week.  By and large (careful here) they seem to be people of advancing years. They pull out in front of you when it is clear (to anyone who can see properly and, probably more importantly, can judge speed and distance) that it is unsafe to do so. They then potter along, never going faster than 5 mph below the speed limit, looking for all the world as if they are going to turn off at every road junction, only to carry on when they realise this wasn’t the turning they wanted.

 

I’d shout at them if I thought they could hear. I’d gesticulate at them if I thought they were ever likely to look in their rear-view mirrors. And I need to remember to add 20% to my expected journey times to compensate for their presence.

 

And when I become one of them ……… you can all just eat my exhaust.

 

GIVING US A BAD NAME

I sing for my pleasure. I love being part of a fantastic choir.  I know some wonderful people through this passion and consider them all to be perfectly normal and likeable people.

 

But I cringe when I see or hear some singers who clearly think they are very clever, important or funny when actually, they are just being pretentious and/or embarrassing.

 

Step forward the Edinburgh Complaints Choir.  Formed specifically for the Edinburgh Festival, but based on a ‘concept’ originating in Finland, this choir sings its complaints about the city.  The BBC thought this a suitable ‘filler’ to slot into the Today Programme last week, and followed up a time-wasting interview with the choir’s director before 7am with an invitation to listeners to email in with suggestions for complaints that the choir would then put together and perform before the end of the programme. 

 

I listened to the later performance to see if they had included my suggestion to include something on “pointless, boring and contrived items on the Today programme”, but don’t think it was mentioned.  See if you can hear it here.

 

 

DON'T RUSH BACK ON OUR ACCOUNT

Like it or not, much of what is considered to be ‘newsworthy’ revolves around political stories.  Rail as we might about the unbearable smugness and self-importance of so many of our politicians, the fact remains that the mainstream media, both written and broadcast, not only provides the oxygen of publicity to these people, it panders to their vanity.

 

Thus it is that for most of us, the summer months are a period where we ought to be able to read the papers, watch the television, or listen to the radio without having to listen to some puffed up MP or other, or some Minister or Opposition spokesperson boring us rigid with something they consider highly important.  It should be a time where real news comes to the fore, and where we might be lucky enough to hear more about what is going on in the rest of the world and not just what is happening in this country.

 

Unfortunately, journalists seem to enjoy a long holiday as much as the politicians, and so instead of a golden and enjoyable break from the nonsense we get sloppy, lazy journalism.  They all seem to subscribe to the notion that this is the ‘silly season’ where they can get away with pieces that wouldn’t get anywhere near the frontline in the rest of the year.  Someone said on the radio the other day that this was a classic ‘August story’, as if that justified it being aired.

 

Does the world stop revolving because Whitehall and Westminster empty during the summer?  Doesn’t anything happen anywhere else in the UK, let alone the rest of the world, that is interesting enough for us to be told about it?  

 

Apparently not. 

Monday Moan 58

NOW THERE’S A SURPRISE!

The award for the least surprising election result in a national election goes to .. Robert Mugabe!

 

Apparently, some people thought there was a genuine election taking place in Zimbabwe.  After all, didn’t Mugabe himself say that if the vote went against him then he would accept the people’s verdict and stand down?  Surely that showed he was committed to the democratic exercise of freedom to vote for whoever you wanted?

 

International public opinion of Mugabe remains as divided as ever. It all depends upon your pre-conceptions, of course, as it does with all high-profile figures, including politicians. But surely there ought to be unanimous condemnation of this most brazen of all dictators?  Not for election rigging, not for murdering his own people, not for economic mismanagement of his country, not for stealing land from its rightful owners or any of the many other charges against him. No, the one thing that should unite us all is his appalling abuse of power in wearing such comical clothing. 

 

OK, maybe someone said he should try to be a more colourful character – but they can’t have meant him to do it like this.  I assume that the problem is that nobody has the courage to tell him how ridiculous he looks, because they know what would happen to them if they spoke out. 

 

And you thought 'The Emperor’s New Clothes' was just a fairytale!

 

 

IN A ROUNDABOUT KIND OF WAY

We all have our pet hates about the way other people drive.  We, of course, are exemplary drivers who never put a foot wrong – it’s the others who don’t know what they are doing.

 

My current pet gripe is with the way so many drivers appear not to know, or observe, conventions at roundabouts.  First there are those who insist on indicating that they are turning right when, in fact, they are going straight on – the 12 o’clock exit on a conventional four road roundabout.  There I am, expecting them to continue to go round the roundabout, and then they cut in front of me in order to go straight on. Why do they do this?  I have no idea.  

 

Worse than this, however, are the drivers who approach in the left hand lane when there are two approach lanes, and then actually do want to turn right (the 3 o’clock exit), forcing their way across traffic that has legitimately assumed they are going left or straight on.  This happened to me three times within about twenty minutes recently – I began to suspect a conspiracy, but concluded that it was just plain idiocy instead.

 

An instructor once said to me that you needed to be aware of other road users at all times. I asked him to expand on this and he said that I should assume they were all idiots who drove as though there was nobody else on the road. Sound, if rather dispiriting, advice.

 

 

WHERE IN THE WORLD SHOULD I GO????

Edward Snowden had an interesting choice to make when he decided that it was imperative he should spill the beans on the dastardly actions of his native USA.  Where should he seek to hide from their law? Where would be a good place to seek political asylum?

 

Cuba?  Long history of housing those on the run from the USA. Pretty good weather. Not too far for people to come to visit him.  Maybe Brazil?  Nice beaches, great weather, World Cup and Olympics coming up soon?  Maybe Venezuela or Ecuador?  Good opportunity to meet up with other like-minded people, but possibly lacking the kind of political freedoms he’d want to enjoy.  How about Iran or North Korea?  Absolute commitment to the anti-USA cause, but lifestyle probably not what he was seeking.

 

So, it has to be Russia then.  The land of the free, the place where anyone can oppose their own Government safe in the knowledge that the President will not order their arrest and trial on a jumped up charge.  Just ask Sergei Udaltsov, Yevgeny Urlashov, or Alexei Navalny.

 

An obvious first choice – if you are a national of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

 

IT’S NOT JUST ITN

In Moan 56 I had a go at ITN for its choice of items to cover in its new programmes. You might have thought they were an exception to a general rule that News organisations usually stick to reporting the news rather than trying to make it.

 

Unfortunately not,  as yesterday's main BBC News programme demonstrated.

 

A total of 18 mins 50 secs of news time started with a piece on the Catholic church in Scotland and its ‘apology’ for abuse uncovered in an earlier BBC investigation.  Read the newspapers today and you could waste a large part of your day in an almost fruitless search for this item – it’s hardly mentioned anywhere.  Yet the BBC decided to spend 22% of its main news programme on this issue.

 

The next largest chunk of time (20%) was devoted to the day’s sporting round-up – an essential part of any news programme.

 

Then we had four topics which were each given around 12% of the total time.  First, a piece on the new Iranian leader and what this might mean for Iran’s relationships with the USA.  Second a report on the outcome of the Zimbabwean election. No argument with these as news items.

 

The last two items cannot be said to fall into the same category. First we had the unappetising follow-up to the earlier decision to have half an hour of prime time television devoted to the unveiling of the name of the actor who will become the latest in a long line of people to play the part of Dr Who.  Shameless plugging of its own programme – bad enough that there was a separate programme on this, but at least if you switched on for that you knew what you were getting.  But on the main News programme?  Come on.

 

And then there was the obligatory ‘light-hearted’ end to the programme, this time taking the form of a piece on a Japanese robot being sent into space.

 

So that’s 22% + 12% + 12% (46%) on things that were not news at all. Plus 20% on sport. So, 34% left for the real news. 

 

It’s news Jim, but not as we know it.

 

But at least the BBC can still make us laugh with its unintentional mistakes.  Best of all was the sports report on Stacey Lewis winning the Women’s British Open Golf Championship – those watching with the sound down might have thought there had been a major gender breakthrough from the photograph that accompanied the piece.