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.

Monday Moan 17

An apology

The Moan would like to apologise for its non-appearance last week. This was due to my enjoying a holiday – free from the things that make me moan every other week. 

I have been back only a few days, have not yet completely forgotten my break and so am not up to full moaning capability, but enough to warrant this edition L

 

Pots and Kettles

The ‘Hubris Syndrome’ is said to be a medical condition that affects political or other leaders once they have been in power for too long.  It appears to have been invented by Lord David Owen – very handy when you are trying to build a speaking career after your own political ambitions have withered and gone.

In a move probably not entirely unconnected with the launch of a new edition of his book ‘The Hubris Syndrome’, Owen’s latest claim is that Tony Blair is a sufferer from the syndrome.  Hmm.

On the face of it, many of the characteristics Owen ascribes to the ‘condition’ might be said to apply to Blair – taking actions likely to cast oneself in a good light; giving priority to concerns of personal image and presentation; displaying messianic zeal and exaltation; displaying excessive self-confidence; maintaining an unshakeable belief in being right.  

But then aren’t these the characteristics of almost all successful politicians?  And wasn’t one Lord Owen often accused of many of these same things when he decided to leave the Labour Party and form the Social Democratic Party (SDP) back in 1981?  He did this because he didn’t agree with the direction the Labour Party was taking.  Tony Blair, of course, felt much the same some years later, but unlike Lord Owen he decided to stay in the Party and try to secure change from within.  New Labour was, in effect, the party Lord Owen had wanted the SDP to become.  Tony Blair was its charismatic leader, perhaps the sort of leader Lord Owen had imagined himself to be.  Tony Blair held power as Prime Minister and brought huge changes to the country during his time, no doubt as Lord Owen had wanted to do when he formed the SDP.

Hubris may be a common factor amongst people who wield great power, but is it a ‘syndrome’ deserving of description as a medical condition?  Doing so might sell some books and provide a new career direction. It might even be a factor in inventing the syndrome and writing about it.  Perhaps Lord Owen would like to do a little self-analysis?

Life is not Black and White

I am getting very irritated by the number of politicians and commentators who have decided to engage in the rather tiresome game of ‘answer the question – yes, or no’.

Ed Miliband does it at PM’s Questions, various Select Committee members do so when the cameras are on during an Inquiry, tv interviewers adopt it when trying to pin-down politicians on-air.  The latest example I saw was Tom Bradby, Political Editor at ITN, who indulged himself in this way in an interview with Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, at last week’s Liberal Democratic Conference.  Did he find the Tories in Cabinet to be arrogant, yes or no?  Clegg, whatever you might think of him, is too experienced to fall for that approach and so declined to give Bradby the one word answer he sought.  So Bradby asked the question – again and again.  Boring and childish.

The world is not black or white, left or right, up or down, right or wrong, in or out.  There are places in between, contexts, details and explanations.  Maybe people who engage in this kind of simpleton’s approach to questioning have watched too many courtroom dramas on film or tv, where the lawyers extract a damning confession by badgering the witness.  But real life isn’t like that and I wish that they would not insult their targets or their audiences by pretending otherwise.

  

Will Gompertz – Why?

The BBC’s Arts Editor Will Gompertz appears on our screens only to give some free publicity to somebody who is launching a show, has written a book, is appearing somewhere for some reason, or anything along those lines.  In other words, he provides free plugs on-air to millions of potential customers.

Most often I see him at the tail-end of BBC News programmes, when the day’s news has been given and there are a few minutes to fill before we get handed over to our local news programmes.  The introduction that leads to the words “as our Arts Editor Will Gompetz now explains ….” always leave me with a sinking feeling.  Which already famous person is about to get a ‘money-can’t-buy’ free plug now?  Last week it was the turn of J K Rowling, that struggling author, who was given the primetime free plug to talk about her new book. 

Can I withhold a portion of my licence fee payment until the BBC stops this nauseating practice please?

  

British drivers – a cut above

A week abroad on European roads did not reveal that drivers beyond the shores of Britain are courteous beyond belief and always stick to the speed limits.  But it took only a couple of minutes back in this country on Saturday evening to demonstrate, beyond any reasonable doubt, that British drivers are more aggressive, inconsiderate and dangerous than most.  No doubt the crowded nature of our roads doesn’t help.  Quite possibly the speed and potential racing power of modern cars (and vans) of all shapes and sizes simply encourages bad driving.

Whatever the reason, my motoring ‘enjoyment’ ended the moment I touched down at Heathrow and ventured onto the M25.  Shame.