BBC Cuts: Where to?

The BBC is short of money and what does it do?

Yes, it talk of less quantity but more quality. Good start.

However, the cuts are to be in factual and news. What on EARTH? Or should that be What on Blue Planet?

The BBC places "entertain" as its third role. Educate (Factual), Inform (News) and Entertain (soaps and other pap) is what I recall.

If the BBC is sincere and actually believes in its charter, it could do no better than cancel Eastenders, which appears to do nothing but teach people how to be rowdy, lying, feckless, gossiping, untrustworthy, cheating, violent scumbags. Right where the Sociofascists want the "lumpen illitariat™" to be, I suspect and the reason why I think they will not stop making it, as the creators love to play God and pull the strings and influence social behaviour in their squalid bankrupt experiment.

It could also cut out all the hospital bedding in the early evenings. Casualty etc. What a load of old cobblers. I can honestly say I never watch BBC1 in the early evenings. Ok, so I am often working, boozing or cooking, but when I am cooking (ok, prepping), it is C4 News that is on, not soapy dross. That "One" programme whatever it is seems to be Crimewatch without the crime - and, in my case, no watch either!

BBC, if you are listening, ITV can create mind-numbing, spirit-crushing, vile meme-spreading junk without competition from you, so cut THAT out. MORE factual stuff. MORE science programmes running 1 or 2 FULL hours without repetition. How about a 4hr programme discussing important topics and not in some flaccid namby pamby "daytime audience" way? Cheap TV for sure. No soap star salaries there. In addition to "Have I Got News For You" how about "Have they given lies to us!" which analyses the disingenuous crap we hear from politicians and tears them an new one using archive footage or analysis of their language - e.g. Gordon Brown tried to worm out of the Targets healthcare debacle by replying to Cameron's assertion using the evidence of the report that targets were distracting healthcare professions by saying the Chairman had said that "Targets were no excuse" - "no excuse" does NOT mean that Targets have NOT been causing the problems. The BBC just does not property scrutinize at the moment.

Top Gear is refreshing, mainly because Clarkson can say and do what he wants because the audience want to hear and see him doing it. It is not very PC. Compare it to the cringeworhty Fifth Gear. Vikki looks as comfortable as a cat in a car wash and just as keen to get out, but she struggles on. In a way I admire her tenacity. Her other qualities are not so obvious these days. If you cut Clarkson's salary at the BBC he will hop over to Ch5 or Ch4 and re-create the exact same world of mayhem over there and the BBC will end up with a pathetic wannabe show like Fifth Gear is now. I wonder if Tiffany Dell Tiff Nidell will want to suffer the lunacy of Clarkson & Co. The programme will be Jeremy booming out an idea and Tiff standing there, silent, wondering what on earth he is getting himself into...might be fun, but Tiff is no fall guy. Straight man, yes. Fall guy, no.. On second thoughts...

The BBC will end up with Quentin Wilson, the Ken Livingstone of motoring journalists, and we will just have to endure ads interrupting another must-see programme. Might put a bit of a spring back into Vikki, though, if she joined JC.

Glad to see...

Brillo Pad Andrew Neil giving James Bartholomew's book "The Welfare State We Are In" a silent plug during his coverage of the LibDem conference, picking it up from a bookstall in the Conference and holding it face forwards to camera for some time while talking about the broken society.

For some reason I am detecting a more Libertarian cast to the shadow of Daily Politics. Maybe this is because it is being seen under the lurid, bilious glow of the Lib Dem conference.

We shall see how this progresses as we move to the other conferences.

Have the BBC sold an hour...

...of Sunday Morning to some daytime television production company?

First it was the hijacking of "Heaven and Earth" by that self-important daytime incompetent and egotist Gloria Hunniford. A programme about spirituality and religion becomes a vehicle for her personal aggrandizement and nobody seems to see it and nobody does much about it.

"Heaven & Earth" becomes "Gloria Hunniford's Heaven & Earth". Q: WHY? A: Ego. Rant from Roger and others I suspect means it ended its days as "Heaven & Earth with Gloria Hunniford" but the intro credits were remained a vomit-inducing parade of self-centred, smug, sanctimonious, patronising posturing with one aim: "Look at MEEEEEEEE".

So, finally Gloria Hunniford in Gloria Hunniford's Heaven and Earth with Gloria Hunniford presented by Gloria Hunniford Gloria Hunniford (I swear this is almost how it was introduced each day to the sound of used fivers being stuffed in the sweaty mit of the announcer) is now replaced by some Kilroy-Silk wannabe doing a Kilroy format "discussion" about vaguely faith-related issues. Daytime seems to have established a bridgehead on Sunday mornings at 10am, meaning there is an hour break between the Politics slot and Countryfile (harmless enough - a sort of rural adult Newsround) then the Politics Show where Jeremy Vine tries to Paxo people and fails - I wish he would get stuffed most of the time.

This gap is annoying, as it sometimes coincides with my having a piping hot, fresh cup of tea and some bacon sarnies. I want to have something reasonable to look over my Times at now and again and not to choke on my hard-won bacon. If you are going to do a discussion on religious and faith-related issues, get a decent format and get a decent presenter, like Jeremy Clarkson...

Sociofascist Media On the Prowl pt.4

The David Cameron interview on Newsnight.

What an utter shower the panelists were. Stef was totally irrational and they were all very "6th Form" who think they have an unpopular kid they can bully in front of a "knowing" audience. All very amateur and smart-arse, like those irritating ponces who pipe up during presentations - you know the kind: "what about 'always on'"?

The Devil's Kitchen gives them all a sound kicking, and rightly so. Appalling, the lot of 'em. How much are these amateurs being paid? Are they actually going around calling themselves "journalists"? I used to work for Reuters way back when, and I saw and knew a good journo or ten, and this pack of juveniles journalists they are not (hat tip: Yoda).

Is there a transcript? Their questions need a thorough fisking.

Sociofascist Media on the Prowl pt.3

At least the BBC has fessed up to its appalling slant against John Redwood.

You people are really beginning to look silly. Good.

BBC: Self-loathing Alien in our Midst.

The appalling treatment of The Queen and the spooning of responsibility to RDF§ provides yet more evidence that the BBC is chock full of self-loathers. With the scandals about phone-ins, it shows they have demagnetized their moral compasses, if they were ever magnetized in the first place.

Nothing short of a flame-thrower will resolve that.

I imagine being a Libertarian or Conservative in the BBC is like being one of the Marines in "Aliens" trying to rescue Newt. As many as you kill they keep on coming and Auntie Beeb sits deep in the bowels of Broadcasting House laying hundreds and thousands more of them.

"Game over, man...Game OVER!"



§ RDF, in Apple terms means "reality distortion field" - the one that envelopes Steve Jobs when he is in full flow.

Sociofascist Media on the Prowl?

Further to the previous post...What a surprise. The BBC has "been handed" a report document showing a school being rude about pupils.

The School? In Kent. Selective foundantion school taking Sec Modern and Grammar.

If anyone is unfamiliar with the pungent aroma of Ratus Ratus, fill yer nostrils.

Sir Patrick Moore tells it like it is

Sir Patrick Moore blames women for the dumbing down of the BBC.

His empirical evidence does appear to be very strong. Soaps are almost entirely a female thing, and as SirP says:

Fortunately, Sir Patrick has a solution. Institute a gender divide and create BBC Bloke.

He said: “I would like to see two independent wavelengths – one controlled by women, and one for us, controlled by men. I think it may eventually happen.”

Soaps could then safely be produced and watched by women. Sir Patrick said: “I was in hospital once and I watched a whole episode of EastEnders. I suppose it’s true to life. But so is diarrhoea – and I don’t want to see that on television.”

Yes, EastEnders is diarrhoea. Spot on. Maybe he read my earlier post on the BBC dumbing down...

BBC, the EU/Sociofascist/Statist Mouthpiece - Recycling.

The BBC is spinning the move to 14-day rubbish collections to be a boost to recycling (30% vs 23%...), utterly disregarding the fact that councils moving to fortnighly tend to introduce their enhanced recycling plans at the same time...I wonder why? Nice diversion, justification. The BBC is meant to be there to Fisk the hell out of these people, but I momentarily forgot - they ARE "these people"!

The reality is an increase in "bad smells, maggots and vermin". No change at New Labour head office then.

Politics Show - the Statist Agenda

The Politics Show, 22/4/2007, London edition, touched on the report by the Centre for Policy Studies regarding the multiplicity of bodies and occasions that can gain legal access to our homes - "Crossing the Threshold - 266 Ways the State Can Enter Your Home".

Tim Donovan was really irritating during the discussion. At each stage when either was coming to the conclusion that the State should get the hell out of people's lives, Donovan cut them off with a distracting question or his own conclusion/message and blew them off course.

Both Domonic Grieve and Simon Hughes came up with some great points. Hughes came across as no namby-pamby Fib-Dum - I suggest DC gets his Childcatcher wagon over to Chez Hughes ASAP. I was annoyed at the interviewer, but the interviewees should not have allowed themselves to be blown off course by this Statist.

Watch it here while it still lasts. The discussion is at about 33 mins in.

The desire by the BBC to shut down debate on this occasion was clear to me.

F*ck off, I'm Too Highbrow

No, BBC, you are not.

Take a look at BBC1 on any given weekday evening and you will see an endless stream of vapid pap (Holby City, Casualty) or car-crash TV like Eastenders, which, as far as I can tell, is just a means for Sociofascists to brainwash the lumpen illitariat into behaving like twisted, deranged, paraniod, ranting, self-destructive losers - i.e. just how the Sociofascists want them to be. I have not watched BBC1 before 10:30pm more than a few times in over a decade, if at all.

Over on BBC2 Horizon has gone downmarket and is very often repeating itself every 5 minutes to cater for the international advert-riddled market - what I call the "Smokey Bacon Crisps Effect". 20 mins of content for every 60 endured. Some history programmes have cut the mustard. I suspect this is because the presenter IS the Historian and "over my dead body" being bellowed at the Producer by said.

The BBC has four Freeview TV channels. One should be dual SD/HD1080p right now and really should stretch the minds of the watchers. It should produce programmes that some people may on occasion have to watch again just to understand fully. The BBC is the best place for it, as the programmes are blissfully free from advertising breaks and so can pursue a complex theme and topic at length in one go without the disruptive intrusion of "AXA Home Insurance", "Cillit Bang!" or some bunch of chavs singing with their gobs full of fast food.

There should be programmes lionising great and good people such as engineers, heros such as those seen in Jeremy Clarkson's wonderful progamme on the raid at St Nazaire, inventors, sailors, farmers, doctors, scientists and philosphers. Programmes to inspire the young so they go on to want to make something of themselves, not slough off the couch into a Media Studies course or Doctorate in Beckham.

The BBC is THE place for it. ITV is quite capable of meeting the vegetative market for incontinent, background, entropic pap. The BBC has to raise the bar, not lower it. Do less, better. Eastenders should be stopped right now, in fact. Why should taxpayers money be spent projecting the worst kind of behaviour into homes every night as if it is the norm? It is a form of abuse.

Oh, I forgot. Just remembered what kind of person runs it - bunch of ladder-kicking Sociofascists. Figures.