Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
General BBC-related comment thread!
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Funny that the BBC are now going on about the blind being upset. Yet all day they had a homosexual on from Stonewall spouting on about Clarkson. WHY? Clarkson didn’t call McFatty a shirt lifter did he?
Also, when on Radio 5 Clarkson upset left wing Labour supporter Simon Mayo when Clarkson pointed out that Top Gear makes millions in overseas sales that helps to support loss revenues like radio. Mayo got VERY upset. The idea that the BBC might in some way rely on commercial money to prop up failed useless departments like BBC radio.
Susan Franklin: Are you going to keep your list up to date Susan? I hope so, you could create a website all of its own!!!
“Just watched QI. Lots of nasty remarks about Margaret Thatcher. So why does Clarkson have to apologise about Brown?”
Susan Franklin | 06.02.09 – 9:57
Another huge sadness is that QI, when it was relatively unknown, was completely free of politics, but it has now fallen victim to the inevitable invasion of right-on lefty comics.
The BBC just carries on giving offence
The corporation is now estranged from those who fund it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/4541657/The-BBC-just-carries-on-giving-offence.html
Simon Heffer in the Telegraph
martin:
David Preiser (USA): Actually David it was an Alabama gas station and they were actors. None the less Jezza does dish it out to everyone, he even gave Boris Johnson a hard time a few weeks ago.
I do think though if he attacked ‘Moozlums’ for being suicide bombing halfwits (which they are) on a regular basis he’d be off the air.
I like Jezza but I don’t like the way he attacks America (which is probably why the BBC tolerates him) all the time. A lot of it is fun and to be fair Richard Hammond is a big fan of the US.
martin | 06.02.09 – 10:16 pm |
———————–
I hate people like him – and Ross, Brand, Chiles and all the long list of the smartarse overpaid and overprivileged TV oiks: they all attack only safe targets, like Americans. Edgy? Do me a favour! My arse is more edgy than any of those snide conventional little cowards.
Always a good read :
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com/
millie tant/deegee page 59 in times mediaspolis j bowen and bbc broke its editorial guidlines to distinguish between facts and comment and where critised
GCooper | 06.02.09 – 9:51 pm |
Did you know about this?
“I was quite surprised to find out that whenever Firefox (2.0.0.4)
connects to the internet, a connection is opened automatically to the
following:
newslb13.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.226.33)”
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.support.firefox/browse_thread/thread/c60244abf4be9a16/f99ad78e158d42c8
Libertarian | 06.02.09 – 10:31 pm |
Thanks for the link – He sums up the BBC brilliantly
Here are 50 articles that seriously question the credibility and integrity of the IPCC’s activities and claims.
http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
via http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3329766/how-did-they-ever-get-away-with-this.thtml
Jon: Nothing suspicious in that. Firefox does RSS newsfeeds and I think the BBC is one of the default ones.
Most RSS readers I’ve ever downloaded have the BBC, CNN and so on as defaults.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2210881.ece
martin | 06.02.09 – 11:10 pm |
As you say not sinister – but why the BBC?
frankos | 06.02.09 – 11:57 pm |
I found this part interesting
“The Beeb said it could not reveal details due to confidentiality clauses in stars’ contracts and the Data Protection Act. ”
Yet when have they given the same confidentiality to bonuses paid to bosses?
“The trio at the Newcastle company were paid £632,500 in bonuses – despite poor sales and job cuts – which they cannot be forced to repay. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7833043.stm
Jon: Quite often RSS feeds have BBC Worldwide as a default along with CNN, Reuters and so on.
World Have Your say allowed the courageous Walid Shoebat, ex-Palestinian terrorist and convert to Christianity to try to raise the BBC out of its submissive, dhimmi state for an hour:
[audio src="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/whys/whys_20090205-1800a.mp3" /]
It was fascinating listening to the BBC hostess giving him leeway and then trying to rein him in every time he got a bit too explicit about the evil inherent in Islam and Sharia.
In contrast, when Hamas devotee and would-be suicide bomber Azzam Tamimi frequently appears on the BBC they treat him with unquestioning deference.
Will be available to download till the middle of next week.
“French President Nicolas Sarkozy has defended his plans to revive the French economy, saying state intervention with banks has so far cost people nothing.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7874062.stm
But what do the BBC miss out?
“In France, we chose investment because when we put France into debt by taking money to invest, in return we have assets, infrastructure. When you put your country into debt to pay for operating costs, you have nothing in return for your debt and you ruin the country.
“If the English did that it’s because they don’t have any industry left. Gordon Brown cannot do what I am doing with carmakers [giving them up to 6 billion euros]… in construction and other industries, because they haven’t got any left.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4537545/French-President-Nicolas-Sarkozy-accuses-Gordon-Brown-of-ruining-British-economy.html
bongo:
millie tant/deegee page 59 in times mediaspolis j bowen and bbc broke its editorial guidlines to distinguish between facts and comment and where critised
bongo | 06.02.09 – 10:51 pm |
———
Thanks for that, bongo. It is interesting that they mention his blog activities.
I wonder what they would make of some of the other BBC blogs, e.g. Justin Webb’s with its blatant electioneering over the last year and its obama worship.
Brown is Scottish – not a term of abuse , unless one’s name is Martin .
Many have thought his policies idiotic – Downing Street have today explicitly acknowledged his right to this opinion .
Brown has only one eye .
Poor man .
Clarkson has , rightly , realised that he had mocked the afflicted and has apologised for his remark , inconsequential though it was .
Clarkson is clearly , then , a fine man .
Would that the B.B.C. had shown such solicitude when it sponsored daily , and much more vile , attacks on the persons , character and appearance of other British and Allied leaders .
01.28 7th February 2009. The following is a cut and paste from the BBC’s ‘News’ website:
“US Senate Democrats say they have agreed a economic stimulus package than President Obama wanted. ”
Would someone please remind me how much of our money these imbeciles spend to produce this garbage?
The BBC were advertising a language program where the star was a monster called the ‘big green muzzie’ I wonder if the PC BBC have taken it off the shelves yet? I wonder if the Islamists complained about it and had it removed pending a change of name?
Ha Ha what a mess eh? The PC BBC spending loads of cash and finding its programs star monster insulted their beloved Islamists!
Whats going to be banned next?
White Christmas.
Black day/dark day.
Black as hells kettle.
White wedding.
Whiter than white.
White knight.
The list of banned words will grow and grow untill we all go mad or turn into zombies(perhaps thats the idea)!
QI
I consider myself a reasonably decent sort of person. I try not to make personal attacks on people if I am likely to offend those around me.
A few days ago I said some very rude things about Mugabee. Safe in the assumption that as none of the people I was with were extreme liberals they would not be offended.
At the BBC insulting Thatcher would not offend. They know that a few in the audiance might not agree they would regard them the same way I would regard a Mugabee suporter.
The dung beetle does not smell the shit.
martin
We watched the Dam Busters last time it was on – carefully – to see what they did with “Nigger” and as far we could tell they silenced it. Difficult to hear something that isn’t there, but…
TPO
Thankfully I don’t get to see QI over here. On one of the PBS networks they are running old episodes of ‘New Tricks’ with Amanda Redman, Dennis Waterman et al.
Last weeks episode revolved around the murder of a particularly unpleasant and corrupt MP.
Somewhere in the plot his photo popped up. The MP was wearing an election rossette.
Was it red? No. – Was it yellow? No. – Was it blue? Of course it was.
Even in light hearted progs they can’t help themselves.
No they can’t – did anyone see Hustle this week?
Well, OK they did make the corrupt woman politician a member of the government but in two opening shots had her posing with a large portrait of Churchill in the back. I guess Margaret Thatcher would’ve been way too much and totally improbable.
cassis:
In BBC land bad or incompotent MPs are always protrayed as tories. Even if the party is not explicitly mentioned they will be given characteristics that a Beeboid would asociate with the hated Tories.
The only decent fictional politician in recent times was Harriet Jones.
Who was clearly ment to be labour as she described herself as ‘not one of the babes just a backbencher’
Two typical bits of bias on the Today prog this morning – Evan Davies thought it natural that comedians derided Bush but find nowt wrong with Obama – implied it was sad the Bush years are over for comedians – then several mentions of Joe Biden possibly announcing new fluffy policies such as dropping the missile defence shield across Eastern Europe.
Crazy – and scary. In the BBC bubble a Pres who was trying to set up something that might defend Europe from the nutters-with-ICBMs in Teheran is a figure of fun, whereas a new Pres who wants to leave us defenceless is somehow noble. And Joe Biden’s name is mentioned without a snigger.
Just saw this “rout” of the “thin yellow line” on Peter Hithens blog:
Metropolitan Police humiliated at the hands of Muslim demonstrators in London 1/2
Has it been reported on any of the TV news channels yet?
What goes on BBC Arabic service? I am severely handicapped by my lack of Arabic but I suspect the lack of supervision over there makes the English language BBC look positively impartial.
BBC criticised over broadcast by £19 million Arabic TV station
Dr Kamal El-Helbawy, the founder of the Muslim Association of Britain, told a discussion program that, while he condemned the killing of civilians, he believed all Israeli children were “future soldiers”.
He said: “A child born in Israel is raised on the belief that the Arabs are like contemptible sheep.
“In elementary school they pose the following math problem – ‘In your village, there are 100 Arabs. If you killed 40, how many Arabs would be left for you to kill?’. This is taught in the Israeli curriculum.”
Factually inaccurate and incitement. Israel is falling behind in math. If I wanted to portray the Arabs as contemptible sheep I would translate Hamas TV into Hebrew and play it on a continuous loop. 😉
Jeremy Timmins, Head of Africa and Middle East for the BBC World Service, said: “When we make a mistake we will acknowledge it, but one error does not substantiate a claim that the BBC limits debate and incites violence.
“We want to get the story right and we work hard to achieve balance over time in our coverage.”
I expect to find a balancing pro Israeli article on BBC Arabic and an official complaint from the Foreign Office who provide the ₤19 million.
ssssssssssssssss 😉
Atlas’s descent into unpleasantness – Atlas Shrugged | 06.02.09 – 7:15 pm – seems to have gone without much notice. I know most think he’s harmless, but there’s more than whiff of anti-semitism about what he says isn’t there?
As for Clarkson et al, a constant theme of Top Gear is how terribly bad American cars are, and the rather gentle anti-americanism comes out of that i think. Ridiculous i think he was forced to apologise. He’s an entertainer, not someone to be taken, or who takes himself, seriously.
The BBC is being very spineless at the moment, panic i think induced by the Ross/Brand affair which was grossly overblown at the time.
Do I detect a movement at the BBC to resurrect the shattered reputation of Sharon Shoesmith? We have an (apparently) sympathetic and oh so understanding interview on Woman’s Hour, parts of which are relayed on Today. Then the first 2 minutes of the 9:00 am News on Radio 4 (ie the major item of news in the UK) is, you guessed it, the news that Sharon is to be interviewed on Woman’s Hour and that she is intent on exculpating herself from any responsibility for the death of Baby P (the “real” responsibility according to Sharon appears to be the irresponsible press) together with sympathetic clips from that interview.
This isn’t news. Shoesmith is capable of mounting legal action against Haringey for wrongful dismissal if she feels she’s been badly treated by Haringey. Note – she hasn’t launched an action yet and Baby P was badly treated – to death as it happens – on Shoesmith’s watch. I can’t recall the BBC taking much interest in Councillor Redfearn’s summary dismissal beyond a bit of crowing that some white male with unacceptable (though legal) political affiliations had been sacked. Why wasn’t he given an interview on “Man’s Hour” (obviously, there isn’t such a programme) or a spot on Today to put his case? So why the interest in Sharon? I suspect this presages both Sharon’s legal action and a tsunami of justification (on the BBC and in the Guardian probably) for the generally woeful performance of British “misunderstood” social workers.
BTW, for future reference, whoever “bongo” is, it’s not me.
I notice the bulk of the media are reporting that Clarkson still thinks Brown is an idiot.Still nothing on bbc news website though.mmmm
Although remarks about appearance can be funny, you have to be careful about crossing the boundaries, e.g. references to one eye.
Personally I don’t feel comfortable making these references, although I would not shout SACK HIM! in a hysterical voice every time an offending word comes up, then repeat the offending word all day long like the BBC do.
And, when you think about it, being one-eyed is not really associated with weakness; it is more often associated with valour and power – Look at all the military men, not ashamed to show the scars of battle, including the man who tried to blow up Hitler. Even pirates in comics have eye patches to show how hard they are. And you would not exactly mess with a cyclops would you? Hence the military vehicle being called a cyclops which someone mentioned.
On the same subject, the blind man Pew in Treasure Island is a terrifying and powerful character.
The BBC are not being genuine when they pretend they find various words offensive, as they keep saying them themselves all the time. It reminds me of a boy I know who found out that there was a German plane called a ‘Fokker’. He could not stop talking about the plane.
Back to Treasure Island and its disabled characters – Long John Silver had only one leg and he was dead hard.
Also, there is a marooned character with mental problems. He had turned half-animal and fantasised about Parmesan cheese.
mikewineliberal:
Atlas’s descent into unpleasantness – Atlas Shrugged | 06.02.09 – 7:15 pm – seems to have gone without much notice. I know most think he’s harmless, but there’s more than whiff of anti-semitism about what he says isn’t there?
As a non-Jew I could never understand the obsession of the conspiracy theory people with the Jews. It is on a par with ‘the US did not really land on the moon’. Just because there are some wealthy Jews it does not follow that they want to rule the world.
If you want a conspiracy for people taking over the world, the groups that want to do it are not hiding their ambitions – the communists/socialists and the muslims.
The communists had a good attempt via military means, but due to the economic failure of their systems their military might was not up to the job.
Now that communism has been discredited the socialists are trying to change us more gradually towards their way of thinking, rather than via military conquest.
In addition, the muslims are also having a go, in their own way. Imagine, one day, those two groups fighting it out between themselves.
Since when did being blind in one eye become a matter merely of APPEARANCE?
Oh, when it suited Jeremy Clarkson and the BBC to pretend that his insult had no more substance and no more reference to disability than if, for example, his eyebrows had been a little thick or his ears had been rather sticky outy.
In this article from the Birmingham Evening Mail http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/content_objectid=13305960_method=full_siteid=50002_headline=-Asian-for-Aide-s-girl-name_page.html Adrian Chiles says “I don’t seem to have any close friends who don’t have the same colour of skin as me” and “More of us live next door to other cultures than ever before, but that’s not making us friends.”
Making friends is a question of personal choice. Consciously or unconsciously Adrian Chiles declines to make friends with people of different ethnicities to him. Surely that is one of the definitions of a racist.
Simon Heffer has it about right, here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/4541657/The-BBC-just-carries-on-giving-offence.html
Hell’s bells. That is appalling, putting the burden of his mindboggling stupidity and manufactured guilt on his harmless tiny daughter. Poor thing. She didn’t choose him. I can only say I am grateful to have had decent parents who never burdened me with daft obligations as to whom I should choose as my friends or husbands.
There was no suggestion that Brown was an idiot because he had one eye or because he was Scottish.
Therefore discribing him as Scottish and one eyed was just a factual statement.
The idiot bit is more subjective given the German French and now Dutch governments’ statements on his economic policy not a judgment unique to Clarkson.
So exactly what was the BBC objecting to. After listening to ‘The News Quize’ they have no objections to Tory politicians being insulted.
Ron Todd: Exactly. There is an issue over Brown being Scottish, i.e. he’s not been elected by anyone in England the Country that most of his policies effect directly.
Oh and the English tax payer is propping up Scottish banks, where is the Scottish Parliament in all this?
Brown is an utter arsehole and it’s not just him but Darling as well. Clarkson is just saying what large numbers of this people would like to say about McFatty One Eye.
The Europeans must just laugh at us, a rudderless ship crashing onto the rocks with the fat one eyed one shouting out “don’t panic, don’t panic”
Doug: That’s nothing new. Take a look around Hampstead in London (where most beeboids live) it’s mostly WHITE and there is little crime. Try playing spot the black man there.
The day a beeboid goes to live on a council estate in Hackney is the day I state my unending love for Mr Gordon Brown.
Atlas’s descent into unpleasantness – Atlas Shrugged | 06.02.09 – 7:15 pm – seems to have gone without much notice.
That’s because most of us scroll past his postings
I assumed JC included the “one-eyed” reference to make clear it was Brown he was talking about and not the other Scottish idiot – Darling.
GCooper | 07.02.09 – 12:55 pm |
Thanks for the link to Heffer’s article. He puts me to shame by saying it better in two sentences than I have in all my comments combined.
It was unwise of Carol Thatcher to compare a black person with a golliwog: first and foremost it contravenes good manners.
The only thing he gets wrong is the issue of this being about a private conversation. According to Jay Hunt, several people, including minorities, were present and heard the remark. Now, I suppose we’ll never really know if Thatcher said something that only Brand, Chiles, and the third person heard. Since it’s Jo Brand we’re talking about, she may very well have reacted by bellowing, “He looks like a golliwog? Did you just call him a golliwog?” at the top of her lungs. Of course, people throughout the studio would have heard that, so then Hunt can claim that several people, including minorities, heard the remark. Or, what they thought was the remark. We’ll never know, I guess. I don’t have much faith in any of the “witnesses” coming forth and telling the truth.
Heffer’s other sentence:
For, as with the police, the original function of the corporation has been supplanted by a vocation to perform social engineering.
Right on. And the part about the silly nurse.
It was unwise of Carol Thatcher to compare a black person with a golliwog: first and foremost it contravenes good manners.
Why?
If he DOES look like a golliwog and it is his intention to look like a golliwog, what can be wrong in complimenting him on achieving his goal?
If he unintentionally looks like a golliwog what is intrinsically bad about the concept of a golliwog that makes the comparison invidious?
(That’s enough goliwogs. ed)
For those with access, BBC 2 is currently showing Part 1 (of 3) programmes,’Iran and the West’, in celebration of 30 years since the Ayatollah Khomeini Islamic ‘revolution’ in Iran of 1979, and progenitor of Ahmahdinejad.
Of course, the US dhimmi President of the time, and still currently anti-Israel, Jimmy Carter, figures prominently in the BBC’s Carter-like appeasing of Islam.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hmrvt
Alternative view:
Fitzgerald re-Carter/Brzezinski:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/012954.php
The BBC thought, and still thinks, (totally wrongly) that the political left in Iran could use the Islamic ‘revolution’; of course, the result was the Islamic revolutionary action towards Iran’s political opposition, of: censorship, torture and murder.
So much for the appeasement of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
One hope of the history relating to modern Iran, is that Muslims are still inclined to kill each other in large numbers, as in the Iraq-Iran war.
The last line of the BBC programme was that the Iranian Islamic ‘revolution’ “bamboozled” the West. It seems to have bamboozled the BBC, which made no attempt to analyse the Islamic tenets, such as the implementation of Shariah law and the anti-infidel intention of that religion’s doctrines.
Rod Liddle, re:
(BBC’s chum) S. Chakrabarti, and one Binyam Mohamed –
[Extract, ‘Sunday Times]:
“There is something about Shami Chakrabarti, the boss of ‘Liberty’, that makes me squeal with irritation and start clawing at my throat whenever I hear her speak.
“She’ll be denouncing the British state for having connived in the torture of one or another Muslim psychopath and irrationally, inhumanely, I immediately start to think: come on Britain, ignore her, get the pliers out. ”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rod_liddle/article5683338.ece
RBS announces £1bn bonuses for staff, despite receiving 20bn from taxpayers.
What does the BBC lead on? ‘Govt announces review into bonuses’.
Once again, BBC ignores the news until it can lead with the Labour rebuttal.
Now we learn from the Mail and Carol Thatcher about the real story.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138771/BBC-says-Carol-Thatcher-Golliwog-row-rumbles-on.html
“We reject the version of events put across by Adrian Chiles yesterday in The Sun”
also
Another BBC source pointed out that, unlike Carol Thatcher, Chiles has a history of being close to the Labour Party, making them natural foes. Chiles and Jane Garvey were among scores of minor celebrities entertained by Tony Blair at Chequers, the Prime Ministerial country residence, during Blair’s last 18 months in power.
According to a BBC source, Chiles is ‘paranoid’ about colleagues on The One Show – including Miss Thatcher – informing the media about his private life. Re: his alleged affair with Christine Bleakley.
Carol Thatcher “If anyone had issue with anything I was saying, they had every opportunity to say at the time. Tessa did tell me in her phone call that The One Show people didn’t want to work with me again and obviously I have no wish to be even the occasional contributor I have been to a show that feels like that. Particularly as I am finding their handling of their leak and their fuss increasingly malicious.”
Thanks to that link I’ve just read another story on the Daily Mail website: Expenses row: ‘Lodger’ deal earns Jacqui Smith £100,000 as she claims sister’s house is main home and learnt something.
Jacqui Spliff’s sister is a BBC journalist.
The comment at 06.02.09 – 7:15 pm is from a sock-puppet, and not from the real Atlas shrugged, who uses the lower case “s” as I’ve done here.
The comment itself contradicts what the real one said at 6:29pm, and that’s not the way he does it. And it wasn’t even a B-grade imitation of the style. So clearly any complaints should concern the troll who posted under a regular contributor’s handle, in an attempt to smear his name (no comments from the back, please). Seriously, I think it’s a troll screwing around, and any complaints about it should not be directed at the real Atlas.
Compare and contrast the ‘golliwoggate’ BBC coverage with the sleaze surrounding the home secretary and her theft of public money to line her own pockets, the BBC will sit on the story just long enough to collude with the nulabour comrades on how to spin the story, it woz all an honest mistake gov, the cash just fell into Smiths bank account out of the blue, it woz an interns fault, everyone else is doin it innit, I mean look at all the Tories’N’stuff yeah look at the Tories, Ooooooh look at all the snow and the fires in Oz!
The BBC will find a way of including critisism of the Tories in the eventual cover up story for Smith, its so obvious the BBC are playing for time in order to have a cosy chat with their labour masters on how best to spin the story, the BBC are so utterly transparent and yet so imune to shame!
Nick(gizza K)Robinson will at No10 taking orders from the prime mentalist crazy loony in chief as I write this.