18 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. cjhartnett says:
    December 5, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    Hi there.
    Following on from my last comment on Question Time(basically the one question they`ll not let an ordinary Joe ask is-why the hell is this rubbish still on the telly/)…could I rename the Now Show the WHY Show?
     It`s Radio4 “satire” that still thinks Thatch is in power and that life is one long Rag Week.The Guardianistas have wrung their hankies over the care plans all week and now its quiff and spliff time on a Friday night so “Rock and Roll”-“Hello Cleveland!”..Hello anybody -but not Punt and Dennis for crying out loud!
    Yet here they come-fresh from the Green Room!
    These two masters of mirth  are the Ant and Dec of wireless-not one quip on the  Climate Change boffins cheating on their sums but loads on the TaxPayer Alliance. More power to the TPA if they can claw back salaries and perks from Brigstocke(angry prep school!) and the mightily unfunny Jon Holmes(but he`s small -and that is the joke for radio apparently!).

    If this is satire then lets get Jon Snow instead who is far funnier than Holmes anyway! Who else could get a beano to Rio and tell his accountant that it`s en route to Copenhagen-must be those tectonic plates slipping eh?
    Where are Hale and Pace when you need them? Soddit-Cannon and Ball…Lennie and Jerry-even bloody Milican and Nesbit-but NOT Punt and Dennis…surely there`s some smutty play on names here-over to you Mitch!

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    • D B says:
      December 5, 2009 at 5:47 pm

      Chris, I have to say that I found the recent comments of yours which were reprouduced as blog posts by DV more than a little bit cringeworthy (and yes, I’m sure my posts induce similar responses from many). However, this free-form rant against The Now Show redeems you in my eyes. 

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    • 1327 says:
      December 5, 2009 at 7:41 pm

      Nice post Chris and well said to. However the recent Now Show attacks on the TPA and the global warming sceptics is interesting as it shows the argument has moved on. A year ago a sceptic could barely be mentioned and the TPA wasn’t even on their radar. Now things have changed and the sceptics must be made fun of and the TPA attacked. They (the BBC and their nu-lab friends) no longer control the debate and are on the defensive.

      Even better imagine poor Brigstocke’s pain. He isn’t very bright and has spent 15 years doing the same act and sucking up to a bunch of people whose influence is waning. Even worse he was attacked by what he thought were “his people” at Glastonbury. 2009 can’t have been a good year for him.

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    • Larry Dart says:
      December 5, 2009 at 9:00 pm

      I started to listen to TNS to see what would be said about the continuing story of Climategate but gave up when MB started bleating on about how wonderful it was to pay taxes. 

      However it did remind me of a conversation I had a couple of years ago with someone who thought it would be good to pay more tax. When I suggested that if they felt that way they should get in contact with their tax office and ask for their tax code to be reduced the conversation stopped.

      B.T.W. where’s Medicated more than Educated these days ?

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    • John Horne Tooke says:
      December 5, 2009 at 9:39 pm

      Ah – Cannon and Ball – not great but funny. Although they were in comedy before it was hijacked by Ben Elton. And ever since “comedians” must now be left wing activists.

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  2. dave s says:
    December 5, 2009 at 8:55 pm

    I noticed what I thought was a very telling moment on Question Time.
    Towards the end a white middle aged male asked a question about the Swiss refendum on minarets.
    Cue for a whole series of liberal assumptions.
    The panel , as expected, just waffled on about the usual – tolerance, un British, not what could ever happen here etc etc. No real attempt to discuss anything at all the slightest bit controversial.
    The assumption was that the questioner was in favour of the Swiss ban. After all he was white, middleaged and male.
    In fact he wasn’t.
    A young Muslim spoke. He deplored the fracturing of the people of Slough into various “communities” that increasingly had little common ground and even contact. Multiculturalism  in fact.
    Dimbleby asked him was he in favour of the Swiss ban. Expecting of course the answer no.
    I saw the surprise on his face when the young man answered yes.
    Silence, total silence from the panel, Dimbleby and the audience.
    A young Muslim answering this way. Not at all a thing the liberal elite expected or could cope with.
    Implicit in multiculturalism is an assumtion that those whose ancestors come from another culture will not or should not accept the culture of the country they are born into. This is the unreality of the present and also the cause of so many of our troubles.
    White middle aged males are expected to oppose multiculturalism and need to  to be marginalised. Muslims are expected to reject western values and culture . After all what relevance can it have to them- such is the arrogance of the liberal elite.

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  3. Martin says:
    December 5, 2009 at 9:19 pm

    I see Ben Bernanke has laid into the one eyed jock idiot for his f**k up over the Bank of England.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233376/U-S-Federal-Reserve-chief-blames-Brown-Britains-economic-woes.html

    Can’t find any mention of it on the BBC. I wonder why?

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  4. freddo41 says:
    December 6, 2009 at 11:02 am

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    On this week’s Now Show:
    After first dealing with Melanie Phillips, she’s – “mental” – and then attributing this week’s “most moronic comment made in public” to John Redwood, Marcus B. launched his major rant at the Taxpayer’s Alliance. They are, apparently, “grasping, paranoid, selfish cowards . . . just protecting their own grubby little trotters.”

    The show’s second set-piece rant attacked the Tories and their support for marriage. What do they know about it, went the hilarious argument, they’re all sent off to boarding school at the age of seven!
    And so on and so on.
    No mention of the climate change scandal, or of Gordon Brown lying in the House about the G20 or indeed of anything to do with the Labour Party.
    Once again they get a free ride while anyone questioning received left-wing wisdom gets bashed.
    (And if there isn’t a piece next week about the Tories sheer hypocrisy over Toff bashing, I’ll eat my top hat.)

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  5. George R says:
    December 6, 2009 at 11:08 am

    “BBC outnumber players as they cover World Cup Draw”

    [Extract]:

    “THE BBC spent more than £100,000 to send 26 staff to cover the World Cup draw in South Africa. That’s three more than the 23-strong England squad itself. All but three of them were sent out from London.

    “The cost will have included hotel and air fares of around £30,000.

    ” ITV sent just three staff, one of whom is based in Johannesburg. ”

    http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/144382/BBC-outnumber-players-as-they-cover-World-Cup-draw

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  6. freddo41 says:
    December 6, 2009 at 11:52 am

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    This morning’s Broadcasting House decided to deal with Gordon Brown’s ‘Eton’ attack on the Tories by sending a reporter to find out if Labour backbenchers agree with this plan of attack.
    Guess what? They did!
    So we had a collection of Labour MPs putting flesh on the bones of the original attack.
    The reporter’s conclusion? That this approach may have failed at Crewe and Nantwich but this time it could work. So all very positive.
    And the reporter? Ben Wright, son of veteran Labour MP Tony Wright.
    How very cosy.

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    • Craig says:
      December 6, 2009 at 3:52 pm

      It certainly was cosy.
      And it was preceded by Beebette Rajini Vaidyanathan chatting to presenter Paddy O’Connell about how Gordon Brown was “seen to have landed a killer blow on David Cameron with his talk of the playing fields of Eton”  Which raises the obvious question, “Seen by who? By Labour, the Guardian, the BBC?” She also said that Dave has “spent much of his time as leader re-branding the party, showing that it’s not just for toffs”. He may well have re-branded the party, but “showing that it’s not just for toffs” was no part of that re-branding. Did the Conservative Party of Mrs Thatcher, John Major, William Hague and Michael Howard really have the image of being a party of toffs, as Rajini implies? I’d have thought not, except in the mind of an amnesiac, leftie Beebette.

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  7. George R says:
    December 6, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    The BBC, much of the political ‘left’, combining with Islamic interests, assail the Swiss democratic vote against Islamic minarets.

     Peter Hitchens has this:

    (scroll down his article) –

    “Swiss aren’t the intolerant ones

    [Extract]:


    “Nobody ever asked us if we wanted a country full of big mosques, asserting Islam’s confidence in our cities. So that is what we have. But they asked the Swiss and they said ‘no thank you’. Is this bigotry? I don’t think so.
    “Where Islam is in power, it restricts the building and repairing of Christian churches, the ringing of bells and the holding of processions. Christians are second-class citizens. Western liberal prattle about Islamic ‘tolerance’ is based on ignorance.”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1233489/PETER-HITCHENS-If-The-Committee-Unintended-Consequences-able-grill-Blair.html#ixzz0Yv8h7kXn

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  8. cjhartnett says:
    December 6, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    All true …all true -and yet?
    There is clearly a quiet desperation about much of this BBC output-and 1327 and Dave S are right to say that some worms are on the turn up there in Beebland.
    Poor Marcus-imagining that Dominic will be sending the classier card this year(do atheists send cards and refuse to keep working I wonder?). You`re either funny and clever or you`re not. Marcus will no doubt be resting his untamed wit on the Now Show again this Friday. Count the David Blaine references when you`re not helpless with laughter-seems to help me through to Mitch Benn!

    BH was pitiful as per but wait… Stewart Lee managed to confuse himself-still it made me think though which is rare for this programme,so Stew earned his croissant today!The Tory Quangocrat on with him was useless and a sign of what we`ll be getting soon!
    Still-to end on a positive-fine G&S song/skit on Mandelson as Pooh Bah-and James Naughtie has (just this once) the credit for this. This finished the shortened show. If we get it shortened still further it might even get better!

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  9. David Preiser (USA) says:
    December 6, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    Any chance of the BBC reporting in the latest incident in an important story?

    Gordon Brown snubbed by soldiers’ ‘curtain’ protest

    Another soldier, who lost his right leg after being caught in a mine blast in Afghanistan, said that more than two-thirds of the 25 soldiers on the ward closed their curtains. He, however, decided to speak to Brown.
    “I wanted to find out how the guy’s head worked,” he said. “I was interested in what he had made of his trip to Afghanistan and what he had learnt from it
    “I feel that even if someone is a moron, he should have the opportunity to defend his moronity. [His response] all seemed rather textbook and not from the heart.
    “It is quite obvious to anyone that Brown is not concerned, it is almost as if we [the soldiers] are the product of an unwanted affair.
    “The straight fact is this: we don’t like the man, he has done nothing for us and continues to kick us in the teeth over equipment and compensation.”

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  10. David Preiser (USA) says:
    December 6, 2009 at 11:41 pm

    Oh dear.  The source of opinion for Mark Mardell and Matt Frei has gone apostate!

    Obama the mortal

    We’ve all seen how Mardell (and Justin Webb before him) and Frei follow the lead of the Washington Post and the Huffington Post when it comes to opinions on US politics and other domestic issues.  My money’s on Frei Boy being the first one to shake his fat head, distancing himself from the people the WaPo’s staunch Dem partisan Dana Milbank (no mirrors at the Milbank household, apparently) is talking about:

    Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet.

    No kidding.  People here have been saying this for ages.

    You’d think his supporters might applaud this sort of thoughtful, methodical leadership as a repudiation of the Bush style of government by political theory. Instead, they’re using words such as “O’Bomber” to describe the president. MoveOn.org launched a petition drive against the policy. Code Pink, the group that heckled Bush officials for years, heckled Obama advisers on Capitol Hill last week. The liberal Web publisher Arianna Huffington told Charlie Rose that the policy “puts into question his whole leadership.”
    This is what happens when true believers mistake a mortal for a messiah.

    I find it fascinating that the religious language we’ve been using for over a year to discuss these people is finally making it to the mainstream.

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  11. George R says:
    December 7, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    We know that the BBC has climate lobby re-‘man-made -global- warming’ ; where is the BBC’s anti-‘Honour’-violence lobby? And its campaign against the sources of such criminality in Britain?

    “Police tackle massive rise in ‘honour’ violence cases”

    [Extract]:

    “This number is more than double the same period last year. There have been a series of horrific attacks which police suspect were motivated by “honour” within the family or community.
    Detectives are still investigating the death of mother-of-two Geeta Aulakh, 28, hacked down with a sword in a Greenford street last month. A student aged 18 has been charged with murder.
    <!– ARTICLE INLINE AD –>

    In July a 24-year-old Asian man from Denmark lost part of his tongue and was left blind in one eye when he had acid thrown in his face in Leytonstone. He was the suspected lover of a married Muslim woman. Two men are awaiting trial.”

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23780507-police-tackle-massive-rise-in-honour-violence-cases.do

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  12. George R says:
    December 7, 2009 at 4:35 pm

    Turkey: Islam is first priority.


     Some sections of the BBC seem to sense that there is something politically threatening to the West from Turkey; but such sections of the BBC can’t quite name it:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8398865.stm

    Also:

    http://kern.pundicity.com/6657/minarets-bayonets-swiss-vote-ban

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  13. David Preiser (USA) says:
    December 7, 2009 at 8:00 pm

    Here’s one for you.  On Matt Frei’s “Americana” podcast page, where one can download the weekly segments he does where he talks to almost exclusively Democrats, even when discussing the other side, there’s a “You may also like” section of links on the right sidebar.

    The genres:

    “Factual” and “News”

    Yes, I realize that “Factual” is supposed to refer to science and history programmes and Top Gear.  But this is Matt Frei we’re talking about, for whom “factual” and “news” don’t often meet.

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