Monthly Archives: November 2010

MALLEUS MALEFICARUM

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I have concluded that the BBC is frantically busy compiling the equivalent of the Malleus Maleficarum, the documentation of “proof” by the medieval Church that witches existed. Here, we have alien species – in this case, floating pennywort, a nasty invader from the nasty US – callously and viciously invading the pristine waterways of Northern Ireland. Here, strange men called Megonigels are devising new and ever more cunning ways of detecting the noxious and treacherous substance called carbon (even though it makes plants grow faster), and building fantastical new contraptions in pursuit of their prey. Here, the Black priest of the new religion is intoning the need for us to part with our cash to go on a new crusade in order to slay the dragons that are causing grievous loss of species. And here, nasty products that come from our sinful, dirty way of life are polluting and defiling the innocent creatures that should be protected at all cost.

Once upon a time, these non events would never have made the BBC, or any other, news. But because the BBC is engaged in a religious crusade based on cod science, anything goes. Strange signs and strange portents, indeed.

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Question Time LiveBlog 4th November 2010

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Question Time tonight comes from Sheffield, a city with the world’s first ever official football club, 2 million trees and absolutely no Tory councillors.

On the panel tonight we have David Davis MP, Jeremy Browne MP, Jack Straw MP, Universal Shami (to be fair, she hasn’t been somewhere on the BBC now for, ummm, a whole 10 minutes) and Jon Gaunt.

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, tonight’s panel has been specifically set up for an argument about coalition “splits” on terrorist Control Orders so we’ll be playing using the Book ’em, Danno, Terrorism One Rules. Look out for extremists and 9/11 but bonus points for stabbing MPs, and using Religion of Peace in a sarcastic tone. This may be a good tactical week to play your Weasel Words joker, as phrases like militants will score heavily, as will painfully convoluted ways to avoid saying Islam and Muslim. Points also for references to Forgemasters being a bad deal and any attempt to blame jihad on Margaret Thatcher.

The LiveBlog will stay open for the anarchic and downright odd This Week with Andrew Neil. Keen followers of the Blue Nun Reference Competition will know that David Mosque and John Ward are in mortal combat at the top of the leaderboard.

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be moderating from 10:30pm.

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Somebody Doesn’t Like the BBC

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Last month, B-BBC reader La Cumparista made the following comment on David Vance’s post about a BBC interview with a Man Booker Prize nominee:

I would really like Howard Jacobson to win the Man Booker prize this year. Has he had much publicity on the BBC?

Jacobson is listed with the others on BBC news briefs about the authors on the short list, but only Peter Carey got a special feature, presumably because he had won twice before. I don’t recall Jacobson getting the attention of the other authors by the BBC when they did their special report from the black-tie gala event of the announcement.

In any case, I now have a copy of Jacobson’s winning book, The Finkler Question, in my hand. The story opens up with a passage that is very relevant to this blog. The BBC studiously avoided mentioning this in either of their brief interviews of him as one of those on the short list.

The relevant passage begins on Page 6, when Treslove, the non-Jewish character (one of the trio of friends around whom the book is focused), is mugged while walking home one night. It describes the incident which launches the book’s journey to explore what it means to be Jewish in England today:

He passed the BBC, an institution for which he had once worked and cherished idealistic hopes but which he now hated to an irrational degree. Had it been rational he would have taken steps not to pass the building as often as he did. Under his breath he cursed it feebly – ‘Shitheap,’ he said.

A nursery malediction.

That was exactly what he hated about the BBC: it had infantilised him. ‘Auntie’, the nation called the Corporation, fondly. But aunties are equivocal figures of affection, wicked and unreliable, pretending to love only so long as they are short of love themselves, and then off. The BBC, Treslove believed, made addicts of those who listened to it, reducing them to a state of inane dependence. As it did those it employed. Only worse in the case of those employed – handcuffing them in promotions and conceit, disabling them from any other life. Treslove himself a case in point. Though not promoted, only disabled.

Indeed.

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Protecting The BBC (Literally)

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So hands up who knew that the BBC still has a secret underground bunker, 10-floors deep into a mountain in the middle of nowhere, built during the Cold War in case there was a nuclear Armageddon?

Buried 10 storeys into the hillside is a fully functioning nuclear bunker, built at great expense in 1966, at the height of the Cold War. So few people knew of its existence that, even when it was being built, visiting trainees were told not to ask why all that concrete was being mixed. Those involved in its construction were obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act, and even now you won’t get a peep out of the BBC press office to acknowledge the reality.


Measuring 175ft long, the bunker – known to high command as Pawn: Protected Area Wood Norton – remains ready for service in the event of an attack on London. It is said to have beds and ping-pong tables and is connected by tunnels dug into the hillside to a mast on top of the hill which is fitted with a super high-frequency satellite dish.

It made sense at the time to have a broadcaster on the air at a time of nuclear attack, but the Russians aren’t coming any more. So now the only question is…why on Earth would the Soviets have thought that silencing the BBC was in their interests?

The BBC are squealing that freezing the telly tax is equivalent to waterboarding – so how about selling this Cold War relic off to raise some money?

Cross-posted on AllSeeingEye

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Sorry is the Hardest Word

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Whatever you make of the slur on Band Aid, the BBC’s apology to Sir Bob must have posed a dilemma.
On the one hand, one of their favourite enterprises, fundraising for charities, fronted by one of their favourite personalities, Sir Bob Geldof.
On the other hand, one of the BBC’s most intransigent internal organisations, the complaints department indoors which must be obeyed.
So the complaints department eventually capitulated, and Sir Bob was sufficiently appeased to refer to the episode as ‘an unusual lapse in standards.’

One thing certainly emerged. The admission that though the programme allegedly didn’t actually accuse Sir Bob directly, deliberately playing their music throughout. smeared Band Aid by association.

“We acknowledge that some of our related reporting of the story reinforced this perception”

“Assignment did not make the allegation that relief aid provided by Band Aid was diverted. However the BBC acknowledges that this impression could have been taken from the programme. We also acknowledge that some of our related reporting of the story reinforced this perception,”

Michael Grade spluttering “outrageous” on Today, as though deliberately manipulating programmes to look a particular way never happened in broadcasting.

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Licence Fee Freeze Is "Like Waterboarding".

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John Simpson, the BBC’s World Affairs Editor, has compared the licence fee freeze to “waterboarding”.

In a letter written to Ariel, the BBC’s own in-house newsmagazine, the BBC’s own in-house newsmagazine Mr Simpson says that only “far-right idealogues” and the “Murdoch empire” think the BBC should share the pain being endured by the rest of the public sector. It’s not fair that B-BBC doesn’t get full recognition there too.

“Our income will shrink year on year for seven long years, by amounts that are unknown because we can’t tell how high inflation will be over that period of time. It’ll be like waterboarding. As our head is pulled out of the bath, we’ll be so desperate that we can’t be certain what compromises and deals we might be tempted to make. We will be at the government’s mercy.”

Perhaps he should volunteer to be waterboarded to see if he changes his mind?

Hat-tip: Tim at ConservativeHome

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Hague’s Mysterious Visit.

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The BBC is reporting “Israel halts ‘dialogue’ with UK over war crimes law.”
This looks like another of Israel’s deliberate snubs, this time aimed at the UK rather than the US (over the curious incident of the announcement about settlements coinciding with Joe Biden’s visit.)

William Hague is being humiliated, so they say, but at least he doesn’t risk being arrested in Israel, as Israeli officials do if they are foolish enough to try to come to Blighty.

Apart from the choice of wording in the headline, and an inexplicable set of scare quotes round ‘dialogue,’ the BBC glosses over something that is explored more thoroughly in the Telegraph. There’s a bit more to this than meets the BBC’s eye.
“Hague risks clash with Israel in meeting activists’ reads an article on page 20.

“What activists?” a BBC web news-seeker might well wonder, as in the BBC article something decidedly mysterious is alluded to thus: “He will also be visiting the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

The Telegraph reports:

“The foreign secretary will meet the leadership of the increasingly assertive Palestinian groups protesting against the occupation of the West Bank.”[…]
“Israel argues that the campaign is not as peaceful as the adherents claim, pointing to weekly demonstrations at the separation barrier where protesters have often thrown stones….”

Online, there’s this. “Hague on collision course with Israeli government.”

“William Hague’s decision to hold taboo-breaking talks with representatives of three groups at the forefront of the Palestinian civil disobedience movement has set him on collision course with Israel’s government.”

Given William Hague’s well known views on the separation barrier, and on Israel in general, it figures that visiting such groups could hardly look insignificant from the Israeli viewpoint.
If the foreign secretary succeeds in getting the UK excluded from strategic dialogue over defence and security issues, who’s the biggest loser? Not Israel.
But on the whole if William Hague really is being humiliated, I’m all for it.

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