Call me old-fashioned, but to me, a cat-fight between the zealots at Greenpeace and the creepy control freaks at Facebook over whether the latter has or has not done its best to use green energy in its new server centre ain’t news. It’s simply a greenie bar-room brawl over who has the biggest organ (so to speak), and a massive puff for the corporation’s in-house social networking tool. But to the BBC green gaulatiers, it’s worth a straggering 902 words of coverage, a discussion about the cost of LEDs (yawn!) and the merits of paint-stripping, plus, of course, a lecture from the Facebook boss about how everyone else should follow his holier-than-thou green-creed energy-saving lead. What next? The battle between Nether Piddle and Piddletrenthide Mothers’ Unions about what is the best setting agent for jam?
BAR ROOM BRAWLING…
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Yes, the BBC readily spends time and money on matters of damn-all interest to the paying public. It is the OPM Principle – Other People’s Money is free.
The Today programme this morning switched from a discussion of important political issues with Nick Clegg to speculation about whether anyone will ever break the 2-hour barrier for the Marathon. Two views were presented – not in the next 20 years, maybe in the next 20 years. So, hardly a pressing matter. But the BBC hack then said that he had flown out to Ethiopia to meet the greatest marathon runner. For a very brief sound interview.
Are there no phones in Ethiopia ? No sensible person would think of going there to get an interview that is obtainable far easier and cheaper. Clearly there are internal rules in the BBC that allow this sort of profligacy.
Meanwhile the BBC fails to do the basics. BBC iPlayer lets you scan back over the past week’s programmes, TV and radio, channel by channel. That is its central function. But now the BBC has renamed Radio 7 as Radio 4 Extra. Clicking on the Radio 7 button gives programmes up to 6am on Manday 4 April, the changeover time and date. But there is no button to click for Radio 4 Extra.
Some clowns have terminated the central function of access to Radio 7 – but not installed the continuation.
In most businesses, people could get sacked for that.
Of course, BBC reporters somehow don’t make great carbon footprints when jetting unnecessarily around the world. Unlike us lesser mortals would.
Not that I give a toss about their carbon footprint. But the BBC does, as long as it’s someone else.
Ah, Greenpeace and Facebook. Two organisations I somehow manage to do without. They deserve each other.
All this loony green eco bollocks is getting SO fucking tedious. Who gives a shit about carbon-fucking-footprints? Meaningless bollocks, all of it. I am so sick and bloody tired of hearing the words “environmental”, “ecological”, “green”, “climate change”, “global-fucking-warming” and “saving the poxy planet”, I’m tempted to ban myself from all contact with the media, and have a huge fucking bonfire instead. It really, really, PISSES ME OFF!.
Sorry, but that feels much, much better…
A recent poll in the US showed that worries about the environment were least of the people’s worries.
And within the “environment” tag – worries about climate change also came last.
All this is is Greenpeace,Facebook and the BBC stuck in a lift and farting ceaselessly after too many buffet snacks of ethnic origin.
They fight for the mike and the Twitter facility-they each pass their own views on the other “partners” flatus and deny that they are incontinent themselves.
Best to keep the lift doors closed so the polar bears still have skating pond tonight.
Classic aimless controversy as imagined by the Beeb to get us all talking in the bistros tonight-over the lobster bisques?-come ON you guys…surely we all DO that don`t we?
With of course the added bonus that they don`t have to leave the Green Room or the lift to even get a story-just make one up like this and put it out. No one listens anyway!
Wonder if Andrew Marrs belly button fluff is in essence the same as that of Jackie Ashley of the Gordian-Robert Winston still in the building Quentin?
Like that bit about some heaving BBC reporter jogging alongside the worlds fastest man in Ethiopia-that was the story I`m thinking! Most BBC types don`t rate the lobster bisque or Mouton Cadet in Addis Ababa I`d imagine!
Ms. Shields does seem to trot ’em out…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2011/02/facebook_is_moving_and_hiring.html
And, interestingly, the ‘green’ cred aspects don’t seem to score quite as highly as she seems to think there, either.
Why the hell are we paying for a BBC hack in Silicon Valley ? The BBC’s reporting of technology issues has been mostly useless for decades. They can waffle about Facebook’s change of premises – how about some of the revolutionary stuff that comes out of Silican Valley or the Boston corridor – does anyone at the BBC have a clue about tha development of softswitching for next-gen phone networks, or about MPLS trunk transmission, or about the complexities of network/computer security ? Or the state of play between Intel and AMD ?
That damn woman probably files one vacuous story a week. Otherwise – one big jolly.
Nether Piddle won with pectin, as it sets more quickly. The next time an eco-loonie starts spouting off about “carbon footprints” I might try dolloping some between their teeth, in an attempt to stem the flow of hot air. Followed by a carbon footprint from my size 9….. 😉
Keep up the good work Robin.
Facebook may be the corporation’s in-house social networking tool but they spend a huge amount of time attacking it. Virtually every story you hear on the BBC about Facebook is negative. Why? Do they own shares in Twitter perhaps?
Meanwhile, after a bit of a break (flying about, it would appear)… he’s baaaaaaack…..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2011/04/science_and_politics_-_a_tale.html
Full marks for consistency, though. And sticking with what he knows. I think nothing says ‘on the cusp of climate science’ than a polar bear on an ice floe.
Black admits that most of the alarmism eg ice melting he heard at the Vienna conference (a nice jolly for him) was not peer-reviewed. But then at the end of his article, where he hopes the bleatings from Tuvalu will cause the West to damage its economies, he avers that the scientific picture is getting worse.
What crap the man writes.
Any botanists out there?
I just wondered if this was factually accurate or cue for a bit of narrative enhancing, with a warm spell as cue for a bit of AGW activity…
BBCBreakfast BBC Breakfast Also this morning, share your pics of #bluebells! They’re blooming earlier than normal – find out why at ten-to the hour!
Not overly scientific, but a quick google gets me this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cornwall/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8607000/8607067.stm
Which seems to suggest concern last year, at this time, of a… delay.