165 Responses to OPEN THREAD..

←Older Comments
  1. Alfie Pacino says:
    December 30, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    At it again, this time on the one show’s top twenty One Show moments of 2011.
    In at number ten ‘Matt’s Question to the PM’.
    ‘Prime Minister, how do you sleep at night?’ they don’t even try to hide the bias.
    Shameful!

       0 likes

    • ltwf1964 says:
      December 30, 2011 at 7:44 pm

      it’s like a disease with beeboids,it really is

      they’re like a rabid dog…..and what should you do with one of those?

      you guessed it!

         0 likes

  2. ltwf1964 says:
    December 30, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    think it could be getting close to the time for a new open thread!

       0 likes

  3. Bupendra Bhakta says:
    December 30, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    ‘Managed decline – what would the people of Liverpool have thought if they knew that’s what Mrs Thatcher’s government had in store for them? – trilled the BBC Vews Reader-outer dollymop.

    Bit of context  – which of course the Palace Builders could never provide.

    ‘Managing the decline of Britain’, was what Thatcher’s first Cabinet believed was the best they could hope to achieve.  Britain that is – never mind Liverpool.

    Luckily Maggie had other ideas.

       0 likes

    • RCE says:
      December 30, 2011 at 9:31 pm

      Indeed.  Cast Iron Dave must’ve missed the Brasenose lecture that taught decline-by-choice is a self-fulfilling policy.

      Double 1st in PPE my arse.

         0 likes

  4. As I See It says:
    December 30, 2011 at 11:05 pm

    BBC 4 Charlie Brooker’s 2011 Wipe – satire?

    No.

    Utterly predictable one-way-street leftie bile.

    It was like a broadcast experiment in aversion therapy.

    So relentless and unpleasant was it that I defy anyone to withstand more than 7 minutes. God, it needed some commercial breaks in it.

       0 likes

    • Reed says:
      December 30, 2011 at 11:40 pm

      I can’t stand the man – Snide, sneering and relentlessly cynical. God knows what kind of misanthropic smart-arses actually find his snotty schtick amusing. I guess some people find it ‘clever and insightful’.

      And what is it with his weird is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-toupee hair style?

         0 likes

    • As I See It says:
      December 31, 2011 at 11:45 am

      2011 Wipe: the BBC reckon that ‘Charlie Brooker takes a comedic look back at the hectic events of 2011’

      In fact it sounded more like a drunk in a stupor heckling the TV unaware that it couldn’t answer back.

      Unfunny and unpleasant. And by the way it was completely on-message BBC-wise.

      eg.

      The PM is an evil bloodsucking Tory exposed by the wonderful crusading One Show.

      Mind you, Cameron is not quite as evil as Rupert Murdoch.

      The News of the World was the Devil’s breath.

      Prof Starkey was wrong to talk about black gangster culture.

      Berlusconi and Papandreou were sacked and democracy was pushed aside not by the EU but by ‘numbers’.

      Charlie Booker is the shouty ranter iconoclast – who never waivers off-message. And the Beeb are sure to keep him in work.

         0 likes

      • Daniel Clucas says:
        December 31, 2011 at 2:36 pm

        The fact that the first thing mentioned on the ad for it was “Andy Coulson was sacked!” which, tbf, he wasn’t told me all I needed to know really.

           0 likes

        • cjhartnett says:
          December 31, 2011 at 6:10 pm

          I too thought that the Charlie Brooker show was awful and typical of the man.
          A Guardian hack who hit lucky with a couple of good Newswipes-and so became the darling of the Guardians chattering classes.
          And then…what else would Buttons do, but marry Konnie Huq…and so the new Beckhams are crowned in cleverness?
          That Brooker did the appallingly unfunny 10 O Clock Live and survived to get this drivel commissioned is no surprise…not now he`s married the Blue Peter trolley dolly from somewhere exotic.
          His dystopian three parter on Channel 4(who love his stools of shows as well) was a disgrace, but oh so edgy…and Charlie is allowed to get away with it, for now.
          In short,Brooker is the classic tale of a media john turned pimp…his story would make a dark pantomine-and no doubt he`s writing it with Konnie making the bhajis for the linen suits who daren`t risk Salford yet!
          As for Doug Stanhope and that Shitpeas…did we actually pay these lollards round the sewer pipe to suck the shit out of Brookers orifice?…worse than “taking the piss” I`d have thought!
          If only I could think of a word to rhyme with “Brooker”, I`d be in business…

             0 likes

          • As I See It says:
            December 31, 2011 at 6:34 pm

            Brooker is busy plumbing the latest grubby depths of ner-ner-ner-ner-ner BBC lazy snide that now passes for satire.

            100% on message and 100% unfunny.

            The give away is that while he comes over as cynical to a fault in fact you will never ever hear him ‘dis’ any single one of the BBC’s favourite things. Champaign-vomit Socialist.

            His very significance is that he embodies so much of what has gone wrong with the BBC.

            His ITV equivalent would be the fried Wallaby gonad served up to a Corrie bit part player in a bushtucker trial.

            The quintessential perpetual adolescent and a potential Paul Merton in waiting.

               0 likes

            • Buggy says:
              December 31, 2011 at 9:19 pm

              TBH, I used to quite fancy Konnie. But her taste in men is dodgy, to say the very least.

              Since she used to date Mr Unclean Beast Meat the drug fiend, and has now wedded Ol’ Shouty here, does she qualify as the Stephanie “Two Eds” of the TV world ?

                 0 likes

  5. deegee says:
    December 30, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    BBC journalists have been accused of plagiarising Wikipedia instead of research. I guess the Arts and Entertainment crowd have been reading the Daily Mail.
    Russell Brand and Katy Perry split
    I guess his association with the BBC, including the prank telephone call to Andrew Sachs and his subsequent resignation was of no interest and in no way influenced the choice of story. Otherwise they would have mentioned it, wouldn’t they?

       0 likes

    • Biodegradable says:
      December 31, 2011 at 12:34 pm

      Yes, I thought that detail of his recent life, and his “resignation” from the BBC, was somewhat deliberately missing. Instead we’re reminded of his “edgy” comments about George Bush because to the BBC mindset there’s nothing to complain about there, quite the contrary.

         0 likes

  7. noggin says:
    December 31, 2011 at 10:39 am

    anyone sick of the el beeb (thank god they are here) “arab league” – syria narrative

    lets get this straight for arab read  MUSLIM league, ie.  nothing NOTHING can impede the spread of stricter islam/ will do anything ANYTHING to ease the way for it.
    This is, after all, a group that has numbered among its members some of the worst tyrants in the world and which has supported terrorist groups so long as their targets were Jews and not Arab oligarchs … mission head “moh” al dhabi creator of janjawe ed,( darfur genocide anyone?).

    ooooohhhh! … what could go wrong eh! 😀

    you couldn t make it up

    I.E. news
    syria: credibility? of Arab League’s General Mohammed Ahmed al … http://www.telegraph.co.uk › News › World News › Middle East › Syria

    how CAN it be seen as this?

    BBC News – Syria mission a diplomatic coup for Sudan http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16349870    ???????

       0 likes

    • noggin says:
      December 31, 2011 at 10:46 am

      al dhabi/assad – two sides same coin, do we really need another  “islam is the answer” apocalypse?

         0 likes

  8. Cassandra King says:
    December 31, 2011 at 2:00 pm

    Sea levels rising dangerously?

    Here is a graph showing the reality, a reality the BBC dare not show. Look at the graph below and remember the dozens of scaremongering BBC propaganda reports of the last year or two.

    Look at the reality and you realise how the BBC have lied to us, deceived and manipulated us. Here is a graph the BBC will never show not least because they are lying cheating scum.

    Happy new year and all the very best to my friends at B-BBC, may you all get what you deserve, the ruin and fall of a rancid corrupt criminal multi billion pound propaganda empire.

    Ill drink to that 😀 .

       0 likes

    • David Gregory says:
      January 1, 2012 at 12:58 pm

      Well my first question would be “unadjusted” in response for what? For example when using satellite data you need to remember sea level will be depressed in areas of high atmospheric pressure, and the otherway round. You need to adjust the results accordingly. Has that been done here? Also I realise we’ve only had data for 8 years and you really need more data to look at. For example if you were to cherry pick data up to 2010 you’d see a much more pronounced upwards trend.
      So basically, this is raw data and there’s not enough of it to draw any conclusions. I’m not getting top slot on the Ten with that one.

         0 likes

  9. George R says:
    December 31, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    John REDWOOD, MP, has comments on BBC in this article:

    “The Euro accelerates the West’s decline”

    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/762/the_euro_accelerates_the_west_s_decline

       0 likes

  10. Millie Tant says:
    December 31, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    Following Jazz Record Requests at 5 – 6 pm, there isn’t a broadcast from New York this evening but a recording from the Royal Opera House earlier this month:

     La Traviata from 6 00 – 8 40 pm on Radio 3:

    <!–Enlarge–>

    Verdi’s La Traviata
    Presented by Martin Handley
    From the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Verdi’s enduring favourite, La Traviata, recorded earlier this month.

    Adapted from Dumas’ novel La Dame aux Camélias, it’s the story of the Fallen Woman, the tragic courtesan who pays the ultimate price for taking a lover only to be forced to leave him against her wishes, as they break Parisian society’s conventions. Soprano Ailyn Pérez portrays Violetta, la Traviata, in a Covent Garden debut role; Alfredo, her young, carefree lover is performed by tenor Piotr Beczala; his father, Giorgio Germont, whose family’s honour is compromised by the doomed lovers, is portrayed by Simon Keenlyside – his first time in the Covent Garden stage performing a role he took recently to Japan with the ROH. This classic production of La Traviata, by Richard Eyre, provides a fascinating portrait into a pleasure-seeking, double-standards, decadent society. At the helm of the Royal Opera House Orchestra and Chorus is Patrick Lange.
    Violetta Valéry…..Ailyn Pérez (Soprano)
    Alfredo Germont…..Piotr Beczala (Tenor)
    Giorgio Germont…..Simon Keenlyside (Baritone)
    Baron Douphol…..Eddie Wade (Baritone)
    Doctor Grenvil…..Christophoros Stamboglis (Bass)
    Flora Bervoix…..Hanna Hipp (Mezzo soprano)
    Marquis D’Obigny…..Daniel Grice (Bass baritone)
    Gastone de Letorières…..Ji Hyun Kim (Tenor)
    Annina…..Gaynor Keeble (Mezzo soprano)
    Giuseppe…..Neil Gillespie (Tenor)
    Messenger…..John Bernays (Bass)
    Conductor…..Patrick Lange
    The Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House.

       0 likes

  11. George R says:
    December 31, 2011 at 4:00 pm

    Two reports of the same event in NEW YORK:

    1.) ‘Jihadwatch’:-

    New York Muslim leaders try to strongarm Bloomberg into dropping anti-terror efforts by boycotting his interfaith breakfast

    [Opening excerpt]:

    “Bloomberg insists that the NYPD’s counter-terror actions were entirely legal. And do these Muslim leaders really think that a leader so completely in their power such as Bloomberg, errand boy for the Ground Zero Mosque, would circumvent the law to the slightest degree where they are concerned?
    “This is a naked attempt to intimidate the already compliant Bloomberg into dropping the last vestiges of anti-terror efforts in New York City.”

    2.) INBBC:-

    “Muslims boycott Mayor Bloomberg’s interfaith breakfast”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16366971

       0 likes

  12. As I See It says:
    December 31, 2011 at 6:11 pm

    His Master’s Voice.

    984 names on the New Year Honours List and what story do BBC Radio 5 go with….?

    Why of course it is Labour Party criticism of the ex-Northern Rock guy who got something for his charity work. No balance, no alternative view – just a Labour Party press release.

    It’s going to be long hard year of bias up in Salford.

       0 likes

    • Jeremy Clarke says:
      January 1, 2012 at 12:02 pm

      Paul Ruddock?

      Is this the same Labour Party that gave us Sir Frederick Goodwin?

         0 likes

  13. George R says:
    December 31, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    INBBC remains politically empathetic to IRAN regime’s ‘PRESS TV’   propaganda TV station which operates 24/7 against the West  on Sky satellite from Ealing studios in London still.  
     
    Is there more than a clue as to why INBBC is politically empathetic to Ahmadinejad’s state funded ‘PRESS TV’ in these words of INBBC’s appropriately named, Linda PRESSLY?:  
     
    About halfway through her article, she says of Iran’s state funded, ‘Press TV’:  
     
    “It is pro-Palestinian, anti-sanctions against Iran, and critical of Western – especially US and UK – foreign policy.  
     
    But in the UK, the channel has come under scrutiny.”  
     
     
    Note the above “BUT”.  
     
    In other words, ‘Press TV’, and by extension, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regime is just like INBBC in political outlook:  
     
    “It is pro-Palestinian, anti-sanctions against Iran, and critical of Western – especially US and UK – foreign policy. ”  
     
     
    Note too, the lack of interest by INBBC’s Ms PRESSLY in any policy of recipocity: it’s OK for Iran to close down INBBC, but it’s not OK for UK to close down Iran’s ‘Press TV’ in London!

    Ludicrous.  
     
    ‘Press TV’s  London operation should be closed down NOW.  
     
    The Islamic Republic of Iran is building nuclear weapons which will eventually be aimed at not only Israel, but, with technological advance, at Britain too.  
     
    “Iran’s battle for TV influence takes shape on Press TV”  
     
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16317282      

       0 likes

  14. David Preiser (USA) says:
    December 31, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    I couldn’t resist checking out the running order page of Today, just to see what the last celebrity guest editor stuck in.

    Vicars: ‘From pastiche to realism’

    While many detect an increasing hostility to organised religion in British culture, our guest editor Stewart Lee is intrigued by the consistently positive spin vicars have received in recent years.

    The BBC’s religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott investigates how vicars have fared in modern culture.

    Postivie spin? Yeah, only certain ones, though.  That should actually read:

    While many detect an increasing hostility to organised religion in British culture, our guest editor Stewart Lee is intrigued by the consistently positive spin trendy vicars, especially the ones who openly doubt their beliefs or speak out on behalf of Socialism, have received in recent years.

    In case there’s any doubt about what Lee and the rest of them think, his “Thought for the Day” was from legendary comic book writer Alan Moore. Moore pokes fun at people who use religion to advance their own personal agendas.

    I doubt anyone in the Today offices understood the irony.

       0 likes

    • Reed says:
      December 31, 2011 at 10:02 pm

      Bloody Stewart Lee – AGAIN!!!! >:o

      There really does seem to be an ever increasingly small pool of ‘talent’ from which the BBC draws it’s contributors.

      A few nights ago we had a ‘special’ episode of Never Seen Star Wars, in which celebs have a go at very ordinary/commonplace things that they have somehow missed out on. Normally presented by Marcus Brigstocke, this episode was presented by Jo Brand, with special guest Stephen Fry, both of whom had been present on QI earlier in the evening.

      These people are just bed-blockers. They’ve been around for decades and just won’t push off into obscurity to count their money and whore themselves out to the corporate world of TV adverts and voice-overs (though dear stephen and a few others have already made good progress in that area, like they really need the money – greedy buggers).

      It would be nice if they would retire to let the new talent through, but I don’t see much sign of any decent newcomers who are brave enough to challenge the new establishment of tired and predictable 80s alternative, lefty types. Charlie Brooker and his ilk are just more of the same brand of sneering lefties.

      There are a few who don’t indulge in the same old snide lefty schtick – Dara O’Brien and Michael McIntyre are the only two that spring to mind.

      Where is the NEW alternative??????

         0 likes

      • Nota Sheep says:
        January 1, 2012 at 11:34 am

        Stewart Lee – talent?

           0 likes

      • Jeremy Clarke says:
        January 1, 2012 at 11:47 am

        <<claps>>

           0 likes

      • cjhartnett says:
        January 1, 2012 at 12:13 pm

        How true!
        The hapless harpie Brand was on Jools Holland last night wanting Clarkson shot and the Coalition gone…oh and Clegg buried face down in Hackney Marshes under her boot.
        Now I`ve stopped rocking with helpless laughter,who do I ask to dob her in?…she got rid of Carole Thatcher, didn`t she?

        And so to Desert Island discs.
        Kirsty Young trawls Wogans old biography to remind him that the death of his baby daughter may account for his lack of faith…with of course, the influence of those Jesuits/Christian Brothers(nudge, nudge).
        Terry didn`t give Kirsty her soundbite-but for her and her “researchers” to try this one on the great man was truly despicable….and 2012 will be a Desert Islands Desert for me…if Kirsty and the like are prepared to bring up the death of a child to slag off religion, then it`s best not to bother with them!

           0 likes

  15. George R says:
    December 31, 2011 at 9:32 pm

    As an antidote to BBC-NUJ-

    Christopher BOOKER’s year-end comments on:

    a.) European Union;

    b.) HUHNE’s 32,000 windmills.

    “Europe cannot save the euro, nor save itself from the euro”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8986379/Europe-cannot-save-the-euro-nor-save-itself-from-the-euro.html

       0 likes

  16. Millie Tant says:
    December 31, 2011 at 9:43 pm

    Just found out there is a marathon treat tomorrow for any aficionados of Wagner’s operas: the Master Singers is on Radio 3 from 2 45 – 9 15 pm. Phew!
    14:45–21:15

    Opera on 3Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
    Martin Handley presents a performance of Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

       0 likes

  17. Reed says:
    December 31, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    Oh dear…

    Morale at BBC Breakfast is going South as relocation date approaches

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2080131/Morale-BBC-Breakfast-going-South-relocation-date-approaches.html

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:
      January 1, 2012 at 8:49 am

      Intertesting use of the word ‘talented’, more than once.

      I think it’s meant to mean ‘popular through being on telly, but not very smart’.

      All in all a cock-up compromise it seems, with market rates not ‘understanding what the problem is’. Not a bad metaphor for most BBC output then.

         0 likes

  18. My Site (click to edit) says:
    January 1, 2012 at 10:38 am

    The Breakfast sofa and Newsnight Green Room slots alrwdy locked down then…

    GeorgeMonbiot GeorgeMonbiot A happy new year to you all. My wish is for a protest movement even bigger than 2011’s.
    Contrubuting positvely to making the world a better place through talent and hard work?… Not so much.

       0 likes

  19. Nota Sheep says:
    January 1, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    The BBC’s obsession with portraying Israel and Israelis as always in the wrong has reached new depths today. The third most important article on the Middle East news page is that an Israeli has been arrested in Chile on suspicion of negligently causing a forest fire. Is that really the third most important Middle East related news story?

       0 likes

    • Span Ows says:
      January 1, 2012 at 5:07 pm

      could you imagine them reporting that (even in the latin American page)if the guy was called Mohammed Khan or something similar?

         0 likes

  20. Jonathan S says:
    January 1, 2012 at 11:01 pm

    has anyone spared a thought for the poor souls at the Occupy camp outside St Pauls during this festive season, i havn’t, the fucking lowlife twats 

       0 likes

  21. Jonathan S says:
    January 1, 2012 at 11:40 pm

    i wonder which country will have the highest level of drug taking abuses at the Olympics

       0 likes

  22. OWEN MORGAN says:
    January 2, 2012 at 4:16 am

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/31/ed-miliband-labour-bbc-bias

    Couldn’t make it up.   Some of the comments are right from the Walter Durranty School, too.

       0 likes

←Older Comments