164 Responses to Open Thread

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  1. AsISeeIt says:
    January 19, 2013 at 10:52 am

    Can’t get enough Barrack Obama?

    BBC Radio 5 Live Drive trailers promise uninterrupted coverage of his second inauguration.

    Well, it would be a pity to let any news get in the way of Him.

       3 likes

  2. noggin says:
    January 19, 2013 at 11:21 am

    check out despicable sleight of hand, on al bbc news …
    re-israel.
    this morning … for incisive comment? … yep!
    bringing in old “thats life” queen, nigel “fanny” fanshawe,
    this airheaded sop, informs us a two state solution is out,
    israel as we know it, could be just overun by arabs, and …
    its all … (nodding, as he holds our 2 presenters mesmerised, by his intellect) … israels fault!…
    yea he minces …the settlements you see! …
    he gushes …. and if they don t want to be called “apartheid” state, just like south africa … (girlfriend!), and their elections are coming up, tsk tsk shakes head … gonna go to the right!.
    mr obama, will have to have a word etc etc.

    throughout this pantomime … the implication is clear
    israel bad, settlements bad bad, netanyahu bad bad bad
    questioning if israel should be there … AT ALL!.

    are these trio of f-ckwits aware” that … islamic facists are bombing israel, islamic facists in mali, in algeria, in kashmir
    in somalia, in sudan at all? …
    it is beneath contempt, is it wilful, this pure ignorance, deliberate ….
    grr … off switch

       7 likes

    • chrisH says:
      January 19, 2013 at 11:33 am

      Fanshawe?…but who else?
      Cue Allan Carr, Graham Norton and that Labour Cashman soap actor now to discuss further the chances of Diva International doing a Priscilla in the Desert tribute tour around those gay and vibrant wadis from Medina to Trabzon….from Rabat to Quetta.
      Thought that the BBC were gay-friendly….yet the one country around those godforsaken sands where they can go on their Pride marches is the only one that they scream and go all hissy upon.
      Fanshaw met any Tehran crane drivers then?…yet he`s the BBCs voice on a topic like this?
      Hope Rantzen kept tabs on him better than she did on her mate Jimmy…why was he not brought out to attack Rantzen ,where he WOULD have something helpful to add?

         2 likes

    • noggin says:
      January 19, 2013 at 11:34 am

      and apologies if anyone of the pink persuasion, is offended by my tone, but on a really serious political issue, you do need someone a little more than an aging gok wan, for serious comment.

      ….. simon hughes 😀

         2 likes

  3. chrisH says:
    January 19, 2013 at 11:25 am

    Hopefully, loads of the Beebleeches will be stuck at Heathrow, hoping to cling to the last helicopters out and away from the hoi-polloi.
    I also hope that all those carrion that pre-empted Camerons trip to Amsterdam-only to be stood up on a blind date in effect( Nick Robinson etc)-are similarly marooned…and we ought to tell the “coffee houses” over there that any fat bald party with a load of impressionable horsey interns in tow-well, he`s likely to be a foreigner and therefore NOT entitled to enjoy the benefits of the local `erb n `ash…that`s illegal, now!
    Besides-cant be too careful what with all that passive smoking eh?
    Hope they all get to listen to it all from round their trannies(oo er) there at Heathrows cargo hold…good enough for them all!

       1 likes

  4. AAB says:
    January 19, 2013 at 11:52 am

    Have any of the Biased BBC authors written any pieces on the possible collusion between BBC and the UKTV network? I ask as they always seem to be showing programmes of an almost identical theme at the same time. For instance this morning, on UKTV History (aka Yesterday) there were three episodes of ‘Forgotten Pilots’ which were about females in the RAF during WW” (pro fem, sexual equality agenda), and on BBC2 at the same time there was a film called ‘ Flight for Freedom (1943)’ which was about a female pilot during WW2. There have been other instances over the last year (pop music during the 1960s or pro-gay documentaries etc) when there have been simultaneous billings on both BBC channels (usually BBC2 or BBC4) and UKTV History/Yesterday.

    Does anyone have any thoughts or websites/pages on the matter? It seems like the BBC is just using the UKTV network as its ‘Commercial Wing’, as a means of gaining increased revenue and pushing their propaganda onto the population; but it’s just a hunch.

       5 likes

  5. George R says:
    January 19, 2013 at 1:00 pm

    “Woman ‘seduced by John Peel aged 15’ urges BBC to continue plans to name part of HQ after late DJ”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2264836/Leave-man-Let-BBC-honour-DJ-John-Peel-says-woman-seduced-15.html

       4 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:
      January 19, 2013 at 3:32 pm

      Mark Thompson, the then director-general, said last year that renaming the wing would be ‘a fitting tribute to a man who personified so much of what the BBC stands for’.

         6 likes

  6. Guest Who says:
    January 19, 2013 at 2:44 pm

    He has asked for questions (albeit, semantically, only welcome from a very narrow group he wants to hear from), but his remit does include accountability which, as any fule no, is what the BBC expects of others but doesn’t itself ‘do’ (c) Patten, C. Still worth a punt then:)
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2013/01/external_supply_review.html
    It will be interesting to see how long this one stays open.

       1 likes

  7. AsISeeIt says:
    January 19, 2013 at 3:28 pm

    The BBC has unilaterally set themselves the task of remaking sport in their own image.
    Radio 5 Live, the station that mixes news with a PC take on sport, is at the forefront of this leftist putsch on the nation’s sports.
    In an interview with the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire broadcast this week FA Chairman David Bernstein lists his priorities for 2013. Now Bernstein must to some extent know what is expected of him when he faces a BBC harpy; and so after the absolute basic of English national team success he cobbles together a veritable escape raft of BBC friendly PC buzzword topics. His priorities it seems are these: England qualification of the World Cup; Progress with regard to anti-discrimination; Work on respect (player to player, player to referee, fan behaviour, etc): FA governance.
    Within these topics only the issue of racism really peeks the interest of our Victoria. She wants details and she wants specifics. Most of all she wants him to fess up that there is actually a problem with racism. Bernstein no doubt comes away from the BBC interview hoping he has satisfied the beast.
    ‘Not Good enough!’Shrieks another BBC presenter, Eleanor Oldroyd. She is on Fighting Talk this morning and is most put out that the FA bloke had nothing to say about Wimmin’s football.
    It seems that these days you can’t please many of the BBCers any of the time.
    Whilst on the noble subject of sport, I noticed this quote from Lance Armstrong
    “Yes, I was a bully. I was a bully in the sense that I tried to control the narrative and if I didn’t like what someone said I turned on them.”
    Remind you of a broadcasting corporation somewhere near you?

       7 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 19, 2013 at 5:04 pm

      ‘a bully in the sense that I tried to control the narrative and if I didn’t like what someone said I turned on them.”
      Remind you of a broadcasting corporation somewhere near you?’
      Ah… but… semantically, they don’t admit to ‘control’ (though those of a cynical disposition may note what they admit to, or say can often be rather clearly at odds with what they really do), favouring the warmer and fuzzier ‘enhance’.
      Actually with an unaccountable ÂŁ4Bpa to deploy 24/7 on ‘enhancing’, their power to control is pretty vast.
      But yes, anyone who has had any dealings with CECUTT will know that their default response to feedback they don’t like is to respond like a spoilt love child of Billy Bunter & Flashman having a hissy fit.
      Only they do, thanks to the unique way they can get away with anything, all the time, prosper. Currently.

         3 likes

  8. hippiepooter says:
    January 19, 2013 at 5:07 pm

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265024/Will-Self-lined-writer-residence-role-Radio-4-new-chief-says-wants-throw-fireworks-schedule.html

    Far left polemicist and general moral degenerate Will Self to be appointed ‘Writer in Residence’ at the BBC.

    This open entrenchment of left wing BBC bias should draw howls of outrage from Tory MPs and those in politics who care about democracy. Unfortunately it wont. That’s how much our currency is spent.

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 20, 2013 at 8:13 am

      I am unsure what the difference is between ‘in residence’ and what happens every hour with a seemingly endless supply of ‘folk wot rite’ living in BBC Green rooms the length of the land.

         2 likes

  9. AsISeeIt says:
    January 19, 2013 at 5:21 pm

    Now when it comes to market economics BBC commentators tend to act like fish out of water; all gasping and struggling for air. When they really get going it is akin to watching a fish try to mount a bicycle and peddle away uphill.

    I’ve noticed the BBC on the edge of their seats lately all agog as to which high street retailers might be the next to be canned. It seems to something of a BBC spectator sport.

    Blockbuster Video

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21099741

    ‘DVD rental firm Blockbuster is to close 129 more stores after it went into administration earlier this month.’

    What really grates on me is the BBC wise arse explanation of the chain’s collapse…

    ‘But business experts said Blockbuster’s problems were all too similar to those hitting other retailers – a failure to adapt quickly enough to a changing business environment and consumer habits’

    Yeah, if only Blockbuster had got itself nationalised and brought into law a compulsory licence fee payable whether or not the public used or enjoyed their service. Then they wouldn’t be going bust, now would they BBC?

       5 likes

  10. Dazed & Confused says:
    January 19, 2013 at 5:40 pm

    How did this woman manage to get onto Question time?

    Are the BBC slacking?

       6 likes

    • Reed says:
      January 19, 2013 at 8:45 pm

      The silence as she talks speaks volumes – as does the sober look on the faces of the panelists. They know she’s right – ALL of them – but these hived-off elites are so rarely made to confront the reality of people’s experiences and what has been done to their towns in recent years by their so-called ‘representatives’ that they are not quite sure how to respond. They all know that the pretense of “there’s not a problem – it’s just reactionary, right-wing tabloid jingoism” has just been exposed as a glib silencer of regular people’s concerns.

      The terms of the debate are usually set up for the convenience of our betters. Normally it’s the majority who have to tip-toe through the minefield of politically acceptable language in order to make their point. It’s good to see the tables turned – to see our metro-left superiors have to think on their feet in order to not sound blatantly dismissive in the face of the kind of local knowledge that they simply will never possess.

      Not that it stopped GreyBeard from being a scornful snob. She is a professor, after all. What else would we expect.

         9 likes

      • Reed says:
        January 19, 2013 at 8:56 pm

        Related…
        —————————–

        A mother who tackled a leading historian on live television about immigration insisted last night that her family’s home town has become like a ‘foreign country’.

        On BBC1’s Question Time, Professor Mary Beard dismissed stories about the number of migrant workers overwhelming Boston as ‘myths’ and said ‘public services can cope’.

        But Rachel Bull, an office manager in Boston, who was in the audience, immediately challenged the Cambridge University classics professor, claiming hospitals and schools are struggling to cope in the Lincolnshire agricultural town.

        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2264799/Our-towns-like-foreign-country-Locals-cope-immigrants-says-mother-TV-clash-academic.html?ICO=most_read_module

        For some, she’ll become a figure of hate, this poor woman, whose only crime is to prick the bubble and say what many of us would like to be able to say.

           10 likes

  11. Reed says:
    January 20, 2013 at 12:10 am

    Dom Joly @domjoly
    Victoria Derbyshire on Five Live now- how will she sneak in an asylum seeker angle to helicopter crash?

    Victoria Derbyshire ‏@vicderbyshire
    @domjoly hi Dom.. you know we don’t do radio like that

    https://twitter.com/domjoly/status/291498201498918912

       2 likes

  13. chrisH says:
    January 20, 2013 at 11:11 am

    Re the recent spat between Julie Birchill and the “screaming mimis in their bad wigs”…i,e, real women versus the transexual variation/deviation etc…
    Yet ANOTHER programme last night portrayed a transexual as a sad murdering type…and , as ever, was NOT played by a transexual at all, but a rather pleasing woman-clearly the real thing.
    Any chance of the BBC and Guardian types talking to their laydeez by neutral loos, so they can begin to put real transy actoresses in role when they write them?…surely we`re in Black and White Minstrel territory otherwise!
    Let the BBC show us these genuine transwomen as the realistic roles and pictures of femininity that the dramas and films are showing us to be “real”…patronising to do other I`d have thought.
    Burchill, as far as i know is NOT a BBC Commissioning editor or a Guardian dream weaver for the tranny community…let the grumps with deep voices and bad wigs take on the BBC and Guardian for their lazy stereotyping-not the real women who point out the hypocrisy of it all.
    You go, gurlllz!

       2 likes

  14. +james says:
    January 20, 2013 at 1:08 pm

    BBC apologises after episode of children’s show The Tweenies features character dressed as child sex abuser Jimmy Savile

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265343/BBC-apologises-episode-childrens-The-Tweenies-features-character-dressed-child-sex-abuser-Jimmy-Savile.html#ixzz2IWLPG1hq

    article-0-170C7E47000005DC-367_634x398.jpg

       3 likes

  15. Guest Who says:
    January 20, 2013 at 4:12 pm

    Ever get the feeling that you’re being played…?
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts/radio/8824551/picking-out-the-plums/
    Could have been cherries:)
    ‘It’s the obvious question, to which the answer has to be yes, if the alternative is a commercially driven network, and especially when it comes to News.

       1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      January 20, 2013 at 7:44 pm

      This is the standard response to complaints about having to pay for a biased News division: look at all the great cultural stuff the BBC does!!!!!!! It’s a smokescreen, nothing more. Fraser Nelson really has lowered the Spectator’s integrity.

         2 likes

  16. David Preiser (USA) says:
    January 20, 2013 at 7:41 pm

    Don’t let it be said that the BBC never brings in a conservative for one of those “viewpoint” magazine pieces. They got Rod Dreher to make an appeal for – what else? – everyone to stop the partisan fighting and work together, and to complain that the government is out of touch with the people. No partisan stuff, no specific issues discussed. It’s the most innocuous, non-confrontational Right-wing viewpoint imaginable, which is why the BBC allowed it.

    While the concept of a government that’s too big and keeps spending too much is a nominally Right-wing viewpoint, the touchy-feely language Dreher uses could apply to either side. The only thing he mentions that would frighten a Beeboid or evoke a negative reaction from the Left is the bit about setting up a church. He even says that the Republicans wanted only to fight with the President. That’s BBC Gospel, so no wonder they published the video. In no way does this balance out the dozens of essays on left-wing ideology the BBC usually provides. But the BBC – and defenders of the indefensible, if there are any left – love to point out that they got a Right-winger to contribute, end of story, all charges of bias dismissed.

       2 likes

  17. Reed says:
    January 20, 2013 at 10:18 pm

    Hey! We’re cool…in Cuba!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21082793

    “So, what’s it all about?”, asks our reporter.

    I can help. It’s all about branding – you know – selling stuff – capitalism.

    Shhhhhhhhh. Don’t tell uncle Fidel, if he’s still with us.

       1 likes

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