Hi all. My wifi problems have finally been resolved so am back online and able to upload! Here’s a pre Xmas open thread for you to knock the stuffing out of the BBC! Detail that bias here please and don’t be shy about it…
MID WEEK AND PRE XMAS OPEN THREAD….
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“The brilliant Eric Clapton played a couple of numbers, a man of somewhat “controversial” and unapologetic views, as I’m sure we all know. ”
I’m sorry. I agree that he’s brilliant but I’m genuinely not aware of any of his views.
As far as excluding Davidson, it’s clearly an attempt both to censor conservatives and deprive him of well-earned royalties.
Clapton inadvertently gave us “Anti-Nazi League”/”Rock Against Racism” back in the late 70s demon.
I myself benefitted hugely from seeing the same lefty bands that have dined out on it ever since.
I was a complete convert myself, I had no compassion for a rich guitar virtuoso rambling on from a stage about black people.
Poor old Eric was off his face-and clearly(like Costello)-was no racist…just a spoiled drunk looking to be devils advocate.
I`d argue that this movement led through to Band Aid and the whole conveyor belt that led us through Sham 69-to Tom Robinsons two tone sexuality-and have now given us bloody Russell Howard and Coldplay.
Eric is a decent stick-but like Bowie-created a lot of problems about clear thinking re the role of pop and culture…this bloody NHS #1 being only the latest symptom of the chronic disease we call labialibitis…with mutant Islamophoneya a mindrotting side effect…corrodes the backbone and brain, depleting its oafs of spine or reason.
This is what I like best about this site.
Jeffs recollection of Jim Davidson as a guest on Chas And Dave has set me off on a hunt.
Likewise comments by Dover Sentry-then embolden, Downboy and GWF earlier about another world where “correct headlines”were imagined…and my gander soars, the ideas run.
May well devote some time to getting a posthumous pardon from the odious Oxford academics who mocked, patronised and blackballed Mrs T in 1984…particularly when the same thikfux on the King Fahd sinecures slaver all over the chance to get rid of Cecil Rhodes-who FUNDED these scum…in fact we too ought get Rhodes removed for giving us Bill Clinton and his scholarship in semenotics.
Howzabout a statchew outside Bog Standard Academies of Cecil-Rhodes Boyson…or shall we stick with a campaign to make all BBC staff wear a “Jim`ll Fux `Em” medallion, as long as they still DARE to come into contact with our snowflaky, trigger sensitives and asthmatic grievance seeking shtewdantz?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35181299
China expels French journalist over an article that “emboldened terrorism”
Spare a thought for us Brits whose national broadcaster does this on a daily basis.
Regarding the cries for removing the statues of Cecil Rhodes – then surely, by the same token, there would be no opposition from these same people to any demands that all effigies, street name-plates, etc., commemorating Nelson Mandela, should also be torn down and replaced – after all, he was a terrorist before he was turned into a hero. Sauce – goose -gander.
I bet anyone who advocated such an idea would get very short shrift indeed (if any mention at all) from the BBC.
I’ve just reread a brilliant novella, ‘The moon is down,’ by the late, great John Steinbeck. It’s about the German invasion of a small town during WWII and the stubborn resistance put up by the people. The town mayor, Orden, urges Tom, who is planning to escape to England, to request the government there to send planes over to help the resistance by dropping packages of dynamite by parachute for sabotage. Here’s part of the exchange:
Orden: “…let the British bombers …drop us bombs to use, to hide, to slip under the rails, under tanks. Then we will be armed, secretly armed. Then the invader will never know which of us is armed. Let the bombers bring us simple weapons. We will know how to use them!”
Tom: “If we get through, we’ll tell them sir, but – well, I’ve heard it said that in England there are still men in power who do not care to put weapons in the hands of common people.”
Orden stared at him. “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. Well, we can only see. If such people govern England and America the world is lost, anyway. Tell them what we say, if they will listen. We must have help, but if we get it… we will help ourselves.”
“Such people” are governing the UK and the US today, for sure, with their priorities being to consolidate their own power and enact their own failed ideology – and to hell with the “common people.”
And the left-wing media, of which the BBC is such a fine example, works hand in glove with the oppressors of the people.
There are a couple of statues I’d be more than happy to remove. Cecil Rhodes isn’t on that list though.
I’ve long discovered that those at “Yuni” (has ‘university’ now been consigned to the dustbin ?) have the intelligence of a gnat when it comes to ‘grown up’ matters. Students have always had to ‘protest’ at something, from the Ban the Bomb lot in the 50’s and 60’s through to the present day, and they all believe they are the first to get ‘gobby’ about their cause. They should knuckle down and get on with they are there for and that’s not trying to be pathetically ‘right on and rebellious’. Some of us would have given anything to have had the opportunity to further our education at this level, and I personally find it obscene that these Yuni Yobs can find the time to demonstrate instead of educating themselves.
I suppose few things show up the BBCs latent bias and preferences more than their choice of “guest editors” for that week when the toffs are back in Cheltenham or Burford…and the little People get a chance to speak their two cents.
And what little people they are-Nick Cleggs wife, human rights warriors, sports lords and other impeccable lefties…these join the ranks of a Shami, a Bono, a Branson or Yoko…and give us yest another excuse to moan at not enough funding for PE. for the arts, high tech academia…and not enough drugs advocacy, not enough asylum seekers.
Usual crap…pro EU, pro nanny state and pro Islamic immigration.
Lefty mirror images shining on each others polished Pradas, Jimmy Choos and hubbys spats.
I`d give it a week if I were you…
BIASED BBC AWARDS OF 2015 – Final Shortlist.
“Most Outrageous BBC Propaganda” –
Jenny Hill (for going Full Merkel in Munich)
Roger Harrabin (for services to cognitive dissonance)
Evan Davis (for being Evan Davis)
Clive Myrie (for dicking about Tyson Fury)
Matthew Price (for services to the Great Migration)
Fergal Keane (for services to the Final Conquest)
BBC News Editorial Team (for its consistency of statist, socialist propaganda)
BBC News America (for its targeted coverage of police homicides)
“Most Bias of 2010 (Retrospective)” –
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes (for services to Israeli/Palestinian Relations)
Jon Donnison (for services to Israeli/Palestinian Relations)
“Virtue Signaler of The Year” –
Benedict Cumberbatch
Emma Thompson
Charlotte Church
“Refugee Bingo Award (Housey! Housey!)” –
Bob Geldoff
Yvette Cooper
Nicola Sturgeon
“Best Humiliation of a Beeboid” –
Jacob Rees-Mogg (for owning Dimbleby)
“Best Box-Ticking Production” –
Cuffs
“Most Incoherent Ramble / Random Gabbler Award” –
Mark Mardell
“Most Ridiculous Political Guest” –
Dianne Abbott (not BBC, but may as well be)
I shall re-post this list at the beginning of the next thread, together with smallish photos of each nominee in separate posts. The count will be taken at midnight New Year’s Eve.
Excellent work, Mr Golightly! I do hope the comrades are paying attention. They will, of course, treat a win as something to be proud of. Many observers will not agree.
Could I suggest a late additional category?
Most outrageous moral equivalence: Tim Wilcox.
Thank you hadda for your late suggestion. Tim Wilcox together with Mishal Husain were mentioned in dispatches but sadly failed to make the final shortlist.
Some Highlights of our Nominees’ Year –
Jenny Hill in Munich – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34162844
Roger Harrabin tells us about tidal lagoon power plants – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQgE6RVziHY
Evan Davis interviews Nigel Farage – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uQl2Qh3IGA
Clive Myrie Dickhead – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf6TJOz9Wqk
Matthew Price and the Sleeping Refugees – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFKHJ9c4R-4
Fergal Keane and The Girl in a Wheelchair – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwD3bosbDdQ
Emma and Emily – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGzLn7LpvAs
Benedict at the Theatre – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fcZOZ4Uik
Diane Abbott Crashes – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_LKwMJnT1g
Rees-Mogg and Dimbleby – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8wKRg-1e6s
Evan Davis of Dorking Grammer School, Oxford and Harvard accuses Nigel Farage of being posh. I nominate Evan as BBC Wanker of the Year !
Evan Davis is the clear favourite for that award Grant (1-5 on), Roger Harrabin coming up on the rails at evens, with Clive Myrie and Jenny Hill making moves at 11-5. Watch out for outsider Fergal Keane (25-1) making a late surge.
Excellent, Mr Golightly!
You may well say “Excellent” DS but I’ll have you know that about two months ago I suggested an award be made for the “Islamogroveller of the Year”? I nominated David Cameron and another contributor suggested Justin Trudeau would be a good competitor. Has Mr Golightly or others referred to this? No! What a blow this is to my self-esteem.
“It’s not good enough,” I said to Mrs Dasmibehbi (No3) , ” not good enough at all.” (Actually it might have been No2, they look so similar once they’ve got their sacks on) “I have been ignored!” I said. She suggested that it was worse than that, in fact it was a case of clear discrimination because I am a Moslem. Well, whatever the case I am not happy! I’ve got a good mind to write to the Caliphate about it.
Yasser,
I recommend a nice family holiday to the US, including Disneyland, as a way of dealing with this appalling discrimination. Your ‘Islamogroveller of the Year’ category is an inspired suggestion but probably unworkable due to the numbers eligible.
Yasser, I nominate Donald Trump !
PS. “Dasmibehbi” . LOL !
With humble apologies to the Family Dasmibehbi for the exclusion of your previously suggested category. It is a clear case of Islamophobia on my part and I have referred myself to Tell Mama.
I second Cameron as Islamogroveller of the year, followed by Appeaser May, who speaks with forked tongue and grovels whilst threatening to stop their extremism.
GWF , Agreed. Surrender monkeys
More Unlikely BBC Headlines:
“BBC Welcomes Criticism And Replies Fully To Each Complaint.
“US Policeman Shooting A Black Youth Was Fully Justified
“Shooting Of A White Man By A Black Youth Was Murder. BBC Agrees With Jury Verdict.
“Why Do Palestinians Murder Jews? There Can Be No Justification.
“Why Are Israelis Banned From Visiting Muslim Countries?
“Why Does Israel Suffer Alone Against The Threat Of Genocide? Have We Forgotten The Holocaust?
“Bob Geldof Offers His Homes To Refugee Israelis.
How about “European Water Framework Directive to be scrapped and dredging to recommence in north of England”. If only….
Due to our ongoing digital reception I was watching BBc through the internet through the freesat box as it’s still a bit wet for clambering on the roof to look at the satellite dish. 10 things about avalanches. Pretty boring but tolerable up the point of “climate change…climate change…” click..Off.
Had the makings of something decent that avalanche piece, didn’t make it as far as climate change due to repeated stock footage re runs of the same snow falling down the same slopes Ad infinitum. Then again could have been a close up of an executives desk after a winterville party for all I know…
Less snow?
More snow?
Yes! Yes! It’s both, of course!
From now on (serious face, gravelly voice) this scientific phenomenon will be known as ‘Lessmore Snow’…
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/global-warming-causes-lessmore-snow.html
For most people it seems that Christmas truly is the season of goodwill, regardless of religious persuasion. My brother lives next to a very nice family of Sikhs; the mother being an incredibly talented cook and baker. She regularly bakes cakes for her neighbours especially, get this, at Christmas. My brother’s family eagerly await these Christmas treats which have now come to signal the start of their festivities.
Now the point of this cheery little Christmas tale is that whilst I thank the BBC for constantly trying to persuade me which is the religion of peace I will make up my own mind based on personal experience.
I have 2 Sikhs , as friends , but as they are in their 30`s & don`t wear a turban , the BBC would hate them , they are very Anglicised . They have English accents , & rarely speak their own language .
BBC Watch Parliament – Balen Report
Arise Dame Barbara Windsor,well done Babs , no one can argue with that one.
Excellent report in the video. But it saddens me to think that Whittingdale will not address the problems within the BBC
I won’t argue, I’m not a fan. But I can’t compare Carry On, Eastenders, a large bust a cackling laugh, and a long affair with Sid James to the more discerning talents of Judi Dench or Maggie Smith.
Yes, but she told the white poppy Corbynista types to “Piss Off” during the Royal British Legion fund raising campaign.Good for her .
Is it just me, or does the phrase “emergency cobra meeting” carry as much weight as the word “racist” these days?
So David Cameron is hosting COBRA meeting to discuss ….. rectifying flooding situation.
is redirecting foreign aid budget?, lunatic push to create a housing bubble?, and the dismal public failure of his on the laughable EU erm …renegotiation … on the table.
CoBRA is now equipped with bar-stools, tables with quite long legs, and Civil Service issue water-wings. Just in case.
Oh, and the peanuts are double-wrapped and only to be opened ‘in an emergency’.
Bar stools – that implies beer, wonder what brand it is?
Oh, wait..!
Feargal Keane has an article in today’s (Irish) Sunday Independent:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/fergal-keanes-diary-haunted-by-anticipation-of-catastrophe-im-more-worried-than-i-have-ever-been-34315824.html
At the very end he says that he might be depressing people. Who could possibly have suggested that to him?
I’ve only skimmed it, but I didn’t notice him saying that he might be annoying people by his one-sided, emotive sermons.
We will continue to face the threat of terrorist attacks. There may conceivably be a defeat of Isil, but it won’t solve the problem of radicalised youth or deal with the poisonous ideology which has proved so seductive to them. Our best hope is that traditions of reason and respect for the rule of law prevail despite provocation.(my bold)
Ha! Ha! Ha!
The words ‘genie’, ‘bottle’, ‘consequences’, ‘unintended’, ‘culture’, ‘British’ and ‘importance’ come to mind.
Oh, along with ‘Fucking told you so Feargal you Islamophile twat’.
Bbbc1 breakfast paper review with guest,head of the muslim council of britain-keeping it seasonal,not- took less than a minute for him to turn the flooding stories into an advert for how good islam fans are helping out!off switch pressed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35051618
You have to laugh at the irony.
Having read and re-read that article a number of times I still can’t find any reference to the BBC’s Environment Activist Dept.
Especially the spin about the chap who turned out not to be a member of ISIS… the BBC conveniently seem to ignore the huge gun he’s holding.
neilw, Yes, quite. “Dead” boys on Turkish beaches don’t count !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35152027
And a quote from our “president”, “The retreat of many governments into nation-based thinking is fatal.”
Fatal for who? Ostensibly elected I cut I choose gravy train riding technocrats maybe?
Well done on your 2015 BBC seasonal awards suggestions, Mr Golightly
If I may, I would like to contribute the best description from a member of the public of the current Labour Party leader to make it through the BBC edit suite. This came up prior to the Oldham by-election.
Reporter: “What do you think of Jeremy Corbyn?”
Middle-aged working class woman: “He looks like an ageing hippie!”
The elite metroplitan PC brigade do seem to come unstuck in those parts. As Gordon Brown found to his cost in 2010 in Rochdale at the hands of Gillian Duffy – fine progressive words butter few pasnips oop north.
Pity Michael Meacher’s old rotten borough persisted in the game of pin the red rosette on the Labour donkey – that is with the aid of the Pakistani postal vote clan.
To cheer us a little I would add my favourite gag of the year.
In April North Korea’s Defence Minister Hyon Yong-chol was executed for showing disloyalty to leader Kim Jong-un… by anti-aircraft fire in front of an audience of hundreds. “When he went into politics in North Korea he must have known he would have to face a lot of flak”
And to end on a philosophical thought for the day-style note – this is in response to us sliding toward the so-called ‘progressive’ notion of 16- and 17-year olds voting on weighty national issues – I recently read the fine comment “I’m not young enough to think I know everything”
Happy New Year to one and all.
Many thanks AslSeelt. It’s been a laugh compiling the nominations, many of which have been put forward by other contributors. My own favourite for the outright award is “Jenny Hill in Munich”, though it’s a close run thing. Voting will begin during the next thread. A very Happy New Year to you.
What a shame – for a moment, I thought it was ‘Benny Hill in Munich’. Not related, I suppose..?
“Dozens of angry Corsicans staged a fresh protest on the French Mediterranean island on Saturday, a day after demonstrators vandalised a Muslim prayer hall and trashed copies of the Koran after an assault on fire fighters. Despite a heavy police presence, one demonstrator managed to smash three glass entrance doors in the Jardins de l’Empereur housing estate perched on an Ajaccio hillside as protesters shouted “This is our home!”.
As condemnation poured in from Muslim authorities and French officials
…. (??? none so blind as those who refuse to see eh!, sounds just like Cameron and co) …
over Friday’s anti-Arab protests, around 100 demonstrators shouting “We’re still here” turned out in the same low-income neighbourhood of the capital Ajaccio where the Christmas day violence took place.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20151226-france-corsica-protests-muslim-prayer-hall-vandalised-police
much clearer than the Al BBC B/S.
And-as ever-the liberal elite choose to highlight the RESPONSE to what was done to Muslims, as opposed to highlighting the PROVOCATION as perpetrated upon locals and to their emergency service staff.
AS ever-Islamic Rules apply…in this case the response gets the headline( see Israel Precedents 1948-2015)…whereas the original knife in the sternum gets no context,let alone mention.
As the great Charles Moore said-whenever the BBC hold forth…ask always-who is it that THEY have chosen to put in the dock…and who`s allowed to not show up at court, and hurl abuse and bombs through the letterbox outside…with Orla. Lyse or Jezza checking the fuses and the spellcheck…this is called “Arab Souk/Duggan Diary collage and reportage…BBC Dressage event of the liberal show ponies of the BBC…shake a fantail or a fetlock Merrilegs”
Ouanqages…
“Well , why don`t you go out protesting in the Muslim area`s of Bradford , Oldham & Tower Hamlets then Noggin, & tell them to leave. I wonder how you would get on ?”
Is that it then?, Essex infant just give up, don t upset them?
So it appears you have a yellow streak as deep as your inherent level of ignorance.
Put that with your apparent vacuity on almost every subject,(can t be deliberate surely)
…. triple whammy. 😀
Those poor people burdened beyond breaking point in Corsica?
… why don t they just shut up, put up with it … is that it?
No bloody wonder you fawn over Cameron and the No10 traitors so much .
No , I `ll go, but obviously noggin , is running scared .But I guess Noggin will want to only go with with some henchmen, & an Ak47.
Well , why don`t you go out protesting in the Muslim area`s of Bradford , Oldham & Tower Hamlets then Noggin, & tell them to leave. I wonder how you would get on ? Or are you all mouth , with no backbone ?
https://t.co/XpAWPdHqnD
Je Ne Regrette – ISIS: Cameron Stands By Failed Libya Intervention
“I would say that Libya is better off without Gaddafi. What we were doing was preventing a mass genocide.”
Really? … you self-serving, moronic, lying, nation hating, incompetent … how has that one worked out then?
beneath contempt
Cameron is the kind of snowflake, history-lite oaf that currently gets voted in zombie electorates-like Obama without the golf swing. Hollande without the pastries, Merkel without a purpose.
Bland nodding dogs on who you can paint what you like, add graffiti to the cipher tubing.
Hitchens has long had this clown figured-but who`s listening?
And today, he nails him up with the wisteria he failed to declare in 2009…but it has no effect.
Iraq, Syria, Egypt…just three Muslim countries who were kept safe for Christians and non-Salafists…alongside Libya of course.
Barbaric regimes one and all if you were Muslim Brotherhood…but Christianity and moderates, apostates and liberals were safe as long as they gave Saddam, Mubarak.Assad(Snr) and Gadhaffii a relatively free hand.
Yes-hideous excesses, quixotic purges by the madmen..no question-but Christians were relatively safe, and most people felt no need to head for Cyprus or Greece, Sicily or the Canaries.
Thank You Cameron-you ain`t no leader brother!
Ask the citizens of Benghazi. or is your memory so short?
The BBCs Boxing Day news yesterday glossed over some unpleasantness in a Bromley Shopping Centre.
Blue tape up, rose tinted specs and hi-viz jackets…a kerfuffle, a spat, handbags at dawn etc.
But-as we know whenever riots, murders or serious disturbances go on-the BBC and the police/prison service/NHS…give us some of that “joined up , multi-disciplinary guff beloved of the States elite”.
So Bromley becomes a “minor event”…few heady teenagers with dads spud gun or mums potato peeler…too much communion wine, maybe a victim of passive smoking or contact with a sugary drink…who`s to say?…nothing to see, move along folks, back to your lives citizens…
And then you read of it-and the full nasty truth comes out…but, never c/o Logan-Who or Huw Edwards.
Reminds me of the Clash “Clear the Streets” shout at the end of Know Your Rights….and let me say now that our prisons, our mental hospitals and our asylum/refugee facilities( sometimes one and the same blurred G4S sumps) will be the coming tinderboxes….and Northern Ireland will blow this year as well, I`m thinking.
In short-any YOI/prison, asylum centre or mall that the BBC and police underplay…look and see the ugly futures they pre-empt for the rest of us very soon.
Go to the local newsboards-and fuck the BBC and the Mets PR agencies…lies, all lies.
David Cameron · Trending
BBC News
David Cameron offers his sympathy to victims of “unprecedented” floods in England and announces more troops are being sent to help. http://bbc.in/1mjpxDF
‘Unprecedented’, eh, Dave? Since the last time? Or records began?
And the BBC suddenly get trending.
Two state tools in lockstep.
Where to go with the hyperbole now? It can only get biblical. Of course, that may get tricky on the actual meaning of ‘unprecedented’, as Noah will testify.
Oh, you know, they are just setting up for one of the BBC mantras: “Do you think MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE about…”
The Listening Project is one of the nastiest programmes on the reliably nasty BBC Radio 4. It is possibly the worst offender among all that station’s attempts to socially engineer, bringing listeners a steady diet of boo-hoo stories of mawkish moral relativism in which ‘ordinary people’ (where do they find them?) recount their tales of woe in a ‘heart warming’ conversational style – usually it’s two women discussing their cancer screening results, or what it was like to lose a parent at an early age.
The BBC describes the programme as ‘listening to the nation in conversation’. Well, some of the nation, that’s for sure. The sort that watches Strictly Come Dancing, thinks professional homosexuals like Graham Norton are entertaining and that Feargal Keene is an honest reporter.
Today R4 has really pushed the festive boat out with its listeners being greeted by the all-too familiar catarrhal tones of Arabic as ‘refugees’ compare and contrast their stories in a programme brought to us all the way from sunny Beirut.
Of course, no one who listens to the BBC will have had any idea that there is a migration problem and will be shocked to hear such stories. It’s not as if news of the human tide flooding the West from the Middle East has been given any publicity in the luegenpresse in recent months, so this programme will come as a complete shock to most. It’s not as if we have heard much about the way Muslims treat one another either, nor how ‘just like us’ these people are.
Onward rolls the BBC’s unstoppable juggernaut of cultural Marxism and woe betide the casual listener who falls beneath its wheels.
Thank you very much for making the effort to frame exactly what it is that is so very distasteful about this interminable, insidious, culturally destructive propaganda campaign, which has disturbed me for a long time. It fits perfectly the main categories of bias and contempt for truthfulness.
It is biased by omission – you only hear ‘acceptable’ stories from ‘acceptable’ sources.
It is biased by distortion – the accounts and attitudes of the participants are never challenged or balanced, even when they are clearly Cyclopean or just tangential to reality, or immoral by the shared standards of most listeners.
It is biased by fabrication – both in the doubtful grasp on reality shown in some of its voices, and in a wider fabrication of a consensus of what is ‘normal’, a skewing introduction at times of bizarre fantasticality and an unrecognisable world.
It is like being disturbed by out-of-tune background music. You can tell something is badly wrong, but the effect is diffuse and difficult to pin down. I imagine the Listening Project is quite important to those drivers of the BBC’s programme of cultural re-alignment. Congratulations to them on insinuating it so successfully into the output stream – a constant drip of unattributable, deniable opinionation which will probably win awards for its services to humanisation..
Thanks Stuart and GCooper for helping me to join some dots.
What I think the “Listening Project” is about is the use and abuse of empathy as a tool in political debate.
Empathy is a useful psychotherapeutic tool usually closely linked with non judgementalism and sometimes combined with direction.
At its best its a way of helping people understand each other, and themselves, better.
At its worst, it is identified as a uniquely “feminine” attribute and can be used as a method of manipulating emotions at the expense of clear analysis of rights and wrongs.
I have noticed its appearance in left and liberal debates….used as a tool to close debate, or worse to imply lack of psychological understanding to an opponent….those classic left liberal debating techniques. If you lack “empathy” you lack understanding and can therefore be dismissed.
I came across an example of this on a guardian piece over Christmas in which a writer used the word “empathy” as an answer to questions raised “below the line” by his piece on “radicalised” Muslim youth. Even some of the Guardiantas took issue with the writer, which offers some hope.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/28/prevent-discourage-muslim-fight-extremism-counter-terrorism-university-school-students-suspicion
What is suggested by the use and abuse of “empathy” in this context is that we try to “understand” and “engage” with behaviours and events rather than challenge and influence them.
What the “Listening project” does is to elicit empathy and normalises it as an all purpose response.
It then combines with all the empathetic style of reportage we see……”welcome to Europe, you made it, how do you feel” being a particularly overt example of the style.
Join this with the complete lack of empathy shown towards “unapproved” ideas and people and we see the bias that the BBC denies.
Empathy or its omission is becoming an increasingly important tool, even weapon in the war of ideas that we are in.
In time of impending political conflict, be very suspicious of the motives of those promoting institutionalised empathy.
The aim is to get us to reflexively empathise with rather than disagree with and challenge those who wish to impose their ideologies on our society.
And thank you, too, for expanding so well on this awful programme and its mission. I think you have put your finger on just why this is such a subversive programme – it extols the use of empathy over reason and encourages the abandonment of rationality.
It has, as you say, often been observed that the Left lacks reason or cool analysis, which is how it gets away with such absurdities as ‘truthiness’ in US news coverage. The Listening Project is a softening-up process, softening its listeners up to accept just that sort of dissembling tripe.
I trained as a psychotherapist, and was initially most attracted to the so-called Person-Centred approach, based on the qualities of Empathy, Immediacy and Unconditional Positive Regard. I can tell you that the casual useage of these terms, especially empathy, is almost always counter to their actual employment in a therapeutic context. It is not even clear to me that they are generally appropriate outside that highly specialised context. They are immensely tricky to put into productive use, but are very easy to take in vain, generally for reasons of personal narcissism. (I later followed my wife’s clinical orientation, returning to what was then known as the Psychodynamic approach, based on Freud’s original insights, and requiring a less ‘acrobatic’ talent for performance-skills).
When technical concepts are bowdlerised and adopted by opinionated fashionistas, you can bet it’ll end up doing no good at all. The Listening Project is a very good example of the fallacy that just because you can pronounce a word, you understand what it means, let alone having the skill or intelligence to make use of what it refers to. There is nothing intrinsically wrong, of course, with listening to what people have to say within a safe and supportive environment. However, as any psychotherapist or counsellor will tell you, that isn’t the same as believing them; nor is it the same as pretending to understand the real significance of what they are saying, without an enormous of training, talent and effort..
If anyone pretended to be an engineer in the way they pretend to understand people, all our buildings and bridges would fall down, our TVs would melt, and our very clothes would disintegrate.
All this is without even contemplating, as you say, the deliberate misuse of a pseudo-therapeutic environment to pursue a political or activist objective..
“Unprecedented”
Adjective: [Without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled]
“An unprecedented event.”
As per another example: David Cameron getting his facts right.
Once again, the Gordon Brown “Climate Change Act” comes into play for another part of the U.K. all heavily underpinned by the E.U. “Wetlands of Great Britain directive”, the E.U. “Water Framework Directive” and the “E.U. Habitats Directive”. Just like Somerset, just like Cumbria, Just like the lowlands of Lancashire and Yorkshire, just like Wales, well just like all parts of the U.K. It has been a deliberate act by the recently formed Environment Agency to NOT dredge river courses, to clean out gullies and to pay farmers to leave their watercourses alone. But hey, haven’t the authorities got the ultimate cop out clause? Yup, “Climate Change”..the ultimate “Unprecedented” excuse for everything. Simple fact is, the country is flooding because of government policy all set up by the labour Party courtesy of Gordon Brown. Don’t expect the BBC to do an in depth analysis of why G.B. is drowning!
Good article by Tim Ball on how the ‘climate change disaster(s)’ were created by governments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/27/there-is-no-climate-change-disaster-except-the-one-governments-created/
Thank you TOB. I watched the BBC News with Gavin Esler a few hours ago, and agree that the use of “unprecedented” littered the report. I also noted that climate change was claimed as the indisputable cause of the heavy rain and the subsequent flooding. Esler said (in conversation with Hilary Benn) words to the effect that “the cause of these unprecedented floods has been settled, now we just have to find a solution”.
Phil Avery, in the weather report, referred to temperatures across the southern half of the country as “ludicrously warm”.
As an Easterner, I am quite alarmed by your forecast of “Snowmageddon” next week. Any hope we may be spared this?
Yes, what I find interesting is that we appear to have unprecedented flooding, without any accompanying unprecedented rainfall – or have I missed a few extremes here – I’m willing to be corrected?
What are the most feasible environmental disasters to engineer? Well, flooding only requires the abandonment of water management, as you say – either upstream or downstream, it only takes a few years to be confident of unprecedented effects. Forest and bush fires, too, only require an abandonment of prudent management and they become a reliable source of extreme and unprecedented effects. In certain areas, mis-management and misuse of hillsides and mountain environments can make key contributions to unexpected landslides and avalanches. It is far more difficult to engineer apparent changes in sea-level, but it is entirely possible to force people to inhabit dangerously marginal land, and then simply wait for the inevitable weather patterns to effect a confirmatory disaster..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3375754/The-day-York-s-streets-turned-rivers-ancient-city-swallowed-flood-water-people-s-spirited-response.html
Unprecedented Floods in York!
Thank you Chris Smith – Ex Libore minister and head of the EA.
“To make matters worse, the flood barrier which usually controls the Foss was left open ahead of yesterday’s surge”
Oh and while I’m here, de-icers at the ready boys and girls?
Old Bloke….Is that because of global warming?….lol
LOL
Hi Mr G, “snowmageddon”? Careful, you are sounding like a BBC reporter! 😎 There will be a battle ground of air masses over the U.K. from Wednesday onwards. Mild moist airflow from the Atlantic vs the Cold European Continental air all the way from the far east of Russia, where minus 50 was recorded yesterday. A toe of this huge block of high pressure with a centre of 2055 millibars (world record 2080 milli’ but that was the summer) is trying very hard to travel westwards. This will halt eastward progress of the mild air right over G.B. In defence of all our weather forecasters this week, this is going to be really difficult to call because air masses are not stationary. Where the two masses meet, at first, cold underneath, warm on top, freezing rain at ground level (watch out if you are driving next weekend), snow at higher levels. Where that will be, at the moment looks like being bang over G.B. and with a little low pressure area running up the South West approaches, we could be skiing on Dartmoor next Monday. If the cold High pressure takes hold, thus keeping out the moist air, icy, icy and flipping cold and if it really takes hold and that cold air floods in from Europe and with so much water in the ground, serious problems for our agriculture businesses. For anyone who is interested in meteorology, this looks like being a very interesting and exciting week. But I can guarantee you this, if we do get well below zero temperatures, no way will the BBC or Met Office tell us it is because of “Climate Change”! And concerning the mild temperatures of late? According to my 75 years of historical data, well, pretty much the normal if you ask me. maybe they are driving home hard the “warm” angle before we all freeze through January!!!
OB,
I think you have added 1000 mb (proper old money units) to your pressures.
Regards,
SJ
SJ, you are quite correct to correct, it should have been 1055 and 1080 respectively. Sorry, a slip on the keys, I must be more careful. 😎
OB,
No problem, it caught my eye purely because I do a bit of flying.
SJ
Very informative OB – thanks.
Have to disagree with you on this one though:
But I can guarantee you this, if we do get well below zero temperatures, no way will the BBC or Met Office tell us it is because of “Climate Change”
…because it will be hailed (no pun intended) as part of ‘the pattern of extreme weather’ that the BBC and others attribute to ‘climate change’, even though not even the bent scientists at the IPCC have been able to prove any link, let alone demonstrate it is ‘extreme’ in any long term historical context.
jtf,
I agree. The name ‘global warming’ had to be dropped when the warming was seen to stop; those in the climate science clique spotted this around 2005-7. Climate change fitted the bill initially as it commits to neither warming nor cooling but, as the public got bored, a further name change was required in order to scare the horses. I have heard extreme weather, climate disruption and climate weirding all used to get the public’s attention.
Luckily for us our national broadcaster retained an objective stance and fact checked all the claims against readily available data rather than use these ridiculous terms…
JTF, I have yet to hear the BBC blame anything on a cooling planet or even record low temperatures. But as you say, everything these days is down to “Climate Change” and I mean ‘everything’.
TOB: “This will halt eastward progress of the mild air right over G.B. In defence of all our weather forecasters this week, this is going to be really difficult to call because air masses are not stationary.”
Certainly will, TOB, and it looks like the BBC/Met Weather people who do the online thing are already confused. I had a look at the forecast before dropping in here and there are hours with dashes for both the weather (rain/sun/snow) and wind-speed & direction. I have been mentally conceding – again & again – to you over the last couple of weeks that your prediction of warm and wet was correct and my ‘bad, cold winter’ was completely wrong. Hey ho! Maybe I have a chance of a bit of a comeback but suspect it will not be enough to beat you.
On a different tack, I note the posts and posters that have spotted the use of ‘unprecedented’ & the wild claims by various bods that ‘it is definitely climate change’. No, it is WEATHER and we had ‘unprecedented’ in the south-west a year ago and in the south-east a year before that. I can also remember the south-east being hit regularly in May (northern edge of London) in the 1970s and in the 1960s (west Kent and up to the London borders) mostly in winter, so ‘unprecedented’ has a few ‘uncommon’ preceedents.
There! I’ve invented a new word for the Beeboids to use in 50 years time.
Been musing on that recent French election, where Hollande and Sarkozy-types carved out a stitch up to defeat Marine Le Pen.
Fair enough-but democracy it ain`t.
But it reveals the political class` determination to screw the country over, and refuse the people a real choice-despite their show of disdain for each other over the years.
I only say this because Corbyn seems to be plotting to allow Caroline Lucas to stay unopposed by Labour in the 2020 election.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12069821/Jeremy-Corbyn-to-protect-Caroline-Lucas-in-pact-with-Greens.html
How on earth can this anti-democratic stitch up be unmentionable to the BBC?-I mean, weren`t those who stood against Labour supposed to have been banned from voting in Corbyns election…not that it happened, but still.
I`ve said before-we saw the Celtic Witches have a group hug up on Dimblebys blasted heath of a show in the election run up…and now we`ll be getting the new incarnation of the Brownshirts to try and keep “The Right” out of power in some satanic pact.
Hitler and Stalin taught them all they needed to know…and if the BBC can`t be arsed to rate this as a creeping new lefty development, then we`ll have to take them on. This bothers me.
And if you are wondering if you will be the next one to get flooded, have a read of this lengthy document as it highlights why there has been so much flooding of late and why the Environment Agency (and many others) are keen to tell us that why everything that is now happening is all down to “Climate Change”. I do hope that someone in the media runs with this as they did after the Somerset Levels flooding, which was simply down to the actions of the Environment Agency in implementing the linked document and not as the authorities would have us believe, that of “Climate Change”.
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-5859
In all the doom-laden reporting by the BBC of the floods, I have heard just one lone voice – a local guy – saying it is all because the dredging of waterways and rivers ceased when the Environment Agency took over and started to apply a European Directive.
For the rest, as you say – the BBC loves to put the blame on Climate Change.
We know that lack of proper dredging was the primary cause of the earlier flooding in the Somerset Levels and parts of the Thames, but the BBC relies on the average pleb forgetting that key fact.
Whatever the truth of the matter you can be sure that the BBC only report what suits its agenda. As a news organization the fact that everybody has to pay for it (and they are put in prison if they don’t) is a scandal. They are utterly untrustworthy. They write the script before they know the facts. That is not reporting it is propaganda.
The BBC are (an EU supported) lie factory. They are a national disgrace. How low the BBC have now fallen.
Scrap them.
A lot of time & money was spent dredging the Pool of London and down to (& beyond?) Greenwich in the 1980s. Had they not done so, the City would have flooded a couple of years back.
All areas of water, running or still, require management. Just ask any golf course Head Greenkeeper worth their money and they will confirm that. The politicians, enviro-‘mentalists’ & journalists think ‘man is god’ and we can control the overall weather & the overall climate with windmills and taxes on shut-ins who never travel anywhere.
We can not.
Nature is bigger and more powerful than us humans. All we can do is our bit in managing it, in season, and pray for deliverance.
John A….. I completely agree and fully support your statement. If memory serves that was the problem with the problem in the ‘Somerset Levels’ also……wasn’t it prevented because it may have impinged upon the mating habits of lesser spotted grimthorp widget insect, or similar?
Climate change was supposed to cause water shortages, dried up rivers, and remember the water engineers demanding water meters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17600062
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18342309
You’re absolutely right G.W.F. It’s like the moreless snow we are due to get in winter and the hotcool summers.
Absolutely shocking video….But this is normality in the Islamic world, which is why the BBC would never report it…
http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000004108808/the-killing-of-farkhunda.html
How many of these sort of ‘men’ has Merkel et al welcomed into Europe? Did 456 British service men & women die for an Afghanistan like this?
Anyone else here old enough to remember when the big problem facing the world was population growth? Of course to acknowledge that now would be to put the spotlight on the developing world and undermine the case for unlimited migration to the developing nations.
Wonder if the BBC realises that migrants grow old? Doom and gloom is forecast for aging Japan,but I’m not so sure.
Yes, Flexdream. I also remember when the number of people around the world who went to bed hungry every night was a horrible, high fraction of the world population.
In all the current gloom, let’s cheer ourselves with the fact that as the world population has rocketed upwards, the number going hungry has shrunk in total and massively in proportion.
Couldn’t have anything to do with that fractional, tiny bit of global warming that we did have ‘way back when’ before it slowed down plus all the increased CO2 emissions helping crop growth, could it?
Mr Harrabin to consider & comment, please, early in 2016.
Up2snuff, there are many environmentalists who believe that the World is over populated and as such would like to see far fewer humans than there are at present. This, in their strange world would “save the planet” for future generations. I have brought their argument to the pages of this blog 3 years ago. One such person that might think like that is David Attenborough:
http://www.populationmatters.org/attenborough-talk/
I have just heard on the BBC Radio 4 news at 7.00pm a LABOUR MP telling us that the flooding is all down to “Climate Change”. Obviously the ‘Damage Limitation Department’ at the BBC have worked at lightning speed to deflect from reality on this one, as someone at that department must look at these blog pages. To think, a Labour MP telling us the flooding is all down to “Climate Change” The BBC really are pathetic and that is being kind.
Something you are unlikely to hear on the BBC.
The most expensive ZIP Code in the whole of the USA is 11962 a place known as Sagaponack on Long Island New York – one of the Hamptons.
Property prices averaged $4,421,458 in 2009 although they have increased since then.
Odd then that it’s residents should be so many prominent lefties!
People such as Bill & Hilary Clinton, Caroline Kennedy (Kennedy family), Kurt Vonnegut, George Plimpton (friend of the Kennedys), Billy Joel (Democrat contributor), Susan Blond (PR for Morrisey).
The percentage of residents below the poverty line was just 1.9% all adding up to show that wherever the left can, it will avoid the people it claims to champion, because it doesn’t like them very much, and prefers to spend its time with those with vast amounts of personal wealth.
I guess the Saudi money, and the ill gotten gains require spending somewhere.
And on the same track thoughtful.
Am listening to last Words “Review of the year”…those who pegged it in 2015.
Many good people have died-the unsung heroes and heroines-and so I`d have thought there`d be room for some of them.
So what does the BBC/The Economist reckon is our first unsung hero?…Castros shagbag who held great parties and who plotted revolutions whilst sucking from a golden salver…
if THAT doesn`t sum up the BBCs “unsung heroine” that we should all learn from-then it wouldn`t be the BBC would it?
Next week-Eric Hobsbawms shoehorn holder, Noam Chomskys snuff dealer…get snuffed BBC…hypocritical blowhards all!
The BBC goes misty eyed when a leftist dies, whereas any tribute to somebody on the right (if their demise is reported at all) is begrudging at best. This is especially obvious when a leftist and a conservative die on the same day.
This is partly because leftists like to gush about their own (when they are dead) but mainly because the BBC is a propaganda channel entirely staffed by the sort of people who joined groups at university which spent their time shouting down anybody who dared to express an an opinion at variance with the latest leftist group think.
Thoughtful, it is also something we are never told about when it comes to ‘rising sea levels due to Global Warming and Climate Change’ and the tragedy of all those poor people who are forced to live on low lying waterside land.
(Oops. Sorry, but this seems to have been moved down a couple of slots by the site software.)
Did anyone else think that the off-camera reporter asking Cameron questions about the floods, sounded about 12 years old ? What IS it about young male reporters these days that they sound as if their voice hasn’t broken ? and the less than gravitas questions being asked are puerile to say the least. I also have gripes with those chosen to discuss the following days papers – a selection of ex ministers, authors, minor slebs, and unknown columnists – most of them umm and err their way through the process, like pulling teeth to get a comment out, and feel its a complete waste of time, but no doubt profitable for them.
Another noticeably odd thing about media coverage of the floods is the curious absence of the human beings who are suffering from the flooding (with the exception of a few shots of elderly white people being rescued by white members of the recue services – and those photos will probably be used at a later date to berate the elderly for draining public resources). We have been swamped with photos and videos of bursting rivers, flooded roads, abandoned buildings and floating cars, but very little about the human cost and not even the tiniest hint on how to donate financial aid to the human beings suffering this disaster in England. Devastated human lives in Northern England clearly don’t enthrall those who control Britain’s media in quite the same way as humans living in the Yemen, the women and children left behind in Syria, or the “plight” of millions of foreign men trying to get to England for a “better life”.
The climate is changing because of the floods, or could it be that so much building has taken place that water now immediately runs off into watercourses?
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/looking-back-salford-floods-were-10656774
Looking back at what happened 70 years ago
With regard to Harrabin and the BBC, it is curious how both the man and his employers appear to be totally unaware of Agenda 21 (the UN’s master plan for humans living in the 21st century). Agenda 21 isn’t a conspiracy theory. It is a well documented plan formulated by global players who hold the greatest power to “transform humanity into a sustainable global interdependent society” (most of those global players are not particularly admirable human beings, they just have a lot of money and much of that wealth is based on exploitation of fossil fuels ). On the basis that Harrabin and the rest of the BBC seem to be both blissfully unaware of the existence of Agenda 21 and blissfully blind to the clear and current indications of its implementation, the rest of us are, sadly, left (or left sadly) to conclude that Harrabin and his employers are either incredibly ill informed or deliberately duplicitous. The BBC thickwits and their circle of friends in Islington don’t seem to know about EuroGendfor either (the European Gendarmerie Force – the EU army – whoops, silly me, I was supposed to say “police force”). Wishing everyone who reads this page all the best in 2016. The external forces of darkness appear to be overwhelming. Physical resistance is not an availble option in 21st century England. The mind is a powerful tool.
Afraid to say that I think that UKIP have missed a trick here through their own stupidity.
The floods are squarely the fault of Chris Smith and his left-leaning fantasists at the Environment Agency…yet UKIP and the Tories are politically craven, and don`t want to get down and dirty with the Left Liberal clones and their Professor Nod kinda science.
OR-if that`s a problem-what about blaming the perpetual dash for growth-building loads of cheap houses on flood plains because Labour seek more Magna monkeys to vote for them…or because the local gangmaster or snakehead boss requires more immigrant labour nearby.
So one reason is Labours political incompetence and consequent anti-science green crap.
The other is bankrolling Labours Care In The Community and Immigration payroll vote.
There is ONE other reason-and any Christian would be able to sustain the argument-that God hates gay marriage and judges Cameron for it.
Any Millwall-any All Blacks,…would deal with David Silvester behind the scenes, and let Godfrey Bloom back to wind up Channel 4…this ought to be UKIPs USP.
But UKIP flunked it and pandered to the BBC and Guardian-there are more grounds for thinking that God is pissed off, than there are for believing in Gaia the fat fairy…yet who in UKIP is prepared to mock the liberal chicken lickers who absolve Labour and the Greenies of blame for putting this country under water.
Granted that aforesaid “grounds” are flooded-but the whole lot of them need sinking in their Yellow Submarine, the Blue Meanies seem to chuck laminated IOUs to shore up Green idiocy and pink panderings.
Tell them all its Gods revenge-and let them tell me why it`s not…the halfwits haven`t a clue.
David Silvester should be UKIPs man for the Met Office…if they want power , they need to mock the Green consensus that blames everyone but Labour and the greens for the annual shambles…with their EU backers pulling the dinghies into ever deeper waters…
Or alternatively they are following an old Dutch saying, “If you shoot your arrows at rabbits, you may not have an arrow when the deer comes along” ?
The referendum is much more important to UKIP than any other issue, no matter how worthy, and they aren’t going to risk political capital by getting into a spat over the floods.
And even if they decided to, there is no chance at all of them being given any airspace on the BBC, which has decided the floods are all due to AGW.
4 million voters? So what?
You might think that, but the English people would be more likely to deem UKIP “stupid” if the party chose to expend limited party resources on wading into every sea of chaos.
Yep, don`t expect UKIP will be listening to me.
I accept they`ve elections to win and limited resources.
But I reckon if they just said
1. No to the EU Superstate that`s getting built as we speak.
2.Said Bollocks to Climate change and vowed to give the money back we`ve wasted on green crap-and would scrap HS2 and the BBC by way of part-payment for the Green flooies
3. No TV Licences and an end to unfettered, unchecked immigration.
Then-maybe they`d not need campaigns or worries over Carswell.
To quote Ron Greenwood- “Simplicity Is Genius”.
Reckon the vast majority of the British people would vote for those few things.
Yes, add grammar schools and ban social sciences degrees if you like-and charge the Scots for care homes or tuition fees if they do the same to us…but it shouldn`t be too complex.
It`d be good to hear the liberals howl in pain as the manifesto at least.
Are they a party – with an enduring and meaningful set of policies based on closely related shared values – or ultimately just a pressure-group, who will join with anyone who will push the same way for a single issue, whatever their underlying values may be?
The modern way appears to be mobile and shifting coalitions of lobby groups and identity-based issue campaigners, a fragmentation of any kind of deeper politics which is based on a shared culture. I expect UKIP to bet everything on the referendum, and then disappear after it’s held, since they won’t have fought for it on a sufficiently deep cultural basis. They’ll probably end up campaigning on the economic calculations alone, just like the Scottish referendum – a craven abandonment of cultural and historical integrity which will destroy their popular base whatever the result. And deal a blow to the very values they claim to be the standard-bearers for.
I agree with you Stuart , a lot of the cash the Kippers were previously receiving has now gone to the Leave EU organisations. Whatever happens in the referendum , that`s the issue settled one way or the other for another 10 years or so .
Ah, well, we may agree on the likely course of events, but I suspect we disagree entirely on its desirability. To lose UKIP would be to lose the only truly right wing party in Britain today, and it would be a tragedy.
BBC 1’s Dickensian
The Telegraph reckoned it ‘ingeniously conceived, handsomely crafted’ whilst the Guardian was more grudging ‘a labour of love obscured by too much fog and too many hats’ – not blatantly PC enough for their taste, I guess?
My half an hour’s worth exploratory dip into this 20 episode marathon of smog and gas lamps was marred by intermittent and jarring feminist undertones.
C’est la BBC
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/12066816/dickensian-review.html
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/dec/26/dickensian-agatha-christie-and-then-there-were-none-review
Sadly, the Telegraph’s reviews are written by the same sort of meejah luvvies who write them for the rest of the Press and the BBC. The nominal political leaning of the paper in question no longer has any influence on the attitude of its arts hacks.
As for what the BBC did to Dickens, I couldn’t even face the thought of it. The box stayed where it has been all day – switched off.
Oh, for goodness sake, AsIseeIt. Do get over it. Women have as much right to exist as you. Many of Dicken’s male characters are repulsive and deeply immoral. Dickens the man was a hypocrite who lived an immoral life. It is possible to appreciate his literary skills without viewing the world through his eyes. The sets were good but the concept was tiresome.
Pillar in a circle (wonder what that means?)
Pleased to have piqued your interest. Pity you seem so exasperated – ‘oh for goodness sake’ ‘Do get over it’
I wonder, would you care to show where I may have suggested women have no ‘right to exist’ ?
Dickens – as you will know – loaded his stories and characters with not-so-subtle social messages. I simply noted from my short experience of the BBC show how they had loaded their production with feminist messaging. I reckon the twenty first century west the best time and place ever for women. I doubt we really need the constant feminist messaging morality tales at this moment and in this part of the world.
All this PC stuff – wasn’t that what Sports Personality of the Year was for?
But the short century that elapsed between the struggle for the right to vote in 20th century west and the gradual proliferation of veiled women and Sharia courts in 21st century west is begining to look like just a tiny, transient blip in many millennia of subjugation according to rules written by men who imagined that they had a hotline to the creator. Why shouldn’t I object?
He said “feminist undertones”. By this he clearly meant a political agenda. The fact that you agree with that political agenda is irrelevant. It is political box ticking. When Shakespeare wrote Henry V he included lots of material which gave alternative perspectives. In a political box ticking exercise no alternative views are allowed. The result is drama which is utterly predictable – like a BBC news item. By the way feminism in this Country is not about the right to vote – it is about much more than that as you know full well.
“Dickens the man was a hypocrite who lived an immoral life.” I beg your pardon? Dickens spent his life and considerable talents campaigning on behalf of the numerous unfortunates that populated our country at that time. These truly poor people lived in such poverty and squalor that we (thank God) can hardly imagine it.
If by “immoral” you are referring to his affair with a much younger actress, then so what? Big deal! He would hardly be alone in that particular situation, would he?
Let he who is without sin…
I was referring, amnongst other things, to the way in which he treated his wife and family. Charles Dickens’ great literary talent is undeniable, but being able to write extraordinarily well doesn’t make a man into a saint, no matter what the establishment says. Perhaps you should learn more about the man behind the stories – through my connections with the Dickens’ museum, I have learned many things that have shown the man in an entirely different light.
You’ve bin watchin’ too much BBC….
No, I’ve read and learned about the man who wrote the fictional stories.
“make a man into a saint, no matter what the establishment says”
You are talking out of your arse. Every biography about Dickens I have read or watched has drawn attention to his infidelity.
Watching the news this evening on BBC1, which majored on the floods, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of language designed to suggest this was the worst ever flooding. The word unprecedented was used more than once and of course locals were quoted as saying the water was the highest they’d ever seen it etc etc. Whilst those who’ve been flooded have my sympathy, it has I believe been well documented that eye-witness testimony as to the deepest ever, wettest ever, coldest ever, hottest ever is utterly unreliable and therefore such statements have to be treated with a huge pinch of salt. Except at the BBC, it appears.
Anyway, since we were constantly being given the impression that the rainfall was beyond anything previously experienced, I was expecting to be told how many mm of rain had fallen over the past few hours and how that had beaten records going back whatever number of years. But no. The actual amount of rainfall was never, as far as I recall mentioned. And the one thing we can be sure of is that if long-established rainfall records had indeed fallen, the BBC would have been wetting themselves, if you’ll excuse the pun to tell us. Which leads to only one conclusion. The BBC is deliberately misinforming us about these floods in order to further its agenda of man-made climate change. But then that comes as no surprise to anyone here, does it?
I too noticed this – see my own tedious post above..
‘Unprecedented’ is the new bla… hyperbole of colour.
Locals!? Locals? Two men interviewed one in Tadcaster, or was it York (my birthplace) and one in some Lancs town .
The first one was eastern European and the second a Muslim dressed as such and with an English accent that was not acquired by living here for very long!
How did the BBC just happen on two foreigners, did they interview 100 and just edit out the actual Yorkshire and Lancashire men?
I also noticed that nearly all the reporters were female; this carried on with the Midlands news, another non white female anchor followed one after the other after the other after the other by female reporters, oh! the weather person was female as well.
Bias, anti-English male racism writ large on Sunday evening.
Just watched the paper review they have started banging around the phrase “new” weather from I think the Guardian. Wht it’s raining..not exactly new. Also watching now via sat box throught the internet. Then there were none. Why isn’t it called Ten little ni…oh hang on the forces of free speech appear to be kicking in my door…..
Just seen the U2 concert from Paris a few weeks after the Muslim atrocities there on November 13th.
Bone asked the audience to pray for the terrorists families, and hoped that we`d not see Islam as anything other than beautiful…for it means “surrender…”as he understood it”
He also hoped that The Climate Change Summit going on would go well, that his” Red” Charity for AIDS would see an end to HIV worldwide…and that we`d let lots more Syrian refugees in, Bataclan notwithstanding.
Bono right on message-this DVD would be a shoo-in for worldwide distribution…and if the United Colours of Benetton Obama don`t further use this preening poltroon on his private plane, I`ll be surprised.
He ticks every damn box…and must be a compulsory part of the “Global Inspirational Iconic Brand” so beloved by the BBC/EU and UN-that the MuslimTrojan Horse will (to be fair to Islam) ram back up the western liberal hole in our culture( as Len Cohen says).
Bono Pox. Grooming the “weak horse” of Bin Ladens prophecy fulfilled. Boy our horse is weak…
Well, he does wear rose-tinted glasses.
AND!
He gave selfsame glasses to a “member of the audience”-a working class chappie just like you or I…a one-off gesture no doubt, and that the bloke had U2 tattooes over all available skin on show would not have done his “cause” no harm at all.
He ALSO gave his very own jacket to our Novak-Djokovic lookalike-and waved him on his way and into Europe..for, lest we be thick, Bono was acting out his generosity to refugees, you see.
Think it was during “Bad”-an iconic duffer that symbolised the fatuous Live Aid debacle of 1985.
They never play it to remind us( preferring Freddie and Francis Rossi)…history rewritten for the blank voidoids who buy Eagles of Death Metal..who ALSO were serving Kid Rock God#66 at Bonos invitation.
So there you have it-get Abdul to tattoo you( you might lose your arm or get septicaemia if Abduls tattoo parlourtent sees Bono and Larry as “graven images” , but insh`Allah!)…with the security of getting recognised should your polystyrene boat go down in the Med with you on it).
If Angela lets you in-why there`s free entry to Bonos gaff in Paris-and he`ll furnish you with a sweaty jacket and a pair of his specs as well.
Wonder if Bono leave his private planes round the Balkans when he`s not using them-wonder if there ARE refugee discounts to his workshops/concerts-and wonder if those big superstadiums he bestraddles are kept open for the refugees after he`s rolled up the fat ladys carpets and left us all better off for his gladhanding.
They all think they`re bloody Lady Elizabeth Fry in Newgate don`t they?…”I can see the private planes” indeed Bono Paxo!
It’s just so heroic, having a concert like that.. I was impressed. I hope the victims would have understood.
He gets where caster oil cant that bloke ! dear Lord he even appeared on a tribute show (amongst other never-heard-of-before pop singers) to Frank Sinatra over Christmas, and as usual murdered the song. I know he is considered practically a saint in some quarters, but I think its more the Kings new clothes as far as I’m concerned.
Many decent bands/artists have ceased to exist since 1978, the sad thing is that U2 and Bono are one still around and selling their cr@p, who’s buying it? Same goes for Adele, Sam Smith and all the other wailing tuneless singer song writers of today.
I imagined poor Frank on his deathbed with a Shure mic up his nostril where the feed out to have been as a series of Bonos, Laupers and Brucies were taking turns to drag Franks songs through the hospital sluices , and drown out the poor old buggers non-voice with their own gutteral scrapings.
Bono certainly got under his skin-your last dying minutes should not be spent telling Bono that he could not interpret anything other that his sixth from poems…and pumping the life support with Irish washers was doing no good at all.
Bono-Krusty?…
A late suggestion for an additional award in the Mr Golightly managed BBC End of the Year Awards Show: the James Naughtie Memorial Trophy for Aimless Reporting at Some Expense*.
I wish to nominate a last minute but excellent candidate, Mathew Price, for his reporting from York on this morning’s TOADY programme (Radio4, 8.10am). It was a wonderful demonstration of informing listeners of the ‘bloomin’ obvious’, as Robert Peston was wont to say.
Hang on a minute! There may be another potential Award category, right there. The Robert Peston Bloomin’ Obvious Trophy. How about it? Now who could we nominate?
(* Expense being 1. Unnecessary travel – to be paid for the Licence Fee Payer, and 2. the extra CO2 emissions to help create more Global Warming and/or Climate Change. Both have to be achieved for a nominee to qualify.)
Up2snuff – I heard this report too this morning and groaned…oh, here we go again from Mathew are-you-sitting-comfortably Price. I nominated him earlier for a similar piece he did about the swarms of people crossing to Europe. And he did himself proud again this morning, didn’t he. I mean to say…what idiot would try to walk round York as a tourist using a map on a day of flooding? The man’s an idiot! Always reminds me of the opening of Home Service programme Listen with Mother; it always began…are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin! Now there was a programme the BbC did well.
As an aside, you surely don’t need degrees in rocket science to sort out flooding problems. Heavy rain (or melting snow) produces more run-off water than usual. It needs somewhere to go so rivers need to be dredged and flood plains need to be kept clear of buildings. Simples! That’s what the farmers say anyway!
Thank you Up2snuff and Soapbox. I can confirm that Matthew Price is in the final shortlist for The Biased BBC Awards of 2015 (For Services to The Great Migration). Please see his report from Budapest railway station (The Sleeping Refugees).
Soapbox, Quite right. The flooding problems have been caused by the stupidity of polititians. Apart from journalists, can anyone think of a class of people more stupid or dangerous than polititians ?
Boy- I did say that Zombie Tories of the fag end of Thatchers era would be out humming an oul` tune for the BBC.
I had predicted a Tim Yeo maybe, spouting off on the EU Referendum…splitting the Tories, whipping them into agreement or other guff..and all at the BBCs convenience , so Dave would have to watch for the dinky cherry bombs when he passed stool( or Merde, as we call Merkel and Hollande) in Brussels.
I would have given good odds on Ken Clarke-but no takers,
And rightly so-for WGAFF!( the Ist F=flying!).
BUT-I had specified that these would have to be zombies…not mere dandruff or skinflakes from the Zombie Tories of 87-92.
And I was expecting Europe as the topic , not Yorks squishiness…drat and double drat Queen Gaia!
Therefore I`m paying no bets out on Selwyn-Froggett-Gumboil and his “Let`s do for Paris Climate Change what Bono did for it(surely we all saw it on BBC last night?).
Wasn`t John Selwyn Gummie-Bear, the one who forcefed his girl some spinal cord in a bap, to show that not ALL cows were spongebobbing to the ash pits in 1990 etc…and didn`t the Greens and BBC despise him for putting Jocastas Roedean place at risk, by so doing?
But Gaia is the final cause-“come in and pull yerself a seat Baron Dibble of Deadmen”
In hindsight John Selwyn Gummer was the Rorschach Test of sanity that Mrs T failed…no government that wanted to stay in pwer would have this specky albatross anywhere near the prow…Gummer wasn`t even the stool on Thatcher welly, just the smell that lingered from it-and long enough to remind us that the likes of Eden and Callaghan( not too unattainable were they?) were gone…and the likes of Gummer and Sewel were coming.
Where else would Gummer go but the the BBCs Haribo tent of dolly mixups? What else would he be safely left attended by Nurse Fathead to “speak towards” other than “Climate Change”.
My theory-the flatus of the likes of Gummer, Bono and Snow is causing MORE methane emissions than any poor set of cows in the Pampas…our Pampers doilies are making the European continent safe for Islam , as we laugh at “Johnny Does Science” from an Erasmus cookbook of Eurocolours.
From Driberg to Stonehouse to Gummer and then Davey and Huhne…reckon Gummer personifies the lowest point of our political life in recent history.
Were I Nick Griffin or Peter Sutcliffe, Levi Bellend or Primrose Shipman…NOW would be the time to get onto the BBC Today show to say “yes to the EU, No to Climate changeyt“ings”..whilst the “professionals continue to baste the turkeys as it were”-and guest editors and security called Ahmed and Rashida let you in, and will let you say the above sentence until we all agree.
Nick Griffin shares may well go up if he supports CoP21 too, if the BBC have rehabed Gummer-might as well be you next, Nick.
At least now as 2015 draws to a close , it“s all simple signals from the BBC.
Here are two tea chests-lime green and brown -put your suggestions into the boxes for “Yes” to the EU…and “No” to climate change-you`ll get the Brownshirts first,,,then the Black ones of Islam afterwards.
For some reason BBc 1 is showing “Old Jack’s boat” apparently a childrens series which I thought was odd as there are two childrens channels. Complete utter toss lucky the village appears to be 50% populated with BME oh the mermaid is as well. Still normal dullness returns to the schedule at 12:30 with Bargain hunt.
BBC 24 News:
“”Hundreds in Scotland still have black and white TV””
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35185652
Where do we go with this item….???
As an analogue signal no longer exists, how can the B&W TV licence? Such a TV will need a Freeview box with RF out which like any recording device will need a Colour TV licence.
This just proves the whole licence fee is archaic, why no reduction for watching in mono, small screen, square screen, non HD or in areas where only the basic Freeview service is available ?
“A black and white TV Licence does not cover the use of colour TV receiving equipment, such as a digital box. The only exception is if it’s only used with a black and white TV set and the equipment can’t record TV.”
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/understanding-your-tv-licence-top3
I did wonder why they still sell one and it took quite a bit of googling to get a reference to a tv-licensing comment.