Natasha Kerplunksky, the BBC’s only newsreader named after a racehorse, came out with another example of BBC Weird Phenomena introducing last night’s Six O’Clock News (256Kbps, WMV): “WPC Murder: Police say WPC Nisha Patel Nasri may have been killed by her own kitchen knife” Watch out for those self activating knives. Everyone else who mentioned this tragic incident was savvy enough to say ‘with’ instead of ‘by’. Later in the … Continue reading →

: BBC Views Online have just revealed that the man they mistakenly interviewed live on BBC News 24 in place of Guy Kewney is, in fact, Guy Goma, an applicant for a “data support cleanser” job. According to the BBC: The mix-up occurred when a producer went to collect the expert from the wrong reception in BBC Television Centre in West London. That’s a BBC euphemism for “the wrong kind … Continue reading →

Please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, preferably BBC related. Please keep comments on other threads on the topic of that particular post. N.B. this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – the idea is to maintain order and clarity. Thank you. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

– from today’s Sunday Times: Commercial companies – from giant ITV, Emap and Yahoo down to minnows such as Island FM on Guernsey – complain that relentless BBC expansion is hurting private- sector enterprise in areas from parish-pump television to magazines, the internet and classical-music publishing. Lobby groups representing the radio and local-newspaper industries have sent letters to Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, in the past few days, setting out … Continue reading →

BBC News 24 cocked things up big time last Monday when they interviewed respected technology commentator Guy Kewney on the outcome of the Apple Computer vs. Apple Music case. Except, rather than place Mr. Kewney in front of lightweight Karen Bowerman, they chose his taxi driver for her to interview instead. Bowerman proceeded to interview the taxi driver, whose Frank Spencer style expressions, when he realises their mistake, are priceless! … Continue reading →

BBC Views Online often seems to report unexplained phenomena – for instance, from the last few days, off the top of my head, we have: Inquiry as stolen car kills woman – I presume the car stole itself and ran the woman over, rather than a car thief (or suspected car thief even) being responsible;   A 15-year-old boy is being prosecuted in connection with the case of a girl … Continue reading →

To improve the readability of the comment threads please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, until such time as another open thread is started. Please keep comments on the other threads on the topic at hand. Please note, this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – it’s merely an attempt to keep order. Thank you. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.

Have a look at this recent BBC article about Russian birth rates. Like some unpaid p.r. agency for non-Western nations Aunty pretends that basically things in the Bear’s garden are getting rosier: ‘In the latest in our series about the role of the state in encouraging couples to have more children, Patrick Jackson in Moscow looks at how a rising birth rate is bringing cheer to Russia but mortality rates … Continue reading →

Viewers of this evening’s BBC News were treated to a Hugh Pym report on Chip and Pin card fraud centred around a small number of Shell petrol stations (256Kbps, WMV format). Near the end Pym appears next to a till with a card terminal to wrap up his report – strangely though not a till in a Shell petrol station! No, Pym manages to get himself downstairs to the BBC … Continue reading →

Throughout their coverage of last night’s local election results the oh-so-pleased-with-himself Jeremy Whine repeated, ad-nauseam, the oh-so-clever sequence in the clip above with such enthusiasm he seemed at risk of wetting himself with excitement. I wonder how many other groups the BBC would dare to depict thus… Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.