I Closed My Eyes

There is something unsettling about the fact Andrew Lloyd Webber has admitted he ‘planted’ his next Maria in Hollyoaks three months before she started her role in the West End. It’s just another example of how TV land views its public. First the numerous phone-in scandals, showed utter contempt for the viewer, and the recent show(s) Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper, demonstrated that those in TV think people not only want watch trashy, clichéd ridden soaps, but also how these soaps get made. Lloyd Webber's revelation is another example of TV slapping itself on the back and thinking it's jolly clever.

British television can produce some wonderful stuff – comedy, documentaries, nature shows – and I accept that more ‘lightweight’ programming has its place and its audience. But when you have a show on Channel 4 providing screen time for an actress who will star in a west-end show for a man who has mystifyingly taken over BBC1 with nothing more than jumped-up karaoke shows, and with more to come, it just becomes too much to bear.

The next show Lloyd Webber will be inflicting on to a strangely accepting public will be “I’d Do Anything” for a role in Oliver. An apt title I feel.

Political World

If The Right Honourable Gentlemen Derek Conway MP has come out on record and said, “I have let my family down very badly indeed and no judgement from any quarter could be more harsh than that which I apply to myself” when talking about the payments he made to his son for work it is alleged he hasn’t done then why has Roger Gale MP come out and said this is a “witch hunt” and that, “a man has been told he's guilty until he can prove his innocence. If Derek Conway says his son did the hours which he said he did, I do not doubt his word”?

It’s rare enough to hear a politician ever apologise for anything – he said, “I unreservedly apologise to the House for my administrative shortcomings and the misjudgements I made”, – so for one to do so, about something Mr Gale believes he isn’t guilty of, would be too ridiculous to contemplate. Or perhaps if you are guilty you deny it, and if you aren’t you claim you are?

The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee have said he should pay back the £13,161 he gave his son. Again, sounds like he has been found to be in the wrong to me. Clearly Mr Gale disagrees. While we are at it £13,161 wouldn’t even cover mine, or thousands of other hard-working students’ / recently graduated students’ debts so it’s not exactly a small amount that can be just brushed under the carpet.

What a sorry state of affairs. I don’t really want to vote for Labour or the Conservatives at the moment.

N E 1 4 10 Ice?

This article on the BBC Sport section is so strangely written. It’s just an endless succession of staccato sentences that is entirely unnecessary and makes the whole thing quite unreadable. Which. Is. A. Shame.

The following is just an excerpt from the piece. These are not selected at random; they actually do follow on like this from one another:

“Many years ago these scenes were probably played out night after night within a deep sleep and probably day after day on the practice court.

When Djokovic first picked up a tennis racket, on a court opposite his parent's Pizzeria half-way up a Serbian mountain, this was the dream.

His victory is thoroughly deserved because he won through the hardest section of the draw and dropped just a single set.

Hewitt, Safin, Bagdahtis, Nalbandian, Ferrero and Ferrer were all in his quarter and Federer was the man in the semis."

I just hear a robot talking.

Sick as a Parrot

Ian Holloway’s column is always a fairly daft read, (I must admit I lost some affection for him when he left Plymouth), but to ask him to comment on a news story which dates from February 10, 2005, (not for the faint-hearted), shows that the journalist didn’t really check to see if it was a current story.

Examples of English Football Arrogance # 217

Last night’s Carling Cup Semi Final between Everton and Chelsea. Cut to shot of Fabio Capello in the stands. One of the commentators said (paraphrased), “I bet Fabio Capello has never seen an atmosphere, quite like this.”

This is a man who has managed Real Madrid, won the Champions League with AC Milan, and has also managed Juventus and Roma. And the commentators think the atmosphere at a Carling Cup tie between Everton and Chelsea will be something he has never experienced?

Just Shut Up

The news that the FA has chosen to forego a minute’s silence at the England V Switzerland game because it doesn’t trust the fans to respect the silence is one of the most depressing things I have read. Sadly they are right. The comments on this blog post on the Guardian make for bizarre and ultimately downright sad reading.

If Sir Alex Ferguson and a football club annoys you to the point you want to boo / whistle / talk during a minute's silence for young men who died in the primes of their lives, leaving wives, girlfriends, children, family, friends devastated then you really, and I mean, really, need to sort out your priorities.

We respect those men who died in WWI and WWII without caring which part of the country they came from, or what team they support, but if someone happened to play for a certain team that 'we don't like' it's somehow okay to ruin a memorial to them because they 'annoy us'.

People who actually feel like this, quite vehemently, and even worse seem to feel they are actually justified in this behaviour really need to get more going on in their lives and appreciate that they are alive and well and didn't die in a plane crash aged 22 with their whole lives ahead of them, leaving a grieving family behind.

It makes you wonder why we bother calling ourselves civilised.

Giving Science a Bad Name

Tom Cruise really scares me. It’s the misplaced belief and sense that his conviction seems worryingly ‘extreme’ that gets me the most. And the news about this leaked video just makes everything even more, well, sinister.

Regardless of the fact he is a film-star, celebrity, actor, etc if you just look at him and realise he actually ‘believes’ not only in the idea of Scientology, but also clearly ‘believes’ in his own conviction as a Scientologist, then it’s a bit disturbing.

If a man who seemingly ‘has it all’ can be turned on to something as strange as Scientology what hope can we have for people who are desperate for a direction, any direction, and who might well be susceptible to the weird propaganda or recruiting techniques these people may or may not have.

What price Britney Spears a Scientologist by the end of 2008?

Linking Up

Some more links:

First – I thought the coverage of the US primaries was a bit rubbish after all the banging on about Obama looking set to win New Hampshire and then, oh, wait a moment, Hilary won. Eh? But this is some truly terrible news coverage.

Secondly, I’ve been researching some unsung Cornish heroes for a piece I am writing and came across this woman whose life is nothing short of remarkable. Why she isn’t as well known as Emily Pankhurst or Florence Nightingale is a mystery to me.

Cashing In

Clearly some people will go to extraordinary lengths to get hold of money.

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Somehow the BBC website has converted $355 in to £240. XE.com currency conversion calculator gives the conversion as £180, as The Guardian did. Worrying.

Title

And?

This is quite a badly written piece as well by the BBC journalist and the same four-line quotation is repeated twice in five paragraphs. If the Beeb does have to sack 1,800 journalists, and if Jonathan Ross really is worth 18 million, then this writer could well find themselves clearing their desk.

Around Every Corner

I thought this picture was a rather extreme example of some of the terrifying sights the service personal encounter in Iraq on a daily basis.

God Bothering

I’ve read some pretty barmy stuff in my time but I think this story about a judge in India ‘summoning’ two Hindu Gods to help in a legal dispute is the most preposterous and ridiculous thing I might have ever read. It is made all the more brilliant by the BBC’s utter lack of humour and completely straight reporting.

When you look at the details of the story it takes on an even higher levels of incredulity. I quote: “The gods have been asked to appear before the court on Tuesday, after the judge said that letters addressed to them had gone unanswered.”

The letters went unanswered? How surprising. But the reasons for this are that, “Judge Singh sent out two notices to the deities, but they were returned as the addresses were found to be "incomplete".

What on earth ‘did’ he put on the envelopes?

So he has taken out an advert in newspapers – because all deities read the news – although surely being Gods, they know everything anyway? Unperturbed the notice states:

"You failed to appear in court despite notices sent by a peon and later through registered post. You are hereby* directed to appear before the court personally.”

That will definitely work.

The year 2007 – legal disputes between Gods and priests – letters and adverts to the Gods asking them to appear in person in court sent by a judge – unbelievable.

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*The spelling on the BBC website is herby.

It's Not News

A learned friend of mine recently wrote a blog about the low-level news reporting that takes place on BBC News in the mornings. Today I saw a piece that final did for me in my frustration at this version of ‘news’ they offer us.

They had KT Tunstall (looking utterly mental in big owl glasses, and wearing a spangley black and silver top – at 8am!) "teaching" their sports reader (??) to play the guitar on the basis it linked in to some new initiative. They showed some pre-recorded footage of her teaching him some chords (it was even less exciting than it sounds) and then in studio, live on-air, while I was getting ready to go to work, they spent about 2 minutes fawning over her and him as a teacher / student dynamic and then he proving what a good teacher she was by playing the ‘E’ chord, very badly.

It's 8am! All I want is travel information from the local London news, and some good, crisp news reporting and comment on stories that might be worth knowing about. I don’t mind hearing about a new music initiative, but only a) if it’s one of the lighter, last stories in the bulletin, and b) it doesn’t involve celebrities (Why do we HAVE to have “celebrities” for everything?) and c) if you have to have inane froth save it for BBC News 24 which is a joke of a TV channel anyway.

Yes I could listen to the radio, but I shouldn’t have to choose. I don’t like the radio in the morning; I find it hard to concentrate on, too noisy, and impossible to pick up a continually clear signal. Plus there is no guarantee you will escape this banality there - see.

In short: No KT Tunstall teaching sports presenters the guitar at 8am when they should be reporting on stories such as, the government in disarray, police officers getting away with crimes, and the ‘best story of the year’.

Comment, context and criticism

Morrissey’s response on the Guardian blogs section is very interesting – for many reasons – but for me the most interesting side is his very cutting and succinct arguments on why the NME is a pathetic shadow of its former self, full of “cheers mate, got pissed last night, ha ha” interviews.

It’s a pretty fair summation and is very interesting coming from a man who has appeared on the cover, and even been awarded their “God-like Genius” award. Mercifully he turned it down.

Whether or not he answers the accusations of racism is up to you – perhaps Morrissey was merely stating a few home truths in relation to the past and the present? Or that perhaps what he was saying was neither a Black or White statement but merely a ‘shades of grey’ comment on the changing face of British society? That these changes have brought positives and negatives? That perhaps looking at his comments in the context of history would put them in perspective – and let newspapers like The Guardian provide better coverage of the whole self-indulgent affair then they did?

Perhaps, but context, history, and ‘shades of grey’ are never good for selling newspapers and getting website hits.