Wanna Bet?

On Monday evening BBCs Panorama programme alleged that three FIFA executive committee members of accepting ‘corrupt’ payments and that its vice-president attempted to supply ticket touts.

Since all four men are part of the committee that will vote on the 2018 and 2022 hosts, one would think that England’s chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup were slim indeed.

But an official from England 2018 said yesterday: ‘The BBC’s Panorama did nothing more than rake over a series of historical allegations none of which are relevant to the current bidding process.’

I wouldn’t like to bet on it!
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Offensive

The BBC has been forced to apologise for an offensive remark by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson in which he described a Ferrari car as ‘a bit wrong – that smiling front end – it looked like a simpleton – should have been called the 430 Speciale Needs’.

The BBC removed the comment from the programme’s repeat and apologised for any offence caused. But, of course, the damage was done and Ofcom were spot on to say ‘discriminatory language of this nature has the potential to be very offensive to some viewers as it could be seen to single out certain sections of society in a derogatory way because of their disability.’

I am not a fan of Clarkson or his sneering Top Gear programme which, in my view, promotes fast and dangerous driving. But the main fault here would not seem to have been Clarkson’s even though he ought not to have made the remark.

Doesn’t anyone at the BBC check that programme content is good enough to be aired before it is broadcast without offending anyone?

And, if not, why not?
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Stop ‘Tinkering’!

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As well as dipping into some of the newspapers online each morning, I generally watch snippets from the main television programmes to catch up on the daily news.

I used to enjoy the newsy magazine show of Penny Smith and John Stapleton for an hour from 6am. They’ve gone, along with most of the other GMTV presenters, who were axed in favour of an expensive revamp. Now people I’ve never heard of stagger along with a dire programme called Daybreak which, apparently, cost ITV a staggering £10 millions to formulate and equip in new studios. The result was an immediate 20% drop in viewers in just the first week. An ITV official said optimistically, ‘Daybreak has made a strong start in a very competitive breakfast television market’.

Not only ITV have been ‘tinkering’. Someone in the BBC decided to revamp their website and the result has been a disaster. When once you could scan the main stories at a glance, now you have to hunt around to find them. Even worse, they adopted the same format with all their regional websites. And now the latest version of their iPlayer, a useful computerised ‘catch-up’ service which enables you to watch programmes you’ve missed, is now so full of bugs that using it is made extremely difficult. A BBC official said sniffly, ‘New products sometimes have technical issues’. He got that right.

We like some things left as they are: predictable, comfortable and friendly. So why people in the television business feel that by scrapping some things completely, rather than attempting to revitalise them is beyond me. Especially when the changes are so dreadfully expensive.

Bring back GMTVs Penny Smith and John Stapleton, along with the ‘old’ versions of the BBC website and iPlayer is what I say.

But, of course, no-one will be listening!
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Who Cares?

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Yesterday the High Court refused to ban a book which would have revealed its author as ‘The Stig’ who, apparently, is the secret racer of a variety of cars featured on the Top Gear programme.

The BBC sought an injunction blocking publication of the man’s autobiography on the grounds that it breached a confidentiality agreement he had entered into when he took up the position of The Stig in 2003 and that revealing who he is would spoil viewers’ enjoyment of the programme. The publishers of the book argued that the BBC were preventing freedom of expression and that, in any event, the identity of the man was already in the public domain.

The High Court refused to grant a temporary injunction blocking publication of the biography, and the result is that every morning newspaper gives the man’s name and abundant publicity to his book which will be published in two week’s time.

Outside the court, the publishers queried why the BBC would want to spend taxpayers money on such an action and I agree with this view.

More importantly, does anyone really care who The Stig is?
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The Chuggers

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I’ve said before that I don’t like having to travel up to London. Quite apart from the noise, dirt, the traffic and the inconvenience of it all, there are the charity touts that accost you at the entrances to railway stations across the capital.

I learn this morning that these touts are called ‘charity muggers’, and it is an apt term for they are difficult to avoid. Even to return a greeting will often result in an apparently harmless conversation that inevitably leads to a request for a donation. On the very few occasions I have shown an interest in the charity concerned, I’ve lost that interest as soon as it becomes clear that I would be required to sign a direct debit rather than hand over a bank note.

It is now revealed in a BBC investigation that even though charities pay huge sums annually to the private fundraising firms employing these ‘chuggers’, they often don’t see any of the money donated because the firms’ charges are so high. It also seems that some charities pay the chuggers £100 or more for every signature they collect but, because more than half of the donors cancel their direct debits before the end of the first year, they end up receiving less than they paid out.

It seems to me that there is a case here for the government to take a look at what is going on and, perhaps, to insist that charity collectors make it crystal clear whether they are collecting directly for a particular charity or for a private fundraising company.

That might clip the wings of the charity muggers!
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Very Odd!

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One of my pleasures at the end of each week is to log on to the BBC website and watch the latest edition of Newsbeat’s Odd Box hosted by Dominic Byrne - go to www.bbc.co.uk/news and search for Odd Box.

This week’s edition features new-born babies, swimming dogs, folk variously swimming in a New York dumpster, dressed as pirates, wandering around naked or making pig impressions. There is also a cross-dressing mayor, monks cleaning a huge statue of Buddha and a series of so-called sculptures by an Austrian artist. There are ten oddities shown each week and this week’s collection is no exception.

It is the sculpture exhibition in Salzburg that attracted my attention this week, for it consists of three dozen gherkins of various sizes standing upright on plinths which the artist explains are self-portraits.

You can make your own mind up about what this might mean but it never ceases to amaze me what some ‘artists’ get away with, and are presumably paid for, and how gullible the folk are who wander round galleries such as this one believing they are looking at art.

A gherkin for your thoughts!
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Apply Immediately!

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There is outrage at the news that the former Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has applied for the job of Vice-Chairman of the BBC Trust less than four months after her political career ended in disgrace.

I can’t say I’m too bothered about her application, though I’ve noted that a spokesman for the Trust said there was ‘a certain degree of surprise’ when her CV arrived a couple of weeks ago. Whether or not that might give some clue as to her suitability for the job is for others to decide. No, what has exercised my brain is the ridiculous reward to the person being given the job.

Despite recent criticisms about the BBCs ‘extraordinary and outrageous waste’, this job pays an unbelievable £77,000 for just two-and-a-half day’s work a week. Plus, all the expenses the person can claim, of course. How in the present economic climate can it be possible to pay someone such a large amount for doing so little?

We should all apply!
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If It ‘Ain’t Broke ...

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I frequently check the BBC News website to get a snapshot of what is going on in the world. But this has been made more difficult after the whole thing was redesigned in such as way that the BBC has been receiving complaints that it is ‘chaotic’, a view with which I have to agree.

The BBC News Website Editor recently wrote in his blog, ‘Most of you commenting ... on the Editors blog have been critical, with many urging us to change the design back to the way it was’. That, I would have thought would have told you something.

But, of course, once someone’s made a decision very often they stubbornly stick to it regardless of the criticism. So it is no surprise that the editor then goes on to say that going back to the old design ‘is not something we're considering’.

The man that sent him the following comment is absolutely spot on: ‘Why don’t you just stop thinking and put it back the way it was? You have just acknowledged that most of us are unhappy with what you have done, yet you persist with this debacle.’

Or, as another man wrote: ‘ ... if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!’
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Something To Look Forward To

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The Culture Secretary has suggested - no more than suggested - that the BBC licence fee might be cut as part of the government’s plans to reduce public spending. In a newspaper article, he accused the BBC of ‘extraordinary and outrageous’ waste in recent years.

The majority of the population would agree with what has been said but many might, perhaps, ask why we have to have a licence fee at all. Why cannot the BBC fund itself like the other channels in this day and age?

Not that many years ago, one BBC television programme would follow the other without interruption just as day follows night. Now every programme is separated from the next by an ‘advert’ either giving advance notice of another programme or, alternatively, some pointless graphics with music. If every programme has to be followed by two minutes of self-advertisement, then the Corporation may just as well go the whole hog and take on paid advertising.

The BBC is a monolith. Sections of it appear to believe it is an arm of the civil service. This person for one believes it is now time to do away with the licence fee altogether and let the BBC do what it has to do as an independent programme producer.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if the BBC had to function on its own resources, then we would see an end to many so-called stars being paid the sort of outrageous fees we hear about from time to time. Maybe also we would see an end to the type of expensive and pointless programmes such as Top Gear that must surely encourage fast and reckless driving.

The Culture Secretary has also said he intends to send in the big boys, the National Audit Office, to examine the BBC's accounts. That report will make interesting reading just in time before the next licence fee is scheduled to be reassessed in 2012.

That’ll be something to look forward to!
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Put The ‘Great’ Back Into Great Britain!

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I wrote the other day about the gloom that has descended over the country in recent years and the lack of pride some folk seem to have in it.

Our American cousins are very proud of their country - one that is just as diverse as ours - and many of them wear the Stars and Stripes in their lapels. The Stars and Stripes are frequently seen to be fluttering outside people’s houses, restaurants, offices and other places. The Star-Spangled Banner and other patriotic songs are heard at all manner of events and very often on television when the armed forces are commemorated. Americans’ pride in their country is palpable.

Contrast this with dour Britain. Except for those above public buildings, the Union Flag is a rare sight though, admittedly, one sometimes sees the English, Welsh and Scots flags being flown by those with a sporting or regional interest. Few of our national products bear the Union Jack any more (what happened to campaigns like the ‘Buy British’ one?) and precious few people have it in their lapels.

Why am I banging on about national anthems, flags and national pride?

It is because a few people have complained to the BBC that the national anthem played at the end of the day by Radio 4 is too loud and that it is ‘jingoistic’. They are right; it is loud and I agree it is jingoistic. But it’s our National Anthem.

There was a time when the National Anthem was played at the end of every day on radio. It was played at the end of cinema and theatrical performances. I seem to recall it was played at the end of the day by BBC Television in the days when it was the only channel and closed down early. There was a time also when we had great pride on our country and all sorts of products bore the Union Jack as a sign of quality before the odious BNP took it as their symbol.

And what now?

We have a hundred or so people complaining that Radio 4 plays the National Anthem at the end of the day. Good for Radio 4 is what I say! Radio 4’s network manager has it right. ‘While some will hear it as jingoistic others will hear it as comforting and encouraging and redolent of tradition and community and all sorts of other things.’

It’s time to put the ‘great’ back into Great Britain, and we could start by playing the National Anthem a bit more frequently and by sporting the Union Jack more than we do at present. A bit more national pride is what we need!
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How Disappointing!

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The lovely BBC presenter Sian Williams has been fighting HM Revenue and Customs over her £4,500 annual bill for clothes, dry-cleaning and hairdressing even though she needs to look smart when presenting the news.

Though Miss Williams is most demonstrably smart, she failed to convince a tax tribunal judge that she needs to spend this amount, ‘wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the employment duties’, and so lost her claim for a £1,800 tax deduction.

As part of her claim, Miss Williams said that she would be happy to ready the news naked. However, a spokesman later said, ‘There is no danger of her actually presenting naked.’

What a disappointment!
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MasterChef - MasterMucky?

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After I ‘retired’, I managed a bar and restaurant in Alaska for a while. It was an interesting, if tiring, job and I much enjoyed living in a part of the world I knew quite well.

As anyone in the catering business will testify, cleanliness and strict hygiene are watchwords. Let these standards fall and the business may fail. Restaurant managers must ensure good hygiene standards are maintained and there is always the possibility of a Health Inspector making an unannounced call.

So I find it curious, if not a little disturbing, that the contestants in BBCs MasterChef series seem to pay little attention to good hygiene practices.

They very often do not wear hats to cover their hair, unlike most of the chefs in the restaurants in which they sometimes work. There is the towel or rag, hung from the waist, used to wipe the edges of the plates about to be sent out to customers; the same cloth used to mop sweaty brows.

Worst of all are the fingers - which I have yet to see covered up by disposable gloves. Fingers used to taste food, to wipe sweaty brows, even noses, to handle pots and pans and to handle the food itself. So much of the food produced in this and other television programmes are overly handled by fingers that are never washed or covered. Yuck!

My experience in that restaurant in Alaska heightened my awareness of what goes on in kitchens, especially busy ones, and ever since then I have avoided the sort of pretentious restaurants in which the equally pretentious food is likely to have been handled by - let’s not be afraid to say it - various mucky fingers.

Masterchef is a interesting and entertaining programme. But where are the most basic of hygiene procedures? Where are the hats to stop greasy hair falling onto food? Where are the disposable gloves? The producers of this programme need to start enforcing some basic hygiene procedures!
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Gravy Train

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It is reported that 382 BBC executives are earning more than £100,000. Of these, nearly a third earn more than £160,000 and 58 receive more than the Prime Minister’s £194,000 salary.

I now understand why so many MPs have announced that they will not be standing at the next General Election.

They are all queuing up for jobs with the BBC!
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‘Changing the Channel’

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Policy Exchange, described by The New Statesman as David Cameron's 'favourite think tank', has produced a report, ‘Changing the Channel’, on public service broadcasting which it says needs to be radically overhauled if it is to survive in the new digital age.

It calls for the BBC to place quality before ratings, and stop spending huge resources on big-name presenters, imported US television shows, sports rights, programmes for 16 to 35 year olds and popular entertainment which other channels would deliver anyway.

The report certainly makes one think. The BBC gets £3.5 billion (£3.5 billion!) a year from licence fees, a huge amount of money when you consider some of the tripe that is broadcast, let alone the high fees paid to some big-name presenters most of whom simply do not warrant them.

The television license fee is surely fast becoming an anachronism. Television programmes can now be picked up by so many pocket devices as well as computers, that television sets are in danger of becoming an endangered species.

So I would suggest that the licence fee be scrapped altogether. If the BBC were obliged to go ‘commercial’ then we would all be saved a lot of money, especially as we’d also get rid of the BBC Trust, another recommendation of the Policy Exchange.

Better still, we might actually get better programmes!
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Bigotry & Racism

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Among the pages of this morning’s newspapers this morning are stories of murders, child abuse, a child who died of Swineflu, strikes both actual and threatened, severe food shortages in north Korea, yet more suicide bombers killing people in Pakistan, soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, damage to Samoa caused by the recent tsunami, forest fires in Australia and many others involving death and destruction around the world.

Yet all these stories have been pushed to the back pages as this morning’s front pages virtually all feature Nick Griffin, the Leader of the odious British National Party, who was invited by the BBC to appear in last night’s ‘Question Time’ and despite the hundreds of protesters outside the studio.

Facing jeers and boos from the audience, Griffin made a poor showing and never really answered any of the questions put to him. He refused to confirm that he had denied the Holocaust, defended the Ku Klux Klan and attacked homosexuals and Muslims. Referring to the ‘indigenous people’ who he said felt shut out in their own country, he went on to say, ‘We are the aborigines here.’

Though pushed mainly on the extremist views of his party, Griffin had little time to develop what, if any, other policies the BNP had. Indeed, if they had any on the present economic condition, the health service, postal strikes, etc., etc., we didn’t hear them.

All in all, it was a sad showing and, despite the criticism of the BBC for allowing this man to take part in the programme, it did have one benefit.

The majority of viewers would most probably have been switched off by this smug person representing an odious party with no real answers or policies except that of bigotry and racism..

Surprise, Surprise!

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An independent poll by Ipsos Mori commissioned by the BBC Trust has found that around half of television license payers would want the charge to be smaller if given the option.

What a surprise!

How about scrapping the fee altogether?
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Alternative Employment?

We’ll ignore the report this morning that Shahid Malik, the Communities Minister, allegedly failed to tell the whole truth about his expenses to the inquiry that cleared him of breaking ministerial rules over his rental arrangements and that he is now to be investigated once again. I’d only comment that the report reinforces my view that in days past, long past, ministers and MPs served the people instead of themselves.

I’ll turn instead to the latest antics of the BBC, that bastion of political correctness funded by us, the taxpayers; a fact that often seems to escape those in charge of it.

We hear this morning that the BBC are planning to cut the salaries given to their top earners though, so far, they are only applying these cuts to the ‘talent’. At first glance, one wouldn’t have thought that cutting the pay of performers would achieve a great deal and that more attention ought to be paid to the senior ranks of the BBC itself. But, I suppose, it’s a start.

What is interesting from the estimates in today’s report is that, among others, Jonathan Ross gets £18 million over three years, Graham Norton is paid £2.5 million a year, Jeremy Clarkson £2 million, Terry Wogan £800,000 a year, Bruce Forsyth £900,000 and Chris Evans £540,000. Cor! These rates are better than those of MPs and for a lot less work!

I have no time at all for Jonathan Woss, Graham Norton or Chris Evans and cannot understand why they should command such high salaries. I can’t see anything ‘entertaining’ about them at all. I would rather see their contracts lapse and let them take their chances with the commercial companies who, maybe, might look first at their own budgets before taking them on. As for Jeremy Clarkson, I would remove him from television altogether for his shows merely advocate and encourage fast and risky driving in an environment which is already overcrowded with cars and thoughtless drivers.

Of those mentioned above, I wouldn’t begrudge a penny to Terry Wogan or Bruce Forsyth and believe they actually earn their salaries. Both are entertaining in the full sense of the word, and Terry Wogan especially is seen as a ‘friend’ to the millions of people who tune in to his radio programme every day and listen to his gentle banter.

As for the rest, if some accountant comes along to cut their salaries they might consider alternative employment as an MP or even as a minister!