General BBC-related comment thread!

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.

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106 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. jimbob says:

    compare the coverage of the Khost suicide bomb story by grauniad

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/28/suicide-car-bomb-attack-afghanistan

    and al beeb

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7801777.stm

    al beeb do not mention-

    -the age of the children (8-10yrs)
    – the deliberate targeting of the children
    – the fact that this was the last day of school year.

    no doubt including too many details of the victims would eclipse the “humanity” of the taliban.

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  2. Abandon Ship! says:

    The article begins:

    “Israeli residents of communities close to Gaza have faced a wave of rocket fire from Palestinian militants in response to Israel’s air strikes in the Strip.”

    None before then?

    Typical Beeboid “context”.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7802276.stm

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  3. George R says:

    jimbob

    Yes.

    ‘Jihadwatch’ has this:

    “When Christians kill Muslims, it’s the Crusades. When Jews kill Muslims it’s murder, and when Muslims kill Muslims, it’s like talking about the weather. Nobody really cares about it.”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024123.php

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  4. Jack Hughes says:

    BBC showing distorted photos …

    Check photo number 7:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7801814.stm

    ( its http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45330000/jpg/_45330322_kids_ap220.jpg )

    The caption suggests the children are casualties – without saying as much.

    Here is the full photo:

    http://www.theaugeanstables.com/category/pallywood/

    It’s a different story.

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  5. Jack Hughes says:

    The BBC caption reads:

    “Most of those killed were members of Hamas, but women and children were also caught in the raids.”

    Just wondering why the BBC are showing a cropped photo ?

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  6. DB says:

    Jack Hughes | 29.12.08 – 9:29 am

    The BBC isn’t subtle in its propaganda, is it?

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  7. NotaSheep says:

    Jack Hughes: “Just wondering why the BBC are showing a cropped photo ?”
    Because the BBC hate the very existence of Israel, as they see it, a huge powerful country in amongst small, weak, peace-loving Islamic countries.
    If that is not how the BBC think, then all they have to do is publish the Balen Report in full and let us judge for ourselves…

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  8. Joy Bristow says:

    Vieers should know that during the TV series Strictly Come Dancing Jon Sargeant was booked on the Orianna liner to give an after dinner speech so what was the real reason he left Strictly??

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  9. glj says:

    Jack Hughes | 29.12.08 – 9:29 am | #

    There are some blatant Pallywood sketches coming out of Gaza, and the BBC is gobbling them up and spewing them out to the masses, extaordinary that nobody in the BBC news room is capable of seeing straight through some of the Pallywood propoganda.

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  10. glj says:

    Forgot to add that the guy in the photo (referenced above) appears to have nothing more serious than a nose bleed.

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  11. emil says:

    Did anyone see that Celebrity Mastermind on BBC last night?

    Apart from David Lammy proving what we all know, that politicians are as thick as the proverbial it was hilarious seeing Humphreys tie himself in knots about the black actor David Harewood playing Friar Tuck in the next series of Robin Hood as he looked nothing like him, er why’s that then John Harewood mischievously asks, er, er he’s, fat, bald and er, er , er……. priceless , the BBC hoisted on their own PC petard

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  12. Cassandrina says:

    This morning bbc news stated that according to one UK personnel institution out of work people would increase by 600,000 in 2009, the largest for 2 decades.
    Why only 20 years?
    I suggest that it makes reference to 1978 which is 30 years, but the government bias will not allow them to state this.
    My estimate of new out of work people in 2009 is much closer to 1 million making at least 3 million out of work by the end of the year.

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  13. Martin says:

    The Thirty-Nine Steps. Didn’t watch it but I bet there were lots of homosexuals in it as well?

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  14. Rapido says:

    The BBC keeps saying that the Israelis have especially targeted police facilities.

    Is there a good reason to target the Police?

    If so, the BBC isn’t even hinting at it.

    Instead it is giving the impression that Israel is cynically preventing the palestinian police from arresting the ‘rocketeers’ by killing the cops.

    Is there another side to this story?

    Surely there must be.

    Why won’t the BBC say WHY the pally cops are targeted?

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  15. Jack Bauer says:

    Putting the Marr into Marriage…

    My journo brother was just telling me that the BBC’s Andrew Marr recently had a judge take out an injunction against several newspapers who were about to splash an allegation that the happily married Mr Marr was the un-proud father of a third=party “lovechild.”

    Apparently, it is not considered to be in the public interest that a person who lectures the rest of us about all sorts of stuff, be shown in anything but a shining light.

    Funny how that works huh, that the rich and famous and the powerful get to control the flow of information about themselves.

    Remind me again — this is 2008 and not 1908?

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  16. Jack Bauer says:

    it was hilarious seeing Humphreys tie himself in knots about the black actor David Harewood playing Friar Tuck in the next series of Robin Hood as he looked nothing like him,

    Let me guess, the new Tuck is from Blackfriars?

    Maybe they’ll turn Will Scarlett into a gay Mohammedan?

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  17. pounce says:

    The bBC its antisemitic stance and the third ranking world story of the day.
    http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1940/capturelg2.jpg

    With people getting murdered in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda is the story about how an actual holocaust survivor embellished just how he met his wife actually worthy of the third highest world story on the biased bBC.

    Funny how the people at the bBC who champion this view that quite correctly that not all Muslims are terrorists, somehow diligently subscribe to the notion that all Jews are untrustworthy.

    The bBC its antisemitic stance and the third ranking world story of the day.

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  18. moonbat nibbler says:

    Jack Bauer, I presume it is this story:
    http://www.order-order.com/2008/01/story-you-wont-get-from-bbc-guardian-or.html

    Leftie beeboid, married to leftie grauniadista, has love child with tory totty working for Murdoch. No public interest there!

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  19. NotaSheep says:

    Odd wording of a BBC headline – “Five stab deaths a week – Tories”.
    Are they trying to imply that Tories are responsible for five stabbings a week?
    Are the BBC biased all the time or often just really incompetent?

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  20. Jack Bauer says:

    moonbat — thanks for the link. Sounds like it!

    My bro works a publication in the Guardian gulag, so that’s probably were he heard it!

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  21. Jim T. says:

    moonbat and Jack Bauer – indeed this story has been around for a while, Private Eye had it a long time ago. Not only was there an injunction preventing the publication of the story, there was also a second preventing anyone publishing the fact that an injunction had been obtained, so it has been spread by word of mouth and by anyone brave enough to ignore the second injunction.

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  22. Jack Bauer says:

    jim — thanks— oh hang on… there’s some loud thumping at my door — must be the Chief Inspector Quick and his band of Merry Plods with the Sergeant at Arms.

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  23. Mick McDonald says:

    “Maybe they’ll turn Will Scarlett into a gay Mohammedan?
    Jack Bauer | Homepage | 29.12.08 – 12:38 pm |”

    Surely you mean:Walid Scarlett, with his fellow outlaws Allah A’Dale and Much, The Mullah’s Son.

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  24. Jack Bauer says:

    Mick — ha ha.

    Maid Marion having been stoned to death for failing to wear a burka.

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  25. frankos says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2008/12/2008_the_brown_rolle.html

    I see Nick Robinson has his finger firmly on the pulse as usual–

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  26. emil says:

    “Surely you mean:Walid Scarlett, with his fellow outlaws Allah A’Dale and Much, The Mullah’s Son.”

    To be honest I’ve never watched it since the hilarious episode where the “evil” Sheriff of Nottingham was for some reason concerned about winning the “hearts and minds” of a few peasant villagers. Utter PC tosh.

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  27. Anonymous says:

    UK: MPAC launches a witchhunt against ‘Zio-Con’ Muslims

    “The Muslim Public Affairs Commitee (MPACUK) is appealing to its supporters to track down the Muslim researchers who worked with the think tank Policy Exchange on a project to expose the sale of hate literature in British mosques.”

    “I wonder if this sinister announcement of a manhunt will persuade the BBC to stop sucking up to MPAC, whose spokesman Ashgar Bukhari says that any Muslim killed fighting Israel goes straight to paradise. Probably not.”
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/12/28/mpac_launches_a_witchhunt_against_ziocon_muslims

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  28. pounce says:

    The bBC, protecting its NUTS and half the story.
    A teacher who was sacked for wearing trainers and tracksuit bottoms to school says it may lead to a strike. Special needs teacher Adrian Swain, 56, was fired from St Paul’s Way Community School in Bow, east London, for refusing to follow its dress code. Mr Swain said teachers at the secondary school were calling for a ballot on industrial action in protest.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7803118.stm

    Oh dear the bBC reports on a poor special needs teacher who got the sack for not dressing to a code as written out at the start of the school year. His excuse of ;
    “He wore tracksuit bottoms and trainers to school throughout his 30-year teaching career without any complaints.”
    Is all the bBC requires in which to make him a victim.
    Here is what the bBC isn’t telling you;
    1) Far from a special needs teacher he is actually one of GCSE maths teachers and last year out of 222 children who took Maths only 67 got a grade 3 or above. So not that good a maths teacher.
    http://www.stpaulsway.org/info_gcse_exam_results_2007.htm

    2) In March 2003 Adrian was instrumental in building both a mass walkout of pupils and teachers in opposition to the Iraq War.
    3) Despite Adrian being an active member of the Socialist Workers Party their rep in the area (A certain Paul McGarr of past bBC fame) has refused to back him stating
    “Adrian was told that he must back down, that the campaign was unwinnable and that it would be impossible to persuade NUT members to support him.”
    4) St Paul’s Way School was given a “notice to improve” and in September its governing body was replaced by an Interim Executive Board (IEB) the acting head put in place a “dress professionally” act in place for teachers and it appears that one who wears tracksuits and trainers (But isn’t a sports teacher) is crying foul.
    5) It seems that Adrian is so used to getting his way, that when somebody actually stands up to him and wins he throws his teddy into the corner. I wonder if his “We are all Hezbollah now” friends in Lebanon (Never mind the SWP) are willing to go to war over this.

    The bBC, protecting its NUTS and half the story.

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  29. David Preiser (USA) says:

    I’m not sure what Justin Webb is up to with his latest blog post, but you just know he’s going to be wrong anyway:

    Obama’s republican fans

    I think he’s just making fun of the slight amazement amongst his US Leftoid media friends about just how efficient and helpful the Bush Administration has been in working with the Obamessiah transition team. I’m not sure why that would be worth a blog post, though. So he must have something else in mind. I know he’s not genuinely outraged, he’s teasing someone else, and can’t understand why they would be upset at how well the two teams seem to be working together.

    Either way, he’s completely missing the key point about the whole situation. President Bush and his people are not the horrible, inhuman monsters that ol’ Justin’s buddies believe. They aren’t vicious and petty, unlike the previous Administration.

    What Webb fails to realize – either through willful denial or just plain old ignorance – is that when Clinton left office, his team trashed the White House, vandalizing the place out of pettiness and anger, showing no respect or class.

    In a letter to the GAO comptroller, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales criticized the report for minimizing the number of pranks•which the GAO put at two dozen•and for failing to detail them. Notes in desks or affixed to filing cabinets allegedly left by Clinton staffers reading “GET OUT,” “Hail to the thief” and “W happens” were shown to investigators but were not included in the report, the letter said. Other pranks included stickers in the West Wing depicting President Bush as a chimpanzee and a photograph in an Executive Office Building safe showing a blank election ballot with the word “chad” spelled out in punch holes.

    The clowns also removed the “W” from a bunch of keyboards.

    By contrast, the Bushies are behaving like decent human beings, showing a little respect for the office of the President. Justin Webb can’t comprehend that, and it shows.

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  30. mickfly says:

    I don’t use the net too much now as I am busy with a new life away from the UK, but I looked into the BBC website after watching Canadian coverage of the Israeli retaliation, and I see nothing is changing …the bias against Israel is just as bad as could be expected!

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  31. Nachman says:

    I posted the same comment on the Guardian website under an anti-israel rant by Ali Abunimah as I posted on this site on the Bowen thread transposing Abunimah for Bowen and it has been removed by the moderator. The Guardian obviously cannot stand the truth.

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  32. Mark says:

    Hmm… The Beeb have really outdone themselves this time. Not content with a single photo of the Israeli response to the year-long Palestinian terrorist attacks on itself, the BBC have chosen to place a (as far as I know) un-precedented montage of pictures on the front page. Watch as they tastefully fade out and in. Very nice.

    I don’t remember any pictures of this kind covering the deaths and carnage in Israel, do you?

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  33. Anonymous says:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/7802780.stm

    The story as described by the BBC is untrue, the money for the work had already been earmarked, the article the BBC has published is in fact a rehash of various press releases from the local council.

    And as always the BBC failed to mention that money that was supposed to be spent on road infrastructure has been spent on other more ‘worthy’ projects such as………employing more council inspectors to ensure that the peasants do not overfill there bin bags, refurbishing the councils HQ, and of course paying for some council leaders to bugger off on a fact finding junket.

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  34. Anonymous says:

    Sorry, I forgot to add a link to the following bypass scheme which Cheshire council has been debating since 1938 !!.

    http://www.cheshire.gov.uk/roads/aebp.htm

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  35. pounce says:

    So while the bBC has been crying over the deaths of so many of its terrorist friends in Gaza.
    Posting front page articles about how a man wrote a story in which he lied.
    Did anybody see the bBC champion this story;
    Iraq civilian deaths down in 2008
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7802545.stm

    Is it me, or is it me but I get the feeling that the bBC doesn’t want to ensure the great unwashed hear this great news.

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  36. jimbob says:

    mark @ 4.48pm

    the montage of “atrocities” is a piece of art.

    my only criticism is that there is not some moody islamic type music/ chanting in the background. something similar to the music from blackhawk down would seem appropriate.

    perhaps they could instruct us to peel an onion while we watch the images of the victims….

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  37. George R says:

    It’s all one Islamic jihad against the West (including Israel) -with the support of the political liberal/left in the UK, and Londonistan jihadist supporters:

    “Iran’s ‘Combatant Clergy Society’ signing up volunteers to fight jihad against Israel”
    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024126.php

    Will the BBC attempt to surpass public broadcaster, Channel 4’s political platform provided for Ahmadinejad on Christmas Day, by recruiting him to do the same thing on Israel on New Year’s Day?

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  38. Oscar says:

    David Preiser @ 3.56

    That Justin Webb post is plain wierd. Webb sounds so desperate to smear the Bush administration and dispel any idea they might just be behaving decently he’s resorted to pure, unfounded drivel. And this is the man who is taking over from Ed Stourton on the Toady show? How bad is it going to get?

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  39. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    Noticed how BBC love the line that “medics say” keeps popping up in Gaza reporting. Its like if a “doctor” or someone who claims to work in a caring profession says something – they must automatically be believed. If they claimed “dentists say many were killed” it doesnt come across as convincing, does it? And if a “spokesman for Hamas” claimed something, well, they would say that wouldn’t they. So its “medics say”. You got to hand it to Hamas. They may be lousy shots with rockets but they know how to play the media alright.

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  40. Jon says:

    Jack Hughes | 29.12.08 – 9:27 am |

    Quite right the real picture is here

    http://people.boston.com/forums/news/world/iraq/?p=discussiondetails&activityid=5485029743767765907

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  41. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    Looks to me like the hospital runs a creche and the Fauxtographer “borrowed” the kids to spice up the photo, as its easier to stage the shot at the time than hours in Photoshop afterwards. Also the pallywood make-up assistant’s day off, explaining the kids apparent lack of shrapnel wounds. Clearly there were no injured children in evidence, otherwise he would have used them.

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  42. George R says:

    Just watching satellite Islamic ‘AL JAZEERA English’ satellite TV site, staffed by ex-Beeboids and Muslims, and funded by the Emir of QATAR.

    It’s available on Sky Channel 514 in UK, and here online:

    http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

    Currently streaming is a Rageh Omaar (ex- BBC) report: ‘Pakistan’s War – the Enemy Within’.
    We’ve just witnessed the action of a Taleban-trained 9 year-old, cutting the throat (and tastefully edited) cutting off the head of a captured Pakistan soldier.

    This long documentary is interspered with TV studio denunciations of Israeli ‘violence’ in form of Islamic news reports. Very similar to what the BBC would transmit.

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  43. Jon says:

    More on the cropped picture

    “Something stinks at the WaPo ‘again’: Palestinian children used as fautography props for casualties”
    http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2008/12/something_stink.php

    Now why did the BBC feel that they had to crop the image?

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  44. Grant says:

    Jon 7:13

    Thanks for that. A classic case of a “staged ” photograph, gratefully swallowed and edited by the BBC.

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  45. Anonymous says:

    EDITORIAL: Castro’s Cuba at 50

    “Mr. Obama would be wise – and would avoid a potentially humiliating embarrassment with rippling effects on many other areas of foreign policy – if he took a long, hard look at Cuba under the Castros before making any unilateral concessions. Since the Cuban leopard hasn’t changed its spots in the past half-century, there is virtually no reason to believe it will be so charmed by Mr. Obama’s smiling visage that it will suddenly do so and purr like a kitten”.
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/29/castros-cuba-at-50/
    .

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  46. La Cumparsita says:

    All day the BBc has been reporting an Israeli attack on the “Islamic University” in Gaza. What they omit to say is that this place is one of Hamas’s main weapon research and development centres that houses explosives laboratories and suicide bomb belt storage facilities.(This information is not just from Israeli sources as, in February 2007, before Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, the Fatah Presidential Guard raided this facility and uncovered hundreds of weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and material for production of chemicals for use in bomb attacks. At the time, Palestinian TV aired footage of dozens of rockets and assault rifles, as well as thousands of bullets found inside the university.)

    So the place is a military target – not exactly Oxbridge as implied by BBC reports.

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  47. David says:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4015921/Top-Gear-to-be-hit-by-budget-cuts-shows-chief-reveals.html

    BBC censor BBC employee for saying BBC are cutting budgets on popular shows to save money. I know it gets some stick around here, but I enjoy Top Gear. It’s 10 times funnier than all the leftie ‘comics’ the BBC throw at us, is entertaining, and annoys the lentil lovers.

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  48. NotaSheep says:

    The anti-Israel bias has been so predictably vile that I have not listened to a BBC news bulletin for two days, nor have I watched any television news. The BBC website can be browsed so as to avoid the pure hatred of Israel and that is what I have been doing.

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  49. Jon says:

    I listened to Peter Allens “interview” with the Israeli ambassador to London on five live – and I just couldn’t believe the bile this beeboid was dishing out. He interrupted every sentence the ambassador said. It was one of the worst “interviews” I have ever heard and that’s saying something.

    In fact BBC “presenters” seem to be in a race to see who can be the most offensive to anyone they don’t agree with. They have no courtesy or decorum they are just gutless bullies.

    Peter Allen should be sacked – all through the so called news programme he interrupts his co-presenters – it gets that bad, half the time you don’t even know what the other people are saying. The word “arrogant” sums him up a tee.

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