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.

Bookmark the permalink.

107 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. DEJ says:

    Should we use the terms Beeb and Beeboids? It makes them sound cuddly and unthreatening. The reality is they are dangerous bastards.

       0 likes

  2. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    Bias Broadcasting Corpse, prop. G Brown. Closing down sale, no reasonable offer refused. I wish.

    Why the war on savers by the greatest economic genius to have lived? (G Brown). My bank has cut interest rates in line with the cut in bank rate (though it hasn’t borrowed any from them) from 4.75% three months ago to currently 1.75% or less. At a time when banks need to recapitalise, savers and those who have saved are being f*cked to give borrowers with large mortgages (errr including plenty of BBC journalists?) more disposable income. Does anyone question Gordons masterplan: “f*ck the prudent”? If that’s experience, its time for a novice!

       0 likes

  3. Anonymous says:

    The Left, who used the BBC as a platform for activists to push their individual minority bonnet bees regardless of the harm they cause. It’s been steadily diverging from reality ever since. Socialists, feminists, multiculturalists, global warmers,religion extremists and other busybodies with agendas have steadily corrupted what used to be a highly respected institution. Nowadays, as with the dumbing down of state sector education, it is no longer realistically possible to cover up and ignore what has happened to the BBC. Personally I would close the BBC down and sell its assets piecemeal to prevent the Left from attempting to resurrect it in a new guise

       0 likes

  4. Original Robin says:

    Late report

    yesterday the PM programme said that 75% of us were STILL against the EUro.
    Why the “still” ? Is it because the BBC are surprised that none of its pro EU propaganda has worked ?

    ( I said it was a late report).

       0 likes

  5. Martin says:

    Original Robin: ONe female beeboid I heard simply said “some people were still against the Euro”

    ‘Some’

    Oh dear. Obama beat McCain something like 52/48. Harldy a walkover, but the BBC don’t seem to be pointing that out do they?

       0 likes

  6. Libertarian says:

    Now we need to have some sense that Government and Opposition politicians (and not least, the BBC) will get into the spirit of honest discussion. There may just be time – before the recession makes these problems even more acute – to save Britain from a really nasty bout of neo-fascist activism.

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/janet_daley/blog/2009/01/02/hazel_blears_states_the_obvious

       0 likes

  7. Libertarian says:

    Original Robin:
    Late report

    yesterday the PM programme said that 75% of us were STILL against the EUro.
    Why the “still” ?

    Its in the web version too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7806936.stm

    I think they say ‘still’ because in classic Authoritarianism they believe that with enough re-education we can all be brought into line.

    BBC ~ Not as smart as normal people.

       0 likes

  8. Martin says:

    Anyone else seen the beeboid hysteria over who the new Dr Who is going to be?

    Female beeboid on News 24 “hope it’s a woman”

    Many think he’ll be black.

    How about a Muzzie?

    Gay? How about a black gay Muslim lesbian Dr Who?

    How about we just scrap this piece of shite TV?

       0 likes

  9. Bryan says:

    DEJ | 02.01.09 – 7:16 pm

    I agree with that 100%. I never use the terms Beeb and Beeboids because they are almost affectionate and the very last thing I feel is any affection for the BBC.

       0 likes

  10. Anonymous says:

    Casualty star Paterson Joseph could become first black Dr Who as BBC set to announce David Tennant’s replacement
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1104333/Casualty-star-Paterson-Joseph-black-Dr-Who-BBC-set-announce-David-Tennants-replacement.html

       0 likes

  11. Chuffer says:

    I’m amazed that the Euro poll headline wasn’t:

    “Nearly half want the Euro.”

       0 likes

  12. TPO says:

    I won’t hold my breath waiting for the biased BBC to report this.

    US servicemen unconvinced by Barack Obama
    Six out of 10 US servicemen are uncertain or pessimistic about President-elect Barack Obama becoming their commander-in-chief.
    The findings of a survey for the Military Times indicated that Mr Obama, who never served in the military, has some work to do to win the esteem of servicemen and women, who regularly give President George W. Bush a rousing welcome.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4077154/US-servicemen-unconvinced-by-Barack-Obama.html

    BBC: Bias by omission. Its what we do.

       0 likes

  13. TPO says:

    Trying unsuccessfully to find any coverage of the US military’s less than favourable thoughts on the new Messiah on the BBC’s website I stumbled on this utter tosh about the worker’s ‘paradise’:

    ‘In many ways, this communist island in the Caribbean has managed to survive despite the odds
    Since the revolution which climaxed on 1 January 1959, Cuba has seen the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion, repeated assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, the collapse of its main benefactor the Soviet Union, and a decades-long US trade embargo.
    One of the effects of the embargo is that the streets of the Cuban capital, Havana,…..’

    http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7795388.stm

    They’ve got the whole world to trade with and the BBC is still whinging over the US trade embargo.

       0 likes

  14. Martin says:

    Bryan: Perhaps we could just call beeboids cunts? I normally do but keep getting told off.

       0 likes

  15. Jon says:

    TPO | 02.01.09 – 10:19 pm |

    In their lovefest for Castro the BBC also fail to mention this

    “The Cuban government does not publish statistics on the country’s prison population, individuals sentenced to death, or executions. Nevertheless, Sánchez asserts that between 5,000 and 6,000 people were executed in Cuba between 1959 and 2003, “most of them for so-called crimes against the state or offences with political connotations.”
    http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32861

       0 likes

  16. Jon says:

    Also
    “It is also a curious paradox of the Castro regime that it fiercely opposes the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, while it demands that the embargo be lifted so it can trade freely with the United States. These contradictions notwithstanding, the truth is that the United States is a remarkable trade partner of Cuba’s. Every year, the United States sells to Cuba roughly $350 million in agricultural products, it permits money transfers estimated at $1 billion a year (or half the island’s exports), and, what’s more, it grants resident visas to 20,000 Cubans each year, relieving the government of serious social pressures. And the United States is already preparing for the end of the sanctions once Cuba proves to be headed down the road to democracy. That is not the behavior of an implacable enemy.”
    http://www.babalublog.com/archives/004710.html

       0 likes

  17. Bryan says:

    Martin | 02.01.09 – 10:24 pm,

    I call them hacks.

       0 likes

  18. Jon says:

    “In an extraordinary statement Harriet Harman, Deputy leader of the Labour Party, says that she believes Fidel Castro to be a “hero of the left”.”
    http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/02/in-an-extraordi.html

    Read the rest of Daniel Finkelsteins piece and find out why Harmen is wrong. But it does beg the question are our leaders actually educated.

       0 likes

  19. The Beebinator says:

    Bryan and DEJ,

    i use the the words “beeb” and “beeboid”, however, i always qualify the terms with “Al” and “scumbag(s)”

    ie; Al Beeb and beeboid scumbag(s)

    i hope you find this acceptable. i hate the left wing fuckin pricks anyway

       0 likes

  20. Jon says:

    Well the BBC used to be known by the affectionate name of “Auntie” – I think they have turned into “Nanny”.

       0 likes

  21. Jon says:

    Maybe they should change sex and be known as “Uncle Joe”

       0 likes

  22. xlr says:

    Just watching a programme about ‘prog rock’ on bbc4, they they had a bit about the 70’s and of course Mrs Thatcher was wheeled out! They managed the whole hour and half show without any other politicians mentioned other than herself!
    Also on the programme was arch leftie robert wyatt who somehow managed to bring the palestinians into the proceedings..

    The bbc are beyond the pale

       0 likes

  23. Martin says:

    Bryan: Hmm. Hacks. I think that’s too nice.

       0 likes

  24. Libertarian says:

    Did the Beeb need to bowdlerise Buchan?
    About once a year I watch television, and this time it was the BBC’s new take on The 39 Steps. My colleague Rowan Pelling has already pointed out that Hannay lived in an Art Deco building, of which there was none in 1914. I was shocked by his wearing a white tie with a dinner jacket, which even a bounder in those days would not have done. But I also noticed how the story had been politically corrected: Buchan’s original disobliging references to “dagoes”, Jews and other foreigners having been eliminated, together with the magnificent moment when Scudder tells him, “You’re a white man!” Viewers could see the programme in low or high definition. Perhaps they could also have a channel where they could see it as the author intended.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/4077187/Gordon-Brown-has-ruined-sterling-but-now-is-not-the-time-to-be-lured-into-the-euro.html

       0 likes

  25. Hugh Oxford says:

    This is amazing.

    I am paging through the BBC London website, going through the local pages – Barking, Dagenham, etc.

    I am counting the number of pictures of people according to ethnicity.

    These are not of criminals – just general “community” images.

    There are 32 images of non-white people.

    There are 10 images of white people.

    This is Britain, where the state broadcaster marginalises the indigenous majority in their own capital, a capital they and their ancestors built.

    The American revolution was predicated on the concept of “no taxation without representation”.

    Don’t pay that tax.

       0 likes

  26. Jon says:

    Libertarian | 02.01.09 – 11:54 pm |

    I actually watched the re-make and it was rather disappointing – they had to have the stereotypical feminist angle.

    Although to be fair I don’t think any of the films have been true to the authors original work. (I do prefer Robert Donats portrayal of Hanny though)

       0 likes

  27. GCooper says:

    Seasoned BBC observers will recall that in 2005 R4 decided to cancel the broadcast of the second episode of a two part John Buchan epic, Greenmantle, fearing it would upset Moslems.

    They will also recall the Corporation showed no such concern for Christians over Jerry Springer, the Opera.

       0 likes

  28. deegee says:

    Just glanced through the entertainment news Starsky and Hutch’s captain dies

    I think it’s a bit odd that this piece is illustrated by a picture of Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul and not the deceased actor/producer.

    The editor/writer was too lazy to look for an appropriate photograph:?:

       0 likes

  29. Chuffer says:

    Poor old Israel. If they had any sense, they’d abandon their campaign now. They haven’t got a chance. They should know that they are beaten: Annie Lennox and Alezei Sayle have condemned them.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7808005.stm

       0 likes

  30. Ron Todd says:

    Libertarian:

    I think they got the bi-plane wrong as well. It appeared to be firing machine guns forward through the propellor. Something that was not done until after the war had started.

    Of course it is not just the BBC that gets these things wrong Foyels war had the wrong make of spitfire and a posh girl who did not know how to get out a car without almost flashing her knickers.

       0 likes

  31. Bryan says:

    The Beebinator | 02.01.09 – 11:28 pm

    Al- and scumbags is fine.

    Hmm. Hacks. I think that’s too nice.
    Martin | 02.01.09 – 11:52 pm
    .

    True, hacks doesn’t really express it. Subversive hacks is perhaps a bit better. Subversive swine perhaps gets a little closer. Wish there were a way to condense this entire site into one word to describe the BBC – or, as pounce writes, the bBC

       0 likes

  32. 1327 says:

    Oh dear have you seen what we have on BBC4 next Monday ..

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gksx4

    Yes its an entire series on Science & Islam !

    Expect a special at the end on how Islam warned us about climate change.

    They just don’t stop do they !

       0 likes

  33. Tom says:

    I’ll be interested to see if the BBC series includes this valuable Islamic contribution to the understanding of reproductive medicine:

    …The highly influential medieval Hanbali scholar Ibn Qayyim, in his book Kitab al-tibyan fi aqsam al-qur’an, cites the following statement of the prophet from the Sahih Muslim:

    The male semen is white and the female semen is yellowish. When the two meet and the male semen overpowers the female semen, it will be male; when the female semen overpowers the male semen, it will be female.

    Ibn Qayyim also quotes a different hadith from the same collection, which is quoted by other Muslim authors as well. Having been asked the question “from what is man created,” the Prophet replies:

    He is created of both, the semen of the man and the semen of the woman. The man’s semen is thick and forms the bones and the tendons. The woman’s semen is fine and forms the flesh and blood.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_science

       0 likes

  34. Neil says:

    Re: Hugh Oxford

    http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/index.htm

    It’s not just the bbc. Apparently white males don’t pay taxes or claim benefits.

       0 likes

  35. Biodegradable says:

    When I saw the title of a piece by Paul Reynolds, who at one time commented here, I thought I was going to see an exposé of Pallywood:

    Propaganda war: trusting what we see?

    But no. Instead, as to be expected, he takes up the Palestinian version of the IAF missile strike on men loading missiles onto a truck.

    Israel has tried to take the initiative in the propaganda war over Gaza but, in one important instance, its version has been seriously challenged.

    The incident raises the question of how to interpret video taken from the air.

    Israel released video of an air attack on 28 December, which appeared to show rockets being loaded onto a truck. The truck and those close to it were then destroyed by a missile.

    It turned out, however, that a 55-year-old Gaza resident named Ahmed Sanur, or Samur, claimed that the truck was his and that he and members of his family and his workers were moving oxygen cylinders from his workshop.

    This workshop had been damaged when a building next door was bombed by the Israelis and he was afraid of looters, he said.

    The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem put Mr Sanur’s account on its website, together with a photograph of burned out oxygen cylinders.

    Mr Sanur said that eight people, one of them his son, had been killed. He subsequently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “These were not Hamas, they were our children… They were not Grad missiles.”.

    The Israeli response was that the “materiel” was being taken from a site that had stored weapons. The video remains on You Tube.

    But the incident shows how an apparently definitive piece of video can turn into something much more doubtful.

    Indeed it does Paul!

    It is reminiscent of an event in the Nato war against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999. In that case, a video taken from the air seemed to show a military convoy which was then attacked. On the ground however it was discovered that the “trucks” were in fact tractors towing cartloads of civilian refugees, many of whom were killed.

    Well no, actually. The Israeli footage shows clearly a truck and men loading cylindrical objects onto it.

    I’m no expert, and perhaps pounce or somebody else with more experience in these things could comment, but those cylinders look to me to be longer than the oxygen cylinders in the pictures posted by B’Tselem, and a different shape.

    Link courtesy of the BBC:
    http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20081231_Army_bombs_metal_workshop_in_Gaza.asp

       0 likes

  36. It's all too much says:

    I see Humph as given “VD” (Victoria Derbyshire) a good beasting, quoted, in the Telegraph. Apparently she as tried to “clarify” her statement that celeb mastermind candidates were given “crib sheets”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/4077138/John-Humphrys-says-Victoria-Derbyshire-is-stupid.html

       0 likes

  37. GCooper says:

    Regarding the comments from Neil and Hugh Oxford, I once heard the head of the IPA (I believe it was) proudly defending the advertising industry and using, in her defence of its role in society, the fact that it deliberately uses a greatly disproportionate number of images of blacks and Asians in advertising of all kinds.

    This is (and has been for many years) clearly the case. If BT’s advertisements are to be believed, for example, blacks and Asians constitute over half of the UK’s population.

    That the BBC behaves similarly should be no surprise. Uncontrolled immigration has been a massive experiment inflicted on the UK in a ruthless and calculated manner – quite as profound as anything undertaken by Mao or Stalin. It has brought about changes in this country that have yet to be properly comprehended – not least because few dare research or openly comment on them.

    The BBC has been absolutely in the vanguard of this programme, both encouraging it and excusing its ill effects, because it is owned and run by the very ‘class’ (I use that in a non-Marxist sense) that instigated the programme.

    Indeed, one of its most sinister post-WWII roles (and there have been many) has been to suppress any and every expression of dissent about immigration.

       0 likes

  38. Bryan says:

    Biodegradable | 03.01.09 – 1:11 pm

    Maybe zombietime will have a look at it. There’s no doubt that there has been plenty Pallywood already out of Gaza.

    http://www.zombietime.com/

       0 likes

  39. Bryan says:

    Indeed, one of its most sinister post-WWII roles (and there have been many) has been to suppress any and every expression of dissent about immigration.
    GCooper | 03.01.09 – 1:37 pm

    Except when it’s Polish.

       0 likes

  40. DB says:

    Daniel Schweimler and Che.

    40th anniversary of death:
    9 October 2007
    Latin America’s new look at Che
    By Daniel Schweimler
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7034953.stm

    80th anniversary of birth:
    15 June 2008
    Statue for Che’s ’80th birthday’
    By Daniel Schweimler
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7455196.stm

    50th anniversary of Cuban revolution:
    3 January 2009
    Che’s spirit burns on in Latin America
    By Daniel Schweimler
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7785690.stm

    Learn English with the BBC’s Daniel Schweimler (guess the topic from these key words and phrases: “romantic hero”, “adventurer”, “stunning”, “fresh faced”, “idealistic”.)

       0 likes

  41. Jack Bauer says:

    GCooper:
    Regarding the comments from Neil and Hugh Oxford, I once heard the head of the IPA (I believe it was) proudly defending the advertising industry and using, in her defence of its role in society, the fact that it deliberately uses a greatly disproportionate number of images of blacks and Asians in advertising of all kinds.

    Then you have to laugh.

    If true, then this very act will make the people of pallor, still forming the bulk of the British population, EVEN MORE outraged that their country is being hijacked.

    Look at all those new arrivals on TV, we must be being over-run.

    Is that ironic or paradoxical? Never can decide which of the two!

       0 likes

  42. It's all too much says:

    The 39 Steps as portrayed by the BBC, beyond a few names, had virtually no correlation with the book. I am only surprised that the BBC didn’t insist on showing the ‘huge’ immigrant population of 1914 London. It is apparent in every other costume drama. I would love the BBC to do a faithful version of Mr Standfast – with the village of “Biggleswick” – stuffed full of socialists, conchies, “artists”, “poets”, “experimental noevellists..

    “I went there regularly and got my mind broadened to cracking point. We had all the stars of the New Movements. We had Doctor Chirk, who lectured on ‘God’, which, as far as I could make out, was a new name he had invented for himself. There was a woman, a terrible woman, who had come back from Russia with what she called a ‘message of healing’. And to my joy, one night there was a great buck ****** who had a lot to say about ‘Africa for the Africans’. I had a few words with him in Sesutu afterwards, and rather spoiled his visit.”

    Sounds like the genesis of the BBC

    Buy a copy now whilst it is still legal to do so.

       0 likes

  43. GCooper says:

    Bryan writes: “Except when it’s Polish.”

    Yes, indeed! I’d love to know the thinking there. Either the bien pensant wonders decided that singling-out the unfortunate Poles would enable them to pretend they weren’t afraid to discuss immigration, or they simply made a mistake. I’m not sure which.

    Jack Bauer writes: “If true, then this very act will make the people of pallor, still forming the bulk of the British population, EVEN MORE outraged that their country is being hijacked.”

    I think it does have that effect, yes. But I also believe the effect of water on a stone comes into play, as well. How many times has someone raised the issue of immigration with you, while behaving as if they were in soviet era Russia, about to express doubts about tratkor production?

    The BBC and its fellow travellers have very effectively stifled discussion – even if they haven’t managed to stop the simmering resentment of many at the way this country has been changed, by diktat and without even the pretense of consultation.

       0 likes

  44. Techno Mystic says:

    Susanna Reid on Breakfast was a picture yesterday as she tried to introduce an item about the alienated white working class. I couldn’t work out whether she was struggling not to show her disgust or whether she just couldn’t understand that such people might actually exist.

    It’s a shame because she’s well fit and didn’t go to Oxbridge.

       0 likes

  45. DB says:

    Following last year’s excellent ski conditions, European resorts have once again experienced record snowfalls this year. In the parallel universe that is BBC environmental reporting, BBC News has just run an item about the threat posed to European ski resorts by global warming. This isn’t journalism, it’s religion.

       0 likes

  46. Bryan says:

    GCooper | 03.01.09 – 1:59 pm

    I’d love to know the thinking there.

    I’m pretty sure it’s just that the BBC regards white Christian immigrants with indignation as one would unwelcome guests at a party. What right have white Christians to immigrate to Britain to better themselves? They are not an authentic victim group, according to the tiny minds at the BBC.

       0 likes

  47. archduke says:

    harry’s place does a fine job on revealing who is behind the Hamasshole protests taking place today

    http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/01/02/solidarity-with-gaza-or-solidarity-with-terrorism/

       0 likes

  48. Ratass Shagged says:

    Am deleting every terrorist supporting Annie Lennox song from my iTunes right now.

    Never again will I be able to listen to that Jew hating, terrorist sympathizing bitches voice again.

       0 likes

  49. Ratass Shagged says:

    I tell myself too many times
    Why don’t you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut
    That’s why it hurts so bad to hear the words
    That keep on falling from your mouth
    Falling from your mouth
    Falling from your mouth
    Tell me…
    Why
    Why

    Very prophetic words Miss Lennox.

       0 likes

  50. Libertarian says:

    BBC caught cheating again

    John Humphrys condemns radio presenter’s ‘idiotic’ Mastermind crib sheet comments

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1104662/John-Humphrys-condemns-radio-presenters-idiotic-Mastermind-crib-sheet-comments.html

    Even Mastermind is FAKED!, I’m Shocked! Shocked!!

       0 likes