Standing room only?

Sometimes reporting errors can make you smile.

From this BBC report about a fire near Heathrow, where "50 firefighters are containing the scene". The report tells us that

More than 200 people were evacuated from the area

Mrs Rigby thinks they must have been living in remarkably cramped conditions because

A five metre exclusion zone is in place

Five metres?

That's about, oh, (5x3) +10% = 16ft 6 inches.

....

R.S.V.P.

It'll never happen, but Mrs Rigby imagined how she would feel if she was invited to take part in a televised discussion and, for whatever reason, declined. Because that's always the option, isn't it - there's "Yes" and "No" in response to an invitation.

If she said, "No," would her potential host mind? Would they worry about losing such a useful contribution to their debate? Would they try to persuade her, sweet talk her and offer gifts? Would they bemoan their loss, and prop her photo on an empty seat?

Would they say, "Okay then, we'll get somebody else," and get on with making their programme? Or would they do what the BBC did yesterday, when ex-journalist and never-been-an-MP Alastair Campbell appeared on Question Time to 'represent' the Labour Party, and the Coalition government decided not to field a high powered government minister to balance his opinions?

The programme went ahead, as planned. The BBC wouldn't, obviously, cancel a long-running show solely because they couldn't persuade somebody very important to turn up and sit on one of their seats. The other panellists, by the way, were ex-politician Susan Kramer (defeated ex-MP), Piers Morgan (TV presenter, journalist), Sir Max Hastings (journalist) and John Redwood (MP for Wokingham)

The BBC has allowed this one programme, and one 'rejection' to take on a life of its' own, and to become more important than it really is. The BBC has made a fuss, and has allowed Mr Campbell to make a fuss too.

In short the BBC has allowed itself to become the news, instead of merely reporting the news.

It seems that the BBC, and Mr Campbell, were unhappy to have such an experienced serving politician as John Redwood on their panel because they had wanted somebody much more important - and they have been petulant, and Mr Campbell has been petulant too, even though it wasn't his show, they weren't his invitations.

Alistair Campbell - who has his own blog, just the same sort of self-opinionated thing as Mrs R and loads of other non-MPs, knows he's very important because his partner is Fiona Miller, who was Cherie Blair's advisor, and because he was as the BBC says "the most famous press secretary the UK has ever seen" - ended the show by holding up a picture of the politician he had wanted to confront. So was it his show, or was it the BBC's show?

So, after all this, would Mrs Rigby ever hope to be invited to appear on that, or indeed any other show produced by that particular broadcaster?

No, she wouldn't. Not ever, because she's wonder why she had been invited. She'd wonder what the agenda was.

You see, the BBC is meant to be the British Broadcasting Corporation and it isn't meant to be self-serving. It is funded by compulsory license fees and also receives state funding, from taxation. The BBC is meant to be politically neutral, and it is meant to be balanced in its output, and its' political shows are meant to help keep the public abreast of developments and controversies.

The BBC justifies its actions in a news article, which says

David Dimbleby said he would have "expected" to have had a government minister on the panel in the week that it unveiled its legislative agenda for the year ahead in the Queen's Speech.

Precisely!

And, you know, so would Mrs Rigby. And Mrs Rigby would also have "expected" to see other politicians on the panel alongside that government minister.

But the BBC, in it's wisdom, and to balance the words of that now vilified cabinet minister, put together a panel that did not include an opposition MP, not even a junior one, did not include a Scottish or Welsh MP. Did they ask Mr Salmond to be on their show? They don't say - and that silence says quite a lot.

The BBC put together a panel of journalists and ex-journalists, and they did it because they could.

[David Dimbleby] said it was up to "us on Question Time to decide who should be on the programme ..."

Quite!

And the BBC did decide, and sent out invitations, and at least one of their invitations was refused.

What were their contingency plans? Did they want the programme to be a serious political discussion, or did they merely want a government minister to be dissected by journalists?

A good host is a gracious host and learns to accept rejection.

When somebody is cornered, when they know they have made the wrong decision there are two things they can do. One is to concede gracefully and admit there was a mistake, the other is to turn on the offensive and make it appear to be somebody else's fault.

Mrs Rigby thinks the BBC was wrong, very wrong, to put together such a panel in such an important week. The BBC's choice of panellists belittled the importance of the new government, belittled the importance of their policies and opinions - because the BBC only thought it was worth getting journalists and ex-MPs to discuss matters of crucial interest to Britain and Britain's future.

The BBC should be asking itself why it hadn't invited either of the Milibands, either of the Balls/Cooper family. The BBC should question why Harriet Harman wasn't on the panel, or Mr Straw, or Mr Prescott, or Mr Blunkett - or even the Mr Brown, ex-Prime Minister.

The BBC should also consider whether they truly believe a journalist, any journalist, is of equal value and importance as any democratically elected politician.

It it time, Mrs Rigby thinks, for the BBC to take a long hard look at itself and for some of its highly paid journalists to investigate their own egos.

....

Ambiguous radio news.

Heard on a news bulletin in the car :-

"Mr Brown is appealing to middle class voters."

He can appeal all he likes, but most people earning more than the magic £16k do not find him in the least appealing, unless they're getting something the rest of us aren't.

It would also be nice, wouldn't it, if he would stop using the BBC to broadcast his electioneering messages.

....

"Have your Say"

The BBC has made quite a few changes to their "Have your Say" pages.

Mrs Rigby did, once upon a time, contribute the odd thing to HYS. She stopped because the 'only so many' characters for a comment - (was it 200, including spaces?) - made it a bit hard for her to say what she thought, although it certainly made contributors think, focus in the issue, and use language concisely and carefully.

That character limit has gone, which means the comments have grown - some of them look like mini-blogs, which some might say is a good thing, but it's no longer quick to skim what 'people' are saying.

Moderating hasn't improved. It's still very slow - there are, currently, more than thirty comments on this page (about the future of British Pubs) 'awaiting moderation'.

It used to be possible to 'agree with' a comment. That was a fine idea, because it was quick and easy, and also saved seeing the same thing written again and again. Being able to rank comments according to 'most popular' was a good way to get a very general idea of what 'readers' thought.

Can't do that any more.

The only thing anybody can do is 'complain about this comment' - which would end up with it being removed. It is no longer possible to 'agree'.

The BBC wants people to

Send us your ideas for new topics and you can set the agenda for a global conversation.

Global conversation?

For goodness sake! In whose dreams?

And, in these data-sensitive, terrorist-hunting, days when you can be thrown off a train for writing down the "wrong" word in a piece of paper, who would, truly, wish to write anything that could end up on a page like this - with your name and where you live written next to it?

The HYS pages are, according to BBC

... where we aim to offer you a platform to discuss and debate key stories making the news agenda.

Umm, actually, since when did news have an agenda?

News is :-

noun
1 newly received or noteworthy information about recent events.
2 (the news) a broadcast or published news report.
3 (news to) informal information not previously known to.

— PHRASES no news is good news proverb without information to the contrary you can assume that all is well.

Agenda is :-

noun
1 a list of items of business to be discussed at a meeting.
2 a list of matters to be addressed.

— ORIGIN Latin, ‘things to be done’.

The two should, surely, be mutually exclusive?

Or doesn't Mrs Rigby understand basic English any more?

....

Victor Meldrew and art.

The Mail reports that the BBC has decided to carefully pre-empt viewers complaints.

Let's put you in the picture with a bit of help from Flog it! presenter Paul Martin :-

'Yes, they had to have the painting moved. It wasn't a big deal but they do get complaints about this sort of thing. You'd be surprised.'

No, actually, there's little that would surprise most British people these days, but let's move on to what Mr Aldridge, the auctioneer, thinks :-

'It is absolutely ridiculous.

'This is a 19th century neo-classical work of art.

So Mr Aldridge tried to deal with the problem himself

'I tried putting a Post-It note over the offending part of her anatomy, but that wasn't good enough apparently.'

The Mail is, of course, less concerned and carries a snapshot of the offending painting - which shows a woman's nipple. And it isn't even a fresh one

As the auctioneer explained, the painting is 19th century, neo-classical, oil on canvas.

Presumably the BBC will now, when making any of their programmes, make ensure that no classical art or sculpture is in the background - nowhere, not anywhere - on case one viewer comes over all faint and nervous, or in case another gets all excited.

This isn't, sadly, quite a full-on Victor Meldrew moment, not really, because this sort of thing already happens in the online photographic world, where photographers have to label pictures of naked people, including statuary, as "adult material" - due to complaints from vociferous one or two (who could even be the same person) who threaten legal action which could take a site offline and their usual excuse is, "In case a child sees it.".

These people are, slowly but surely, suppressing freedom of artistic expression - with one place after another toppling like dominoes - as each becomes an example of "best practice" for others. They've clearly ratched up the ante now, by getting the BBC to conform.

It's not good to speculate who these complainers might be, or what their motives might be, or what their background might be, but it seems more than likely that they are not native Britons.

Sometimes people need to understand that prudity was never listed as a virtue, and children need to know that being without clothing is not a crime.

Ever had a feeling of déjà vu?

The title is, of course, taken from Monty Python.

Mrs Rigby was quite surprised to read that some Members of Parliament

have discussed using parliamentary questions to reveal the financial details of Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiry, including how much the former civil servant is being paid for his work.

Hence the feeling of déjà vu. The earlier results of the same sort of thing were less than good.

Today also sees the release of another list of BNP members, said to include all sorts of "establishment" figures who should probably be censured or dismissed for belonging to something Mr Hain says is an illegal political group - at least it will be when his new bill becomes law.

Mr Hain wants to stop a member of the BNP appearing on Question Time, but the BBC disagrees and so do their lawyers. Mrs R thinks it's quite an interesting idea really, to say a political party is illegal, especially when it's only a few months after a legally held European Election when enough people voted BNP for them to win seats as MEPs in Brussels.

That's the same Mr Hain who started off as a Liberal then switched to Labour, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy in 1972, used to be in the Foreign Office and more recently resigned because of financial irregularities, but he is back again - thanks to Mr Brown. He seems to be joined to Westminster by a piece of elastic.

And finally, a bit more déjà vu from the Home office. They've managed to lose maybe up to 40,000 illegal immigrants, but obviously they don't know how many. Mrs R reckons it's probably loads and loads more. Maybe they should've handed out some shiny ID cards at Calais perhaps, maybe it would have made them all stand still long enough to be counted!

Blog Action Day 2009 - Climate Change

Apparently today is "Blog Action Day"

"Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web."

This year they want the hot topic, discussed by all bloggers round the globe, to be "Climate Change", and they want blogs to register with their site too.

Mrs Rigby notes that quite a few people are already talking about Climate Change, for example Samizdata, which is where she read about this 'action day' - she'd never have heard of it otherwise.

It's interesting that the BBC has decide to join the party, with an article telling us that in a very few years the North Pole will be ice free. Bit of a contrast to last Friday's article

You see, that's one of the problems.

The experts who want to convince us the planet is doomed, and doomed very soon if we don't pay a lot of money into carbon credit schemes, don't keep to their own script. They don't talk about "Global Warming" any more because they realised it isn't happening, although all the populist, high profile, reports say that it is. Today's piece on the BBC is a case in point, it directly contradicts the earlier article. Something within it has also been picked up within the comments on Wattsupwiththat The Top Ten Reasons why I think Catlin Arctic Ice Survey data can’t be trusted

Alan the Brit (06:07:15) :

timbrom (04:07:53) :
“The seasoned Arctic Explorer, who was the first person to trek to the North Pole alone, was forced to continue with just a simple ice drill. During the 73 day trek he took 1,500 readings, often during pitch blackness and with windchill factors down to -70 degree C. The team also took thousands of visual observations to give an impression of how the shape of the ice sheet is changing. ”
“Mr Hadow insisted the effort was worth it. He pointed out that no other readings of this year’s winter sea ice was available to scientists and surface readings can pick up changes in the ice that were not being picked up by computer models.”

Changes like recovery I presume!
Presumably they made those “observations” in daylight or they might have got a rather different impression in the dark! Taking “accurate” readings by torchlight would be tricky in most cases too.
1500 holes/73 days is around 20 holes a day. Is it feasible in those conditions to walk 6km (3¾ miles) per day for 435km & do that back breaking, arm twisting work, day in day out, breaking open the equipment, setting it up, drilling, reading, packing away again, loding up the back-packs, trudging off again, etc???? I am presuming for now that it was all manual work as battery life would be critical in such conditions for power tools. I have my doubts. As I understand it the exteme cold can play tricks with the mind for even the fittest of us, how do we know they were not so affected? Come to think of it, if they were using radar electronics for the first week or so that bumps it up to almost 23 holes a day. (They should have gone a year earlier & they could have hitched a lift with Jeremy Clarkeson & James May in their 4 x 4, although I somehow doubt that those two would actuallly want them aboard.)
Good job the good Professor managed to mention satellite data, or Pen would be right!

Another thing all these experts forget is that not all ordinary people are ill-educated. Some went through school, college or university before government got their hands on the curriculum and started massaging it to suit an agenda. It's very difficult to remove all traces of a good education, and bullying makes some people very stubborn.

There are people who don't trust government, and who don't trust big businesses. There are people who think they can see through global environmental policies, and believe they're just money-making scams. There are people who believe that wind turbines are a visual PR con, costing more to make than they'll ever give back.

All these people get called names by the establishment, they're almost as bad as the 'vile' cigarette smokers.

There are also people who are old enough to have lived through tough times caused by very cold, very long, winters. These people have personal knowledge of the cycles of climate - hot followed by cold - but they only see this data mentioned as an anomaly, because otherwise the upwards graphs wouldn't work. These people don't believe that anomalies cause snow to lay on the ground for several weeks, and normally ice-free rivers to freeze over. They believe low temperatures and climatic conditions cause it.

When people read weather reports of the earliest snowfall for x years they're again sceptical. Maybe the powers-that-be can explain this, reported on Wattsupwiththat

Early start to winter ≈20% of USA is covered in snow already

Here is the accompanying table and discussion:
October 13, 2009

Area Covered By Snow:	19.9%
Area Covered Last Month:	0.0%
Snow Depth
Average:	0.7 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	728.8 in
Std. Dev.:	2.1 in
Snow Water Equivalent
Average:	0.1 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	403.4 in
Std. Dev.:	0.4 in

By way of comparison, here is the October 13th USA snow cover for the last few years:
2003- .7
2004- .3
2005- 1.7
2006- 3.7
2007- .3
2008-12.7
2009-19.9

Mrs Rigby believes that climate changes, it's been changing for millennia.

Why should mankind be so arrogant, and believe we can mess with what the planet is doing naturally, and change natural cycles solely for the advantage of one single species of animal.

Getting cooler?

Tucked away on the BBC Science pages, and 'last updated' at 15:22 GMT Friday 9th October, is an article that's failed to thrill the media, who are instead much more interested in the "Green" protesters who've managed to avoid the Police who guard our Parliament against attack from terrorists, and have climbed onto the roof.

The article is written by Paul Hudson, the BBC Climate Correspondent, and this is part of what it says.

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

So all those graphs they keep showing us that say the earth is warming have been porkies? Surely not, "they" are all honourable people, with our best interests at heart.

Now Mrs R can remember being very worried when, in the sixties "they" told us it was so cold because Earth was entering a cooling phase and we could expect a mini-Ice Age. The same sort of thing happened in the eighties, and "they" told us we might be going back to the days of a frozen River Thames - with ice thick enough to hold parties. Anybody else remember?

When "they" first started saying scary things about our climate, mentioning CFCs, the Ozone Layer and so on, Mrs R was slightly sceptical because "they" all talked as if they knew what things were like before. They didn't ever mention that the hole in the Ozone Layer, that could only be seen from space, couldn't have ever been "seen" or measured before we were able to go into space and take a look. The CFCs were blamed for the ozone hole, so they took them out of our fridges and out of our aerosols, and put in something that could go bang instead.

Other stuff has happened, including taking lead out of petrol, which meant other chemicals had to be put into it to keep the engines working, so they invented catalytic converters - which chuck out sulphur dioxide. Mrs R remembers acid rain, and all the damage apparently caused by sulphur gases produced from burning coal - but apparently it's now just fine to have the same gas coming out of our cars - although smoking filthy cigarettes in the wrong place is a criminal offence.

"They" tell us that CO2, the horrible stuff that we all breathe out, has made our planet warmer - because it's capable of trapping heat. But few of "them" ever seem to say that lots of CO2 is good for plants and makes them grow bigger and better, which in turn might mean we can grow more food crops and so feed the world's increasing population of people.

"They" never mention that loads of CO2 might have led to the giant plants that were eaten by the massive plant-eating dinosaurs, and these days they never, ever, mention the atmospheric pollution from volcanic eruptions. They only ever blame mankind, and modern mankind at that, and tell us we're naughty.

None of "them" ever seem to look at history and find information about the Romans being able to grow grapes as far north as Hadrian's Wall. And none of "them" ever seem to mention that once almost all of Britain was covered with a huge layer of ice. None of "them" ever seem to mention continental drift and other geological forces beyond our control, but try to scare us into believing that earthquakes and tsunamis can be caused by too much CO2.

"They" brought in a lovely new law recently that said we'd all got to have energy saving lightbulbs, that contain mercury vapour, but we mustn't have mercury in either barometers or thermometers because it's a deadly poison that pollutes the environment.

Is it any wonder there are sceptics and nonbelievers - but not amongst the young who have been brainwashed by the national curriculum, and are no longer encouraged to think for themselves.

All "they" seem to want to do these days is make us feel guilty and find a way of punishing us, by making us pay lots of money for trying to keep warm in the winter, to have lights that are bright enough to read by, and enough electricity to keep our computers working.

These "green" people, not the ones from Mars, have (apparently) successfully managed to stop the new power station at Kingsnorth - but where do they think we're going to get our electricity from?

Energy supply is critical, British power stations desperately need replacing and here we have a French company (which employs Ed Milliband's girlfriend) deciding Britain doesn't need any more generating capacity - they even say there's been a drop in consumption. (Maybe that was because it was summer!) But, maybe it's because Eon has got plenty of power to spare, but I wouldn't mind betting it'll cost a heck of a lot more for it to cross the Channel once we can no longer make electricity for ourselves.

The new name of "Climate Change" can mean either upwards or downwards - so "they" will be right whatever happens, and us mugs will be footing the bill.

We're going to need that power to keep warm, because Global Warming isn't happening and few houses these days can be heated by either wood or coal - they don't have chimneys, and gas fires don't work without that little electrical spark.

Either we pay more or we'll seriously have to cut back and lose some of the benefits of 21st century life, because the lights will start going out - and very soon too.

.....

Added later.

A post written by Goodnight Vienna on "Calling England" says:-

"In the Times today a curious piece centred around the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. They maintain that in order to meet the targets for CO2 emission reduction, living standards in Britain and the West in general must fall dramatically.

The wealthier parts of the world, including Britain, will have to seriously consider reducing their levels of consumption over the next 10-15 years while we put in place low-carbon technologies.

That may mean having only one car per household, a smaller fridge, buying fewer clothes and electronic goods and curtailing the number of weekend breaks that we have.

Read the rest of it here, and make of it what you will.

Woman's Hour?

.
The BBC has a programme called Woman's Hour, which is for "celebrating, informing and entertaining women".

The programme is broadcast between 10-11 am Monday to Friday and on Saturday between 4-5 pm - which assumes women will be at home, or within earshot of a radio, at those times.

Mrs R can't find a BBC programme so specifically aimed at male audiences.

Why not?
.

Lord Foulkes misses the point.

Mrs Rigby was surprised to see Lord Foulkes ask television presenter Carrie Grace how much she earns during an interview about MPs' expenses. He seemed to think it was reasonable to compare her wages to that of MPs.

Now, Mrs Rigby grumpily forks out for a television license and often moans about how much presenters can earn, but she understands market forces. She understands that the BBC is paid for by taxpayers - because everybody in this country pays taxes, even if it's only VAT - so everybody who pays for a television license is a taxpayer, and that the BBC received government subsidies. But that's not the point.

The point is that BBC presenter's wages aren't entirely paid directly out of the public purse, unlike the money that pays for government - which includes MPs' wages and allowances.

According to TheyWorkforYou Lord Foulkes was MP for Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley from 1975, he entered the House of Lords in 2005. He is also an MSP. Lord Foulkes made the news earlier in 2009 and, according to theTimes here

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock is paid £36,000 a year as a parliamentary consultant to Eversheds LLP for services that include introducing clients to select committee chairmen in the Lords and Commons.

In 2008 Lord Foulkes claimed £54,527 in House of Lords allowances. He takes a salary as a Lothians MSP. Mrs R reckons his tax free income, paid directly by the taxpayer, adds up to a bit more than Carrie Grace's taxable salary.