Britannia Radio

MALLEUS MALEFICARUM

>> FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 05, 2010

I have concluded that the BBC is frantically busy compiling the equivalent of the Malleus Maleficarum, the documentation of "proof" by the medieval Church that witches existed. Here, we have alien species - in this case, floating pennywort, a nasty invader from the nasty US - callously and viciously invading the pristine waterways of Northern Ireland. Here, strange men called Megonigels are devising new and ever more cunning ways of detecting the noxious and treacherous substance called carbon (even though it makes plants grow faster), and building fantastical new contraptions in pursuit of their prey. Here, the Black priest of the new religion is intoning the need for us to part with our cash to go on a new crusade in order to slay the dragons that are causing grievous loss of species. And here, nasty products that come from our sinful, dirty way of life are polluting and defiling the innocent creatures that should be protected at all cost.

Once upon a time, these non events would never have made the BBC, or any other, news. But because the BBC is engaged in a religious crusade based on cod science, anything goes. Strange signs and strange portents, indeed.

"NOT A GOOD RESULT"

>> THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 04, 2010

Here's Peter Allen introducing the post-midterm edition of Drive on BBC Radio Five Live yesterday:



Depends where you stand.

(Hat tip John Horne Tooke)

Question Time LiveBlog 4th November 2010

Question Time tonight comes fromSheffield, a city with the world's first ever official football club, 2 million trees and absolutely no Tory councillors.

On the panel tonight we have David Davis MP, Jeremy Browne MP, Jack Straw MP, Universal Shami (to be fair, she hasn't been somewhere on the BBC now for, ummm, a whole 10 minutes) and Jon Gaunt.

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo, tonight's panel has been specifically set up for an argument about coalition "splits" on terrorist Control Orders so we'll be playing using the Book 'em, Danno, Terrorism One Rules. Look out for extremists and 9/11 but bonus points for stabbing MPs, and using Religion of Peace in a sarcastic tone. This may be a good tactical week to play your Weasel Words joker, as phrases like militants will score heavily, as will painfully convoluted ways to avoid saying Islam and Muslim. Points also for references to Forgemasters being a bad deal and any attempt to blame jihad on Margaret Thatcher.

The LiveBlog will stay open for the anarchic and downright odd This Week with Andrew Neil. Keen followers of the Blue Nun Reference Competition will know that David Mosque and John Ward are in mortal combat at the top of the leaderboard.

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be moderating from 10:30pm.

IF ONLY THEY'D STRIKE MORE OFTEN

Anyone know how they're filling the schedules? Fingers crossed for 48 hours of Bilko (about time that was back on the telly).

Somebody Doesn't Like the BBC

Last month, B-BBC reader La Cumparista made the following comment on David Vance's post about a BBC interview with a Man Booker Prize nominee:

I would really like Howard Jacobson to win the Man Booker prize this year. Has he had much publicity on the BBC?

Jacobson is listed with the others on BBC news briefs about the authors on the short list, but only Peter Carey got a special feature, presumably because he had won twice before. I don't recall Jacobson getting the attention of the other authors by the BBC when they did their special report from the black-tie gala event of the announcement.

In any case, I now have a copy of Jacobson's winning book, The Finkler Question, in my hand. The story opens up with a passage that is very relevant to this blog. The BBC studiously avoided mentioning this in either of their brief interviews of him as one of those on the short list.

The relevant passage begins on Page 6, when Treslove, the non-Jewish character (one of the trio of friends around whom the book is focused), is mugged while walking home one night. It describes the incident which launches the book's journey to explore what it means to be Jewish in England today:

He passed the BBC, an institution for which he had once worked and cherished idealistic hopes but which he now hated to an irrational degree. Had it been rational he would have taken steps not to pass the building as often as he did. Under his breath he cursed it feebly - 'Shitheap,' he said.

A nursery malediction.

That was exactly what he hated about the BBC: it had infantilised him. 'Auntie', the nation called the Corporation, fondly. But aunties are equivocal figures of affection, wicked and unreliable, pretending to love only so long as they are short of love themselves, and then off. The BBC, Treslove believed, made addicts of those who listened to it, reducing them to a state of inane dependence. As it did those it employed. Only worse in the case of those employed - handcuffing them in promotions and conceit, disabling them from any other life. Treslove himself a case in point. Though not promoted, only disabled.

Indeed.

Protecting The BBC (Literally