BBC Fantasy World

I’m watching the BBC program Spooks. It is quite an interesting program, well made, well acted and quite well written. Actually, the sort of thing that the BBC should be doing with my license fee. It contains suspense, international intrigue, topical references, sex and some rock and roll.

There is one aspect to the current program that amuses me immensely it contains two massive BBC fantasies. Firstly, the program is exactly like BBC News in that all American’s are evil and everything that goes wrong in the world is as a result of their evil machinations; that’s the first BBC fantasy. Secondly, the British government, and in particular its incredibly competent secret services, stand up the Americans; that’s the second BBC fantasy.

BBC Advocacy I

The Friends of the Earth pressure group has just published a new bogus report on climate change. It entirely predictably calls for the kind of reduction in carbon emission that would reduce our economy to pre industrial levels. Newsnight, as they would, has given prime space to the report and had a panel consisting of a FotE spokesman, a former labour environment minister and an environment spokesman from the former Concervative party.

The reverent tones that the report was discussed in (this was a real love feast) was by it self advocacy but that is not what struck me. At some point the Labour spokesman criticised FotE's stance on nuclear power pointing out that this is the only carbon neutral mass energy source we currently yet they oppose its use. Or rather he would have had the host not cut him off. You see the BBC is on the anti nuclear bandwagon... Can't have people speaking up favorably about nuclear power on the BBC.
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“They are Evading the Law”

The headline above was pretty typical of headlines in most of the media yesterday. In big letters with loads of exclamation marks they pronounced a police campaign against drunk drivers and speeders who evade the law. Or more accurately evade the consequences of their actions.

Essentially, the police are growing tired of lawyers finding “loopholes” through which their, usually wealthy, clients can escape. There was even a lawyer named as Mr Loophole for his help in getting celebrity clients off the hook. On Sky News a chief constable was quoted as saying his officers where “looking for motorist who had been unjustly acquitted”. It has another chief constable this time named as Meredydd Hughes, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police saying there was “increased frustration” in the force with lawyers who use legal small print to obtain acquittals for their clients.

She is also quoted as saying her colleagues will be looking for those drivers “unjustly acquitted” to give them special treatment if they have not “mended their ways”. I was absolutely flabbergasted and although I’m taking my quotes from Sky this was reported all over the media yesterday.

Basically, what these senior police people are saying is that if the courts obtain the wrong result by correctly applying the law they will take action to “correct” the injustice thus committed. In other words the letter of the law is irrelevant what counts is getting convictions when the Police require them.

Fantastic, the enforcement arm of the Executive branch of Government does not believe it is its job to enforce the law. Rather, they believe, it is their job to obtain “correct” ends to prosecutions. Damn the evidence, we can not have “unjust acquittals” and the judges of what constitutes unjust in these cases naturally are the people bringing the charges the police themselves. Accusers, prosecutors, judges and juries all in one neat package!

I believe all of these people should be made to resign immediately. They clearly have no appreciation of the legal traditions that underpin UK society and quite frankly appear to hold the law total contempt. I find that all branches of government are getting increasingly authoritarian and this is just the latest example of bureaucrats trying to carry out an agenda that is neither in their mandate nor in law.

Top Notch Venality!

Marina Hyde, who I’ve never heard of before, engages in a bit of Ashley Cole bashing in the Guardian online today in the guise of a review of his book. It is bit like flogging a dead horse to criticise professional footballers for their greed and venality but she has one unforgettable quote from Cole:

"When I heard Jonathan repeat the figure of £55,000," writes Ashley, "I nearly swerved off the road. 'He is taking the piss Jonathan!' I yelled down the phone. I was so incensed. I was trembling with anger. I couldn't believe what I'd heard."

… on the subject to his agent relaying the Arsenal Chairman’s refusal to offer £60k a week for Cole’s services. I know it is out of context, without the background information on their negotiations etc but it is still priceless. Just how out of touch is this prima donna! No thinking about his negotiation position, no wondering if he’s out priced himself, no introspection of any kind, just righteous anger.

The righteous anger of a spoiled child!

Osama

I've been listening to President Bush's 9/11 speech. He's saying many things some of which I agree with, others I disagree with and some which seriously bother me. What strikes me though is the respect he is giving Osama bin Laden.

He's just made the point that OBL calls the war on terror the WW III. My point is who the hell cares? Bush lives in a palace on Pennsylvania Avenue and commands an Army, the Army in fact, OBL lives in a cave. In the grand scheme of things the bastard is a gadfly. Unless, that is, the President of the US keeps on giving him center stage.

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Bloddy Awful...

...Used to be what BA was said to stand for. This was in the time before Margret Tacher privatized the airline and it slowly woke up to the fact that customers actually matter.
I'm currently experiencing what it must have been like. I'm at Toulouse airport waiting for the 17.05 to Gatwick to take off. So far the flight is 1.5 hours late and no end appears to be insight. This by itself is not why I'm reminded of the old moniker. It is the fact that no announcement has been made that does. The screen just says boarding opened but no announcement as to the flight being late has been made.

I and the other passengers have noticed the complete absence of an BA aircraft on the tarmac and drawn our conclusions. BA on the other hand apparently is hoping we won't notice a two hour delay.

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Something I hope never to have need of...

Seen in Boots the Optician's: family pack of instant diarrhea medicine!

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Why I Hate the News

The 24 hour news that is. I am in fact a total news junky who reads multiple newspapers online. I start the day by reading the FT and WSJ online immediately followed by the two major Icelandic papers Moggin and Frettabladid. I have a subscription to the first two and the Icelanders are kind enough to put pdf copies up on their websites.

That's just the beginning though. On a daily basis I skim the NYT, the Guardian, Le Monde and several English language web versions of non English speaking newspapers. In addition I am constantly hooked to Reuters and google news. So I do not in fact hate the news. It is just the 24 hour news stations that I loath.

The constant repetition of no news specifically drives me to distraction. Today provides an excellent example of what I mean. Last night the police launched two terror raids i.e. raids that are justified with reference to the anti terror act of 2000. One raid was on an Islamic school in Surrey somewhere, the other against a Chinese restaurant in East London and in addition a couple of people where picked up elsewhere. In total some 16 people have been arrested.

The police have not made any statements so literally what's above is all we know. More to the point it is all the news stations know. This lack of information has not stopped them from focusing on this story to the exclusion of all else. So we have an endless repetition of a scene that goes something like: Sue you are at the school what is going on? Well John nothing!

This instead of following upon all the half arsed reporting they did during the week. Can't stand them.

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Aggressive Charity Workers

I live in the centre of London and walk from home to work everyday. This is generally a great deal (that cost me an arm and a leg) and I very much enjoy the walk through Mayfair. One thing though that is getting more and more common and quite frankly annoying is aggressive, and usually very shabby, agents of various charities that accost you in the street wanting to obtain donations. Usually, they will start the conversation with some variation of “do you have a moment for… the environment, the homeless, abused children etc”. This very clever icebreaker is supposed to make you stop because you look like a total bastard if you don’t even have a minute to spend on such worthy causes.

I usually ignore these people and their entreaties and continue without a word. Yesterday, however, I ran into a particularly annoying and persistent young man who hopped up and down in front of me asking if I had “a minute for the environment”, I’m afraid I snapped. “I’ve got a lot of time for the environment but not a nanosecond for you” was the somewhat less than gracious response that I let out before I could stop myself.

No fertility treatment for fatties

Well fertility treatment on the NHS anyway. This is the headline I've just seen. Apparently fatties are less likely to have successful fertility treatments than stick insects.

This leads the fascists that run the NHS to conclude that they therefore should not have access to the treatment on the public purse. To conserve scarce resources you see. Should the fatties then not have right to opt out of paying for the NHS? What these folks have be made to understand is that the fatties are amongst the Owners of the NHS having been forced to pay for the bloody thing..