A brouha in a tea-cup

The Ross and Brand nuclear fall-out continues unabated despite rolling heads, resignations and apologies of so many involved in this world shaking scandal. 

Perhaps people have forgotten the corporation (bbc) has to pander to the whims and whimsy's of all it's license fee payers and not just one particular segment.  When said corporation only had two tv channels and smattering of radio stations, with not much in the way of competition; then a one size fits all boot, was all we had to endure and look forward to, and let's hope we don't have to go back to that particular restricted diet again.

I'm a radio 4 listener by nature and enjoy all of it's output, as the majority of it fits in with my outlook, interests and views.  To many others it's a station to be avoided until they reach the slippers, cardi and bi-focal glasses stage.  If the bbc was providing everything everyone needed then bskyb wouldn't be topping over 9m subscribers.

But in today's world, with so many competing carriers out there, they have to tailor their output across various stations and channels to the particular segment of that market which tunes in. 

Surely the worst that can be described about the pairs outburst, is that it's nothing more than a soupcon of bad taste, deserving nothing more than a hearty rapping across knuckles, financial sanction and apology.  All of which have been provided - however late.

Let's not forget that after the program aired, only two listeners of the show complained, and nothing more happened until a week later when the daily mail (not a known fan of anything national, except perhaps the grand national) ran with the story.  Then we have the prime minister of the country dragged out of a meeting to comment, the opposition parties getting embroiled and over thirty thousand people up in arms at this affront to dignity and taste.  The mighty thud of a bandwagon pile-up, must have been heard halfway across the world.

How many of those thousands who wrote in to complain fully listened to the program and not just the repeated 20 second sound bite, or are ardent listeners of the program?  I doubt if its a hundredth of that number. 

As they've suddenly become busy bodies of the first order, I hope those very same people have written into the fsa and the government, to complain about those financiers costing the economy billions of pounds.  Or that those very same people have written in complaining about the millions of people around the world dying due to the lack of something as basic as a tetanus injection, dying for the lack of a few tumblers of clean drinking water.  Or the many thousands of homeless in this country, who remain so whilst properties remain unoccupied, the list could go on.

It's all well and good complaining about the lack of standards and morals been paraded before our eyes and ears, and blaming all of society's ills on it.  Sadly, the reality of falling levels of rudeness occurred long before it happened on tv, the paper press can hang their heads in shame here to.  Monkey see and monkey do, whilst films hand a mirror to society, society hoiks a mirror back.

But unless we want to live in a world where the only things watch-able, readable, or experienced are those which are allowed by the holding reigns of power.  then we have to accept some things outside of the norms we might agree with. 

A bit like the offended granddaughter taking her side of the kiss and tell story to the sun newspaper!

It's good and sensible having a moral compass, perhaps it would be beneficial if our compasses were capable of pointing in any direction where injustices occur and not just in a select direction or two.  But then we'd probably be an entirely different species.  There are more things happening in the world that people need to be concerned, heated, enraged about than the misguided mutterings of a couple of aging adolescents!

However, unlike some out there, i don't believe this particular tea storm presages the death of civilisation...

Although seeing a bus emblazoned with an advert for a new film called zach and miri make a porno, i do begin to wonder.

Rambling missives - revisited

At 01:22hrs (GMT) watched the Constable Savage clip from youtube. Not on the official auntie channel, or any of the other "authorised" terrestrial, cable or satellite channels, but from a link posted on a comment read from the PC Pro website) and remembered just how comically excellent the "Not The Nine O'Clock News" series was.  Enjoyed it so much, I will now consider purchasing the series on DVD - if that is, they're out. 

It's little things like this which, over the years, enable people to remember things they've forgotten (have I just uttered a bushism?) - which those silly companies that wish to take people to court should consider is actually helping to keep their income streams flapping around in the breeze.  People will watch and see far more in the future from the interwebual than by simply sitting in front of a slivering television box watching the latest advert about henna hair. 

But then the television box will in turn become even more interactive and replace the noisy PC. We can simply wave our arms in the air (aka the Wii wave) and become even more athletically couch-potatoesque, by waving our arms in the air more vigorously (whilst sweating and obtaining a hernia) in a half-assed attempt to get even more complicated remote controls functions, to do what the old plastic wedge of a remote used to do, so simply and easily before.

In the meantime, the big companies with bosses who make whopping bonuses will instead of properly bearing down on those criminals who repackage the entire DVD for resale at t'pence ha'penny, continue turning their fire and brimstone lawyers onto those people who use these little memory aides to recapture such long lost moments.

So it's a yes to "go after those making millions illicitly copying dvd's/vids etc for resale" in pubs, clubs, on the street, down Mr Parokies cornershop. But think again about the others.  The many who will actually buy those overpriced shining tea coasters.  For those of us wondering what all the fuss is about, let's just hope we only get that fly on the wall experience by reading the headlines in a Sunday paper; that the judiciary or legislative/lawmakers have finally worked out, who the real cowboys are!

And then we have Alistair Darling saying that the government aren't sure yet about what to exactly do, to help those mortgage buyers suffering from the credit-crunch.  Doesn't know what to do? What have the government been doing since all this started so many months ago?  If they initially believed what was happening in the US wouldn't wing its way over here and then make plans for it then they don't deserve to be in power, neither do the conservative party as they didn't have anything much better in place or to say either.

"A return to family values", not quite sure how that equates to been better by doing without tv, internet access, mobile phones, consoles. Smacks more of a return to the buggy and cart, quill and parchment, with food been brought in by the servants period.  But then caravanning's on the up. More people realise we can do without the latest updated upgrade and it's so much more environmentally friendly.

The olympics... 3 days and counting.

Overload. Input. BSOD. Super T!

With failing memory cells, sudden memory loss, and having to reboot at regular intervals during the morning, I often wonder why I bother getting out of bed.

Below is an image of my desktop. Fairly icon free, with Google desktop keeping me informed of the: time, temperature, appointments, events, many of the ups and downs occurring in the world, beyond my 23 walls.

To many of my friends, it just comes across as me being sad. "You're just stuck there in front of the computer, all day. No wonder you're getting fat!"

But to me, it's nothing more than a heavenly experience. Within the space of an hour I have digested the news circling the world, chatted with friends (whilst reading) around the world. Read many of the online papers, news stories and settled down to replying to emails; over a relaxing steaming cup of coffee, whilst listening to the plethora of streaming programming hitting my sound card from that doyen of tit-bits, BBC Radio 4. All the while retaining my slowly slipping sanity, by not been part of the rat-race.

I am now far beyond the need to risk life and limb skateboarding off a sky-scrapper or bungy jumping down the grand canyon. Those particular notions bring nothing more promising than a panoptic vista (no, not that one!) of all manner of broken painful lost bones, followed by those many months convalescing in hospital. And all for the sake of a shaky camera shot. No. If I require an adrenaline junkie rush, I'll fly solo in low-sec space of the MMORG game I play, eve-online. That and not getting mugged or shot at, whilst standing in a McDonalds queue are more than enough in the way of excitement, that I wish to experience during this particular moment in my lifeline.

So Super Tuesday is nearing an end, when we'll have more of an idea about who the next leader of the free world might be. And they do need change, badly!

After so many years of participating in the formulation of things like Outsourcing, Hedge Funds, burning the planet into oblivion etc., etc. It's time for a change in thinking. To come away from the 'me, me, me' culture that has been perversely corrosive over the past few decades. To think of all the species and planet as a symbiotic whole, and not just a hole for plundering and landfill.

Sports icons

So, another English (admittedly by affiliation) potential sports icon has suffered the dreaded English malaise of landing on his rear, after been dumped out of the first round of tennis Aussie Open by the number nine, France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Clips of which can be seen here, from the BBC website.

What's left? Who is left? Which home grown bit of talent will step up to the mark and bring back a resurgent period of sporting glory, to this once glorious archipelago?

The English Football team? Soon to be managed by an Italian and look as much a winning team, as an old nag winning the Grand National, by ten lengths.

Fencing champion Richard Kruse? Coached by three times Polish foil champion Ziemek Wojiechowski and Britain's national coach for several years currently over in Poland. As for Rugby and Cricket... they might as well not bother leaving the dressing room, except to hand the other team the trophy.

So what is left? Formula-1? let's hope Lewis Hamilton can pull it out this year. Or failing that, there's always the World Singles or World Pairs of the World Tiddly Winks Championships?