…grayblog…

Category: current affairs

  • Load of old pants

    Is it me, or is the Beeb on a mission to write loads of rubbish about blogs at the moment?

    I dunno. Is the Beeb just trying to be cool and "down wid da kidz"? They even try to present news coverage in pseudo-blog format, in which they cull reports from other media (mainstream online news reporting, radio and television coverage) and cobble them together in "reporters’ log" format (recent example). This does not really give the reporters completely free rein to report with any sort of freedom (FOOC remains the only true home of that, and that is a reprocessed radio programme). The only true blogs on the Beeb, as I would understand them, have been Ivan Noble’s moving tumor diary and the fabulous but late and lamented Newslog by Nick Robinson (a man who seems like a fish out of water at ITN).
    Perhaps I’m expecting too much to have truly free reporting in blog format on the Beeb – it might be the wrong place, the wrong organisation or simply the wrong style for a "serious" news reporting organisation. But it would be good if there was a little more proper understanding of the form – maybe that is too much to hope for from a body so deeply entrenched in established media formats.

  • Cover your ears

    Stars to record fund-raising song for tsunami victims – all very laudable, but do we really want to listen to Cliff, Ronan and Boy warbling their way through a song penned by Mike Read??

  • Old news

    I’m sure that this story was first reported about a week ago on local television. Either way, you have to admire the determination of someone to hide from the law inside a sofa. (Eastbourne Today posted the story on December 23rd – come on BBC, that’s rubbish!).

  • Political stupidity?

    Why has our PM continued his holiday in light of the events in the Indian Ocean?

  • Donate

    Disasters Emergency Committee. Apparently, their website has been struggling with traffic, so you may find it easier to donate by telephone on 0870 60 60 900. Alternatively, all the high street banks are accepting donations.
    Thought: will the people in Darfur and elsewhere be forgotten in all this?

  • Tsunami aid blog

    http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/
    Worth reading.

  • No subsidies

    From Our Own Correspondent – 20 years without farm subsidies in New Zealand.

  • Tsunami

    Hels and I are trying to comprehend the scale of today’s enormous tsunami in south-east Asia. Having recently read Simon Winchester’s excellent book on Krakatoa, and drawing on my slightly hazy recollections of O and A level geography (plate tectonics and all that), I can understand the science of it all and realise that there is no divine intervention here or yuletide symbolism – merely some enormous movements of the Earth’s crust and some terrible misfortune for anyone that happens to be in the way.
    Hels said to me that we are fortunate not to live in a part of the world where this sort of thing might occur. To which I might reply that I’m glad that we live a fair distance inland, protected from the open sea by a good range of hills (though some believe the threat to be over-stated), and it has happened before (although a 2 metre surge may seem small, it can be funnelled in estuaries and harbours and become far more dangerous).

  • Compare and contrast

    "Random" stabbings in north London.
    From Our Own Correspondent – children safe in streets of China (Real Audio).

  • Devil you know?

    So, at last, Blunkett has resigned, though only for a few minor misdemeanours and not because of his policies and practices.
    What worries me though is that the even less attractive political lardarse, Charles Clarke, is tipped to be his replacement. Firepan and fire? Would we be better with the devil we know? (Probably not, but who can tell?)
    Interesting to see that the PM persists in supporting Blunkett. I would have felt that this was the time to be putting some distance between Number 10 and the outgoing Home Secretary. Blair has been hanging on to Blunkett desperately during the past couple of weeks, as he is one of his few remaining supporters in the fight against the Brownites. Now, however, we see that Blunkett has become incredibly unpopular with the backbenchers and the rest of the cabinet – to such an extent that the Chief Whip hurled a copy of his autobiography across the Commons chamber (though that says as much about her as it does about him) – and, as such, it can not be doing the PM any good at all to be continuing to support him. The question is, will this encourage the Brownites to move on the PM before or after an election?