Auntie Beeb

The cowardice of the BBC

Auntie Beeb, Tories, UK politics
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This doesn’t mean what Jake Kanter here thinks it means:

This story is not what it first seems.

Wild Isles was *always* a five-part series.

The sixth film is a BBC acquisition for iPlayer. It was *never* going to be shown on telly.

The film stars Attenborough but was made for the RSPB and WWF, not the BBC.

Earlier this week The Guardian (link in linked tweet) reported that the sixth episode of David Attenborough’s new wildlife series, Wild Islands, would not be broadcast but only be available on the iPlayer, as the BBC feared a Tory backlash against it content. Because while the first five episodes showcased the natural beauty and wonders of the UK, the sixth one would focus on the environmental damage done to it and what should be done to fix it. Something the Tories, eager to let raw sewage flow into Britain’s rivers, were expected to be annoyed by. According to Jake’s Twitter thread this is wrong though. It wasn’t that the sixth episode was suddenly withdrawn because the BBC got cold feet, it was never intended to be broadcast at all! Thereby proving that The Guardian‘s story was nonsense.

Does it though?

Seems to me deciding from the start to treat this episode differently, pretending it’s not part of the series, just inspired by it, refusing to broadcast it, is actually worse. Attenborough’s wild life series have always had an environmental component to them, so why treat this one differently? Is it only fear of provoking the Tories or is it a cynical move made by the BBC leadership, now riddled with Tories themselves? it’s not just appeasement but complicity. The BBC is happy to suppress this sort of stuff because its management are Tories themselves.

Three weeks ago last night

Auntie Beeb, posts interesting only to me, video
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sandra in her wheelchair a few weeks before she died

I don’t sleep well on Sunday nights anyway, leftover anxiety from high school “ohshitit’smondaybacktoschoolnooo!” bubbling up, but since Sandra died it has become even more difficult. It was after all the night from Sunday to Monday that she died and I was woken up with the news. Three weeks on it’s still incredibly weird not to have my life intertwined with hers anymore. This weekend was also the first I was alone since she died, without my family or friends or work to distract me. I like having time on my own, to do what I like and not have to take anybody else into account, but this was different. I’ve never really lived on my own, moving out from my parents almost twenty years ago to move into student flats, moving out from there to live together with Sandra. Even when she was in hospital her presence was here. But now we’re three weeks on and I wonder how strong her presence still will be three weeks from now, three months, three years…



One thing that will keep her spirit alive so to speak is Radio 4. Sandra’s daily routine revolved around it, getting up with the Shipping Forecast, Farming Today, then getting annoyed with the Today Programme and listening to the morning shows while she did her business around the house until You and Yours came on, which like all right thinking people she disliked. Like Stephen Fry admitted to years ago in one of his books, Sandra had always been into Radio 4, a “young fogey”, but she grew to appreciate it even more being in a strange country building a new life. The Beeb was there as a lifeline with the old country.



In the evenings it was PM, the Six O’Clock news and finally the comedy, then we’d switch to the telly and Dutch news at eight. In the weekends was when the best programmes were on: Home Truth with John Peel until he died, Saturday Live and Broadcasting House, more comedy, the Archers omnibus (still the only radio programme to be regularly scheduled at Eastercons). the whole rhythm of the Sunday determined by it: I’d sleep in until the Archers would come on, then she’d made breakfast if I was lucky, I’d do the dishes, then reading blogs and do some chores and coffee when Gardening Question Time came on (which we saw live when it came to Amsterdam). But after news, comedy was what she liked best, ISIHAC (never the same without Humpf), the Now Show, Just a Minute, Dead Ringers, The Day Today, Fist of Fun, the various injokes, Mitch Benn and so on undsoweiter.



Late at night the radio would be switched back on as I went to bed, usually being the first to do so, while Sand still puttered around. If she was feeling poorly she would stay and listen as the programmes ended, the Shipping Forecast came back and finally broadcasts ended with Sailing By before the World Service came on. And I kick myself for not playing that at the funeral because it is the perfect music to say goodbye to.



This is the strictly impartial BBC news, operating on behalf of the Conservative Party

Auntie Beeb, Manufacturing Consent, Media
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Here’s how the BBC reported the news that the sacked Jarvis employers will finally get the money they have a right to:

Taxpayers will have to pay more than £3m in unpaid wages to former employees of York-based Jarvis Rail after the firm collapsed last year.

Trade unions for the 1,200 workers argued at an industrial tribunal that the company should have given 90 days’ notice of compulsory redundancy.

The claim is eight weeks at the maximum £380 per week under employment law.

The workers were made redundant when talks between Network Rail and the administrators finished in April 2010.

More than 350 jobs were lost in York, 300 in Doncaster and 80 in Leeds.

As Jarvis Rail no longer exists, the government has to meet the bill.

Imagine that! Three million pounds is almost half a banker’s bonus, which “the taxpayer” is also “footing the bill for” in the case of all the nationalised and subsidised banks… And it’s almost 3/1000th of the cost of those 14 new Chinook helicopters the Ministry of Defence has today announced it’s going to buy. But even though this too is “a bill footed by the taxpayer”, the BBC does manage to report that piece of news much more matter of factly, without cheap populist language. Apparantly wasting a billion pounds on war equipment is okay with the BBC, but helping some 700 or so families whose wage earners got sacked through no fault of their own is beyond the pale.

The Nigella Lawson of bible scholars

Auntie Beeb, Feminism
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Francesca Stavrakopoulou

Last week I got annoyed at Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe, this week it’s Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s Secrets of the Bible that hacked me off. It shared all the usual faults of BBC documentaries: too much explaining of basic knowledge, not enough trust in the viewer, endless cutting away to pretty pictures, that annoying thing were the presentor interviews somebody and the camera cuts away to them nodding in an understanding manner, but above all the relentless Nigellasation of the documentary.

You see, Francesca Stavrakopoulou is, apart from a bible scholar, also somewhat of a looker and boy do the camera and the director know it. It’s not enough to have the usual closeups of her looking thoughful, no she has to bend down looking in the camera with her boobs almost popping out. The BBC should not need to do this to attract viewers; it’s pandering of the worst kind. And Francesca Stavrakopoulou should think twice about lending herself for this.

(Kudos for S. for the title. Yes, she’s home today and hopefully for longer than last time…)

Wonders of the Universe — meh

Auntie Beeb, Science
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Professor Brian Cox (who looks too young to shave, let alone be a professor) is the BBC’s latest science superstar, having had a succesful series on The Wonders of the Solar System last year and following it up with The Wonders of the Universe this year. Engaging, charming and enthusiastic about science, astronomy and physics, he’s the ideal presenter for a programme that wants to introduce a broad range of viewers to what our universe looks like.

The only problem is that this is the umpteenth series attempting to do exactly that –other than some pretty pictures, there’s nothing new in this series that hasn’t been covered by other BBC astronomy series or that isn’t shown on any of the Discovery channels almost every day. The fact that it has to cram everything into four hour long episodes and is presented at that nice slow pace the BBC always insists on for “difficult” documentaries doesn’t help. Meanwhile a very similar documentary, Everything and Nothing, is being broadcast on BBC4, again on an introductionary level.

What I’m missing is the next step, a series of documentaries that delves deeper into these subjects, preferably a regular series ala Horizon that could built on these introductionary series and actually trust its audience to have a certain background level of knowledge, not needing to endlessly repeat the same basic facts over and over again. A series that can actually teach you something, rather than just entertain you with some pop science.