They don't make things like they used to

Proof they don't make things like they used to.  This phone charger is held together entirely by friction... As I discovered when it electrocuted me.

Hell hath no fury like Marjorie Taylor Green

 

Once upon a time Up the Creek used to have a Sunday night gig with the open spots sandwiched in the middle.  There would be an opening 20 from a pro act, and then the open spots, another interval , another 20 set and another interval and then the closer.  Malcolm Harder used to kind of set up the open spots for failure and part of the entertainment was watching the new acts get booed off.  I didn't get booed off but knowing Malcolm's modus operandi, I kind of sat at the back antisocially until it was time to go on.  So without any ammunition from casual conversation, Malcolm introduced me as "some bloke at the back who I know nothing about, probably a peadophile".  I went on, there were a few heckles.  I went over them.  It was okay.  However, Malcolm's over the top defamatory introduction stayed with me and I found it amusing so I put it on my CV for a while until someone said "Take that off.  Some people won't take it as a joke and peado stuff is something no one ever forgives anyone for." Sage advice.  I did.  But it made me wonder if Trump has finally done something the public will never forgive him for - I'm not saying he actually did anything but it's interesting that the Epstein files are a subject that Republican Congressmen and Senators finally seems willing to break ranks for.  Of course MTG has been breaking ranks for a long time over Israel (I did not have her on my anti-Zionist bingo card) and other issues... But it's a bit of a shock that such a close Trump acolyte is prepared to go this far.  After all, it wouldn't be the first time Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct... Meanwhile, I read that in Georgia the state level RICO prosecution for January 6th crimes is still ongoing with a new prosecutor being brought in to replace F Willis... Perhaps he hasn't evaded justice (and a constitutional crisis) after all...

Fake Admiral Arrested

A 64-year-old man has been charged following an investigation into a suspected fake admiral at a Remembrance Sunday event.  "Captain Birdseye", from the Feltum area of Gwynedd, is accused of wearing uniform bearing the mark of His Majesty's Forces without permission.  Images widely circulated in the press, television and on social media showed a man wearing the uniform and medals of a high-ranking navy officer whilst surrounded by children in Llandudno on 9 November.  He will appear at Caernarfon Magistrates' Court on Thursday, 11 December.

Chief Inspector Trystan Bevan said: "We understand that this incident has caused significant public concern, particularly given his assertion that only the best is good enough for the Captain's table.  We cannot have civilians dressing up in uniforms they have not earned.  Who do these people think they are? The Royal Family?  In response to the reports made to North Wales Police, officers have responded swiftly to make an arrest and proceed with charges.  We urge members of the public to avoid online speculation and to refrain from sharing any content that could compromise future court proceedings such as fish fingers, frozen scampi or other frozen food products.

Whopper of the Day with Grok

 

Grok 4 there - with some classic whoppers, cherry picking, pretending that there are numerical reports produced by Ofcom, pretending Ofcom reports say one thing when they say the reverse. pretending a one man band called News-Watch which ran out of funding is a genuine academic analysis, pretending the BBC has always been regulated by Ofcom and not knowing Martin Scorsese from Quinten Tarrentino but saying it all with enormous confidence.

What's really scarey is that this nonsense is only applied to politics at the moment.  

What when the LLMs get implanted in cars and androids?

Chutzpah

 

The chutzpah of the man who incited the January 6th riots complaining that he was misrepresented after pardoning all his rioters is off the scale.  Does anyone really understand why Tim Davie seemingly resigned over one edit in a 2 hour speech - is Panoarma supposed to be 2 and a half hours now?  Why does an edit in a speech that happened over 5 years ago and was broadcast over a year ago really matter to anyone?  Doubtless he was going to stand down soon anyway and thinks that this will pacify critics of the BBC but that's not how fascists work.  As can be seen on the left, Mr Trump is a bully with no grace who gloats at the elimination of his enemies like a James Bond supervillan.  All this disctraction in the same week that Donald Trump pardoned Rudy Giuliani over attempt to overturn 2020 election.  He pardoned all the rioters on his first day in office too, just in case anyone had any doubts over how sticky his fingers were over attempts to steal that election.

Michael Prescott who wrote the 8000 word "note" ...in effect a shopping list of complaints was an "External Advisor" to the BBC for which we the Licence Fee payers shelled out £15,000 a year.  He was contracted by the "Serota Review, the BBC Board has decided that the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee would benefit from additional editorial advice from editorial experts with significant experience outside the BBC".  Clearly he spent all his time coming up with specious complaints which everyone got bored listening to.  The Serota Review (named after a bloke who used to work at the Tate who conducted it) was brought about in part by Martin Bashir's 1995 interview with Princess Diana in which he told her a series of absolute whoppers in order to get Diana to admit there was adultery with Camilla in her marriage.  We're now conveniently for the establishment not allowed to watch this documentary again despite the fact that the essence of what was said (that Charlie and Camilla were lovers) remains true and Diana is pushing up the daisies in the center of the Oval Lake at Althorp Park and cannot possibly be hurt by its content anymore.

Prescott identifies terrible innacuracies in BBC reporting such as "Despite growing concerns that this new methodology was unreliable, the UN and media outlets, including the BBC, reported that 70 per cent of all those killed in Gaza were women and children. Eventually the UN reviewed and revised down the figure to 52 per cent"

Quite right.  We wouldn't want to get wrong the proportion of women and children that Bibi has genocided in plain sight.

Other specious complaints include "Mass graves.  In April, 2024, and again in June, the BBC covered two stories relating to the discovery of mass graves in Gaza. The first was discovered at Al Nasser hospital and the second at Al Shifa.  The strong implication in the coverage was that Israeli forces had buried hundreds of bodies at both sites prior to withdrawing from the area. The source for both stories was the Hamas controlled Gaza Civil Defence Agency. This was not reflected in the coverage. The internal report to the EGSC flagged: “There was no independent corroboration of allegations of war crimes, including alleged evidence of summary executions, torture and bodies found with their hands tied together”.One online story incorrectly implied a UN official had corroborated the reports of hands being tied." <- Unfortunately they did (“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.). 

But there is no point in correcting these errors.  Mr Prescott and his fellow travellors are simply trying to batter the BBC into submission by sheer quantity of output.

All of Trump's attempts to subvert the January 6th election are recorded in detail on Jack Smith's report (his prosecutions had to be aborted when Trump's re-election gave him immunity again:

E. Mr. Trump's Supporters Attack the United States Capitol

Mr. Trump's efforts to remain in power converged and culminated on January 6, the day that Mr. Biden was to be certified President. That day, Mr. Trump was scheduled to speak at the Ellipse to the crowd of supporters he had summoned to Washington with false claims of election fraud. 94 At around 1 :00 a.m. on the morning of January 6, Mr. Trump tweeted: "If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!"  Just before he left the White House to give his speech at the Ellipse, Mr. Trump phoned Mr. Pence one last time;  when Mr. Pence told Mr. Trump that he planned to issue a public statement making clear that he lacked the authority to do what Mr. Trump wanted, Mr. Trump expressed anger at him.  He then directed staffers to re-insert into his planned Ellipse speech some language that he had drafted earlier targeting Mr. Pence.  During his speech at the Ellipse,  Mr. Trump made one more attempt to retain power. In his remarks, Mr. Trump repeated many of the same lies he had been telling for monthsregarding dead voters, non-citizen voters, and vote dumps-and he told newer ones: lies that targeted states wanted to change their electors and that Mr. Pence had the authority, and might be persuaded, to change the election results.  The lie regarding Mr. Pence was particularly deceptive because Mr. Trump knew what his supporters in the crowd did not: that Mr. Pence had just told him in no uncertain terms that he would not do what Mr. Trump was demanding.  Mr. Trump told the crowd-a crowd of his supporters that he had remarked to advisors the night before was "angry" -that the election had been stolen and the country would no longer exist if this purported crime were not stopped; and that the discovery of "fraud" licensed them to "go by very different rules."  Although Mr. Trump at one point also told his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically make [their] voices heard," he used the word "fight" more than ten times in the speech before concluding by directing his supporters to march to the Capitol to give allied Members of Congress "the kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country."  He also told the angry crowd that "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."  Throughout the speech, Mr. Trump gave his supporters false hope that through such action, they could cause Mr. Pence to overturn the election results, even improvising new lines directed at Mr. Pence as the speech went on. 

At Mr. Trump's urging, thousands of his supporters marched from the Ellipse to the Capitol building.  There, Mr. Pence began the certification at around 1 :00 p.m.  Outside the building, the crowd swelled and broke through barriers cordoning off the grounds.  The crowd that attacked the Capitol was filled with Mr. Trump's supporters, as made clear by their Trump shirts, signs, and flags.  As described in detail below, the crowd violently attacked the law enforcement officers attempting to secure the building.  

After his speech, Mr. Trump returned to the White House and, at around 1 :30 p.m., settled in the dining room off of the Oval Office.  There, he watched television news coverage of events at the Capitol and reviewed Twitter on his phone.  When the angry crowd advanced on the Capitol building and breached it at around 2: 13 p.m., forcing the Senate to recess,  several of Mr. Trump's advisors rushed to the dining room and told him that a riot had started at the Capitol and that rioters were in the building.  Over the course of the afternoon, they forcefully urged Mr. Trump to issue calming messages to his supporters.  Mr. Trump resisted, repeatedly remarking that the people at the Capitol were angry because the election had been stolen. 

Just before 2:24 p.m., the news channel playing on the television in the dining room where Mr. Trump was sitting aired an interview with an individual marching from the Ellipse to the Capitol, who expressed his anger at Mr. Pence and stated, "But I still believe President Trump has something else left."  Then, at 2:24 p.m., sitting alone, Mr. Trump issued a Tweet attacking Mr. Pence and fueling the riot: "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previouslycertify. USA demands the truth!"  One minute later, the United States Secret Service was forced to evacuate Mr. Pence to a secure location at the Capitol. 126 When an advisor at the White House learned this, he rushed to the dining room and informed Mr. Trump, who replied

"So what?" 

The rioters at the Capitol had been motivated and directed by Mr. Trump, and he continued to resist advisors' requests to direct them to leave. Throughout the afternoon, crowds at the Capitol hunted for Mr. Pence and other lawmakers, with some chanting, "Hang Mike Pence!"  At 2:38 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., Mr. Trump issued two Tweets falsely suggesting that events at the Capitol were "peaceful" and asking individuals there (whom he termed "WE") to remain that way: "Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on theside of our Country. Stay Peaceful!" and, "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order-respect the Law 

and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"  At 4: 17 p.m., he tweeted a video

message in which he for the first time asked his supporters to leave the Capitol-while at the

same time falsely claiming that "[w]e had an election that was stolen from us ... a landslide

election," and embracing the people who had attacked the Capitol, telling them "we love you,

you're very special."  And at 6:01 p.m., he tweeted, "These are the things and events that

happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped

away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love

& in peace. Remember this day forever!" At around the same time as he issued his 6:01 p.m. Tweet, Mr. Trump tried to reach two United States Senators, and he also directed Co-Conspirator 1 to call Members of Congress and attempt to enlist them to further delay the certification.  When Mr. Trump's White House Counsel called him at around 7:00 p.m. and asked him to withdraw any objections to the

certification, Mr. Trump refused.  Nonetheless, the certification resumed late in the evening of January 6 and, at 3:41 a.m. on January 7, Mr. Pence announced the certified results of the 2020

presidential election in favor of Mr. Biden. As he did in his 4:17 p.m. and 6:01 p.m. Tweets on January 6, Mr. Trump has providedadditional evidence of his intent by continuing to support and ally himself with the people whoattacked the Capitol. He has called them "patriots"  and "hostaoes " reminisced about January 6 as a "beautiful day,"  and championed the "January 6 Choir," a group of January 6

defendants who, because of their dangerousness, are detained at the District of Columbia jail. 

Remember Remember

 When Guy Fawkes was caught trying to blow up Parliament we got a cultural festival out of it.  

But in the boring 21st century MI5 have foiled 43 terrorist plots since 2017 and we haven't got one fucking poem out of it.  It's time to fix this so...

Remember, remember!

The 22nd of December,

Richard Reid tried to ignite his trainer

I know of no reason

Why shoes with semtex in 

Should not be in a poem!

Reid and the Taliban 

Did the scheme contrive,

To blow Boeing passengers

All up alive.

Two hollowed out shoes he had set to blow

but his sweaty feet made the fuse too damp so

by Allah's providence, him they did catch,

after the passengers beat him up when he lit a match!

Misleading Statistic of the Day

It's hard to keep up with all the whoppers in the world today but I particularly enjoyed this one from Liz Truss.  Here Mr Sentance is showing the rate of change of GDP per decade not GDP per decade to decieve the reader that this is actual GDP and to make it even more opaque the statistics for each year are first annualised and then added together and averaged over a ten year period rather than just being cumulitatively averaged.  

A GDP graph that hadn't been differentiated to show the rate of change of GDP rather than GDP would look like this... 

Dog whistle of the week

 

Stones of Blood

The Seeds of Rhinoplasty

Due to them wearing out and my VHS player being increasingly hard to service (it's a beautiful piece of engineering inside), I invested a great deal of £s in updating my Doctor Who VHS collection to DVD.  That's it I thought.  A good investment.  After all VHS had only half the picture quality of DVD which can faithfully reproduce all 625 lines on an old cathode ray tube but slightly flatter. But blow-me-down-with-an-industrial-wind-machine if the BBC didn't find a way to milk their old content further by releasing it on Blu-ray.  Well, I can't afford that at £50 a go, no matter how many extras they put on.  No disrespect to Toby Hadoke & Co but why would I want to pay their pensions when I already have the DVDs and at the same time the BBC made almost all old Dr Who free on iPlayer?  I'm also not enamoured by the idea that one has to buy these sets quickly as, at least initially, they are limited release runs.  Sorry but you'll need more subtle techniques than FOMO to release the moths from my wallet.  To clarify that, I don't think that these box sets shouldn't have been produced and I'm sure much love has gone into making them ... I'm just at a bit of a loss to understand why I should want to buy them.  But then I'm 52, maybe they're not aimed at people who are 52 and worrying about what else they've got time to watch and do before they shuffle off their mortal coil...

Free FOI Use Of Public

So imagine my schadenfreude when I discovered there were problems with the Blu-rays & the BBC in an attempt to drain more money from fans had applied dodgy AI upscaling filters that give Sarah Jane a cleft palette, straighten Tom Baker's crooked teeth like they're selling unnecessary dental work, make old people look like they've had the world's worst facelifts or are filtered TikTok influencers who've had plastic surgery to make them look like their own filters ...and dyslexicly (is that a word?) rewrite the words on the TARDIS door in dodgy fonts...  

Terror of the
Zygoma reduction plasty

All because some people bought massive 92 inch TVs on which you can see the CRT lines.  Not that anyone's really crying out for AI "upscaling", it's just people inventing themselves work.  I do have the Spearhead from Space Bluray as this was entirely made on film so there is extra quality to be mined but that's it ... How much more blood can they get out of these stones...?

So three cheers for my not-so-old DVDs where everyone doesn't look like they've been replaced by an Auton.  The past is another country ... and eventually they're going to reach a point where there's no one to bring back to do DVD extras anymore because everyone will have passed on.  Which is a shame because the thing that makes "classic" Doctor Who DVDs so much fun is everyone on the commentaries etc is now retired and can be brutally honest about what they actually thought of their colleagues at the time without the fear of losing work.  

The Artificial Intelligence Invasion 

I look forward to the fully immersive holographic 2040 Whateveritisthen editions of "New Who" which faithfully recreate an old Cathode Ray Tube TV with glass and broadcast signal distortions being released with Christopher Eccleston telling us what he really thinks of RTD and Captain Jack's naked body eventually...

Not that anyone's really bitchy on the commentaries but you can tell the diplomacy filter is switched off in most of the contributors.  It being new content they're selling no one's going to let the side down say "Well, that was a bit pants" on a New Who commentary.  The occasionally brutal honesty is the fun really...

In other Doctor Who news the BBC are still trying to prise old film prints off miserly film collectors but are stuck in probate processes.  I upset someone on X by refering to these collectors as misers.  I do apologise.  Its very generous of them not to just be buried with their film collections like a modern day Tutankhamun.  Let's not get into the ethics of whether these prints should have been returned to BBC Enterprises to be destroyed.  We know for a fact that when Peter Cook contemporaneously offered to store the old copies of "Not Only... but Also" to save them from landfill, the BBC refused on policy grounds and destroyed them anyway.  They're all out there somewhere, dumpster divers!  According to the unreliable narrator that is Ian Levine when he walked into BBC Enterprises on behalf of JNT all 7 positives and all 7 negatives of "The Daleks" were sitting on a table marked "to be junked" because they didn't understand that the main archive had been purged as ruthlessly as one of Stalin's Politburos...

But anyway... the BBC have generously promised to broadcast a new episode in December 2026 after the Disney deal finally fell apart ... and before Christmas they'll be releasing the War Between Land And Sea spin-off that nobody asked for but ... Let's keep an open mind...  Apparently post production takes almost a year these days... With the result that everyone thought "The Interstellar Song Contest" was a comment on the War in Gaza despite the script being written before it started.  Maybe there's something to be said for leaving a few bloopers in and doing it stupidly quickly on a shoestring...

Dukes of Hazzard...

... is the Palace's new descriptor for Andrew and Harry.  Well, no one made Harry write a tell-all autobiography.  But similarly, no one made Andrew, Fergie, Beatrice or Eugenie go round Epstein's house after he had been convicted.  They were all grown arse responsible adults visiting a known sex trafficer, probably because Andrew & Fergie owed him money.  

I don't think there's a spin doctor in Christendom that can polish a turd that large.  No wonder that Prince Charles is praying with Pope Leo.  They need God's help ...because only a miracle will get them out of this hole.  And probably not even one of those ... which I doubt our Father in heaven is in a hurry to perform...

The BBC's struggle to "both sides" an illegal war of aggression against Iran

Reference CAS-8130880-D8Y3R8

 

Dear Mr Miller,

Many thanks for following up your comments about Panorama: Trump, Israel and the War on Iran. 

We're sorry you had to come back to us and can appreciate why. We always aim to address the specific points raised by our audience and regret any cases where we’ve failed to do this. The previous reply didn’t tackle the precise points you raised, and we’d like to offer you a new response here. The following should now be considered your first reply. 

You make the point about the legality of the Israel-Iran war. However, it’s not for the BBC to make a judgement about whether a war is or is not illegal. That is a decision for the courts. Our role is to give the audience the relevant information to make up their own minds. The programme reflected contrasting views on the validity of the war - we heard from representatives of Iran and Israel - so viewers could make this decision for themselves. 

We understand you were unhappy with the way the interviews with Ohad Tal and Tzipura Hotovely were conducted. Mr Tal and Ms Hotovely were allowed to speak uninterrupted; this wasn’t because we wanted to promote either of these perspectives, but simply the style of interview which we thought was most appropriate to the programme. It was also consistent with others who were interviewed for it, such as Seyed Ali Mousavi, who was putting forward the Iranian perspective. The programme aimed to give a balanced overview and presented opposing views so the audience could draw their own conclusions. We understand you disagree with the way the information was presented, but we’re happy these were appropriate and duly impartial interviews. 

We also understand you are concerned that conflict between Syria and Israel was not explored in the programme. The programme was focused on the war between Iran and Israel. Time constraints in a thirty-minute programme mean it’s not possible to include all the background information about relations between Israel and all its neighbours. Decisions about what to cover are a matter of editorial discretion for programme makers, and we’re happy the decision here was appropriate, and would not have misled the audience as to the nature of the Israel-Iran war. 

You also expressed concerns that there is no section on the BBC’s website covering Israel-Syria relations. While we’ve reflected the ongoing tensions between the two countries in our coverage, and have explored their relationship, we don’t think it’s necessary at this point to have a specific section on our website addressing this. We will of course keep this under review and pass on your comments to the relevant senior managers who look after the BBC website. 

For the reasons we’ve set out in this response, we’re happy this programme was duly impartial and accurate. We’re grateful for your feedback on it, which has been passed to the Panorama editorial team – we hope this response helps explain our position.

If you’d like to understand how your complaint is handled at the BBC, you might find it helpful to watch  the short film on the BBC Complaints website about how the BBC responds to your feedback.  It explains the BBC’s process for responding to complaints, what to do if you aren’t happy with your response and how we share the feedback we receive.

Thanks again for getting in touch.

Kind regards,

BBC Complaints Team 

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints 

 

Please note: this email is sent from an unmonitored address so please don’t reply. If necessary please contact us through our webform (please include your case reference number).

Welcome to Britain and Destitution

 

Last night I watched Panorama on Asylum Hotels.  Perhaps one of the reasons people feel so strongly about this issue is they feel the hotels provide a safety net which isn't there for the rest of society as since asylum seekers were banned from seeking work (by Tony Blair under the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act) the government has a responsibility to house them as they can't possibly fend for themselves.  In 2005 Tony tightened the rules again so that only after waiting 12 months for a decision could an asylum seeker apply for permission to work. And thus the "asylum hotel" was born... In 2010, an additional caveat was added restricting this to undertaking work specified on the government’s shortage occupation list. The list specifies particular professional roles that asylum seekers may apply to work in, such as radioactive waste management, sonograp, visual effects animation, or skilled classical ballet dancers who meet international standards.  That should keep them on their toes.  Unable to work because politicians decided it caused too much resentment and unable to not work because their hotels are picketed by Farage's friends, these people would probably be better off taking their chances in Iraq or Syria...? but it's too late now ...

Unfortunately, most of the asylum seekers in the documentary were not skilled classical ballet dancers who meet international standards, had remedial or non-existent English and after successfully navigating the channel in a dingy and Home Office beaurocracy to claim their precious indefinite leave to remain discovered that, of course, their local authorities had no automatic responsibility to find them Council accomodation and couldn't find them private rental accomodation either and, of course , under new rules they can't bring their family over either which was one reason many had chosen Britain over, say, Germany which still absorbs the majority... With the result that in 56 days they were turfed out their hotels onto pavements to sleep rough making it even harder to find a job and locking them into the homelessness trap.  You really have to wonder why on earth people come here. A minor civil servant described helping people through the cycle of grief this caused: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance of a cardboard box to sleep in.  Imagine imagining there's a safety net.  Still, welcome to Britain ... You're now one of us with an inalienable right to destitution.  Surely not even the workhouse was as cruel as this system?

I watched a bit of the Dennis Neilson documentary too which seemed to follow similar themes somehow ...with it's stories of young unskilled men who came to London to discover that the Councils had no real responsibility to house them and their future was sleeping in cardboard city, becoming rent boys or being picked up and murdered by the man behind the counter in the local Job Centre.  Only 6 or 7 of Neilson's victims were ever identified.... The rest... Apart from the Bullring cardboard city being turned into an IMAX cinema, we really seem to have gone nowhere as a society.

Dot Cotton Corner - Zionism & God's promises to Abraham

A lot of Zionists on Twitter have been telling me recently that if I don't believe God gave Israel to the Jews for all time then I do not believe in God's promises and cannot call myself a Christian.  Actually I don't call myself a Christian but it's worth considering what the New Testament actually says on this issue and an explanation for what happens to God's promise after the birth of Christ is given explicitly by the Apostle Paul.  "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture [Genesis 22:18] does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ... There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" Galatians 3:16

Christianity officially split from Judeism at the Council of Jerusalem when Paul junked circumcision and the dietary laws as bad box office.  This meeting is recalled in Chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Speed Awareness

Well, I went on the Speed Awareness course.  It was somewhat improved from the running traffic lights course I went on some years ago in that it was online rather than 50 of us having to drive to a rundown hotel in Streatham.  The lecture was somewhat shorter this time running at normal Hollywood 3 hours 15 minutes length rather than the previous David Lean roadshow presentation length of 4 hours 15 (see here).  Perhaps the audience response to the last one I attended had resulted in a reworking of the format and it had been adjusted after previews.  Or perhaps like a multiplex cinema distributor someone had worked out that if you stick to the 3 hour format you can maximise the number of showings in a day.  

Certainly someone had thought about how to milk the format financially as there were different prices for the course depending on how much flexibility you wanted on moving the date which seemed exceptionally cynical since the service presumably costs the same whenever it is delivered.

As usual the format was presented by a man and a woman.  The Jill Dando of the team asked me how it would affect my life if I lost my driving licence.  To which I replied "That's none of your business, is it?".  The audience seemed to find this quite amusing.  Don't know why.  I suppose because it's an appeal to fear and as a psychopath that's just not an emotion I have often.

The usual suspects were all present and correct including this time the addition of a refugee from Iraq who's English was only slightly better than Manuel in Fawlty Towers.  The Nick Ross of the presenting team was very patient though as he struggled through a thesaurus of words to find ones the Iraqi immigrant could understand.  He was okay with functional pedestrian phrases but he had more difficulty with words that related to abstract nouns or concepts which I found interesting as I'd previously not thought about how we learn language in that way.  I kept thinking of the useless Latin nouns that Mr Johnson would teach us like laid waste (vastatus).  Perhaps if there wasn't so much vastatio going on in the middle east, he wouldn't have needed to come here and be stopped for speeding on his moped.  I couldn't imagine him driving a car but perhaps I am stereotyping... I started to wonder if Iraqi driving licences were valid in the UK.  Then I started to wonder if Dr Ashti Hawrami had done a UK driving test when I worked for him...  Then my mind went off on all kinds of other tangents as like Stan Laurel I amused myself "lobby watching"...

A lady kept complaining about trying to drive at the speed limit and being constantly overtaken by other drivers to which the Nick Ross of the outfit said "whatever the speed limit is, you must drive at that".  Perhaps, but it's quite difficult if no one's going to be enforcing it.  I've taken literally no notice of the Lambeth/Southwark blanket 20mph speed limit since it was brought in because it simply wasn't enforced.  We were told at some point 20mph limits were going to be self enforcing but clearly there were few  volunteers for being continually bored to death all the time so a realistic deterrent has been finally introduced.  Nick Ross asked us if the few minutes we'd saved were worth the 3 hours of the course.  Well, since the law hasn't been enforced for at least 5 years my cost quality time triangle says yes.  I've saved well over 3 hours so am still on top...

There was a lot of stuff about stopping distances which I found odd as surely the fact energy is related to velocity squared is a more convincing argument for not speeding.  At one point I was asked how many car lengths I drove behind a car going at 40mph to which I replied "I don't know.  I use the 2 second gap".  For some reason though although it is still valid and works the two second gap was judged too complicated for the punters to understand...

Eventually Nick Ross told us we could avoid speeding by better planning our time.  For instance by giving people time windows instead of actual times of arrival.  For example "I'll be there between 7:30 and 8pm" rather than "8pm".  Given time is money Im not sure this is the best strategy but I suppose it conveniently front loads costs off the state and on to everyone else.  Then again perhaps comedians could introduce a policy of being deliberately late for gigs in order to drive up expectations, like Hitler always being late for political rallies on Joseph Goebbels's advice.  I mean, it was a bit brass neck to talk about time flexibility given the course itself had zero time flexibility for rescheduling unless, of course, you paid extra for it upfront in cash.  It didn't surprise me that many of the participants had jobs that involved driving like Estate Agents driving between properties or builders.

Finally there was time for Nick Ross to tell us that if we shared any recording of the meeting our passes would be automatically voided.  So I hasten to conclude this piece by stating that it is a work of fiction and any similarities between any persons living or dead is completely coincidental.

Of course it would be nice to think that doling out fines for driving at (allegedly) 24mph was all about safety but on the Mayor of London's website Sir Khan tells us explicitly that it is in fact a social engineering policy aimed at stopping the majority of people driving at all : "Our Transport Strategy sets out a big, bold aim for 80 per cent of all journeys in London to be made by walking, cycling or using public transport by 2041.". Yes peak oil and net zero are here, and right here's where us plebs start paying.  I expect I'll be being fined for driving at 14mph by 2041 ... If private cars haven't been replaced entirely by electric ElonAIcabs by then ...

Apparently these days you need to film burglars in VistaVision...

Hello Mr Miller

I am sending you this E-Mail to inform you that your report of theft of stand pipe on the 23rd of May has been sent for closure. Your statement has been added to the crime report as has the CCTV that has been provided.

My sergeant has reviewed the footage and does not believe it is suitable for upload to our forensic image management system and unfortunately, that means there are no further lines of enquiry to follow.

Should any further lines of enquiry come to light, this report can be re-opened and progressed accordingly.

Kind Regards,

PC Christopher 

Volume Crime Team, Bromley

I have just been fined for breaking Britain's lowest speed limit by the new lowest threshold....

Rod King of the alliteratively depressing
Twenty's Plenty campaign to make everyone
drive at depressingly slow speeds.

Being a very naughty person I have been sent a Notice of Intended Prosecution by the Metropolitan Police for driving along the Camberwell Road at 24 mph instead of 20 at 6:45am which is about the only time of day you can reach such highly irresponsible speeds there ... There is a new camera at the junction... Apparently Mr Khan has changed the threshold for prosecution from 25 to 24 mph in pursuit if his Vision Zero where nobody will die on the roads (3 people have died at this junction in the past 25 years).  In order to achieve this he intends that 80% of journeys should be made on foot, by bike or by train, tram or bus.  One wonders if this were ever achieved what would be the impact on Britain's £22bn car industry.  

Anyway... I expect I shall be invited to attend a speed awareness course which I will probably skip in favour of the fine as four hours listening to heavily biased propaganda promoted by full time killjoys is less valuable than my time.  It's easier to simply memorise where the cameras are ...

When 20 zones were introduced we were told TFL main roads were exempt.  Then we were told 20 zones would be self enforcing ...clearly they're not and fines need to be issued because no one is actually stupid enough to voluntarily drive at 20 mph on a duel carriageway.  So now Southwark and Lambeth are filled to the brim with cameras and camera cars intended to stop the plebs travelling by car into the city centre in order to achieve our net zero targets and reduce road casualties to a fanatical and surely unachievable target of zero deaths.  

I mean surely there's likely to be at least one death if only by accident?  Can you really prevent all accidents even if you could eliminate all private cars?  7 people died in the New Addington Tram Crash and the Glória funicular crash killed 17 people.  Transport deaths have always been a thing since horse drawn transport... 

That said the death stats have improved remarkably in the past few years due to simple measures like changing the traffic flow at the five way junction round the Bank of England. 

Anyway, I tried joining a protest group against this puritanism once but the Association of British Drivers banned me from their twitter feed whilst other protest groups are flooded by anti-immigration campaigners, racists, nutters, global warming flat earthers and ULEZ camera vandals and seem to lose sight of any single issue to a sense of generally fermenting rage at all and sundry.  I often wonder why I vote for the left when they seem to constantly come up with policies designed to make my life miserable.  No doubt others ...

One also has to wonder whether in the long term Khan's salami tactics against motorists will work.  Jamaica road is a literal assault course which would be fine but people still live on it and the roads and estates are still full of cars which look as though they're going nowhere... Maybe AI driven cars will prevent collisions... Hummm... 

Touch wood the only collision I've had in the last ten years is a cyclist crashing into my boot because he was tailgating and doesn't have power assisted breaks.  The dent is still there because he didn't have a numberplate so I couldn't make an insurance claim against him...

Going Straight...

Due to the wonders of the BBC Ronnie Barker box set given to me by Ava Alexis I finally got around to watching Porridge and Going Straight again… Tom Baker once said that television is mostly the living watching the dead now and that’s certainly how I felt re-watching it… I think Tony Osoba  (78) is one of  the few surviving main cast members still with us.  I remember the late Sam Kelly who died of cancer at 70 remarking that the residuals from the box sets were rather minimal when he was still with us… 

I’ve seen Porridge loads of times of course but often out of order.  Watching it in order gives a different perspective… for example, it’s obvious that Ken Jones as Bernard "Horrible" Ives was originally set up to be one of the main antagonists but for some reason this doesn’t quite work out.  Perhaps because it’s never entirely clear what Fletcher has against him apart from him being untrustworthy …which is something that could be said for many of the inmates…  somehow they don’t pull this relationship off and in some episodes Fletcher’s attitude to him borders on bullying.  

Things really kick off when Fletcher and Godber share a cell which doesn’t actually start to happen regularly until half way into the first series.  There are so many great actors giving great performances in Porridge it’d take too long to analyse them all but of the secondary characters Fulton Mackay as Mr Mackay and Brian Wilde as Mr Barrowclough are the surely most memorable in my view alongside Peter Vaughan as "Genial" Harry Grout who although he is only seen in three episodes and the film (made after the series had ended) drives many of the plots as an unseen character.  Brian Wilde as the perpetually timid, manipulated and henpecked Mr Barrowclough is my favourite - particularly in the pilot where he and Fletcher end up marooned in an empty house on the moors together after the prison van breaks down because Fletcher has urinated in the petrol tank.

Due to the authorities not allowing filming in a real prison the amazingly believable prison interiors were largely shot at Ealing studios in a set made around disused water tank for underwater filming.  Clement and La Frenais used “How to Survive in the Nick” by Jonathan Marshall as reference for lots of the technical details of prison life.  Although there’s no cohesive “season arcs” as there would be nowadays there is a sense of a continuing narrative and there are some memorable recurring characters some of which evolve over multiple episodes.  Particularly David Jason heavily made up as older inmate Blanco Webb (odd to look at now he’s the same age as Blanco) and always-good-value Maurice Denham as the Honourable Mr Justice Stephen Rawley who put Fletcher inside now himself facing corruption charges.

Included on the DVD is a vintage documentary where a man I vaguely recognised encourages us to vote for Porridge as “Britain’s Best Sitcom”.  I recognised the presenter but couldn’t place him till the end credits which revealed him to be Johnny Vaughn (no realtion to the late Peter and who’s greatest claim to TV fame was being the host of the Big Breakfast and would have been about at the height of his fame at this time).  Of course what the audience probably wouldn’t have known then but we know now is Vaughn had previously been to prison himself for dealing cocaine for several years when he was 21… which may explain why this is favourite sitcom…  Prison certainly changed Vaughn’s view of himself.  As he told thelondonpaper.com 

“At the time I tried not to take responsibility in the sense that if the cops hadn’t set the crime up there wouldn’t have been a crime,” he says. “But if you say that, you’re a feeble-minded individual. It’s a call you have to make. ­People always talk about background, it’s part of our blame culture. Choice is a ­basic human freedom.”

Less Repeated is “Going Straight” which won BAFTA TV Award for Best Situation Comedy in March 1979.  Somewhere on the DVDs is Barker giving a moving acceptance speech praising the late Richard Beckinsale who had recently died very suddenly at only 31.  Of course Going Straight isn’t repeated as much and the general opinion on it seems to be that this is because it was a bit of a failure, but actually it scored respectable ratings.  

Part of the reason is perhaps that the situation isn’t as good.  The general format of sitcom is trap your characters in a situation from which they cannot escape – and prison is the ultimate situation from which one cannot escape.  Perhaps another part of the problem is that the episodes cannot as easily be viewed out of order.  Going Straight is a continuing narrative, starting with Barker having been released and sharing a railway carriage with Mr Mackay who has also left Slade Prison due to compulsory retirement (that was a thing then) and moving on to his readjustment to home life.  It explores other themes after that relating to Fletcher’s ambition to “go straight” such as dealing with unemployment.  Fletcher filling his days with his own DIY to alleviate the boredom reminded me of my own spells on the dole.  

Interestingly Fletcher purports never to have previously had a job of any description which underlines his famous opening monologue about his profession being breaking the law.  For some reason this made me think of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon although of course he had a job in aerospace before being shown the door when his hobby of being a football casual… sorry, don’t know why we went on that tangent.  

David Swift of “Drop the Dead Donkey” fame turns up as Mr McEwan, Fletcher’s eventual employer when he finds a dead end job as night porter at a small hotel.  The thing is that eventually when Fletcher doesn’t succumb to the lure of crime again, there’s really nowhere else for the sitcom to go anymore … it’s just going to turn into an ordinary sitcom … and what’s the point of that?  After all, it breaks the cardinal rule of sitcom – offering an escape.

Patricia Brake’s 1970s costumes are proper fashion flashback territory…

Fletcher’s final appearance is in the Mockumentary Life Beyond the Box (2003).  Unfortunately, whilst this is available on Youtube the Porridge and Going Straight flashbacks are obscured for rights reasons whilst the BBC couldn’t get the Mockumentary on the DVDs for rights reasons so you have to use your imagination to join the bits back together … but it’s worth it as there’s an enormous attention to detail to the backstories of all the original characters with Peter Vaughn, Tony Osoba  Sam Kelly, Ken Jones and Christopher Biggins and Ronnie himself all reprising their original roles and Clement and La Frenais helping to provide the words to show what has happened to them in the intervening 25 years…

Chinny rub of the week

If only Goebbels had thought of getting a former Miss Universe constant to stand in front of some crates "on their way" to some people in his camps.

Noa (Miss Israel 2021 - the year it was abolished because even Likud party members had started to wonder if it was sexist) Cochva and one of the many runners up in Miss World is often wheeled out as the face of the IDF. Sort of Gal Gadot without the talent.  I've frequently seen pictures of Noa in Gaza or with the IDF to the point where I kept thinking "Noa's a popular name for Israeli girls then" but it's only today that I put it together that they're actually all the same person.  Now I keep thinking about Noah from Noah and Nelly.  If Noa is the female of Noah, what would Nelly become if she changed sex ? Nell or Neil?  Must be Neil... Nell Gwyn was a woman...?

Apparently she was a former IDF medic.  Ideally qualified then to put sticking plasters on the genocide.  

All aboard the Skylark!

Was Ncuti Gatwa sacked from Doctor Who?

 

The short answer is no, but that's not going to put me off a clickbait title.  However, I do feel emotionally as though he has been.  

The official explanation is that the BBC is waiting on Disney to decide if it wants to invest in a "Season 3" of  BBCDisney Doctor Who. 

 Apparently Ncuti Gatwa said there was to be such a season (with him in it) when interviewed by Graham Norton but this was edited out pre-broadcast due to changing plans.  All this may be true but his regeneration at the end of the last season was an obviously clunky rewrite that was a sad end to a very enjoyable era of Doctor Who (even if according to the ratings only I and a few diehards were watching).  Ratings for the last series were to say the least dissappointing with at least two episodes dropping below the 3 million mark.  Still, it's doing better than Blue Peter which apparently after it was hived off to CBBC managed to generate some episodes that literally not one person watched (yes, really).  

Although it's not literally true that Ncuti Gatwa was sacked whenever I suggest in any way that the treatment of the first black Dr Who is not a good look for the BBC it amazes me how quickly and vociferously people jump in to correct me.  But here's the thing.  Ncuti Gatwa wasn't fired in the very public way that befell Colin Baker but  ... 

If we think of Doctor Who as a factory that produces Dr Who episodes... if that factory stops making episodes then it has effectively laid off it's workers and that includes both Russell T Davies and Ncuti Gatwa.  That, to me, is very very close to being sacked...?  But not quite.  Let's be polite and call it something else.  Being laid off?

Being laid off can be different to being sacked but it kind of feels like splitting hairs to explain the difference... A company lays someone off [it's happened to me a couple of times] when they want to continue employing them but don't actually have any work and don't want to spend any money so they say "we're not going to pay you but we still want you on our payroll" (usually because looking as though you have staff helps to get new projects in).  

The last Doctor Who to be laid off was Sylvester McCoy who was officially Doctor Who for 9 years - although since production stopped in 1989 and didn't resume until 1996 so spent 7 years working on other projects.  

Now strictly speaking McCoy was not fired from Doctor Who but since they stopped making it ... he kind of was.  It's a bit like saying Timothy Dalton wasn't fired as James Bond ... perhaps not but since the film series ceased in 1989 and didn't resume until 1995 he spent 6 years not ordering vodka martinis after which it seemed his enthusiam for the role had waned... 

Anyway, however the cookie crumbles it seems to me that Ncuti Gatwa has been, to say the least, treated rather shabbily.  Then again sacking Doctor Whos is something that has happened more times than most people care to remember.  Sometimes it's not a straight line between fired and not-fired... sometimes people resign because they kind of feel the gig is up.   That's not being fired but if , for example, we were to take Christopher Ecclestone's version of events at face value (rather than with a pinch of salt) it does sound a bit like constructive dismissal...?

So ... Jodie Whittaker's decision to leave alongside Chris Chibnall seemed a bit premature.  And William Hartnell said that he "did not willingly give up the role" although he was clearly too ill to continue...   

Tom Baker said that he offered his resignation every year (as a negotiating ploy?) and he was surprised when the management said "okay then" ... he also said that he reached a point where he felt he couldn't in all concience go on disagreeing with the management when they were the ones with the right to make decisions...  Christopher Ecclestone definitively said relationships "broke down".  Colin Baker was put on haitus once and then fired after his next series which is kind of like being fired twiceover... 

Anyway, before I end this blog I must move onto my other great heresy - Doctor Who is cancelled.  Yes, it is.  That is what it means when a show is not in production and there are no concrete plans to bring it back.  The BBC blame Disney but ultimately that's blame shifting.  Doctor Who is their property.  Where there's a will there's a way.  There doesn't appear at the moment to be much evidence of will.  I expect the licence fee money is needed for something else...

As to the last two series.  Well, I did enjoy them.  

I enjoyed Ncuti Gatwa particularly but ... whilst I see what Russell T Davies was doing with his pantheon of Gods it did seem to me that it's hard to sustain a sense of genuine threat in entirely fantasy enviroments.  

I rewatched "Genesis of the Daleks" recently and its very hard science fiction based in what has historically happened and what could happen and that makes it very scarey.  All the best horror is psychological, isn't it?  Is it?  But in the words of Ted Bovis "You've got to have reality!"  

That's my 50p.