The Glass Box for Friday.
Be your own radio critic! Tell us here, frankly, what you thought of tonight's programme. In the PM office we meet every night at 1800 in this Glass Box:
We talk about the content of the programme and try to give an honest assessment of what worked and what didn't...the things we missed and the places where our ambitions were not met. THIS virtual glass box you are looking at is where you are invited - indeed encouraged - to be your own critic. Comment on our hour by clicking on the comment link. Members of the production team will read the comments, and the editor should comment too. Click on The Glass Box link on the right of the page to read previous entries.
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We all share the Archbishop of Canterbury’s concern over consumer debt, but why does Gorgon Brown believe that relatively poor pensioners are not entitled to tax credit simply because they have gone without during their working life to save a little for their old age. So over-spending and saving are, according to Brown and Darling, both wrong – they should learn from the ‘pantomime horse’ - to make progress both ends should go in the same direction.
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Having spent over £500,000 on new computer graphic titles surely BBC TV should have spent a little extra on a “The following graphics may make you feel unwell” warning and/or “If you were affected by these graphics please contact your GP or switch to ITV”.
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Eric, long before I hear the programme I have to confess that I can't imagine why any parent would wish their daughter not to be vaccinated against cervical cancer.
If it's to, er, stop her from or punish her for having sex, they might consider this: even if she remains a virgin until she's married, unless her husband is also a virgin and is free of (how to put this) warts downstairs, she will be at risk.
However, I haven't heard the programme, so I'll suspend my instinctive disbelief
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BBC graphics won't make you feel a queasy as the new Office for Government Commerce.........
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/04/the-original-lo.html
Although the statement they issued does reflect a human side...
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Eddie, nice questioning of the "petrochemical" firm man. Your question about whether they were venture capitalists was exactly what I was thinking. (Well, not exactly; my thought on hearing the description was "asset-strippers".)
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There were aspects of the Latin story that I liked, in particular the way the teachers are encouraging their students to infer from their knowledge of English how Latin has affected our our language.
I guess that anything that inspires an interest in other languages is good, but personally think that this could be achieved through offering free Spanish lessons, a language which is easy, satisfying and dynamic for basic learners and which has the obvious advantage of being a 'living language'.
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Eddie, this is potentially a very big subject - do you think it needs a blog entry of its own?
I know we're near the end of the programme.
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Re: 'Allo 'Allo item. Great choice, really well done. Hope this leads to the resurrection of Jeux Sans Frontieres. We can't just rely on the Eurovision Song Contest to integrate the EU.
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Dear Frances O,
I think that "The Warts Downstairs" is a perfect title for a new sitcom.
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Dear Eddie,
I think that your correspondant will find that petrol is an absolute essential for life, if you live in the south of France.
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People panic due to non news items such as 'the refinery supplies Ulster and the North of England too'
45 minute warning all over again?
Sucked into buying an Xmas present and getting sucked into a war?
Rather than a human behaviour issue isn't it just another example of non news and misreporting?
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Dear Eddie,
I think you asked the wrong questions about the cervical vaccination. I doubt very much that parents actually thought that their daughters would become suddenly rampantly sexually active after this injection! (Is this a male fantasy?) I do feel that the medical profession likes to make us parents out to be idiots by presenting the wrong objection. There will be parents who quite rightly will object to this vacc. simply on the grounds that it's fairly pointless unless you vaccinate the boys too and I would have liked you to have put this pertinent question the medical man and ask why they were not doing this. Females will obviously have to be 'protected' for ever and a day unless you vacc. the boys too. We learnt this lesson from the Rubella vacc. fiasco, namely there was no point in vaccinating girls while boys still went around carrying the virus.
Can you get a medic back and put this point to him. Maybe explain the logic of it first in case he can't follow. Knowah ah meen, lack init.
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It would be good if they developed a test to detemine whether men are carrying HPV.
It's a bit of a pssion killer to think 'this sex could give this woman cancer' Not nice at all.
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Wouldn't it better if they developed a test to see if anyone was carrying HPV irrespective of gender? Or am I missing something? Doesn't it take two to Tango?
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Three cheers for Lorna for starting Latin in the Park. The comment that it could have been Spanish is beside the point. Big Sister is free to start a Spanish class if she wants. Lorna took the initiative and started something fun, and - to judge from people's comments in the item - just what they wanted. More power to your elbow, Lorna!
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If we didn't have a vaccine at all, testing might make sense (as per HIV). As it is, it's like MMR... the more people are vaccinated, the rarer the virus will become and the safer everyone will be, whether or not the vaccine has given them immunity.
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Was it not that great Socialist and Multi-Millionaire Tony Blair who said that this was now the end of ideology and class warfare...said many times before I should note, by rightwing ideologues. If only he had studied Marx at University instead of playing with his guitar - he may have had some clue of how society is structured in the epoch of Modernity....
Brian
Brian V Peck
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FirstTove @ 16, MMR, now there's a fine story.
Not taking up that vaccine was probably a bad thing all round -- not only for the people who were sold the idea (that it was dangerous for their children) by a single bit of 'research' that relied on a sample of fewer than 100 cases and doesn't seem to have been possible to reproduce. (I can't remember whether it was actually fewer than 10.)
'2007 saw the highest number of measles cases reported in England and Wales since current surveillance began in 1995, with 971 confirmed cases reported, compared with 740 reported in 2006.
...
'A total of 19 laboratory-confirmed and 63 probable measles cases have been reported in Lewisham between january 2008 and 8 April. This compares with provisional figures of fewer than 20 cases for the whole of 2007.'
...
The website that came from probably can't be put here as-is, bit it is at eurosurveillance.org, and anyone who happens to want to have a look ought to be able to find the article.
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Colin Blane's interviews with the Grangemouth workers gave an eloquent explanation of why this strike is happening. The workers aren't asking for anything extra - simply keeping the hard-earned conditions that they have won over the years fro a very profitable company.
How would any of us feel if our employers suddenly wanted to impose what is in effect a 6% pay cut?
Also, what's to be done with all these companies closing down final salary pension schemes? What do we say to our teenagers walking into these jobs which enjoy much less in the way of conditions than we enjoyed?
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The trouble with kids and other viruses today, is they have no respect for authority.
When I were alive, we was taught proper and no mistake. Sex education made it absolutely clear that "it" would cause imminent madness and the onset of inexorable death, somewhere between pre-coital embarrassment and post-coital guilt.
Nowadays sex is inhibited by setting one gender against the other; even viruses are expected to take sides now.
:|
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Dear Jimmy Giro,
It's the Rich that get the pleasure,
and the Poor what get the Giro.
I am sure that it used to be different, when we wern't so divorced from biophysical reality.
Or something like that.
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Morning All,
Thanks, as ever, for posting.
Some good stories around yesterday and I was quite pleased with the way we covered them. I thought Eddie did a really good interview with the Ineos man... and the spokesman for the Petrol Retailers was pretty clear (Boiledbunny @11, not sure what you are saying... if it is that the interview was alarmist, I'd have to say I thought it was quite the opposite).
HPV was interesting too... the whol issue of vaccine take up is one I find fascinating and I think the Professor was a very good interviewee. Machinewarrior1 @12, I think you are right that we should have asked about vaccinating boys, but I dont the material covered was relevant and pertinent without it.
Have good weekends everyone. I shall be spending about six hours on Sunday on a bike riding in a very big circle around Wiltshire in what is forecast to be pouring rain. I shall then feel sick, exhausted and I will ache all over and have to be driven back to that London in snail pace traffic. Which strikes me as rather odd behaviour. But do give me a wave if you see me.
Rog
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Morning, Rog!
You don't really need to go to such lengths to avoid us, you know.
;o)
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Obviously that middle paragraph in my post at 22 makes no sense whatsoever, a bit like most of my programmes... but I suppose you know what I mean. That'll teach me to be so efficient by posting so early.
And Frances O... it's not you folks I'm trying to avoid!
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;o)
Coffee ready at the NCMB.
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"It isn't me Eddie, it's those nasty trade unions. They won't give an inch. I don't want to steal their pensions I just want to make them valueless and they are so shameless that they won't give an inch. It's their duty to help Ineos make enough money to pay off the enormous debt it incurred in purchasing the company from BP. If they don't help me my enormous bonus and share options will be worthless." You could almost hear the panic in his voice.
So much for the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Act. As usual, government pretends to protect its citizens but creates a toothless law that gives them no protection and ensures they will become, at the whim of a bunch of [Modded], a burden to the taxpayer in their old age unless they fight for their pensions.
Fortunately the union seems to have a bit of clout in that it can not only shut down the plant but also the whole BP oil field. If 2 days doesn't work a week or 10 days shutdown should do the trick. That is, of course unless the Prime Minister entertains the fantasy (recent Prime Ministers have been prone to fantasy) that he is Margret Thatcher. That would be something else for the Labour back-benchers to get their teeth into.
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Intelligence or propoganda and Plane Offensive, too?
Are alleged assailants always allowed more goes as possible victims under lawful terms? Agent provoceteur? No, it is no better than bear baiting isn't it?
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