The Glass Box.
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 the Glass Box you see above. Add your comment here.
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The blog for the afternoon news and current affairs programme presented by Eddie Mair.
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Well, the Bradford and Bingley have just passed on last month's interest rate cut in full — on savings. So an interest rate cut leaves me worse off.
So what rewards are savers going to be given for being prudent?
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After tonight the show requires a new strap line, "More humourous than Johnathan Ross"
or perhaps, "Sharper than Russell Brand's cat"
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The BBC style guide seems to insist on "a half of one percent", presumably on the grounds that "half a percent" is rubbish because there is no such thing as "a percent". I do not see what is wrong with "a half percent", but if this is not allowed I don't see why "one and a half percent" should. Surely under the BBC's system this should be "a half of three percent".
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Thank you Eddie, for not accepting the MP for Ipswitch's self-righteous bluffery on 'knowing' what the relatives of the murdered prostitutes feel about Clarksons comments.
I would accept the families to be unhappy about the comments but he clearly didn't bother asking and just saw an opportunity to jump on the Ross/Brand bandwagon.
Thanks and keep challenging.
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Should Lord Digby not know LIBOR is London Interbank Offered Rate not Overnight Rate
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Looking at all the 'new' people commenting on various threads here, I can confidently say that this is one place where interest rates have not dropped - but soared to record highs!
Sorry, couldn't resist :)
If you are a 'new' PM Blogger, welcome! Just to prove it's not all doom and gloom in the world, here's today's slice of what didn't make the headlines:
Apparently lefties (like me!) are "more inhibited" - although I can't help but wonder if 112 participants is enough to count as a representative sample...
The latest baby naming craze - apparently it's something to do with an election held the other day...
Bletchley Park has received a grant from English Heritage to stop the code-cracking huts decaying further...
Yahoo! desperately wants to be owned by Microsoft, despite rejecting a takeover bid back in May...
And talking of Microsoft, remember Windows 3? The heady days of typing "win" from a DOS prompt [1], and finding programs in "Program Manager"... You may think it's been dead for years, but apparently not. MS have only just stopped issuing licenses for it...
As a tenuous link to other news, here's an update on Lemmings. No, not the mindless creatures you have to save from self-destruction whilst listening to dodgy renditions of classical music, but the Norwegian rodent whose survival is threatened by a lack of snow...
A certain pop star hits upon an ingenious way to mock the bane of her life...
An original sketch of Winnie the Pooh sells for 31,000 pounds... (I wonder if it will catch the eye of the blog mods?)
And finally, apparently some common Latin expressions can be confusing - to the extent that several local authorities are discouraging their use. Offending terms include "Ad hoc", "Ad lib", "Bona fide", "Pro rata", "QED", "Quid pro quo", "Via", and "Vice versa". The Plain English Campaign welcomes the moves: "the ban might stop people confusing the Latin abbreviation e.g. with the word "egg"."
[1] Although I created a batch file shortcut to load it with the command "lose" - much more logical ;)
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Thinking of my corny interest rate joke in the last post, here's a strapline suggestion:
PM: Raising listeners' interest rates while banks reduce theirs!
OK, OK, I'll get my coat...
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mittfh,
I know you mean well (when not joining in kicking jimmy giro), but surely some blogger welcoming newcomers is very proprietorial of you - and them, when others do it.
The old hymn has it
New every morning is the blog,
which is best, isn't it? like a fresh beach after each high tide.
Feeling that one must check one's posts for style to make sure the blog proprietors approve, must surely stop some potential posters.
(It's like going to a place you thought was public - Trafalgar Square or wherever, and finding people welcoming you as if it were theirs. Next they tell you how much fun it was when it was only them there. In fact they were the first people there.)
Never mind.
Mittfh, as a token of the esteem in which I hold you, I offer you PmLeader's Law which simply says that the probability of Godwin's Law being mentioned on a blog thread is one in the limit, as the thread gets ever larger.
This definition mentions Godwin's Law.
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pmL, you be a standoffish and incredibly prolix bystander if you choose, but lay off mittfh, eh? If someone wants to say 'hi, new members' or explain something to a newcomer, that is entirely his or her business. Since you are not new to the blog, it isn't intended for you, and you need make no comment.
Maybe I ought to say 'get a life!' at this point, but I can't quite bring myself to do it. :-)
Speaking personally, I felt much happier for being addressed kindly when I was new here; but I know that you must thrive on being smacked upsides the head with a two-bi-two at intervals, or you wouldn't wander around wearing a large sign saying 'kick me'...
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9
Oh, yes, sorry, Mittfh, sorry Chris Ghoti.
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Eddie, and team, is there any chance that you could make the program a Digby Jones free zone. I just detest him for the interviews/actions he did while he had power.
He has no idea what damage he has done. This country did not need lots of external funding and overseas buyouts and satellite companies. His legacy of an industrial base is calling in the receivers daily.
After going through a UK subsidiary shut down I swore to myself I would never work permanently for a overseas owned company again. It is just not worth it. With all the productivity and advanced work, we could not save ourselves when it came down to a choice between the parent office and us. The key is to survive the bad times. It takes 5 to 10 years to build a company and 1 day to lose it.
What we needed back then was home grown, home financed, high value industries. All he wanted was, low pay, high immigration, overseas funded, temporary worker industries.
He also publicly gave up on any of our youngsters ever being useful. To be told you are useless, and we have your replacements waiting was the ultimate cruelty to a generation.
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pmL @ 10, no offence taken... Have a gorilla!
I am assuming that your post is 'straight up' rather than sardonic, and in that case I would say you have just made very clear the difference between yourself and the persona 'JimmyGiro': you have considerably more grace, and when kicked will back off if you acknowlege that the kicking might have been justified. In your position back there, JG would have posted something both irrelevant and insulting to someone, and not addressed the post he was 'replying' to at all.
Respec', eh?
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Are we allowing National Sausage Week to pass without mention?
http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/dnb/76339.html
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I have begun to wonder whether – with some speedy footwork – the BBC might usefully be able to capitalise on the recent uplift in the national interest in political matters.
Although blogs can be entertaining they're not really very democratic; those who are moved to actually pick up the phone / write in order to complain/support are, in my humble opinion, probably not dissimilar to political activists. Nothing wrong with the latter but, as with the political activity, these people only constitute a highly-motivated minority.
I think the Beeb already has within its grasp the ability to protect itself – and us – from the kind of (media) hysteria we have seen recently in relation to programme content.
A simple BBC-controlled website would be an inexpensive route by which all licence-fee payers could have their say, in the form of a Yes/No type of voting system. One licence-fee number, one vote. Kind of thing. Outcomes could then be viewed (and reported) in the context of "turnout" and those in favour / against. (Assume the Data Protection and privacy issues could be ironed-out)
If, from time to time, a matter of significance arises upon which the Beeb could benefit from the support / input of its national audience, it has the ability to seek our collective view all at once and, hence, gather the real vote of its huge national constituency in an uncomplicated way.
Over time, perhaps, this could become part-and-parcel of the benefits of ownership of a Licence (rather like being a fully paid-up "member").
The Corporation does, after all, have at its fingertips all the mechanisms necessary to encourage us to vote. It might even be rather fun, at least for us.
Although only something to be used sparingly, I wonder whether the entire staff of the BBC might not benefit greatly, e.g. programme presenters, their producers, senior line managers and ultimately the Board of Governors ? They would at least be able to place into proper context the (sometimes imbalanced, sometimes unbalanced) views of the minority of activists (and the subsequent ill-informed press comment) since, clearly, the Corporation would be able to rest with comfort on the results of their national poll.
In addition, it would surely assist the BBC in gauging the general trend of its radio and television audiences' thinking ?
Just an idea. Does anyone think it has any merit ?
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mittfh 6, I used to know a Bletchley Park.
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First time in a blog:
Just to suggest a name for Nils Blyth's slot - "Your numbers up" - there are no apostrophe's in puns.
See ya
BrassT
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9.
Well, it looks like Gordon Brown has got rid of HIS 'kick me' sign (at least the one in the Scottish accent)
Personally I don't think Jimmy Giro deserved one at all.
I hear Ritolin is prescribed to talented children in under - stimulating ('wrong') environments.
'Cos they look disruptive.
Mine, you imagine, Chris (though I wouldn't put it past that DMcN to sneak round with a bunch).
Didn't know JG had one either. You're sure that's not what you imagine, given how people treated him?
The lines between the group and the mob, conventional wisdom and the baying crowd.........
10. still stands.
PS Adam and Eve and Kickme.......
With Obama winning and Brown seemingly given breathing space, and the economy needing BIG PROJECTS to keep us all busy......
......surely our AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS can thrive.
(Ambitious ones, please. One's we're worthy of. Not like before. (In one TV programme, a while back, comparing efforts in an African country, Sweden had built a hydroelectric system bringing electricity to a thousand townships, whilst we'd paid for resurfacing the blackboards in a thousand schools)).
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Hello BrassT @ 16. Welcome to the blog. It doesn't pay to care too much about the apostrophe round here, because it's a bit of an endangered species sometimes...
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