The Glass Box.
Above is the Glass Box the PM team meets in at 18.00 every weeknight to discuss the content of the programme.
We try to be honest with each other, but not hurtful, as we talk about what worked and what didn't...what met our expectations and what fell short.
This virtual glass box is where you're encouraged to take part in the same spirit. The editor of the day reads your comments and may well add her/his own.
Listen to PM
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~57~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Hurrah! The Glass Box! Legs! and ....... trainers?!
Complain about this comment
Mummers are ever rarer than Morris Men.
Complain about this comment
Sigh, it's the one taken by a drunken staffer again.
Never mind, well done, Eric and team. Back to business.
Complain about this comment
There are enough Morris dancers around here. They caused a blockage in the road last week so I was forced to watch.
It reminded me of watching a group of Tongan youngsters do traditional dancing. Sticks, frightening dress, shouting and primitive musical instruments.
There was not much difference!
Complain about this comment
The Morris:
Bless their little jingly socks!
Let us not indulge in the sad little DJ's ideas. It'll survive, like the rest of folk music, because just in time the kiddies will come to the rescue. It'll evolve but not a lot, please! Another folk revival is overdue.
Long may cart horses show jump.
Jock.
Complain about this comment
4. How much did the parking attendant sting you for?
Complain about this comment
Didn't see any bats at all last year for the first time in six years of watching. So where did they go?
Complain about this comment
Cameron - Confusion of the fascisti?:
We have the party who have continuously pushed massive mortgage debt in the pursuit of the ideal of home ownership now espousing prudence and saving.
The debt levels in the UK are largely a result of our absurd obsession with property ownership rather than saving. Our investment in our industrial base has suffered accordingly.
Debt is not a function of silly spending; it is a function of the usurious interest levels charged on mortgages by the thieving bastards in the banks we are now bailing out.
Rationalise that!
Jock
Complain about this comment
Was Wedgewood imaginery? Or is my hearing on the blink?
Complain about this comment
"I say chaps, Tom seems to have come up inside the BBC!"
"Right everyone, back to Stalag Luft III. Rather that than 'You and Yours'!"
Complain about this comment
Could have done with a bit more background on the Morris bit. The Morris Ring does have a bit of a problem, it represents less than a third of active dancers and specifically discriminates against women...not surprising it has problems with attracting the young. (Young men and women tend to want to mingle) Change is afoot as they say - lots of young groups out there - try google the morris offspring..
Complain about this comment
A very good evening to you! What bad luck yet again, another company goes under. My comments of a few weeks ago that I am scared that one day when I go shopping there will only be charity shops and supermarkets left. Why does our government allow shops to sell everything instead of having individual shops selling individual items? For example, only chemists selling medicines, off-licences selling alcohol, and supermarkets selling food items and so on you get my drift!!!
Complain about this comment
Someone in that Glass Box picture has slippers (Ugh boots) the very same as mine.
Complain about this comment
Could we have a "Guess the Feet/Shoes" competition for the bloggers?
Bet Eddie has the traditional tan leather brogues (next to Ugh boots).
Complain about this comment
How did Jock get through the MI5 screening process? Well done Jock....the Truth always hurts, so they say!!....As does the 'crimes of the Powerful' in the Middle East at the moment....especially according to Chris McGreal in the Sunday Observer yesterday because if he is correct over a 8 year period 8500 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel killing '20' people...however over the last 3 years the Jewish State has killed '1,700' Palestinians and that was before this latest outrage killing another 500+...but ironically the few working class British people I have heard talking about this issue were blaming the Palestinians... partly because they were held up going home... by the marches in Bristol against these crimes...noting that the Guardian again today were very good at analysing these issues above...especially about the so-called 'War on Terror'....
Brian V Peck
Complain about this comment
Ugh boots? Don't you like them, Lady Sue? ;o)
Complain about this comment
Bringing this forward from an earlier thread: the invasion of Gaza, or whatever one ought to call an incursion af troops into territory.
I swear that on radio 4 news today I heard an Israeli spokesman say that Hamas must do what they are told (phrased in a slightly more complicated way) 'or face extinction'.
Stating an intention of that sort is perilously close to stating genocidal intentions. What is extinction of a people if not that?
It seemed a very chilling thing for a representative of that nation above all others to have voiced.
Complain about this comment
Chris_Ghoti (17) Sadly, it's just another example of what the Israelis perceive as a ''tit-for-tat'' response to Hamas.
After all, Hamas refuse to recognise the State of Israel and are fighting for the removal of all Jews from the region.
That could be interpreted as a genocidal tendency, too.
In saying this, I'm neither supporting one side or the other - I have nothing to offer in terms of who I think is wrong or right. At the moment, all I feel is the same kind of despair that I feel about Zimbabwe.
Complain about this comment
I remember the old days when we had pubs in which to argue about these things out over a few pints. I mean to say, how can you have morris dancers without pubs? Maybe that's why the bats left come to think of it, and we've no chance of winning the ashes unless that Len Hutton gets picked.
Complain about this comment
I'm paraphrasing as I can't find the original article but...
'The Irish, Welsh and Scots are justifiably proud of their heritage of traditional music, song and dance. The English, however, are rather embarrassed by theirs.'
This was written before WW1, and not much has changed.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
(16): Gillianian: very good!
Complain about this comment
I'd be surprised if we can see Eddie's shoes, Lady Sue, as I think he was probably the other side of the camera.
Anyway, I think Eddie wears trainers, but not tracksuit bottoms. This, you will understand, is only a guess, for all we can ever see on the webcam is the rugby shirt of the day. (Incidentally, when the webcam finally did work tonight, Eddie was wearing a fetching shade of green.)
Complain about this comment
Did that chap who was almost as Mrs Malaprop as Prescott really say "Josiah Wedgwood was an imaginary man" ???
Enjoyed the programme, although I did tut-tut at your doing the Hammond joke to death at the end...
Complain about this comment
I wonder if in this media driven World we should start to hear real NEWS. Should we hear that this is the first day for say 6 months that no one has been murdered/terrorised/imprisoned/bombed in Gaza and its neighbours. That would be news.
Just because one day they use a bullet and the next it is a suicide bomb followed by a laser guided bomb, followed by a lack of medicine, it makes no difference PEOPLE STILL DIE.
Is the media the cause? Does the aid and money only flow in when the media coverage is at a peak? Is the BBC doing their bit to promote the arms dealers profits by describing in detail the numerous ways to murder. Just like the entertainment media promotes the drug industry.
Then to cover hatred in a local community to show how it effects the UK is pitiful. There are two sides over there trying to destroy each other as a people. It is not name calling, or even murder, it is self justified annihilation.
I also did not like the CERN coverage. They made a big mistake. Why talk about it in awe. The fault was fine, not having the systems in place to detect or cope with it, is the issue. They still have not apologised for the marketing fiasco of the Big Bang, end of the world, issue they caused on the uneducated and children. Children still react to the word CERN with fear and accept the fault as a delay on the world ending.
As for the weather men predicting next year do not make me laugh. They are still having trouble with the implications of this week.
D- tonight. Sorry.
Complain about this comment
One final thing: everyone just assumes the recovery will come in X months.
What about it never arriving? A long spiral down, no native industries left and massive unemployment. The world loses a few major companies in the high tech industries that are essential for every day life and old PC's become the new currency.
It is not a joke, the financial world has left 2 key companies with debts bigger than they could pay off in a life time. Others are on the way out, with no way to pay the salary bill.
I once had a problem with an orphaned product. There was so much embedded intellectual property that it was beyond support. The knowledgeable people had left the company and there was no information left to help fix the problem.
Then there was the device that could not be made. All we got back was that the manufacturer had lost the recipe! The staff had been cut in the RIF and no-one knew the required information.
Everyone can imagine the world without cars. But could you imagine it without computers, engine management units, mobile phones, in fact any phones or even TV.
It is time the real economy drivers started being looked after. Why should a trader, still in nappies, be making 5 times the money that the designer of the phone, he uses, receives.
I had a look at the ways to finance high tech companies in the UK. The government backed schemes seem to always want an "exit strategy". There is no idea in the UK that you could actually want to grow a real company over 20 years that adapts to its markets.
This government thinks is all about growing the idea and selling out immediately. Drop the value of the pound to get investment into the country. What are we, technology street sellers (you know what I mean).
What is wrong with plain old home grown companies aimed at sustained revenue streams and employment. Dunlop, Salts, Lever, Wedgewood.
Complain about this comment
Eddie:
Nice glass box and its return to the blog..
~Dennis Junior~
Complain about this comment
Eddy you gave the Man from the Met Office an easy ride!
Their news release on April 3 2008 "Summer temperatures across the UK are more likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near average”
On August 29 2008 they had to admit “... the summer has been one of the wettest on record across the UK.”
This winter forcast stated "For the UK as a whole, winter-mean temperatures are more likely to be above normal."
Their long range forcasts are clouded by their believe in global warming
Complain about this comment
Dennis Junior: You sure get around the blog sites, mate - rock on I say - and happy frogging!
Would someone please explain to me the role of those fat idle wastrels at the United Nations in the halting of this perpetual saga of murder, rape and jolly hockey sticks carnage? Has Paxo forgotten about Britain's hand in the slaughter of women and children in the illegal invasion of Iraq? And where the hell is Blair - and how does he justify his salary?
Complain about this comment
But I must add that Amanda's wellies are rather fetching. Where did she fetch 'em from?
Complain about this comment
(29) - jester - "justify his salary" just like the "nu economy" Blair has jumped in with the "nu democracy". This is were you get power by a pyramid scheme of voting where the layer above can ignore and select the correct answers. Even demand you try harder and do it right next time. In this "nu democracy" you do not need to justify anything it just comes pouring in because the real cause of everything is the voters. In this "nu way" the only job for him is to interpret the voters NO and YES and come up with YES and NO, at all other times just get on with profiteering and expense claims.
Just like the bankers took our money, he took our society and reaped the most rewards he could. A government paid electorate that fears their handouts disappearing. He is here to stay and will rise higher as soon as they skip over a few inconsiderate voters.
Complain about this comment
Chaterisgirl and UptheTrossachs - yes, apparently Josiah Wedgewood the first was an imaginary man.
That was one of many moments in this first Monday PM of the new year when I laughed out loud - thank you to all the team for that. The rest of the news, not to mention the weather, time of year and mass exodus from fun and family time to work were something of downer for which PM certainly represented an antidote yesterday evening.
That said, it's hard to get away from the fresh misery of the Gaza conflict entirely and Gillianian @ 18 I find myself much in agreement with your views. this is a terrible situation without a clear morally superior side and with a muddled history with elements of blame on both sides as well as others aorund the world (including us, in my opinion). It seems to me the problem boils down to one side refusing to give freedom to protect security and the other refusing to give security to try to achieve freedom.
Civillian casualties occur as a result of the actions of both sides and the idea that counting the civilian deaths in order to gain a moral highground for one group is not only flawed but fuels the problem because the solution is simply to - stop - and start with a clean slate; no rocket attacks, freedom of movement, no suicide bombings, free trade and democracy etc. That's what needs to happen but it's very hard to convince human beings with memories and feelings (like fear and resentment) that it's a good idea and will work.
With regard to jester @ 29's point, are we talking about the UN workers on the round in places like Gaza and countless other hostile environments who work for the simple good of the locals, giving up their comfy chairs, laptops and access to blogs etc. to do something good, or the politicians who spend their lives trying to acieve the almost impossible task of steering a group of self-interested nations (and that's not a criticism) towards moral goals and equality for all? Blair is in the middle east trying to negotiate peace, earning his salary. He was interviewed on Today this morning.
Complain about this comment
I love Morris Dancing, it makes Scottish culture look sophisticated : )
Complain about this comment
a_p 21, You don't like my puns, don't read them. Nobody here has the solution to anything, otherwise they would be solving and not wasting their time blogging.
Complain about this comment
tjs 19, We have lots of different types of Morris groups in and around St Albans. The best, in my opinion, is the Wicked Brood borders group from Bricket Wood.
PS What is an 'ang', as in 'the jesters ang'?
Complain about this comment
gS 15, Israel can't help it if it has better aim than Hamas.
Complain about this comment
Gill 18, I'll bet Mugabe is happy that the Israel/Palestine problem has pushed him off the front pages.
Complain about this comment
Some well structured journalism here on the financial situation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04risk-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
Then, there's the excellent Mr Taleb's site. He's not by the way an un-assuming academic. But given his track-record, probably, with good reason...
http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/
http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/imbeciles.htm
Complain about this comment
DMcN @ 37, you're probably right. :-(
In general, I agree that neither side in Gaza is 'right', while being fairly sure that neither is 'wrong' either, if that makes sense? It isn't a black-and-white business, and the history of it is so complicated that any position anyone wants to take on it can be justified, or so it seems to me.
What *is* wrong is killing people, and it does seem clear that in that one respect, Israel at the moment is 'wronger' than Hamas, because for every one Israeli killed (let's not count the 'own goal' three today) three hundred or so Palestinians seem to have died. That seems disproportionate, especially given that as DMcN points out, 'the Israelis have better aim', for which read incomparably 'better' armaments. If they're so good, they ought to be able to aim well enough to miss the schools and refugee camps they seem to hit all too often -- like, *once* is too often, and they've done it more than once this week. That may tend to skew the sympathy towards one side rather than the other, even if it were not already more for the civilians who cannot escape than for the heavily armed people they cannot escape from.
After all, most of us probably find it easier to imagine ourselves as non-armed civilians than as armed troops, don't we?
Complain about this comment
So, hospital Car Parking charges and Fines to escalate?
Where's Paddy, better tell him. On second thoughts what's the point..?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/06/mobile-phones-hospitals
"Hospitals told to lift mobile phone ban
NHS trusts should give people 'widest possible use' of their phones, says new guidance"
Complain about this comment
David 35
Maybe it's this?
Detailed ANG information on...
www.goang.com/
Complain about this comment
CG @ 39. The trouble is that if a group deliberatley places itself in amongst a civilian population it is very difficult to avoid harming civilians. You musn't count just the last week, either, if you are going in for a comparrison of numbers, you haveto look at the rockets over the past months and their damage. Ad then you have to look at the previous conflict in Lebanon. And then at the rockets and suicide bombs before that, and then at the preceding wars and right the way back to the creation of Israel over half a century ago. (The modern creation of it, before someone says that God gave it to the Jews millenia ago or something equally unprovable).
So, my point is that there is no value in that process. instead our efforts should focus on ceasefire and solution. As soon as you enter the 'who is wronger' debate you're locking into the cycle of violence.
Complain about this comment
phil 42
Truer words could not have been spoken!
And we won't go-into, for the same reason, which countries support/supply both overtly and covertly which side in this dreadful dispute and, in at least one country's case, both sides.
As to the rationale for Palestine rejecting an offer of their own sovereign state in 1947(?)...
"...efforts should focus on ceasefire and solution"
I have an awful feeling "no-one" will do what needs to be done. It's already been 60 yrs. The necessary "Powers" have never had the political interest or the appetite for what would need to happen to enable success.
Now, Israel will, I think, impose its' own solution.
And, how long will that last..? And, where does this canker appear..?
Complain about this comment
@43
...and the final words should have been: "next and, when"
Complain about this comment
phil 42. Last para.
I was clearly not referring to UN workers.
It should be a criticism.
Blair: Well that's OK then, I'll take your word for it, I'll forgive him for everything, and I'll put him back on the Christmas card list.
Complain about this comment
For all of you philosophers who seem to have the solution to everything, I reccommend this song. Not that anyboby will listen to it because you are all too busy talking to yourselves. However, there is always hope. Except when she lives next door and calls you a pervert fior suggesting such a thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d7EN0k4TXU
Complain about this comment
Jester
National politicians are inevitably interested primarily in the cause of their own subjects. That is right and proper since they were elected by and for them. It doesn't mean that sometimes a sacrifice isn't neccessary for the ultimate good of ones own citizenry such as going to war in 1939 in order to protect not only other nations' citizens but also, in the longer term, your own.
I would argue (and I suspect you would not, just a guess) that the Iraq war probably falls into a similar camp in that it is unpopular, damaging to us and our citizens, costly and, ultimately, beneficial to another nation and in the longer term, as a result, our own. Not that i'm equating the moral imperative faced in 1939 with that before GW2 but that the principal is the same.
I mentioned the Today programme so you wouldn't have to take my word for it. The BBC believes he is there and I'm willing to take their word for it.
Complain about this comment
phil, thanks for the lucid view, but we'll have to agree to disagree, in the name of that elusive commodity called...
Peace Man!
Complain about this comment
Let me know when it hits -18c. That's zero.
Complain about this comment
Not the best recording, but it gives you some idea of border morris dancing.
http://www.truveo.com/Chippenham-FF-2008-Wicket-Brood/id/698747802
Complain about this comment
Jester
Thanks. Fair enough!
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS