The Glass Box for Wednesday.
The Glass Box is where 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. Tonight's editor, Roger Sawyer, will read your comments and may well add his own.
Listen to PM
© MMX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~23~RS~)
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Tah Dah!
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401!!!
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Eddie, (pictured top right) is the lovely Nils bloke back today?
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Eddie, don't be shy - Show us your pearls.
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Nils is back. Lovely?
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Eddie, who's Esther Dianne?
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Must go... Paul O'Grady starts at 5.
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Did I hear correctly? Mister A of Iraq is convicted of Crimes Against Humanity and gets ... fifteen years in chokey?
Something wrong somewhere, surely.
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When do the prison guards have their tea?
When Tariq Aziz.
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eddie, this is a rubbish interview with andy burnham - you should like a fool
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Andy Burnham must have been reading a focus group re-product placement. What is he talking about?? British programmes haven't had a good rep for years. It's all reality garbage and Ant and Dec. All the original stuff like 'Mad Men', 'The Wire' and 'Generation Kill' are American
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That's it: as just instructed by the Mairster, I am now going to open every bottle of wine I have in the house, pour myself a glass of each, and try blending them all.
Slurred emails ahoy!
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The other day I was trying to make up my mind whether to get bladdered on special brew (insert product placement) in the park or to monetise the wife by finding her another cleaning job, when I bumped into my old mate Twerp Earp, the bird he married Chirp Earp and their snotty kids Perp Earp, Slurp Earp and the toddler Burp Earp. After discussing particle physics for a while, the convo naturally swung round to qunt... kwannn...qont.... printing wonga. Why, Twerp wanted to know, did they need to print more money? After all, they took all ours so they must've had plenty. I had to explain that they had taken ours, sqon... sqan... skwan... blown it all and now we were skint and so were they and so they had to print more.
"But I voted for that Blair geezer Norm'!" He blurted. "Cos he said: 'Trust me'!"
I gazed upon his mauve, pitted boozer's shonk, grey boatrace, careworn ears... down at his trainers resembling walrus-chewed kayaks... and back up to his qig... qiv.... trembling lower lip with a gaze of excrutiating pity. "You trusted him?"
"Course Norm', I trusted him. But not anymore. I'm gonna vote for that Clogg geezer. He ses that if I vote for 'im, it'll be a leap of faif."
"That's what lemmings say to each other Twerp, just before they toss 'emselves off the cliff: 'Come on lads! Are you mice or lemmings!'"
At this point, Burp Earp made a vile contribution to the interface: I looked down at my pink suede winklepicker shoes, cutely glimping from beneath my chocolate and orange-coloured pinstripe strides. Vile green blobs. Chirp Earp had to wipe my shoes clean with a tissue.
"So where should I shove my wonga now Norm'?" He continued.
"Well, you know that street where the shops are boarded up?"
"Course I do Norm'! The abandoned high street! That's my problem!"
"Walk down until you find a shop that's open that isn't a pawn shop and isn't taking bets on the 'orses. That'll be the last bank standing. Bung your wonga in there."
"What if that one goes belly up Norm'? You've got an 'andle on the zeitgeist. What then?"
"Dunno Twerp."
"Let me proactively run this by yer Norm' an' see what your take is on the zeitgeist of the interface-"
"I looked at my watch. Be quick. Your window of opportunity is about to be fermezed."
"Well Norm, do you realise, wiv all these boarded up shops, I am now out of work! Perfessionally speakin that is. Brown 'as done what all the other politicians have failed to do! Causin' me, now... to 'ave ter go down ter the rock 'n roll ter sign on! I'n't that a scaaandul?"
"Just run that interface proactively by me more one time Twerp, I've just forgotten for the moment what your profession was?"
"I'm a ram raider Norm'."
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11: Both American and British television companies produce quality programmes and mass market rubbish. The Americans have more channels so thus produce more of both.
As for product placement the Barbican got one on PM tonight.
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How soon after PM finishes can one listen to the 'Listen Again' facility?
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The yanks can't do Jane Austin, Shakespeare, Dickens or any costume thing of any significance. So where would you stick the 'can o' coke' in any of that lot eh! Not daft me.
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I'm not comfortable (again!). Since those soldiers were tragically shot in Northern Ireland, the BBC have taken a singularly patronising and paternalistic approach to the event. Why?
Why does the British public need to be led on this? When Israel levelled Gaza recently, the BBC defended their surgical approach to the coverage with an unflinching insistence on impartiality. Morally, they washed their hands of it. However, when British soldiers are killed in Northern Ireland the BBC decide to take it upon themselves to tell us what to think. Huge assumptions about the moral rights and wrongs of the incident are made as a matter of 'common sense' by editors, producers and journalists. Assumptions that it is frequently not their place to make, but made anyway just in case, presumably, we have any doubts.
What is going on here? Roger Sawyer recently posted here to insist that he was editorially independent. If this is true and I've no reason to doubt it, then what exactly is the selection process that gets people the editorial jobs in BBC News in the first place? Is it self-selecting in that to become an editor or a senior journalist, one must hold a particular view of the world and the Establishment? A view that insists on a predictable and narrow set of values.
Problems for me and surely for many inevitably arise over this glaring inconsistency when one set of news events like Israel's attack on Gaza apparently requires strict adherence to the values of impartiality and another set of events requires journalists and editors to assume a moral position which is then foisted on the British public who apparently suddenly can't be trusted to make up their own minds.
There are many examples of this including the ongoing highly partisan and mostly patronisingly simple-minded BBC coverage of British involvement in Afghanistan, which an entirely ignored mass of the British public see as at best motivated by extremely dubious and complex international relationships. There was also the recent Russian attack on South Georgia which was similarly dealt with using a whole plethora of partisan assumptions regarding mostly US notions of international security.
Moral assumptions are fine; impartiality is fine; but if BBC News want to make and apply them, can they they make up their mind which they want to apply and then apply it consistently? Otherwise they just end up Pravda-like: the Establishment broadcasting its own agenda day in and day out.
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I haven't got any red wine in at the moment. All I have is a bottle of gin ordinaire and a bottle of sloe gin. I'll try mixing them.
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When will PM be getting its own viral ad video ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVeSPyAp8aU&feature=channel_page
Will the 'joker' be featuring ?
Sorry Jo...
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I don't care how a wine is made.
I don't care if it's Rouge and Blanc mixed.
I do care what it's called or how it's labelled.
So - roll out the barrel - of Blouge, or Ranc.
Just don't call it Rose.
And that's RO-zay please PM, not ro-ZAY.
The accent is there to help you say the 'e' correctly - not to make you sound like a dumb american. It's not a stress mark.
We have enough of them all over our faces, without you adding egg on yours.
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Joseph
Fair comment broadly speaking, except that of course the coverage of Gaza was far from impartial....the huge number of murders was covered fairly matter of factly, but the culpability of the murderers most certainly was not....what you might call "collatoral damage" coverage with moral judgement sadly suspended, which is not impartial but virtually collusive after the fact.
More consistency would certainly be good, but re-balanced in favour perhaps of more moral comment on the Israeli murders, rather than less on the Irish murders, which are reprehensible and journalists may reasonably express this I think.
Did you eer see Eddie Izzard's show where he comments on the tendency of the world to heavily judge and punish people who kill one or two others, but when they kill huge numbers they tend to be spirited off to live in luxury somewhere in South America....
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For the second time in as many weeks, I've noted a new trend - viz the spelling of Ms Jane Austen's surname as 'Austin'. An Austin is usually a type of car - though if you are a philosopher, you will know of the late great J L Austin, famous for his seminal work 'Sense and Sensibilia'.
Now get on with your homework.
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Chris
I know what you mean about "antis". The clasic ones tend to be the professional PC enforcers, and quite "normal "people can become rabidly rude about smoking where they feel they have the moral high ground of "health" (and, of course, "safety"!)
By the way I noticed your salwart defence of Lady Sue. You may not be aware of this but some bloke called Tennyson has been putting it about that she "IS become" a cliche (the fellah can't even talk proper).
Anyway, I've got the boys out looking for him...
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Joseph@17
Its called being brain-washed by propaganda. Things seem to be reported in the way 'they' would like us to receive it intellectually. Thus producing a pre-ordained emotion/political response 'they' desire. If you know this, it is easy to see through it. Thats when it just becomes annoying.
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Joseph Walker 17
The Editors will speak for themselves, I am sure.
All i would say is that it would be a very odd sort of program if you removed the huge moral assumptions.
nikki
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Sid, my father had an Austin 10 named Jane.
Then a Morris Oxford named Doris, followed by a Morris Minor named 'wont go into first gear again'.
Then a Renault 10 named Charles after the French president most resembling a spud.
Then a Renault 12, also called Charles, followed by a Mazda 616. He never gave that a name as such. It was always caled "The Mazda" and was only used on Sundays.
The M.E.B (Midland Electrickery Board) used to supply his 'company' cars. He had a an Ital named Cidal (after the soap) and Chevette named "I'm not driving that. It's a bleedin' death trap".
My fave was the inherited 'Blown' Bentley!
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have mixed cheap white with cheap red. spilt it on my foot.
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makeitclear @ 23, you mean we've got someone called "Alfred"? the horror, the horror! The Bells! The Bells!
Give my regards to the boys.
fJd @ 24, what happens if, given only a very basic datum, one then agrees with the way it is subsequently presented? Has one been pre-brainwashed? How annoying is that!
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C_G @ 28
You wouldn't know or be bothered if you had been brainwashed would you. Thats the way it works.
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The Beaconsfield Woolworths is comprehensively shut and shuttered.
Why then is the sign that says "Woolworths" still illumined late into the evening?
Who is paying for the electricity?
Is this happening all over the country, or is it a one-off silliness?
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fJd @ 29, I swear that when I wrote my #30, yours hadn't appeared.
So about this brainwashing... If I don't know about it, how do I know about it?
I feel that it is probable that I would think that murdering three people is murdering three people whatever the pretext, just as I feel that murdering three hundred or three thousand is, but what would I know? I'm only a begonia...
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Eddie:
That is good news, Nils...return
~Dennis Junior~
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C_G @ 29
Chris,
I meant a general you (meaning all) not you personally.
I am not going to argue with you.
I believe you are deliberately trying to be antagonistic. The examples you use in your blogs directed at me I feel are purposely evocotive to provoke a certain response. It is a strategy that is designed to make me look bad and disengenuos if I respond in the way you expect and intend. I am not going to fall victim of and I'm not bothered what you think.
If you have a contribution to make about the subject matter in hand I suggest you direct your comments to Joseph Walker @ 17.
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Following on from message 18
The experiment was a success. Plain gin and sloe gin mixed gave a rose gin.
Eddie, I hope you appreciate the things that we folks do for you - Your're my best mat eyou are.
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Whether we could reinvigorate capitalism from here, seems to me to be a question we don't need to ask.
For surely we don't want capitalism revitalised, but replaced by an equitable and efficient economic system.
The BBC (PM included ) seems to be keen on giving us a daily dose of 'good news for capitalism' I think good nnews for capitalism is bad news for us.
One trick Newsnight is using is to say, isn't it good that capitalism may be able to recover, because then decent organisations like John Lewis and the Co-Op would flourish.
Really, not being driven by the need for profit should be one of the necessary features of any organisation, we decide should survive and prosper from now on.
And which types of organisations and which ones, IS for us to decide. Not as a result of the daily frenetic struggle for the means to live, but as a result of calm rational debate.
In the words of the philosopher we are in a position to start over again. And the first step is to agree to reject capitalism. No doubt John Lewis and the CoOp should be among hte chosen.
'Chosen' rather than swept along as honourable exceptions, in the usual mad capitalist scramble for profits and the generation of inequalities.
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fJd @ 33, strewth.
No, I was neither being antagonistic towards you nor trying to be evocative of any one thing nor another.
unless of course you were the manager of the Beaconsfield Woollies, in which case I suppose that might have been a bit personal. You weren't though, were you? really? eeek...
But if you want to assume I have it in for you for no reason I can see, there's notalot I can do about that, I guess. It's not the case, but all I can do is say so.
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lm 20, I might be a dumb American, and I missed the item about rose wine, but if Eddie's knowledge of wine making is as good as his knowledge of making popcorn, I'd stick to reporting the news. Rose wine is made from red grapes, nothing else.
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Sid @ 22,
Sorry about the spelling dad. I am at present subjecting myself to a whole edition of 'In Our Time' with Melvin Bragg whilst eating a shorter Oxford dictionary. I aim to be more AustEn-tacious in the future.
I do hope you found the subject matter amusing though.
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Eddie - as per your instruction - I did try the wine blending lark last night. What a hoot! I know that you prefer wine from a box, but I managed to dig out a few different reds and whites in bottles.
At the end of my experiments, I think I did obtain a rather lively fruity rose blend with an attractive crisp sweetness on the palate. I have to say, I don't think Mr Effingham was too impressed with it all, because he just sat on the sofar all night with a small Semillon.
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Mrs Eff - Are you aware, that even for very subtle double entendres, there is a frogging convention of self-imposed exile to the naughty step?
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Our recent troubles have surely demonstrated the iniquities and real dangers of large aggregations of finance capital in private hands - whether by banks, hedge funds etc or individuals.
The socialisation of finance capital seems to be an overwhelming imperative. The national (in and out of stocks, in and out of currencies) and international movements of what are in effect speculative funds constitute theft. Every penny of profit made deprives others of the use of the goods it can purchase.
Indeed replacing the profit motive throughout our large scale enterprises would hugely increase efficiency and social justice.
The entry on FB is a mild re-write of a quote from Gordon Brown in the mid 70s. Its central point is surely that we will achieve socialism only when and just as soon as we choose it.
In 1978 I was part owner of every energy supply industry of a huge housing stock of the water supply industry and so on.
I reclaim my 1/(The Electorate) share in all these concerns.
The present snag, and I mean in terms of the next few weeks, days and months, is that the BBC and PM in particular seem to be taking it as read, that we should revive capitalism.
We shouldn't.
The old publicly owned industries, as well as the Co-Op and John Lewis's are our appropriate templates. whilst the purely capitalist organisations are exactly what are NOT wanted.
But overwhelmingly we need, surely, to get the BBC and PM to stop talking about financial recovery in terms which prefigure another speculative boom, inequitable in its effects and dishonest in its very foundation.
Capitalism should die because we choose to let it die.
Its inherent dishonesties and inequalities belong to the past.
C'mon PM! When did this news and politics magazine programmes have an 'item' about democratic socialism as the future.
No more talk of 'cautious bulls', of profits up (whether by rumour or in truth), etc.
More on the ethics of setting up a universal pension fund, of taking our industries without compensation (equality after the event suffices) into common ownership and of genuine ex post labour market and general equality, please, please, please!
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Mix expensive red and white to get rose available at a couple of quid less, eh?
'More port, my man' never failed to get an aging minion to stagger down to the cellar and bring another bottle to the high table****.
A real speech act. If insensitive.
And Cohen's maximin salary is? (He, cliche professor at Oxford). A real nonsense.
Let's never mention another one of those self important classics trained lounge lizards of laziness and language and their lousy alma mater.
Let's cut off its new blood supply by getting the feeder schools' leavers to do 25 years with shovels in their hands.
**** Note the absence of capitals. In 'sensibilia', too.
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Young Master Dunn - the subject matter was indeed funny, and that is the main thing. BUT - we can't have standards slipping, can we?
(Did you get top marks* for your homework, btw?)
*No, not that Marx, SSB ...
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SSB, a Thursday exercise for you.
Rearrange the following words to make up a well-known phrase or sentence:
a, in, put, it, sock
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I don't know about mixing wines but some people apparently get good results mixing grape types:
California vintners in the Napa Valley area that primarily produces Pinot Blanc and Pinot Grigio have developed a new hybrid grape that acts as an anti-diuretic and will reduce the number of trips an older person has to make to the bathroom during the night.
They will be marketing the new wine as Pinot More.
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Hello All...
Thanks for your posts.
A lot of news around yesterday, with the school shootings in Winnenden coming through during the morning and the Sean Hodgson DNA appeal story breaking during the afternoon... along with the product placement announcement by the Government. So plenty to keep us busy.
Joseph Walker (@17), you make some very general accusations about our "singularly patronising and paternalistic approach" and say that "huge assumptions about the moral rights and wrongs of the incident are made as a matter of 'common sense' by editors, producers and journalists". What exactly do you mean? It would help if you could point me to some examples.
Do you mean that we have not put up enough representative voices defending the actions of those who killed the soldiers and the policeman and who object to the content Good Friday Agreement and its implementation? If so, it is not from want of trying. They are reticent voices.
On your comments about editorial integrity, if that is what you believe then it is unlikely anything I write is going to convince you otherwise, because I would be a product of the system you outline. I will say only this: it would be a phenomenal machine indeed that created and implemented such a system of appointments, bearing in mind the size of the organisation, the sheer number and variety of stories we cover. We try very hard to reflect opinion. Inevitably, we get some things wrong at times, but we do not seek impose individual or BBC opinion... if you think we have, then please tell me when and where.
We do have a set of editorial guidelines, available on the BBC website, which are there to guide us on certain matters. They are available for anyone to see here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/
Interesting to read there have been rose creating experiments. I may give it a go at the weekend.
All the best
Rog
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Thanks, Rog.
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