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bogusphotographer

Listed below are comments made by bogusphotographer between Wednesday, 17th September 2008 and Friday, 31st October 2008.

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Thursday, 30 October, 2008 02:23am on 31 Oct 2008 The Brand/Ross thing is total distraction from the real issues and has just become a free-for-all to attack the BBC. The way politicians have become involved in this is disgraceful, when it should have been an internal matter. As a result, it was impossible for any of the parties involved to get a fair hearing, in what would have been a disciplinary matter. If the media can't prejudice trails then why did everyone have the right to prejudice an employment case?

There is obviously a split between people who hate Ross' high wages, what they see as 'liberal' bias and the feeling the Beeb is 'dumbing down' and those who want the Beeb to also be relevant to the young, have niches for 'edgy' comedy and feel bound by the market (in stars) and viewing figures.

I just don't see a resolution from this bind. The Beeb is trying to be all things to all people, hold on to the licence fee, as well as trying to serve groups outside the mainstream 'family' output, which can so often be inane, superficial, unchallenging, but also inoffensive.

Viewers are either going to have to demand a public broadcaster is a 'serious' one, risking losing listeners/viewers as it did in the past, or accept the impasse as a kind of tension between the generations, which is probably normal (since the 60s). Personally, I want the BBC to do both things - serious documentary (which I love) and edgy comedy. The risk here is that in the rush to not offend, the public broadcaster become uncreative, soft, mainstream, boring, non-adult and throws the 'depth' of its output out with the bath water. What would be left, wouldn't be worth saving - which I fear is precisely the point of this self immolation.
Wednesday 29th October 2008 01:52am on 30 Oct 2008 "Because most people didn't listen to the programme doesn't makes it alright to make and broadcast obscene ILLEGAL telephone calls does it?"

I think most of the people who didn't like Jerry Springer the Opera didn't see it either. I find it suspicious people can truthfully say they are offended by something, a week after broadcast without actually hearing the programme? Perhaps they grabbed the podcast before it got pulled?

On the subject of this comedy piece as a persona attack, well isn't there a double standard here? The media plays this game all the time, says things that are untrue or inflated and people get hurt. Brand and Rosses 'comedy' was essentially goofing around and obviously so. I think it was offensive, but the firestorm has not been proportional to the content - an apology would have done. Likewise, it seems to me Brand was employed to be the comedian who does outrageous and unexpected things. Surely the producer should have taken the fall? Still, it hasn't stopped papers like the Sun condemning Brand's comments of Sach's daughter, while at the same time publishing shots of her in a bodice.

I just have the feeling this whole situation has become another opportunity to slam the BBC. Just because it's publicly funded, why should politicians weight in on production or content? It just seems to muddy the waters between politics and culture and confuses the chain of command within the beeb. They should have left it to an investigation and proper employer procedures.

Public institutions have to constantly justify why and how they spend their cash, which obviously gives private institutions something of an advantage. Private money of course can side-step this. What if Brand was say, a footballer? As a commodity, any comments he would made, or perhaps even violent actions would be overlooked because he was 'worth' something to shareholders.

In this case, what's at stake is the offence of listeners as well as Sachs and his daughter. Are we to expect everything we hear on Radio or watch on TV wont offend us? Are we to have a BBC that has to please everyone all the time, in which case we will be left with inane, bland programming?

I think a cultural studies writer once said people should use the off switch more often.

I for one want adult programming (including adult drama, like HBO) and find myself more offended by bad mainstream wallpaper TV. When I go to a gallery I want to be challenged by the art. When I go to a concert I want it to rock. When I watch a film I want to be taken somewhere surprising. When I see comedy I want to laugh somewhere that's uncomfortable, as a catharsis. I don't want 'amusing' comments from inane TV 'personalities' who look like bad X-factor rejects.

Brand has been one of those comedians that has pushed into areas that have been potentially offensive. That's not his only quality, but if you don't like him, it's usually not a good idea to listen to his show. This incident shouldn't be surprising from the man who dressed as Bin Laden on Sept 12th or introduced Kylie to his drug dealer. What is surprising is the producer/editor wasn't on the ball enough to call time before it went out.

If everyone hadn't joined this whooping great train of indignation, perhaps the whole thing could have been resolved. Now, it's more likely the BBC will be risk averse and as a result the content will suffer. Welcome to the future where everything is 'family' entertainment (woot woot). A kind of 'health and safety' for the viewer... but hey we wont be offended now.
Tuesday 28th October 2008 11:22pm on 28 Oct 2008 The Brand/Ross thing is a non-story.

It's interesting it takes a week for a huge whooping circus of the professionally outraged to pipe up, only just coming after the story about a Russian billionaire meeting senior members of both political parties.

Anyone asking for sackings there? Anyone asking (Cameron style) for transparency? Not now.

Perhaps they should invest in a yacht?

What's truly weird is the fact Russell Brand is hired to be all controversial and 'outrageous' and bob's your uncle, he does precisely what's expected of him.

Somehow, that's surprising for some people.

This is just an opportunity to hit at the BBC. Labour can get cheap political capital by talking tough but doing sweet FA. The Tories can hit their least favourite liberal institution, which contrary to their instincts, is apparently one they like to 'regulate' and protect the impressionable public.

The fact is, if people are serious about wanting distinctive programming, which includes comedy that might be on the edge of offence, the experiment has to hold within itself the possibility of failure. If not, it's boring, ultra controlled TV, along the lines of some US networks (remember Bill Hicks) or the terminally tepid ITV.

Still, now the media covering this story, can criticize Ross and Brand, the BBC to boot and claim the moral high ground, while showing scantily clad pictures of Andrew Sach's daughter no doubt in the spirit of Brand himself.

With the credit crisis, we must be out of bread, but you know, there's a glut on circuses!
Monday, 13th October, 2008 11:45pm on 13 Oct 2008 Obviously the flaw in this trial is caricaturing the causes so we are left with only one who is 'to blame', as we have seen in the evidence, the blame at the intersection of government, regulators and banks and how they all interact, cajole, create incentives and make assumptions on flawed or incomplete information.

I get the impression Labour failed to tighten regulation or act on bonuses so as to prevent the flight of capital out of the country, which has affected previous Labour administrations. Government regulatory regimes were competing with each other, as much as banks, to be light touch and leave it to the market to regulated itself. New Labour was also the product of political competition, which forced it (after successive election defeats) to accept and embrace the markets as part of the 'third way'.
There was also a major incentive for the money to not end up somewhere else in order to attempt their social programmes (as it was said, the UK has no industry any more). Obviously, this isn't democratic, but what then do markets have to do with democracy?

Perhaps this event had to happen in order for any change (however modest) to be possible, not just locally on a country wide basis, but globally. Perhaps now governments and regulators will be a bit bolder but also more forward thinking about the consequences of the practices out there, without the distorting lens of some whooping cheer-leading ideology.
Friday, 10th October, 2008 11:40pm on 10 Oct 2008 Well, I really enjoyed Paul's piece. It's been a hell of a week and it's not like he's the only person to be discussing this stuff. Take John Gray's article in the Observer.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I have to say, came across really badly. I haven't read his book but I realise I went to the LSE to see him, but left because the room was so full (also he was a terrible communicator).

It will be interesting to read his book and see how different he is from say Karl Popper, with his law of unintended consequences. It was disappointing Nassim couldn't marshal his intellectual capabilities to even talk about climate change. It makes you suspect he's so focused in the very specific point he's making, it might be making him blind to the greater world, which seems to be the very charge he's making about economists. Likewise surely climate change is one of those outcomes (market failures) theory didn't predict? Curious.

Time to get out a bit more Nassim move on from the very obvious sentiment that people didn't take your ideas seriously. Reality is moving very quickly at the moment.
Thursday 9th October, 2008 11:47pm on 09 Oct 2008 Hey, it's Iceland night!

On the subject of energy (rather than the money they owe us); when people think of Climate Change, Iceland always gets mentioned as some sort of saviour -geothermal energy, hydro power, wind, wave- you name it, that country has it all. George Mombiot for instance, mentioned building some sort of super grid connected to the country. It's as though Iceland ceases to be country (with people, a democracy, wildlife, farms etc.) and is some sort of international possession we can use.

The fact is the country being covered in artificial trees isn't going to play - it simply wont happen. Industry is often resisted (Bjork and Sigur Ros held a concert against aluminium smelting) and even when people make a joke of 'foreign' protesters like 'Saving Iceland' who are against development, the smile quickly fades if you suggest extensive development of the country. The Icelanders have contradictory attitudes like anywhere else. As much as they have clean energy, they all love oil hungry and huge 4x4s (perhaps those days will be over). In the end, it's up to the Icelandic people and even with near bankruptcy, I don't expect many of them to turn the country over the Climate Change geo-engineers at the scale mooted in the film.

Still, with the credit crisis, Bill Clinton's comment about the age of big government being over seems like ancient history. With the climate crisis too, the 'big solution' people seem to be coming out too. The most crazy thing is that it's easier for them to envision these massive technological solutions than to expect modest changes in human behaviour. We've all been saluting the intractable 'I' for too long and one way or another it's leading us to hell in a handcart.
Wednesday 1st October, 2008 8:17pm on 01 Oct 2008 Does Cameron's plan still involve 'free markets' as his preferred method of organising society?

What ideas do politicians really have left? Isn't that why he concentrated people on his 'character' as if that were more meaningful than 'ideas'?

If so I'd like to elect Jonathan Meades as PM. I'm sure he has more 'character' than our boy from Eton.
Blow to carmakers 12:43pm on 27 Sep 2008 What's really surprising is that the German car makers were 'surprised' by all this. Recently when I was on holiday I met a man who worked in engine design for one of the big car makers and he was passionate about climate change. His point was there is no design solution waiting in the wings and people will need to modify their behaviour. It's galling to hear naive comments that car owners are 'embattled', since car use still rises 3% a year, or by a third every decade - obviously the cost of fuel, tax, parking are not enough to discourage our love affair with the tin box on wheels.

I think the ruling is good news as companies need some encouragement to really make more efficient cars. Car makers have pandered tp the egos of their customers and any efficiency gains have been used to increase the power of the engines. Given the competitive nature of the market, a voluntary deal would have been impossible. This ruling puts the industry on an equal footing and they are now bound to push the technology towards efficiency. After all, creativity comes from working within tight limits and where there is pressure to create solutions.
Monday, 22nd September, 2008 11:08pm on 22 Sep 2008 @ Flipper_the_Hedgehog

The 'entrepreneurial spirit' hardly re-built British industry in the 80's or renewed the public services in the 90's. Our percentage of public debt is still lower than John Major's government.

I think the credit crisis and banking crisis is sending a political earthquake out that neither of the major parties can really address. The old idea that you can further reduce regulation and it boosts growth at no cost has been completely discredited. Even despite the crisis, climate change has been the market's largest 'failure' (to use Stern's words) and will require massive social/industrial change that means the market will need direction to produce a swift outcome. The Conservative attitude to leave it to the market wont address these problems. Likewise, when the state doesn't even believe in its own legitimacy to act (as under Labour), no decisive action can come from the state, that sends the clear signals for the direction we need to go in.

As much as the banking crisis is a market failure, it is a failure of Democracy to have allowed itself to be co-opted by concentrations of money and power. There needs to be a democratic renewal if the market is to be tamed. Commerce is nothing if it is not shaped by civilization.
Wednesday, 17 September, 2008 11:38pm on 17 Sep 2008 One of the most entertaining programmes in a long time. Well done Jeremy!

The piece on Bosnia was also really moving.

On whether capitalism 'still' works, I think it's more an idea that is at stake - whether markets, when unregulated, tend to some sort of utopian equilibrium. With a right wing government is the US eating Clinton's words about the age of big government being over, effectively nationalizing part of the financial system, perhaps (finally) this idea has been decisively refuted on its own terms.

After a brief second ideological age (unregulated free markets, after the collapse of the Soviet system) perhaps we can return to 'normal' politics were the parties are actually different from each other. Had the world's financial system actually collapsed and governments had not stepped in, the only political alternatives would be on the far right and far left (as with the Weimar republic). Politics needs to diversify move away from this now failed centrist consensus to save us from those political extremes.

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