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ImusOnAir

Listed below are comments made by ImusOnAir between Saturday, 9th August 2008 and Saturday, 13th December 2008.

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Canvas and the connected home 11:43am on 13 Dec 2008 I agree with archplanman. I get my telephone service from Virgin, which is normally priced, and for this I also get free cable tv, which includes the iPlayer and other tv highlights, such as archived series like Spooks, Life on Mars, Sopranos and loads of others.
Wednesday 29th October 2008 11:29pm on 29 Oct 2008 Listening to John O’Farrell tonight on Newsnight reminds us precisely of why the reaction to the Ross/Brand fiasco was so strong. O’Farrell insisted that the BBC’s reaction was dictated by a “mob” and hysteria whipped up by the “Daily Mail” (horror of horrors). It is this total disdain by the likes of O’Farrell for the majority of the population who pay for the BBC which people are so resentful of.
We even heard one of the interviewees say that Brand and Ross would be sorely missed because they are “big talents” ! Big talents ? Come off it ! They are mediocrities who got lucky and who were able to dupe the gullible middle-aged producers at the BBC that they are “in tune with youth culture”.
I don’t know how old O’Farrell is, but he is certainly no youth, and to hear him declaring himself to be on the same side as “cutting edge” presenters sounded like nothing other than the desperation of the once-fashionable trying hopelessly to cling on to the last vestiges of their fast-fading cultural credibility. But why this obsession with youth ? Why this determination to despise “middle-England” ? Why the assumption that those who prefer to watch Alan Titchmarsh (or, for that matter, Fawlty Towers) are somehow less worthwhile as human beings than those who want smut ? If there is a market for the so-called edgy, boundary-pushing “humour” of Brand and his ilk (I leave Ross out of this, as he is certainly old enough to know better, and has no talent other than an ability to speak as if he learned his English down in the sewer) then let its aficionados find it on the internet or on some third-rate digital station, not on the country’s flagship broadcaster.
How I wish it had been Jeremy rather than Emily who had been interviewing the self-satisfied O’Farrell. Jeremy would have challenged and revealed the hollowness of O’Farrell’s smugness.
Jan Ravens also had her little rant against the wicked Daily Mail, but made some reasonable points, as did the third interviewee, but if the BBC wants to understand why there was such a strong reaction to this relatively minor story, it need look no further than this interview, where the old, tired, self-serving metropolitan elite looked down their pompous little noses at the public; the public who pay their wages. We have been quietly seething for a long time at the swearing, the smut, the degeneracy and total unfunniness of much of the Corporation’s so-called “talent”. Ross and Brand, by transgressing so blatantly, have given us the opportunity at last to speak up with some chance of achieving a change in attitude. But we’re not cheering yet; the BBC has shown itself more than capable over the years of seeing-off challenges to its unaccountability, and I would not put money on these two, or their clones, being back on the airwaves in a few months. If there is no change, more folk will simply vote with their feet, eyes and ears, and give up on the idea of the licence fee altogether.
Friday, 8 August, 2008 09:44am on 09 Aug 2008 In the piece on whether Britain's expenditure on winning medals was worthwhile, I was disappointed to hear the BBC journo doing the piece, whoever he was, say that the expenditure was being funded "by you and I ". Aaagghh! When will the Beeb start sending its presenters to some, at least basic, English grammar lessons ?

The piece on Georgia was irritating too, for another reason: the daft split-screen appearance which added absolutely nothing, apart from a distracting element, to the report.

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