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robbieBB

Listed below are comments made by robbieBB between Thursday, 6th November 2008 and Monday, 12th October 2009.

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In PM tonight: a brand new weather forecast! 7:04pm on 12 Oct 2009 The area by area format is a big improvement, BUT:
1) Don't combine areas, e.g. "Wales and The Midlands", even if the forecast is identical. People will be listening for a specific area and combining areas reintroduces the kind of uncertainty the changes are intended to eliminate.
2) The forecasts should be couched in clear, plain English, not the kind of weather person's jargon readers have lapsed into in recent years. It seems that, as the time allowed for the forecasts decreases, the readers become less precise and more long winded; the language used distracts the listener's attention from the forecast itself. Some examples from tonight's forecast:
"dawn time" = "dawn"
"16 degrees Celsius, that's 61 in Fahrenheit" = "16 degrees Celsius/61 Fahrenheit"
3) These are FORECASTS, not reports of current weather, so the future tense should always be used, never the present. Here is a typical phrase: "The evening time is dry" (= "the evening will be dry").
One suspects that forecasters use the present tense because it adds a quite spurious authenticity to their predictions, as though they can see into the future and are giving an eye-witness report of the actual (future) weather. They might like to think so, we the listeners know better!
Weather update. 6:51pm on 15 Sep 2009 The shipping forecast-style national land forecast was a HUGE improvement on the vague, rambling, patronising mush we have got used to over the last few years. It actually told you what you could expect without having to try to work out which bits of the normal waffle, if any, were supposed to apply to you. I was infuriated to hear the forecaster (Peter) say on PM that he might "get bored" if he had to do the forecasts in shipping forecast style. I am sorry, I could not care less if he is bored out of his mind. I don't want to listen to him relieving his boredom by filling his forecasts with unnecessary drivel. I am only interested in being given a clear, informative forecast explicitly related to the region where I live -- East of England
Rock: Crumbling less 09:20am on 04 Aug 2009 Good news yesterday from still-independent Barclays -- so be sure to look for something negative to say chaps. Bad news today from government-owned Northern Rock -- so lets put a positive spin on it shall we? Bravo Robert.
Barclays: Even the bad times are good 09:27am on 03 Aug 2009 What do you people want? A bank which is sufficiently well-managed to survive the worst global financial crisis without the need for vast sums of tax-payer support? Well here you have it, it's called Barclays.
Insurance, not nationalisation 12:33pm on 22 Jan 2009 # 97

http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/MULLERED
Insurance, not nationalisation 12:23pm on 22 Jan 2009 This from the BBC Business page report on Adair Turner's speech:

.....He said banks should now be required to build up "substantial capital buffers in good economic times... so that they can run them down in bad".....

So what about Labour Chancellors and Labour Governments then?
2008: The Brown rollercoaster 7:26pm on 19 Dec 2008 If Crash Gordon is now seeing himself in these terms, it only confirms the degree to which he has lost contact with reality. And with his underlings required to sing along to the same tune as "the Great Leader", no matter what they believe in private, it is more a case of lemmings heading over the cliff than troops advancing into battle. You say that GB appears ever more relaxed. What, pray, does that tell us about him? That here is a man to whom self-interest matters more than the state of his country and who sees the global economic crisis as a God-sent opportunity to save his political skin! What hubris -- and what tragedy.
Massive mortgage squeeze 2:28pm on 25 Nov 2008 I know this is off topic here but I have a request for Robert:

Today the OECD added its voice to those claiming that the UK, far from being the best prepared developed country for weathering the coming recession, is actually the worst. As far as I can see, Messrs Brown and Darling are the ONLY people who think differently. So Robert, knowing how well-informed you are about Govt thinking, PLEASE explain this discrepancy and reveal to the rest of us the basis of the Brown/Darling view. I'm sure we'd ALL like to believe them.
Extraordinary 12:13pm on 07 Nov 2008 Instead of blogs please could the BBC give us some real fairy tales, I mean the ones without spin that tell things as they are. To start us off I'd suggest "The Emperor's New Clothes".
Who benefits from rate cut? 2:26pm on 06 Nov 2008 What we need is, not the Bank of England reducing base rate, but the Government reducing taxation. Instead of lecturing the oil and energy companies about lowering prices Gordon, just give us some of our money back (PS I'm not holding my breath).

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