The February of technology

Which is a whole lot different to the march of technology.

Because our February (and our January come to that) has seen the wheels start to come off of our tech-filled home. Or at least, that's how it looked at one stage, with the freezer developing a problem where it wouldn't, um, freeze, and the pile of expensive TV equipment refusing to display any of the HD channels.

You know how it is when things go wrong. You reach for Google to find out what they're saying on the forums. Or at least, we do. On the subject of our freezer a small number of people had been very vocal about what a pile of shit it was. Well to be honest that's not been our experience. We've had it over 6 years and apart from a problem with the auto-defrost element shortly after it went out of warranty ( O_O ) which was soon fixed, we haven't had a moment's bother with it. That's the thing about review forums. If you've had a bad experience you're more likely to gripe about it than you are to go and give a glowing review if you've owned something that's given years of trouble-free service. A bit more digging uncovered a slightly larger number of folk who HAD gone into print about how happy they were with our freezer, so we decided in the end it was worth repairing.

Which was a good decision because the fault was a simple evaporator fan, replaced in less than 15 minutes and all's well again. No more spongy "frozen" bread or slightly soggy fish food. And better to pay £80 for a year's service cover than £700 for a new model!

The TV thing was slightly more frustrating and hard to track down. Since installing it (at the beginning of December) we've had an intermittent problem where the screen would go blank, flash "No Signal" and then recover in 1-2 seconds. Only ever happened when watching HD programmes or, if recording them, the recording would freeze for 1-2 seconds while the PVR tried to cope with the loss of signal. I replaced the coax aerial leads. I replaced the HDMI cables. I bought an aerial signal booster. Nothing made any difference. Then a couple of weeks ago I retuned the PVR and it lost the HD channels altogether. And then it lost ALL the channels.

Aha! I thought. That intermittent fault was on the PVR's tuners, and now it's gone hard. Plugging the TV directly into the aerial, bypassing the PVR, allowed us to view HD again thus proving (I thought) my theory.

We took the PVR up to Warrington (the closest service centre) where they plugged it in, tuned it up, and it worked perfectly.

Their tech guy listened to our tale of woe, and opined that we had an aerial fault. I've always been a bit suspicious about folk who work on roofs. Roofers and aerial installers. You never can be quite sure what they're up to up there, can you? And you can't check it out very easily. AND we've had bad experiences in the past, with both. *AND* I was well ready to blame that new aerial. We'd paid for the top quality HD high bandwidth jobby and probably had a coat hanger up there. Tech guy recommended a local firm of aerial riggers (local to us, not him) that handle all their installations and they paid us a visit last Friday.

This is already a long story, so I'll cut to the chase - our problem lay not with the aerial, which was delivering a signal "five by five" (or strength 10 as it's actually called on the TV and the PVR) - but with how we were conveying that signal to the equipment. All those brand new cables I'd bought were... well... shite.

New aerial guys whipped us up some new cables in double-quick time and within minutes all our signal strength bars were fully green and everything was tickety-boo.

Anyone want to buy a signal booster?

There's only so many times you can say...

..."Nearly There."

But we really are. The "new new lounge" has been occupied since just before Christmas, and there's been quite a lot of progress since we were floored at the end of November.

That new radiator we were waiting for was fitted (and didn't leak), and also in this picture you can see our two new Stressless™ recliners that were delivered on Saturday. They came without hard floor protection so in the end we had to bring the carpet offcut down again for that end of the room, which will be there until the specialised sticky felt pads arrive in March.

The two other observations made obvious by this photo are that we're still waiting for the new curtains (probably worth a post in their own right as it's quite a long story) and replacement sofa (on order, due in about two weeks). Meanwhile the old brown leather sofa from the other room is performing seating duty. Well, I say old, but we've only had it a tad over four years. Nevertheless it'll be on Gumtree pretty soon. Maybe even later today.

This angle gives you a good view of the rug (yes, there's a purple theme developing :0) - it relieves the grey) and my top Christmas pressie from the lovely Nikki which has yet to be used but will undoubtedly also be the subject of future blogging. This photo also reveals that we're still undecided on a new ceiling light - we'd like it to make a statement but haven't found one that speaks loudly enough yet - and we need some kind of console table or sideboard or something for the right hand side of the fireplace.

At the other end of the room things are almost complete...

with the addition of a shiny new Panasonic TV mounted on a gorgeous BDI Avion Noir cabinet in black oak, complete with Arena cantilever bracket. This excellent piece of kit is the absolute dog's danglers in TV cabinets. The build quality is the best I've ever seen and the whole thing sits on heavy duty rubber wheels that allow it to be rolled out easily for access to the cabling, which has proved necessary on more than one occasion since first installation. Our original HDMI cables weren't long enough and our digital aerial signal needed a boost. And then I had to recable the BOSE system so it would work properly with the new kit. Probably also worth noting that both the BDI cabinet and the Stressless recliners have been bought from the proceeds of just over 18 months' eBaying activities and so were, essentially, "free."

The only thing still missing from this end of the room is a new aquarium, which we're still debating, so not quite there yet but... um... nearly.

Subtitles

Last week I was stuck in a hotel where BBC1 had been set to display subtitles without any apparent way to switch them off. This was annoying in the evening but the next morning on breakfast news it turned out to be hilarious.

One article about Russians doing a fake Mars walk ended with the presenter's comment "And all in the name of science!" which the subtitler translated into

"And all in the name of signs!"

Later, a package on the effects of bonfire night on pets included a comment by "some vets at one animal charity," which became mangled into

"Sunbeds at one animal charity..."

And in the same package when explaining that the nervous dog they wanted to "interview" was on his way into the studio but would be late on account of his owners' car having broke down, we got

"The owners kart broke down."

Being a big fan of Damn You Auto Correct I wondered whether there was a special site for subtitling howlers, but all I could find was a few blogs with examples - a bit like this one really :o) Digital Spy does have an interesting explanation about how they're done for live broadcast. An operator rereads the speech into voice recognition software, so that explains a lot!

Beyond ridiculous

Even as I start to write this I can't believe I'm (a) wasting my time with it and (b) sufficiently annoyed with what is essentially a vacuous pile of herd-fodder to bother devoting a post to it, but we just got through watching this year's X Factor "Judges' Houses" round, and I'm dumbfounded at the depths they've plumbed for the inevitable "twist."

I can't remember when it first happened and I certainly can't be bothered to look it up, but by now regular viewers of X Factor are very familiar with the concept of Manufactured Groups at boot camp.

It started one year when the number of groups being put through was pitifully low. Suddenly someone had an "idea." Let's take all these soloists that haven't quite made the grade individually, put them together and pretend they're a group! I swear one year two out of the three groups that made it through to the final rounds hadn't existed at the start of auditions (I *have* checked this, and it was series 4 - 2007 - the culprits being "Hope" and "Futureproof". I'm sure you remember them).

So we've been used to this for at least the past four years and the number of groups going through from initial auditions has continued to be... on the low side. Is anyone surprised? Why would you audition as a group when there's a very public history of the producers making groups up on the spot and giving them - effectively - a free pass to the later rounds at the expense of people who have been singing and practising together for more than a week.

Well you may have thought that was ridiculous, but here's where the title of this post comes from. Because THIS year's shenanigans have taken that level of ridiculousness and multiplied it not once, but twice.

First of all, the groups that were manufactured at boot camp were still not good enough, so right at the end, a few members from a handful of groups were given "a life line." Formed into a new stratum of meta-manufactured group made entirely from left over pieces of worn out manufactured group, these groups were then given tickets to Judges Houses. Or judge's house, in fact, since there's just the one for the groups.

With stupefying surrealism, when THOSE groups weren't good enough either, another random selection of members from two groups were given another "life line" (these really are 'cats' - and they haven't yet run out of lives) and made into a third level of uber-meta-manufactured group who then (surely not?) made it through to the final.

Like I said: beyond ridiculous.

AI & EQ

American Idol Season 10 is well under way now and I've been thinking for some time that I should comment on the changes that were rung for the 2011 version.

Indeed, regular readers may remember that I predicted, around this time last year, that 2011 would be the end of Idol following the departure of the man Cowell. Well there comes a time when all good bloggers have to eat their words and for me, this is that time. I have to say that the choice of judges to replace Cowell, along with Ellen Degeneres and Kara Italianame, has been nothing short of inspired.

Randy Jackson was always my favourite judge anyway so I was delighted he stayed. The other two empty seats were filled, as the entire televisual world must by now know, by Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. I'm not going to pretend I had a clue who Steven Tyler was before AI started this year. I mentioned a little while ago that I've never been one for learning, or even finding out about, the names of bands I listen to, although naturally (?) I had heard of Aerosmith. Didn't matter though. His unique blend of empathy, honesty, and mad-crazy wacko otherworldliness soon had me hooked and converted to a fan. He just seems to be permanently enjoying himself, which I find totally infectious.

As for Jennifer Lopez, what's not to like? Recently voted the world's most beautiful woman, not only is she easy to look at she talks a lot of sense too, so she's easy to listen to. It's sense that comes from years in the industry, a successful career on stage, and a heart that seems genuinely to want the best for the contestants and wants them to be able to produce their best work too.

So: judges? Tick. Seacrest? Tick. Well come on he's been doing it ten years. He's part of the woodwork. Production values? If anything a slightly bigger tick than before. And when you couple all that with a set of contestants that include a handful of real originals, Idol is once again back on track as far as this household is concerned. Admittedly when compared to last year's dire choices it didn't have to go far to be on a whole other level, but it could have gone either way. Now, it looks like it might be around for a few years to come.

I just have two issues left. One, it's getting harder and harder to avoid the spoilers. I've had to "hide" two or three Facebook friends for the time being, because they insist on posting the results the day before the show even airs here.

And two, there's another show that Cowell left last year. Britain's Got Talent. It starts its fourth run here this coming weekend. So with Cowell and his cohort Piers Morgan both taking the US shilling - er, nickel - and leaving us for the West Coast, how does the UK measure up in the Judge Replacement stakes when compared to the success of American Idol? Well, we got David Hasselhoff and Michael McIntyre. FFS.

Something fishy going on

Why is it that it takes a "celebrity" to tell us something is bad before there's even the ghost of a chance that anything will be done about it?

The European Union regulations about catching and landing fish have been broken for years. In an effort to "protect" species whose populations are either on the verge of crashing, or have already, they limit fishermen to a given number of thousands of tons in a year, after which it is illegal to land any more fish of that kind.

Unfortunately, none of the massed intellect of the EU agricultural and fisheries policy units was capable of realising that there are no nets in existence that can differentiate what they are catching. The nets go down, the fish come up, spill out onto the deck, die, and then - if they are "over quota" - they're thrown back into the sea. Dead.

How is that protecting populations? It isn't. How long has it been going on? Years. What's been done about it? Nothing. Until along comes Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, kicking off a campaign very much in the vein of Jamie Oliver and his Turkey Twizzlers, designed to wake everyone up to the problem and do something about it.

Laudable, and I can hardly complain about him or his campaign since he has already - allegedly - secured Tesco's agreement to moving to 100% rod-and-line caught tuna (as opposed to trawled tuna) by the end of 2012. Now, if you were a cynic, you might think "well, yes, that's two years away. Who's going to be monitoring their progress? Who's going to be shouting the odds if they don't quite manage it?" But at least something is happening. Something more than could be achieved by consumers alone.

And that's my beef, really. How is it that something so patently ludicrous, that doesn't achieve the protection it was intended to and at the same time affects the livelihoods of every European fisherman for no benefit whatever, has been allowed to carry on for so long? And why does no-one pay any attention until a bloody TV chef steps in?

In among all the posturing and self-congratulation there are some interesting statistics. 50% of the fish we all eat comes from three species - salmon, tuna & cod. Add haddock and prawns and you're up to 80%. Is it any wonder the populations can't sustain themselves, faced with automated, computerised trawlers pulling hundreds of thousands of tons of them out of the sea every year, and then throwing half of them back dead?

Over a million tons of fish a year are thrown back. Caught, dead, and unable to be landed, sold or eaten. Meanwhile stocks of sardines, herring, and white fish like whiting, hake, coley - that you really would be hard pushed to tell from cod, especially in fish fingers - are plentiful and ignored.

Well, I guess any progress is better than no progress. If you want to sign up to help his campaign (I have), it's at Fish-Fight.net, and the TV programme begins for those in the UK (or those who can watch online) tomorrow night at 9pm on Channel 4.

4K2K

Over the past ten years we've built up a fairly large DVD collection. 443 titles at the last count, although to be accurate approaching 100 of those are in the "eBay" pile. We like movies, there have been some irresistible deals during that time, and we actively enjoy watching well-loved films over. Something, incidentally, that my mother could never understand. To me, a good film is like a good piece of music. If you can listen to the one over and over again and enjoy it every time, why not watch the same film more than once? Fair enough if it's something - like Unbreakable or Sixth Sense - that pretty much relies on the shock value of a single scene for its impact, then subsequent viewings will not have the same impact. But the story is still there. The cinematography, the dialogue, the plot, etc. And for many of our favourites the emotional journey remains unabated after several repeats.

We were late onto the High Def, BluRay bandwagon. Having lived through the VHS/Betamax wars of last century I didn't want to be bitten again by backing the wrong technology, and it was pretty clear from early on that one of them would win, eventually. In the end I think that win was brought forward by the manufacturers' realisation that the uncertainty was causing most consumers - like us - to avoid purchasing at all until there was some clarity in the market.

Once BluRay won, we did start to buy the odd High Def version. Not exclusively - the picture quality from an upscaled SD disc is still perfectly acceptable - but for blockbusters where HD really makes the action pop; and for well-loved movies that had not yet been added to the collection and were available on a deal, then we would opt for BluRay.

But wait! What's this? I hear we may as well all abandon any attempts to replace our DVD collections with BluRay no matter how relaxed an approach we were taking to it. They're already obsolete. Or, if not quite "already" then soon. For here comes "4K2K" - the adopted handle of the next level of definition, offering 4096 x 2160 pixels (so an alternative nomenclature comparable to the current 1080p would be 2160p) on screens of increasingly ridiculous size.

So as well as allowing, for instance, Panasonic to develop a mind-boggling 152-inch plasma screen to exploit the new definition, it will allow crisper images on more prosaically-sized sets, although there is some debate about whether the difference will be noticeable on home-sized screens. More philosophically, the availability of the next technology curve always implies a reduction in price for the "old" technologies, so those who've waited for their HD 1080p screens may soon get their chance to pick one up much cheaper.

At the moment, and predictably, the format is not compatible with BluRay, and for us, with probably another 10 years life left in our 50-inch plasma, it's a technology leap too far. We will be watching interestedly from the sidelines though :o)

The Z Factor

I haven't written much about this year's X Factor. In fact, on checking, I haven't written anything at all about X Factor on this blog, ever. Which is strange for someone who used to write between 1 and 5 "TV critic" posts a day on TV Scoop. Why is that, I wonder? Well the title of this post might give you a clue. I honestly don't think I've seen such an array of total bollocks claiming to be singers in my life, and last night reached the absolute nadir of the dregs of the pit of Hades.

"Rock Night" it claimed to be, so you'll pardon me for expressing some surprise at the collection of bland ballads we were subjected to, all (naturally) greeted with effervescent enthusiasm by the four judges who are, apparently, increasingly losing the plot when it comes to having any discernable clue what they're listening to. Take, for example, Rebecca. One of the best of the bad bunch, I'd have to agree, but what's with Dannii's comments? The acts performed two songs last night, as we're getting down to smaller numbers now and they need to pad the show out a bit to maximise the ad revenues. So for her first song, Rebecca, as is her wont, stood rigidly behind the microphone and sang sweetly. "That was nice," Dannii enthused, "but I'd like to see a little more performance. You know, move about a bit." (I'm paraphrasing). So here's Rebecca's second number, where she stood rigidly behind the microphone and sang sweetly. And a couple of times, still standing on the spot, swayed her hips a bit. "Now THAT's the kind of performance I was looking for!" gushed Dannii. HUH?

But it would be wrong to single out Dannii in the stupid comments stakes. They're all just as bad as each other, trotting out the same old (and I mean... OLD) clichés time after time, making it their own, believable, relevant, true recording artist, with a liberal smattering of the usual "do you know what"s and "let me tell you"s added in to make absolutely sure that we all fall asleep.

If I didn't believe this show had jumped the shark before, I certainly reached that conclusion very early on in this series. The "vote for the worst" campaign has literally its worst contestant this year in Wagner, and while the thought of "sticking it to the man" is mildly amusing and diverting it doesn't make up for the pain of having to sit - sorry "fast forward" - through his performances week after week. The predictable stories of judges' in-fighting, vote rigging, and production hoopla to keep the most controversial contestants in the show as long as possible have verged on the disgusting this year, but above all the media hype towers the dark truth of an almost incredible lack of serious talent in the line-up.

Of all last night's dross only Matt Cardle's Nights in White Satin (or "Knights..." as the ITV X Factor home page has it this morning. LOL) came anywhere close to being what I would call a half-decent performance by a new artist and even that started off weak and ended up edging towards a shout. And yet after every screeching, out of tune, boring repetition of songs we've heard a million times before, we're treated to the spectacle of four "experts" telling us we're listening to pure gold, when it's clear to anyone who can be bothered to open up their eyes and ears that they're watching, at best, glorified karaoke without a shred of originality and only the merest hint of musicality every so often.

Come on, Cowell. Haven't you made enough money yet? Piss off to America with this worn out formulaic crap, and give us our Saturday nights and our traditional Christmas No. 1s back again.

OB

I may have ranted about this before (although I've checked, and I can't put my finger on the post at the moment), but one edition of the evening news last week really brought it into sharp focus. The problem? Outside broadcasts as a way of lending faux "realism" to news items. It does my head in on a regular basis, but on this particular night we were treated to three in quick succession.

Coverage of the inquest into the London Tube bombings? Let's have the reporter standing outside Aldgate tube station.
Wayne Rooney possibly leaving Man U? Stand outside Old Trafford.
Reporting the latest on the Government Spending Review? Stand outside Number 10.

WTF? The BBC have just had a 5-year licence freeze imposed and are supposedly wringing their hands trying to work out how to save money. Well apart from the obvious - cutting the salaries of prats like Graham Norton, Chrisses Moyles and Evans, et al - you could start by bringing these reporters in out of the cold. It adds a sum total of zero importance, content, or gravitas to a news report to have a reporter on location if all they are doing is standing and talking to the camera. They may as well be in the studio. They'd be warmer, happier and more relaxed. The viewing public wouldn't be subjected to that annoying satellite delay between the anchor handing over to the reporter and the reporter hearing that handover and starting his/her report. And most importantly in these straitened times, the Beeb would save a whole bundle of cash.

I don't know who thought up the idea of OB as a generic news coverage staple, probably someone with a vested interest in increasing the number of OBs, but it was a bad idea right from the off and it should be stopped. Now.

Commercial-Time

I've been trying to work out why I found the adverts on Canadian TV so intrusive and irritating. Canadian Broadcasting limits advertising to 15 mins per hour on commercial channels, but "only" 12 minutes per hour on "Specialty" channels. However those numbers apply to real commercials - i.e. those advertising product. From my admittedly brief exposure, it doesn't cover trailers. And it doesn't excuse the extremely annoying habit - something we don't have in the UK - of running the same ad twice in the same break - sometimes only 30 seconds apart - or running very similar ads, such as hair care products for two different types of hair, which have almost identical wording, serially. The worst we ever get is a repeat of the last few seconds of an ad - these agency types have learned their lessons about the way memory works - to "fix" the product in viewers' minds, but these almost always run at the end of the ad break, separated from the original by up to three or four minutes.

One evening I finally managed to watch a movie from beginning to end. Aliens. It was scheduled to air over three hours, which given its posted running time on IMDb of 137 mins leaves 43 mins for ads - 14.33 per hour. But they're not evenly split. The first hour felt almost like UK television. The first break didn't come until 20 past the hour, and the next was twenty minutes later, each one showing only 3-4 minutes of ads. I should have been wise. As the film continued, the frequency of breaks increased, to the point where the last half-hour of the film suffered three breaks of five minutes each.

I have no idea how the law constrains the incidence of ads. My Aliens experience would suggest that rather than being a rigid per-hour limit, that "15 minutes per hour" is an average. Being allowed to relax the grip of ads in some hours only to tighten it fiercely later, destroys any enjoyment.

I used to think I'd be able to live in Canada. That I'd actually quite enjoy it. But if I ever had to, I don't think I'd be watching any live TV. I'd be PVR-ing everything and spending a lot of time with my finger on the FF button!!

Notes on a trip to Toronto

I've been away. We've been away. I did have access to a puter during this hiatus, but I didn't feel much like blogging (apart from that piece about Bob Edwards), and to be honest I haven't felt much like it since we got back (a week ago last Tuesday - October 12 - in the early hours of the morning. Jet lag? Maybe, a little. Holiday? Maybe, a little. Blogging can feel like work at times, which since I still entertain aspirations to be a full-time writer should probably be classed as A Good Thing, but who wants to work when they're on holiday? Especially when there's all that Coronation Street, EastEnders, Casualty, X Factor, Strictly and Spooks on the PVR that needs catching up with?

I wouldn't want to give the impression that we spent the whole of our remaining six holiday days in front of the TV. No, we went for the occasional walk. Did a bit of grocery shopping. Had lunch. But there was an awful lot of telly, it's true.

I think I might have been in awe of the raw *quality* of it all. After 12 days of Canadian TV I was starting to feel a bit like a vegetable. After being in a pressure cooker. And then a blender. And having been forced through a sieve. The chance to watch some British TV was like stepping into cool water after the burning heat of the desert.

So I made some notes in here while I was there (hence the title of this post) about my general impression of things that have changed in the five or six years since I was last in Toronto. Some of these will eventually be fully fledged posts in their own right. What remains in here is just jottings really.

The Americanisation of Canadian news - oh my GAAAHHD. I don't ever remember it being so breathless and repetitive. Maybe I was watching a US cable channel. Can't remember. Actually a lot of the really bad stuff I sat through WAS American. Endless sport, gameshows where the contestants are forced to clap incessantly like performing seals (Wheel of Fortune), adverts repeated twice in quick succession in the same break, breaks five minutes apart.

The litter. We've had this problem in the UK for as long as I can remember, but I always had this mental image of Canada being *clean*. I don't know if they've had to cut expenditure on street cleaners, or whether the younger generation is going the same way as much of England's youth - dropping their drinks cans and candy wrappers as soon as they've consumed the contents, no matter where that happens to be (I drove behind a carful of youths the other day, who seemed to think it was great fun to continue scouring the inside of the vehicle for bits of rubbish which they then dumped out of the windows) - or a combination of the two, but the streets around where we stayed were definitely besmirched. 

Cigarettes behind the wall. Apparently they've passed a law now preventing the display of tobacco products in corner shops, newsagents, convenience stores, etc. So instead they have row upon row of little grey plastic shutters behind the counter, which the cigarettes hide behind until the shop keeper rescues them at the request of the customer. I'd be interested to see the statistics on what effect this has on smoker numbers and consumption.

Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe the reason for our trip hung over our entire stay, leeching out much of the fun, but whatever the cause, this time round, I found Canada lacked a lot of the magic that I've come to expect from it.

Flasher

I've long been of the opinion that just because you CAN do something, it doesn't mean you HAVE to.

If only BBC programme designers shared that opinion.

Recently we've been subjected to a series of really annoying animations on BBC News output. Whenever they put up a list to underline whatever point the talking head is making, each list item is accompanied by a matched pair of brackets - [ ] - that appear over the middle of the item and then gradually fade out as they slide apart heading for the start and end of the word respectively.

This is the wonderful world of Flash animation. A tool that has its place (probably) and can be very effective (occasionally) but which is so overused and ubiquitous now that it's become a joke. It is no longer clever or cool, assuming it ever was. It's been used in the title sequences of dramas for several years, as the actors names slide over each other in opposite directions, fading in or out as necessary. Or expanding as they fade - a trick that belongs in Flash 101.

None of this adds anything to the piece, whether it's a credit sequence or a news graphic or whatever. It's a distraction, and an expensive distraction at that, as it presumably requires the services of a graphic designer. Still, I guess the producers figure they've got all these graphic designers sitting around, right? May as well use them for something. And if you don't need a pie-chart for your particular piece, what are you gonna do? Go on, stick some Flash animation to the viewers. At least the more moronic ones will be impressed.

Beeb under fire

The culture and media Secretary has recently announced a review of the BBC by the Audit Office, which potentially may result in a reduction of the licence fee. Cue the predictable whining about "Tory cuts" from socialists and luvvies both within and without the Beeb, and the raising of spectres of shredded drama budgets and how we need to "protect our beloved and sacred Beeb from the wicked Tory axe."

I'd like to peer for a moment behind the curtain of party political bollocks and bring some calm rationality to the debate. Before we start I should nail my colours to the mast: I'm a firm fan of the BBC. I willingly pay my licence fee, and am happy that for the princely sum of 40p per day I get access to a load of quality, ad-free output, as well as a load of other crap I wouldn't watch, or listen to, in a million years. But hey, there are 26 million households also forking out their 40p a day and they're perfectly entitled to watch crap if they want to.

But that's not what this is about.

1. Every publicly-funded organisation, government department, local authority, or whatever is coming under financial scrutiny right now. To suggest that the BBC, which is effectively (if indirectly) funded by public money, should be exempt from this scrutiny just because it's in the "arts and entertainment" sector, is patently ridiculous. We're paying for it, we should be assured that we're getting value for our money. We can debate how that value is perceived in the BBC's dramatic or entertainment output, and I don't for one second believe the government should (or even can) impose any controls over that, but on the business side Auntie should be as well run as possible, and should be able to prove it.
2. Every large organisation embodies a proportion of waste. It's as inevitable as a thunderstorm in an English summer. Some are better than others but ALL will have some waste in them somewhere, and the longer the time that elapses between audits, the worse that waste will be. Whether it's more efficient procurement, industry standard benchmarking of costs and remuneration, better management structures, more effective administration and on, and on, every business can benefit from close scrutiny from time to time. The Beeb is no different in this respect, and a lot of the savings could, I predict, be made without impacting the core BBC business - radio and television output - at all. (Whether or not they WILL be implemented in this way depends on how much the implementers have a political axe to grind. I wouldn't, for instance, put it past some people to try to trash something like The Archers to give "the cuts" the maximum profile and impact among the listening public)
3. While we're on the subject of "core BBC business" - what is it that we actually expect from the BBC? What is the BBC FOR? Because as time goes on, simple focus on that key question can be lost, and corporations of the size of the BBC can easily fall into a mindset of "here's how much money the licence fee generates, now how can we spend it?" Which will usually lead, over time, to growth in non-core sectors of the business, leeching money from the pot and generating apparently legitimate business cases for ever-increasing licence fees. It's good every so often to take a step back and examine what direction the Beeb is moving in: what business, what outputs, what is really important? What do we - the people who pay for it - want it to be for? 
4. I hope the auditors will examine the thorny issue of "competitive salaries". No matter how much the corporation's leaders bleat about it, the BBC is not in competition with commercial media. They should exercise some discretion and play on the cachet of working for Britain's best-loved entertainment provider. The most high profile example of a hyperinflated salary deal was Jonathon Ross's £6million-a-year wedge, but he's gone now, so who's next in the firing line? Whoever it is, they don't need to be paid that much. Other recent examples of well-reported leavers - Brummie tosser Adrian Chiles and his vacuous sidekick Christine Bleakley - have been gone for a while. Do we miss them? No. Are their replacements paid as much as they were? No. Has that made a difference to the "quality" (*cough*) of The One Show? No. I rest my case. Anyone - and I use that word advisedly - anyone can present a TV programme. Assuming they can read. They are not "celebrities." They are not "stars." In a way, they're a bit like receptionists. They sit at the notional front desk of TV programmes and show people where to go. And we all know how well-valued receptionists are, don't we? TV presenters deserve similar wages. There, that's a few million lopped off the budget right there.
5. Finally - because this is turning (has turned?) into a lengthy diatribe and you'll be wanting your lunch - on the subject of licence refunds. It's been said that if and when the audit finds significant savings, these will be given back to the licence payer as a refund. No, thanks. I think I'm on pretty safe ground when I suggest that the overwhelming majority of licence payers can do without the couple of quid a year they would probably get back. Keep it. Make some good programmes with it. Don't give it to Ross, or Norton, or Wogan, or Chiles or anyone like them. Don't set up a new department. Don't buy a new manager, director, or executive. Make more programmes. Make better programmes. That's all we want from the Beeb, really. Isn't it?

The future's bleak; the future's Bleakley

Warning: rant coming.

In the news recently, speculation that Christine Bleakley is on the verge of signing a new 2-year deal with the BBC worth £1million. An increase of £100,000 a year over her current pay. Shortly after that, news that Bleakley had issued a statement denying this rumour, and stating that she had received offers from both BBC and ITV and was "torn."

Until a couple of weeks ago, my impression of Bleakley was based entirely on her 2008 appearance on Strictly Come Dancing. Personable enough. Made an effort to learn the dances. Usual media speculation about romantic entanglements with her partner. I never watched her on The One Show because I couldn't (still can't) stand her sidekick Adrian Chiles. A talentless buffoon hiding behind faux blokey "charm" who could get right up my nose within milliseconds of being subjected to his pudgy face spouting inanities in a Brummie accent.

Since Chiles left, we've risked the odd half-hour with The One Show. Bland pap for the early evening, when the schedulers must think everyone's rushing to cook and scarf their evening meals in between the regional news and the soaps, and anyone left watching will be easily entertained with a few talking heads and content-free general interest stories.

So has my impression of Christine changed since I've watched her in her natural habitat? Not really. To be honest I can't see what all the fuss is about. She looks relatively pretty, sits on a sofa, smiles and reads an autocue. In a Northern Irish accent, which for some reason virtually guarantees that media luvvies will be falling over themselves to give her air time. Can't understand the attraction myself, but each to his own.

So nurses are worth something like 20 grand a year, police and firemen a bit more. But if you're a vacuous bimbo who can smile and read at the same time, you can get a job with the Beeb and be paid half a MILLION pounds a year. Of our money.

Oh no, sorry. To be entirely accurate you can WRING YOUR HANDS  and be publicly "TORN" about whether you want to accept the offer of half a million pounds, or whether you'd rather run off to the competition for probably a bit MORE dosh, and the chance to once again share the same sofa with an old mate.

I must be missing something, but what is it she actually does that is so difficult? I'm experiencing that stress that one gets when the perceived value of something doesn't match the actual money involved. Let's just hope that the BBC aren't sucked into a bidding war for this non-entity. If she decides to go, let her. If ITV think she's worth more than half a million a year, and their advertising revenues can stand it - with people deserting the channel in their millions and those still watching fast-forwarding through the ads with their PVRs - let them have her. It's June, and university finals are finishing all over the country. Within a few weeks there'll be hundreds of media studies, journalism, drama, and similar graduates tipping out onto the job market. I'd wager there's at least a dozen in that bunch who are (a) as attractive as Bleakley; (b) can read; and (c) would jump at the chance to take her place for one-tenth of the wedge she's on.

Another American Idol disappears without trace

Exactly as I predicted, last week, Lee Dewyze was crowned American Idol 2010, beating Crystal Bowersox into second place.

For me, this year's AI "season" was notable for two things: the paucity of talent in the "top 12" (despite the judges repeating over and over how this was one of their "strongest years ever" it so clearly wasn't true), and how obvious it was from a long way out that the final would be - not quite a repeat exactly; more an echo - of last year's, with a mediocre but popular guy (last year it was Kris... er... what was his name again?) with a so-so voice winning out over a true, unique artist (Adam Lambert).

I don't think the similarities will end with the final. In the same way that Lambert has gone on to have a multi-platinum first album and a sell-out world tour, I predict Crystal's career will go from strength to strength on the back of "losing" one of the biggest talent shows in the world, whereas Dewyze will soon become as forgotten outside the US as whatsisname.

Why is that? Well anyone who watched the final show shouldn't need telling. Lee failed to really deliver on any one of his three songs - even the one that will become his first single now that he's won - appearing nervous and confused for most of his performances which ended up being as dull as ditchwater. Crystal on the other hand nailed every single one of her songs, received raved reviews from the judges (including a standing ovation from Ellen), and lit up the auditorium with some great performances. Still true to herself after all these months, she was an artist when she entered the competition and an artist she will remain.

So why didn't she win? Because the final is not a singing contest, it's a popularity contest. And most of the votes come from tweenie girls. They didn't get behind Adam Lambert last year (even though, even more than Crystal, he was so far ahead of his rival he may as well have been on a different planet) because he's gay, and they didn't get behind Crystal because she's a woman. Listen back to the opening of the Finale show when Ryan Seacrest asks the audience "who's here for Crystal, and who's here for Lee?" The cheers after each question make it sound like Lee fans outnumbered Crystal fans at least 2 to 1. Crazy, but there you go.

There is another, more Machiavellian, explanation that I've been known to proffer on occasion. It depends whether or not you believe the voting is rigged (or ignored). And that is that the producers long ago worked out that having a strong artist come second, and a weaker one winning, means they make more money. The stronger artist will have a career whether they win or not. The weaker NEEDS to be the winner to have a career at all. Simple, albeit cynical, mathematics. And cynicism or not this is now such a well-established pattern as to be as credible as any other explanation.

I should perhaps add one more thing that this year's Idol is notable for. The last appearance by Simon Cowell. I totally agree with the prediction by another blogger I read this week: that his leaving is certain death for American Idol. It will limp on for one more season, shedding its audience throughout the series as they realise the show has lost its edge without Cowell, and the tenth Idol will be the last.

The unkindest cut

News of US TV's autumn schedule reached these shores yesterday, bringing with it the now inevitable stories of the "canning" of two series we've been following.

Heroes had its share of problems over four series, but the most recent outing seemed to us to be back on track, having solved the issues with way too many characters and yawnorama powers, and introduced a credible villain with an interesting goal to rival Sylar. We'd started to enjoy it again just in time to see it disappear forever.

FlashForward, on the other hand, has never been anything but intriguing. It didn't have a duff series, or a doldrums period, it has a wealth of subplot, well-drawn characters, and good writing. But it too failed to fire the US public's imagination in sufficient numbers for the network to consider keeping it going.

So these two highlights of our viewing hours join the swelling ranks of good sci-fi that has ended before its time. Firefly, The 4400, Farscape, Stargate: Atlantis, Invasion, Surface. A swift Google is all that's needed to find other similar stories, and forums stuffed with legions of fans bemoaning their loss and asking why. Those last two on my list are another example of series that were paired in our house - we watched them in parallel and we saw them die in parallel, killed off in the same season a few years back. We never even had chance to get into Firefly on broadcast media before it was killed off, discovering it on DVD long after the dust had settled on one of the most inventive,original and widely-missed series ever.

So how long can US TV remain broken like this? Time after time creating and then pissing off multiple fan-bases that stretch all across the world? Would it really be so hard to solve a problem that arises solely from the intersection between the short-termism of the producers and commissioning editors, and the relatively recent attempt by writers to introduce multi-series story arcs (Lost the most obvious example) without being able to fill them with TV compelling enough to command audience figures that will satisfy the networks? At the very least let's have some degree of completion at the end of each series (to hedge our bets against the "rest of the story" never being made) or a commitment to always allow a one-off "special" to be made to tie up any loose ends.

It may be too much to ask that US TV networks wake up to the notion that it may not even be possible to sustain audience figures when there are so many other avenues of entertainment open. Even the most popular UK TV shows have seen audiences dwindle in recent years. If our TV was produced along US lines we'd have seen the end of many of our longest-running shows long before now.

I can't really get the hang of this blogging lark

I always seem to be two weeks behind with this. I watched Steve Davis finish his first round match against Mark King in the 2010 World Snooker championships last week and wanted to put something in writing about how impressed I'd been, not just with his performance - still managing to win matches at this level at the age of 52 and on his 30th appearance at the Crucible; still committed enough to put in the hours of practice he must need to counteract the loss of visual acuity and muscle tone that the ticking clock must bring - but with the reaction of the crowd. The standing ovations as he entered the arena were really very moving. The entire audience recognising his achievements not only on the table but as an ambassador for snooker in particular and sportsmanship in general, in a way I can't imagine them doing for any other player.

But despite starting that post last week, I never got around to finishing it. A few days passed, Steve won his second round match and made it to the quarters. A fantastic achievement that energised the whole competition. There were reports of people stopping him in the street to congratulate him, and somehow the lights over the baize seemed to shine brighter and the balls on the table were more colourful in the reflected glory of his success.

The dream stopped at the quarter finals, where he was beaten by the guy who would eventually go on to win - Australian Neil Robertson. Throughout all that drama I either couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to put finger to keyboard, or I was in the Lakes, away from the computer.

You may have spotted that I couldn't possibly have known that Neil Robertson won on the date this post was made. It didn't happen until the Bank Holiday Monday after we returned from the Lakes. I'm writing this up on the 7th of May, and that's what I mean by being two weeks behind. This has turned (or has always been) more of a retrospective record of events than a blog, and it's beginning to do my head in.

Trouble is, whenever I enjoy a spurt (of writing activity I mean) and catch up, this will inevitably be followed by a period where there's nothing to write about, or a total dearth of enthusiasm. Back the pendulum swings and I'm two weeks behind again. >sigh< I guess there are more important things to worry about :-\

Raging against the machine

Bloody brilliant.

Whether you like Killing In The Name or not, whether you hate Simon Cowell or not, whether you watch X Factor or not, whether you'd rather poke your own eardrums into your brain than listen to a charmless, tuneless, passionless, charismaless cover of the blandest of bland Miley Cyrus numbers or not, there's no denying the reality of people power.

This was never about who makes the money, who owns the songs, or whether the charts are a fading anachronism of yesteryear. It was all about flicking the finger at the man who never listens to music in his own home, yet thinks he has the right to dictate what we listen to in ours, every Christmas. Well, he doesn't.

Like I said, bloody brilliant.

And if you can't find two better singers out of 200,000 entrants than the wired jiggler Olly-the-Essex-boy Murs and the Bland Balladeer McDingleberry maybe it's time to call time on the X Factor, which became a parody of itself several series ago.

The agony

Had a small windfall the other day, so we decided to treat ourselves to a PS3 Slim. We've been umming and ahhing for a while over BluRay players, and we know from mates' experience that the PS3 is one of, if not the best player on the market.

What really swung it for us though was a couple of recent examples where our Toppy failed to record some favourite programme or other. Not only does the PS3 come fully wireless enabled, but it also plays BBC iPlayer directly on the telly. The fact that it also "does games" is nothing but an added bonus. We've had this massive plasma screen over four years and never once had a High Definition signal through it, so the prospect of The Dark Knight in HD was positively mouth-watering.

The box itself was delivered yesterday and the rest of the gubbins (HDMI cable, various controllers and a game) arrived today. Even so, I'd intended to wait until tomorrow to set it all up, but certain of the younger members of the family were already visibly drooling so I cast caution to the wind and set about cabling it up after dinner. I should have listened to my inner paraskevidekatriaphobe. Friday the 13th is no day to be getting complicated electronical paraphernalia hooked up.

It all sounded so simple in the book. Connect up the HDMI cable - OR the component video cable - and Robert is your mother's brother. Only with the HDMI cable connected the telly showed nothing but a whole lot of black, and with the component video cable the result was a different set of black that looked almost indistinguishable from the first lot.

Our screen being an older version of the Pioneer PDP505-XDE, all of the connections go through a media box, which has two sets of connectors for component in. I tried the other set. Bingo! Er... well... not "bingo" exactly. More "go bin". The picture from the PS3 was in black and white! And very grainy. Still, it was enough to run through the set-up procedures, download the odd firmware upgrade and that sort of thing. We even tried The Dark Knight for a few painful seconds.

Four years' waiting for this?! It's enough to make a grown man cry.

A long way to climb

The new series of Strictly Come Dancing started last night here on UK TV, amid a huge media hoo-ha regarding the replacement of long-time judge and dance expert Arlene Phillips with 2007 winner Alesha Dixon (pictured). Were the BBC being ageist as some commenters claimed? Were they trying to redress the overwhelming whiteness of the panel and meet their ethnic quota? Or were they just after another bit of eye candy to brighten the programme up for the blokes?

There's no doubting that Dixon ticks all those boxes - young, black and attractive - but are any of these suitable credentials for joining a panel of judges whose job it is to critique a dancing competition? Judging by her performance last night, I'd have to say no. And judging by the reported reaction of the television audience, forum and chat room posts, and media critics in all their various flavours, I wouldn't be alone. Thousands of nos have been resounding up and down the country. Compared to the knowledge and experience of her fellow panel members - Craig Revel-Horwood (dancer, choreographer, theatre director), Bruno Tonioli (dancer, choreographer), and head judge Len Goodman (four times British champion Exhibition dancer, dance teacher and professional judge) - her single credential is having won the competition itself two years ago.

So having her comments restricted to knowing "how the contestants are feeling," enthusing about the way they relate to each other, and agreeing with the other judges tells us nothing more than we can see for ourselves.

Question is, will the BBC be big enough to admit their mistake, climb down, and offer Arlene her old seat back for the next series? Because for now, a lot of the sparkle seems to have gone out of Strictly, and putting more sequins on the costumes won't help.