India Knight on Moat
India Knight in The Sunday Times, is one of my favourite columnists. Today, she turns her attention to the monstrous Raoul Moat and domestic violence. She feels that we don’t take the latter seriously enough!
We don’t! C practiced at the bar long enough to see this odious crime come down the generations, just as child abuse does.
To me, violence has no place in life, except in somewhere like the boxing ring under the proper rules.
Is It a Good Idea to Cut the BBC Licence Fee?
There are reports today, that the government is wanting to cut the BBC licence fee, as we must all make sacrifices in these hard times.
Obviously, it could be good for the country, but we must make sure that the quality of the BBC’s output doesn’t decline.
My viewing habits are I think fairly typical of someone, who is male and reasonably well off, as I have a subscription to Sky Sports, and digital television and a Sky+ recorder.
- I watch football, cricket, tennis and sometimes other sports on Sky.
- If sport is on the BBC, I usually watch it. Because there is nothing else to do today, I’m watching the golf, but I’d prefer to be watching football, cricket, tennis or athletics.
- I never watch soaps or any drama series that require you to see all episodes. Even things like Spooks, which I do like, I rarely watch.
- I watch intelligent quizzes, like Mastermind, University Challenge and QI and sometimes inane ones like Shooting Stars.
- I always check BBC3 and BBC4 for intelligent or interesting programs.
- I watch old comedy and rarely any new stuff, except for things like Have I Got News For You.
- I watch the repeat channels like Dave, for repeats of programs I like.
- I rarely watch films on television, as you should see them in a proper cinema.
- I never watch anything other than sport with adverts.
- I watch a lot of documentaries and history programs.
- I watch a lot of news programs and always start the day with BBC Breakfast.
- I don’t watch property, gardening and makeover shows
- I only watch ITV, if I’m really desperate.
- I listen a lot to BBC Radio 5 Live and I often contribute to programmes with e-mails.
So cutting the licence fee would not affect my viewing much, unless shows that I liked weren’t made anymore. I worry about BBC Radio 5 and BBC Sport going to Manchester, as I think that could reduce the quality, as the good commentators and production staff, might not want to move north. One northern-born Radio 5 presenter said as much very stridently in an off-air comment, that a microphone picked up. If the north was so good, it would create more jobs without government subsidy, just like London and the greater South East does.
I hope too, that BBC cuts don’t mean that the BBC dumb downs. In fact cuts should mean that programs like East Enders, which are expensive to make should be replaced by something less inane, that would hopefully give ambition and perhaps a degree of education and enlightenment to those less fortunate than myself.
But what we really need is a better way to collect the licence, so that everybody pays and thus it could be reduced without atually reducing the total take to the BBC. Years ago, I proposed a Reverse TV Licence, where the BBC was paid for out of general taxation and if you didn’t have a TV, you got a payment from the government.But with technology now, we could go a lot better. Especially, as we’re all going to have to go digital and many of us will go to satellite or the Internet. Remember, many of us, pay a large subscription for all sorts of services on our mobile phone, but think that all television, music and film should be free.
One thing that has to be born in mind though, is that if the BBC cuts its budget and staff, many of the people affected will not just give up. They will form their own production companies and make innovative programmes, that will probably broadcast through the Internet. The good ones will be found and promoted by the broadcasters and the amount of material generally available that is worth watching and listening to will increase.
One point, I should make, is that the BBC sought my cooperation in a new program project. It droned on for a couple of years and they must have spent a fortune to get no program at all. The program commissioning at the BBC is in my experience, a complete waste of space. It would be so much better if independent companies took all the risk and then presented them to the BBC and others to broadcast. It would not be easy, but in the end, we’d get much better and more affordable television.
I think it is true to say, that some of the best programs, I have seen over the last few years, were created by independents and promoted by the likes of the BBC and Channel 4.
We live in interesting times.
Why I Don’t Like Paper Blowing About!
Over the last few weeks, we have had it very hot some days and various people felt it was a good idea to open the kitchen door to the garden. I don’t like it, as it tends to blow the odd bits of paper, such as newspapers, shopping lists and part-finished Sudoku that were lying about, all over the place! So now it’s colder, I’m glad to get the door shut again.
I was thinking about this a couple of nights ago.
As regular readers will know, my father was a letterpress printer. Just as photocopiers do it sometimes, printing machines in those days were liable to monumental paper jams. These were much more serious with those machines, as in bad cases they actually damaged the lead type. Paper often went everywhere propelled by the feed mechanisms. They were a time-consuming and dirty thing to sort out. I didn’t do that much machine minding, as he thought that a bit dangerous for a vhild, but say on Sunday mornings, when we were working in Wood Green, I would be called in, if the Thompson had had a major jam.
So perhaps all of that panic and flying paper has left a mark on my mind, and it is better to not let the paper start blowing about.
I don’t like draughts either and abhor the habit some people have of opening windows to let the air through. If I want fresh air, I’ll go out and get it!
I Suppose I Could Watch the Golf
Weekends are bad for me, as I can’t drive, there is no pub within walking distance, so except for the stud staff, the paper lady and the postman, I won’t see anyone else for two days.
Not that I’m that bothered, as I will walk a bit in the fields with Lizzie. The weather doesn’t look that good, so I’ll probably just watch the television. Sport is mainly golf, although I do see that there is an exciting clash in the Russian Premier League, between Spartak Moscow and Rubin Kazan on ESPN, who report English football as bad as ITV. So I know that their Russian offering will be totally rubbish, with the commentators probably in a cosy studio.
I do have other creative things to do though and I will report as the day progresses.
Fraud from Russia Concerning Amazon
I have had a lot of e-mails purporting to say that I have ordered something on Amazon. I know they are not genuine orders, as they come to an e-mail I never use for orders, but watch for e-mails.
They are baed on a fake AMazon web site, with a Russian domain name.
Be careful, as if you are a regular Amazon purchaser, your account has a valid credit card.
So login to the real Amazon, change your password and if you can, change your e-mail to something that you reserve for purchases over the web.
I Just Broke a Glass
I was drinking a glass of wine, when I wrote the last post. Because I make so many typing mistakes and have to correct them, I constantly shift from side-to-side on my chair, as I have to hit backspace all the time and then correct all of the mess created by inadvertant control keystrokes. The outcome was that the phone cable got tangled in my chair and as I pushed against it, the desk moved backwards and the glass which was in a safe place to my right toppled over. It may have been actually toppled by a fly-spray canister that was handy to zap the aerial irritants, inhabitating my office.
So no harm done really and it’s the first accident for about a week. I think, I’ll log them, as it would be progress to do a month without a problem. At least my little cordless Dyson mopped up all the broken glass, I couldn’t pick up with my right hand.
But it just goes to show, how frustrating computing is for a man with a gammy left hand! I believe that if I get the keyboard driver I want, it will improve my life in a very positive way.
Getting Emotional
Since the last stroke, I sometimes get a bit emotional. When people ask how I am and they say nice things, sometimes it can make me cry. But then I’ve been through a lot with the death of C and our youngest son and the strokes haven’t helped.
But then I’ve always been a bit like that. This piece is from the book I wrote about life with C.
There are quite a few people, places and events that have radically altered the way that I think and how I conduct my life. One event was the death of Jan Palach in Czechoslovakia. He committed suicide by setting himself on fire in Wenceslas Square on January the nineteenth, 1969, as a protest against the Soviet invasion.
I swore to C that one day, I would stand in Wenceslas Square in a totally free and liberated Czechoslovakia.
With the coming of Go, British Airways low-cost airline started by Barbara Cassani, Prague was suddenly a short flight away from Stansted. I should have gone earlier, as the Velvet Revolution that had ousted the Soviet-backed Communist regime had been ten years before.
But I hadn’t and I regret that.
We stayed at the Hoffmeister, which has all the charm and service expected of a Relais & Châteaux hotel. It was seriously good and from reading reports on the Internet, it still appears to be.
The weekend was our thirty-third wedding anniversary, but I have no recollection of where or what we ate on the seventh. All I do know is that the food and wine was excellent throughout the time we were in Prague.
But it was to stand in Wenceslas Square that was one of the main reasons that we had gone to Prague.
I cried!
And I cried buckets!
Will I ever be able to do the same in Harare, Rangoon and the many other places in this world, where people are oppressed and murdered by the state?
I wrote that in probably about January 2008 soon after C died. Do I feel the same now? Perhaps, I actually feel stronger about the last statement, as there are other places I could add to the list.
I sometimes wonder how C felt about Jan Palach! She booked that trip and she knew how I felt. But remember too, than he was only 15 days older than she was!
Perhaps I should return to Prague? I will only do that, when there are no more demons in my mind, dragons to slay and goals to fulfil.
In other words, I never will return!
Rough Aunties
This looks like a film to be worth seeing, according to the review in The Times.
I shall try and see it!
Nepotism – Tajik Style
This report says it all.
You may not be able to read it unless you have a subscription to The Times, but if you can’t just type “Zarrina Rakhmonova” into Google. There are several reports of her becoming a TV newsreader, in Tajikistan, where her father is president. Apparently, her brother, Rustam, is a professional footballer and a Member of Parliament. It would be interesting to see if he ever gets a red card. Incidentally, the national football team has a FIFA ranking of 135.
Annuity Rules to be Scrapped
You save all your life and create an adequate pension pot and then at 75, you have to turn it into an annuity, ehich in many cases would be like using twenty pound notes to keep warm in winter. But now the government has stated that it will abolish this rule according to the BBC.
The government has outlined its plans to scrap the long-standing compulsory deadline for people buying an annuity.
Present rules state that those with a personal or company money purchase pension must buy an annuity once they hit the age of 75.
In the Budget, the government changed this age from 75 to 77, and now it has outlined plans to abolish the deadline.
I’ll believe it when and if I get to 80. Remember that this change will mean all those commissions and charges that insurance companies and pension funds will lose. They’ll try all they can to stop the rule changes. After all government needs their services like the rest of us.
The Anonymous Widower 