OvallyBalls can now reveal that our operatives have made secret recordings of discussions that took place some years ago. Names may have been changed to protect the not-that-innocent.
Wrigel Nay: Right, chaps, this salary cap is a bit awkward, eh what? If we are to DOMINATE the Premiership and the European Cup, we need you players. And obviously you won’t play as well if you’re not millionaires.
Basil ‘Bog’ Brush: Well, y’need the motivation. I coulda gone inta footba’, and got my money for nothing, and my chicks for free. In rugby, I have t’ make a lo’ o’ no-arms tackles, and tha’ stings a bi’ sometimes.
Maro Match (melodiously): Uhmm, I’ve got lots of arms; I’m like an octopus, mate. Uhmm, but every extra 100 grand grows another arm. Plus, it’s fodder for my political campaign chest.
The Puny Voles: We’ve got our private doctors and personal massage therapists to pay for. It’s not cheap being injured all the time. We are reduced to pretending to go on Z-list sleb programmes to survive. And it’s boring, so the finest Dom is in order.
Maro Match (melodiously): Uhmm, Classic Dom?
The Puny Voles: Nah, mate, Dom Pérignon.
Wrigel Nay: Don’t worry, chaps, I have a plan. You set up some limited companies, and we ‘invest’ in them in lieu of salary.
[Collective sound of gum-guard-sucking.]
Wrigel Nay: I’ll have my people contact your people to explain it all. [Drones on until everyone falls asleep.]
On the telly this week
Friday 8th November
| Connacht 11 – 42 Leinster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 2 |
| Edinburgh 20 – 17 Dragons | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Sale 28 – 18 Wasps | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 9th November
| France 10 – 20 England (women) | 13:10 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Gloucester 12 – 21 Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Zebre 7 – 31 Glasgow | 15:00 | Free Sports |
| Ospreys 14 – 16 Kings | 15:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Cardiff 30 – 17 Cheetahs | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1* / S4C |
| Munster 22 – 16 Ulster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1* |
| Scarlets 20 – 11 Treviso | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
*Both of these cannot be right. But that’s what the site says.
Sunday 3rd November
| Exeter 17 – 22 Bristol | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Ticht This sort of thing is repeated across all media, Big Media you might say
I know Ticht.
I just wanted to shout into the void.
I look forward to the meeja showing clips of me shouting in happier times.
*puts some more C&W on*
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I know how you feel, BRB, it’s all so depressing
You only have to look at Bozo the Clown and realise that if people are voting for that, we are beyond hope.
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Ticht – I didn’t mean that we could only form an opinion by meeting him. Corbyn is more left wing than most people in this country. Most people are around the centre. I dislike and disagree with Boris but he is closer to the centre than Corbyn.
First thing Corbyn did was bring Diane Abbott into his cabinet. She’s genuinely a disaster and the fact that they previously slept together brings his credibility into question.
Other things, he was a wet fish during the Brexit run up. He’s seen as an antisemite by a large proportion of people in London. He doesn’t seem to have a clear message in the long term (which is due to his communication rather than the content of his message).
I could write something similar about Boris and why I don’t like him (liar, cunt etc) but, even with such a moron in charge, Labour seem hell bent on fucking up their chances.
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“No one can accidently splice in three year old footage into the piece they are working on.”
Depends on how easy the software is to use. Much simpler and generally more accurate to attribute things like this to cock up, rather than conspiracy. The picture editors for these programmes are operating under severe time pressure.
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Scarlets v L Irish is on S4C on Saturday (available on iPlayer)
Bordeaux v Wasps is on FR4 (magic of the internet will have it somewhere)
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It’s certainly simpler to attribute cock up rather than conspiracy, but the excuse given was that the three year old footage was run earlier in the programme and then rerun by mistake, that is certainly a possibility.
It doesn’t account for actors in the Question Time audience going on right wing rants, allowing Nigel Lawson to go unchallenged in the climate change denials on the Today Programme or indeed the number of trad unionists represented on tv news and current affairs programmes compared to business leaders and people like Farage.
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Trad unionists are fighting for equal rights for trad jazz
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“Depends on how easy the software is to use. Much simpler and generally more accurate to attribute things like this to cock up, rather than conspiracy. The picture editors for these programmes are operating under severe time pressure.”
A: What do we need to do?
B: FInd the file marked Remembrance Sunday Cenotaph YESTERDAY?
A: Ah, shit. I’m under severe time pressure. Let me find the Remembrance Sunday Cenotaph 3 YEARS AGO file and splice that in. No one’ll notice that Johnson’s got a different hair cut, is wearing different clothes and is carrying a different wreath that he doesn’t place the wrong way round.
B: Jesus. Real time pressure really brings your skills to the fore. Bravo.
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Ticht, forgive me, but that just sounds like you’re annoyed at people you disagree with getting air time.
The BBC has a hard job balancing the different political opinions out there, especially now. They could do a better job (especially when politicians/activists spout arrant, provable bollocks), but perfection is impossible. The idea that there is a vast conspiracy to marginalise certain voices just has no obvious factual weight.
These are mad enough times without sensible people going off the reservation
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“First thing Corbyn did was bring Diane Abbott into his cabinet.”
She’d already been in Ed Milliband’s shadow cabinet. Was brought in by Corbyn as Shadow International Development Secretary not a high-level position
“She’s genuinely a disaster”
Genuine question – why do you think this?
Teresa May and Amber Rudd have been home secretaries in recent times. Not just disasters but cruel, racist vengeful uncaring disasters. You couldn’t call Ms Abbott those words.
“and the fact that they previously slept together brings his credibility into question.”
Right-o.
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“Corbyn is more left wing than most people in this country. Most people are around the centre. I dislike and disagree with Boris but he is closer to the centre than Corbyn. ”
Corbyn’s last manifesto contained nothing radical, there were things like bringing the railways and utilities back into public ownership, those are popular policies, as are scrapping tuition fees, increasing upper rate taxation and clamping down on corporate tax evasion.
Johnson is putting the NHS up for sale, that is way to the right of the vast majority of the people in this country
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Can someone post the Simpsons ‘sweet can’ clip from Homer Badman, please.
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Chek, this is a little old and I’m not sure if Ms Pedley is still in position but:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/is-question-time-s-audience-producer-really-fascist/
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@tomp, again, without familiarity with the editing system, you’ve no place calling it deliberate. I’ve used some appalling content management systems in my time, I have no doubt the BBC’s is shit as well. They’re universally terrible.
Also, let’s think about what would have to be true for it to be deliberate. Either some lowly, pro-Boris pictures editor is going to risk his/her career by intentionally choosing obviously incorrect pictures for a split second of broadcast (yeah, that’ll really swing the election! totally worth career suicide!), or it’s a big conspiracy, meaning someone high-up within the BBC will have had to transmit orders down the chain to make our Boris look like a champ in one specific, short broadcast (yeah, that’ll really swing the election! Oh, and it runs a high chance of being leaked by disaffected people AT ANY POINT IN THAT CHAIN).
Come on guys.
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Chek, moving away from this specific issue, tell me more about Robbie Gibb, Rona Fairhead, David Clement, James Harding, Sarah Sands etc.
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Agree with Chek, there’s an element of tin foil hattery going on here.
Also, just because I think person a is a disaster doesn’t mean to say I think person b is a top lad/dette.
It’s a shit choice and I’m just trying to explain the graphs but there we go.
Let’s just blame the press.
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BTW, If forced to I would vote Labour or Lib Dem. I disagree with the Tories on nearly every issue. I’m not saying anything lightly here.
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Was watching politics live while at the gym at lunchtime.
Consisted of a conservative going on about the jillions labour’s spending plans would cost. This position was then analysed for about 5 seconds and proved to be made up bobbins, particularly as the manifesto hadn’t been put out and costed yet. Argument then ensued about tory spending plans which also hadn’t been costed.
Not sure where I’m going with this but it was mostly a group of arguments based on bollocks and a most unedifying spectacle. Is this what politics is?
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Dunno, I was getting pissed at lunch time.
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“Is this what politics is?”
In a cerain sense, basically, yes. Get your positive message across, do down your opponents’.
See also the worst question in the world: Would you launch a nuclear weapon? (= Are you willing to commit mass murder?)
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“Agree with Chek, there’s an element of tin foil hattery going on here. ”
Craigs, does that extend to the suppression of the report into Russian meddling in the election.
Remember that McCrone report from the other day? That was kept secret for 30 years, whilst talk of it was dismissed as tin foil hattery at the time.
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‘Would you launch a nuclear weapon?’
Certainly would, once the lizard people come out of their lairs.
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And we can remove the yoke of the lizardy oppression after all these years
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sarries must be run by the lizard people
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Yeah withholding that Russia report stinks.
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“Robbie Gibb, Rona Fairhead, David Clement, James Harding, Sarah Sands etc.”
Nick Robinson, Chris Patten ..
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Ticht – who is doing the surpressing? I’m fine with the idea that the current government is trying to control information. Less that the BBC is in cahoots with them to the degree being spoken about.
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Squidge is being promoted by Planet Rugby. He must be doing something right.
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David Clement was the right back who wasn’t Kenny Clements. After he retired Kenny (not David) became a driving instructor in the Oldham area. I used to see him in the passenger seat of his car on Huddersfield Road. I knew it was him because a) on the top of the car it said “Kenny Clements School of Motoring” and b) it looked like him.
According to the internet he now lives in Diggle, near Iksy’s sister.
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Craigs, I think the BBC is shit scared of the licence fee being scrapped, the corporation has people in positions of power who have strong links with the Tory party, there are subtle leanings, things like Farage has been on QT the same number of times as Ken Clarke, the latter has been an MP for 50 years and is a party grandee, the other has lost something like 8 attempts to become an MP.
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I think Tam meant Clementi, OT
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Damn. I have no David Clementi anecdotes, although I could make one up.
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I don’t think the BBC is a Pravda-like mouth piece of the government, I think there are real reasons they don’t want to upset the Tories and it started with Cameron and his ties to independent television and BSkyB
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Ticht – with the greatest respect, there could be many many reasons for that. Differing levels of desire to be in QT is a good starting point.
Most right wingers I talk to (and they are nutters either – sorry Beadle) think the BBC has a left wing bias. Or anti Brexit. I call similar bollocks on that too.
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*are not nutters
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” there could be many many reasons for that”
indeed, but combine those two and count how many times Melanie Phillips and arseholes like her are on compared to union leaders or activists and I think the leaning towards one political outlook is quite strong.
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The BBC is neither biased to the right or left. It is part of the establishment and looks after the interests of its fellow members. While it might occasionally take the piss out of the royal family is is largely an unquestioning mouthpiece for their propaganda, for example. If it thinks Boris is likely to be the next PM they’ll be kinder to him than otherwise.
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I’ve stepped into the net and I’ve been swished up off my feet and I’m hanging upside down now.
I never meant to be arguing about/discussing a tv show I can’t watch anymore, I haven’t done so for a couple of years at least.
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Yeah me neither, I never watch it Ticht.
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Ticht + Craigs,
Tom Mills’s book is really good on the BBC as elite organisation. There’s a lovely quote from Greg Dyke saying that the BBC is a top-down organisation and if senior management want something they generally get it. Mills has stuff from Mike Berry* about who got asked about during the 2008/09 crisis on the Today Programme and News At Ten. It’s a good read.
Here’s an interview with him: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/bbc-is-neither-independent-or-impartial-interview-with-tom-mills/
* Not the guy who played Mr Spooner in Are You Being Served? , OT, but this guy:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/bbc-and-financial-crisis-interview-with-dr-mike-berry/
A bit opendemocracy heavy this post.
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Ha!
Tom Mills himself on cock-up v conspiracy about 15 minutes ago:
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Laura Kuenssberg was reprimanded for doctoring an interview with Corbyn three years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/18/bbc-trust-says-laura-kuenssberg-report-on-jeremy-corbyn-was-inaccurate-labour
Needless to say, nothing further came of it.
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@badlyred, you’ve reminded me of this old joke, and maybe there’s a young and thrusting poster on here who never came across it till now, as Karl might’ve ejaculated.
How many C&W singers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two. One to change it and one to sing about the old one.
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That’s an interesting read, and yes apposite timing of that tweet.
A series of incidents being reduced to absurdity in order to discredit a conclusion is nothing new, it’s doesn’t have to be a Cold War Deep State type conspiracy for there to be an editorial direction of travel from an organisation which finds itself in regular negotiation with the providers of its funding
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That’s a few really interesting links tomp and certainly calls into question why we should be forced to pay for a TV ‘licence’.
I still don’t think it explains the differences in the graph though. Although, it may explain some of it.
What we need is a multi-variate analysis. Something, something, JBP, something, something.
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We pay a licence fee to ensure the BBC is importanter and officialer than every other broadcaster and then we can give well paid jobs to members of the establishment to run it. Establishment stitch-up.
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“That’s a few really interesting links tomp and certainly calls into question why we should be forced to pay for a TV ‘licence’.”
There was a time when the BBC really was held up as editorially independent, iirc Chomsky hailed it for being so, though of course it would have been used as much of an unwitting tool of the state as any other media, I suppose
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Re BBC bias, I spoke to a friend at Radio 4 about this previously, she’s not particularly high up but didn’t mention being pushed in one direction or the other. Her comment was that there is an obsession with ‘balance’, which can often be difficult to achieve when trying to get guests for show.
As a Labour supporter my issue with the whole anti-Corbyn brigade is that they never articulate why they hate him so much. He seems pretty inoffensive to me (especially when compared to Cameron, May, Johnson etc. who I don’t hate but definitely have specific reasons for disliking). Similarly with Diane Abbott, who I think is mainly hated for being a successful black woman.
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