Category Archives: media

Easingwold Adrift?

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BBC NEWS | School Report | Table of participating schools
It’s the BBC School News Day and all the participating schools have been plotted on a map. Curiosity took me to North Yorkshire for the schools near York. None – according to the map, but the table lists Easingwold School. Clicking on the map link brings up a location in the sea off the coast of Ghana! (You’ll have to zoom out some way to realise that the blue background is the Gulf of Guinea)

Easingwold School adrift off Africa

So perhaps pupils from Easingwold are today reporting from the deck of a ship tracing the route of the slave trade as a geography and history field trip. Or possibly someone in the BBC has no idea where Easingwold is and the software has a default location at 0º, 0º.

Give Chris Evans the chancellors’ job

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David Cameron’s first criticism of the budget speech was that it was delivered with all the enthusiasm of someone reading out the telephone directory. So I assume he thinks the job should be given to a presenter.

Chris Evans
Chris Evans

I switched off – that’s the prerogative of a listener – assuming that, as the opposition leader’s prime criticism, there was little to follow.

Presentation over content is the scourge of the modern age. Make your talk glitzy enough and no one will notice you have nothing to say.

David Cameron

So if David Cameron is elected to power and you want to be Chancellor now would be a good time to put in some broadcasting hours to up your game. Or perhaps David Cameron himself should be given a radio show of his own. If he wants even more popularity he should be a gameshow host, “Vote or No Vote“, or “Who wants to be a Millionaire Tax Exile” with a “Giveaway Budget Jackpot“. The audience figures would be a painful gauge of his popularity.

This is not a defence of Alistair Darling’s budget, just another example of how easily David Cameron can get up ones nose, in the same league as Noel Edmunds and Chris Tarrant.

How many verses?

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Abide With Me Hymn
How many verses do you know of this hymn? If you watch the FA Cup Final at Wembly you would be familiar with the first, and if you’re a church goer you’ll know a few more.
At the funeral of Mike Hurley we sang the full version. Eight verses. It was noticeable that the “gusto” disappeared from the singing in the congregation as we hit the unfamilair words:

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

There followed three other little known and somewhat incomprehensible verses until the familiar words “I need thy presence, Every passing hour” restored volume to the voices.

I’ve been singing this hymn for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never waded through all eight verses before. But somehow, at Mike’s passing, it seemed appropriate. Tradition meant a lot to Mike.

Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

BBC iPlayer On iPhone: Behind The Scenes

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It looks really good too.

BBC Internet Blog – BBC iPlayer On iPhone: Behind The Scenes
Today was a big day for BBC iPlayer: its the day that it first became available on a portable device. BBCiPlayer is now available on iPhone and iPod touch.

If you’re a bit techie like me, it’s worth reading the whole article.

Mike Hurley RIP

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You either loved it or hated it. Mike Hurley’s Saturday morning show, Hurley Burley, divided the audience. Mike was loud, witty, angry, funny, sarcastic, talented – very talented. His show worked by ridiculing the medium in which he worked and the audience which was his lifeblood. Local Radio in his mind was trivial, incompetent, staffed by idiots and listened to by people who had nothing better to do. 

He mocked Commercial Local Radio even though his voiceovers were heard daily on radio commercials. If ever there was a society for biting the hand that feeds you and getting away with it, Mike Hurley could have been its president. Or perhaps that position should have been given to Bill Bore, a character he created to rant about things a BBC  presenter couldn’t say in his own skin. Continue reading →