Rick's b.log - 2022/01/19
It is the 21st of November 2024 You are 3.147.48.105, pleased to meet you!

Today is a ranty day. I was listening to the news on the radio on the way home, and there's only so much of this ridiculous nonsense one can be expected to take before wanting to hammer upon the Emergency Stop button. Stop reality, it's broken.

For legal reasons, I'll point out that these are my opinions (FFS, you're reading a blog, what else d'you expect?) and I am absolutely definitely taking the piss. In industrial sized quantities. And, being a Brit, sarcasm is to be expected.
This rubbish is best read with a mug of piping hot Tetley (other tea brands are available).

Johnson, please, just sod off

Johnson, your bluster and blatant lying has reached it's crescendo. Kindly sod off and resume writing ill-conceived factually-vacuous bullshit for The Daily Telegraph.

As for everybody else who was at this garden party work lunch, if your idea of a "work lunch" involves bringing your own bottle, then not a one of you is fit for any sort of leadership role. Please follow Johnson out the door, goodbye.

Thoughts on Prince Andrew

No, here I'm talking about one of the soon-to-be-former sons of Queen Elizabeth II. Who is, quite clearly, guilty as hell.

How do I know this? Well, trying to make a legal shield out of a prior arrangement made with a notorious sicko was..... really not a good look.
Then the whole deal with complaining that the papers were not correctly served. You want to know who, what, where, when, and why just watch the bloody six o'clock news.
I have nothing whatsoever rational to say about the infamous inability to sweat. I'd love to see that one (publicly) demonstrated for the benefit of the court.

But the thing that shows his guilt more than all of that is the brutal speed with which the Royal Family - his own institution - threw him under the bus. Nothing says "guilty as hell" like a complete and total lack of parental support.

But will this actually make it to trial? Here's my prediction for the next step from the man formerly known as Prince:

Clearly everybody knows who he is. That picture of him draping his arm around some blonde chick he never met has a pretty good shot of his face.
And clearly everybody in western civilisation knows what this evil horrible Brit did to that sweet innocent girl.
Which means there is no way in hell that he can ever expect to receive a fair trial and and unbiased jury (because everybody knows Brits play the evil megalomaniac roles in movies, and you surely can't get a bigger megalomaniac than a middle-ranking royal with his head up his arse).
Which means that it is simply impossible to afford him proper justice and a real opportunity to explain his, uh, lack of sweating.
Which means that any such trial is, by definition, completely invalid.
And since he is innocent until proven guilty...

Ergo: No viable trial is possible, no guilt can be sensibly proven, therefore he is innocent. And completely sweat free. Even after working out on a hot summer's day. Won't the ladies love that, a man that stinks, but not under his arms.

Be careful what you wish for

Getting rid of the TV licence is an extraordinary attack on something that Britain should be proud of, and is clearly a calculated move to garner public support from those who view it as an unwanted tax, and change the narrative to "we're quite willing to screw you for not playing our game". No government before has made such a move, this is entirely political, a failing government trying to throw around soundbite-gambits in order to rescue a ship that has already sunk.

Be careful what you wish for. One of the few remaining prides of Britain is about to be gutted. Look at what passes for television in other countries. France has a "rédevance" (basically a TV licence) and yet for a large chunk of the morning TF1 broadcasts telesales crap (think QVC and you're exactly there).
The BBC is also fairly unique in not having to chase ratings, plus it doesn't have to have a narrative that risks being influenced by the whims of advertisers.
It can quite happily devote a chunk of Sunday afternoon programming to various religious programmes, which by definition means protestant (as "Church of England" is the official religion of the UK, blame Henry VIII), you'll notice the other channels only delve into the religious side of things on the big days (namely Easter and Christmas).
Now, I don't believe in any of that, but there are those who do and in these pandemic days one might even think that there's more call for this sort of thing.

Coming to think of it, is there any sort-of-mainstream religious programming in the UK asides from the BBC? I know on satellite there's the likes of Trinity (TBN), but that's not anything that a believer of CofE would recognise. The one time I watched it (circa 2006, stumbled upon it by accident) it came across as over-the-top American evangelical with quite the obsession with blood. There was a woman with a Marge Simpson style hairdo that was bright pink, who seemed to be explaining that the more you donate to the church (as in, them) the better your reward in heaven. You'd have to be pretty dumb to fall for that, yet...

I find it amusing that somebody who's views on God are best summed up as "the absence of a God in this world is less frightening than the presence of one" is defending the BBC's religious programmes, but this is the thing you see - they have a certain flexibility that channels that need to raise their own financing don't have.
I, personally, would not have any problem with the BBC using a fraction of my licence fee (if I paid one) to make Christian programmes. Honestly, I'd rather watch "Songs of Praise" than bloody "EastEnders". But some people would prefer it the other way around. That's cool, the point of a channel like the BBC is to try to find a way to make programming for everybody instead of chasing the lowest common denominator.
That's why the Beeb has "Countryfile" and ITV has "Britain's Got Talent".
I rest my case.

Your comments:

Zerosquare, 19th January 2022, 23:31

The money from the "redevance TV" only funds public TV and radio channels (i.e. France 2/3/4/5/24/Info, France Inter, France Musique, etc.). TF1 belongs to a private company, and their money comes only from advertising.

Bernard, 20th January 2022, 02:18

Er, no, the crescendo is the growing of the row. What has been reached is the fever pitch (if you’re mindful of your musical metaphors). Excuse the language geek.

David Pilling, 20th January 2022, 02:25

The person formally known as Prince (Andrew) is in a civil legal process - lower burden of proof etc etc. How he avoids it becoming a criminal process, I do not know.    BBC - can't fault value for money, or it being a reliable source of news. If only it came with an off button.    Tagged content is the way forward. I do not want to hear another news story about X. Or see another episode of Y, or adverts for such.    Let my computer slice and dice the output.

Mick, 20th January 2022, 03:59

Keep Boris please! We certainly don't need a competant Tory taking his place.     I love the BBC. License fee worth it for 6music alone. Okay there have been eejit general directors but its so nice to have one place free of adverts.

Rick, 20th January 2022, 14:10

Bernard,  I beg to differ. Fever pitch is where we get to when the MPs ultimately back down and/or vote for him in a confidence vote, because they'd rather have a charlatan career liar in charge than any risk (real or imaginary) of handing control to Labour.

Rob, 23rd January 2022, 01:09

I love the BBC. I don't watch much live TV any more, but I'd hate to be without Radio 4, BBC Sounds and Newscast. CBeebies and CBBC were a godsend when the little ones were still little. And remember, R4 is where H2G2 was born, and where much drama and comedy was and is still created. For the cost of the licence fee, it's a bargain.    Boris is, I think, only hanging on because nobody can think of any other Tory worth replacing him with as leader of the party & thus PM. If only we had a less polarised political system where MPs could actually represent their constituents rather than their party, and thus offer a better range of views and even work together (but at least it's still better than the yanks, where /everything/ is political, and both sides hate each other absolutely.)     Andrew ... well, there's a saying about protesting to much just makes you look even guiltier. That holds for Boris too, I guess.

Rick, 13th April 2022, 08:05

The first prime minister to be criminally sanctioned, which proves what we have known all along - he's a habitual liar and a chancer.  And, yet, he is still the PM...