The Revenge Of The Fatted Calf ... But Reason To Be Cheerful

I started Friday by having a full English in the glad company of my mother. It was jolly nice but I felt guilty when I got back home, so waited a decent interval and then went for a run. This was ill-advised and sure enough the right calf muscle gave out warning signs as I hit the quarter hour. I stopped at the first sign but, as they say, it's deja vu all over again. Bollocks.

a most equable host

That reason to be cheerful? Well I'm going to let the idiocies of halfwits on both sides of the Trumpian commentariat wash over me. Good news for you I suppose. No, all I am going to do is to urge you to go on BBC iPlayer and catch up with Neil Brand's excellent Sound of Musicals. Another good advertisement for BBC 4's output but don't make me think about the licence fee. Too complicated. 

The Man In The Mirror

Don't let the bastards get you down. The fish rots from the head. Tomorrow is another day. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Welcome to my world. I am buffeted by bastardy and the fish smells off, but today is indeed another day and it hasn't killed me yet. Today I am to play golf with JRS and that is as good a leisure prospect as a man can ask for. My plan is to have salad for my tea (a short burst of healthy eating before I depart for Ireland at the weekend) and then early to bed (a short burst of healthy living before etc).

What's going on in the world? I gave up on the indecipherable Jamaica Inn on the BBC - it says much for the peculiar liberal snobbery of those in the arts that actors should be allowed (indeed were presumably encouraged) to mutter their way through their lines in impenetrable accents. No doubt the show will go on to garner tons of luvvie awards. Bollocks. Which is a pity because I like a bit of Daphne du Maurier. Did I ever mention that I played Maxim de Winter? Oh, I did, sorry.

I'm really looking forward to the Ireland trip. Ireland is a land I like to romanticise as lacking in the aforementioned bastardy. That is probably deluded but for a week I will act under the happy opinion that mendacity and low cunning do not thrive there.

I am rediscovering the joy of listening to full albums rather than submitting to the iPod temptation of shuffle. In the car I listen to entire albums. Thus far I have worked my way through all the early Steely Dan offerings, Pete Atkin's Driving Through Mythical America, Billie Holliday and John Lennon.

Well that's all for now. I must prepare myself to fight the unequal battle against golf. I have, as ever, a new cunning plan - I will share it with you if it works, so don't go holding your breath. I've also got a new pair of golf shoes. Wish me luck.

Don't let the bastards get you down

  

Dear Auntie

The BBC is problematic. I swing between thanking the lord for it and wishing it abolished. These are the six public purposes identified in its royal charter and the Beeb's own thumbnail sketches of how they deliver

Sustaining citizenship and civil society

The BBC provides high-quality news, current affairs and factual programming to engage its viewers, listeners and users in important current and political issues.

Promoting education and learning

The support of formal education in schools and colleges and informal knowledge and skills building.

Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence

Encouraging interest, engagement and participation in cultural, creative and sporting activities across the UK.

Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities

BBC viewers, listeners and users can rely on the BBC to reflect the many communities that exist in the UK.

Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK

The BBC will build a global understanding of international issues and broaden UK audiences' experience of different cultures.

Delivering to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services

Assisting UK residents to get the best out of emerging media technologies now and in the future.

 

This list contains a predictable dose of blather but rather as with motherhood and apple pie it would be churlish to condemn its sentiments. So I won't - not today anyway. I reserve the right to churlishness at a later date. The £3.885 billion question is whether a mandatory licence fee (and about £270 million of other government funding - a mere bagatelle my boy) is the way to achieve these vague aims. Here's a few pros and cons.

Credit (Debit): Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show (any repeat of the Clitheroe Kid); Kirsty Wark (Jeremy Paxman); Jim Naughtie (John Humphrys); Clare Balding (Willy Carson). Please don't start me on Jo Whiley. I mean really there's no excuse.

So that's it - a not even vaguely in-depth analysis of public broadcasting.

Ponder this: the BBC failed to spot what most bar room philosophers had guessed years ago, that Jimmy Savile was a nonce. In their proper guilt at this oversight they next rushed to condemn a politician who had never been to Wrexham much less gone there regularly to bugger schoolboys. They then conducted an onanistic witch-hunt with a view to burning one of themselves at the stake and having got their scapegoat felt so convinced of their rectitude that they paid him compensation but decided to burn him anyway. This we are told is the behaviour of an organisation the envy of the world. Masters are you mad?