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Posts Tagged ‘rantandrave’

  1. Reports of my demise…

    June 9, 2005 by dafyd

    Lots on over the last week or so.

    Hence not a lot of blogging.

    As for what I actually have done … watch this space!

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  2. Auntie

    May 30, 2005 by dafyd

    BBC Testcard Boris Johnson has been slagging off the BBC.

    Is this Britain, my friends, or is this some Central American dictatorship, circa 1970? I can think of only one reason for having a television in Oxfordshire, and that is so that I can refuse to pay Goodbody his confounded £126, and thereby show the BBC what I think of the licence fee. We imagine we are living in an advanced free market economy. Yet here is Goodbody, an emanation of the state, threatening me with surveillance and fines, so that I can continue to fund 10,000 state-sector journalists; an idea that seems increasingly peculiar and anomalous in 2005, but which is made more offensive to me by the BBC’s continuing habit of ever so subtly sneering at my party (the Conservatives) and anyone who votes for it.

    Scaryduck, himself an employee of said corporation, took it upon himself to respond. Whenever he is asked to justify the BBC, he gives this answer:

    • BBC1
    • BBC2
    • BBC3
    • BBC4
    • News 24
    • BBC Parliament
    • CBBC
    • CBeebies
    • Radio 1
    • Radio 2
    • Radio 3
    • Radio 4 (in two variants)
    • Radio Five Live
    • 6Music
    • Radio 7
    • 1Xtra
    • Asian Network
    • Regional TV studios providing news and culturally distinct programming
    • Regional radio stations including national channels for Wales, NI and Scotland, with further stations in Welsh and Gaelic
    • bbc.co.uk, the world’s most comprehensive news, entertainment and educational website (and the 12th most visited site in the world)

    And programming as diverse as

    • Doctor Who
    • Little Britain
    • Question Time
    • The League of Gentlemen
    • EastEnders
    • Strictly Come Dancing
    • Jerry Springer: The Opera
    • Songs of Praise
    • Spooks
    • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
    • Life on Earth
    • Blue Peter
    • Panorama
    • I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue

    (I’ve slightly altered both lists from Scary’s originals.)

    Seriously, though, I think that the BBC is a unique organisation (unique in a good way), in that the licence fee should free the Beeb from the commercial constraints of the other channels, enabling it to show proper television, as opposed to just what the lowest common denominator wants to watch. But therein lies the problem – if they show quality TV that doesn’t appeal to enough people, they are accused of being elitist, and thus unworthy of my £126.50 a year. But if they show Strictly Come Dancing every Saturday, they are, naturally, “dumbing down” to the level of ITV, and should therefore be subject to the same constraints as them.

    And as for bias – well, we know how much the Labour government has fallen out with the BBC (Hutton, Campbell’s email about Paxman), while Boris assert that the Corporation (or, more specifically, certain “star” personalities – Naughtie, Humphries, Marr) is anti-Tory. It seems it is really stuck between a rock and a hard place.

    One of Scary’s commentors raises this very good point:

    Cost of annual BBC TV licence = £126.50

    Cost of buying the Daily/Sunday Telegraph every day for a year = £270

    I know which I’d rather fork out for.

    And the real reason why we must never, ever change the way the BBC is funded? I direct you here.

    And to prove that the BBC is a “good thing”? Check out this gem currently available in their Radio Player.

    For classic BBC moments – including disturbingly detailed minute-bu-minute coverage of the recent powercuts that have been plaguing Television Centre – check out the excellent TV & Radio Bits. For everything else televisual, check out the encyclopaedic TV Ark. Aah, Noel’s House Party. Happy times.

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  3. Eurovision

    May 22, 2005 by dafyd

    Eurovision - for the young and oldDavid blogged about last night’s Eurovision Song Contest this morning, and I posted a comment. Problem was, my comment ended up being about twice as long as his post. So I thought I might as well post it properly… The quotes, by the way, are from David’s blog:

    Why are we one of the biggest contributors when tactical voting from all of the old communist and baltic states means that we will never win. Even France didn’t vote for us this year…politics anyone?

    France very rarely votes for the UK entry. That’s something to do with 300 years of history.

    It’s true, that since the former Soviet Bloc countries have started competing (individually), there has developed a natural bias towards those countries. I think it’s only natural that people in Latvia are going to vote for the Lithuanian entry, just as people in Ireland vote for the UK… It’s not so much political as human nature – these countries would vote for themselves if they could – they can’t, so they vote for a close neighbour.

    To all of those countries (from Austria eastwards) the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium seem like big bullies who have dominated them for 100s of years. This is their only chance to make any sort of popular stand against the Western powers. And it’s harmless. They’re not blowing up buses in Paris, or taking hostages inside their embassies in Brussels – so what’s the problem?

    The return of ABBA?We are one of the biggest contributors because we can be. There’s no way FYR Macedonia could possibly contribute as much to Eurovision as we do. And we’re not just talking money – the BBC has long been involved in the technical aspects – and with good reason. The UK, the BBC, are huge names in Europe. It’s for exactly the same reason that we have more influence in the EU than, say, Lithuania. One could argue that we have a moral responsability to support the smaller countries – and contributing more to a glorified talent contest is just one way we do that.

    And what do you mean by this…?

    Eurovision? What sort of a name is that for a contest that seems to have lost sight of where it is going since it started.

    It’s called Eurovision simply because it’s organised by the European Broadcasting Union. When it was launched 50 years ago, it was a way to promote the EBU – nothing more, nothing less. It was saying to the seven (yes, 7) competing nations that this is what a combined Europe can do. To the broadcasters, it was showing that the EBU could do this sort of thing well, so maybe they should consider using their services for other things… Coincidence that the first Eurovision Song Contest was held the year before the founding of the EEC? I don’t think so. Coincidence that it happened to feature the six founding members of the EEC (plus Switzerland, the host nation)? I doubt it.

    The fact that it’s no longer a closed affair among a select clique of nations can only be a good thing. And I would argue very strongly that it is the “new” nations that need Eurovision most. We saw last night quite how well the Ukraine did with it – and quite how well they did from it. The same goes for Istanbul, Riga, Talinn. And next year Athens will be able to use the fantastic facilities that they now have (from the Olympics) to make it even better.

    Latvia's answer to Simon and GarfunkelI don’t think it’s fair to say that the UK did badly simply because everyone hates us. If we’d had a decent entry (with an old woman and a drum) I have no doubt that we’d have done slightly better. OK – we’re not going to win. It simply won’t happen, unless we come up with some fantastic entry that literally blows away the competition. But we might have got slightly more of the 1/2/3/4 points – and, of course, 12 points from Ireland.

    And as for Saturday night TV – I’d argue that it was the waste of space that is the Lotto draw that pushed Doctor Who forward. But some people managed to plan ahead and work out that it would be early, and thus missed nothing…

    As I said on Lemurgirl’s blog,

    What’s not to like about Eurovision? 4 hours of the ultimate in kitsch European TV, incredibly predictable, and yet also incredible fun. The only thing I can think of that’s anything like it is Sing-a-long-a-Sound-of-Music…

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  4. Daffy Duck

    March 13, 2005 by dafyd

    Daffy Duck:

    Daffy Duck

    Yours truly: (an old and particularly bad photo…)

    Me

    I think you’ll agree that there is not much resemblance…

    However, it can’t be denied that Dafyd can easily be shortened to Daf … which can then be easily lengthened to Daffy Duck.

    I blame the parents.

    I have had 9 months (if you take the end of my time at Nottingham High School as the end of June – which I do) of not having my name abbreviated to Daf and then elongated to Daffy Duck. However, during the run of the Birthday Party, the director, Jonny, picked up (admittedly by accident) that my name could easily be turned into this cartoon character, and now it is starting to stick…

    Don’t even get me started on Little Britain…

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  5. Today’s Newspapers

    February 11, 2005 by dafyd

    In true Newsnight stylee, I thought I’d have a look at this morning’s front pages. Today is a pretty interesting day, because yesterday there was officially only one piece of news in Britain. Two quite famous and marginally important people are going to get married.

    The Daily Express brings the dead back to life, once more:

    The Daily Mirror gets its facts wrong (she won’t be a princess, apparently)… and wheels out Paul Burrell (“He can’t be king”):

    Daily Telegraph – very conservative. I’m guessing the feature advertised at the top (“Their 30-year love affair”) has been sitting around for a while. Incidentally, their headline “…but the public don’t want her to be Queen” is wrong. Actually, more people couldn’t care less than have an opinion either way!

    The Financial Times, thank God, hardly mentions it on their front page. Good thing, too.

    And my favourite of them all… the Independent, echoing exactly my thoughts:

    (little black box, bottom-right hand corner: “And in other news: Charles to wed”. Classic!)

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  6. Parlez-Vous Franglais?

    February 7, 2005 by dafyd

    So, I came across the blog of Petite Anglaise today – it is, to quote, “a Brit’s-eye view of Paris”.

    Ce site est le journal d’une anglaise, mariée à un français (The Frog) et vivant à Paris.

    Sa vision de Paris vu au travers d’un regard très British est assez désopilante.

    (says Luc Sainte-Elie)

    Exactly. But in between being désopilante (hilarious), she has blogged quite a bit about the whole franglais thing. Now, as anyone who knows me well will know, this is one of my favouritest things to talk about (and mock), but for whatever reason I haven’t blogged much about it on here. So, a couple of highlights from her site…

    Talking about the irrepresible French urge to pronounce all foreign names and words in their own accent, and then not understand foreigners when they actually pronounce them correctly:

    When I did my time as an English Lectrice at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, I remember finding it nigh on impossible to understand my students’ English when they tried to tell me about their favourite non-French pop star, or actor. The names of famous people, known the world over, get the French treatment to the point where they are completely unrecognisable. Meet Broooz Weeleez (possible anatomical abnormality?) and Tom Aunks (my least favourite actor and the person guaranteed, in my opinion, to make the screen adaptation of the Da Vinci Code truly unwatchable).

    (On the same token, try going in to a McDonald’s in Germany and order Chicken McNuggets – that is one product that is actually impossible to pronounce in a German accent!)

    The eternal discussion in France against the use of Anglicisms has turned once again to new technology, namely the blog:

    Surfing French (we)blogs of late I noticed that there is some (occasionally heated) debate among bloggers as to what they should call themselves and their output. The terms un blog or un weblog currently co-exist with un carnet web or un journal web, shortened to joueb. Strictly speaking as the Académie dislikes the word ‘web‘, preferring ‘toile‘, surely that should be un carnet-toile? In French speaking Canada on the other hand, their equivalent to the Académie has opted for un blogue.

    Incidentally, the Académie’s blacklist of Anglicisms includes the DVD (disque numérique polyvalent, anyone?) and hotkey (raccourci au clavier?)…

    There’s some fascinating stuff over chez Petite Anglaise… take some time to read through some of it!

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  7. Coming Soon

    February 4, 2005 by dafyd

    I’m starting to get tired of the grey colour of this site – it does all look very 2004…!

    So, I’m starting to work on redesigning everything… slowly, over the next few weeks/months. I’ve got quite a bit on at the moment (especially the Castle JCR website), so I’m not going to say I’m going to have it done by any specific date.

    But I want to know your feedback about this site – do you find it easy to use? Is there anything you’d rather see somewhere else, or done in another way? Have you seen something on someone else’s site that you’d like to see here?

    Oh, and I will write up a review of Miss Saigon soon… promise!

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  8. Kaputt

    January 25, 2005 by dafyd

    David broke Media Player. All point and laugh. A fundamental component of Windows that most of us can’t get rid of if we want to, and David manages to screw it up when he needs it. Hee hee. (Smug laugh – I still have Media Player. Don’t use it, though.)

    I would go and give him a hand, but it’s quite a long way up the hill to Collingwood. It’s quite a distance – I’ve drawn a quick sketch map to help those less-geographically-minded of you to see the immense distance. It is to scale.

    We tried using Windows’ Remote Assistance feature. It’s quite good fun (I get to control his desktop while I’m here and he’s there), but still no good.

    Any ideas?

    Category 1 | Tags: | 5 Comments

  9. I want to shoot the whole day down

    January 24, 2005 by dafyd

    Bad weather, debt, seasonal blues and failed resolutions mean today is miserable Monday, says one scientist.

    Cardiff University tutor Cliff Arnalls says his formula proves 24 January is the grimmest day of the year.

    The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

    Where W is weather, D is debt – minus the money (d) due on January’s pay day – and T is the time since Christmas.

    Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.

    (from BBC News)

    sleet_small.jpgI think the science is pretty dodgy, but here in Durham I can’t argue that the atmosphere is generally pretty depressing. I was going to take a photo to demonstrate what I meant, but from Mary’s, where I was standing (there’s another story there – get to that in a bit) you actually couldn’t see the Cathedral – the sleet was that bad. It was, to say the least, fairly ucky.

    There’s a general feeling of Januaryness (I’m not the first person to use that word – look at Google) around at the moment.

    But enough of that. Let’s get over the depressing stuff and look at the positive side of life: today is National Pie Day. Oh bummer, no it’s not. That was yesterday. Drat. Back to the depressing stuff, then. Check out this extremely clever but frankly depressing series of animations by Monkeyhub portryaing “one man’s struggle to cope with the soul-sapping, will-to-live draining, life-force mugging, moral-crushing experiences of work” – I’m number 9… Make sure you don’t miss their version of Radiohead’s Creep. Classic.

    9 o’clock lecture tomorrow morning. It’s trying to snow at the moment, but the rain seems to be winning. And the pipes keep making funny noises.

    That’s all for now. Check back tomorrow for the very exciting news of my own personal roller coaster / elevator.

    Oh, and the title of this post? Tis from a Tori Amos song, cunningly titled “I Don’t Like Mondays“. (Apparently it was originally by the Boomtown Rats, but I don’t know who they are…)

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  10. Remember when…?

    January 17, 2005 by dafyd

    …Amazon looked like this?

    Or when the White House website looked like this?

    Thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, you can look at how sites used to look. What fun!

    Hey, even I’m in there – with such exciting designs as the first iteration of dafyd.me.uk, from back in the days of yore, or even the crappy one that never worked from 2003.

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