Bedingfield to make come-back this year?

Musical comebacks seem to be the big thing this year, and it's not just 80's bands that are on the comeback trail - there are some artists from this very decade who are trying to reignite their careers true.  We're all expecting to see something of Robbie Williams this year (in addition to his brief part in the Little Britain Comic Relief sketch in March) and rumour has it that Daniel Bedingfield will also be releasing a new album.

Both Williams and Bedingfield have suffered illnesses of various kinds over the last few years - Robbie's addictions and mental state have been widely reported.  Daniel of course suffered a major car accident in New Zealand a few years ago, which resulted in some serious injuries.  As a result, his voice has apparently changed from the famous falsetto we all remember to something more "gritty" and "less controlled" - sounds to me like a wholesale change there then.  He is also famous for his hyperactivity, but the accident has led to him taking things a lot more easily recently according to reports.  So his third album could be interesting indeed...

Have your say: BBC got it wrong

Occasionally I'll post something on the BBC News website's Have your say section.  If you haven't seen it before, it's not a discussion board in the traditional sense, but asks you to comment on a specific news story.  It then publishes your comments, and everyone can then vote on one another's comments by choosing whether or not to click the "recommend" button that appears below each one.  It's quite a neat system.

Naturally, the beeb have put some controls in place to filter out abuse, and posts that don't obey the house rules.  The subjects are all time-limited too, so if they don't get around to checking your comment in time, it doesn't get published.  When you're reviewing your previous posts, you can see whether your post was published (and how many recommendations it received if it was), unpublished (it wasn't processed in time before the subject was closed) or rejected (it broke the house rules).

Knowing that most of my posts were made several hours before a subject closed, it was disappointing how many of my posts were unpublished, but what was more interesting was the one post that was rejected.  The subject in question combined two of the BBC's favourites for the Have your say forum: "Is the Church of England obsessed with sex?"

My answer was pretty simple, and to the point: no, the CoE isn't obsessed with sex but the media are; in addition, the media (and particularly the BBC) are quite keen to undermine Christianity, so there's little surprise that these two obsessions keep combining to produce headlines that involve both.

You might not agree with the view I expressed, but if you have any clue which of the BBC's house rules I'm supposed to have broken by expressing it I look forward to reading your comments below!

Regarding my viewpoint itself, I think both of the media's obsessions are self-evident.  Sex sells, and the tabloid press know that better than anyone.  And you only have to watch or listen to the Beeb's programmes aimed at Christians (such as Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday or the infamous Songs of Praise) and compare it with the vibrant, buzzing CCM scene (as evidenced by the brilliant Cross Rythms radio stations springing up over the country) to ascertain that the BBC's view of Christianity is outdated to say the least.

Thatchergate: BBC got it right

There's been widespread criticism of the BBC for sacking Carol Thatcher from The One Show for her comments likening a tennis player to the "golliwog" character from old Robertson's jam jars (in fact the character and word predates that depiction, as the Wikipedia article explains).  The Beeb's critics say that the remarks were made in private - by which I think they mean "off air", which is something entirely different - and that it was meant as an innocent joke.

A joke.  Well, that's ok then, isn't it?  Of course not - you just cannot use language that you know is offensive, especially while at work.  Just because Thatcher wasn't broadcasting at the time is no excuse - she was there as a representative of the BBC, in their employment, and should have acted accordingly.  As BBC1 controller Jay Hunt said, 

What Carol decides to say in the privacy of her own home or in a private conversation with friends is one thing. What she says in a green room space, when there are 12 people, in her capacity as a roving reporter for The One Show is a rather different thing.

Clearly the remarks were not made in private - they were in a corporate workspace, akin to an office environment, and when in such a place a certain decorum is sorely needed.  As for the "innocent joke" thing, well that's fine if it's true.  But if you're making a genuinely innocent joke and you accidentally make a faux pas and actually offend someone, then you jolly well apologise for it.  The BBC1 controller said that the main reason why Thatcher was sacked was not so much for the remark itself, but for her lack of remorse:

What I find sad about the entire situation is that we have given Carol ample opportunity to apologise for offence that was caused to key named individuals.

"She felt unable to do that and, for that reason, it is not appropriate for her to work on that particular show, but she will continue to work for the BBC and indeed is.

Sounds more than fair to me.

Rail rage

Happy New Year and all that - seems a bit late for that now but as they say, better late than never. Which brings me nicely to the subject of this post, actually.

Last week I was travelling up to Winchester for work, as you do (well, as I do). I was going by train, and would have been bang on time for my 9am meeting if it wasn't for the fact that the train I was aiming to catch was cancelled. The departures board said it was due to a failed power supply and the audio announcement claimed it was due to slippery rail conditions, which does make me wonder about the truth of any of the reasons they give. But any reason at all is better than "an operational incident" or whatever twaddle it was that Network Rail came up with for the disastrous period that the West Coast Main Line has just been through - but that's another matter.

Anyway, because the direct train to Winchester had been cancelled I had to change trains at Eastleigh. No problem there. Also because of the cancellation things were pretty busy - standing room only, etc. - all to be expected and nothing to get worked up about. But, more to my amusement than annoyance I must say, as we were queueing to disembark at Eastleigh the woman in the queue behind me started pushing. There was nowhere to go, so I stood firm so as not to push the person in front. The woman tutted, and continued pushing and tutting until we reached the train door. By this time I was pretty startled by her rudeness and rather mischievously enjoying her impatience, so I took great pleasure in allowing a few other people out of the train in front of us.

The interchange at Eastleigh is pretty short - usually just a couple of minutes - but I could see the platform for the Winchester train (which also goes to London) and it was clear that the train had only just arrived and the platform was busy, so there was no hurry. The woman clearly didn't share that view and eventually exploded with something along the lines of "Are you intending to get the London connection, because I am!"

I replied, quite calmly and reasonably I thought, with "Well, pushing and tutting doesn't really help anyone, does it?"

She paused to consider this.

"Yes it does!" she thundered back, "it helps me!" - which it clearly didn't, because if she'd been polite about it I would probably have let her past me and certainly wouldn't have taken such pleasure in delaying her further. She proceeded to mutter something about people being so slow, which I also found amusing, since my walking speed was that much faster than hers that I was already some distance away when her mutterings were carried to me on the breeze. My amusement was doubled when, having found a seat on the Winchester train, the same woman shuffled past about 5 minutes later still looking for somewhere to park her rear.

What intrigues me about the whole encounter is that this woman had clearly achieved some sort of success judging by her appearance, demeanour and well-spokenness, yet she had worse manners and less decorum than our two-year old, even when he's in the middle of a tantrum, and that's no exaggeration. So how on earth does such a repugnant person get on in the world? Or does she put on an amazing act of niceties and politeness when she reaches her workplace in the capital? I'll never know, but I've been feeling smug (quite wrongly, I know) about the whole thing ever since it happened.

Strictly Come Voting

Oh dear, I'm blogging about a reality TV show again. This must stop. But not now.

Well, I'm feeling slightly smug that my "what will happen" prediction was absolutely spot-on, but I must admit that Tom's showdance was a gnat's whisker ahead of Rachael's. Ultimately though the point is that Tom shouldn't have even been in the final - the judge's scores in the semifinal meant that he should have been in a dance-off with one of the other couples, after which he would almost certainly have left the competition.

I was very much in favour of the BBC's decision at the time to allow all three couples through, since viewers' votes could not stop Tom being in the dance-off. But that alone was not why I supported the decision - the reason for my support was because the presenters had urged the public to "vote if you want to save your faviourite from the dance-off" - yet no amount of viewers' votes for Tom could have done that, so the BBC had to change something or they would have misled viewers.

The key point is, where was the mistake? It was not in the voting system, it was in the fact that viewers were urged to do something that, in effect, was impossible. Lesson learned, won't happen again.

Until the Christmas episode was filmed, that is, when this happened.

But here the BBC made completely the wrong decision. They changed the system to fiddle the results, so that those who didn't stand a chance of winning (because the judges marked them so low that the audience vote wouldn't be sufficient) suddenly did again. Well, so what? As long as the audience were informed that voting for the bottom two couples would be a wasted vote, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the system as it stood.

Any student of basic game theory will tell you that there is no perfect voting system. Any system of scoring and counting votes can be manipulated, result in ties, etc. In my book it's wholly correct that the judges and audience share half the vote each, and the scoring system they use is fine by me. But that does mean that sometimes the audience will be powerless to save their favourite, or for their favourite to win. That's no bad thing; often the judges know better and what's the point of having them if their opinion is to be undermined by the producers rigging the voting system every time they don't like the result?