In which the BBC annoys me again

[callmemadam]

Woke up this morning, switched in the radio; it was just coming up to six o'clock. The first news item was that Terry Pratchett 'wants a tribunal set up to help those with incurable diseases end their lives with help from doctors.' (Quote from BBC web site.) Why was this considered to be the most important story in the world at that moment? Because it's the subject of a Panorama programme on BBC 1 this evening of course, schoopid. I wish Sir Terry no ill, quite the reverse but a) I don't want to wake too early and then hear talk of assisted suicide and b) it isn't news. So I switched off again. I may soon give up Radio 4 altogether, I'm so sick of its mission to depress.

Normal service, i.e. January books, will be resumed later.

Comments

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

My latest habit is to have Radio 3 on very quietly overnight, so that I can make an informed decision about when I will be awake enough to cope with Radio 4. This falls down on Saturday night/Sunday morning because I like Bob Harris but can't cope with Radio 2 on a Sunday morning. Honestly! All these stations and you can still end up listening to rubbish!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Good plan!
Glad I'm not the only one who feels Radio 4 needs coping with. I thought it must be my age as I used to have it on all day. Those miserable afternoon plays! Haven't they heard of comedy?

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

I have an ongoing fantasy playlist of radio stations in my head, which I am constantly trying to juxtaposition until I can get it quite right. At least half of my listening time would be Late Junction; then The Archers (at least twice a day, seven days a week), the various jazz programmes; World Routes; Bob Harris (he can stay on Saturday nights), with daily doses of Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, Loose Ends. And Saturday afternoons would only have football, so that I could listen to all the other really good programmes on on a Saturday afternoon at more appropriate times. And the Today programme would only report interesting stories, with no lazy journalism, and nobody saying St James Palace has announced, or Washington has said and that sort of thing. And then the world would be a better place.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Ah, if we ruled the world!

St James Palace has announced
Yes! But even worse, 'Gordon Brown/David Cameron will say...' It hasn't even happened! Instead of going out looking for news, 'reporters' are sitting at desks processing press releases and studying newspapers and the internet for their non-existent 'stories'.

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

Yes! Does nobody else notice these things??

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Hee! Goes so well with the Sunday roast.

[(Anonymous)]

That sums up Woman's Hour, reckon he got it just about right!

[geraniumcat.livejournal.com]

I am so sick of those programme trails disguised as news! I'm listening much less to Radio 4 than I used to, combining it with R3 and R7 in order to avoid the depressing stuff. My biggest gripe though is about the World Service's depressing programming: because I have tinnitus I like to leave the radio on overnight, and I'm always waking up to people explaining in graphic detail about how they have been tortured. Admittedly, I can't really expect that world news should be sanitised for my benefit, but I wish I could work out how to only hear mildly anodyne burbling!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is exactly my problem! Not tinnitus, (you poor thing)but surfacing unwillingly in the night and hearing either'heroin' or 'cancer' on the World Service. We all have quite enough of our own problems without the unsolvable ones of the whole world. I've mentioned before recently my new strategy: an audio book in the old Discman. It means putting on headphones but usually sends me off again. Paul Temple beats people being tortured!

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

I had a rant at the radio this morning. They did a news story on how some woman found six double-yolked eggs in a box and it was a ridiculous-number-to-one chance. They got some statistician on to explain just how rare this was.

What they did not bother to do was talk to anyone in an egg factory, who might then have been able to tell them that eggs are usually sorted and double yolkers removed from the batches sold to the public, so the boxes of staff eggs and saleable eggs had probably got mixed up, which is why this woman got six.

Of course, if something odd appears to be coming from a packing plant, an academic is going to know *infinitely* more about it than the people who actually do the packing...

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I heard that! It didn't mean anything to me, though, so thanks for the enlightenment. Typical!