Friday, April 16, 2004


Rounding Up The Barbarians. Yes, this is a post about the heathen hordes who make BBC criticism their sport, and sometimes that means taking on the spirit of Bill Shankly : 'Some people believe football is a matter of life and death.
I'm very disappointed with that attitude.
I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.'


It's been a quiet week for BiasedBBC, although DumbJon was very impressed with this post. BiasedBBC take the whack-a-mole approach to BBC bias- if you see it, whack it; if you don't, lie low until you do. They never lie low for very long.

Contrastingly, Last Night's BBC News , when roused, lays out the law regarding a particular issue- the preemptive approach- and then explains how godawfully unfair the BBC has been, including all the nods and winks and locutions where it's essentially whitewashing something. It's been a busy week, with some great writing about the BBC's adoption of the Palestinians as Aunty's Chosen People.

Meanwhile, the Daily Ablution (*not an avowedly anti-Beeb blog) takes what I would call the cultural approach. Scott wows you with a historical perspective or a cultural understanding of where the BBC is an institutional failure. It's lusciously sarcastic on occasions (see 'cultural understanding' for fresh unmissable stuff), and there have been a few occasions this week- including a priceless engagement with a tentative BBCWorld editor.

I'll sum up with the three most recent additions, which include this blog. Each, like the aforementioned blogs, is unique. USS Neverdock is the product of former US Navy man Marc. As you might expect, it's full of news. I'd define it as the blog of what the BBC isn't telling you, and may not want you to know. Useful- and he's been busy (random good example here), as ever, this week. The UN Special Commissioner is a riot (is that an oxymoron?), but he has had a quiet week, which is odd really considering the rich pickings available from the unilateral actions of that despicable Sharon and his sidekick Dubya. I hope he'll be up and dishing out fatwas, sorry, UN resolutions, sometime soon. It's what Denis Boyles called an 'attitudinal weblog'. And then there's me, old Hoarsely. What am I? Who am I? Maybe I'm a hopeful dabbler in the murkey world of institutional bullies- of which the BBC is the fattest, most swaggering, least often challenged that, on balance, on average, I've known. I've dabbled long enough this evening. Good night.

 
Google Custom Search