In praise of… News Briefing

I have always slept with the radio on (it can occasionally lead to confusing dreams, where bits of the World Service output get mixed up with other stuff going around in my head, but if I sleep in silence I have nightmares – worse I can usually remember what the nightmares were, when I want to forget them).

But I never used to listen to Radio 4 first thing in the morning until a year or so ago, because until 23 April 2006 it was necessary to endure the Radio 4 Theme at 5.30am – there’s water torture, and there’s having to listen to What shall we do with the drunken sailor? on the bloody piccolo 365 sodding days a year.  (Even further back, they also used to play The Celts by Enya - I have absolutely no idea of its significance, but I can assure you they did, even though only me and maybe three other people in the entire country remembers it.)

You may recall the decision to replace the theme with a “pacy news bulletin” drew much criticism, predictably from many people who hadn’t had to suffer it personally, but saw a bandwagon for their personal grievances and jumped on.  Here are some examples from the online petition:

“Make it the National Anthem. It is truly great. No I didn’t get up early every morning and stand by my bed listening to it. It was the fact that sombody took the trouble when I did not, not to stand buy there beds but to carfully weave these theams, and sombody took the trouble to broadcast it at the leading edge of every day. ” David Small

“I hope this petition is still open and am sorry I am so infrequently awake at 05:20 to know whether the Theme is still broadcast, pleas let  me know!”  Anonymous

“Like countless others, I have been listening to the UK Theme for the last 3 decades. ” Nicholas Taylor.

Three decades?  You poor bastard.

I dont listen to radio 4, but i listen to LBC 97.3 and Nick Ferrari want’s this theme to stay, so i want it to stay too! Chris Ashton

[ You get the idea - I could have chosen more but there's over 300 pages of this stuff.. ]

Anyway, the point is, whilst axing the UK Theme is, in my opinion, the one of the best things Mark Damazer has ever done, I wasn’t immediately convinced by the prospect of News Briefing. It sounded rather identical to what 5 Live were doing at that time of day – i.e. Morning Reports.  Most of the day Five Live gives stories a completely different treatment to Radio 4, but Morning Reports is by and large a straight read (with plenty of actuality and a travel bulletin thrown in.)  Indeed, compare the news at the top of the hour on Radio 2 and 5 Live overnight and you’ll usually get exactly the same bulletin.

Plus, Radio 4 was now going to open up 10 minutes earlier, at 5.20am, which led to the problem of where to make the opt from the World Service…

I have changed my mind however – its actually very useful.  There’s headlines, weather, some sport, a paper review, a “what’s in today’s diary” style item as well as a brief “on this day in history” feature.

Unless I’ve had an early night – I really do try – normally I’ll have heard a bulletin at 12 or 1am before falling asleep, and the alarm on my phone is set for 6am, 7am and then 8am (as someone who works from home I can afford to get up when I like) – but quite often I’ll wake up at 5ish out of habit and hear a bit of World Service followed by the shipping forecast and the 13-minute bulletin itself.

This morning Susan Rae awoke me with the result of the Henley by-election (personally I would have been quite tempted in the circumstances to vote for Louise Cole, the brunette candidate – there were two – from the Miss Great Britain party – I thought it a pity that Miss GB couldn’t come in ahead of Bananaman or the BNP -  but that’s the price you pay for fielding two candidates and splitting the vote.  And twenty-five candidates in Haltemprice and Howden, extraordinary..)

Anyway – the reason I have written some 900 words on this is ultimately because, at 5.34am, I heard the first item in the newspaper reviewand they’d chosen a foreign paper first.

With no distractions from the outside world, listening to the radio in the early hours can often be a more intense experience, and things you might not react to at another time of day become rather more emotional.  Personally therefore, I found the following quite hard to listen to, and I don’t think the transcription below does Susan’s reading justice, so try it on the new iPlayer while you have the opportunity – and, if you are able, try to imagine how difficult it must have been for her to read something like this whilst remaining 100% composed and impartial.

Listen online (iPlayer)

“.. thank you Peter, Peter Gibbs.  Its just coming up to 25 to 6, we’ll have a look at the newspapers now, both at home and abroad. In Zimbabwe, the official daily, The Herald, predicts a massive turnout in today’s presidential run-off.  Its editorial urges voters to consign the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangira, in its words, “to the dustbin.”

The editor, in his own column, nails his colours to the mast: “Because my country is under siege”, he writes, “whether I wake up sick, I will still drag myself to the polling station to vote for President Mugabe.”

The Herald also carries claims by a senior police official, that the opposition is planning to disrupt the election by burning down polling stations.  It reports that security measures are in place, and voters have nothing to fear.”

Wimbledon

The BBC Wimbledon studio – photo Wikipedia, used under license

We’re nearly halfway through Wimbledon and I wanted to round up a few of the things I’ve noticed thus far – as usual mostly concerning technology, broadcast coverage and nothing much to do with actual tennis.

BBC TV studio

The BBC studio is situated in the curved-bit of the media centre, directly next to Court 18, with a view across to the new No. 1 Court and the hill (Aorangi Park.)

The BBC have used a number of set designs over the years, typically the desk changes but they retain a number of plasma screens onto which are cut animated tournament logos or beauty shots such as the image from the hoist parked in a car-park at the bottom of Somerset Road or a locked-off camera attached to the (disused) water tower by the outside courts.

This year, its suddenly all very “modern” and “minimalist”.  Rather than curved desks filled with yellow tennis balls, we have a big round circular one with a glass centre containing the championships logo, and a white/purple theme for the rest of the studio, metal, rather uncomfortable looking chairs with plenty of right angles and not a plasma screen in sight.  Instead, there are projectors* on either side that are visible in occasional wide shots.

The other thing I noticed is that, like the studio, the Order of Play graphics have been restyled in purple and green with no BBC branding visible.  BBC Sport are still branding the smaller astons and the score, but it occurs to me, given the OoP matches the look of the ‘official’ website etc, does this mean the BBC have agreed to change the graphics to simplify things for the international TV feed?

Likewise, the studio would now be suitable for coverage by any broadcast – it doesn’t feel very “BBC”ish – although it is closer to the look and feel of TC5, so have BBC Sport reached a deal with the US or other networks whereby they can use the flagship studio during what would otherwise be downtime? E.g. any time after 8pm now that Today at Wimbledon, as for the last couple of years, originates from directly above on the media centre roof.

Obviously this would depend on what is available in the way of gallery space and OB trucks, as you still need to drive the programme from somewhere, so my theory could be complete rubbish, but if anyone reading this is/was working at the championships and happens to know, I’d be very interested.

To the best of my knowledge, whilst all the kit is obviously removed straight after the tournament, the set is usually left constructed ready for the following year.

* They may not be projectors, I haven’t looked that closely or long enough to be honest, and there hasn’t been much any discussion of the set on TVForum or DigitalSpy this year (besides a discussion on the shortening of programme title sequences to fit in more trails, which is an old and depressing argument but sadly accurate.)

Radio Wimbledon on itv.com

Bit odd this one.  ITV have bought rights from IMG (on behalf of the AELTC) to the (existing) live streaming from Radio Wimbledon (which has three channels, the 7am-10pm main broadcast with Nick Dye and Sam Lloyd, plus uninterrupted commentary from Centre and No. 1 courts.)  However all of these already go out online free of charge (they experimented with charging for Centre and No. 1 a couple of years ago – clearly it didn’t work) globally on the internet anyway.  So its difficult to see exactly what benefit this will be to fans, except perhaps making more people aware of the coverage who otherwise wouldn’t have known about it.

Err, tennis fans, presumably.

Who aren’t already using the Wimbledon website.

And haven’t heard of Radio Wimbledon before – despite the fact its been broadcasting annually since 1992.

ITV haven’t exactly put a huge effort into their online offering either – it apparently consists of links to the three feeds (which are, incidentally, exactly the same ones as used on the main site, so no scope for running targetted ads/trails within the coverage, even if the AELTC included advertising – which they don’t – although the RW playlist is always a little unusual…)  a couple of slideshows entitled ‘Backhand Beauties‘ and ‘Phwoarhand Fellas‘, with a link to a recipe for strawberries and cream.  Oh, fantastic stuff ITV, what superb coverage of one of the country’s biggest annual sporting events.  (And why exactly are you doing this anyway?)

Adam Bowie has some thoughts on this in his blog too.

The new scoreboards

BEFORE (you don’t see *that* very often)

AFTER: Ugh.

The story here, if you didn’t know, is that since they put the roof back on Centre Court (I can claim to have been a spectator at the one year Centre didn’t have a roof at all, and was really a building-site that had been made safe for two weeks) there is no room for Hawk-Eye replay screens at the back of the stadium seating, so they’ve swapped out the old dot matrix screens for two Barco OLite 612s each on Centre and No.1

The Championships will feature a total of 10 displays using Barco’s OLite 612 LED panels. In addition to the 4 on court scoreboards, 4 IBM ball speed indicators will also be upgraded using the same full color OLite 612 LED panels. The traditional IBM “Match Information Displays” outside Centre Court and in the newly redesigned Tea Lawn Area overlooking the new Centre Court balconies will also use the Barco OLite panels.

Why? OK, so I’ll begrudgingly accept that the players and umpire have to be able to see the Hawk-Eye footage (who cares about the crowd, really), but please tell me what is the point of replacing a simple box that only ever show’s a tennis ball’s speed in mph with a sodding LED panel.  Likewise, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the displays around the grounds – they just display the scores from each court on a carousel with occasional crowd messages – indeed they fitted in really well with the trailing ivy and the colour scheme of the buildings.

And I can’t imagine this is terribly green either – exactly how much more electricity is needed to power a display  “with a 12mm pixel pitch, 6,000NIT light output and 15 bit processing”?

I’m sorry, I’m well aware of Barco’s reputation and don’t wish to slag them off – particular as there are some great examples of their work in TV studios (and galleries), but I think these things just look horrible.  (And the Wimbledon logos are far too big.)

BBC Radio 5 Live

A few minor changes from last year:

• Centre Court webcam dropped. (They always had trouble setting it up anyway.)
• An experimental Google map thing on the website to link to their photos and video.
• Clare Balding and Simon Mayo have been split up – Clare’s now doing commentary in addition to presenting duties from various parts of the SW19 ‘village’ (something Phil Willliams did last year.)
• The 5 Live position on the roof, next to the media refreshment tent, is now what I can only describe as what looks like the inside of  a shipping container – presumably they asked for/brought this after getting rained on in previous years.

Worth mentioning that the World Service are at Wimbledon each day, a 90 minute show at 1430 GMT and a half-hour roundup at 1830.  They share similar jingles to 5 Live.

Wimbledon.org webcam

Finally we have a decent quality picture and a nice angle – attached to the side of the tower block that overlooks SW19.  I’d be interested to know how the picture is getting back – a helpful resident with ADSL, or a camera with a built in modem of some description?

In the foreground is the media

Click for live shot (refreshes every 10 minutes, at time of writing clock 10 mins fast)

Very nice – wish IBM would bring back the remote-controlled ‘Slamcams‘ though..

BBCi Live scores

Finally, in other news, BBCi are now taking a IBM feed and repurposing it, with a single application, for Ceefax, various flavours of digital TV and the BBC homepage.  There’s a new BBCi blog – an official version of Andrew Bowden’s occasional posts, if you will, which has more details about this.

Website review: Today programme

The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss did this a while ago – here’s my version.

Good points:

• Cleaner, fresher, brighter, wider (is the orange ‘O’ in the new logo supposed to be the sun rising over the horizon? A number ‘10′ on its side for the politics element?)
• Twitter feed – typically 2 per day, daily highlight and preview of following day.
• New presenter Evan Davis’ has moved his old Evanomics blog over to Today
• Daily video review is nice – hope this isn’t something that gets dropped after a few weeks.
• Acknowledges rest of internet with links out to blogs etc.

Not so good:

And if you’ve got an opinion on that story, why not keep it to yourself?

David Mitchell, comedian

• Old forum scrapped amidst a deluge of protest.  Repeat of much copied cock-ups across bbc.co.uk since start of decade (5 Live, Radio 2, 606, Where I Live et al).  Still, at least The Archers is still going strong (24 hours a day, post-moderated).  In hindsight, I can’t help but think things would have been much better if BBC hadn’t bothered with communities at all, or had taken a risk early on when there was rather less heat and light, perhaps experimenting with a loosening of opening hours (what else on the internet has opening hours, apart from the Companies House webcheck?) and moderation restraints – maybe conducted some sort of legal test case to establish where the responsibilities lay on take-down notices/libellous/defamatory comments.  Of course Facebook didn’t exist back then, which is what sensible producers are now using.   Have Your Say still persists but is widely derided as a right-wing viper’s nest, despite being technologically sound.

I do have a theory about all this actually.  You might like to call it a
TV and Radio online community lifecycle.  Or you might not.

1. Community launches, small number of users.  Great excitement and happiness.  Production team pat selves on back at New Dawn in interactivity.
2. More people join, gathers momentum, broadcaster notices, promoted widely.
3. Even more people.  Software starts to creak a bit.  Posting restrictions introduced, prove unpopular.  Someone insists on replying to every blog post in an identical fashion – but doesn’t break any rules so can’t be removed.
4. Database and server utterly stuffed.  Production team redo the stylesheets to try to appease them, doesn’t work.  Founder users angry.  Setup rival Facebook groups.  Nasty comment left about a presenter, who reads it during vanity Google search.  Someone from MediaGuardian logs on by accident and writes a story about it (two weeks later, just when the original fuss has died down.)
5. Broadcaster announces community to be closed.

Anyway, continuing the ‘Could do better’ list:

• Twitter feed would be improved if they followed the Channel Four News format and provided a few more updates of prospects during am/pm meetings.

• Daily video review presumably shot on mobile phone, sound quality dreadful.  Is it really that hard to find something with an external microphone? Recorded on a high-end phone presumably.  Alternatively, why not film in it the cubicle in front of the mixing desk with the studio visible through the glass in the background.  Much quieter.  Would be nice occasionally to get editor to sit with presenter and them to chat for a few minutes, explain some of the decisions, or the two presenters together.  Don’t think I’ve seen Humphrys do one yet. Humphrys’ video this morning was one of the funniest yet – and its nice to see him given a bit of room elsewhere on the network in On the Ropes, which I highly recommend.
• Clearly there is less content than there was before, but that was always going to be the case.
  

• Still think Thought for the Day should be scrapped or at least broadened to encompass more than religion.  Wonder if it’ll happen in my lifetime.

Verdict:

• Best they could have done with resources they have (left).  Site will need minimal updates and is still useful.  Pity Today is BBC’s flagship news programme yet forced to exist on pathetically small budget.  Yes, I know radio is cheaper to do than television, but that doesn’t mean the former has to be run into the ground to fund endless talent contests (that’s a clever double meaning btw, referring to both reality shows and the salaries paid to TV presenters.)
• The programme itself?  5 years ago I wouldn’t imagined listening to Today for five minutes – nowadays its a daily thing (Sundays I turn to the World Service or WRN) I’m frequently there for two and a half-hours. (Still not quite sure about the final half hour on weekdays – perhaps I’ve had enough continuous news by then, or maybe its because of the items they choose to run.)  And interactivity on air is kept to an absolute minimum (i.e. nil) – there was a brief foray with reading the occasional email, which concerned me, but fortunately this seems to have based.   Long live Today the way it is now.

Today programme website

News spam

(Before) – photo by TaylorMiles – used under license

Spam subject lines, masquerading as breaking news, that I have received so far:

Donald Trump missing, feared kidnapped
China Earthquake claims 1 million lives
Eiffel Tower damaged by massive earthquake

The last one would have been by favourite, but for the McAfee blog which lists a number of others including:

White House hit by lightning, catches fire

Which is quite comical.  Of course the spammers might have got more people to click and download their viruses if the email body text was consistent with the subject.  The email for the Paris headline says:

US Soldier throws boy off cliff, villagers enraged

Which sounds more like a crossword clue (There’s a challenge. Use however many letters you like.)

Technology wishlist

With apologies to those of you who land on this page in disappointment having been searching for news of the existence of the very same products.  Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Photo by “Lily Dustbin” – used under license.

• Internet-enabled washing machine.  Not so that you can order washing powder from a web-browser.  Instead so that it tells you over the internet where you are in the cycle, when it will have finished, you can see if certain components are starting to fail, see how much time is spent waiting for water to heat up, get an idea of the energy efficiency etc.
• Automatic DVD-resume-in-the-right-place – happens very rarely on all the software I’ve tried, you’d have thought someone would have got it right by now.  Similarly, if I reinsert a DVD I own/have rented, do I really have to sit through the pirary/copyright warnings a second, third, fourth time without being allowed to fast forward them? Surely not unreasonable for software developers to remove this restriction if a DVD that’s already been watched once is played again?
• Apple to rewrite iTunes on the PC so it doesn’t run like treacle and can actually play full-size video without constant stuttering.
• Ability to sync an iPhone/iPod Touch with Itunes wirelessly (this may already be possible, I don’t own an iphone.)  Much of my life consists of taking iphone from room/room then back to PC whilst trying to keep track of place in a long podcast.
• Next year’s 3rd generation iPhone (not to be confused with iPhone 3G) to have more flash capacity – at least 32G, a decent camera with proper flash and at least an FM radio receiver, if not a DAB chip.
• Asus to build 3G (ie. UMTS/HSDPA) support into next their eee PC.
• Amazon to launch Amazon MP3 in the UK.
• Amazon to launch Kindle in the UK.
• Amazon to launch Amazon Unbox in the UK.
• Amazon UK to take DVD rental service back in house.  OFT to investigate Lovefilm’s near monopoly.  (Have just switched to Blockbuster DVD rental service.  Feel a blogpost on this coming on.)
• Oystercard to be rolled out all national rail and bus services.
• Wifi access on trains across the country.
• Live google map of London/regional buses.
• Similar service to tell you when your post is likely to turn up.
• UK Mobile operators to transmit useful information, free of charge over GSM cell broadcast system.  Partnership with the BBC perhaps? (perhaps another way of doing Visual Radio or a DAB companion data service.)
• A quality UK equivalent/companion to the This Week in Tech / Geekbrief podcasts.
• Electricity providers to create an online map/log of all power outages.
• Much faster satellite-acquisition in GPS devices.
• NASA TV to be broadcast FTA in Europe, rather than only being available online.
• Cash machines to give out £5 notes as standard.  Abolition of 1 and 2p coins. (OK, we’re straying from technology a little here.)
• No SPAM.

Any more of your own?

What’s wrong with The Apprentice?

1. Press button

2. Flap opens, pointy finger extends horizontally

3. Eyes roll around a bit.

4. “You’re Fired”, says animatronic head

Prototypes produced: 1. Total sales: 0  *

When The Apprentice first began I was a huge fan, but ever since I have been growing increasingly disillusioned with the show.  As Mark Lawson recently wrote:

We also sinkingly understand that The Apprentice will continue – relentlessly, until no breath of invention is left – because, as competition increases and ratings fall, shows that people know are regarded as gold.

Here’s my brief guide to everything that’s wrong with The Apprentice:

• Move from BBC2 to BBC1.  Moving shows is fine if you don’t change them, its only a different number to punch into the EPG after all, but despite however much channel controllers insist they give producers a free reign, it inevitably leads to an element of “dumbing down”.  When the show first transferred it was evident how much “sign-posting” had been added.  Everything shown had to have a relevance to the final outcome – forget to do your sums properly? Oh dear, you’re done for, etc.
• Repetition.  The opening title sequence is incredibly tedious and repeated shot for shot, word for word, every week.
• Taylor Herring.  They are (an admittedly, highly successful) PR agency who’ve managed all four seasons of the show.  But the control they seek to exercise, to supposedly “protect” the series, is ridiculous.  This year there has been nothing in the way of blogs or individual candidate websites, for example, which serve as a good means of exposing the editing process and the flaws in the various tasks.  As a result all we’ve had is a series of bland interviews from contestants who have clearly undergone media training and frankly appear to have been warned off saying anything other than “Sir Alan was right to fire me.”   Additionally, they’ve been noticeably uncomfortable about revealing any of the ’secrets’:

• its not a real boardroom
• the recording schedule is compressed, it doesn’t take a full 12 weeks to film
• the ‘long walk to the taxi’ shots are all filmed in one go
• the actions of the candidates are often dictated by where they can get a film crew
• candidates aren’t allowed to use the internet
• Frances isn’t his real secretary
• Sir Alan doesn’t own a helicopter
• His chair in the “boardroom” has had its height artificially boosted

• We know from former contestants that the boardroom sequence typically lasts 2-3 hours or more.  However, without that knowledge, even a cursory viewing will indicate its heavily edited.  The BBC had an opportunity to put out an extended version instead of the woeful You’re Fired show if they wanted to – it would have got sizeable ratings – but for whatever reason chose not to.  Apart from anything else, by inelegantly hacking it down to this degree and swapping things around to make the outcome more “unpredictable” – they make a mockery of Sugar’s decisions – he constantly appears to be contradicting himself.

  Its not just trivial things that have been changed either.

  In the penultimate (interview) episode of series one, James Max was shown as being fired before Paul Torrisi, when in fact it took place the other way around.In series three, Katie Hopkins was offered the position of first finalist, only to be shown to have doubts and be asked to stand down.  At this point I’d like to quote The Guardian’s highly perceptive media editor Janine Gibson; who in 2007 single-handedly did more more than anyone to expose corruption in UK television:

That’s just bizarre. There’s something happened off camera that we’re not being told about. It has Big Brother funny editing written all over it.

I reckon he fired Simon and *then* when they were actually hammering it out, Katie pulled out at the “now you come and work for us for 6 months” stage. Then they had to reshoot the boardroom.

• The interviewers.  What a bunch of tossers.  Every single time. That’s all I have to say.
• When BBC1 were obliged to show an irrelevant England friendly recently, they moved The Apprentice to the following Tuesday.  A stronger BBC would have shifted it to BBC2, its original home, for consistency and to increase viewer choice – but sadly in this day and age ratings are all, even for a PSB apparently.
• Product placement.  How on earth did they get away with the that Amstrad em@iler phone promotion for the first three series? When you have a modern, minimalist office set and its the only bit of electronics visible, then I call it undue prominence. Mysteriously it disappeared after Sugar flogged his declining Amstrad business to BSkyB (so they could continue to make the set top boxes.)   By the way – did you know that Amstrad stands for ‘Alan Michael Sugar Trading’.  Oh, you did…
• Alan Sugar.  Yes, he was very innovative back in the 80s/early 90s and its worth remembering that at one point Amstrad had 25% market share.  Yes he does charity work.  But his apparent dislike of anyone who’s had a university education and willingness to take part in what is clearly not a business programme, provoking the ire of real business people everywhere with his TV-favourable decisions.
• You’re Fired – I have nothing against Adrian Chiles (he’s married to one of my favourite radio presenters) but this show is incredibly weak.  They can’t fill the 30 minutes without resorting to photoshopped images, comedy gifts (a rubber chicken for the Kosher meat episode, anyone?) and pointless audience voting.  One of the worst things is the promise of extra footage, of which there is all of 30 seconds each episode.   The panel choices in season four were truly bizarre – it appears they had actually run out of people to book – and those chosen often no longer hold even a passing connection to the week’s events.   Scrap it and give us The Apprentice: Boardroom Uncut if you really want to add a bit of value.
• A demonstration in the act of flogging a dead Katie Hopkins has been the unnecessary, vacuous spin-off shows commissioned this year.  E.g. The Apprentice – Why I fired them – where we just get footage we’ve already seen and Sugar repeating what he’s already told us, and The Apprentice – Weakest Link Special – I’m not sure if I was more appalled by the number of wrong answers or the level of difficulty (i.e. easiness) of the questions that had been chosen in the first place. Or Anne Robinson.  Probably Anne Robinson.

Executive summary (excuse pun):

• Its an entertainment show.  If you like entertainment and don’t care much about the business bit, you’ll probably love it.  If you like business, you’ll hate it. If you like entertainment, like business and have a more than casual interest in the media interest, then, like me, you’ll wish you could relax and enjoy it but find yourself constantly frustrated by the format, with an added feeling of betrayal due to the inevitable injustices of the weekly decision making made to maximise ratings.

But I want to end with some positives..

• The lack of audience participation.  How awful would it have been if people were able to vote?  I suspect that’s partly the reason You’re Fired was created, to add a (largely unwanted) element of interactivity.
• Sadly it only lasted a single series, but the Five Live Apprentice podcast with Richard Bacon was compulsory listening to me last year.  Done on a very low budget, and – because of BBC regulations that all podcasts have to come from on air programme – broadcast at about 4 o’clock in the morning during the weekend edition of Up All Night – Bacon and the panel didn’t shy away from really laying into the format and the contestants the way every other BBC outlet has been afraid to.  I wonder if the podcast met its demise because of pressure from Sugar or Taylor Herring that it was damaging the brand, or simply that Five Live couldn’t justify the money to produce it after repeated cuts.
• James Max – this series one candidate not only remains one of the nicest people I’ve ever seen on television, but his willingness to openly blog about his part in the series and respond to people’s questions revealed dozens of secrets about the production process.  His obvious business aptitude and personality has rewarded him with much media work, notably on London broadcaster LBC.
• Miriam Staley – friendly, competent, intelligent, driven (also pretty and tall).  Deserved far better than a job with SAS – who later admitted he might have made the wrong choice in firing her.  She had previously run a hotel in the Caribbean and is now in charge of major sponsorships at Lloyd’s TSB.   Oh, and like James, she replied to every single email people sent her after the show – including mine.
• Ruth Badger – appreciated her more and more as the series progressed.  If you remain to be convinced, watch an episode or two of her Sky One show Badger or Bust which not only demonstrates her sales skills but also her people management and general likeableness.
• Lucinda Ledgerwood – nicest person in series four.  Heartening to discover post-firing she probably wouldn’t have taken part had she not been without a television for the past five years.
• Last but not least, Anna Pickard’s live blogs for MediaGuardian.  Its one skill to be able to write something funny.  Another to be able to do so week after week, live, as you watch a TV programme.  And Anna has done so for the past two series.   If you think I’ve been unfairly cynical about the show, go and read her article about the secrets of its success for a bit of balance?

Series five of The Apprentice will be broadcast in 2009

Disclaimer:

I used to own an Amstrad PCW9512 wordprocessor. It was alright but rather expensive and unbelievably, was built in such a way that when I if you unplugged or dislodged the keyboard connector whilst it was switched on, a large component on the circuit board would blow up and the whole board would have to be replaced.

* Also, is it just me who found the presence of the Diet Coke can in all the marketing photos ambiguous? Is it purely to indicate relative size (“My head is massive”) or is there a subliminal message going on about Sir Alan’s choice of soft drink?

Observations at the supermarket

“BSOD on a petrol pump” by ‘naturenet.net’ – used under license

Tesco’s new unit is somewhat better than this…

When I have occasion to fill up car at a petrol station (someone else’s, I should point out, as I don’t drive) , I always use the Pay-at-pump option.  Partly a desire to avoid unnecessary human interaction along with the obvious speed benefits.

The local Tesco has just refitted the pay at pump units, which, until now, were rather old, with, notably, no support for Chip and Pin.  I didn’t really find this much of an issue as a consumer, because without C&P the responsibility for fraud falls to Tesco, rather than me as the consumer, however it did receive rather a lot of attention.

The new units are very shiny and stylish (large backlit LCD display, large, clearly labelled, tactile keypad, lots of option buttons like a cashpoint, a slide in card reader (it doesn’t need to swallow the card to read it, it just read the chip), a barcode reader and a printer.

The style might seem irrelevant but the user interface for the old system was pretty awful and I figure the more visually appealing you make technology look the more likely people are to try it for the first time.

The barcode reader, despite being mounted vertically downwards – you hold the card underneath the unit so the red lazer isn’t visible – still carries a lazer warning (to paraphrase: “its a lazer, its dangerous, don’t look directly into it”) – although I don’t remember seeing any such warnings at the in store self-service checkouts..

You might wonder what you need the barcode reader for when its useless for chip+pin.  However in addition to the full size clubcards, which fit in the main slot, Tesco have distributed millions of Clubcard keyfobs with a barcode on which are about half the size.  If you don’t have a reader for those, people will just end up avoiding the Pay at Pump machine and using the kiosk.

Whilst it recognised my clubcard, I could have done with a beep as the process takes a couple of seconds.

Thankfully, there are no voice prompts like in Tesco stores – if only the self-service checkouts had a mute option.  Incidentally, on that subject, I have now seen a number of stores which used to have large self-service checkouts where they have been taken out.  Would be interesting if anyone reading this knows why – fraud, breakdowns, stupid customers ?

The other point of note is that the maximum fuel spend, which used to be £40, has now rised to £80 – I which assume in part is due to the increased security but also the rising price of fuel.  I can’t imagine that many vehicles that would need more than £80 in one go..

Of course Pay-at-pump isn’t perfect, because I never see anyone else using it, so you end up having to wait for the person in front of you to rummage around for their credit card, walk over to the kiosk, buy a load of things they could have bought in the supermarket anyway and then queue up and pay. Therefore the bottlenecks still persist. So how about some…

… possible incentives for people to use pay at pump?

• extra clubcard points
• a discount off petrol
• a ‘fast lane’ like some branches of Asda have

Whilst waiting for the van in front to move, noticed a Tesco person carrying a massive milk churn to a camper van parked at the pump opposite.  Pondered why this might be.  A new service? What if it contained actual milk?  Perhaps there was a cow round the back of the forecourt building.  Although presumably, being Tesco, they would wish to offer multiple price options – one fat cow and one skinny cow for the Tesco Finest and Value range respectively – a budget version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, if you will.

Social situations #4 – drunk girl on train

Photo by “jsnyder909″ – used under license

Incidentally, this has just happened, so its “hot off the press” as it were (this is a pun – you may wish to revisit it at the end, or by studying the photograph.)

Chronology:

• Arrive at railway station.
• Purchase ticket.
• Wait on platform.
• Witness conversation between a couple of girls (GCSE age probably) – although there are some chav ingredients, including overuse of the word “like” and a propensity for speaking slightly too quickly, its not exactly of Pollardesque proportions, and they are both dressed quite nicely.  They are, interestingly, actually saying how they *used* to get drunk but are now quite sensible and in fact, how they enjoy being able to remember what they did the night before.
• Get on train. Girls sit down.  They don’t really play a further part in the story, except to serve as something of a control group demonstrating social norms.
• Another couple of girls in the carriage.  One sits in seat across aisle and one row forward from me.  Is clearly quite drunk – evidence: (a) she is clutching a large bottle, (b) she keeps making wretching noises occasionally, (c) use of the phrase “how many bottles of vodka have we drunk?” [her friend]: “Four.”
• Now at this stage, I should point out I am teetotal.  Not because I “have a problem”, I have just never ever drunk anything. With alcohol in it, that is.  Sometimes it is quite dull and depressing to not drink, though I put those symptoms mostly down to not having any friends.  I note however that people who drink a lot don’t have any friends either, and are broke or living in the gutter.Also, go to a pub and watch other people drinking, work colleagues for example, and after a while they’re starting to laugh at things which clearly aren’t funny.  This also happens at theatre performances – I have seen poor jokes getting huge laughs after the interval on numerous occasions.    Sometimes it works the other way and people just get more and more depressed – is this because alcohol just amplifies whatever mood you are in at the time?Anyway the point is that some detailed research has lead me to discover that Vodka has an alcohol content of 30-40%, which seems rather a lot.  And I would have thought you would have been in serious trouble if you had drunk four bottles of it – i.e. on a life support machine or worse.  Though presumably they were sharing.
• The girl found a discarded newspaper and started throwing sections of it at her friend, who threw them back.  She seemed to enjoy this – in a childlike state perhaps.  Maybe she would have appreciated a colouring book and some crayons. Next she scrunched bits of the newspaper into a ball and threw them.
• Then she stared at me for a few seconds and started to throw little bits of newspaper at me.  Not very much, but she did it two or three times, from quite close range, and missed.  After the third piece of paper went past my head I got up, briefly looked at her and calmly walked into the next carriage.  Without saying a word.  Its not that I was “scared” of her – she was young and in fact quite pretty, with nice hair.  But my dilemma is – what the hell is the appropriate etiquette in a situation where a girl is throwing pieces of newspaper at you?  My station was the next on the line so I …
• … got off the train a few minutes later anyway.

Did I do the right thing?  Should I have:

• thrown the paper back at her – I don’t think so, this would just have been lowering myself to her level, and I didn’t see the point
• taken a fresh piece of newspaper and used it to make a Dunce’s cap, and placed it on her head - the main issue here is I’m not sure how to make such a hat.  I could make a cone, but I’m not sure how you stop it from unrolling.  Would you need scissors to cut a slit?  Is there a special fold involved?  Also, a key element of the Dunce’s hat is the large letter ‘D’ – whilst I did have a black pen in my possession, on newspaper the lettering would be significantly less visible.  Really you’d need plain photocopying paper, and I did not have any.  Finally, because she was leaning over at regular intervals, apparently about to be sick (another reason I left) I would have been concerned that the hat would have just fallen off her head and in her inebriated state she would have failed to fully appreciate it. (Of course, turning the hat upset down would provide a convenient receptacle *should* she have felt the need to throw up.)
  
• shouted at her or hit her - well I would never hit a girl.  That said for a couple of years I was bullied at school and if a girl hit me (it occasionally happened, I would push or hit her back, though not especially hard.)   I wouldn’t should at her either, because (a) I don’t think I could think quickly enough to say anything clever – what, after all, is the point in meaningless exchanges of swearwords? (b) she was, as I have stated, completely off her head, on vodka, so wouldn’t have understood me anyway.
  
• stayed in the carriage? - I don’t see any advantage in this just for the sake of it.  It was annoying me having her throw pieces of newspaper at me.  That said, it might have been interesting to see if I’d have stared at her in an expressionless way, what she would have done.    I think there would have been a social responsibility on me to stay if there had been no other girls there, because in that state she’d be quite vulnerable.  I would like to think that if I’d been on the train much longer and she had actually been sick I would have held/reassured her and given her some water to drink.  Or, if she had been getting off at my station, I would have made sure she was safe / able to get home / use my phone to call someone to pick her up.

Comments welcome – especially if you have an opinion of my mental stability at having deemed it necessary to write over 1,000 words of angst about this event.

Notes on a scandal

Photo by “da max pixelist” – used under license.

• 10.30am: It says something about the British sense of priorities that the day began with news “Wayne and Colleen’s wedding” dominating all outlets.  Reassuringly, a prime ministerial news conference and one of the biggest political gestures in living memory is enough to minimise the attention paid to a thick, overpaid footballer and a woman who mostly “goes shopping” for the rest of the day.
• On the subject of news conferences, is answering a question about a reality TV show an indication of the PM being in touch with the nation, or a sad reflection on the untruthfulness of television and the ability of Downing Street to persuade friendly journalists to ask supplementary questions that will divert the public from the real issues?
• 1pm: Just how important does a statement have to be for the speaker to allow you to make it in the Commons anyway?

I have said, and I’ve put it on record, that this must be the first place to hear about any new development or any new matter of policy.

Rt Hon Michael Martin, MP

• 2pm: Wondering how much of a contingency budget the BBC and all political parties have left for by-elections.  Three in three months.
• 3ish: Can it really be the actions of “a little person” (Stephen Peterson) to heckle a senior politician for two and a half minutes, ambush an important statement, shout loudly and allowing little more than a couple of seconds to respond to any of your questions? At least have the common decency to wait until he’s finished and ask politely if you can speak to him.
• 8pm: peruse Question Time guest list: What has June Sarpong ever actually done to justify appearing ?
• 9pm: Yes, it is possible to do a live OB from a railway station via RF camera link, and rather successfully as it turns out – at least until you have walked far enough for the stations buildings to block out the signal.  However its very exciting watching a train come in, seeing the one everyone is waiting for disembark, to be spontaneously applauded by watching commuters, and then conduct a live interview strolling down the platform.    So much more compelling than distant helicopter shots – and not unlike Railwatch.

More seriously however, for some reason, Davis’ appearance in the Westminster precincts this afternoon and that journey to York this evening took my mind back to the return of another David, David Shayler, to the UK eight years ago:

“I did what I did because I love my country,” he told the press conference. “I’m not a traitor.”

He said his three months in a French jail and three years in exile had been worth it.

“Someone had to get up and say it,” he said. “This has opened my eyes to the lack of civil liberties in Britain,” he said.

Mr Shayler also announced his intention to stand in the next general election.

“People I know in the north east feel totally betrayed by Tony Blair,” he said.

“I intend to stand as an independent candidate on a platform of human rights and freedom of information.”

“Shayler to take on government” – August 2000

Maybe its a weak comparison, and he never did stand himself.  Maybe it was the strain that drove him mad. But both were, are, fighting for liberty – backed by the organisation that shares the name.  Both willing to sacrifice their careers.  Both of them accompanied by a pack of media, but ultimately standing alone as they prepared to fight against the establishment.

So I couldn’t help but feel a little moved as I watched the train pull in this evening.

National Greed Day

Photo by ‘willposh’ – used under license

Today is going to be an extremely busy and exciting day, but for all the wrong reasons.

• greedy people who run the country aren’t satisified with the ability to lock innocent people up for 28 days without telling them why, and want an extra couple of weeks, and will do anything to get it and secure cheap votes the backing from a large section of the public fed biased questions to which they do not understand the consequences.
• greedy people who run cricket want to have shorter and shorter matches so they can get more money from television and foreign businessmen despite the fact the shorter matches will eventually get so boring they’ll have to be made even shorter to maintain people’s interest in a self-perpetuating, ever-decreasing circle that may eventually end with a format called “One on One” – a game played over 10 minutes where each player bowls/receives only one ball, in their actual pyjamas, watched by a group of commuters on the way to work who are being served an overpriced breakfast by a group of students dressed as lapdancers so that they can pay their tuition fees. (Have I gone too far?)
• one of four greedy mad people will be given a job with a big salary but a formerly formidable but now also rather greedy man with a beard and a pointy finger on a programme edited in, at times, somewhat untruthful way by a greedy production company. A programme which has been pinched from its original home by a greedy channel controller who, having “adjusted” the format, is milking it, and a variety of spin-off shows, for all its worth so they can get better ratings – ratings which, are of course, the measure of success, and not originality or creativity or honesty, especially not in this greedy world, on National Greed Day.

Do feel free to discuss.