The BBC

for every Moyles, Evans, Clarkson that has gone there are still scores of terrible people who you are compelled by law to pay for. And none of them were tried for their crimes, although Moyles seems to have disappeared without a trace, thank fuck!

Chris Moyles can be heard seguing Oasis into the Courteeners on Radio X if you're really interested.

that cursed netherworld where he was one of the highest paid at the beeb was some kind of bad dream, you might be tempted to think. But no.

Shaun Keaveney's still on the books, the Chris Moyles for Shed 7 fans

Stella Creasy will be a regular listener then!

In 2012 Chris Moyles was involved in a tax avoidance scheme[81] and requested a court order to prevent the press from reporting it, because he claimed it would infringe his human rights

can u have human rights if ur not human

makes u think

just stick R3 on for some medieval x-mas hymns and avoid the Dr Who spesh at all costs imo.

― calzino, Tuesday, December 4, 2018 1:22 AM (three hours ago)

the wily Chibnall has outwitted you again by having a New Years special this year instead

As a tribute to his punch-ably annoying smug face and terrible writing I'll watch summat I got from the movie torrents instead.

gregg wallace and his unearned gurning

(in fact i still love masterchef despite this)

My Youtube history has some shameful stuff: DJ Smile, The Young Turks, H Lewis JP GQ interview, Eddie Shit videos, The Queen's Corgi trailer and even J Oliver associated Food Tube stuff. But I have never delved into that Masterchef space.

https://paulbernal.wordpress.com/2018/12/04/fake-news-and-fake-vicars/

A bit of groaning and moaning about the BBC. In the end the stuff on post-truth and too big to change etc. undercuts what are a bunch of reasonable points.

and the new Eastenders set is going to be extremely delayed and several millions pounds over budget, which seems like an absolute disaster?

Not if it keeps Eastenders off our TV screens.

we're due to play united there mid feb so i really hope its in ok shape by then

That is one of the best pieces I’ve read about the BBC in a long time.

It is wrong to conflate BBC News and World Service with the BBC, as it does, though. That’s only about half the corp and half the story. The situation in TV and Radio is different and they’re facing different challenges.

The BBC is also not doing a great job of describing all the ways it is trying to change rn. It’s an org that is good at resisting core change but nevertheless changing the outer levels quite radically and I think another of those is brewing

I find Simon Reeve's stuff seductively enjoyable but I don't really trust him in the same way calz hates Dan Snow

totally get that. don't trust him either. something's up. don't know what.

I think he just presents a specific kind of party line - Foreign Office-ish, really - but sells it as more neutral and exploratory than it is. Like I say tho, I enjoy his programmes if for no other reason than they show bits of the world not widely filmed.

Same, about not trusting him. I've only seen the last series, Mediterranean, but he comes across as being out of depth, a bit of a lightweight? Which can't be right looking at the long list of series he's done. And yet.

from what I've seen (some of the Myanmar one) it's nicely shot and there are genuine attempts to capture the interesting details of the location rather than centering the presenter all the time. And they slum it with the hoi polloi and you get a good look at ordinary things like what the public transport is like or what life is like in obscure provincial places. But it's a very mediocre BBC voice he has, like some have already said ..untrustworthy. He sort of seems to typify that R Biggs classic quote about travel narrowing the mind - and it's almost like his entire knowledge of history comes from reading Tristam Hunt books at times.

I haven't seen much of his stuff I'll admit but imo that whole style just needs to go. it's patronizing even when it's good. i want to hear people talking about it from the inside. take one of the interviewees and make them the presenter.

Bingo

A problem I have with a lot of travel TV and writing is the overapplication of journalistic distance, like we know you they are coming from one culture and viewing another, know they are keen not to be appropriating anything, but giving up even trying to experience anything except in the most presentery way makes for shit lifestyle TV & books and nothing else. I don't mean they need to marry a local and spend a decade living with their family like I did, but the refusal to stake part of themselves in a place means you're just making a more highbrow version of those awful business travel shows.

I like the guy who goes and shrooms with various tribes and takes the initiation ceremonies whose name I can't be arsed to Google right now but the stench of 19th century missionary comes off most of these shows. Palin kind of side-stepped it by playing himself as character.

Yeah Calz and Tracer and NV otm. It is that. Inevitably you yourself, as a viewer, stumble upon a certain subject or country you happen to know something about as well. And then it starts to grate, realizing that if Reeve gets something wrong and on this off instance you can call it out... Then how much more moments must there be about topics you might not know as well, where his representation is just as feeble?

And yes, it's patronizing. The 'Tintin goes to Africa' style needs to go.

(apols for that terribly written post, the gist of what I mean is in there somewhere)

"The name of the country is important ..it was called Burma for decades of course ..and then the former military dictatorship decided to rename it Myanmar"

gr8 history lesson there m8 simon, you complete fucking cock!

changed the name to avoid confusion with the shaving cream iirc

but to avoid just being negative the Turkey show had loads of great sequences, i felt like there was ground being covered that i hadn't seen before, he is pretty decent at talking to randoms and not talking over them

Did he at least brush on Kurds/Armenian genocide etc? Or does he go out of his way to avoid ~the inconvenient truths~?

xxp
at least they were spared military dictatorships when they had one that's sole purpose was
complete ruthless exploitation of all their nation's GDP and rubber and eradication of all human rights!

simon reeve is one of those guys who gets salty abt phds. I'd like to see ppl making programs about where they live but there's a lot to be said for outsider's eyes (esp someone you know how to take)

evan hadfield (son of the astronaut)'s youtube channel rare earth is what a lot of you would probably be interested in - he does this stuff v well

I like the guy who goes and shrooms with various tribes and takes the initiation ceremonies whose name I can't be arsed to Google right now

Rory Stewart?

an old exemplar of the "outsider view" was Alistair Cooke's America series from the 70's. I mean some of it probably hasn't dated well, but it was always thoughtful type middlebrow tv, with it's own distinct voice. These days that type of series would be handed to some dim tory-boy drone, and be unwatchable shit imo. And also when they send dim tory boys to old colonies, that bbc house style voice is very bad. Especially you have become completely accustomed to it through daily listening to R4/WS.

of course AC had been living in America for decades, but I suppose that's what made his observations, anecdotes much richer and more nuanced. These days the posh bimbos at the bbc are so mediocre and dull. It might have been ever thus or I might be wrong - but it's how I feel, and I can't watch about 95% of it any more.

meades is the only person i like in this role because he is so outlandishly, transparently judgmental about everything

and yes there was maybe a time for this style but times change

suspect the format of a person that goes to different places is not going away any time soon

I used to like Prof Bartlett's style on the medieval era, his programs on The Normans and The Plantagenets was classy stuff. he should on the tv more often (unlike that boring windbag Schama).

Visiting mom and little sis exposes me to the Beeb's morning schedule and it's really aggravating my depression, like being smothered by a middle England mattress party.

tbf all scheduled TV is terrible but this was the first thread I could think of and BBC1 is conceptually, aggressively life-denying

did you know simon reeve wrote the first book in the world on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda

I did not know that!

reading about it doesn't exactly quieten my suspicions that he has spook-adjacent connections mind you

that pro-brexit, tory voting funnyman, and Spiked contributor Geoff Norcott has a program on tonight that posits middle class hypocrisy has ruined this country or something. I've seen enough of him on QT to see he's a wretched knave and I can't be bothered with hate-watching.

I like the guy who goes and shrooms with various tribes and takes the initiation ceremonies whose name I can't be arsed to Google right now

Bruce Parry, who apparently lives in Ibiza and takes lots of drugs there too.

that's the fella, glad to hear he's not just in it for the anthropology

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5hn_aa1lMJ8/maxresdefault.jpg

Could only bear 5 minutes of geoff norcott complaining about the lengths middle class people go to get their kids into a decent school (lying about church, addresses...). He's no stephen colbert.