Staying out of the Sun

... we suspect there hasn't been much in The Sun recently about the court case of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson.  Wonder why not?

Other Things have been Happening...

Well, although the Jubilation isn't quite finished (there is for example, the local Jubilee do on the Aquarius Golf Course with Steve Boltz still to come today), and bedraggled bunting can still be spotted around and about, we at TANH would like to remind our reader about the other stuff that has been going on while our Overlords have been celebrating their rule. 

This is just a random selection, in no particular order.

Dragon Lands The SpaceX Dragon landed successfully in the Pacific Ocean on May 31.  This was the first commercial spacecraft to dock successfully with the ISS.  The second stage of the rocket contained some of the ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star trek, as well as (Keroy) Gordon Cooper, one of the secen original astromauts in the Mercury space program.  Gordon Tracy, the pilot of Thunderbird 4, was named after the latter.

Jeremy Hunt at Leveson The Leveson inquiry has shown that Jeremy Hunt was very, very much in favour of  the Newscorp bid to take over BSkyB.  The Prime Minister knew this when he appointed him to decide upon whether the bid should proceed.  Given that Vince Cable was removed from this role because of his bias (in the opposite direction), how was this a sound decision by the Cameron?  Can we assume that Cameron wanted the takeover to go ahead as well, so was unworried by Hunt's lack of neutrality, or was it just incompetence?  Hunt has said he thought the bid would have been good for British media, but (as far as I can tell) has failed in any way to say how.

The Awful Baroness Warsi has seemingly been breaking a few rules, with the (non)disclosure of some of her own financial arrangements.

Bankia in Trouble Spain's banks look as though they are in trouble, with Bankia, the fourth largest bank in Spain, asking for a 19bn Euro bailout, and the Eurozone crisis is lurching into new problems.

The Annan Plan in Syria seems to be failing, with escalating violence, while armed militia stormed Tripoli airport yesterday.

HIGNIFY Resurgent For a few series now, Have I Got News For You has been a little moribund. But just recently it seems to have perked up again. Firstly with an appearance bu Ken Livingstone, who Hislop agreed was a less interesting guest on the show than Boris Johnson, but would have been a better Mayor of London. And then last week we had Alastair Campbell as chair. Which turned into a straight battle between Campbell and, well everyone else. A real bruiser and very, very funny. Watch it again on i-Player before it goes. It also includes the largest margin win I've seen so far.

And Finally... Don't forget the Transit of Venus - just visible tomorrow in the early morning...

Unregulated, Unfit

So.
And so.
I stand by what I wrote about the horrid Murdochs  in 2009.  They are unfit, completely unfit, to own any media whatsoever.  Period.  
(Just thought I'd put my oar in again).

Recognition

So, the boy playing the Artful Dodger in the original West End run of Oliver! bunked off, and this fresh-faced chap took over at short notice:

After just a moment, it is possible to see who this is.  You can recognise the young Tony Robinson - Baldrick in Blackadder.  And of course, the presenter of Time Team, the Worst Jobs in History and (urghh) Codex.

He's been recognised by several institutions who've awarded him honorary degrees, he's president of the Young Archeologist's Club, has been a vice-President of Equity, and he was on the Labour NEC from 2000 to 2004.

Although he has no Honours Young Tony has also just been recognised by Radio 4 - he got to pick his Desert Island Discs on Saturday.  Hurrah!

The next question is, can you recognise this man?

He has been recognised with an MBE, and is the subject, it appears, of next week's Desert Island Discs:

Quite so.  It is John Galbraith Graham, ex C of E priest, briefly chaplain and tutor at St Chad's, Durham,  cruciverbalist extraordinaire and,  indeed, Araucaria of The Guardian.  He remains leftwing, and, it appears,  will never work for a Murdoch paper.

Again, Hurrah!

Uncultured

So Hunt the Culture has decided to cave in to Murdoch, with a few simple organisational window dressings as a sop to good governance.  Appalling, but that is what we are coming to expect from this ramshackle, sleazy, incompetent crew.

Why so ranty?

It could be thought that I was a little bit intolerant or intemperate in my last post on royalty & its weaknesses.  So this is me calmly setting the record straight. Honest.

But Hell. 

They (the RF) are up there to be challenged, and we seem to be stupidly praising a film that appears to ignore the profound Nazi-philia of the UK monarchy in the 1930s.  Or so I gather.  I'm sure it is well-made, but it seems to have its history and politics skewed.  (I must go and see it sometime to check it out).

And the lack of a coherent, class-based challenge to the current Government is scary in its implications, given their background and their plummy pronouncements.

So do we need to publically celebrate this dysfunctional, inept and wholly unnecessary families' desire to spread their genes in marriage?  I would argue not.

On top of this we have an essentially servile, inept and occasionally corrupt press.  (I'm only observing the evidence on this one, tho' - it isn't really a biased opinion.  Sorry for that).  There are of course a few exceptions.

So in measured conclusion, given a balanced consideration of the facts...
We should:
- in response to the shedloads of money they take off us every year,
- and all the evidence of how horrible they are,
- and recognising their interest in eugenics...

DEMAND THEY DON'T PROCREATE.

I wrote "Neuter the Bastards" in the first version of this post, but that is perhaps going too far - abstention will do. 

(I am naturally happy to hear counter opinions...)

Anyway, (...calming down...), I think it's clear I was quite reserved. in my earlier comments.

Regulated Hatred

Now, Richard Murdoch I respected and enjoyed. Never mind that his nickname was ‘stinker’ – he was a fine man who made fine radio shows.

Iris Murdoch I know less about, but she seems to have been a fairly good writer, and respected by many.

Even Captain H. M. Murdoch on the ‘A’ Team was mildly entertaining.

And that kinda leaves me with no other Murdochs I can quickly think of that I don’t despise. Just Rupert and James.

I’m not going to write much about Roop. Unpleasant, damaging, exploitative – his background is well known. However, this seems to be being taken to new heights and in a particularly noisome way by his malodorous offspring James.

James Murdoch, as is also well known, recently used a high-profile speech to launch an attack on the BBC in some detail. He argued - for instance - that the corporation has a distorting effect on the market and needs to be reined in. Clearly this is in part because of the various commentators who have said exactly the same thing about the Murdochs’ own media empire. So the attack, which also claims that the BBC’s news output is highly biased, is intended in part as a distraction.

At the same time, the commercial broadcasters who rely so heavily on advertising revenues and also, I think, pay-per-view broadcasting, are losing out as a result of the credit crunch. There is less advertising being commissioned and their viewers are less keen to spend at high levels. They are losing money, and see the BBC as a threat. Now, there seems to be only one sane response to the Sky empire feeling threatened:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…

More seriously, I have no real interest in the commercial broadcasters being weakened too much – at least not the terrestrial broadcasters. ITV has cancelled one or two shows I really liked because they were too expensive, and I don’t like that. But the vicious, pernicious Murdoch News Corporation empire is a different thing. Wapping. Fox News. The Sun. Here is a list of what they own.

One thing is clear from all of this, if we care about our media and what it says about us.

The BBC is far too small.

It needs to be seriously ramped up if these people aren't going to overrun the World. Particularly the Web site and the Commercial arm. In the context of the threat of News Corporation, purchasing Lonely Planet was just too small a deal.

But the people who can make this a reality don't seem to be thinking like this just yet. However, while we wait for them to see sense, there are a few simple steps we can take.

Don't spend money on any Murdoch-owned company or product.
Don't buy the Sun or the Times, or Sky or any of that stuff.
Just don't.

We need to get this nasty empire down to about a quarter of its present size. And damn quickly.

Instead support the Beeb. It's better stuff, better made, and less evil. I was off work on Friday, and was kept happily entertained by the i-Player, watching some fantastic TV I'd missed earlier. Smashing. We should tell them.

You know it makes sense.