Talking of Alan Partridge

As I have done in my previous post, heres one of my favorite TV moments from the show

Alan has just been arrested for stealing a traffic cone…

Aunty Beeb

Ah, the good old state television and radio coperation, the BBC.

I’ve recently seen I’m Alan Partridge, the hilarious Steve Coogan comedy about a ‘failed chat-show host turned late-night radio presenter’, and there was one scene where he tries to get the head of programming at the BBC to accept various quickly thougt up ideas, such as ‘Youth Hostelling with (ex-boxer) Chris Eubank’ or ‘Fat People…in…prison?’.

I’m sure this was very funny at the time.

Which was before BBC3.

Now programs either as silly, or siller, are being made for the BBC, such as the gems that are Help! My Dogs as Fat as Me! and Can Fat Teens Hunt? .

And this brings me to my point. The licensing fee, which British houses with a TV have to pay, and in turn pays for the BBC.

So the BBC has decided, in all it’s wisdom, to cut the things that actually justifies the fee, ie journalism.

Now, for some reason the BBC has got a reputation outside the UK for being the pinnacle in journalistic impartiality and quality. No idea where they got this from, possibly because it’s a well known brand that isn’t American.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh. The BBC does offer excellent world radio programming, in the form of the World Service, and their international TV isn’t so bad either. Their website is one of the top news sites on the web.

Yet us in Britain, who pay the aforementioned fee, are paying for this, and in return getting, well, Freaky Eaters.

I am aware that Jeremy Paxman, the man who likes to think of himself as Britain’s top journalist, has already brought up this exact topic, but when he earns more than £1 mil a year from the BBC, it’s easy to call him a hypocrite.

But I won’t, as he got where he is by being a good journalist, and wants to see the Beeb’s journalistic integrity maintained.

Now, all that ranting over old news aside, anyone who has been following the news in Britain knows of the many scandals it’s been in in the past few month, theres the rigged competitions (fair play, the BBC did act on them as soon as it came out, but why not before), the controversy with the Queen (maybe I can understand, as our country has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with the royals), erm, calling a cat on children’s show Blue Peter Socks, as opposed to Cookie, which came first in a poll of viewers (Socks came second, one hell of a fuss about what is really nothing this one), and, finally, dubbing sound of babies crying over a short video about a woman who had quintuplets. Why is that last one even news?

I have no idea what I was trying to achive with this post, but overall I think it was ‘BBC can do good things but don’t. And people give them stick for all the wrong reasons.’
Yes, there are plenty of good reasons to complain. That they dubbed sound over a news item that really wasn’t much of a news item isn’t one of them.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The Writers Guild of America has gone on strike!

May I be one of the first to say, whoopee-shit.

Actually, I may be too late for that.

Anyway,  the Writers Guild of America has gone on strike. This means that no new TV programs are being made in America as no one will write them (besides scab labour).
I know what you’re thinking ‘But V-K Legget, why are you going on about this when you live in Britain and hate American TV programs?’
Well, first of all thats not entirely true as I do like Heroes, House and a few others that I’ve seen over the years, including the Daily Show which I sometimes see one day later on C4 (although not anymore) and secondly, it all seems a bit… well, trivial. As television is. Obviously going on strike puts pressure on TV companies to pay them more as otherwise they’ll have no programs to show/sell, but at the end of the day, it’s an entertainment industry, it doesn’t really inconvinience anyone like a public transport or power strike would. It reminds me (or doesn’t, as I wasn’t born back then) of the British Miners Strike in the mid-80s.
To simplify it;

Margaret Thatcher: I shall close down the mines as they are unprofitable.
Miners: We shall strike as we do not like that idea.
Margaret Thatcher: … Then I shall close down the mines as they are unprofitable and no ones working in them.

Well, maybe thats oversimplifying it.

Margaret Thatcher: I shall close down the mines BECAUSE I AM THE EVIL INCARNATE.
Miners: We shall strike BECAUSE WE ARE DANGEROUS COMMUNISTS.
Margaret Thatcher: … Then I shall close down the mines as they are unprofitable and no ones working in them AND I AM THE EVIL INCARNATE.

Of course, thats still oversimplifying it, because miners who worked in mines that wern’t going to be shut down also went on strike, and this also arguably caused the left-wing of British politics to implode in on itself, which caused a downward spiral thats left us today in the situation where the next election will see Centralists A stand against the ruling Centralists B, each of who have stolen each other’s policies 500 times over, and where Centralists A will probably be the victor, as they have a young, charismatic leader, while Centralists B have a dull, old Scotsman who is paying for the mistakes of their ex-young, charismatic leader, and is constanly being told to resign in favour of a new young, charismatic leader. Meanwhile the Liberal-Centralists C have jumped on the bandwagon by putting their 66-year old leader out of his misery and are now trying to select between young, charismatic leader X and young, charismatic leader Y.
But I digress.
But my point stands that this won’t have a severe effect on the country as a whole (as much as you may think, the American economy does not lean entirely on TV (it leans entirely on selling weapons to 3rd world dictators)). Although that wasn’t the point I was making. And the previous point doesn’t mean much as America won’t shut down it’s TV industry (it’s America, for christ’s sake).

But overall, this is all rather trivial. To think it’s taken me this long to make this relativly simple point…

Gotta Love the Copyright Police!

Oh dear, what have those crazy cats been up to now?

Well, it turns out that Comcast, who I am informed are an American Internet Service Provider, have been sending out Cease and Dissist orders to random people to stop them downloading (Japanese) anime series, which haven’t even been licensed for the American market. And the best part is, they didn’t even mention on behalf of which company they’ve sent the C&D orders. So, they’re using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA, American copyright laws) to protect the interests of an unidentified company that holds the non-existant rights. Makes sense? I thought not.

And it gets better, as BayTSP, a California based company that protects copyright laws, has recently sent a copyright infringement notice to a person in France for downloading an anime series that hasn’t been licensed in France, and have also disclosed the company that they’re sending it on the behalf of: Odex, who do own the rights, except in Singapore.
Why did Odex do this? Who knows.

In summery, an American company have asked a French person to stop downloading Japanese television shows on the behalf of a Singaporean company.

What does this all mean? I have absolutly no idea. How this pans out will be interesting to watch, and see exactly how national copyright laws hold up in foreign nations in the legally-grey area that is the internet.

And if you have no idea what I’ve been talking about for the past few minuets, don’t worry, I probably haven’t either.

I LIKE TRUCKING!

Tuesday

Why has no one told me about this earlier?

For those that don’t know, such as myself before this afternoon, this is a film that is currently in post production and stars (wait for it) John Simm and Philip Glenister! Yes, the 2 protaganists (well,  1 protaganist and 1 proantaganistic anti-heroic anti-villain) of the best TV drama to come out of Britain for the past… Well, it’s been a while, anyway. Well, from what I can make out, they have changed sides, and now play bank robbers in the 80s (not cops in the 70s).  I don’t have much information on this, and I’m not sure I want much, I’ll just wait to be suprised when it comes out. Life on Mars is, at last count, one of the few TV Drama series in my DVD collection, the rest comprising of mainly of TV comedies or films. Because of this, I am looking forward to this only slightly less than Ashes to Ashes, the sequel to Life on Mars the begins filming later this year and will air early next.

Why oh why do I feel I will be dissapointed?

Euro 2008, thoughts on.

And so, after a month or so of inactivity, another post this way comes.

 Scotland were beaten by Italy tonight, bringing an end to their bid to progress to the Euro 2008 finals. This is a pity as this Scotland team are playing better than they have been for some time. It’s been 10 years since Scotland last advanced to a major tournament (World Cup France 98) and this team has deserved to progress more than any team for the intervening years, and perhaps even the team 10 years ago (mainly composed of ‘old guard’ who peaked in the early-mid ’90s, retired soon after, and were perhaps a genuinely good batch of players (who were Scottish? Heaven forbid)). This team has beaten the World Cup runners-up twice, but due to failing against World Cup Winners, Semi-Finalists, and, er, Georgia, they will not appear in Euro 2008. Probably a good thing, as to the best of my knowledge, Scotland has never passed the first round in a major tournament. But fair play to them, this was a very difficult group (unless you’re France or Italy).

 Moving on from Scotland, who may have average player, but compensate by having a good manager, good team work, and a good try, untill the finish, to qualify, to their fierce rivals (from Scotland’s point of view at least), England (to who Scotland are 3rd, after Germany and Argentina), a team who have excellent players, but also have a crap manager, teamwork, and have made an easy group intensley difficult. The fact that we’re relying on a game between footballing giants Israel and the unstoppable force that is, er,  Russia, to qualify is very poor. The result was good at least, the Israelis defeating the Russians 2-1, meaning a draw/win against Croatia  will put us (England) through to the finals (pending playoffs). Not that a draw/win is certain. Even without goal-scoring hero Gary Neville, Croatia has been the strongest team in the group, and defeated England already in the group. Despite Israel’s win, qualification still may not happen, even with the deciding game at New Wembley. For a start, we have no attackers. We have Peter Crouch, and, er, er, er… Steven Gerrard? He’s a striker now? Apparently, according to the Sky Sports News 24. Well, that fixes the midfield problem at least. Except Beckham. Who I still don’t belive has any right to be picked over Shaun Wright-Phillips, Steven Gerrard, Aaron Lennon, Charlie Chaplain or whoever Mad McClaren is playing this week. But I digress. To summerise, we’re screwed.