AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Boreades]

[Boreades]

The same applies to Bill Gates.

Mummy and Daddy were both relatively wealthy.

[Mick Harper]

I accept it helps to have a leg up to start, vide Donald Trump, but the relevant point here is that a million people are in this position but there is only one Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

I suppose you could argue it the other way. If you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth why would you even bother to devote your life to collecting millions more of them?

[Boreades]

In the style of an M&S advert:

[Boreades]

The Dig

A sad and poignant little film. But also uplifting,

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

The Cancellation of Kenny Everett (Channel 5)

A fairly routine mix of clips, voice over and celebrity fans stretched out over an hour and a half. It featured one event in Everett's career that has always puzzled me, the famous 'Let's Bomb Russia' speech he made to Young Conservatives.

I remember the day it happened because there was a clip of it on the news and I thought it shriekingly funny. When you're saying it with those giant hands, dressed as an old-time tub-thumping preacher to people who might actually want to bomb the Soviet Union, and have hired the geezer to entertain them, how can it be anything else?

[Mick Harper]

Invisible Hands BBC R4

I had quite forgotten where modern populism began, Putney. This was where James Goldsmith lost to David Mellor (who had lost to a Blairite) in the 1997 Labour landslide. Goldsmith, a maverick businessman, was leading--and paying for--five hundred candidates of the Referendum Party. They were trounced nationwide but planted the seed of

(a) maverick businessman Nigel Farage and Britain leaving the EU
(b) maverick businessman Donald Trump and the USA leaving the world.

[Grant]

I voted for the Referendum party, UKIP and for Brexit,

I've also voted Labour and Conservative.

The only party I really hate are the LibDems.

What does that say about me? I like voting

[Mick Harper]

One Came Back (BBC R4)

It's not often I recommend a Book at Bedtime but this has certainly been worth a cup of Horlicks. You can listen to it, as they say, back to back to back here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0029yyf

[Mick Harper]

What is the regular event in Britain that requires the deployment of the greatest number of TV network reporters?

[Mick Harper]

There are 252 members of the College of Cardinals. One of them has to be first pick. Just saying.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The NFL has had a paradigm shift.

When Wiley first started watching you had two positions that mattered, the QB (it is actually not a type of teabag), it stands for Quarter Back, or the white college guy that either threw it or sometimes, when his arm needed resting, he would hand it to a black guy called the Running Back, who would run with the ball (it's a bit like rugby) for 1-3 yards before he was inevitably run over by defenders, a sort of wild herd of bison. Occasionally the black guy would dodge the herd and manage 4 yards, which would cause great excitement.

Clearly the white guy was doing the really valuable work as he was getting his team further down the field, so needed to be paid vastly more. This is what we call the Natural Order of the world. The noble savage selected to run, and be run over, was still of value though so, although he was paid vastly less (keep up), he was still paid more than any of the bison.

Everyone was happy, except the Running Backs who invariably were injured.

Fast forward, and you notice the shift. It's called evolution. The most intelligent Running Backs, not satisfied with being continually injured, have evolved into new style Quarter Backs, that can run. Who would have thought it? These new QBs are now paid almost as much money as the white college guys.

Unfortunately, the running backs that have failed to evolve have suffered a massive pay drop, and now get paid less than the bison. But heyho, that can't really be helped as there is only so many dollars to go around, and most folks watching are after all more interested in the pageant, rather than the game.

So by last year a new order had been created.

Then along comes Saquon Barkely. An old style Running back that has developed the art of back flipping over oncoming herds of bison.

Damn, it's a circle, not a paradigm shift.

I shall start again.

[Mick Harper]

Saquon. To this day I have never heard anyone refer to a dazzling anthropological novelty: black Americans coining dazzlingly new Christian names for their children. That's not careful ignoral, that's racist. Or anti-racist, I get confused.

The whole black/white thing in American football is constantly prey to one overwhelming consideration: given the all-embracing nature of the uniforms and wearing helmets with visors means no-one can tell who's black and who's white. Having their Christian names on the back would help.

To your point, Wiley, I first fell in love with the sport because of John Riggins, a white running back with the Washington ahem Redskins. He was the only white one. Ever. I fell in love with the New England Patriots because they had Wes Welker, Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola, the only set of white wide receivers. Ever. Clock those Christian names!

[Mick Harper]

The Canadians are having a general election next Monday so CNN sent their election expert oop north to read the runes. His first port of call was a grizzled chap doing something complicated with pipes attached to trees. He was harvesting maple syrup.

I'll never make it as a TV news producer, I'd never have thought of that.