AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

The Royal Popularity List 2026 (Channel 5)

[Mick Harper]

Room 237 (Youtube)

This is a 2012 documentary on the 'meanings' in The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's horror film. I haven't seen the film--though not for want of trying--but my (and your) interest in the documentary is for its AE-relevant content. It lasts an hour and three-quarters and can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSMf_NXjMP8 though a shorter viewing is sufficient to judge the cut of its jib.

It is a masterclass on how people can read anything into anything and create a conspiracy theory from it. For example we see a boy in the film wearing a T-shirt with 42 on it, then an Adler typewriter used by the Jack Nicholson character in the film. This pretty much proves Kubrick was really making a Holocaust film since

* 1942 was the year of the Wannsee Conference
* The typewriter was to emphasis the bureaucratic nature of the enterprise and
* Adler used a spreadeagle as their logo just as the Nazis did.

Kubrick was in charge of the Moon Landing Hoax -- or believed it to be so, I forget which -- was an important theme early doors but the documentarist soon drifted on to other, lesser things. A carefully composed Kubrick shot of a man talking to Jack Nicholson shown in juxtaposition to a cardboard box which could, if you looked hard enough, represent an erect phallus. 'Is that a cardboard box or are you just glad to see me.' And so on and so forth.

And why was all this happening? Kubrick was, the commentary said, bored after Barry Lyndon (a boring masterpiece, it claimed) and was up to something or other. I never really found out what.

Recommended in small doses.

[Mick Harper]

TV presenter: What do you think the party should do after its battering?
Fire Brigades Union Leader: We need to get back to traditional Labour values.
TV presenter: What do you mean by that?
FBU Leader: : Stop the closing of so many fire stations would be a good first step.
TV presenter: Who do you favour if Keir Starmer has to step down.
FBU Leader: Somebody who is not associated in any way with the present leadership.
TV presenter: Andy Burnham, you mean.
FBU Leader: That would be up to the MP's.
TV presenter: Wes Streeting has just announced he's prepared to stand.
FBU General Secretary: That's so typical. Jumping the gun like that. It's disgusting.
TV presenter: Turning to a prime ministerial loyalist, what do you think?
Education Secretary: I don't think the country wants a change in leadership.
TV presenter: Hasn't the country just voted in their millions that they do?
Education Secretary: Not when we are facing so many problems in the world at the moment.

[Mick Harper]

Reagan (Netflix)

I've settled down to watch this biopic in the hope it will fill some gaps in my knowledge about his early life and career (and in the hope it's jolly good film). As soon as I saw the opening shots--of Reagan giving a speech in 1981 having reached the White House--I was reminded, because of the way they've had to make up the actor, that the old fella should have got there in 1976.

He didn't because while everyone knew he was tons better than Gerald Ford, incumbency-worship meant he had to sit out 1976 and beat Carter in 1980 instead. Then go all geriatric on us after 1984. It all sounds hauntingly familiar.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Victoria Derbyshire: Just how much pressure is Putin under? We ask the BBC's Moscow correspondent. Good evening.
[Pause, as Moscow correspondent waits for question. When question not forthcoming...]
BBC's Moscow correspondent: Oh sorry. Good evening.
Victoria Derbyshire: Just how much pressure is Putin under?
BBC's Moscow correspondent: Putin's under lot of pressure.

I'm not so much complaining about BBC news anchors feeling they need to exchange pleasantries with their own news correspondents

I'm not so much complaining they haven't agreed how to do it

I'm not so much complaining that the way they have ended up doing it maximises irritation and minimises valuable time

I'm no much complaining that BBC news editors, news anchors and news correspondents only have one thing to do in life which is to get the news to us in a smooth and uncomplicated way but seem unable to discharge this function after a hundred years of BBC news provision

I'm complaining because when we did finally hear how much pressure Putin is under it turned out our Moscow man knew exactly what the rest of us knew. Maybe a bit less, unless he was being guarded as to what he knows lest he be deported like so many BBC Moscow correspondents before him.

Don't let me stop you, Vlad.

[Grant]

In this internet age it makes you wonder if BBC correspondent is one of the world's easiest jobs.

What really annoys me is when they've reached a certain rank they have to be name-checked by the BBC newsreader. Presumably it's in their contract. It's not enough for poor Clive Myrie to have to listen to their pointless witterings, when they've finished he has to say, "Joseph Bloggs there, Joe Bloggs."

[Mick Harper]

Speaking of name-checking, BBC news people are under permanent instruction never to mention the 'Sir' in Sir Keir Starmer. Though it would be considered a gross breach of etiquette leaving out a Sir in normal circumstances.

I predict the Sir will return on his fall. Whether he wants it or not.

[Mick Harper]

Talking of etc... it used to be the convention that a departing prime minister was automatically given a peerage. This appears to have been discontinued for one reason or another.

[Mick Harper]

I bruised my knee at the Grosvenor Square Vietnam demo of 1968. Although, strictly speaking, that's not American territory, the injury was sustained in, as it were, the 51st state, so I am probably entitled to a share of the $1.8 billion slush fund set up for people in my position.

The bloke on CNN said you'd get an average of $881,000 for coming to harm at the Washington Inaugural riots back in 2021 but I'm not going to ask for anything like that.

I'll settle for my sister getting her old Green Card back, the one that lets you breeze through at Heathrow, not the new electronic doodad that means I have to hang around for, like, forever waiting for the machine to give her the All Clear. And 881,000 dollars.

[Mick Harper]

First up on Channel Four News was the Chancellor's package of summer goodies for combating cost-of-living worries. Was it a gimmick or a useful sop, that's what we wanted to know. Channel Four decided that would be best answered by interviewing a few representative Brits. A potty exercise in itself but one all news channels go in for.

So who had the programme editors singled out? This being Channel Four, things kicked off with an extended and heartrending interview with a single dad having to look after a vegetative teenage son. 'It won't make any difference,' he told us.

Perhaps not entirely representative but it was followed by three quickies with 'poor people' who said it would probably be useful as far it went. Take that, Rachel Reeves!

[Mick Harper]

Countryfile (BBC-1)

Many, many years ago in these threads I raised the case of two youths being tried for arson after a huge Australian wildfire. Neither I nor anyone else knew anything very much about wildfires in those days, they just didn't make the news, but I knew enough to know that (a) they occur spontaneously but (b) can get so serious everyone starts looking round for culprits other than Mother nature.

I further pointed out the crime itself is an unlikely one. Young blokes, in my experience, don't say to one another, 'Let's go to some forest and set it alight." But according to Matt on Countryfile, I was wrong. Last year in South Wales, he told us, there were three thousand wildfires, more than half caused deliberately.

It must be quite a science. That one, that one, not that one, that one...

[Mick Harper]

One thing telly is exceptionally good at is telling us what's going on, then telling us again, then telling us once more for good measure.
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In the programme we shall be hearing how X is happening in Y because of Z...
... and now we are going over to Y to hear from our correspondent about X. She can explain Z...
What's going on, Claudia, we understand it's because of Z....
Yes, Charles, I'm here in the capital of Y where the streets are awash because of Z..
Here in the studio we have an expert to explain why X is happening in Y. You were the ambassador to Y for many years, what is going on there, is it X and is it because of Z?
We have been expecting X to kick off in Y for some time because of Z.
We have a special programme tonight at 8.30 where you can hear all these people saying it again as well as other people saying it as well.
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But much worse is those documentaries that feature all the interesting things people will say in the five minutes before the title of the documentary comes up on screen and they can begin saying it for real.

[Mick Harper]

Marilyn and the Mob (Channel 4)

The fact that it was on Channel 4 reassured us and sure enough this was two and half hours of exemplarily painstaking research. Even if, after such a passage of time, it didn't have any spilling of contemporaneous beans to offer.

[Mick Harper]

One hour later I've joined the club. What's the world record aspect of the case?