Tag Archives: media

Radio 4 news hit by giggling fit

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BBC NEWS | Radio 4 news hit by giggling fit

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Hundreds of listeners have contacted BBC Radio 4 after newsreader Charlotte Green dissolved into giggles while reading a bulletin on Today.She lost control after playing a clip of the oldest known recording of the human voice.

Charlotte Green has my sympathy – as someone who used to read news bulletins I know the dreadful feeling when a fit of the giggles interrupts your normally sedate reading voice.

The one that I recall most vividly was when I was reading a piece of copy, “North Yorkshire dinner ladies were toasted for winning an employment tribunal case over equal pay”. My imagination played riot with the idea of toasted dinner ladies.

Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

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I was very disappointed with this film. Had I been on my own I would have left the cinema part way through I was so disengaged.
No effort was made to create the characters – I felt nothing for any of them. As the film progressed I didn’t care what happened to any of them. Bad things happened to them all – there was no redemption.
The story is about how Ann Boleyn became the second of Henry VIII’s wives. I know it was a bleak era in England’s history – but in this film it was boring too.
Thankfully it was a cheap seats night – so it only cost me £3.50 – and it was cold too.
Perfectly miss-able.

Miracle on the Estate

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BBC – Religion – Programmes: Miracle on the Estate
Miracle on the Estate

The Flood poster

For Good Friday, the residents of Harpurhey in North Manchester – once described as the worst place to live in Britain – join forces with a poet, a composer and a director to see if they can produce their very own mediaeval mystery play, based on the story of the Flood. In so doing they uncover a deep-rooted sense of community, untapped talent and breathe 21st century life into an ancient story of sacrifice and salvation.

It’s Good Friday. A special day for all Christians when we remember the death of Jesus on the cross. This morning we watched a truly inspirational BBC programme about the making of a community film based on the Mystery Play Noah’s Flood. The film is on the BBC Religion Website. I’ve not watched the film yet – but I recommend watching the TV programme Miracle on the Estate first.

promo image

I’ve now watched the The Harpurhey Mystery Play and it matches the promises made in the TV programme. It is truly inspiring when people who were unsure of their talents discover them and work together to create a play like this one.

Blasphemy is dead Long live blasphemy | spiked

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Blasphemy is dead Long live blasphemy | spiked

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England’s dusty, archaic and unpopular blasphemy laws look set to be abolished, but Ofcom and others are keeping their censorious spirit alive.

I think Brenden O’Neill has his wires crossed. Companies go to great lengths to protect their brands, challenging what sometimes appear to be only small infringements of the use of their precious “brand properties”. Logos, straplines, positioning statements etc. Just think of the businesses challenged for using the “R Us” gimmick. When these huge conglomerates win their case and force offenders to change the signs on the side of their van or worse rebrand their entire business no one cries “CENSORSHIP” or says that it’s an affront to free speech.
And yet, when Christians protest about the misuse of a phrase or series of words that have been hijacked by the media world you would think the devil himself had stepped up to witness box and won the day. The opposite is of course true. We have ceased the worship of God preferring to honour mammon.
If the phrase “Thy will be done” had not appeared in The Lord’s Prayer the offending splash for GHD Hair Straighteners would have been pointless. If Christ had never been crucified on a cross the symbol in the advert would have been meaningless. The ASA was right to uphold the complaint from the church.
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Easingwold Adrift?

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BBC NEWS | School Report | Table of participating schools
It’s the BBC School News Day and all the participating schools have been plotted on a map. Curiosity took me to North Yorkshire for the schools near York. None – according to the map, but the table lists Easingwold School. Clicking on the map link brings up a location in the sea off the coast of Ghana! (You’ll have to zoom out some way to realise that the blue background is the Gulf of Guinea)

Easingwold School adrift off Africa

So perhaps pupils from Easingwold are today reporting from the deck of a ship tracing the route of the slave trade as a geography and history field trip. Or possibly someone in the BBC has no idea where Easingwold is and the software has a default location at 0º, 0º.