April 2007 Archives

I'm looking forward to reading this.

Yesterday Australia won the cricket world cup final - or as the organisers would have us call it, the ICC CWC 2007. It just trips off the tongue doesn't it?

It was a complete farce of a final, coming after a long and dull tournament that had its own tragedy. The Aussies got to celebrate winning the final twice by virtue of some inept umpiring that forced the Sri Lankans back onto the pitch in complete darkness to face three pointless overs that nobody could see. Even the TV cameras, which normally do a great job of hiding the gloom, were struggling with even basic things such as keeping in focus. The Sky commentators, normally to be relied upon to take a pro-tournament view, didn't hold back in letting us know that they knew, like we did, that it was a complete farce.

Anyway, Australia duly won the rain interrupted final, while most of the rest of the world carried on in complete obliviousness.

You could argue that after England's dismal Ashes losing tour to Australia earlier in the winter, and then complete failure in this tournament, what with pedalo incidents the only things to keep us entertained, it's the public that's at fault, but I really don't think that's the case.

Everybody, and I really mean everybody, knows that the tournament was way too long. The format allows for dead rubbers and completely one-sided fixtures. Yes Ireland and Bangladesh did very well in the early stages, but that's really not enough. The Football World Cup lasts a month and it's worth reminding ourselves that when the Olympics finally hit these shores in 2012, they'll be finished in just over a fortnight.

We hear that it's TV's fault that the tournament lasts so long; TV needs lots of fixtures, and doesn't want more than one match at a time. I don't buy this for a second. It's making for exceptionally dull TV in the current format.

And then there's the fact that the locals seemingly can't afford to watch cricket in their own country. There's simply nothing worse in a major sporting than seeing row upon row of empty seats - the only spectators seeming to be white in a country where the locals are mainly black.

But then as I've always argued, sports authorities are the most venal and corrupt in the world. It's the one area of power left where presidencies are elected in dubious manners and backhanders are the way things work. If you want to be a tyrannical despot in the 21st century, don't muck around trying to gain control of a small country - get involved in the organisational body of a major international sport. If you happen to have a major tournament to bestow upon different nations every few years, then you can be expected to be treated like royalty. And once you've got to the top, use the funds of your organisation to "buy" votes from smaller countries to keep you in place.

Back to cricket specifically though. How should the Cricket World Cup be improved? Well fewer games for a start. Make sure locals can afford to watch matches - if your stadia aren't full for every game, then you've got the pricing wrong. Sell the TV rights to free to air stations. I've no problem with Sky bidding for World Cup rights, but I do have a problem with the ICC selling them. If the nation can't watch a tournament, then they don't care about it. Of course the same is true for the stupid fools in charge of the ECC who also took Sky cash against the sport's greater interest. Even the crassly commercial F1 realises that without widespread coverage, the "sport" has no real future.

And don't make excuses. This was a terrible event with a humiliating final. Learn from the many mistakes, and do better next time.

Some Observer journalists make these points far more eloquently than I can in today's paper.

I've been meaning to say that Entourage is back in the US, and for this set of episodes, the cast is joined by Carla Gugino as an agent (saying any more might mean spoilers). I love Entourage, and Gugino joining the cast just makes it better. I wish the late and much lamented Karen Sisco would get a DVD release.

I guess that UK viewers can expect Entourage to reappear in the Autumn on ITV2. And the New York Times has a spoiler-filled interview.

This week's Independent on Sunday had a massive banner headline - "Wi-Fi: Children at risk from 'electronic smog' "

A further story was entitled "Danger on the airwaves: Is the Wi-Fi revolution a health time bomb?"

The reports go on to report that WiFi is everywhere these days including many homes, towns and schools. So is it dangerous? What's the basis of these reports?

"Virtually no studies have been carried out into Wi-Fi's effects on pupils," says the Independent on Sunday's report. So what's the basis of a front page scaremongering story then?

WiFi broadcasts around 2.4 GHz (UHF - Ultra High Frequency) which is somewhere around where microwave ovens work as well as TV is broadcast, along with mobile phones, bluetooth, GPS, some two-way radios and many other things. WiFi is limited to around 100m maximum, whereas mobile phones broadcast for upwards of 2km. I trust that no parent is ever again let their child use a mobile phone, and nor are they going to have any switched on themselves in the home (or any other time they're with their children).

So, as Rob Beschizza writes over at Wired, either all of these things are dangerous, or none of them.

Undoubtedly, examining whether there are health risks based around all these technologies is a worthwhile venture, but I'd really hope that The Independent on Sunday is above these feeble sensationalist headlines.

There's an excellent piece penned by Bill Thompson over at the BBC dismantling this kind of scaremongering.

I've got a brilliant new idea for a TV show!

As someone who always like to catch the zeitgeist, I know I'm onto a winner. Any TV production companies reading who might be interested in this potentially brilliant idea, get in touch forthwith. Sky One, Living and Five are bound to be interested!

What I'll do is get some young person - maybe a celeb, or maybe a journalist - and get them to go on a crash diet, getting themselves down to the fabled "size zero".

You've got to admit it's an incredible idea!

What do you mean, it's been done before...? Hang on... You're right!

Just last night Channel Four aired Superskinny Me: the Race to Size Double Zero, in which "two journalists tried out extreme diets."

Still, there's no problem making the same show twice is there? Viewers are simpletons, and they appreciate seeing the same programmes remade over and over.

What? This is already a remake? You're right again!

Last month ITV1 showed Louise Redknapp in The Truth About Size Zero, in which the ex-singer (and WAG), spent 30 days getting down to said size zero.

Still, two documentaries is hardly a trend is it? What? There was another one? You're right again!

In Super Slim Me on BBC Three in February, writer and presenter went on an extreme diet to get down to size... You probably know the rest.

So please. Can TV producers think about something else now? We've had enough of these documentaries now. And no more puns on Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me please.

[UPDATE] BBC2 is repeating the BBC3 programme tonight. Oh joy.

There's nothing like having something really built up, only for you to be let down at the last moment. I feel a bit of a heel for saying this, but that's a reasonably accurate reflection of me earlier this evening.

I was at the evening do for the Radio Academy's Production '07 conference. After a day of discussing issues relevant to the radio industry (I really hate the fact that what we do is an "industry", but there you are), some awards are handed out and some musicians "play" for us.

I didn't attend the conference proper - mainly because it's not entirely relevant to what I do for a living. In any case, I was too busy summarising the Future of Radio. But Mediaguardian had a helpful blog of events.

The awards include best pluggers (national and regional - they're the people who try to get radio stations to actually play their clients' music) as well as industry achievement awards. The John Peel award, for example, went to Mark Story of Emap. He's been in radio for donkeys' years, and was the first programme director I experienced at Virgin Radio.

We also had music from Sophie Ellis Bextor (impossibly thin, great voice, and woefully fake music-playing by her band), Gareth Gates (you can tell this is a class affair can't you? I've got to hand it to him though, he can sing), one of the Sugababes who's gone solo (not Mutya - buy Siobhán Donaghy), and Simon Webbe (ex-member of boyband Blue, but - and I amaze myself for saying this - a really good singer with a charismatic stage presence).

But the key award of the evening, which was hosted ably by Richard Bacon, was the Lifetime Achievement Award. It slowly became clear that it was going to go to Sir Paul McCartney!

I was standing near the front of the stage in the small and intimate confines of the Café de Paris, and was beginning to get annoyed with myself that my camera's batteries were flat, and in any case, it was in my bag in the cloakroom. This was going to be great. Sir Paul in our presence!

The eulogy was long and great. The wonderful music he's made over the decades. The crowd was hushed - which is always hard at these things when there's a free bar.

You know where I'm going with this don't you?

A friend from work pushed forward with his camera in hand - he wanted a picture... (copyright free with his Creative Commons Flickr licence).

And then came the letdown.

Sir Paul wasn't here tonight. He'd missed all our talented musical guests, and sent a message instead.

What a letdown! What a disappointment!

I'd actually been annoyed that The Geoff Show was off air this week and Geoff wasn't going to be able to see this (there was the small matter that Geoff should have been on-air around the time of the award presentation, but that's a mere detail).

It didn't matter - Sir Paul had been unable to make it. He'd sent a note which the presenter read out, but the disappointment in the room was palpable.

[I should, I suppose note, that I did very literally nearly run into him once. It was when he'd come in to be interviewed by Pete & Geoff. I came out of the lift, pretty much unaware that a rock superstar was in the building, and noticed a man who seemed somehow familiar, coming out of the studio and ready to get into the lift. It actually took me a few seconds to clock who I'd just seen. I think all I did was smile - it's a safe fall-back for just about any situation, after all. But it was a small brush with fame, nonetheless!]

The London news today is that the Mayor is giving away 100,000 free Oyster Cards to people who don't yet have one. This is an attempt by Transport for London to get some of the die hards who've not yet got one, to get around to picking one up.

Ordinarily you have to pay a "deposit" of £3 to get one. Once you have one, you're entitled to discounted public transport tickets... Well I say "discounted", when what I really mean is that, if you don't have an Oyster Card, you have to pay significantly more for your travel.

Why is this initiative limited to 100,000? Why doesn't TfL just make Oyster Cards free for everyone all the time? You see, while I might have "Big Brother" issues with the ability of the authorities to track you around London, I have an even bigger issue with the fact that the really big losers are tourists and visitors to London.

Why should a tourist have to fill out a form, put down a "deposit" for a plastic card, just to travel around London at a reasonable cost? Sure, they can get their cash back at the end of their visit, but who's really going to bother with that? And I'm not just talking about overseas visitors - I'm also talking about those who come from other parts of the UK to visit London. It's just not fair.

I do feel sorry for Kate Middleton. This is Monday's Standard billboard - "Kate Shows Strain: Picture"

And indeed, the front of that day's paper showed a picture of Kate sitting in the back of taxi or similar looking seriously pissed off. That wouldn't be anything to do with photographers following her everywhere she goes would it?

In recent years there's been this awful new "non-fiction" genre of books develop. It started with the Dave Pelzer books which detailed his terrible upbringing. It was so bad, he got a trilogy out of it.

Anyway, the books sold loads with their distinctive white covers and distant looking photos. There was plenty more misery to come.

And now, Borders, instead of putting these books into biography (or indeed, fiction in some instances), has created a "Real Lives" category. What this picture does show is that there's a certain dominant feature essential in any book of this type. Can you tell what it is?

I've added a button to the right hand side of this blog to show support for Alan who has been missing for over a month now in Gaza. More over on the BBC Editors' blog.

Why are Google press releases emailed so slowly? Given everything else Google does is incredibly fast and efficient, I find it odd that GooglePress mailshots take so long to appear.

At around 14:40 this afternoon, I noticed message posted on the Google Blog, via Bloglines (in other words, it was posted earlier). The message in turn pointed to a press release from Google.

Yet it took over two hours before I got a copy in my inbox of the same email - and I can honestly report that we're not experiencing any email issues here today.

I don't doubt that Google's email list is awfully long, but the press release I finally received at 16:59 is unpersonalised and in plain text. And Google does have an incredible amount of resource to call upon for a job so trivial. Their emails are administered, seemingly, via Google Groups, so there's no real excuse as I get other Google Groups emails in a very timely fashion.

On the right hand side of the Google Press page, we're told we can sign up to get "timely news from Google." Just not that timely...

I note that The Tudors has finally found a UK home on BBC2. The Tudors is a 10 part Showtime Network series that's just started in the US. It stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII, Sam Neill as Cardinal Wolsey and Jeremy Northam as Thomas More. In other words it's a "British" costume drama that hasn't been made by a British TV company. And unusually, it seems that a British co-producer wasn't even sought (or at least signed up) prior to production. In any case, tax incentives being what they are, the series was shot in Ireland. Don't believe any of those stories suggesting that there's nowhere in this country suitable to shoot, which emerge when British-set period dramas are filmed abroad. It's cheaper to shoot in Ireland or Romania or wherever.

It did strike me as very strange, that even with the full series in the can, nobody in the UK had stepped forward to buy the series. Absolutely every US series gets a British buyer somewhere down the line - it's normally just a question of how much. I'd imagine that The Tudors is a very expensive series, and that Showtime wouldn't just want to sell it to Living for tuppence happeny.

Anyhow, BBC2 has bitten the bullet and bought the series for broadcasting this Autumn. I suspect as well as cost, there was wariness after the expense of the last big US co-production with a US premium cable network. I'm talking, of course, about Rome - the second (and final) series of which has now aired on HBO. I'd imagine that it's due for BBC2 sometime soon. It's not that Rome's a bad series, it's just that you know it'd be handled a little differently if the Beeb had been able to take more control over it.

I've only seen the first episode of The Tudors - no website I can link to incidentally, since Showtime insists that it's entire website is not meant for prying eyes from outside the US - and it's ably done, but I'm not in a great rush to continue watching. I probably will out of curiosity, and the cast is strong. But it's just a little lacking and the script wasn't vibrant enough for me. We'll see how it fares properly later in the year.

We live in a (for the most part) democratic society, and one of the consequences is that we have a wide-ranging press publishing the full spectrum of opinion. As you might sometimes guess, I tend to lean a little left of centre in most areas, but that doesn't mean that I can't in some small way appreciate the pleasures someone might get from reading The Daily Telegraph or even the Daily Mail. I might pity those readers a little, but somehow it all tends to add up.

Once upon a time, I'm sure that the Express was a great paper. It had the most famous building in Fleet Street, it was loosely disguised in one of my favourite books, Scoop, and was heavily featured in one of my favourite films, The Day The Earth Caught Fire. But times have changed and we've moved on.

I don't pity Daily Express readers. I just sit looking aghast if I see one on the tube and simply wonder "Why?" Unless you're someone's granny or great aunt, I fail to understand why you'd read it? Shouldn't you at least be reading the Mail? Or Metro? It'd have more news in it. I mean, they employ journalists and stuff.

And if you are indeed someone's granny or great aunt, I'd feel like reminding you of some of some of the other business interests of proprietor, Richard Desmond.

All of this is a long way around of saying that you really should pop over and read Martin Belam's hilarious analysis of Daily Express headlines so far this year.

So thick and fast after the Boat Race came ITV's coverage of the Malaysian Grand Prix this morning. Now I make no secret of my disinterest in the engineering competition sport. There's little to no overtaking, and new rules are introduced and dropped on a whim. This season there seems to be something about different types of tyres that have to be used. I'd look it up, but you know what? I just don't care.

But if it's on, and I'm in, and there's nothing else to watch, well...

Anyway, as I tuned in this morning after 9.00am, there was a potential McLaren one-two finish on the cards with new British driver (and F1's first black competitor) looking to finish second after his third place podium finish at the first race of the season. This he duly did in a tense finish holding off Raikkonen for the last few laps. Truth be told, it was only because my clock radio came on with coverage that my interest was piqued.

After F1 races there's always a farcical "news conference" where a nameless Brit asks questions in English to each of the drivers in turn. Since he's F1 approved, there's never anything too controversial. The drivers have all dutifully put on their sponsored baseball caps and wear their sponsored watches - an attendant is on hand to make sure. Then they say nothing too extraordinary or contentious to the waiting millions.

It is nonsense, but you might hope we could at least hear what young Lewis Hamilton had to say. Not on ITV though.

It was getting closer to 10am so we left the "press conference" (surely a true press conference allows various members of the press to ask the questions? Otherwise isn't it a "press statement"?) to get a brief interview with Hamilton's father with the uber-bland Steve Rider. All very well, except we left mid-conversation with Lewis Hamilton himself!

It was quite abysmal timing.

They only had to hang on another three minutes to get the full interview. Fortunately Five Live was covering it much more fully, and were prepared to delay the 10am news by a couple of minutes to let us hear what he had to say. He told us, for example, that he'd run out of onboard water about halfway through the race in the extreme conditions, leaving a very uncomfortable race to the finish.

I suppose the only thing to be said for ITV ending their coverage on time was the fact that it was to make way for 55 minutes of cartoons - it's rare, after all, for them to carry any children's programming these days. Of course even that's not the full story. As the race started around 7am, it ate into valuable GMTV airtime, and that's airtime that has to be made up by ITV plc - a separate company. So this was GMTV make-weight airtime.

(By the way, it must be said that overall, the race direction was pretty atrocious with processions of cars at the front of the race being shown in favour of anything interesting occuring towards the back of the field).

So now we know why British actors are doing so well on US television at the moment.

We're cheap, and we can take the piss out of ourselves.

I must return to Sunshine, which is now finally in cinemas.

First off, a bit of background. Back in May 2005, I accompanied a colleague at work on set-visit to 3 Mills Studios over in the East End to see the filming of this Danny Boyle science fiction epic. Now I've never been on a film set before, and it was a bit lucky that I went this time, but I wasn't about to say no.

Sunshine had just about taken over the 3 Mills studio complex. The only other production taking place at the time was the Sky TV series Dream Team. Danny Boyle's team had taken over most of the sound stages, and we were to be given a guided tour. First of all we assembled in the art department where there were incredibly detailed scale models of the various sets as well as the main spaceship, Icarus. Around the walls were various pictures and designs pinned up along with detailed posters of the solar system.

We met the films shy producer Andrew MacDonald. He's worked on all Danny Boyle's films to date as well as plenty of others including recent Oscar nominated films like The Last King of Scotland and Notes on a Scandal. Sadly the day we were there, there was a closed set where they were actually filming. But we were able to tramp all over the other sets. So we got to see the main crew area, the cockpit and area, the oxygen garden, and a massive green-screen where two airlocks were separated by a large gap. I won't say much more because it'll spoil the film, but suffice to say that there are reasons for all of these. I also won't say what condition the sets were in when we saw them.

Now as I say, I've never been around a film or TV set before. I've seen TV shows recorded, but they're very different. What was really unusual here is that the sets were 360 degrees. That is to say that there were four walls and a ceiling everywhere. Ordinarily sets are built to remove walls so that the camera crew can point into the set. Then for a different set-up the wall might be replaced, and another removed for a different angle. In this instance, to keep a fairly claustrophobic atmosphere on set, no walls were going to be removed; the camera operators et al were going to have to fit inside the set.

And the sets were so detailed. Everywhere you looked, the attention to detail was extraordinary. Nobody was ever going to see much of the detail, yet it was there. For example, each of the crew members had their own cabins fully decked out with things like family photos and books that they might be reading. In the final film, you simply don't see all this detail - but it's there. I guess that a real-feeling set gives you more from your actors.

The other really fascinating thing was that everything seemed to work. All the video screens were lit-up and had graphics displayed. Not only that, but a flip of the switch turned all these lights on at once. It was explained to us that although many films would have added this later in special effects, it was far easier and cheaper to do it at the time.

Anyway, after a couple of hours of trampling around the set, sitting in the captain's seat (yup - I got to fly Icarus II), and getting a good idea of the plot, it was time to go. And wait. For nearly two years.

Fast-forward to the film itself.

Everyone else has already explained that this film is not your run-of-the-mill SF shoot-em-up film. Some critics have taken issue with George Lucas and his original Star Wars trilogy for ruining what had been a very intelligent sequence of SF films with titles like 2001, Solaris and Silent Running having some really interesting ideas to impart. I think that's a bit unfair on Lucas since it's hardly his fault that after the stunning success of his SF-Westerns, nobody wanted to make anything else. But this film is certainly a much more grown up film than we've come to expect in recent years.

The crew are sent on an unlikely, and obviously doomed, mission to send a missile into the sun. We won't worry about why an unmanned spacecraft wouldn't be much more able to carry out the mission. Like the science in the film, it's not really relevant. Instead, we have a study in what happens when a group of people, is cooped up in small area. And there's the appeal of the sun - that single entity that literally ensures that we have life in our solar system.

It's ironic that the mission's shrink is the first to go mad, but things change some more when the crew finally come across a signal from the first Icarus - a ship that disappeared years before and hadn't been heard from.

Psychology takes quite an important role in the film as each of the oppression of the circumstances seem to drive each of the characters to some kind of logical conclusion.

The ending of the film is at once satisfactory and not-so. Yet it's the perfect ending.

The sun has quite simply never looked so beautiful, and the special effects are exemplary. Given that live-action filming finished so long ago, it's clear that the SFX have been slowly and carefully crafted. Sound too is important - see this film in a good cinema. I'm already on the look out for a nice sub-woofer to plug in for the film's DVD release.

But don't wait for the DVD - this is a film that demands to be seen on the screen. Go and see it on the biggest screen you can find. It'd look great on an IMAX screen because seeing this film is really immersive.

The film cost around $40m and it's wonderful that Fox Searchlight let Boyle, MacDonald and their team do whatever they wanted. So they haven't turned in some kind of all-action nonsense. That's probably why they don't know when or how to release it in the States. It doesn't fit into one of three or four different film genres. It's effects-laden, yet isn't a tentpole May/June film when every weekend sees one big blockbuster open after another (with the inevitable failure of many of the titles). But on the other-hand, it's not a breakout small indie film like Little Miss Sunshine or Sideways. Still - that's their problem, but if they give it a marketing push like the one it's had here, it should do just fine.

So am I biased when I write about this film? Undoubtedly. I was conditioned to like this film. But you know what? It doesn't matter. It's still a wonderful film. One that demands to be seen in cinemas.

And let me end with a plea. I've heard Danny Boyle in interviews claim that he won't be returning to science fiction. Please do Danny! Ridley Scott made Bladerunner and Alien, the latter certainly informing this title. I'm sure you could manage another in a couple of years!

The Steep Approach to Garbadale is Iain Bank's first non-SF novel in quite a few years - indeed Dead Air was published back in 2002. I'd say that the novel it's most like is The Crow Road which is probably my favourite Banks novel to date. In place of The Crow Road's Prentice, we have Alban who starts the novel having nothing to do with his extended family who are rich thanks to a board game (and latterly computer game) called Empire! which I'm sure isn't supposed to be remotely similar to Risk.

But there's a family gathering brewing at the eponymous matriarchal home at Garbadale in the Highlands, and Alban becomes enmeshed in the family's affairs with the proposed sale of the family firm to an American giant. Should the sale go ahead? What's the truth behind the suicide of Alban's mother? Is there any future in his abruptly cut-off relationship with Sophie? And what of his new mathematical genius girlfriend VG?

Obviously I'm not going to answer any of these questions here! That'd spoil the story, and very readable it is too. Banks really is on familiar territory with the various aunts, cousins, parents and so-on; almost to the extent that a family tree would have been usefully printed at the front of the book.

The book is very dialogue heavy, and of course you're rooting for Alban who really is much like Prentice before him in that he's about the only rational member of a completely mad family. Highly recommended.

My laptop has had a hidden "service" partition on it since I've had it, so in a fit of tidying up files, instead of handing the space over to Windows, I decided to chuck Ubuntu on it. It's been ages since I had a play around with Linux, so I thought it was worth a punt.

First things first - the installation took no more than twenty minutes from start to finish (once I'd worked out the finer points of the number of partitions it wanted).

I got onto my wifi network in no time at all - and unlike a Windows installation, the computer now had a decent variety of Office-type applications as well as graphics amps like the GIMP.

All very good. One of the annoying things with a new Windows computer is that it immediately sets about downloading loads of updates which tends to annoy you on a new computer. Well to be honest, it's not much different here. 164 downloaded and installed files later, and a single reboot, and I finally was up and running.

I did have install Flash (although I did that before my auto-update), but otherwise most things were working well.

But I did have trouble with the BBC's site. RealPlayer wasn't installed, and installing the open Helix did not seem to help with listening to streaming radio. After a certain amount of fiddling around I was finally able to install RealPlayer, after first uninstalling Helix. It occurs to me that the last time I was typing UNIX command file expressions was 1990 when I was doing things like downloading the complete IMDB from newsgroups and "installing" it locally on my £10k Sun workstation (Incidentally, you can still download IMDB files and install them locally on a machine). I think it's fair to say that to this date, I've not used a more expensive machine - certainly none that just sat on my desktop for my sole use.

Anyway, I digress. I had a bit more of a play around but ended up giving up playing back any audio. Needless to say Virgin Radio worked fine - with the Flash version of the player being automatically chosen. This version of the Virgin Radio player also happily works in the Wii and PS3 (BTW - I note that the PS3 is already being "discounted" to £399 which, while only being a £26 reduction, is practically unheard of with a new launch machine, and just shows quite how much Sony has misjudged the machine's pricing. Will we get any accurate sales information? I certainly won't be buying the stories about how Sony has flooded the market with enough stock to ensure that purchasers are left short. They wanted a complete sellout - make no mistake. Stores should not have to be discounting within days of any product's launch).

So there we go. A dual-boot XP/Ubunutu Linux machine in no time at all. I don't know how useful the alternative operating system will really be, but I must admit that if someone just wanted a cheap laptop for surfing the net, doing their email and writing the odd letter, then it'd be perfect without the need for all the wastefulness of Windows (always assuming your inkjet printer of choice has drivers that will work). It's interesting that Dell's now offering Linux flavoured laptops, although I must admit that I couldn't find them for sale anyway on the UK website.

An article in this week's Broadcast (behind a paywall I'm afraid) explained the broadcast complexities with covering something like the annual Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race. It takes 38 cameras, two helicopters and and goodness knows how many other people to cover it.

Last year there was an issue with open microphones when ITV cut to the audio of one of the coxes who chose that moment to swear as they urged their crew on. This year they seem to have put some kind of delay on it, as the sound cut and times when they cut to them, yet even my feeble lip-reading got a good idea what she was saying.

However, who was the person who at the precise moment the race started, managed to cutaway to a disinterested looking person sitting in a portakabin studio somewhere? Very poor.

For the rest it was good coverage, and until Cambridge took a firm lead, it was a very open race.

I really don't know why I care who wins the Boat Race not having been to either University. But somehow I do - a bit. Cambridge won.

So Horizon's been back for a new series on BBC Two for the last few weeks, and I'm sorry to report that things really haven't got any better. It seems that you're just not allowed to do serious science on television any more. I'm not saying it's terrible, but it just seems to be covering the areas that other documentaries are already doing. It really does feel that the change in editor of the series has brought around a more populist agenda.

Let's examine the evidence. So far this series there have been three episodes in this run:

My Pet Dinosaur - what would have happened if the meteorite had missed. Or perhaps just an opportunity to put more CGI dinosaurs on the screen. OK - so they kick off with a populist example, but this is really "what if" science. How about you tell me about things that are happening rather than those that aren't? I can watch Primeval if I want to get a dinosaur fix.

Prof Regan's Beauty Parlour - examining the science behind beauty products. A worthy exercise, albeit one that actually belongs on BBC1 popular science programme. Except BBC1 doesn't have a popular science programme... or any science programme at all.

The Elephant's Guide to Sex - examining artificial insemination and IVF among animals. Again, there's science in there, but this is a populist subject that really doesn't belong in the Horizon strand. And there's that terrible programme title that's supposed to somehow titillate, yet makes me actually want to avoid watching the programme.

Mad But Glad - is there such thing as a mad genius? Nick has Tourette's, and I've got to ask, is there a disease anywhere in the medical dictionaries that's had more documentaries made about it than Tourette's syndrome? It's being examined all the time! Channel Four, Five, BBC1 had a piece about a sufferer only this week on Inside Out. That's twice in a week for heaven's sake. Can we at least have programmes about Cancer or Heart Disease - diseases and illnesses that are going to make a difference to more people rather than ones that just make good telly?

Next week it's Moon For Sale, examining mankind's return to the moon. I'll withhold judgment until I've actually watched the programme, but it's noticeable that none of the programmes so far have taken an ideas that might actually challenge the audience in their subject matter. Dinosaurs, rare illnesses, IVF in animals, beauty products, the moon. Where are the really tough subjects?

And let me just say that the website's been seriously downgraded. Like too many BBC sites at the moment, it's an absolute mess. You used to be able to look up past episodes and read transcripts. That seems to have disappeared which is not only a shame, but an utter disgrace. The information already exists in a web-friendly format so just leave it up there. Is the BBC short of webspace? Is there a lack of bandwidth? Actually no. The information is there, but it's just hidden away. You need Google or similar to root out the older programmes.

Instead, there's a Flash-based monstrosity built around the idea that the only additional information anyone's going to want to have after an episode is a replay of some video. At the very least give me some Further Reading or background information. Yes, there is a non-Flash version, but there really is very little background information, and you just know the production team must have collected a lot more than what we had distilled into the programme.

You do get a Pick of the Archive, currently featuring a wonderful interview with Richard Feynman from 1981, but that really just seems to rub salt into the wounds. Where are today's interviews with world-leading physicists? There's no way that Horizon in 2007 would interview Richard Feynman today if he were still alive. Not unless he was working on face-transplants or examining how likely it were that aliens were invading (to take two more stories from the last series).

Horizon has always trod a line between "human interest" focused science stories and more hard-science based editions. This is never more important than now, with fewer people in this country really understanding what's going on in the scientific world and fewer students wanting to take those subjects at degree level. We need to enthuse and educate the audience, not pander to them.

Horizon can still do ground-breaking and important stories like Global Dimming (link via Google incidentally, since that part of bbc.co.uk has been hidden away from the current website - you just cannot link to past episodes from the site as it stands. Look - a programme transcript), but they're much fewer in numbers.

I think that the decline must be the fault of two people, the controller of BBC2 and the editor of the series. Currently that controller is Roly Keating, and the editor of Horizon is Andrew Cohen. John Lynch is director of BBC Science and a former Horizon editor. He also made some great editions of the programme including the one on Fermat's Last Theorem with Simon Singh (can you see the current series tackling mathematics). But between them, these people need to take responsibility. BBC Four programmes aside, the forty-two year old Horizon is the last bastion of science on mainstream television if we exclude nature which is excellently catered for. Channel 4 has very occasional episodes of Equinox which are similarly populist, and that's just about it.

Years ago, BBC1 used to have a programme called QED which tackled very populist subjects with a greater degree of human interest appeal to them, and very good it was too. But the fact that this no longer exists does not mean that BBC2 should be filling in the gap. Still, even QED existed at a time when there was a Tomorrow's World too.

My plan for the BBC would be this. Bring back Tomorrow's World in an hour long, single film format. Two series of six episodes a year should be fine. These would tackle human interest and popular stories like IVF, possible Cancer cures, Robots, MMS, the power of next gen games consoles, the Superbug, etc. Use a popular intelligent presenter to make them palatable to a mainstream audience. Then take Horizon a bit more upscale and make programmes that tackle difficult subjects - and I only mean the kinds of subjects that make the cover story of New Scientist each week. Nothing too demanding.

Do you know the story of the "stolen" biscuits? Two strangers sitting somewhere in public - perhaps at a train station café. One dips into the other's biscuits. Insensed, the other person does the terribly British thing of not saying anything but pointedly helping themselves to "their" biscuits. This continues for several minutes until the packet is finished. Only then does one of the two realise that they'd not actually opened their own packet.

That probably makes no sense. Instead, for a better telling, read Douglas Adams' So Long, And Thanks For All the Fish for a good variant of it. I think that this is where I first came across the story, but in fact it's something of an urban myth.

I mention all this because every few months or so, I like to see what Chloé Micout's been up to. She's a French short film-maker, who I first came across a couple of years ago. One of her more recent films is based around this very tale. It's only a minute long, so go and see it on her site (Go to films, and select Les petits sablés - I can't link directly because it's all embedded in evil Flash. But it does also seem to be available on YouTube.

I'm a bit late with this one, but it's still worth commenting on. Last weekend, The Observer had a story entitled Official: BBC Is Too Upmarket. The report details how Director General, Mark Thompson, has ordered a large review entitled Household Value to determine who uses what BBC services.

Although in its early stages, it has already discovered that lower-income families are less well served than their wealthier counterparts. 'There is a feeling we may be serving the professional classes well, but not reaching the C2s and D1s,' said one BBC insider.

Lower-income families, particularly those in the north of England and Scotland, are less likely to watch digital channels such as BBC3, which is aimed at a sophisticated twentysomething audience, or tune in to BBC4's high-brow output. By contrast, many higher-income groups make good use of a wide range of services, including Radio 4 and News24, and are better placed to take advantage of new ones - listening to podcasts or downloading programmes over the internet.

Well knock me down with a feather. I think I could have come to those findings without doing any research at all.

The report is followed up regurgitated in the Telegraph too.

The same quote is repeated. But there's something a little wrong with the quote. It talks of "C2s and D1s." Now unless the BBC has its own socio-demographic system that's similar but not quite the same, then the "BBC insider" really doesn't know what they're talking about (or were misreported). The recognised socio-economic groupings are A, B, C1, C2, D and E. There isn't a D1 group. It must be said that using these kinds of definitions is a terrible way to split the population into groups because which band you're in, really depends on your income. Hence a very intelligent but unemployed person might be E, while a very stupid rich person might be A.

It's also dangerous making direct comparisons between BBC Three and BBC Four. Although they might seem "complementary" to some extent, they're not.

From the BBC Annual Report:

BBC Three aims to offer innovative British content and talent, providing a broad mix of programmes aimed primarily at younger audiences.

BBC Four aims to be British television's most intellectually and culturally enriching channel, offering a distinctive mix of documentaries, performance, music, film and topical features.

So if you're a middle-aged or older viewer not interested in being intellectually or culturally enriched, neither channel is actually going to appeal to you. Whereas an intellectual younger person might find programming relevant on both channels (well probably not BBC Three, but you understand the point I'm trying to make).

And BBC Three costs twice the amount of BBC Four - £92.1m v £46.9m in 2006.

From The Observer article:

'We may discover Radio 1 or BBC3 is more important than we thought, and double investment in that service - but reduce spending on others,' said one senior BBC executive.

Leaving aside the dispiriting prospect of even more money being spent on Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, let's consider radio.

Radio 1 spent £17.7m in 2006 compared with £24.1m on Radio 2, £31.1m on Radio 3, £71.4m on Radio 4 and £48.9m on Five Live. How exactly could Radio 1 even contemplate doubling its spend? Radio 2 has more documentaries hence the greater cost, as well as contributing to regular weekly concerts with such groups as the BBC Concert Orchestra. It also has to shoulder its share of Jonathan Ross' salary! Radio Three's costs are likely to largely be the upkeep of several orchestras as well as much more need for outside broadcast recordings and some drama. While Radio 4 is always going to be expensive with its news, comedy and drama being about the most expensive forms of radio available. And Five Live has significant news and sports costs.

But what would Radio 1 actually do with more money? Pay Chris Moyles even more cash? They already do many outside events, and holding more live concert relays is actually likely to be less popular among listeners than just playing more CDs.

It's at an utter misconception that we should just spend more cash on what the viewers or listeners already want. That kind of thinking won't be getting us another series of Planet Earth (massively popular across all demographics), but just see an extra episode of Eastenders (sadly already being considered if press reports are true).

So truths and half-truths then? Kevin Marsh, editor of the BBC College of Journalism, addresses the stories on the BBC Editors' blog.

To me, it boils down to not insulting your audiences. Make programmes that appeal to them, but don't pander downwards. So, BBC Three, that means NOT making programmes called F**k Off I'm Fat or whatever. For all I know, it was quite an honest and worthy documentary. I don't know - I'm never going to watch a programme so-named. Honestly, BBC Two ran one of those "Here's what's starting now on other channels" captions this week, and the continuity announcer couldn't even bring herself to name the programme on Three. Thank goodness the channel's controller has just gone.

Coming soon, my take on the series of Horizon. Oh dear.

It's very sad to hear that Michael Dibdin has died. He was a really fine author and I've absolutely loved his Aurelio Zen series of novels.

More obituaries at the BBC and the Daily Telegraph.

A final Zen novel, End Games, is due in July.

[UPDATE] The Guardian's own obit, and In Praise of... Aurelio Zen from today's leader.

Sadly, not the late, and quite probably unlamented cinema chain (not that Cineworld is a whole lot better with useless security guards supposedly checking that I did video-phone films, and too few people manning the ticket desk at the weekend), but that ultimate flavour-of-the-nanosecond buzzword "user generated content."

Today we learnt that LBC is rebranding itself - no longer will the initials stand for London Broadcasting Company. Now they'll mean London's Biggest Conversation. This shouldn't be confused with "New" Labour's Big Conversation (now seemingly broken).

At the same time, the similarly named LBC 1152 will become the far more sensibly monickered Sky News Radio for London.

But what made me laugh was the suggestion that LBC broadcasts "3000 hours of user-generated content a year." As Media Guardian has also pointed out - they really mean "phone-ins." And in any case, this "content" isn't entirely user-generated; most phone-ins rely on relatively skilled radio hosts and guests to come up with subject matters that listeners are interested in talking about. Then they have to challenge the listeners' views to make interesting radio. The listener is indeed an essential part of the mix for such radio, but then most stations rely on phone-calls, email and texts these days.

The other day Zoe Williams in The Guardian noted the following regarding Channel 4 Radio's licence bid:

The bit that tickles me is the Channel 4 content. It is pitched to rival Radio 4, which heady task its director of radio, Nathalie Schwarz, says it plans to achieve with drama, documentary and "challenging speech-based content". Is it possible to have any love of speech and yet use a phrase like "challenging speech-based content"? I will have a sip of my stimulating, caffeine-based beverage and come back to you on that.

Can we please have a moratorium on using the word "content"? To my mind it completely devalues your programming, music, reporting, analysis, conversation, contributions, or whatever it really is that you're offering and soliciting. It's a meaningless buzzword that proves nothing except that you read the marketing press fervently to prove you're down with the kids and are following all the new trends.

I shall say nothing more except to mention that of course these views are my own and obviously don't represent those of my employer.

There's plenty of coverage elsewhere about the whys and wherefores of EMI going DRM-free, with Apple iTunes the first partner. But I will make a couple of comments.

It is brave of EMI, but necessary. By holding out longer, you're just going to piss your customers off, and when you're having as turbulent a time as EMI has been recently, that's simply something you can't afford to do.

I know that all of a sudden, I'm much likelier to buy downloads. I still love CDs and any artist or album I truly want, I'll buy the CD version, but knowing that I "own" it and don't just licence it is very important to me.

Some people have commented on the limited range of hardware outside of the iPod range capable of playing even unencrypted AAC encoded music. Well there are couple of things to point out here. First, iTunes is simply the first vendor to open up the EMI range fully - others will be along very shortly, and for the first time, they're going to be able to properly supply music to iPod owners - by far the largest hardware market share. While I don't suppose we'll exactly see a price-war, the playing field will certainly be flattened. I'd also hope that some of the major record labels will start talking to vendors like eMusic about being included on their services. Secondly, who doesn't think that every major hardware manufacturer is going to be racing to ensure that their mp3 player or mobile phone is capable of playing AAC encoded tracks? There'll be firmware updates for legacy kit, and since the lifecycle of mobile phones is somewhere around 12 months before consumers seek a replacement, we'll see widespread compatability within a very short time-frame.

Apple really don't have much to worry about - as long as they keep producing the smartest and coolest devices, then they're going to be making their money from hardware rather than software.

The Independent's piece today is headlined "EMI concedes defeat in war on internet pirates" and I've just got to say that this is wholly and totally missing the point. The piece itself is quite level-headed, but removing DRM is not giving in to piracy - it's taking on piracy. Previously, if I'd bought an album on iTunes and then bought a non-Apple replacement mp3 player, or perhaps installed an mp3CD-capable car radio, I'd have been forced to either go through the ridiculous process of burning and then re-ripping the audio, or just head into the nether-regions of the internet and download a version someone else has made. Now I don't have to go through that ridiculous process - well not once the hardware out there all supports AAC, but as I've already mentioned, that won't be very long.

Isn't it nice to actually write something nice about the music industry for a change?