Britblog Roundup 237: The 'sorry it's late but I was on holiday' edition

Yes, I know it’s late, but I came back from my holiday to write this so be grateful. Still, it was a pleasant welcome back from Tatiana Deliagina who wrote not once but TWICE to us britbloggers to inform us that not only had we won either £75 million or £750,000 in the Toyota awards; presumably that’s an award for having a blog which wants to be faster and more expensive than it is whilst desperately trying not to be run of the mill – but that we’ve also won £1million in the British Telecom awards. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited. I’ll leave it to the Chameleon to decide how the wonga gets split.

Now, onto the main item on the programme which is of course you lovely people. And haven’t you been busy! Much busier than that crowd on Blackheath who appear to be having a rather relaxed time what with ice cream vans (fuelled by the breath of kittens, I hope) and a woman inexplicably standing on one leg whilst wearing a dress made from a pair of curtains. Random Blowes meanwhile (you need some shoes for those feet) explains why Barclays is being targeted and the Bristling Badger – an old hand at these things – explains a little of the history of climate protesting.

Moving on slightly from camping to the weather and Diamond Geezer talks weather. And armpits. And voices an opinion which clinging to has gotten me through most of my career, that ‘...some people will believe anything if it looks pretty enough.’ Even maps?

Changing lines at White City, Amused Cynicism talks BBC and market allocation:

But that’s not important. The important question is: do these proposals make sense? Redwood is concerned that the BBC, by virtue of being popular, is unfair competition to private sector news websites. To a certain extent, that’s a valid concern. But the economy doesn’t exist to make private sector entrepreneurs rich, it exists to make things people need and want. And people clearly do want the BBC — according to Alexa the BBC have the number 2 and number 4 news websites worldwide, and by far the most popular UK-based one.

Whilst The Adam Smith blog is less helpful with suggestions.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that the person who can find a way to make news websites profitable and stop the fear in the newspaper industry will find themselves clothed in finest ermine and pissing on a golden loo. I’d rather they just actually researched what they wrote. And of course it’s local journalism which is hit the hardest and presumably the reason why so much of it comes from the wires. Perhaps The enemies of Reason has the answer?

Sticking with the BBC and with what I regard is their finest production, we’re over to the Royal Albert Hall for the Proms and On An Overgrown Path looks into the cost of each concert:

In an April 2009 article (source 1) Roger Wright explained that 'of the £8.8m budget for the [Proms] festival, approximately £6m comes from BBC subsidy'. In 2009 there are 95 ticketed Prom concerts, of which 19 are for chamber music. Dividing the BBC subsidy by the number of concerts gives an average subsidy of £63,158 per concert. That word average is important; 20% of the concerts are for small forces so the subsidy for the larger performances will be considerably higher, and probably in excess of £75,000 per concert.

Quite pricey, I guess, but give me a couple of hours a night of good quality music any day over some tacky, shrill soap opera featuring 25 bottles of fake tan and some bloke called Gary. Newspapers and TV might publish what they think people want but personally I’d rather have a turgid news story than some article on a peroxide nutter I’ve never heard of. Sadly, I appear to be in a minority.

Now, on to Dan Hannan. Nice bloke. Good ties. And a politician who wants debate and wants people to get involved with how their lives are run. Mark Reckons that this is a good thing, something which caused a fair amount of debate on his blog. Mr Eugenides also picks up on the 'mock outrage' people on the left of politics have had over such a simple statement. Not that it’s the first time it’s been said in recent years but then Hannan is rather a figure of hate for authoritarians at the moment. I bet he’s loving it.

Providing a lovely link from daily politics to the ever popular subject of feminism, in a sort of elevenses ‘lovely slice of cake’ way, Feminazerylooks at Sharia Law vs the Daily Mail. Meanwhile, Stroppybird over at Liberal Conspiracy has an excellent piece on Fay Weldon’s witterings. Heresy Corner looks at a post by Melissa McEwan who has written a comment which I think insults most women; essentially that anyone who argues with a feminist is a misogynist. That includes me, then, although it’s certainly not the first time I’ve been called that. As it happens, ladies, I’ve often found the best defence against a man blathering on about nonsense is to kick him in the bollocks. If you don’t fancy him, that is. If you do then you don’t need me to tell you how to keep him quiet.

In other news, Stuart Syvret doesn’t like the Jersey Evening Post, Liberal England with the truth about the Blue Peter dog and Random Acts of Reality on the Ambulance vs the Fire Brigade.

And just to be different, I’ll end with a welcome.

That’s all for this week. Next week Charlie’s hosting so send your nominations to the normal address: britblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Until then, pip pip and keep blogging!

Trixy

xxx