Thursday, July 26, 2007 by Andrew John.

Hate to have a go at the BBC. One has a sort of built-in respect for old Auntie, doesn’t one. On the other hand . . . Anyway, in Bill’s Underground Edition last week I couldn’t get off my mind the fact that the dear old girl had been hauled over the coals quite a bit. Nothing like a bit of a gloat, what? So I decided to do a bit of film editing – all in my imagination, of course! Here’s what I said. Oh, I feel a moan about clichés coming on because I can’t get the phrase ‘the Brown bounce’ out of my mind; so tune into The Underground Edition on and after 29 July. The highlight of the show is of course me, but Bill plays some bloody good music before and after me. Come to think of it, you could always skip my bit. Anyway, I digress. This is was I said last week, folks.

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Good old BBC, eh? Good old Auntie. She’s really got her knickers in a twist lately, hasn’t she, what with that faked footage of the Queen and a few faked phone-ins?As for phone-ins, let me say straightaway that anyone who’s been diddled deserves all they get. Yes, I’m being a cantankerous git, because I think they have part of their brain missing – if they ever grew a brain in the first place.No, I don’t think TV companies should get away with tricking people, and they should be brought to book, yes. But, really, who in their right mind is going to spend up to one pound fifty a minute and more to enter some stupid quiz. Oh, I’m not talking about a Blue Peter quiz here – the BBC, to give it credit, doesn’t hype up any charges, or, as far as I know, even make any charges for that kind of thing. I just used that as an excuse for rant.

No, I’m talking about Channel 4 and other independent companies and these things you often accidentally come across if you’re channel hopping on Freeview, with some ditzy young thing chosen because of her curves and her toothpaste smile, as she grins inanely at you and urges you to phone in to answer a question that’s so blindingly easy to answer that it’s no wonder they get thousands of people phoning in. Of course, they don’t have to part with as much in prizes as they make from premium-rate numbers, with thousands of blithering idiots phoning them.

Can’t these viewers see what’s going on? Can’t they see that they’re being shafted right, left and centre?

As for her dear majesty, our gracious lady the Queen. Well, with a bit of mischievous tweaking of the chronology of events in some video footage, she was seen to be storming out of a photoshoot with the famous snapper Annie Leibovitz. What a corker of an opportunity to rearrange footage.I did a bit myself the other day. You know, got the odd thing off YouTube, filmed a few of my friends who’re nightclub bouncers, used a bit of CGI, as they do in Doctor Who. Great fun.Scene one. Her Majesty sits majestically, being photographed. A crown is on her head. Cut to picture of Annie Leibovitz with camera in hand. Liebovitz says something. Indistinct. Voiceover says, ‘And Ms Leibovitz is asking Her Majesty to take something off. It seems to be her crown.’Cut to Her Gracious Majesty, who is seen shaking her head. Use CGI here to disguise the fact that the background is that of last year’s Trooping of the Colour.Cut to back shot of Leibovitz seeming to rage (use stand-in double here). Cut to Her Gracious Majesty, rising from chair. Use CGI to hide the fact that this is from the end of last year’s State Opening of Parliament.

Her Gracious Majesty nods to her left. Cut to two large, gorilla-like, shaven-headed gentlemen wearing evening dress and knuckledusters. Cut to back shot of Leibovitz as shaven-headed gentlemen approach. Again, stunt double will be required, since this shot has not been agreed in Ms Leibovitz’s contract. Gentlemen with shaven heads, evening dress and knuckledusters give her a good nutting.Cut to Her Gracious Majesty nodding with approval and smiling. Use CGI to hide the fact that this was taken during a recent tour of Australia.Yes, I think I might just make it as a cinematographer. I wonder if there are any jobs going at the BBC. Perhaps they’ll organise a phone-in competition for budding filmmakers.

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Thursday, July 19, 2007 by Andrew John.

I hate dumbing down. All it does is lower standards. I had a go at it last week on the occasion of the release of the new Harry Potter movie. Here’s what I had to say in Bill’s Underground Edition.

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I’ve found myself gazing into the youthful eyes of Daniel Radcliffe this week. You can’t help it. He’s all over the Radio Times.

It’s the occasion of the fifth Harry Potter film, and the telly are doing a thing about the costumes, called Harry Potter: The Costume Drama. That’s why Dan the Man is there.

But it reminds me of one of the worst bits of dumbing-down I’ve ever had the misfortune to know about. And I didn’t know about it till recently. That’s the first book: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Now I knew it had been changed to Sorcerer’s Stone for the Americans. And I thought that was bad enough.

I mean, do they not know that the word philosopher means more than a chap who talks epistemology, ontology and eschatology all day? More than your A C Graylings and your Platos and your Socrateses? More than ethics and logical problems?

I mean, haven’t they heard of alchemy, for goodness’ sake?

So they bugger about with the titles of British literature by dumbing it down. I came across a New York Times article from 2000 the other day entitled ‘Harry Potter – minus a certain flavour’, and the word flavour is spelled the British way. Deliberately.

And this was where I learned about more dumbing-down in the world of the young wizard of Hogworts Academy.

The writer bemoans this dumbing down – not only changing philosopher to sorcerer, but mum to mom, apparently, and crumpets to English muffins. I ask you! This is crazy!

‘Why?’ asks the article’s author, Peter H Gleick. ‘Were the editors worried that some people wouldn’t buy the book because they couldn’t understand it in its original language? Were they concerned that some children would be confused by new words for otherwise familiar objects or actions?’

Quite!

He goes on to say, ‘I like to think that our society would not collapse if our children started calling their mothers Mum instead of Mom. And I would hate to think that today’s children would be frightened away from an otherwise thrilling book by reading that the hero is wearing a jumper instead of a sweater.’

Quite!

English muffins are not crumpets. Have American kids not learned about crumpets? Don’t we in Britain read of cookies when we read American novels? Don’t we know what a sidewalk is and a parking lot. Don’t we know they go to a doctor’s office, not a doctor’s surgery? Don’t we know their babies wear diapers, not nappies?

Of course we do! We’ve read their books and seen their movies – I mean films. So why can’t the Yanks look the words up if they don’t know what they mean?

What next? Shakespeare’s Much Fuss About Zilch? Or how about The Two Guys of Verona? How about The Storekeeper of Venice? How about Charles Dickens’s Hard Times? Could change the title to Tough Shit, Dude, I guess.

No. Let’s keep our words in our literature and let the Americans learn them, as we’ve learned some of theirs (and incorporated them into our own speech). What’s wrong with that?

Sorcerer’s Stone. Blimey. Don’t get me started! 

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Saturday, July 14, 2007 by Bill Everatt.

Hello again, thanks for tuning in, this is Bill Everatt, with news of the July 15th update of the Underground Edition, Live, On demand and Podcasted from Celtica Radio, and also as part of the Volts Show Collection of programmes on Radio Freeway too.

In this weeks programme, we have an Urban Legend called The Old Hag of the Mountains, a story about someone not being who they seem to be.

Andrew John will be philosophising about sorcery and going potty about Potter this week.

Also, who said this? “Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”

Plus we’ve also got some great new music and information on the artists from amongst others Geoffrey Armes, Joan Enguita, Flatline, Viva Machine, Emporium and The Laws Of Average.

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Thursday, July 12, 2007 by Andrew John.

I get a bit tetchy when people don’t think straight. I had a go at a couple of modes of alleged thinking on The Underground Edition on 8 July. This is what I said.

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It’s funny how unreasoned we are as a society. We don’t really think. Joined up, I mean. We don’t think joined-up thoughts.

We’ve got these worldwide concerts called Earth Aid or Save Aid or Lucozade or something. Live Earth, that’s it. (Sounds like instructions for wiring a plug!)

And we have Jon BonBon Jovial or somebody, and other highly paid rock stars – many of whom have several houses dotted here and there – jetting off all over the world, piling on the potential for climate change, and they’re singing to raise our awareness of, yes, climate change.

They don’t get it, do they?

There’s controversy in some circles as to whether climate change is caused by humankind or whether it’s part of the natural cycle of things. However, there’s a huge consensus that says it’s manmade, and it’s that consensus that’s driving this bash. So let’s stick with that explanation for the time being.

Right, why don’t they just stop jetting about the place. Wouldn’t that be the best message of all? Stop jetting and then hold a press conference to say, ‘We’ve stopped jetting.’

And just who am I to say all this? you might ask. Well, I don’t jet; I do recycle – and I’m an inveterate moaner. But, hey, sometimes I get you going. I bet you’ve all written to your MPs after listening to one of these eminently sensible little homilies on The Underground Edition.

Maybe not.

The other example of totally unhinged thinking this last week has been that of a bishop – yes, a highly paid man who lives in a big house known as a bishop’s palace, paid for by his bosses (not the Boss – the big one in the sky, but his earthly bosses), a man who has been to university, probably got a doctorate, has had a high-quality education, paid for by you and me – yes, this bishop, this man who is looked up to, revered, respected by many, gets the ear of governments and politicians and journalists . . . And what does he say? He says that God has sent the floods to the UK because the UK has civil-partnerships legislation, which allows people of the same sex to get married.

Let me just run that one by you again, because I can see through your monitor screen that you’re tutting and shaking your head in disbelief, banging your head on the desk, tearing your tongue out and calling for copious quantities of brandy. This man – the bishop of Carlisle, the so-called ‘Right Reverend’ Graham Dow – says that the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which allow for same-sex marriages, are, and I quote, ‘part of a general scene of permissiveness’. He goes on to say, ‘We are in a situation where we are liable for God’s judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance.’

Right, so God, who is reckoned to be omnipotent and omniscient, who in the Old Testament, sent his Angel of Death on the occasion of the Tenth Plague. Now God in his wisdom could tell the houses of Israel from the houses not of Israel – the people of Israel, that is – and so the Angel didn’t kill those. He skipped over them.

My point is that an all-seeing God has already proved that he can discriminate between one house and another. If Minnie and Mandy have shacked up together, and Phil and Bill have shacked up together, this same god, you would think, would have the nous to flood only their homes. But no: he has flooded, it seems, the homes of good, upstanding, decent, clean-living straight folk, too.

Odd, that. 

I read a humanist blog the other day, on which someone said, and I quote, ‘If he thinks these floods are the result of pro-gay laws rather than global warming, then how come far more catastrophic floods afflict homophobic nations such as Bangladesh? And how come ultra-pious nations such as Pakistan suffer catastrophic earthquakes? And the self-proclaimed religiosity of the United States doesn’t protect it from lethal hurricanes either.’

There you go, then. Something to ponder on next time you hear the BBC wheel a bishop into the studio to pontificate on matters of the moment. Especially if it’s Graham Dow.

Still, where would we be without them, eh? I mean, you’ve got to admit: they do brighten up our day from time to time. Good job hardly anybody takes them seriously.

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Wednesday, July 4, 2007 by Andrew John.

Ever been beaten up in the cyberworld> No, neither have I. It happens, though, and I had a rant about it in Bill’s Underground Edition last Sunday. Here it is . . .

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Remember the days when, if somebody at school at a grudge against you, they just took you behind the bike sheds and beat seven shades of crap out of you – or, if you were bigger, you turned the tables and beat seven shades of crap out of them? Good, old-fashioned healthy bullying. Don’t argue. It was good for you, and you know it.

It’s a bit different these days, though. There’s this thing called cyberbullying. It’s happening a lot. And there’s just been a report about it that says that, in the USA – where else? – a third of online teenagers have been cyberbullied.

It’s this crazy notion about sharing all your intimate details that does it. You join up to something such as MySpace, and put all your personal stuff on there. Do they put their breast size, their willy size, their bank details, their mobile phone’s entire directory of friends, their mother’s breast size, their dad’s – but you get the gist. I bet they do. The old-fashioned equivalent would have been going round the school with all this written on the back of the fag packet you’ve just emptied by having a crafty ciggy behind those bike sheds, and handing all your information to your friends – friends who will soon become enemies – to hand round.

But we didn’t do that, did we? So why are kids sharing all this stuff about themselves online, where dirty old men in cyber-raincoats lie in wait to do nasty things to them?

When I was a kid – and you, too, I dare gamble, dear listener, no matter how old you are – mothers told their kids not to talk to strangers. It’s harder to know online who’s a stranger, I know, but, blimey, what’s wrong with just keeping your personal stuff off there? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. Why do they think banks and other online merchants use sophisticated security to protect people’s identities – and even then sometimes get it wrong? But why do they think they use them? For fun?

Now, OK, some of this bullying lark amounts to sending malicious emails about the place. So where’s the difference between that and rumours circulating your entire school, from mouth to ear, where people could actually look at you? The favourite at my school was ‘Andy John’s a poofter’, or ‘Andy John shags sheep’.  If both of those were true, it would mean I had an eye for rams, but I don’t. Because they smell. And I don’t like having intimate relations with things that smell.

But that’s by the bye.

Back to cyberbullying. OK, in the days of the cyber world, you can find your photograph or a video passed around so quickly, which you couldn’t before. Yes. I’ll concede that. But why put a video on there in the first place? It’s yampy. A video of you enjoying yourself doing nice dainty things such as having tea with the vicar, yes, but not shagging that bloke or bird on the kitchen table at your mate’s 16th-birthday party.

Or across the freezer cabinet.

In Sainsbury’s.

I’m afraid it’s something we’re going to have to live with. All innovation is a Pandora’s Box. And you open one of those every time you turn on your radio or select an excellent online radio service such as Celtica Radio. I mean, it’s one thing tuning in and getting me in your earhole. Think yourself lucky. You might get Bill Everatt. 

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