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In the end it was an Oxford graduate flat out on a tea tray
and four Scottish housewives with broomsticks who upheld Britain's Olympic honour.
I'm pleased to report I was wide awake to watch it all, though
I think a few sleep-inducing large ones might have helped as Rhona Martin and
her brush-wielding curlers swept to the first gold medal at a Winter Olympics
since Torville and Dean eighteen years ago. You wouldn't
have known they were going to do so well without the Beeb commentary, however.
The women lost two games straight off and won the third on the last granite rock
twirled down the indoor ice flow while someone in Salt Lake City wittered on about
the drama. I suppose now we'll have to get used to expressions
like "the last rock" as curling halls open all over the place, no doubt
dispensing a wee dram to women with ice cold faces. But I can't see the smack
of granite smiting granite replacing the thwack of leather on willow, or even
the perfectly-judged curl taking over from the perfectly-placed spot kick, whatever
the BBC commentator makes of it all. The ten o'clock news
came on both major terrestrial channels half way through and the BBC's lukewarm
version relegated John Thaw's smoking-induced death to follow the news of the
Wall Street Journal's man being put to death by Islamic militants who kidnapped
him a month ago. Shurely there was shome mishtake here. The most famous actor
on TV was dead and they'd got the mop-heads twirling for gold in the Olympics
and all I had for consolation was a cup of tea, with sweeteners, and some pretty
poor news editing. There's something just not right about
the BBC that you can observe in Ibiza now you can get ITV (via Sky) and make a
comparison. I want to know why they want to bid millions
of pounds of licence-payers' money on Mike Tyson's fight this summer when they
won't get any sort of financial return on it. I understand why they feel they
should cover the Winter Olympics (though I question why they have to send so many
people to cover it and then switch channels just as it gets to the exciting bit),
but why not let ITV earn something from the advertising for ear muffs it will
no doubt attract? That would mean both of them having the
money to invest in new programmes that are not about cops and robbers. But
it's not just that; it's the self-imposed smugness of the Corporation that irritates
me. Let's imagine there was no BBC and someone had the bright idea of creating
it. How many people do you seriously think they would consider employing? Do you
suppose it would be 20,000? All in all, I think they are
toe-curlingly awful and I haven't even mentioned my local BBC radio station that
seems to consist of a phone-in going on all day about the best way of removing
grease stains from behind the cooker. I think there should be an investment in
a redundancy programme. After all, it only needs one good person with sound news
sense to dictate the order of the news and not a committee. And
talking of investment, I want to add my congratulations to Gary Hardy, LiveIbiza's
webmaster, for completing the first year of our glorious site today. Who knows
what next year may bring? Hopefully it will be commercial sponsorship, something
else the BBC lacks.
Sinclair
Newton
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