BBC Bashing

So, quite a relief to discover that I have a cold.  To be honest, the way I was feeling yesterday I did begin to wonder if I was suffering from some sort of post-house moving depression and was quite concerned that I wouldn't shake it off too easily.  However, it's just a cold that was clearly looming so today, here it is, out in the open for all to see.  So while I feel coldy in body, at least I feel better in the head.

It's always a comfort, I find, when one is feeling under the weather, to look at, say, another individual and to know for sure that however bad one feels, it doesn't even come near whatever that person is enduring.  And that's a comfort I've solely derived from BBC Director General George Entwistle, who, unless you're living on Mars, will have noticed is really in the merde today over the Jimmy Savile allegations.

A few weeks back when the Savile stuff began to hit the airwaves, Rod Liddle, former editor of R4 Today Programme, wrote in his Sunday Times column that he always enjoyed watching the BBC "stab itself to death with its own penis".  Or something like that anyway.  It was a phrase that resonated with me and has ultimately proved utterly accuate as we observe this current mess.

I must declare an interest at this stage; I am a sometime employee of BBC News, on occasion gladly taking its shilling for an honest day's toil on the newsdesk or out and about interviewing folk for TV and radio.  Some years ago I used to be what they call a 'lifer'; a member of BBC staff who lives and breathes the organisation and is expected to be there until they drop, or survive just long enough to draw the still-quite-generous pension of the faithful worker-bee.  However dear reader, I escaped, and am now able to stand back and observe the various goings-on with a mixture of empathy and horror, rather like the parent who stands just out of sight while their offspring plays with their dear little friends and witnessing him or her declare loudly, as they chuck the dolly into the corner "you look after it, I'm off to a party".

In fact it was at the very height of my being a dedicated lifer that the BBC was embroiled in a very similar scandal, only that one involved the alleged sexing up of WMD rather than the touching up of very young children. OK there were no under-age innocents involved in the Dr David Kelly/Andrew Gilligan debacle, to my knowledge everyone was a grown-up (although some of the behaviour witnessed made that hard to believe) and fully answerable for their actions.  Although to be fair, one of the main protagonists did end up dead, in mysterious circumstances in an Oxfordshire woodland, so there are some parallels in that Kelly's answers went with him to the grave as did Savile's.

But it was the same, slow, stilted, strangulated, disjointed response from BBC management that tied the whole corporation up in knots and ultimately brought about the downfall of the then DG, a certain Greg Dyke, who in my opinion was one of the best things that had happened in years.  Dyke, rather like George Entwistle has done with Newsnight editor Peter Rippon, put his trust in the person at the centre of the story, in that case it was reporter Andrew Gilligan, and effectively bet the whole farm on the reliability of that person's judgement and the accuracy of their statement in response to the unravelling crisis.

For all my insider knowledge of the BBC and in particular, the internicine workings of the newsroom and all the diverse news programmes it feeds, I cannot be certain that deliberate obfuscation is at work here. The BBC is huge and complex and no one individual, however switched on, can ever possibly know every story that's being covered, or second guess the impact those stories will have. 

However, the questions that remain unanswered are: did George Entwistle in his previous role as Head of Vision realise the seriousness of the evidence that Newsnight had uncovered as regards Jimmy Savile's disgusting ways?  If he did, then why on earth did he let the nauseating Christmas tribute programme go out when he knew that these allegations existed on camera from verifiable witnesses?  Also why was that Newsnight investigation never broadcast?  I know the reporter, Liz MacKean from years back and she is a completely credible journalist with top-notch skills and a brilliant track record.  If she thought the story stood up, then it stood up.

Those questions, in my mind, are crucial and I hope the Select Committee MPs get to the crux of the issue today.  I've not yet watched the Panorama that went out last night.  I think I might just pop off and watch it now over a rather alarmingly large pile of ironing that's morphed up out of nowhere.

Dark Days

Ugh I'm having a 'dark day'.   Occasionally, and thank goodness it is only occasionally, the gloom descends and I can do nothing about it.  I awoke feeling a bit bleugh, nothing unusual there as it's been happening for about the last seven days but I put it down to fighting off the seasonal sniffle that seems to be doing the rounds.

I forced myself out of bed and up onto my hind legs.  HH was at the gym so I had two bouncy kids to feed and get dressed for school.  The cat also needed medicating.  This cat, one of our four, is the one I shall call LDT or Little Dark Tortie.  Late on Saturday night (or it may even have been early Sunday morning) I blundered in from a girlie night in London, only to discover that LDT seemed to have half of her tail hanging off.  That sobered me up.  I held her close and wondered what the hell to do.  HH apparently knew about it as she had come in like it earlier in the evening, but he'd not thought to warn me.  Great.

So on Sunday morning I found myself at the emergency vets, waiting while they sedated and then stitched up the wound.  I am now about £300 worse off and LDT isn't very grateful as they made her wear one of those plastic lampshade things around her neck so as I write, she's clumsily making her way around the house knocking said collar into everything.  I feel helpless and unable to ease her discomfort as the vet said she would only try and chew out her stitches if the collar comes off.

So, back to my gloomy morning.  When HH reappeared, we somehow got a tablet down LDT's unwilling throat and I got the kids to school, just about before the bell.  It's amazing how physically the gloom in my head affects me.  I feel a bit like I  have partial facial paralysis; smiling is a no-no today.  My shoulders are drooping and my posture is shot.

You know what my real trouble is?  I officially have nothing 'on' just now.  As a freelance journalist and property developer, my work is sporadic to say the least.  As a period of  well earnt 'downtime' approaches, I feel giddy with relief at not having to sort childcare, often at short notice, and not having to plan what we're all going to eat with military precision and make sure I've got the right thing out of the freezer at the right time.

I positively relish the opportunity to just 'be' for a while and not rush around like the proverbial blue arsed fly.  However, I am, at the heart of it, an adrenaline junkie who thrives on pressure and deadlines.  Whilst I might enjoy a short period of rest, I cannot do it for long.  And there, dear reader, is the crux of the matter.  I know that should the phone suddenly ring or an email drop into my inbox with promises of exciting offers of work, my mood would shift as dramatically as the sun appearing from behind a cloud.

But for now I'm heading back to the sofa where a hot water bottle and Homes Under the Hammer awaits my presence.

Hello World, this is me.

Well hello world!  Welcome to my blog.  If you're wondering what a polymath is, I'd describe it, certainly when referring to myself, as a sort of 'jack of all trades'.  The question I'm always asking of course is am I, or indeed will I, ever become a master of any.....

I'm a mum of two, an 8 year-old son and a 6 year-old daughter.  I've decided that for brevity's sake they shall henceforth be referred to as SS (super son) and DD (delightful daughter).  I have a husband (HH - yes I'm in a good mood - handsome hubbie, but that could always change to 'horrid' or any other unflattering adjective beginning with H depending on the state of our maritals when I sit down to write), and 4 cats who don't really require separate identities on a blog - well not yet anyway.

By trade I'm a journalist, working mostly for one of the world's largest news organisations - I'll give you a clue; it's the bane of the Daily Mail and depending on who you believe, it either employs paedophiles or tax dodgers.  I'm relieved to say that I fall into neither category, I'm just a simple, jobbing broadcast journalist who turns up for her newsdesk shifts on time and tries to make sense of this big, bad, complex world which we inhabit.

I am in thrall to the TV goddess that is Sarah Beeny.  In fact it has been thanks to her that I started developing properties.  I love doing the planning and designing of all my property alterations and have discovered that I probably should have studied architecture all those years ago as nothing makes me happier than drawing little tiny bathrooms to scale.  I can spend whole days sitting in front of my drawing board (20 quid off ebay) with my calculator, ruler and pencils, designing a house until it looks 'right'.  I now have 4 successful developments, including a new-build that I designed from scratch, under my belt - happy days.

Talking of belts, that's another of my 'things' that I should probably mention at this stage - my habit of donning a white, baggy (some might say Hong Kong Fuey stylie) suit and going out several evenings of a week and having a fight with someone.  I've been learning Taekwon-Do for about 3 years and am slowly but surely nearing my black belt.

HH can't understand it, "why do you want to go around hitting people?" he wonders from the comfort of the sofa when I arrive home, either quite pumped up with adrenaline because it's gone well, or thoroughly deflated as a six-foot-tall black belt has got the better of me.  He won't, however, let me give it up, no matter how badly (and yes sometimes I have returned home in urgent need of an ice-pack) I've fared when sparring against a more talented individual, and let me be clear, I meet plenty of those. "Keep going darling" he soothes, still from the depths of the sofa, merlot in hand "you're so nearly there, you've got to get your black belt".  Hmmmm, not for the first time do I have a niggling suspicion that I am both male and female in this relationship and should a fire-breathing dragon appear at the door, it would be my job to defeat it.

So what else can I tell you?  I've had a few near misses in my time, the biggest probably when I was 24 and astride my pride and joy, a 500cc motorbike.  Yes reader, you've guessed it.  Young, foolish and in my head thoroughly invincible, I promptly smashed the thing up and myself with it.  But that incident, like many others has made me believe that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Anyway, enough.  I started my week in a rather lovely way, dropping the kids at school and meeting 4 girlfriends for breakfast and coffee before cycling home to start this blog.  Now I hear some mundane chores calling me so I must away for now.  Until next time.