Who could forget Alan Shearer’s habit of slipping a quick one in every now and again?
Certainly not the BBC:
He scores when he wants…
Thanks Stu
Tag: BBC
Shocking report was shockingly reported – shock.
When that BBC report came out, someone remarked on Facebook:
Kan dit nie glo nie. (I can’t believe it.)
I commented:
You’d do well not to believe it. Or indeed anything else that uses Ernst Roets as a credible source.
But how was I to know just how right I was?
Do 400,000 whites live in squatter camps in South Africa, as claimed in a recent BBC report. Are there really 80 “white squatter camps” dotted around Pretoria? The answer to both is no.
Africacheck.org has looked at the 2011 census and found out that those figures are (as both the ANC and the DA suggested) inaccurate, exaggerated nonsense:
The claim that 400,000 whites are living in squatter camps is grossly inaccurate. If that were the case, it would mean that roughly ten percent of South Africa’s 4.59-million whites were living in abject poverty.
Census figures suggest that only a tiny fraction of the white population – as little as 7,754 households – are affected.
The claim that there are 80 or more “white squatter camps” in the Pretoria area would also appear to be grossly overstated. Many of the places referred to are not camps at all.
AfriForum’s Roets gave the BBC inaccurate figures and the BBC took them without apparently checking, producing a skewed piece of journalism that failed to accurately reflect reality.
And this on a story that veteran journalist John Simpson put his name to. Very sad.
In no way am I suggesting that the fact that there are 7,754 white households (or the 1,868,325 “black African” households in the same situation) living – existing – in those sort of conditions, is acceptable.
I am, however, suggesting that you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.
Even from the BBC and especially from Ernst Roets.
UPDATE: From Anton Haber:
I am appalled that a seasoned journalist like BBC world affairs editor John Simpson should produce… such a half-arsed, skewed view of reality.
This is an appalling piece of journalism, not worthy of the BBC.
My thoughts exactly.
Last of LotSW
I can’t tell you how sad this is for me:
The world’s longest-running sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine, comes to an end this weekend. In the Yorkshire town where the series is set, fans are preparing to bid farewell to a TV institution.
On a soggy afternoon in Holmfirth, the Last of the Summer Wine tour bus is almost full. Sightseers peer through the rain-streaked windows at the cobbled streets and lush green fields that are part of sitcom history.
In this picturesque setting, three old friends ambled up hill and down dale – pondering life, plotting harebrained schemes and refusing to bow to the passing years.
For the coach load of tourists following in their footsteps, the journey is bittersweet. After 295 episodes, the summer wine has finally run dry.
Last of the Summer Wine was filmed just up the road from Sheffield in the Pennines and always reminds me of the beauty of my home country. When I first came over to SA, I was delighted to find it on DSTV: there’s something comforting about seeing “home” is still there when you’ve made such a big step.
Everyone in Yorkshire could easily identify with the three main characters, Foggy, Clegg and Compo: representing, as they did, varying tiers of British society, and meaning that one of them must have been like your granddad.
That said, it reinforced some terrible stereotypes about “God’s Own County” and the people that lived there (Compo drinking his tea out of his saucer in Ivy’s Tea Room springs immediately to mind), but even that gave it a certain comedic value before a word had even been spoken.
Fair enough, it was never the same once Compo and Foggy left the series (because they died – always a risk when filming a long running series with elderly protagonists, I guess). The more recent efforts were poor in comparison for me, simply because while there were still the ridiculous storylines, they revolved more around secondary characters – but it’s still sad to see it go.
BBC says goodbye to World Cup 2010
The BBC comes in for a lot of criticism – some justified, some not.
One thing they do better than anyone else I know is their coverage of football.
This District 9 themed highlights/credits package for the 2010 World Cup is simply outstanding.
So many amazing moments, cleverly and brilliantly presented.
Thanks Arcainus
Models of Perception
With the World Cup just 19 days away, we have had a utterly superb spell of weather in Cape Town. Lest you forget, since we are in the bottom half of the world, geographically speaking, the tournament is going to fall right in the middle of winter here. And, since probably the biggest medium-term benefit of hosting 31 countries and the entire world’s TV audience is the opportunity for everyone to see what a great place this is to visit, the weather could play a huge part in the world’s perception.
While Jo’burg has the official broadcast centre, many individual networks, including the influential BBC and Sky Sports, are choosing to base their anchor teams in Cape Town. It’s a decision that they may regret and so may we.
When you choose to base yourself in a glass box about 200m from the South Atlantic Ocean in the middle of winter, you’re taking a big chance. If the weather is like it was today, you’ve hit the jackpot as the sun goes down with peachy-orange goodness and illuminates the City Bowl for a winning backdrop.
But we’ll be VERY lucky to get away with that on each of the 31 days of the competition. In fact, I’d go so far as to say there’s absolutely no chance of 31 peachy-orange specials. If we’d held it in January, we’d be sorted. But no – apparently that would have clashed with the domestic seasons in Argentina, Brazil, North Korea, Denmark, Germany, South Africa, Ghana, Uruguay, France, Paraguay, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Australia and Japan, to mention but a few. And Turkey didn’t even qualify.
But I digress.
The fact is that the weather in Cape Town is far more likely to be bloody awful. Grey, wet, cold and windy. Like it was last week. The BBC’s rooftop fishtank is going to be rather exposed.
If it even survives.
Last week’s miserable meterology almost put me off living here. And if it rains like that during the World Cup (and it might), I sense very damp and very despondent fans and possibly even postponed or abandoned games. And Gary Lineker taking the p!ss.
All of which is going to put viewers off Cape Town and South Africa as a potential holiday destination.
Guys, it’s still not too late for my big sponge idea.