When an apology is not enough..........

The BBC have apologised to Andrew Sachs for the appalling and disgusting comments left by Brand and Ross on his voicemail.

www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7692911.stm

Mr Sachs, being the gentleman he is, has made no comments about the matter. Good on him for not sinking to the level of the two perpetrators of this childish and pathetic act. Apparently the two culprits have apologised in person and the BBC have themselves been rightly shamed into red-faced guilt.

Considering these two clowns, and I use the term loosely, earn probably more than most people at the BBC, money which comes from the license payer, perhaps the powers that be should impose a fine, rather like the football authority impose on players who have brought the game into disrepute. The money could go to a charity, selected by the victim. After all from what I can gather the remarks may well have been slanderous and therefore worthy of a defamation of character court action. It seems OFFCOM are launching their own investigation into the matter, but I bet the cost wont be paid by Brand & Ross.

To my mind though the best thing would be for the BBC to sack both Brand and Ross, save the license payer a vast amount of money and rid the airwaves of these two pathetic and vile creatures, who think that insulting a 78 year old man is funny. I wonder how they, or their offspring, would feel if someone left a message for them in the same vein?

If you made a similar phone call in your course of employment, I doubt you would still be employed.

The BBC have let standards slip over the years, and on this occasion, just a little bit too far.

Economics and Headlights

So, according to the headlines at the BBC the UK is now in an economic recession. What a surprise! It makes my blood boil when the media, for the last few weeks have been saying it's all doom and gloom, and it's downhill all the way. Perhaps if they had been a bit more upbeat about the whole thing it may have had a different outcome. If the media say there's a great shortage of washing up liquid then panic sets in and before you know it there is. Now I am not comparing shortages of domestic items with a world recession, but the similarities with media reporting are the same. Would Northern Rock have gone under if its problems hadn't been reported in such a sensational way?

How come, that all the so called experts, who are now telling us that it's going to be a short term economic problem and we will be back to normal by 2010, are so clever why didn't they see it coming in the first place?

A few banks, mainly in the USA lent money to people who had no chance of paying it back, this looked good on their books and indicated that the economy was booming. They then sold those debits wrapped up in packages to other banks worldwide. Once the "you know what" hit the fan all the banks got scared and stopped trading with each other, and lending money to business, hence the slide in available capital, hence the current so called recession. So who's to blame? Answer: The Banks, they got greedy and caught a cold, now the governments of most of the western world are bailing them out with public money.

So what if the stock markets are low and the legalised gambling of the traders is under threat, it doesn't mean that the companies whose share value is now low are any less efficient or viable companies, it simply means that stockbrokers cant make huge amounts trading the shares.

Now this may be a bit naive but to me the people who should be paying for all this are the bankers who were unable to make sound judgements in their lending criteria, are they going to pay I ask myself? I think not.

If Mr Average messed up at work I sort of doubt he would be keeping his job and certainly not sacked with a nice golden handshake.I am almost certain the government wouldn't step in and bail him out. Its a simplistic argument I know, but economics isn't rocket science. Spend what you can afford and lend only to those who can and will pay it back.

My other gripe is idiots who drive at dawn and dusk with headlight blazing, annoying other drivers both in front and behind. Do you not realise that's what you have sidelights for. The worse culprits are the 4x4 drivers, their headlights are just at the right level to shine directly into the rear view mirror of the driver in front. Use your side lights, please.

Now, I feel better for getting that of my chest...