At 6pm, my brother saw a tedious local news programme called 'BBC London News'.  You have to be pretty sad to actually sit down and watch this useless drivel, which serves nobody but the BBC.  At the start, 'Riz Lateef' proudly mentioned 'credit crunch' in the headlines, and then Louisa Preston mentioned it again in an interview later in the programme, and then, much later on tonight, I myself saw the stupidest man in television news suddenly appear on the screen (Hugh Pym).   It was right in the middle of the 10'Oclock news.  What could it mean?  I turned up the volume to hear a piece about what phrase our European neighbours gave to the term 'credit crunch'.  All very silly, but what I want to ask is:  What is a "Riz Lateef"?

 

The news programmes are full of all manner of skin shades (so that Asians don't need to appear in other programming) but always familiar sounding, not-too-foreign names.  "Riz."  "Hi, Riz!"  "Hiya, Riz!"  I agree that names that aren't "raw foreign" will be more acceptable to a television set receiving in a living room in Essex.  I agree that "Riz" won't ruffle the local airwaves at teatime or in any way impede the baked beans from going down and the fish fingers being digested.  But where is Harish Santhagunam?  Isn't there a Gopal Lakshumanan?  Can't a Dhanraj Ramasany, with an Indian accent, report on middle-aged women from Croydon taking up boxing?  Why does it have to be 'Barnie Choudury' and 'Anita Anand'?  ("No, wait - I'm a Barnie, I'm a Riz, I'm an Anita - not a Ramagopalakrishna !!")  Why is BBC reporter Matthew Amroliwala's name said with 'Matthew' stressed, and pronounced slowly, and the surname zipped through at such lightning pace you hardly hear it at all?  I want answers!

 

In our house we call George Alagiah "Darkie George", from the Deep South, because he's like a loyal slave who'll hop on one leg for ten minutes, and then hop on the other leg - all because "Massa say".  Would George be allowed to read the main news if his name instead was Gopal?  Would Trevor MacDonald be 'news icon' and 'uncomfortably-adopted-black-dad-of-the-nation if his name had been Togi Machiwenyika?  (The answer is that he might not even be here, having been accidently deported thirty years ago.)  And would Mishal Husain be able to read the main news if her name couldn't be pronounced 'Michelle' rather than 'Me-shall'?  (You-shall go to the ball, but only if you're 'Michelle'.  Mishal isn't going anywhere.)    

   I also see the 'Daily Mail' newspaper couldn't wait to use 'credit crunch' in a silly headline on page 4 today.  This silly newspaper relies for its circulation on elderly women that perhaps consider themselves as having left school a bit early.  Nobody in that paper understands anything about sub-prime mortgages underpinning geared-up derivative securities many times their size which give high yield on the way up but actually explode on the way down, and of the intense gorging on these products that took place.

 

8th August 08 - Idiot Brian Hanrahan on Radio 4 going on about 'The Credit Crunch' leading to home repossessions.  It's the intense jealousy of me coupled with the ignorance of a supermarket checkout girl that I find unacceptable.  (The checkout girl in the supermarket is fine.)  Since my joke in January about the coming doom initiated by US sub-prime mortgages, there was a very widespread, exceedingly silly campaign to try and bury the phrase 'sub-prime mortgage'.  Unfortunately, a couple of months later it became clear that enormous world financial problems had been unleashed by US sub-prime mortgage defaults, and it really was going to get worse and worse.  So a plan was devised by simple-minded, poorly educated 'financial experts', in the BBC and British press, to try and push the phrase 'credit crunch'.  It was a silly idea and a silly phrase.  Look how childish these suits are.  I used the phrase 'sub-prime mortgage crisis' so instead of 'crisis' they had to use 'crunch' (even though it is actually a useless and very unprofessional term).  The financial crisis has nothing to do with 'credit' and nothing to do with 'crunch'.  It is due to criminal levels of greed and criminally harebrained, irresponsible, reckless behaviour in banks and financial institutions, and criminal negligence on the part of the regulatory authorities.  These practices involved 'pass the parcel' and 'pyramid' scams which the bank bosses approved but couldn't fathom and which other organizations rubber-stamped on the basis of a blackboard full of rubbish maths.  But these are such unimaginably vast sums of other peoples' money that if it all came out, every bank would go under and western finance would collapse.  US subprime mortgages triggered the unravelling, and started a chain reaction, because these silly, often fraudulent mortgages were rubber-stamped as "sound" and then used as solid assets to borrow many times more, on and on into utter madness.  Nobody knows how much of all this will unravel or when, and no financial institution knows which other institution is holding the poison parcel; and governments are trying to cover it all up and plug here and bail out there as much as possible without knowing what they're doing.  Using the term 'credit crunch' lets the crooks get away with it.  They get huge bonuses for creating the mess, with the idea of getting out before it all comes down, and then wait for the government to pick up the pieces because they must.

Next time you read or hear the phrase "credit crunch" in the media you know that this person just doesn't have a clue.      

 

 

31st July 08 - I've just watched the repeat showing of Sunday's Top Gear programme, which I didn't see completely because I was writing the complaint.  But now I see that it was REALLY nasty racism.  A horrible show.  Ofcom are totally corrupt and useless anyway, but for this programme the makers should be taken to court.

 

27th July 08 - BBC Top Gear.  Top Gear is a programme that I've watched over the years.  Most of this weekend I was watching repeats of the old shows on a channel called 'Dave'.  Then this evening I watched the actual current show on BBC2 at 8pm - the last of the present series.  What a disgrace!!  It seems as soon as someone or something becomes successful they get 'bought' by the state, to censor them and even make them actively work for the state.  It happened to YouTube.  And now Top Gear.  Has Jeremy Clarkson signed some kind of official secrets act, or done some kind of deal to promote the military?  It's the deception that is so wrong.  The public are tricked and cheated.

    Somebody that was really pro-military would never become culturally accepted or come to be regarded as 'cool', therefore it is  wrong for somebody to naturally express themselves, gain fame for honesty and wit, and then do a secret deal and start promoting the Royals and the military, without the public knowing about the deal and the payments.  So the military and the royals are being artificially injected into the culture - 'thought control'.  This final Top Gear programme was awful.  I started writing an email to the BBC while it was being broadcast - as soon as I saw the old military aircraft with the silly music appear on a motoring show.  What silly, sad old men!  Apart from the Stig, they're about as appealing as mouldy lettuce!  Not cool any more!!  (In the old shows, Richard Hammond had charm.  But now he has that look in his eyes like he's just 'gone wrong'.  Both Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond - 'father and son' - just look corrupted and 'off-putting'.  The mum is alright, James May.  It's the other two, really.)

 

Why did the military approach these presenters?  What kind of saddos are they?       

 

 

 

 

25th June 08 - The censorship of this website is intolerable.  I can't bear the repression any longer.  What sort of rubbish tinpot country is this?  They force the money out of the public through taxes, TV licence fee etc., then with all the money sloshing about up there they bribe everyone at the top to keep quiet about me.  Everyone's scared that nobody will make the money they're making at the moment if I become known to the public.  That's why nobody but me has admitted how corrupt sport has become, for example; so I'm sitting in front of the Euro 2008 football, and every single game stinks.  Turkey knew they had to lose in an 'exciting' game.  At the start of the match my brother got the feeling that Turkey would make the most money if they lost 3-2.  All the money in football comes from TV,  and they've got the idea that exra time, and then perhaps penalties, will make the game exciting to neutrals.  While typing this, I can hear the BBC Match of the Day panel wittering on in the background.  SHUT UP, you corrupt windbags!!  No shame, these people.  They'll put on their crisply ironed shirts and describe night as day simply because they're paid to.  Such greed.  Gary Lineker will continue until the police feel his collar.  Alan Hansen will talk mindless gibberish till his heart stops.  The question is: Does this mean that this corrupt sham of 'professional football' will continue on and on for years like this, with the public just being cheated?? 

 

25th June 2008 - Don't pretend Britain has an 'arts scene'.  What arts?  I am a man.  I fear nobody, I couldn't lie and cheat for money.  But there isn't one painter out there that is male.  Not one pop star is a man.  No actors, just actresses.  Britain is a country entirely of women!  How can you have arts or culture if you're too scared to mention the blatant, searingly obvious, burning TRUTH?  Why is there a BBC2 programme called 'The Culture Show' ?  To pretend to cover the arts so no real artists come onto the scene and show the BBC up and stop everyone currently at the top from making money?  What is that 'Late Review' nonsense on BBC2 on Friday night?  Look at the press and media - nothing but garbage people putting out garbage and making money.  I'm sick of everything revolving around me and everything everywhere referring to me without explicitly mentioning me.  Get off the telly, you parasites!  Let talented people on.  Lauren Laverne, have a baby.  Look after it.  Bring it up.  Go away.   Mark Kermode, who are you?  I know what you are, but who are you?  Jeremy Paxman, you're dead from the neck up, you drag act!  Newsnight is Dragnight.  When the kitchen drain smells, I take off the drain cover, pull out the blockage and wash it down.  But when I switch on the telly, the room starts to smell, and I CAN'T GET RID OF IT till I switch it off!  But sport depends on TV.  Arts depend on TV.  News is given on TV.  "Switch it off" isn't an answer.  The media is being hogged by criminals, who are running the country through it to line their pockets.  And don't say this is "negative".  When it's raining you can't say "it's sunny" just to be positive.  If bombs go off in London, you can't just have the news about a singing dog to be positive.