Me and a gun

A couple of Colour Supplements back, we mentioned a piece on the biased bbc blog which complained about a page on the BBC website. We were surprised to get a response - mainly because we'd always sort-of-assumed that nobody read this part of the site. We've given Phil Bulmer's email - and our response - a page of its own. We think he's got a bit of a point. Up to a point.


Meanwhile, let's get all Topsy-Turvy

While we're talking about BBC Bias, let's give some credit where its due to B-BBC who take the Corporation to task for using Muslim for shorthand for Al-Qaeda supporter; as ever, though, we think what they see as bias is actually pisspoor journalism - after all, Ceefax is pretty much up there with Charlie Chester's Soapbox in terms of investment, isn't it?

And, while you think we'd differ from them on our take on BBC1's Sunday night Jeffrey Archer - The Truth, the direction our faces are at may surprise you. They quite liked it. We hated it. When we got through the first hour and realised we had still got thirty minutes to go, we felt the sort of despair you could imagine Archer feels when the door clangs shut behind him. Although the knowledge that Archer was locked up in a cell while we were watching the TV did make us happier, we must admit.

The main problem was that Guy Jenkin failed to actually understand Archer. Archer doesn't just tell lies - he's not Baron Munchausen - but rather creates a plausible alternative reality. He doesn't make claims that are stupid and grotesque - he massages facts to his advantage to make claims that are either difficult to check, or else unlikely to go challenged. His is not the world of grand, foolish lies, but subtle little fibs that build up to the whole. In effect, I wound up feeling a bit sorry for Archer - this is a man who constructed a complex perjury and would have gotten away with it if he'd known when to stop; instead he was portrayed as moron who told porkies that anyone could spot as fakes a mile off. Jenkin's Archer wouldn't have cooked up a fake meeting and forged diaries; he would have strolled into court and said he'd been on the moon that night.
The other problem is that Jenkin gave us an Archer whose deceit was well meaning and self-deluding. Here, the sympathy for Archer vanishes. He is a mean spirited man who knows he's lying and doesn't care, and takes offence when he's caught out in a lie (think of that wonderful "Wait till I'm mayor of London" footage.) Jenkin didn't seem to get this, drawing a character whose untruths seemed to be pure in intent, trying to present all the world in a better light and just take off the harsh edges.
That's when the plot made any sense at all - how was that reporter meant to be perceived? She surely can't have been thick enough to have been believing the tales, otherwise she'd not have been allowed out without at least two people to ensure she was safe and took the right coloured pills on the hour; and yet there was no pull-back in the final scene to suggest otherwise.
We also had trouble with Gretta Scaachi as Thatcher - obviously, in the same way as Coupling's take on Jenny Agutter, it meant guaranteed breasts (although, to be honest, we couldn't quite see why and even firm, fictionalised Thatcher nipples is enough to upset us) but it was a bit of a waste.
And while we don't agree with Nancy Banks-Smith that making a tasteless joke about Thatcher's death is that bad - we'll get some sympathy ready when she apologises for lying about the Belgrano, for all the loss of blood that she engineered in the Falklands, for allowing the jets to leave from England to destroy Libya, for (but you get the point), we did feel a bit queasy about the use of Diana - or rather, her death - as the basis for a lame joke.
Oh, and Biased BBC? If you're looking for lampooning of the lies of Maxwell, could we direct you to almost any Have I Got News For You, News Quiz or What The Papers Say as a starting point?

... and still through the looking-glass

It's not just the right who bang on about BBC Bias. It's the left, as well. John Pilger, who should know better, turned in an article on the subject in this week's New Statesman. His example was, ridiculously, about a lorry delivering coal during the miner's strike having made a "successful" trip - "depends on what side you view it from" fumed Pilger. Well, first of all, while we're all still fighting the miner's strike in our ways: hello? twenty years ago? Not even Points of View would be bothered by this small detail now. More importantly: nope, successful isn't loaded language at all. The lorry set out to do something that is an arguable mission. Whether it completed that mission or not isn't arguable. It achieved success. What synonym would you suggest using? Is the a condemnatory one? Was it a failed trip? No.

Pilger then goes on to fret that the BBC isn't committed to anything other than the status quo. Well, yes, quite. It's part of the status quo, isn't it? It relies on government and taxation and public good and democracy. To blame the BBC for viewing its own continued existence as the desirable state of affairs is like having a pop at Duncan-Smith for not being open-minded on the question of oxygen in the air. But its a hell of a step to leap from concluding that the BBC is pro-the current form of democracy to assuming that it must be biased.

... and now we'll shut up on the subject

Interestingly, even people who like the B-BBC site are starting to suggest that maybe they're seeing bias everywhere - although, to be fair, I found the link on B-BBC in the first place.

Lies about Lies

Psychologist I J Mansdorf has been getting a lot of applause from the rightwingblogbloc for his supposed explosion of the four big lies about Israel.

Let's look at these big lies, shall we?

Big Lie # 1: Israel is violating UN resolution 242
Mansdorf maintains that because Israel withdrew from some places, it's done its duty by 242, on the grounds that the UN never actually said where, exactly, Israel was meant to withdraw from. While, of course, it's nice of them to have got out of Egypt, surely this is just weaseling on ice? If a bully is punching a kid while standing on his toe, and a passing teacher says "Stop it", the bully can't be said to have obeyed the teacher simply by stopping the punching on the grounds that the teacher wasn't specific about what he was meant to stop.

Big Lie # 2: Israel is violating the UN convention against torture
Here, Mansdorf points to the UN saying "well, things are tricky in Israel right now, and they do need to stop their citizens being blown up..." as if that's the same thing as being given either a clean bill of health or - worse - permission to carry on. The second convention of the Committee Against Torture states "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." The UN may see why you're torturing, it doesn't mean they're happy about it.

Big Lie # 3: Israel is violating the 4th Geneva Convention
This is the settlement issue - now, the fourth Geneva Convention forbids States from moving their populations into lands they occupy with military force. Now, of course, if you're of a mind, as Mansdorf is, that the Occupied Territories aren't occupied at all, but merely bits of extra Israel - second helpings, if you like - then, of course, you'd have no choice but to conclude that Israel is well within its rights to plonk as many Israelis as it can muster there. He calls on no less an authority than Ronald Regan to back him - apparently the star of the Chesterfields Cigarette Ads once said "[the settlements] are not illegal." Which is great. He also once claimed to have fought in the second world war, but that turned out to be baloney too. Mansdorf seems to think that because the settlements were built on previously empty land, that makes it all alright - a simialr attitude that Sainsburys bring to their out of town supermarket developments. But again, this is missing the point - it doesn't matter if you occupy an empty field or a block of flats, it's still an occupation; as that struggle over Parsley island proved earlier this year.

Big Lie # 4: Israel is violating UN resolution 194
This covers, amongst other matters, the rights of refugees. Mansdorff's logic is that nowhere in 194 does it blame Israel, and some Jews have been as badly treated as some Palestinians, and some Palestinians have been treated well in Israel. All of which is true, but it doesn't mean that when Israel falls short of its duties under 194 that it doesn't matter.
Of course, spending time debating just what the UN had in mind is fascinating, but in the meantime, your people are being blown to bits. Maybe it's time someone had the guts to stop trying to end the suicide attacks on their people by closely argued readings of the fourth Geneva Convention, and actually tried to understand the grievances that drive people now?

Webthings we like

The Ralph Wiggum Soundboard. It's Ralph-esque noises you control
Stylophonic - in order to promote their new single, it's an online Stylophone from the band Stylophonic

Webthings which, frankly, scare us

Pictures of KFC burgers. Possibly the most scary fansite on the web

Conduct Unbecoming Inspects The Palace

Okay, could someone explain this to me? The detail is this: Harvey McGeorge is being encouraged to resign from the UN Weapons Inspectorate because he's into S&M. (Let's leave aside for now the later discovery that he might have fudged his application). Because you can't inspect weapons sites if you have weals on your back, presumably. (He tendered a resignation; the UN rejected it.)

Slate have got an infuriating piece that attempts to draw parallels between Saddam's abuse of human rights and people who enjoy sexualised, fetishised pain, which is incredibly insulting. For a start, using a list of Hussein's abuse of real people as a jumping-off point for a jokey article is surely insensitive - sorry, no matter how good the gag is, using someone having their eyes gouged out for real as the set-up stinks. Secondly, there is no "fuzziness about consent" involved in BDSM. If there is, you should consider changing your dom, honey. Unless Saddam starts off each session of brutalisation with a reaffirmation of what the safe word is, there's no similarity at all between consensual sexual activity and torture.

US company cut corners, kills 8000

It's funny how as soon as a company fucks up, it immedeatly suggests that "sabotage" must be to blame. Jarvis, the people who did such a good job of looking after Britain's railways told tales of mystery figures loosening nuts just before the Potters Bar railcrash; likewise, in Bhopal, where Union Carbide's plant exploded with the result of what we have to call in these times "two and half Spe'ven's worth of deaths", the American Company suggested it was down to shadowy outsiders sabotaging the plant. Maybe there were some outside forces involved. But, the New Scientist suggests, perhaps they were helped by UC's penny-pinching corner-cutting on safety which turned the little local difficulty into a massive scene of corporate slaughter.

Vomit

On a lighter note ("in a crunching gear-shift") Norway cinema owners are pissed off with kids throwing up during the new Harry Potter film. In a prize-winning peace of understatement, one manager observes "It is not a particularly fun task for our employees to have to wash away the sick." Maybe not, but it beats being the poor usher who has to stand at the back through The Two Towers

Ooh, another Best of Poll...

The always excellent Naked Blog has organised a '100 Greatest Gay Briton' poll in the wake of the BBC's Churchill-tastic exercise the other week. The qualifications to be on the shortlist are happily elastic - "heterosexuality is no bar" they proclaim, and, happily, we notice that many of the group mustering for our approval are actually from our team rather than either of the H-sexualities. The last time we checked, Oscar Wilde was at number one, with Stephen Fry (who played him in the movie, of course) at number two. Do go and vote - it's more fun than Sports Personality of the Year at least.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

We're going off for a few days rest over Christmas, so there won't be a Colour Supplement next week - oh, yes, pretend like you're upset; very funny. What there will be next Friday will be Both Side Snow, though we're not sure how big it'll be or what will go into it yet - a shedload of festive goodness, we very much hope; in reality it'll be a bunch of stuff pulled together to fill a gap. Online, we hope, from next Friday afternoon; NoRockColourSupp back in the new year in some form.

The Colour Supplement is a beta-test version of stuff that may have made No Rock And Roll Fun, but was off-topic.
No Rock And Roll Fun is a bit of bothsidesnow You can contact us at coloursupp@bothsidesnow.co.uk

This week on No Rock:
Peter Stringfellow's girlfriend makes record
Cows named in honour of Victoria Beckham
Marcelo Rodriguez - the cop who arrested George Michael (PC Winky-waver) is afraid he's been made to look ridiculous
Pop Papers - Mel C "Look - I'm with a man"
Could nme.com follow sister sites into AOL members only area?
RIAA start to bully universities a bit more
Popbitch takes convenient Christmas holiday - just as Beckham's lawyers turn up
Liam picks unexpected fight with people harder than he is
Shania Twain can't really be arsed with all this
The Darknet - Microsoft make file sharing seem even more cool
Dannii Minogue either racist or just stupid