BBC cuts

Posted on March 3, 2010 by admin

The BBC announced some changes yesterday with a view to focussing more on quality programming and keeping the license fee stable.  Three headline changes are the closure of Radio 6, Asian Network and a reduction in the website.

The BBC is one of Britains premier institutions but there can be no doubt that it has expanded far too broadly for too long and somehow been allowed to get away with it.  My own opinion is that the license fee should be capped at £120 for the next 10 years. The excellence of the BBC should be unharmed by this as it’s cost increases are more related to excessive air time given to fringe programming and apparant over representation like teams from different channels at the same event.

With facilities like the iPlayer it should be possible to programme less time and enable it to be watched or heard when required.

At the moment Radio 6 is getting the most support against closure,  and I admit to never having heard it. From what I’ve read it is claimed new bands are given an opportunity on this station. Yet watching the Brits this year I didn’t hear any new bands – Kasabian, Robbie Williams and Liam Gallagher got the British headlines. It seems that whatever they do in the USA is producing better new acts. No British world talent has been found for a few years, Arctic Monkeys come to mind and Lilly Allen seems well known.

I will admit to being a fan of the BBC and fortunately as it is a charge on every household its charges are able to be kept down to what appears quite cheap when compared with other stations.  Although when I add it to my other subscriptions and the broadband, telephone and mobile charges my bills for communication become large.  Also there is a conundrum that if the BBC focusses on too much quality it might lose the justification for a compulsory charge as its appeal will be too limited.

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Fit for purpose?

Posted on February 15, 2010 by admin

Time of year to be thinking about getting over Christmas. Wonder why we buy so much chocolate at Christmas. My own worry is more about clogging up the veins as weight isn’t much of a problem.  I know I can put on weight like in my twenties, mainly drinking weight and when I stopped going to the pub 3 to 4 times a week I lost weight.

Ten years ago I joined a gym and did it on a monthly payment scheme because I thought I wouldn’t stay.  Yet I’m still there and in general go about 6 times a month. In the 10 years so many people have joined and lasted a couple of months and never to be seen again. They’re all convinced they’ll stay and some have told me their plans but soon fallen away.

My own experience in many activities is to keep it up you need a regular schedule that says, like, on Tuesday at 6pm I’ll be there. I found that doesn’t work for me at the gym. Other things come along, like you can’t eat first then go,  don’t want to do some heavy work and then go, don’t want to go to dig the garden get dirty and have a shower then go.  All I can recommend is to say that you will go at least once a week and try to fit in another so you do at least 6 in the month.

The other aspect is making a start after years of doing nothing.  Going to work and bragging you ran for 8 minutes at 8kph on the flat on a treadmill.  They must have thought me mad. Now I can run for ages but it took time and came in steps. Suddenly found I could up the speed and it felt great. Wish I were younger, need to keep the heart at a faily low level at my age, there’s a formula, and that limits my speed a lot.    I don’t do the other cardio-machines, like the step, bike, rotex or rowing  they give me pains where I don’t want them. Running at a slowish speed and a bit of stretching keeps me good and I can feel it every day.

Running for up to 30 minutes on the treadmill is more than most people want to do, and I did once have some girls loudly making comments about how boring that must be. You can watch TV and listen to music but I tend to think about things I want to do and if I want to give up, tell myself  just do another 5 minutes. How often can you fool yourself with this 5 minutes. I’ve done it loads of times. Near the end of the 5 minutes you’re thinking good nearly done but with seconds to go you say I’m fine I can manage another 5. Seems to work for me, must be mad.

Then there are the weights.  Doing the heavy stuff doesn’t appeal, 10 years on the weight-machines, using chrome dumb-bells (seem to be for ladies) and the mats (who’d have thought I do that after bad school mats and a cruel teacher). Never graduated to the barbell. With the number of reps building up the total the Technogym computer system at our gym tells me 10,000kg spread over different muscle groups is a good session for me along with 5km on the treadmill.

So I’d recommend finding a fitness centre and not being over ambitious or too enthusiastic, play it cool and keep going for the long term.

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Overseas Trains

Posted on December 3, 2009 by admin

Rail Magazine noted Britains first Class 70 freight loco’s landed in the UK from the USA. Not long ago the first Class 90’s, named Javelin for high speed lines in Kent came in from Japan. Pendolino’s from Italy.  Some Eurostars from France.

We exported some British made 30 year old Class 87’s to Bulgaria.

Seems like everyone is building loco’s except the UK. This is fairly typical of UK manufacturing yet it is said we are the 6th biggest manufacturer in the World.

The philosophy of getting the best deal and using the saving elsewhere, not spending on development that might not be recovered and spending that elsewhere sounds admirable.  Yet there is a certain shallowness about it.

It is often said that governments don’t make the best industrial investment decisions and after a number of notable bad decisions it seems the government totally handed over to the market.

Strictly speaking the government can’t be seen to be making decisions based on national criteria although it seems to be unquestioned that other countries have home made railways and their car industries miraculously continue despite products of dubious quality.

It also seems the days of militant trade unions have gone and now British workers work very hard for foreign owners.  British companies were unable to take benefit of this new reality, possibly because there was always a feeling the government would bail them out.

It wouldn’t be too difficult for the government to give a contract to a British company. The high speed train programme of £30bn, how much of this is for locomotives. How difficult would it be to establish a UK loco and engine manufacturing capability in a company such as GKN with some training thrown in via local colleges and technology demonstration. Perhaps a step in rail technology is due as the new high speed rail extension will take 15 years to bring on stream.  The government left the market to go its way and has spent unprecedented amounts that make the inputs to British Leyland look like loose change. A fraction of that spent on technology would have provided a tangible output, less imports and potential exports,  less inequality of employee salaries, and employment of a more multi-ability workforce.

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Opening Post

Posted on November 11, 2009 by admin

Welcome to the new blog that is to bring an opinion on topical events as viewed from north west England. The opinions probably won’t be typical but they will be topical.

No axes to grind, only a few maybe, but no-one is paying me to do this.

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