watching the defectives

 (The story of my argument with the BBC)

A British satirical magazine styling itself Private Eye printed a mock graphic this week purporting to show potential reasons for the collapse of viewership at the BBC. The breakdown contained reasons like (1) Er... and (2) Um... which I thought were quite funny.

The graphic was the only nearly salient thing in that particular edition.

Private Eye has grown a tad joyless in the last decade or two. Trading on rep. No jokes about the Prophet Muhammed. No references to the trial this month of the Muslims who ate Paris. (Shot 11 people to death inside and outside the Charlie Hebdo premises and then another four people at a Jewish supermarket surely? - Ed note.) Lots of tired attempts to deride President Trump. Lots of wearisome attempts to deride Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A pointless international section featuring reports from Armenia, Sri Lanka and somewhere else. (It was Spain - Ian Hislop note.) Lots of groovy stuff about climate change and Corona Viruses taking over the world. By gadfrey it was dull. How the mighty have fallen. Some famous English man who once wrote acerbic and witty articles for Private Eye must be turning in his grave. (It was Auberon Waugh - Charlie Hebdo note.) (There were more. I think Willie Rushton once worked there. - Heelers note.) The staff at Private Eye should go to church, become joyful again and get back to writing satire with a mischievous edge, satire that requires courage, satire that doesn't look like you'd written it while being held at gunpoint by a vegan IRA feminist, satire which inonveniences improprietous hijackers of discourse, the powers that be, Jihadists, climate change advocates, abortionists, euthanasists, assisted suicidists and lefties generally.

I'm just saying is all.

As for the Beeb.

The real reason it has no viewers is because the Beeb has become a joyless atheistic conformist rag, indistingusihable really in terms of world view and mind set, from Private Eye. I mean I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns.

I watched the BBC tonight Horatio.

I have an excuse.

A war had broken out between Armenia and Azerbaijan this evening.

Hilariously Private Eye's hugely relevant nay vital Armenian reporter hadn't seen it coming. Maybe he was being satirical. By not seeing it coming. I mean by being in Armenia writing from Armenia for a magazine that has no conceivable remit to report from Armenia and by not seeing any ominous rumblings of World War Three breaking out in Armenia. It reads like satire.

But I digress.

All out war in Armenia.

That was my excuse for watching the BBC.

A war between Armenia and Azerbaijan with Turkey sponsoring Azerbaijan, and Russia who once ran both Armenia and Azerbaijan as Soviet vassals and was lately toe to toe with Turkey in Syria where Russia won the war for Assad thwarting Turkey's Caliphate gambit, yes Vladimir Putin of Russia no less this evening standing on the sidelines contemplating Armenia and Azerbaijan and up to who knows what. The whole hot war situation spiced up by the fact that a hundred years ago, Turkey attempted to commit genocide against the Armenians and now under its peaceloving Muslim Brotherhood President Recip Teyip Erodgan, might just fancy another go. And Armenia is culturally Christian. And Azerbaijan is preponderantly culturally Muslim. 

Hoo baby.

That's the sort of excuse it takes to get me to watch the BBC.

It was a good excuse.

I'm not ashamed of it.

And the Beeb's main evening news programme did actually manage to tear itself away from its beloved Corona Virus long enough to lead with the outbreak of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Of course they didn't contextualise their report with any mention of the hundred year old Turkish genocide of Armenians. They didn't mention that both Armenia and Azerbaijan had been Soviet vassals. No such context at all. They didn't mention Vladdie the Pute. They didn't mention Erdogan. They didn't mention the peaceloving religion of Islam. They didn't mention ethnicities.

Yet their report was for a few moments surprisingly okay.

There were details of the initial skirmishes. Some footage. (Although they shouldn't have shown the snuff movie of the tank brewing up.) Extracts from statements by both sides. Not bad.

A Russian professor working from an American University had come on as a guest and was clinically and succinctly analysing what has happened, why and where it might go.

He was getting there.

He knew his stuff.

And just as the guy mentioned Turkey and the risks of a broader war, the Beeb news presenter cut in and said: "I'm sorry, we have to leave it there."

Yes.

They cut off the Prof who was a tolerably good speaker, and who knew his Armenians and Azerbaijanis from his elbow, and who had just mentioned the danger that other powers might be involved.

The BBC cut off that guy talking about a new war that began tonight involving great Powers on the edge of Europe, right that moment, they cut him off... to go to a story about the Corona Virus.

This is after six months of packing the news every evening with stories about the Corona Virus.

Here is the news.

The nose blowers of the BBC are gone.

The BBC is gone.

It is a former television station.

It is a television station that was.

It is defunct.

It is no more.

It is kaputt.

It is an ex parrot.