Nixta Sinks

"I'm not saying there is someone out there, and I'm not saying there is someone who is not"

Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum on the possibility of a co-conspirator. To be fair, I'm sure he didn't sign up for this and would rather be shutting down frat parties full of strippers.

Labels: BBC

Meads

A friend recently pointed out that it is so easy to be negative about people and actions, and how very few people take the time to be positive and comment on the good things in life. That's a point I've long known to be true even though in this case he was talking about Tony Blair and his government which, it has to be said, I'm perhaps a little tired of.

But I don't want to get into a political hooha about Labour this and John Major that (remember why New Labour worked all those years back?). No, I want to talk about why I love the BBC. I normally rant and rave about the general ineptitude with which I find myself surrounded. I'm no ruthlessly efficient German myself, and tend to fuck up pretty much anything I touch, but only when I'm doing it for free.

With the endless debate going on about rising license fees and Blue Peter shenanigans, people forget that the BBC has some of the best produced, most intellectually stimulating, and downright dedicated productions in the world. Television and radio (I won't go into the web-bite principles and concomitant grauniad editing of the otherwise excellent news.bbc.co.uk). Shows that highlight the stagnation in which most channels find themselves when they haven't got the balls to imagine what could be achieved and merely cynically produce to set rules or carefully market-researched target audiences (I'm thinking MTV's Real World, Big Brother, Pop Idol).

I have been looking for some time to see again a pair of stunningly original and humourous documentaries on architecture by Jonathan Meades. One on architecture under the Nazis, and one on architecture under Stalin. Doubtless, Meades infuses his discussion on art and architecture under these deliberating and debilitating regimes with undisguised contempt for them, but it's no bad thing and serves two purposes: 1) to augment and drive the discussion on the architecture itself, and 2) to remind us that we've become too soft and liberal and politically correct in our stance on the murderous years under Hitler and Stalin to the point where it's almost OK to blithely shrug off the way they manipulated and destroyed the world. Jean Renoir made the comment that "In 1914 the Nazis had not spoilt, yet, the spirit of the world" (incidentally, I highly recommend that you watch The Grand Illusion) and it's now taken for granted that war is a personal hatred to be taken to degrading and insulting extremes. Patriotism shadowing all morals and politics. A Geneva Convention to provide lip-service guidance to the businesses and managers of war. Hippies: shut up, I'm not advocating war.

Well, it's available for torrent download at demonoid.com, but since it's been up for more than a week, it's only available to registered demonoid members (anyone got an invite for me?). Otherwise, there is a torrent, but everyone's stuck at 99%.

So, in desperation, I wrote an e-mail to an address I found of someone at the BBC. Perhaps I have become cynical in a world where YouTube is told to remove clips of the Daily Show which serve no purpose than to promote the channel and the show (it's not like The Daily Show is ever repeated), but I was surprised to learn two days later that not only was there a person on the other end of the internet, but that they were quite happy to send me a DVD of Joe Building and the best they had, a PAL VHS, of Jerry Building, should I confirm that I wanted them only for personal use.

I was flabbergasted. Could it be? I of course eagerly and gratefully accepted.

So I wrote another e-mail, this time to the Radio 3 show Words & Music, asking about a poem that dear mater had heard on March 11th at 11:45pm on their show. I cheekily asked for a CD copy of the show if possible, or else some information on where I might find the poem in print (I could tell it was likely Transfigured Night by Richard Dehmel, from the very useful programme details posted online, though I was a day too late getting round to seeing if I could record the show, for shame). The same day, I received a very polite reply that although for contractual reasons they could not provide me with a CD of the show as they were hoping to schedule another broadcast later this year, that they could include the text of the poem, which they did (it was translated in-house by the BBC, hence I couldn't find it anywhere).

This has more than restored my faith in the BBC, in people who work for large allegedly faceless organisations, and in the ability to write polite letters. If there's one thing that America has taught me, it is that you never get anything if you don't ask. If there's one thing England has taught me, it's how to ask for things.

Labels: BBC, Dehmel, Meades