My OperaSo, farewell then, Boris Yeltsin.
Monday, April 23, 2007 11:59:05 PM
Boris has finally popped his clogs, I'm afraid I thought he'd snuffed it years ago so the news of his demise came as something of a surprise to me. The fulsome praise from former PMs Thatcher and Major didn't surprise me one little bit though, he was their kind of person. Basically he hi-jacked Mikhail Gorbachev's slow march to democracy and turned it into a high speed gold rush, along the way handing over control of the cities to the mafia by not paying the police, flooding Europe with illegal firearms by not paying the armed forces, and making numberous citizens whose only crime was to have finished their contribution to Soviet life and entered retirement (for which they had been paying all their working lives) homeless beggars.
It'll be interesting to compare the obits in 'The Guardian', 'The Independant', and 'The Times'. One more reason why I must get the next copy of 'Private Eye'.
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And meanwhile, in other news today...
Another TV phone-in swindle. This time it's TV-AM's quizline, which has been selecting the winner before the 'phone lines closed. Not by just a few minutes either. They were doing it up to half way through the alloted time, which in the most extreme case meant that half the callers were wasting their money calling a competition which had already been won. Meanwhile onscreen the presenters were still urging the viewers to 'phone in.
The name of the company handling the quiz was Opera.
I hope it was a different Opera. In fact I think our Opera should issue a statement distancing themselves from this fiasco.
This whole voting furore has now hit every broadcaster in Britain. It boggles my mind a little (And not in a good way). I find myself wondering when dishonesty became sufficiently acceptable for programme makers to think this kind of behaviour was acceptable.
It'll be interesting to compare the obits in 'The Guardian', 'The Independant', and 'The Times'. One more reason why I must get the next copy of 'Private Eye'.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And meanwhile, in other news today...
Another TV phone-in swindle. This time it's TV-AM's quizline, which has been selecting the winner before the 'phone lines closed. Not by just a few minutes either. They were doing it up to half way through the alloted time, which in the most extreme case meant that half the callers were wasting their money calling a competition which had already been won. Meanwhile onscreen the presenters were still urging the viewers to 'phone in.
The name of the company handling the quiz was Opera.
I hope it was a different Opera. In fact I think our Opera should issue a statement distancing themselves from this fiasco.
This whole voting furore has now hit every broadcaster in Britain. It boggles my mind a little (And not in a good way). I find myself wondering when dishonesty became sufficiently acceptable for programme makers to think this kind of behaviour was acceptable.
