Boo-Hoo. Adrian Chiles shows a wobbly bottom lip.

Peter — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:12:12 +0000

Over the last 30 years the BBC has stealthily assumed the mantle of the nation’s cultural and social anthropological arbiter. This has encouraged them to foist on their listeners and viewers certain performers – mostly in the non-talent-related field of presenting – of minority types to which they feel we should become accustomed and appreciate. A recent example of this activity is the adoption and promotion of the untalented, blubber-lipped, dim-witted, mono-toned, unfunny, unattractive fatso, Adrian Chiles.
Slowly, inexorably as the style wizards at the BEEB have let it be seen that Chubby Chiles represents a suitable role model for our young and impressionable, his flabby frame has been increasingly exposed – until they have given him an early prime time slot on the One Show, a kind of Blue Peter for almost-grown-ups, to which a well-groomed orang-utan could not fail to draw knackered and desensitized viewers after a hard day’s work.
But someone up there in White (Ivory Tower) City has at last spotted that Chiles is about as exciting a performer as a plate of blancmange, and they’ve thought it expedient to replace him on the all-important Friday show with the idiotic but immeasurably more watchable Chris Evans (despite the Ginger One not speaking Brummie, Ulster or Geordie.)
Chiles’ blubbery lower lip is reported to have gone all wobbly at the news. He says he doesn’t want to do the other days if Evans does Friday sitting next to the perma-grinning Christine Bleakley. The BBC are said even to have offered him his own Friday night Plug-Whinge-And-Fart Show – what they like to call a Chat Show.
Incredibly, Chubby Chiles is on a £1m a year contract. It is contemptible that the Corporation should chuck our money around to people like this without even asking us. I challenge them to provide any evidence that there is a demand for Chiles, or others like him – e.g: the grim Mogadon that is Stephen Nolan, brought over from Belfast at great expense every week to turn off the listeners of otherwise perky Radio 5 Live for four hours over the weekend.
If Chiles walks from the One Show – which he is mercifully threatening to do – don’t be surprised if they try and slip Nolan in – another dreary fatty with no manners and a bowl of French fries on each shoulder.
And this is not the first time I’ve had to talk about this…

A BBC News slant on the Mosley case.

Peter — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:44:48 +0000

I think it likely that somewhere within its charter, the BBC is required to deliver news bulletins that are factual and impartial.

Nevertheless, Adam Parsons, signing off his report for Radio 4 Six O’Clock News on yesterday’s [10/7] events at the Mosley v. Screws case, opined that the case might yet set a precedent “ .. in the way high profile individuals are allowed to go about protecting their privacy,” as if this were an unsavoury ambition that applied only to the rich.

It would have been more accurate and therefore closer to the spirit of the BBC Charter to phrase it thus: “.. in the way members of the public are able to protect their privacy from unwarranted media intrusion.”

It is symptomatic of an ingrained BBC didacticism that they feel they have the right to impose a BBC slant, in the same way that they impose presenters who possess no special qualities but fulfil some perceived quota, when there is no obvious public demand for them – Eamonn Holmes springs to mind, and Stephen Nolan, a cantankerous and inept radio journalist who’s shipped over from Belfast to do weekend stints on Radio 5. The BBC appears to believe that our exposure to these substandard broadcasters is in some way beneficial, instructive or edifying. It’s none of these and it’s certainly not enjoyable.

Peter Burden » Stephen Nolan

Boo-Hoo. Adrian Chiles shows a wobbly bottom lip.

A BBC News slant on the Mosley case.