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Just watched the BBC News at 10. Absolutely baffled by Nick Robinson doing a hurried summation piece, to camera, as Gordon Brown left after delivering his conference speech.

I’ve a lot of respect for Nick Robinson, but he seems to be riding the crest of a new wave for journalists. It seems to be rapidly become de rigueur for journalists at the BBC. It’s almost as if you’re falling short if you don’t have the subject of your piece doing something (meeting/greeting/leaving) behind you as you frantically sum up something profound during their approach. No matter how burly the security guards, or enthusiastic the supporters, and particularly with disregard to how little time you have to do it; if you don’t do it this way the journalist in question may not really have been there.

Please. Stop doing it. All of you.

It doesn’t do any of you (or your reputations) any good, it doesn’t make you any more relevant, and it doesn’t make it any more hard hitting.

I, however (and, I suspect a large proportion of people watching you) are only going to laugh increasingly loudly at you as you do it. We might even point at you.

You should consider slapping the director who’s telling you to do this, and seriously consider a move to radio (like that nice Evan Davis). I suspect they won’t ask you to do much of that sort of thing there.

ps. Is it just me, or is Nick Robinson starting(!?) to sound. A little bit like. Jeremy Clarkson?

Well, there’s nothing quite like a media storm to draw attention to the fact that your own MP has a weblog. It seems he’s been accused of calling us all miserable (link to BBC news).

You can read the article here on his weblog – I plan to do so later on. He also has a slick, but rather generic looking Labour-MP website

As a weblogger myself(!), and a constituent with no party affiliations (but plenty of opinions, as Mr Harris himself will have recently discovered after I wrote to him about 42 days detention), I plan to keep a bit more of an eye on his weblog in future. It’s certainly to be commended (especially as he’s a minister), and I certainly hope the current media storm doesn’t put him off maintaining it. If only more politicians would do so (Glasgow councillors in particular), we’d all perhaps know a tiny bit more about what our representatives think.

Well, it’s now a done deal. A little over a week ago last Saturday, Frances and I finally (after 8 years together) tied the knot, and got married. We were in a beautiful setting in the Trossachs, with (thankfully) wonderful weather, and surrounded by friends and family. We really couldn’t have asked for a better day.

We got back from our honeymoon on Sunday evening, which involved a few nights over in North Berwick, and then a short break to Iceland. Because they’re on my camera, a quick selection of snaps from our Iceland break are available on flickr, and I’ll be writing a bit more about that at a later date. It really was a wonderful break, and a wonderful place, but redefined the word expensive. And I thought I’d gone prepared, and had currency fluctuations on my side…

I’m in the process of getting thoughts and pictures together from the last few weeks, but as we’re back to work now, it’s going to take a little while to do. Details will also appear on our wedding website richardandfrances.com.

One item that I was really quite keen to post up was the wedding cake topper we had made. We’d kept it as a secret from everybody until the day, when it took pride of place on top of our cake. Frances did the hard work of hunting out the style we wanted, and eventually we settled on Lily Tsai. We really wanted a ‘life like’ look, having seen something similar at a wedding last year, rather than the ‘characters’ that were offered by many in the UK. We had an amusing evening taking close up pictures of faces and the pose/setup that we wanted was all part of the fun. And Frances enlisted a shop assistant to get a picture of her in her dress. Pictures of this were kept away from me, and even when the topper arrived, she kept her dress covered up, so I didn’t even see it myself until after we were married!

So Frances is shown in her wedding dress, with rose and thistle bouqet, stood atop a C++ and SQL programming book to get her up the same height as me. I’m in my wedding outfit, but with running shorts and shoes, clutching a pint of Deuchars (That part of the pose shot was the really tough part). Unfortunately it went a bit pink in the manufacturing process. Behind me is an Apple Mac laptop. The screen has a ‘root #>’ prompt (which is, I assure you, a riotously funny computer joke)

We’re delighted by the result, and it’s got pride of place in a cabinet in our front room. A lasting memento of the day. The picture also has Frances’ bouquet to the left, and one of Frances’s family buttonholes. Her family wore thistles, me and my side wore roses.

Plenty more detail about the wedding in the coming weeks.

A change at the BBC for which I have mixed feelings, but in a good way. The change? Evan Davis is moving to the Today programme from his post as BBC Economics Editor.

Evan Davis is, to me, amongst the very best of the BBC’s editors. I enjoyed his pieces when he was ‘just’ the Newsnight Economics editor, and his move to the top Economics role at the BBC was entirely deserved. He is engaging to listen to, incisive in his analysis, presumes intelligence on the part of his listeners, but uses a language, examples and terminology that is accessible to all. I always look out for his reports: He is everything a journalist should be, and as the financial world experiences a historic period of uncertainty, his incisiveness will be missed. Stephanie Flanders knows she has big shoes to fill, but she’s got formidable experience: I look forward to seeing her approach.

But he’s going to become for a year at least, a presenter on the Radio 4 Today programme, a programme that has been a regular part of my day for many years. It’s the flagship news programme, and has a huge audience largely because the presenters are the very best at the BBC, with a wide range of issues to cover, and able to call on the worlds leading politicians. It’s a great step for Evan Davis to make, and hope that his wit and skills will be put to the test, despite the fascinating economics story he has to leave for his successor. I suspect the Chancellor, and even Prime Minister’s and Presidents will find Evan Davis a difficult and challenging interviewer, and that’s going to be a great gain for us the public!

The US elections are proving absolutely fascinating after Hillary Clinton won the latest primary, and there are some top-class BBC journalists doing an excellent job reporting this interesting process to us Brits.

Jon Snow, former ITN Washington correspondent (My review of his autobiography here), has charged over there the last week or so, and has presented some fascinating conversations with ‘ordinary voters’. I doubt Sarah Smith isn’t too put out by his arrival on her patch, they seem to be complimenting each other well.

James Naughtie, from Radio 4’s Today programme is presenting some absolutely fascinating, and dare I say for a foreigner extremely insightful, analysis pieces during his excellent coverage for Today.

I don’t think I’m as puzzled by what the Americans are doing as some people in the media seem to profess outsiders to be. It seems largely a simple process. What I don’t understand (and maybe somebody can help me out here), is how Americans can be comfortable being registered as a Republican or Democrat? The ’state’ knowing your general political preference seems marginally ominous to me. I still get rather unnerved by the fact that (if I recall correctly) ballot papers in this country have serial numbers, and your ballot paper number is noted next to your name when it’s given to you when you vote. Of course, it’s largely to prevent fraud, and never used in reverse, but it could be with enough time, and that worries me a bit, at least in my more paranoid moments.

But the idea that, say, “Liberal Democrat” (as the party I associate myself with, but, I should state, I am not a member of) would be associated with me in some public record enabling me to vote in Liberal Democrat leadership elections (stop sniggering the back there)…. Now that’d worry me, and that’s comparably how I think it works in the US.

The other thing that’s struck me is, once more based on the reporting I’ve been watching over here, how different the views of the electorate, and media, appear to be regarding John McCain (age 71) and Menzies Campbell (age 66). Campbell experience some utterly shocking and deplorable press coverage regarding his age, and that ultimately led to falling opinion polls and then his resignation. McCain is older still and not (from the coverage I’ve seen) suffering any ill affect. It reflects extremely poorly on Britain’s public attitudes to age, and extremely well of America’s.

The reporting hasn’t led me to many conclusions about who I’d like to see win. Certainly a Democrat, but whether Obama or Clinton I don’t know. I think they’d both do well for America, and for the relationship Britain (and the rest of the world) has with it. Both talk of ‘change’, but I’m simply not familiar with the subtleties of that, perhaps other than the international element. Both would of course be historic, either as the first Black President, or the first female President. Or even vice-president, perhaps? Clinton strikes me as the more accomplished, but Obama the fresh-face that may be what America needs. A difficult decision, certainly, but America is so much the better for having such an excellent choice available to it.

Is it just me, but is the news today that house prices have fallen ’sharply’are ‘turning down’ a self-fulfilling media prophecy, along the same line as the run on Northern Rock not so long ago.

Also, why is a monthly -0.8% drop, but an annual rise of 6.9% considered a ’sharp tumble’? That’s the BBC speaking, not me (Update: I see the Beeb has seen the error of it’s ways, and rephrased the article. More at end of post.). Sure things have to turn at some point, but let’s keep things in perspective… an average £100,000 house (goodness knows where, but it’s a nice round figure for arguments sake) last year is still worth an extra £6,900.

We’ve had years of angst and hand-wringing by over indebted and reactionary Daily Mail readers about the looming property market crash. The rises have clearly gone on for too long, such that buying houses are out of the reach of far too many people. But does it have to be a crash? The rises are more a function of a growing economy, increasing demand, and the wrong sort of new houses being built, and even when they do build them, cookie cut houses rather than anything genuinely interesting. Small falls in prices aren’t necessarily a bad thing if they make houses more affordable. The infamous ‘cooling’, I suppose.

But the media, and especially the BBC right now, seem keen to latch on to and push every bit of bad news, because it’s such a politically hot potato (Like Mr Brown needs another. If the public feels ‘poorer’, and blame him, he’s going to be in real trouble). By latching on to the story and featuring it rather prominently. Case in point is their infuriating business editor Robert Peston (who badly needs some elocution/presentation lessons to reduce his distracting lilt that is, in my view, very badly suited to broadcast media; It also detracts from his (usually) solid reporting) on Radio 4’s Today, this morning, who said, and I quote:

In October … before the impact of the credit conditions… there was quite a sharp fall in house prices, so what I would extrapolate from all of this, that there is a risk that this fall in house prices could continue, don’t know for long but it could turn out to be for quite a long time and it could turn out to be quite severe.

I love it when the press turn to forecasting rather than simply reporting facts. Nice to get some emotion in the whole thing.

Back to my point – remember the Northern Rock issue – it’s the same thing as here (and indeed was originally broken by Peston). The BBC reported the problems at Northern Rock: A few people figured they’d go get their money out. The BBC reported a few queues. People see the queues on the TV. SO more people start panicking (frequently denying they were doing just that as they joined the very queues). The cycle repeats. Add the big dab of Government faffing over the course of a few days which didn’t help matters, but the media feedback loop exacerbated the problem and was something quite scary to behold.

With the housing price indicators fall – The market is always a bit slow this time of year (who wants to move before christmas?), so I would expect that reduced volume will increase volatility, and the credit market is a strange place right now. So why the need to report this issue so prominently?

A small drop really should be nothing to get worried about (remember, they’re up over the course of a year), and could be reported as such, but the use of strongly emotive and exaggerated vernacular (’severe’ and ‘tumble’ and ‘a long time’) just doesn’t help keep any sense of balance and serves to affect the issue they’re trying to report on.

It serves only to exaggerate and build emotion, precisely what the BBC shouldn’t be doing.

Update 12:46pm :: The BBC appears to have rephrased the title and spirit of their article. The market is now ‘turning down’ (in quotes, but who from I can’t tell in their article). I wonder if Mr Peston will also be more restrained in later bulletins?

As part of my job I have to think of worse-case scenarios, and plan/consider the response for them. As I’m a full-time computer geek, this is along the lines of “what if this computer fails”, or “how to recover last months reports”, or “can we cope with double the demand”. Disconcertingly, managers always also go on to ask “what if you get run over by a bus?”.

I’m sure they mean well, they’re worried about system passwords and such, but… It’s always a bus.

Do they know something I don’t? They often go as far as suggesting it’ll be red. Never a number-plate though. Oh no. That’d be helpful, and we all know where management stands on that

But I digress slightly. I got to thinking of this when I was reading the news of a tragic death. Such events are always sad and always different. But I’m struck by the similarity of the reporting for such events. The press seem to follow a specific pattern.

First they find neighbours (or is it the other way around?) and get some sound-bites, usually along the lines of “he was popular in the local community“, “he’ll be greatly missed“, or (if the person in question is suspected of something dubious) the more implicitly sinister “he kept himself to himself“. Always wonder why that’s viewed as abnormal in London, where I rarely knew any (and liked even fewer) of my neighbours.

Secondly they seem to find a local politician (or is it the other way around?), who talks in generic terms about the “sad loss for the community“, and that they’ll make sure “we get to the bottom of it“, and other such vague assurances.

Finally they seem to find the local priests (or is it the other way around?). This is what really bugs me. There’s an implicit assumption that the priest has a right to get involved. Maybe they do check the views of the affected, but I’m suspicious given the ubiquitous dog-collar-at-sad-event. Can I put it on record that, if ever I get hit by a bus and it makes the news (Probably something along the lines of ‘weblogger predicted own death by bus‘. Deary me, no broadsheet coverage for me…): Don’t get priests involved. I’m an atheist, and don’t even like most priests. Far too sanctimonious for my liking.

Interesting aside is that “The State” always appears to insist on religious “memorial” services for the great and the good, even when the subject of the service was a Humanist. Ronnie Barker is a case in point. Well loved. Has a Humanist funeral. Gets a religious memorial service from the state. Go figure.

The other thing is my tongue-in-cheek “or is it the other way around?”. Where do they find the people? The press turn up to record some event for the news, do they then start knocking on doors, or do they grab the rubber-necking neighbours and ask for a sound-bite. Do the neighbours then get all excited back at home when they appear on TV, despite the sad event they’ve commented on? Strange combination of emotions, I’m sure, if they are genuinely sad about what happened, but genuinely excited to be on TV (as I think most people are… right? Certainly judging by the frequent looning going on behind the “live at the scene” reporter)

News reporting with too much self-selection is worrying as it skews the event. Perhaps not that dissimilar to the thing so many programmes do of ensuring “balance”. Giving equal weight to alternative arguments paints a false picture. Global warming is a great example: Massive science behind it, but it’s reported “fairly” by ensuring the few scientists who disagree frequently get equal airtime, making it appear to be more “uncertain” than it is in reality.

Similarly, is the BBC on an anti-alcohol moral campaign right now? Sure too much alcohol is bad for you, but I count three major news items that featured prominently on their flagship news programmes, in the last 3-4 weeks: Labelling of alcohol; Youth binge-drinking endemic; Middle-class drinking the real problem. All fair enough, but I’m detecting a particular morality focus from the BBC news editorial team at the moment.

But to try and bring this ramble to a close, wouldn’t it be funny if I did get hit by a bus. OK, maybe not… Just don’t invite any priests to comment on it. Unless they were Pastafarians of course. Preferably dressed as pirates. Now, that would make me laugh.

As my post from last year about BBC trailers/miscellaneous advert music approaches a staggering 700 comments, I thought it made a lot of sense to revisit the post, summarise some of the big ‘discoveries’ we’ve made, and remind folk of some advert questions that haven’t been answered.

Personally, my favourite piece of music at the moment is the delightful The Beep Beep Song, by Simone White, currently featuring in an Audi advert (They thankfully long since ditched their ridiculous patent claim ad). There’s a delightful Bjork edge to her voice that I love.

One of the ongoing debates most recently has been the music to the recent BBC2 series ‘The Restaurant’. I was convinced, like many others, the music was by Yann Tiersen. Indeed, some of it was. The problem was that much of it wasn’t! The debate is still raging, and unfortunately – as is often the case – the broadcasters of the TV programmes are often none the wiser, and less than helpful, in getting to the bottom of the problem.

Most frustrating of all the Ford Focus advert featuring the line “suddenly i feel like peter pan” has not found an answer that satisfies, and I’m with everybody else in feeling rather frustrated. Ben Griffith has been mooted, but it’s still a bit inconclusive, and (to my knowledge), no track appears to be available for download/purchase.

I’m still pleased, and rather amused that Sigur Rós continue to feature heavily in television trailers. They’re a less-well known Moby! Most recently BBC’s Genius Of Photography trailer featured Svo Hljott from the album Takk; Here’s hoping their new album (clicky for download details) contains as many delightful pieces of music. I’m certainly planning to order it soon.

Anyway, I’m hoping this post may take over some of the “load” from the original post! Comments there are certainly getting a bit difficult to wade through, and as many people subscribe to get updates it can result in lots of e-mails going out: So really feels like time for a fresh page! I’ll now be a bit more pro-active approach in filtering comments that come through as I’ve had a few very vague queries which are a bit difficult to help with, and not a few bordering on flamewar comments, which I’ve deleted. Let’s keep it friendly and polite!

It’s not a question I’d really thought to ask, to be honest. But Evan Davis latest post to his ‘Evanomics’ weblog is fascinating for it’s interesting explanation about what the Nobel Prize for Economics was about this year. Or, at least, what we call the Nobel Prize for Economics, for it seems there’s actually no such thing.

Mechanism design theory sounds like a dry subject. But as I supped my morning coffee, it was interesting to read his summary, making the entire subject more relevant and understandable. An Uncle once asked “What did you learn today, that you didn’t know yesterday?”. Well, today I’ve a bit more of an understanding about what Mechanism design theory is. That’s something at least. I get a useful bit of trivia with regards the prize names too.

Could I explain mechanism design theory? Probably not very well, but that doesn’t mean I’ll not have a go at it: I understand it’s a body of theory that can better help us measure and understand what makes mechanisms more efficient than others, be it a market, an auction, or fairly dividing up a cake with your brother. If we can understand these problems – and this theory helps us to do that – we can then go on to build better systems. But don’t take my word for it, Evan Davis does a much better job!

I certainly hope that my little intrigued aside might encourage folk to put Evan Davis’ weblog into their news readers. Along with Nick Robinson’s newslog, and Mark Mardell’s Euroblog, they provide excellent additional material and content.

I imagine – hope even – that a lot of people were taken aback to hear the news today that a ’senior judge’ is calling for everybody to be put on the DNA database. The main reason cited it’d be ‘fairer’ than the widely acknowledged to be broken and unfair system, where anybody arrested by the Police is permanently added to the database, and it is badly skewed to minority groups. So putting everybody in it as somehow the fix? It really is putting the cart before the horse.

I suppose it’s a highlight of the silly season that we get opinions from judges and retired politicians that generate headlines, as the media hacks champ at the bit in the build up to the political conference season. But what’s worrying here is that the minister put up to respond on Radio 4’s Today programme really didn’t do much to dismiss the idea. He said the right things to avoid being gummed to death by the increasingly tedious interview style of John Humphreys, but it left me feeling this was more a political ‘outrider’ to make the introduction of ID Cards all the more tolerable to the British Public: Introduce the prospect of something awful, dismiss it, and only then introduce the thing you wanted all along as ‘better’, and not the proffered bogeyman that everybody was scared about.

This DNA database proposal, and the ID cards that are surely related, is all part of the same march towards ‘The State Knows Best’, be it judges talking about universal DNA databases, or the government changing the fundamental relationship with the public from that of our servant to our benevolent master.

If this whole proposal yanks your chain at all – and I really hope it scares you as much as it scares me – can I quietly suggest you make a bee-line over to Liberty and sign up as a member? It is the most vocal Civil and Human Rights campaigning organisation in this country, and has been at the forefront of the fight against the campaigns waged by the various Home Secretaries we’ve had over the last few years as they seek to increase Police powers whilst decreasing scrutiny and even basic access to justice. Their campaigning voice – already strong – is all the more influential and effective with more members.

It’s no longer the case that we can tut from the side lines and shake our heads and presume that “it’ll all work out in the end”. This famous poem about apathy in Nazi Germany is increasingly pertinent to this country right now. Can we really presume Cameron’s Conservative party will be any difference if they ever get in power? Can we actually NOT expect to be presumed guilty until proven innocent, as a national DNA database could allow?

I’m deeply worried that OUR collective apathy as a nation is taken as implicit acceptance of everything the Government does to erode our hard-won rights.

It really is time to make our voices heard.