Showing posts with label sian williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sian williams. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Whatever Happened To The News?
Whatever Happened To The News?
Who on earth thinks that is a good idea to have "Dancing" Bill Turnbull front the BBC Breakfast News? He is hardly a classic news anchor, though he does rhyme with one. He is so smug, so smarmy, so uninspiring, so un-serious, so un-witty, so un-fashionable, and, so, so boring. His favourite hobbies are bee keeping and ballroom dancing for chrissake!
He lowers the tone with his un-naturally plucked eyebrows that hint at a grooming regime that is far more stringent than that of his glamorous colleagues (especially Louise Minchin who often looks as if she has just made it in after a very harrowing trip into the office). He lowers the tone with his boring suits and offensive ties. He lowers the tone when attempting, unsuccessfully to conjure witty links between the news stories (I use that term loosely), the weather, the sports report, and those humorous (not) articles they put on about such things as Dancing Dogs at Crufts and the like, or the all-to-frequent blatant advertisements for the BBC’s own programming – Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing, the Apprentice and so on.
Increasingly, they seem to forget to report the news or do so only fleetingly. We are fighting two wars, there is genocide in Darfur, and we are inundated by stories of children pretending to be news reporters, how to make a pancake, obese cats, and Chris Mullin (the sports presenter who is frequently linked with rumours of off-camera nookie with Carol Kirkwood, the weather presenter) in a rather unattractive all-in-one body suit used by Olympic swimmers.
The whole programme would be an absolute nightmare and waste of time if it hadn’t been for the constant distraction of his side-kicks. Like Dr Who, Turnbull comes with his own companion, who is usually an intelligent, easy-on-the-eye, foxy if not sexy female presenter.
The list is extensive, but, I will include it here for no other reason than it will dramatically increase the hits I get, especially from those very sad souls that somehow always find my posts on Cheshire Swingers, or Sleeping With Julia Roberts (see my post on Strange Visitors by way of explanation) with their very obscure search terms.
Sophie Raworth, Natasha Kaplinski (far too much make-up), sporty Kate Silverton, Mishal Husain, and, of course, the dynamic duo which get most men of a certain age going in the morning; the epitome of pint-sized foxiness Susanna Reid (often misspelt in search engines) and Sian Williams. And, not forgetting the glamorous weather girls with which our Bill flirts so furiously: Carol Kirkwood, Helen Willetts, and Louise Lear. Boy, this is going to be my best day ever!
Bill’s colleagues are all smart and professional. They fill in the serious bits when Bill isn’t reminding us that he too appeared in Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing. Presumably he was attracted by the make-up and the flouncy dresses.
Please BBC, Kill Bill! Kick him into touch. Put him out to grass. If it were not for Sian and Susanna it would be nigh on impossible to drag myself out of the bed in the morning. Sometimes it is a relief when I am in a hurry and have to dash to my car and the serious news reporting of the Today programme on Radio 4 John Humphrys is a god! At least they seem to take the news seriously and in depth. What a contrast.
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Planes, Trains and Automobiles Part 4
A Grumpy Old Man’s Trip To London
Well, it has not been a good start to the day. I am currently sat on the 07.13 Virgin Pendolino inter-city train from Crewe en route to London Euston. It is 07.35 and we have just left the station. This means that we will be behind all of the still-on-time trains with the likelihood that we will be further delayed. They seem to work on the principle that it is better to have one very delayed train than lots of slightly delayed trains. But, that seems like a very strange principle upon which to run a train company. Whatever happened to punctuality?
As ever, they haven’t thought up a decent enough reason for the delay with which to share with the paying customer. And I have paid. Through the nose. £275 for a First Class return! Extortionate. It is cheaper to fly to London from Manchester but, unfortunately for me, it is still less convenient.
Crewe station is just ten minutes from home, and, after a couple of hours in which you can stretch your legs, read a paper, hopefully complete the Times 2 Crossword (although I am struggling with 5 down at the moment) and the Killer Su Doku, and maybe do some work, you are delivered to Euston station. Then it is just 15 minutes by Tube, unfortunately, before I am delivered straight to the office alongside which is alongside Waterloo station. Door to door in two hours forty five minutes if I am lucky. But, as with today it would seem, I am rarely that. Lucky.
Manchester Airport, however, is a good (or bad) 45 minutes drive away itself. With the heightened security you definitely now need to be there at least one hour before the flight is delayed. And you have all that hassle with your luggage and your clear plastic bag for your toothpaste and eau de cologne (Euphoria for Men by Calvin Klein). And, Heathrow is just not as convenient for central London, although the Heathrow Express is much better than the old crawl in on the Underground.
At least when travelling care of Sir Richard Branson, the food is generally OK, and the tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages (not at breakfast of course, unfortunately) flow much more abundantly than they do in the air these days. I am currently sipping tea, having already partaken of a grapefruit juice and a passable sausage sandwich with brown sauce. The bread was a little dry though.
And, there is generally more to see out of the windows. And, every so often, you get to meet a celebrity. Those of you who have read my earlier postings (Celebrity Spotting) will know that I had a very enjoyable chat with Pete Waterman once and nearly had sex with Sarah Lancashire. The more I think about it the more I realise that she wanted me. And, these new toilets in the Pendolinos are so much more accommodating than in the old days. Another opportunity missed.
I have also seen Patrick Moore, the male chauvinistic stargazer who recently complained about there being too many senior placed women running the BBC, and, the diminutive and foxy news reader Sian Williams recently. Which reminds me, I literally bumped into Suzannah Reed, the other foxy if midget morning newscaster with the BBC, when buying my lunchtime M&S sandwich at Waterloo Station last time I was in the Smoke. She was quite startled and seemed a little spooked when she realised that I had recognised who she was. She was dressed all in white with a very long flowing coat. She had very white face make-up and very red rouged lips and cheeks, which made her seem even more alarmed. It was probably my fault. Living in the countryside and frequenting only small towns such as Sandbach and Holmes Chapel these days I get quite alarmed by the crowds in the big cities. I seem to have lost that knack of walking through a crowd without bumping into people. It can feel quite claustrophobic at times.
Well listen to me extolling the virtues of Virgin Trains. Mr Branson are there any jobs going in your marketing department?
On the downside, things can get a bit tense on board train. Especially in the Quiet Zone. Of course, the Quiet Zone is hardly that. Quiet. You still get the normal train announcements, and that strange beep beep noise as the Pendolino seems to tilt precariously when taking a bend at speed. You still get passengers chatting, passengers snoring and the like. No, things get tense when some jumped up self-opinionated, self-important oik decides that the “No Mobile Phones” sign does not apply to him and proceeds to have a loud if disjointed conversation. Conversations are disjointed because the signal quality is so poor, conversations require a lot of redialling after thirty seconds of “hello, hello, can you hear me?” or, “I’m in a tunnel”). These noise abusers can often be found wandering up and down the carriage to annoy as many people as he (it is invariably a he) possibly can. Or they stand at the end of the carriage, in the vestibule as Mr Virgin calls it, next to the loos. They seem to think that they are less annoying there. They are not, it is even worse listening to the self-important oik on his phone with the carriage doors sliding open and then shut again, and again, and again, as he triggers them with his proximity.
Things can also get tense when the staff forget to reserve pre-booked seats or all reservations are cancelled because of a train cancellation requiring two or three trains to be merged into one. Pandemonium. Even on “normal” days, people ignore the seat reservations and assume that just because they are a party of eight they have the right to sit next to each other. I can feel myself getting tense. I shall move on.
Unusually, the train staff this morning are not Eastern European. They seem to be Scousers. So, they are as good as Eastern Europeans. Homegrown Eastern Europeans if you like. But it is unusual. Have you not noticed how, in the last couple of years or so, the service industries of our great nation have been overwhelmed by Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Albanians and the like?
I learnt at the weekend of a very successful restauranteur and property developer who only employs Bratislavans. He does this because they are reliable, polite, and punctual and have excellent language skills. So, nothing like Scousers then. He pays them the going rate so they are not cheap.
Every London bar, every hotel reception, every waiter and waitress, every shelf-filler in Waitrose, every bricky, carpenter and electrician. They are all Eastern European. Crewe has shops selling “Polish Food” now, and in parts of the country road signs are now displayed in both English and Polish. The influx of devote Poles has now resulted in the Catholic Church becoming the biggest religion in the country again.. Henry the Eighth must be turning in his grave.
No, it is the Australians I feel sorry for. And the New Zealanders. They used to have the monopoly on the London bars. I can only assume that all the Kiwis and Australians are now serving drinks in Warsaw, Prague, and wherever the capital of Bratislava may be. Although at least a couple of our Antipodean cousins could be found at this weekend’s Home & Garden Design Show in Tatton Park, selling Magic Shammy Leathers. How the Empire has fallen.
The train now seems to be crawling along. I don’t think we’ve even reached Nuneaton yet. Now, where’s that girl with the tea……….
Well, it has not been a good start to the day. I am currently sat on the 07.13 Virgin Pendolino inter-city train from Crewe en route to London Euston. It is 07.35 and we have just left the station. This means that we will be behind all of the still-on-time trains with the likelihood that we will be further delayed. They seem to work on the principle that it is better to have one very delayed train than lots of slightly delayed trains. But, that seems like a very strange principle upon which to run a train company. Whatever happened to punctuality?
As ever, they haven’t thought up a decent enough reason for the delay with which to share with the paying customer. And I have paid. Through the nose. £275 for a First Class return! Extortionate. It is cheaper to fly to London from Manchester but, unfortunately for me, it is still less convenient.
Crewe station is just ten minutes from home, and, after a couple of hours in which you can stretch your legs, read a paper, hopefully complete the Times 2 Crossword (although I am struggling with 5 down at the moment) and the Killer Su Doku, and maybe do some work, you are delivered to Euston station. Then it is just 15 minutes by Tube, unfortunately, before I am delivered straight to the office alongside which is alongside Waterloo station. Door to door in two hours forty five minutes if I am lucky. But, as with today it would seem, I am rarely that. Lucky.
Manchester Airport, however, is a good (or bad) 45 minutes drive away itself. With the heightened security you definitely now need to be there at least one hour before the flight is delayed. And you have all that hassle with your luggage and your clear plastic bag for your toothpaste and eau de cologne (Euphoria for Men by Calvin Klein). And, Heathrow is just not as convenient for central London, although the Heathrow Express is much better than the old crawl in on the Underground.
At least when travelling care of Sir Richard Branson, the food is generally OK, and the tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages (not at breakfast of course, unfortunately) flow much more abundantly than they do in the air these days. I am currently sipping tea, having already partaken of a grapefruit juice and a passable sausage sandwich with brown sauce. The bread was a little dry though.
And, there is generally more to see out of the windows. And, every so often, you get to meet a celebrity. Those of you who have read my earlier postings (Celebrity Spotting) will know that I had a very enjoyable chat with Pete Waterman once and nearly had sex with Sarah Lancashire. The more I think about it the more I realise that she wanted me. And, these new toilets in the Pendolinos are so much more accommodating than in the old days. Another opportunity missed.
I have also seen Patrick Moore, the male chauvinistic stargazer who recently complained about there being too many senior placed women running the BBC, and, the diminutive and foxy news reader Sian Williams recently. Which reminds me, I literally bumped into Suzannah Reed, the other foxy if midget morning newscaster with the BBC, when buying my lunchtime M&S sandwich at Waterloo Station last time I was in the Smoke. She was quite startled and seemed a little spooked when she realised that I had recognised who she was. She was dressed all in white with a very long flowing coat. She had very white face make-up and very red rouged lips and cheeks, which made her seem even more alarmed. It was probably my fault. Living in the countryside and frequenting only small towns such as Sandbach and Holmes Chapel these days I get quite alarmed by the crowds in the big cities. I seem to have lost that knack of walking through a crowd without bumping into people. It can feel quite claustrophobic at times.
Well listen to me extolling the virtues of Virgin Trains. Mr Branson are there any jobs going in your marketing department?
On the downside, things can get a bit tense on board train. Especially in the Quiet Zone. Of course, the Quiet Zone is hardly that. Quiet. You still get the normal train announcements, and that strange beep beep noise as the Pendolino seems to tilt precariously when taking a bend at speed. You still get passengers chatting, passengers snoring and the like. No, things get tense when some jumped up self-opinionated, self-important oik decides that the “No Mobile Phones” sign does not apply to him and proceeds to have a loud if disjointed conversation. Conversations are disjointed because the signal quality is so poor, conversations require a lot of redialling after thirty seconds of “hello, hello, can you hear me?” or, “I’m in a tunnel”). These noise abusers can often be found wandering up and down the carriage to annoy as many people as he (it is invariably a he) possibly can. Or they stand at the end of the carriage, in the vestibule as Mr Virgin calls it, next to the loos. They seem to think that they are less annoying there. They are not, it is even worse listening to the self-important oik on his phone with the carriage doors sliding open and then shut again, and again, and again, as he triggers them with his proximity.
Things can also get tense when the staff forget to reserve pre-booked seats or all reservations are cancelled because of a train cancellation requiring two or three trains to be merged into one. Pandemonium. Even on “normal” days, people ignore the seat reservations and assume that just because they are a party of eight they have the right to sit next to each other. I can feel myself getting tense. I shall move on.
Unusually, the train staff this morning are not Eastern European. They seem to be Scousers. So, they are as good as Eastern Europeans. Homegrown Eastern Europeans if you like. But it is unusual. Have you not noticed how, in the last couple of years or so, the service industries of our great nation have been overwhelmed by Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Albanians and the like?
I learnt at the weekend of a very successful restauranteur and property developer who only employs Bratislavans. He does this because they are reliable, polite, and punctual and have excellent language skills. So, nothing like Scousers then. He pays them the going rate so they are not cheap.
Every London bar, every hotel reception, every waiter and waitress, every shelf-filler in Waitrose, every bricky, carpenter and electrician. They are all Eastern European. Crewe has shops selling “Polish Food” now, and in parts of the country road signs are now displayed in both English and Polish. The influx of devote Poles has now resulted in the Catholic Church becoming the biggest religion in the country again.. Henry the Eighth must be turning in his grave.
No, it is the Australians I feel sorry for. And the New Zealanders. They used to have the monopoly on the London bars. I can only assume that all the Kiwis and Australians are now serving drinks in Warsaw, Prague, and wherever the capital of Bratislava may be. Although at least a couple of our Antipodean cousins could be found at this weekend’s Home & Garden Design Show in Tatton Park, selling Magic Shammy Leathers. How the Empire has fallen.
The train now seems to be crawling along. I don’t think we’ve even reached Nuneaton yet. Now, where’s that girl with the tea……….
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