Norman Smith getting his l's and n's mixed up the other day over Nigel Farage's "personality cult" inevitably brings back memories of James Naughtie getting his h's and c's mixed up when talking about "Jeremy Hunt".
And memories of James Naughtie doing that just as inevitably bring back further memories of the same Today presenter 'mis-speaking' during a 2005 interview with the late Ed Balls (R.I.P.) when he famously blurted out, "If we win the election...", before quickly changing it to "If you win the election..."
Accusations of pro-Labour bias followed; others assumed it was just a slip of the tongue. Whatever it was, it earned itself a mention in the Today presenter's Wikipedia entry (along with the Jeremy *unt affair).
Well, this morning Today gave us another gem - this time courtesy of Jim's fellow presenter Sarah Montague. Whilst talking to Labour Caroline Flint, she said (at the 51:37 mark):
OK, let's discuss why we lost the election...why you lost the election this time around in a minute...
It's déjà vu all over again there.
Wonder if Sarah's Wikipedia entry will be updated to include this?
It's uncanny how these slips of the tongue seem to go in a particularly direction though, isn't it?
It's uncanny how these slips of the tongue seem to go in a particularly direction though, isn't it?
LOL ! It is so pathetic . And they think they are clever and we are stupid !
ReplyDeleteCaptcha verification number " 6869 ". Just like the BBC, half right !
ReplyDeleteWonder if we'll ever hear Mishal Husain saying to Nigel Farage, "As we won nearly 4 million votes...as you won nearly 4 million votes, why do you think (etc)..."?
ReplyDeleteHa !
DeleteOne reason this happens is that the Beeboids are too close and chummy with politicians. It's to be expected that an otherwise professional presenter is going to slip into a casual frame of mind when chatting with a friend. This is the inevitable result.
ReplyDeleteWeird how it was the bane of journalism when the woman from the News of the World was friends with Cameron, yet nobody cares that it's exceedingly commonplace at the BBC.
James Naughtie is just a big Tristram ! Craig, is there any way you can get this website speeded up ? Access and posting is like watching paint dry !
ReplyDeleteI know, Grant. It's like that for me too!
DeleteI don't know what to do about it, but it's definitely the case that the more tweets we embed in posts and the more videos we post the slower the blog works - and the present page has 3 videos on it and countless embedded tweets. I think that's a big part of the problem.
I could try reducing the number of posts on the the first page of the blog. That might speed things up a bit.
In my next life I want to be a computer guru !
DeleteI wish I'd been reincarnated as one in this one, Grant!
DeleteTongue slippage is of course excusable and indeed the excuse trotted out.
ReplyDeleteIt is, as suggested, so downright odd that it only seems to happen one way.