I don't know if you've noticed this (you probably haven't, as it's been very gradually done and I don't think anyone's noticed), but...just between us...I think the BBC is using Clare Balding quite a bit these days.
From rugby to tennis, from rambling to religion, Clare seems to be everywhere on the BBC.
She was even helping Her Majesty to give the Colour its annual Trooping today by doing a spot of presentation for the BBC (and a fine Trooping it was too, Ma'am).
Now, perhaps unlike some of you, I rather like Clare but...
As a big Springwatch fan I'm a bit worried that Chris Packham is going to be dropped before Autumnwatch and replaced by Clare Balding...
...and that all the live cameras will be focused on Clare Balding rather than on the birds...
...and that Michaela will get overly excited and do herself a mischief every time Clare appears on camera...
...and that poor Martin will end up dangling from a tree and showing us nothing but pie charts charting conservationists' extraordinary success in re-introducing the pied balding (baldingus omnipresentus) to the UK's woodlands, moors, TV studios, parade grounds, tennis courts, churches, radio studios, etc,..
...breaking news...breaking news...breaking news...
The BBC has just announced that Clare Balding will be replacing HRH Prince Philip next year in the Trooping the Colour ceremony. She will stand alongside the Queen and take the salute from any passing women's regiments whilst simultaneously commenting on the event.
Prince Philip will be confined, along with John Inverdale and Huw Edwards, to that building where the lesser royals congregate and look out of windows, forlornly.
(Prince Philip and John Inverdale will, I suspect, get along splendidly though.)
Coincidentally, physicists are also studying the phenomenon of the ever-expanding singularity known as a "Balding Moment".
ReplyDeleteThe moment begins at an infinitesimally small scale - just a few seconds on the "radio sports bulletin" (as it's known technically). But then it expands rapidly into TV sports, eventually mutating into a "giant blob" that moves swiftly through all TV genres (game shows, chat shows, countryside programmes) before then gobbling up the whole range of media - with Balding spreading out to dominate magazines, newspapers, books, CDs, DVDs.
Some physicists think that the phenomenon is unstoppable, and that eventually all media will either be presented by Balding, or feature her in some way. However, others suggest she in turn will be swallowed up by the vacuum of space (The Kardashian Effect).
Talk of singularities suggest black holes to me.
DeleteThe Balding Black Hole, if I recall from Lord Bragg's 'In Our Time', is found at the centre of the BBC galaxy.
Other BBC presenters (such as John Inverdale) cannot escape its gravitational pull and are drawn into in and, once caught, spaghettified and destroyed.
Professor Brian Cox, incidentally, has just tweeted to say, "Wow!"