I will admit that I'm loath to let last night's Newsnight pass without comment, however inconsequential my thoughts about it may be. After all, I wasted a good half an hour of my life watching it, and I want some return from that ordeal!
The programme ignored the news completely (despite being called Newsnight) and focused instead on the arts scene in Manchester - a few miles away from the BBC's Salford residence: namely the Manchester International Festival (abbreviated by Newsnight to MIF - though many a Twitter user claims to have misread that as 'MILF').
Poo and pubic crabs, Maxine Peake denouncing the Tory government and some former Turner Prize winner (very obviously either very drunk or completely stoned out of his mind) denouncing "Thatcher", arty types and sociology professors...That was the programme's focus.
Even the shallow and pretentious world of Twitter seemed to find it all very...er...shallow and pretentious. And inept. Insults flew in.
It wasn't exactly helped, it must be said, by the programme's technical difficulties, which included Kirsty Wark talking for about half a minute without being heard. (Not that I minded that).
Nick Pisani, the man who edited BBC One's Question Time from 2000-06 before fleeing the BBC, tweeted:
Rushed home for latest on Grexit on #Newsnight to find a mute Kirsty Wark and lots of people prancing around stages in very tight outfits
— Nick Pisani (@nickpisani1) July 10, 2015
It's called Newsnight, not Artsnight. WTF is this fancy pants load of politically correct crap from Manchester?
— Nick Pisani (@nickpisani1) July 10, 2015
