I like it

 

RIP Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers fame. I've still to make a ferry trip across the Mersey.

One of my Twitter favourites, Jane Kelly of The Spectator, Salisbury Review and The Conservative Woman, has tweeted a personal anecdote about him tonight that I think is worth sharing on the grounds that, despite all the myriad faults of the increasingly censorious Twitter as a medium, some tweets are almost haiku-like in their brevity and power of suggestion:

I once interviewed Gerry Marsden. We had a wild night. He hid my note-pad so I had to keep going to the loo & making notes on the loo paper. When the piece appeared apparently his wife was mightily displeased.

Hearts

The Boy with Two Hearts is not only a tale of a family in crisis, but a love letter to the NHS, which provided hope and reassurance as they sought asylum in the UK and fought to save their loved ones - BBC blurb

Jane Kelly of The Conservative Woman, The Spectator and The Salisbury Review poses a question:

BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week is the adventure of a family from Afghanistan travelling through Europe to the UK to use the NHS. The premise of the book is not challenged in any way & I wonder who in the BBC metropolitan bubble selected it?

The BBC's Hugh Sykes replies:

Someone with a heart (and a heart in better health than Hussein's).

And there's more...

While I'm at it, I might as well introduce a third lady I follow on Twitter and let her have her say on this morning's Sunday Worship on Radio 4. After the Sunday programme had marked International Woman's Day, Sunday Worship celebrated the 25th anniversary of women's ordination in the Church of England. Anyhow, here's Jane:

Passing thought

The lovely Jane Kelly makes me smile. Here she is just now, tweeting:‏

On BBC Radio 4 Extra now there's Daljit Nagra archive on Isaac Rosenberg, WW1 poet. Wilfred Owen tomorrow. On BBC Radio 4 you can have a play about how terrible the police are to young black men. Those were the days, when you could get a policeman.

Brickbat and Bouquet

'Badley Church, Suffolk' by Harold Steggles (1936)

Well, I woke up early this morning, put on my 'I love Pope Francis' badge (Ed Stourton lent me one of his spares) and switched on to the radio equivalent of the liberal Catholic magazine The Tablet - namely Radio 4's Sunday, hosted by Tablet trustee Ed Stourton. 

Today's topics included: (a) the raising to sainthood of the murdered El Salvadorean liberation theology-sympathetic Cardinal Oscar Romero, discussed with a Catholic charity worker (which cast conservatives in a bad light); (b) a report by a Catholic group on the need for prison reform, discussed with a Lib Dem peer (who denounced "penal populism"); and (c) a discussion of  a resignation in the US Catholic Church over sex abuse, where both guest and presenter (Ed) cast the present Pope and his unfortunate cardinal in the best possible light. 

Also discussed were: (d) the UN's World Food Day, plugged with a participating charity; (e) Anglican "institutional homophobia", discussed with an aggrieved married gay Anglican cleric; and (f) the 50th anniversary of the Olympic black power protest, discussed with one of the black power saluters. 

The two other items were BBC-on-BBC interviews on (g) the gay cake case and (h) the released pastor and his prayer for President Trump. 

All very 'Sunday'!

Still, one of the featured BBC reporters, Mark Simpson (the BBC's Northern Ireland correspondent) showed afterwards how to be charming on Twitter. The estimable Jane Kelly was criticising his comments on the 'gay cake' case, and he responded:

Jane Kelly: Your reporter Mark Simpson declared, 'There are no winners in this case,' the winner was free-speech. You could also remind him that he is supposed to be a 'reporter.'
Mark Simpson: The question was asked in the context of the personal toll that the 230 week case has taken on the participants.
Jane Kelly: I see, that explains your sympathy for the man who lost, saying he 'looked devastated.' For me that was because he just assumed he would win.
Mark Simpson: Jane, Jane, Jane. That’s simply not true. But, hey, you’re entitled your view. I admire your work. Always have. And I respect your right to call it as you see it. Free speech. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. And next time you’re in NI, I’ll buy the coffee.
Jane Kelly: Thank you very much, you are very gracious. I used to visit NI a lot, a truly fascinating place. I have changed sides a bit though, now see the Protestants as a tribe in danger of extinction.
Mark Simpson: I look forward to hear your reasoning. Keep in touch.

Saturday on BBC Radio 4

There's a very interesting piece by Jane Kelly of the Spectator and Salisbury Review over at The Conservative Woman: Feminist BBC would rather canonise Bowie than admit the ugly truth of Cologne. 

Part of it records her monitoring of Saturday's coverage of the Cologne attacks on BBC Radio 4, some of which I'd like to share with you here whilst strongly urging you to read the whole piece (if you haven't already done so):

As evidence of the attacks in Cologne had mounted and over a hundred women complained to the police, the BBC had been forced to report the events. I spent Saturday listening out for their updated reports...... 

By 10 am we were back to BBC equivocations. Radio 4 news concentrated on far-right demonstrations in Cologne, after what they termed vaguely, ‘a night of crime in the city.’ They knew what crime it was but didn’t say, and also knew that it had not just happened in Cologne but right across northern Europe in what were suspected to be co-ordinated attacks. 

Then came the Woman’s Hour weekly roundup. The programme aims to, ‘give the female point of view.’ It’s a notoriously hard-left programme, often entering the realms of extreme silliness, but I was interested to hear what their take on Cologne would be. They didn’t mention it. That silence of course spoke volumes. For them, migrants being ‘victims,’ can do no wrong. If they do, it cannot be mentioned. 

At 12 noon a news report described the attacks in Europe as, ‘attacks on women by some migrants.’ 

The main news report was on mosques in Germany where imams were inviting non-Muslims in to read the Koran, ‘in the interest of cohesion.’ 

Later in the day, BBC news reports were taken up by the C of E fighting about gay rights again, this time accusing itself of not being kind enough to gays and trannies in the past. We were into futile historic breast-beating. No mention of events in Germany. Obviously the rights of heterosexual woman are lower in the pecking-order than those with, ‘gender issues,’ at least for the Left. 

By the early hours a complete retrenchment seemed to have taken place as a BBC voice referred to, ‘rare incidents such as the events on New Year’s Eve.’