Heart-stopping BA moment!

I'm just watching breaking news on Sky that British Airways have withdrawn three Boeing 767 aircraft from service after traces of radiation were found on two (the third test is underway). This is all to do with the Litvinenko poisoning case and as numerous locations across London are being tested.

So with the news that "BA customers are being contacted", and I flew in a BA 767 two weeks ago, up pops an email in the inbox from BA... thankfully only telling me that I can get 20% off at Selfridges this weekend.

My flight isn't on the list on the BA website. Phew.

Bad day for the newspapers

A double blow for dead tree media today.

First, the Royal Editor of the News of the World, Clive Goodman, says sorry for tapping the phones of members of the royal household. He's being sentenced in January.

Second, "amazing" pictures, which made many of last week's papers, of animals still in the womb actually turn out to be fake. They were, in fact, models. D'oh!

Not much more to say about either of them, really, except draw your own conclusions!

Grade musings, whilst Sweden thinks DAB is a bad idea...

The UK media has been self-obsessing all day over the move by Grade from the BBC to ITV. Much speculation about what next for the BBC before the renewal of the Charter, and the next two years for ITV. I think what's crucial is in the short term: the ITV relationship with BSkyB and the call from Virgin / NTL to OFCOM to look into the recent buy-in by BSkyB. Grade left the BBC, amongst other reasons, to go back to programme-making... with Sky on board, that's highly possible, and a definate way of rubbing NTL's nose in it.

Once again, however, the media have missed another very interesting (for their future) story. Over in Sweden, the new Culture Minister has said that DAB radio is not the radio of the future. She reckoned people buying completely new radio receivers was neither economically nor politically possible.

Point: politically impossible? Crikey DM, they're making digital radio a political issue! This is Sweden, not some small third world country that can't afford the infrastructure upgrade. As the British government get their head around what it actually means to switch off analogue telly, it's rather significant that such a move could get political. Watch this space, as they say.

Grade goes to ITV

And there was me having a quiet evening watching BBC4, I flick over to BBC1 for the news and there's the Daily Telegraph story from Jeff Randall announcing Michael Grade is leaving the BBC for ITV. Here's the break on BBC News.

According to Sky, Randall suggests 'the gossip has been going on for weeks' and the BBC are 'shocked' that he's off. Ray Snoddy reckons Grade doesn't get on with Murdoch, which will make the Sky / ITV deal interesting.

More tomorrow when it's sunk in a bit

Spy poisoning suspect

Amongst the many conspiracies doing the rounds in both the mainstream and alt media, this is probably the funniest...

The Reithian or Brechtian BBC?

This is a great site comparing what the BBC News site puts where in its agenda, and what users are actually reading. It's a basic list, but I've dipped into it a few times over the weekend already and nodding appreciatively at the thought.

For instance, the BBC's top story is the overnight rocket attack in Gaza. The top read, however, is the killing of a groom by police in New York City. Readers see the Gaza story as fifth on the list. The site exclaims that the BBC is "38%" in touch with what we're reading.

Now, other media stoats may want do a grand piece of analysis on this: social demographics of the site's users, editorial biases of the BBC's public service remit, and the like, all influencing the whys and wheres of the information, but that aside, it's an interesting comparison. It also fluctuates - I noticed it was up to 68% at one point yesterday!

So to explain the title, does this site answer the question: Is the BBC still Reithian in giving the masses the 'best of everything', or slowly turning to Brecht's partcipatory media (radio, but I'm sure he'd approve of the internet)? The news site is still giving users a list of stuff to read, but leaving it up to the readers to select their material.

Still, it's a miserable day and the cricket's miserable too. Grief...

Braving the autumn weather

I'm about to brave the wind and rain this morning to rescue a package from the post office. This being the downside of all those promises that shopping for the festive season would be made easier by going on line. Yeah, right.

Still, Amazon and others have just about fulfilled the list, although I still found myself in the centre of London on Friday getting something special for the other half.

So as I go out into the elements today, I spare a thought for those poor journalists hanging around, as they call it, 'a sushi bar in London' still covering the Litvenenko story. You know, I never thought I'd see the headline 'Atom Attack' on British television (Sky News, last night). Although, it seems to be a theme... see the Kuwait Times piece.

Bloody Awesome!

Went to see Muse at Wembley for the second time this week.

Awesome. That's all, really. Different shows each night, some different songs, too. It was great to be reminded what fantastic tunes they've done. Marvellous audio-visual experience, there was too much going on to really take everything in.

As my pal said after the gig, what must it be like waking up each morning realising you're Matt Bellamy?

Genuis. Far too much talent, the three of them!

Spies, lies and videotapes

The UK rolling news media has been obsessed with two stories all day today. Not Tony Blair in Afghanistan, not a school shooting in Germany, but spies, lies and battles over media convergence.

A former Russian spy poisoned by thallium in sushi has got the conspiracy theories, experts and former spies back into the cold light of media exposure. Correspondents have been out on the streets of London and Moscow rounding up commentators and atmospheric camera angles, and sexy graphic-ed packages were built up in time for the main evening bulletins. They all had their theories - criminals, warlords, revenge, the Russian state, Putin himself... they were loving it. Even more so when the UK's own security services announced they were looking into it. Indeed, the media book of spy stereotypes was dusted off today. Suffice to say, there was no word of the story on Russia Today...

Second obsession was Sky buying into ITV and Richard Branson not being very happy about it. As someone who rarely finds themselves on ITV anymore, this argument isn't about programming or content, is it? Tell me it's more to do about controlling distribution and convergence of platforms. Branson wants in to media (after 'merging' with ntl) and Sky wants to keep him out. The sorry tale has been referred to UK regulator OFCOM, so expect a fuzzy outcome and a whole lot of speculation from the rest of the media - such as the BBC particularly indulging in some schaudenfreuda - as to 'what this means'. Means stuff all to the massess who just want to see soaps and celebs in reality programmes.

The cold's a little better, thanks. Nothing that a hearty meal and a warm brandy at bedtime won't sort out.

Stuffed-up stoat

This week is my busiest in a while - a day's training, then Radio At the Edge on Thursday, and seeing Muse at Wembley on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Plus, the Ashes starts at around 3am on Thursday morning, although trying to work out how the plugged-to-death BBC Radio Five Live podcast coverage works is beyond me (distinct lack of a mention of this on their website beoynd their preview programme).

And with enough proper work in the office to keep me going all week and a 3,000 word essay to start, let alone finish, on alternative media and national identity - stick with me - why, oh why, is now the perfect time to come down with a miserable head cold??

So I'm off work feeling rotten, stuffed up and sore-throated, but it does mean that cat and I are curled up watching Al-Jazeera English during the day.

Front line documentaries

A friend spotted that the Tafalgar Studios (within the Whitehall Theatre) was running their first cinema viewings today, namely three short films from the Independent Film and Television College of Baghdad.

So we took an hour out of work and popped along to a freezing (over-excited air-con) intimate studio theatre.

The three films were: Baghdad Days, the diary of a Kirkuk student who returns to Baghdad in 2005 looking for work, finding a place to live and generally living in the city in changing times; Hiwar, the story of Iraqi artists forming a meeting place and gallery; and Omar Is My Friend, a taxi driver and student braving checkpoints and having only daughters in a male-dominated society. I'd already seen parts of Omar on Channel 4 in their Three Minute Wonder slot.

Bearing in mind these were first attempts at documentary making by film students and therefore technically still learning the ropes - it shows - the subject matter and initial story-telling were superb. Afterwards, Maysoon Pachachi, one of the Iraqi film-makers who set up the college, di a Q&A session, in which she spoke about being a film-maker in the Middle East, and told the sadly small audience (about 20 of us) what had happened to the main characters since the documentaries were made about a year ago.

If you get a chance to see any of these, I can highly recommend them as snapshots of ordinary life in Baghdad in 2005, particularly the human side of Iraqis going out to vote for the first time. Maysoon told the audience that Al Jazeera English has just commissioned some films from her students, so wtahc this space. Sadly, the security situation has deteriorated since then, which made the films even more special.

Today's other news...

Whilst the UK's mass media worried themselves about the start of Al-Jazeera English, they missed thte start of a new English rolling news channel on Sky. Tucked away on Channel 182 (on Information TV2) is Russia Today.

This is Russian news in English, and international news from a Russian perspective. So why not give it a 500 number like AJE? Probably because for a few hours a day it carries The Jewellry Channel. Nice.

Picture quality's good, apart from the lighting being a little too bright and the ticker at the bottom of the screen which is clipped (see pic). But, like AJE I've added it to my favourites.

This is all very refreshing, and will make a change from the western-centric biases of the likes of CNN, Fox, Sky News and the BBC.

By the way, why did Media Guardian make a thing of the fact that AJE had techincal problems on their first day? So the AJE website crashed. Yes, these things happen when you're popular. And there was a problem with lip-sync in the first hour. How many times does that happen (unreported) on the BBC and Sky? Lots. OK, so it's not good in your first hour, but these things happen and it was sorted. Next will come the cry of "no one's watching".

Well, I doubt many people will be watching Russia Today... but that won't make it a less legitimate news outlet.

The Turkish Airlines Experience

I've just come back from a lecture gig in Turkey and flew an internal and international flight on Turkish Airlines. What an experience!

First off, I have to say coming in to Istanbul over the mountains and the coastline is very impressive, the weather was perfect. But what made the experience better was that on the international flight, there was a selection on the interactive back-of-seat screen called 'flight cam'. I found it by accident as we trundled along the taxiway waiting to take off as the screen in front of me defaulted to it.

'Flight Cam' is completely useless in mid-flight as there's nothing to see for the clouds. but on take off, landing and chugging along to the gate, there was something worryingly exciting to have the cockpit-eye view of the way ahead. Just like being part of a large simulator. Well, I liked it. I would've taken a pic but whenever the chap in front moved around, a loose cable gave the screen a purple tinge. There's also a button marked 'aft-cam', which simply shows you what cloud you've just flown over. Landing at Heathrow was fantastic, watching the landing lights getting closer.

Other good things. Breakfast: a cheese sandwich with, not roasted peppers, just thick slices of raw, crunchy pepper. Hmm, crispy and tasty. Turkish red wine: actually, very nice indeed for a dry red. Can't for the life of me remember what it was called. Dual English and Turkish language everywhere - that is, the staff, the text of the in-flight rag and all the notices.

Only two down sides. The airbus for the international leg had a distinct lack of legroom. This was because the box of tricks controlling the in-flight entertainment consoles for each seat was underneath that seat. So one small handbag, usually not an issue, actually squandered any legroom I had. Second, the bloke next to me fell asleep and snored very loudly for about two hours. Again, usually fine, but my i-pod decided it didn't want to play ball anymore and the airline headphones weren't the most effficient things I've ever used.

All in all, though, a cracking flight and I'd recommend Turkish, and both my flights were economy. Changing at Istanbul was interesting - I was walking very quickly and I only just made it on a 30 minute transfer (leave more time). All this even after the end of the flight was rather spoiled because of congestion at Heathrow - again - which meant lots of Turkish lift music - and a fire alert in baggage re-claim just as we walked through. Great.

Absolutely shattered now though, as I was at the airport for 2.45 GMT... zzz...

Rumsfeld news a comedy coup

This is one of the funniest stories in ages. While cautious of a web-wind-up, the Comedy Central blog seems to have broken the story of US Secetary of Defense Rumsfeld resigning a whole eleven hours before the event, and, it seems, hours before the 'mainstream' media got hold of it.

This is truly embarrassing for the US media. Why does a comedy channel break a large news story like this? The conspiracy types would probably use this to illustrate their line that the US media is in the hands of the Republican party, who would want to break this story on their terms. I admit that most of my recent understanding of US political affairs comes from the Daily Show... all right, maybe not, but I do watch more of that than Fox or CNN these days.

One in the bag for blogging, and for fake news outlets everywhere. UK satire programmes take note...

Reporting religion rubs salt in the wound

This evening on BBC Radio Five Live, there was the usual two-way between a newspaper journalist - today from the Times - and presenter Peter Allen, talking about the stories in the papers for tomorrow (a free advertisement for the Times, then).

The story that got my stoat was one from Glastonbury, where allegedly Catholic youngsters had been engaging in a war of words with pagans. Glastonbury, apparently, has a lot of pagans. It was so bad that some pagans had had salt thrown at them. Which to me suggests the ignorance of those doing the salt throwing. Still.

Through this was laughing from the presenter. I hope it was a laugh at the stupidity of the incident. But the thought did cross my mind that if this was name calling and throwing substances at people of another religion, naming no names because that's not fair, I doubt there would have been such hilarious treatment of the story.

I'll have to flick through the Times tomorrow to see how they handle it, but it does seem to me that, once again, some religions and minority groups are treated very differently by the media than others.