I’ve just sent a letter to my esteemed local MP to encourage him to protect our photographs:

Today sees the second reading of the Digital Economy Bill. I have today become aware of the potentially very damaging consequences of clause 43 of thus bill which:

• removes the right of each individual creator and copyright owner to market their work to the clients they choose, for the uses they choose, at the price they have set
• In so doing it destroys any guarantee of exclusive use, and
• breaks the contractual ties between models, their agencies, property rights holders, photographers and clients, because
• images will be used in ways that rights holders would have forbidden, had they known beforehand
• says that images can be declared orphan after a “diligent search” for the owner without recognising the practical impossibility of such a search
• proposes that images should be licensed at “the market rate” while ignoring the impossibility of determining such a rate for any specific image
• proposes a scheme for managing orphan works that is not limited to orphan works

Perhaps more disturbingly clause 46 allows the Secretary of State to amend the Act by Statutory Instrument. This is a completely unnecessary step which could allow an unscrupulous future Secretary of State to make changes to the law without democratic accountability.

Please vote against this bill.

Myth’s river- where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boyflowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesised,
they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls’ sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs…
but when Odysseus came,

with an athlete’s build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd’s roar,
and it was sport, not war,

his charmed foot on the ball…

but then his heel, his heel, his heel…

‘Being efficient and offering better value for money’ is a very subjective principle.

In comparison with Sky TV, the BBC offers ‘only’ 7 or 8 full-time equivalent TV channels and a similar number of radio stations. However, if Sky TV disappeared overnight its place in British culture and society could be filled very swiftly.

The BBC at its best is beyond value.

It is of vital importance that the BBC’s offering is unique and distinctive. It should not seek to emulate commercial broadcasters unless it is to improve significantly upon their offerings.

I stopped listening to BBC Radio 1 during the daytime about eleven years ago as I found its output had become so mainstream that it could barely be distinguished from many local commercial stations.

A lot of BBC 1′s output is repetitive and formulaic (weekday mornings, in particular, are dreadful in this respect.)

BBC 3 has had its successes (such as Gavin & Stacey) yet, despite knowing many people within its target age group and being, myself, only just outside that group, I know of noone who habitually watches the channel.

The BBC has, within the UK, an unparalleled record of supporting the best in music, including classical, pop and rock.

BBC 6 Music embodies all that is best about the Corporation’s support for the more creative and risky end of contemporary music.

The BBC’s televised music coverage is less impressive. While ‘Later… with Jools Holland’ is a fine programme it appears also to be perhaps BBC TV’s only contemporary music programme.

The BBC’s sport coverage could at the moment be left almost entirely to commercial broadcasters. I enjoy sport but would prefer to see the BBC’s coverage devoted to sports with more of a minority interest.

The Director-General’s proposed editorial priorities are:

*
The best journalism in the world
*
Inspiring knowledge, music and culture
*
Ambitious UK drama and comedy
*
Outstanding children’s content
*
Events that bring communities and the nation together

The Trust thinks that the proposed editorial priorities fit well with those things you have told us are important to you in our previous research, but we want to consider how these priorities should be delivered to you in the future.
Do these priorities fit with your expectations of BBC TV, radio and online services?

Absolutely.

I would in particular point out that the priority of ‘inspiring knowledge, music and culture’ is fulfilled by two existing radio stations: Radio 3 and 6 Music. Both of these stations are exceptional and, just as Classic FM is no rival to Radio 3, there is no commercial rival to 6 Music.

Doing fewer things and doing them better

Much of Radio 1′s daytime output could, in my experience, be left to commercial broadcasters. The genius of BBC 6 Music lies in the knowledge of the vast majority of its presenters, their passion for the music they play, their independence from restrictive playlists and their engagement with a lively and intelligent audience.

BBC local radio could possibly be improved by sharing more output at certain times of day but care must be taken not to create another national network by stealth (rather as ITV now has barely any regional programming).

Guaranteeing access to BBC services

For DAB truly to be a success, a modern encoding system needs to be adopted, allowing for better sound quality within the same bandwidth. DAB+ could provide a solution which would also allow for better reception in cars.

It is reasonable to accept that more and more listening will take place over the internet and via digital TV services. Noticeably, however, BBC local radio is not currently available in this manner.

The BBC archive

The BBC has already had great success in selling CDs of Peel Sessions. I am quite sure that, rights permitting, there would be sufficient demand for a pay-as-you-view system to be sustainable.

If you are concerned about the BBC’s value for money, please tell us why.

The BBC is a bargain. Some of its output may well not be to my taste and some ought to be left to commercial broadcasters.

However, a fundamental principle of the Corporation ought to be that quality is more important than money. It would be rash to measure success in terms of audience share rather than to use the less tangible measure of depth of audience appreciation.

Setting new boundaries for the BBC

No national commercial broadcaster has come close to emulating BBC 6 Music. Although XFM broadcasts across much of the country on DAB, its programming is in fact such that it ignores much of the country and the music remains quite commercial. 6 Music has the freedom to play quite challenging music at all hours of the day.

6 Music has played a vital role in nurturing new bands and artists. It is the BBC’s freedom to take risks that has allowed this to take place.

Where the BBC buys in programming from abroad, it ought to ensure that it is buying the best and that it is given a regular slot in the schedule.

As I have mentioned before, the BBC ought not to be buying the rights to events which will be covered just as well by other broadcasters.

Money could be saved by reducing expenditure on some of the most commercially viable areas of the BBC. For example, does Simon Cowell’s latest protégé need any further promotion by the BBC?

I have been greatly impressed by the BBC’s impartiality over the years and applaud the Corporation’s continuing efforts to be impartial. However, I am horrified that the Corporation can consider the DEC’s Gaza appeal to have any partial political aims. People in that area, who have no means of leaving, are dying. This despicable decision of the BBC’s is perhaps the strongest argument in years for the abolition of a compulsory licence fee.
I am heartened that MPs are today acting by tabling the following EDM:

That this House is astonished by the refusal of the BBC and other broadcasters not to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee Gaza Crisis Appeal; notes the unconvincing and incoherent explanations given by BBC spokespeople for the decision; and draws attention to the fact that people wishing to contribute to the Gaza appeal can contact the DEC by calling 0370 60 60 900, writing to DEC Gaza Crisis, PO Box 999, London EC3A 3AA or visiting www.dec.org.uk.

I trust that the BBC will reconsider.
Yours sincerely, Luke Bosman

It’s time for a return to— or a formalisation of— good manners. Here’s how we do it:

1. Smile. Not all the time. Not at everybody. They’ll lock you up. But smile at the person who sells you your ticket at the station. Smile at the person behind the counter at the newsagent, even if, like the man who sometimes serves me at mine, he’s a miserable, sour-faced sod. That’s no reason to spread the gloom.

2. Say please and thank you. I’d like a medium decaff soya latte, please. Even if you insist, for whatever arcane reason, on using the phrase, “Can I get?”, suffix it with the p-word. It feels good coming out of your mouth. Combined with a smile (see: 1), it actually takes the edge off the sheer ritualistic, mechanical joylessness of an everyday transaction. When a man or woman in a brightly-coloured kagoule offers you a free newspaper, the very existence of which makes your blood boil, remember that it’s not his or her fault – they’re just trying to earn an honest crust, like you – so smile and say, “No, thanks.” It takes a second. You don’t even have to stop walking.

3. Let that car in. Driving is a nightmare, especially in the cities, and you want to get home, or to the shops. Of course you do. It’s only natural. But so does that person ahead of you, indicating that he/she wants to cross the lane that you’re in, to make a right turn. Why not flash them through? It’s one of those maddening high streets that starts at the traffic lights with two lanes then almost immediately bottlenecks into one because of a bus lane, or a parked lorry. Come on: one at a time. You can keep edging forward to keep them out, but they’ve got to come in at some point. Why not now? And if someone lets you in, give them a friendly wave in the rear-view mirror.

4. Be friendly to strangers. We were brought up to be terrified of strangers, but we’re all strangers until someone introduces us, and only a very tiny percentage of the people you pass in the street will be paedophiles or murderers. Most will be just like you, except with a different coat on, or a different bone structure, or with a few more miles on the clock. So if someone asks you directions, don’t run away, or pretend that you’re in a hurry, try to help them. Make them feel less like a stranger.

5. Help old people off or on the bus. There’s an etiquette here, so let’s use our discretion. Not all old people consider themselves old, and might look frail and in need of a seat, or a leg-up, but if you barge in there, they get embarrassed. It’s a minefield, but better to be the first person on a bus or in a carriage to offer your seat to someone with grey hair than to sit there, not knowing, willing someone else to do it first.

6. Buy the Big Issue and give some change to the homeless. I have put this one because I never, ever buy the Big Issue. I smile and say no thanks to Big Issue sellers, which is better than looking at the floor, or regarding them with contempt for slowing down your walk to the bus stop with their untidy appearance, but they’d rather you didn’t do any that and did still buy a Big Issue.

7. Be polite to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yes, I do object to people knocking on my door after dark, as I always think of the old lady I used to live next door to in Streatham, who would have been terrified of a knock after dark, even if it was from an accredited British Gas salesman hawking for her electricity business. I think it’s OK to pretend you’re not at home if the doorbell goes after dark. You’re doing it on behalf of the old people. But if you do answer the door and it’s a young lad with a case full of inferior cleaning products, or two smartly dressed men asking if you ever think about Jesus Christ (or at least getting to that key question after luring you into small talk about non-religious matters), just politely tell them that you are not interested or that you are busy and smile as you close the door.

8. Never swear at people on the other end of helplines. They are just doing their job. If they cannot help you, ask to speak to their supervisor. During my telecommunication problems last summer, I reached the point of no return and calmly informed the Scottish gentleman on the other end of the line that I was about to swear, but not at him, only through frustration, and that he should not take it personally. Then I swore.

9. Never, ever drop litter. This may seem to be outside the remit of manners, but it’s not. It’s about respecting the space we share. It’s an extension of smiling and being nice. I’ve seen grown adults eat the last crisp in a packet and literally let the packet drop from their hand to the pavement below, without even a look back. Putting a Starbucks cup neatly on the pavement is no better than chucking it, overarm. Put it in a bin. If the nearest bin is full, take it to the next one.

10. Leaving bags of stuff outside charity shops when they’re closed? Come on! The signs are clear enough. Just because you’re a superhero for giving an old jigsaw and some jumpers to charity it doesn’t mean you can just dump bin bags by night with a clear conscience. Yes, the old ladies who work in there are volunteers, but does that mean they can think of nothing nicer at the start of a working day than sorting through your rain-sodden rubbish before they can even get in the door?

11. Talk to people at the check-out. You don’t have to say much. Even something inane like, “Busy in here, today, isn’t it?” or “Not as busy as usual in here, today, is it?” might put us on the road to peace in the Middle East. Carrying on grumping around and spreading those grump vibes certainly isn’t going to help.

12. Don’t swear when there are kids about. I do, occasionally, if I’m in a family-friendly eaterie, and it’s not nice. Reel those swear words in.

iTunes is an a la carte model: you see the track you like and pay your 79p. A big drawback with iTunes is that it has inbuilt digital rights management (DRM), which prevents you playing ‘your’ music on anything other than an iPod [my emphasis], although iTunes has begun to introduce some DRM-free tracks. On Napster, you can listen to your chosen music for as long as your subscription is valid, including music stored on your MP3, but it too is not ‘your’ music (you can’t burn it off your computer onto CDs).”

It’s always disappointing to see how the press continue to misrepresent the iTunes Music Store: you can in fact play iTMS downloads on anything because you may burn each track to CD as often as you wish and any given playlist five times. The dealbreaker with Napster must surely be that when the customer (and it’s nice of him to write) stops paying his £14.95 a month, or when the service closes, the music files become useless.

It would surely be sensible to view iTMS as a shop that makes life ever so slightly awkward for customers who want to listen to files on their Creative Zens, iRiver or other mp3 player (as well as cassette player, minidisc, 8-track cartridge…) while Napster is a subscription radio station that allows its customers to choose the tracks which they would like to hear each month.

On a completely unrelated note: I was nearly mown down at a zebra crossing yesterday. The rider of the scooter in question made no attempt to brake until I stopped, irrationally, in his path (demonstrating the pedestrian equivalent of target fixation). He left two or more metres of rubber on the ground and stopped within a couple of inches of me. I tried to say something like, Have you ever thought of taking lessons to use that thing? but think I may actually have said, Have you ever hungmpht dabrkl…

As the rider repeated that I should go forth and multiply out of his way (or something on those lines) and then tried riding his bike through me, I rang the police while realising that the chap was now surrounded by witnesses who were noting down his registration number and giving me their details. The police are coming tonight to take a statement. At the very least, they should be able to prosecute the chap for riding on a street which is open only to buses, taxis and bicycles and for not giving way to a pedestrian on the crossing.

Before long, Sony will be telling us that we need to pay each time we choose to play one of their songs as customers are clearly copying the music in to their own heads.

I feel obliged to restate my position: home-taping is spreading music. However, it occurs to me that it is highly likely that the head of litigation for Sony BMG might own a Walkman. Would Ms. Pariser like to assure the world that she has not stolen ‘just one copy’ of any music, whether she has purchased it or not?

If she has, will she do the honourable thing and resign?

By that time, the series was up to something like episode 6 and it didn’t seem like a good idea to start watching at that point. I now am sure that I made the right decision. The first two episodes were broadcast by the Beeb just before we went on holiday. We watched some more last night, to my mother’s bemusement.

The series, by the way, is Heroes. Watching it on BBC HD last night I realised that I shall shortly have to ditch most of my DVDs in favour of their high definition equivalents where you can see the odd individual hair, the veins of a leaf and the individual blades of grass.

I’m not generally a huge fan of television and could probably count on the fingers of one hand the unmissable series of the last few years but I think Heroes may be about to join those ranks.

Author Tim Moore wrote a book, Nul Points, about acts which failed to score at the Eurovision Song Contest.
He told the BBC News website what he thought of this year’s competition, won by Serbian singer Marija Serifovic, and particularly the performance of UK quartet Scooch, who finished joint 22^nd out of 24.I actually thought Flying the Flag by Scooch was a fine song in the true tradition of Eurovision.Yes, it was a bit cheesy, but it was frothy, bubble-gum stuff.I thought it had all the ingredients for a good Eurovision song – but perhaps a good Eurovision song in 1996, and that was probably where we went a little bit wrong.Generally speaking over the past few years, the big four – the UK, France, Spain and Germany – have been right down at the bottom at the end so this was not unexpected. But I think it deserved to do much better than it did.The only act to score fewer points than Scooch was Ireland’s Dervish
Scooch had a catchy tune, but all the other ones tended to blend into a big, forgettable morass of power-ballads and soft rock.Really it was dreadful – I thought it was the worst Eurovision in living memory, frankly.

The chap has a point. While some journalists are trying to blame everything on Scooch themselves, I think the journalists should perhaps take a long hard look at those members of the British public who voted for Scooch to represent this country in Europe when they could have been voting for Hawkins and Brown. The fact is that the rest of Europe seems to have realised that there’s more to a song contest than outright cheese.

As for the oft-repeated suggestion that This voting for neighbours is a nonsense now. You could sit there last night and you knew who they were going to give the 12 points to, every single time, it would be fairer to recognise that the Czech Republic is not Montenegro’s neighbour. Nor does Russia have a border with Serbia. It is just ever so plausible that the Slavs recognise the vocal patterns of other slavonic languages and vote accordingly.

Cyprus, however, has no excuse. They will give Greece 12 points for at least the next twenty years.