Bad News

The recent stoush over gender pay gaps in the BBC has thrown a spotlight on more than just the gulf between the salaries of some of its employees – it's also highlighted just how grotesquely inflated the pay packets of so-called celebrities are. Especially those paid by us, the taxpayers. 

So, on your behalf, dear reader, I have been casting a critical eye over the presenters in particular, (it's my right eye; my left one is more tolerant) and I am now ready to give you my opinion of their huge salaries. In a word: bollocks.

Before the main rant, let me just say that I am qualified to cast judgement on news presenters in particular. In the 1980s I was one of them myself, in New Zealand, on a regional news programme which went out live-to-air five nights a week immediately after the main national news.

A younger me presenting the regional news in NZ

My job was basically the same as any of the news presenters today: sit in a studio, read from an autocue, speed up or slow down your presentation to ensure the programme fits into the allotted time, and keep things running if something goes wrong. There was admittedly an element of scriptwriting for the introductions to the stories, but even that was usually based on information supplied by the reporters who were driving them.

I was not a celebrity or personality, and I was classed (and paid) as a 'senior journalist' – mainly because the role of 'news presenter' didn't officially exist, at least not at TVNZ. At that time anyone on the telly in New Zealand was an employee, not a 'star' on a negotiated fee plus bonuses with two months off every summer. 

Pleasingly (at least to me) my role was slightly more involved than just news reading – I would sometimes go out with a film crew to direct and present features, plus if we had what we called 'a visiting fireman' – a personality or famous person of some sort – I would interview them live during the programme in the studio.  In a nutshell, I had a few more things to do than just read the news.

Now to the rant, with a capital Aaargh. BBC news presenters in particular don't do anything other than sit in their chairs, read robotically from an autocue, and… well, that's it. Even their studio 'guests' – who are invariably BBC specialist rounds editors (finance, crime, health, social, etc.) – are not actually 'interviewed'; they simply present a report they otherwise would have done had they been crossed to 'live' somewhere.

Oh, and don't get me started on this ‘crossing live’ thing! Why does the news insist on 'crossing live to (insert name here) in (insert place here)' for a report that is inevitably in front of a closed courthouse, outside a dark chainlink-fenced factory, or on a deserted street cordoned off with police tape where something happened six hours previously? The reporters stand there telling us breathlessly what happened hours earlier on this very spot, wasting our money (in the case of the BBC) instead of being in the comfy warm studio beside the news presenter. Crossing live is bollocks also.

But I digress. Let me get back to the main rant, and reveal here and now that almost anyone could be a news presenter. Literally almost anyone. Can you read? You're on the road to fame and fortune. Can you look serious and stern, yet morph into light and jolly when required? You're hired. Can you use the voice of doom for bad news, and be on the verge of giggles when called for? The job is yours. It's that easy. Seriously. I know; I've done it, and it is one of the cakiest pieces of jobs in the world.

Channel 4’s news is to be commended. Their news presenters, such as Matt Frei, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Cathy Newman and others actually conduct in-depth interviews live in the studio, and not just with patsy Ch. 4 journalists; theirs are with senior politicians, captains of industry, union leaders, in fact anyone who is a big-enough target and deserves to be put under the interrogation lamp. Just watch them - they actually perform real interviews, which involve an on-the-spot thrust and parry that the BBC’s sanitized and rehearsed stuff just can’t match.

Matt Frei of Ch. 4 news

I like their newsreaders better too, when they present to-camera. They have more believability, more credibility than, say, the BBC’s Fiona Bruce, whose style is so conspiratorial that I feel the need to draw my chair closer to the television so that nobody else can hear what she’s telling me. She is allegedly paid between £350,000 and £400,000, and that's just to talk to me. There are others, but I am overcome with such ennui I can’t bring their names to mind. What I can tell you is that I would happily do Ms Bruce’s job for only twenty percent of what she’s paid, and I would do it better.

Come closer, let me whisper in your ear...

The only one at the BBC news worthy of note is political editor Laura Kuenssberg. She must be good since she has been threatened, and has required a body guard; you know your questions are getting close to the bone when that happens. Alas Laura and her posh wardrobe of elegant coats is usually confined to a rooftop somewhere in Westminster for most of her reports.

Laura wondering where her bodyguard is

I want Ms Kuenssberg to be the BBC’s main news reader, in the studio, allowed to do her incisive interviews and ask her intelligent questions live, and definitely not talk to rehearsed ‘editors’ who have exactly 50” to say their prepared piece. Are you listening BBC?

So, presenters’ salaries are bollocks, particularly at the BBC where they do sod-all to earn them. Our licence fees pay for this ‘service’ and we are absolutely short-changed. That’s the end of the news, here’s the weather.

Double-O London

I've always wanted to be a spy. I'd be good at it because, as I understand it, to be effective you have to blend in, be unnoticeable, be in fact the 'grey man'. I do that very well. Every time I walk into a shop I am ignored, likewise at bars, where bar staff just look right through me and serve whoever else is there instead. I am invisible. And thirsty.

In December I met an ex-military man at a Christmas party here in London, and somehow we got around to talking spies. He told me that while in the army he had requested to join the spooks. 'They wouldn't take me,' he laughed. 'Told me I was too tall!' He was indeed over six-foot, and that proved my point: to be an effective intelligence officer in the field you can't be too distinctive.

MI6 - a large and easy target beside Vauxhall Bridge

Times have changed hugely in the intelligence community though. There was a time when the headquarters of MI5 and MI6 would have been kept very low profile, but now all you have to do is Google them and you get their full addresses, historical backgrounds, and all sorts of information the Russians would have had to employ an army of intelligence officers to gather in the days before the Internet.

Anyway, you can't miss MI6 beside Vauxhall Bridge. It's featured in James Bond films and architecturally can hardly be said to blend in. It's an enormous building, all sandstone and green glass, perfectly symmetrical and a large and easy target, as evinced by an RPG attack on it by the Real Irish Republican Army in September 2000. They couldn’t miss – and didn’t – though no injuries or deaths were reported.

MI5, the domestic secret service is in Thames House further down river on the other bank, but although its 1930 architecture is more in keeping with older London it too has featured in mainstream media, notably the eponymous Spooks TV series. I photographed it earlier today, and they no doubt

MI5 - As Seen on TV

caught me doing so on their CCTV cameras hanging off the building. I also noticed a 'technician' up a lighting pole directly opposite, working away at some wiring, while at street level the normally anonymous electrical cabinet was wide open exposing all sorts of internal components, one of which was clearly labelled 'CCTV'. I suspect he worked for the Russians. Or Trump.

Russian operatives disguised as telecommunications workers outside MI5 in London

As I left, a military helicopter flew overhead and I quickened my pace. Back on the tube I decided to put my invisibility to good use and practise my spying skills, to see if I could spot any terrorists. Having recently been educated by the Prince Philip School of Terrorist Identification I knew what to look for. The only problem was, based on Phil’s advice, there were at least fifteen of them in my carriage alone. I got off as quickly as I could.

Instead of alerting the authorities, who were probably following me by now anyway, I went to visit one of the many spy shops in London. This one is in Howland Street, and is called Spymaster. Personally if I ran a spy shop I'd have the entrance as an innocuous door with a brass plate that said something boring like Universal Exports, but no, Spymaster has a large and visible street presence. 

I walked in. I was tempted to say in a Russian accent, 'The roses are blooming early this year' just to see if they had a sense of humour, but the two geeks behind the counter were busy with a customer so I contented myself with a browse. 

As is typical of my blending-in skills they hardly noticed me, even while I was taking photos of their merchandise, which ranged from wearable clothing cameras and recording devices through to counter-surveillance equipment, stab-proof vests and even a demonstration bulletproof car door with bullet holes in the metal and window glass. Well, not holes actually because the armour plating effectively stopped any penetration. Take that Goldfinger.

Everything for the covert operative at Spymaster

I snuck out before they tried to sell me something. Anyway, if you just go on eBay or Amazon you can find all the covert equipment you would ever need, though if you want to maintain anonymity you’d have to order from an Internet café, use someone else’s credit card and get your items delivered to some random address, outside of which you’d have to hover waiting for the postie. Easier to go to Spymaster (who assure a ‘confidential’ service) or one of the others.

I have actually brushed shoulders with the security intelligence world. When I was aged ten I wrote off to Special Branch for career information, which they kindly sent. Later, in my early 20s I wrote to the New Zealand SIS enquiring about job opportunities, and they too responded, but said they only accepted applicants with law degrees. That put me off.

Some years later I was indeed interviewed by a spook, but only as part of a security clearance process for someone who was applying for a job there. I recall the man was certainly non-descript – definitely a grey man – and that he asked me silly questions like, ‘Has the applicant ever been a member of the communist party?’ and, ‘Had the applicant ever been on any protest marches?’ He failed to ask the more obvious, ‘Do you think the applicant is a Russian spy?’

More recently, around 2008, I was engaged on a communications project for the New Zealand Defence Forces, and had to work out of the same building as the Security Intelligence Service. Because I was exposed to this military environment I had to undergo a security clearance, so duly filled in all the forms and supplied evidence of my birth, address, non-communist status, etc.

Two months after I finished the project I received my clearance, to ‘Secret’ level.

But I could never qualify as a spy now anyway, having worked in television. Although that was only in New Zealand, the chances of being recognised during a covert operation are too great. So, not only can I not get any service in shops or bars, I can’t help reduce the terrorist threat either.

The closest I get to the spying world these days is that my sister-in-law lives near the government communications training headquarters. I can’t tell you where of course, because then I’d have to kill you.


(You can listen to this blog as a podcast here!)

There’s a Storm Coming!

Storm Dylan  was supposed to have given us a hammering last week, though I can’t say I noticed. At
least not in London, where on Wimbledon Common I barely saw a blade of grass move, no trees swaying, and Liz and I were even able to comfortably picnic on one of the benches without our Sainsbury’s sandwich wrappers blowing away. Dylan schmillen.

Now it’s Eleanor’s turn, and parts of Britain have been told to expect 80mph+ winds, high tides, and possibly flooding. We’ll see. The Tightly-Furled Umbrella remains, at least at this point, tightly-furled.

The meteorological service has been naming storms for only the past two to three years, but already we’ve become accustomed to this anthropomorphic attempt at giving them a personality. It’s so much more satisfying when you can rage against a person. Bloody Brian! Cursed Katie, etc., though it doesn’t at all alter the damage a storm can do, or decrease the dangers. It just gives us something to cling to, which, in 80mph winds, isn’t a bad thing.

Having lived in so-called ‘Windy Wellington’, New Zealand’s capital, for many years, Liz and I are well-accustomed to taking a hammering from its two main blusters, the northerly and the southerly. No names for these, they’re just ‘that bloody northerly or southerly’ – the compass point of origin is all you need to know. They’re measured locally on the trampoline scale. A Force 5 Trampoline will see the garden rebounder overturn, while a Force Eight will see it in the neighbour’s garden, upside down. Possibly with the neighbour underneath. Any force higher than that and you send out a search party.

With Wellington’s breezes commonly achieving 60mph-plus, and over 70mph quite regularly, Wellingtonians simply shrug off these zephyrs and heap extra praise on the city on those days when the sun shines and there’s no wind. That’s when you hear the phrase ‘You can’t beat Wellington on a good day’ trotted out, though the words have hardly left your mouth before they’re blown away again.

So Eleanor’s threat of 80mph doesn’t faze us, and certainly not in London, where winds rarely seem to get serious enough to even mention, let alone name. Data from a site called Weather Spark indicates that at this time of the year through to early April, London’s average wind speed is just over 11.5 miles per hour, and that is, officially, in the storm season. It’s hardly strong enough to flap our EU flag.

Anyway, far from battening down the hatches, I’ve been doing some research to find out how storms are named, and it turns out it’s done alphabetically, with a new list created especially for each new storm season. So far this season we’ve had storms Aileen, Brian, Caroline, and Dylan the most recent; Eleanor is next. After that you can look forward (in order – because this is done by the meteorological service)  Fionn, Georgina, Hector, Iona, and James. There’s more, but I’ve run out of puff.

Apparently, when the nomenclature scheme was announced, more than 10,000 names were collected for consideration. Some of these are almost certainly unprintable, some unpronounceable, and others un-PC, so we’ve ended up with ‘safe’ names which have been agreed by both the Met Office in the UK and Ireland's Met Eireann. They’ve also agreed to alternate between genders, though this doesn’t take into account gender fluidity. There’s no Quentin either, because it’s been agreed that storm names won’t be used if they begin with Q, U, X, Y or Z. Apparently there aren’t enough names that begin with those letters, which must piss off the Yussefs, Xaviers, Zeldas and Ursulas. And Quentins.

Not all storms get to be named though – it depends on their forecasted severity and likely impact, so you only get a moniker if you’re a nasty piece of work. But we’re missing a trick here, because some names from history could be ideally linked to raging tempests, and could be chosen for their historical contexts rather than their inoffensive or politically-correct nature.

A weather bomb that was likely to move from England across the North Sea and cause immense damage to Germany for example could be called Winston. An incredible gale sweeping down from Scotland that battered England surely deserves to be named Wallace.

But for a massive cyclonic windstorm that uproots 300 year-old trees, rips roofs off buildings, smashes power lines to the ground and erodes the spirit of the common man, there is only one name: Thatcher. A Thatcher wouldn’t just blow; it would handbag.

Stay safe.

(You can listen to this blog as a podcast here!)