media | Steve Woods

Advice to an elderly aunt in legal difficulties

11/11/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Panorama is a current affairs documentary news programme broadcast by the BBC. First aired in 1953, it is the world’s longest-running television news magazine programme.

However, Panorama’s longevity has not shielded it from controversy, especially when it has committed a foolish act, as has come to light in the past few days.

A Panorama programme broadcast in Novermber 2024 about one of the runners’ suitability as a candidate for the presidency of the United States touched on the storming of the US Capitol on 6th January 2021 following an inciteful speech given to rioters by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is on a personal mission to Make America Grate Again (or something similar. Ed.).

Panorama’s great sin was to edit Trump’s speech (a necessity for the sake of coherence in most instances whenever President Felon opens his north and south for more than 10 seconds. Ed.) so it appeared even more inciteful than it already was, even though the hardcore MAGA louts had no intention of peacefully protesting. The editing was criticised in an internal BBC report, which somehow found its way into the hands of the Telegraph. Often regarded as the in-house journal of the Conservative Party, the Telegraph is no great fan of Auntie.

Once the leaked memo’s contents became known the media, media spokespeople and politicians all reacted. In particular, Karoline Leavitt (President Rapist’s Mouth of Sauron. Ed.) characterised the BBC as “100% fake news”.

Heads rolled as a consequence of the subsequent furore, namely those of the Director General Tim Davie and the broadcaster’s head of news, Deborah Turness.

However, that was not the end of the fallout. tRump, a man with a very thin skin and a vindictive lust for vengeance against every perceived slight, has threatened the BBC with a lawsuit for $1 bn. if there is no retraction of the “false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements” allegedly made by Panorama.

The letter from President Golf Cheat’s lawyers state that the demand is being made under Florida Statute § 770.011, which as far as your ‘umble scribe’s limited legal knowledge stretches, is not applicable under the law of England and Wales. If defamation litigation is planned in Florida, it would not stand a chance if the Panorama programme in question – Trump: A Second Chance? – has not been broadcast in Florida itself.

Furthermore, if the case were held in England and Wales under the applicable law, there’s a further snag: a term limiting litigation for libel cases. The Independent notes that when interviewed by the BBC, British media lawyer Mark Stephens explained as follows:

The UK defamation claim is now out of time. He had one year from Monday October 28, 2024, when Panorama aired so he is 14 days out of time or so in the UK.

President Business Fraud’s lawyers’ letter to the BBC merits a reply, of course. Your correspondent’s opinion is that Auntie’s legal advisers should reply along the lines of the 1971 Arkell vs. Pressdram case. Pressdram is the proprietor of the satirical magazine Private Eye and its reply in this matter was as follows.

We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.

The case was subsequently dropped.
News of Irish independence bypasses Shropshire

28/10/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

In December 1921 the Anglo-Irish Treaty established the Irish Free State as a largely self governing and autonomous dominion within the British Empire. It came into existence one year later on 6th December 1922. This marked the first step towards Irish independence and the beginning of the end of English meddling on the island of Ireland which had started with the Anglo-Norman invasion back in the 12th century, i.e. some eight centuries.

As a political entity, the Irish Free State endured until the end of December 1937 when a new Irish constitution was adopted and the state became a de facto republic.

However, news of these events between eighty and one hundred years ago still seem not to have reached some remote areas of Englandshire, like the county of Shropshire and its main local newspaper, the Shropshire Star, which today published this story under the UK News category (screenshot below).

It’s clearly going to take centuries for the British/English to lose their tendency to regard large swathes of the world and other peoples’ countries as belonging to the British/English state.
Pizza places to close in two non-existent counties

21/10/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities
According to Wikipedia, “A county is a type of officially recognized geographical division within a modern country, federal state, or province.”

Within England shires were established in the Anglo-Saxon period, shires were established as areas used for the raising of taxes and usually had a fortified town at their centre. This became known as the shire town or later the county town. In many cases, the shires were named after their shire town (for example Bedfordshire).

Middlesex is one of the thirty-nine historic counties of England. Its name is derived from its origin as a homeland for the Middle Saxons in the early Middle Ages, with the county subsequently part of that territory in the ninth or tenth century. As a county it managed to survive for the best part of a millennium, finally being abolished by the London Government Act 1963, which came into force on 1 April 1965.

The cardboard county of Avon has a rather different history to the former shire named after the home of the Middle Saxons. It was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in the west of England which existed between 1974 and 1996. Named after the Bristol Avon, it comprised the cities of Bath and Bristol plus parts of south Gloucestershire and Somerset, which formed the other two local authorities – Northavon and Woodspring – within the county. Avon proved to be deeply unpopular, with locals bemoaning in some instances Bristol’s loss of county status in its own right, as well as traditional affiliations to both Gloucestershire and Somerset respectively. In 1996, the county was abolished and its administrative area split between four new unitary authorities: Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

Although both Middlesex and Avon have officially been abolished that does not mean their use has been discontinued, usually by the uninformed. There are still organisations out there which believe Bristol is part of Avon and that the county named after the Middle Saxons still exist. One of these is currently in the news.

One of those organisations is Pizza Hut, which has announced a number of closures of its outlets in the Untied Kingdom, as reported by the Bristol Post/Live.

All told, 68 Pizza Hut restaurants will close after the company behind its the US brand’s UK venues entered administration. These include the following five outlets in the aforementioned non-existent counties, as listed by Bristol’s paper of (warped) record:
- Bristol, Avon;
- Cribbs Causeway, Avon;
- Enfield, Middlesex;
- Feltham, Middlesex; and
- Hayes, Middlesex.
A few news outlets, such as the BBC, actually took the trouble to remove the erroneous county labels instead of blindly copying and pasting the list verbatim from the original press release.

For those still in need of a junk food fix, plenty of other pizza outlets are still open to the public in both real and non-existent counties. 😀
Local rag treats bereaved like software

19/10/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities, Tech

Yesterday’s Bristol Post featured a report of a man found dead at the scene of a camper van fire at the Hengrove Mounds nature reserve in south Bristol.

Reports about unexpected or unexplained deaths are not exactly uncommon fare for the local press anywhere.

However, what made this particular incident unusual was the manner in which the reporter chose to represent the subsequent action of the police after attending the incident, as quoted directly from the piece itself.

Efforts are currently ongoing to identify him in order to update his next of kin.

Update?

Use of appropriate language is just as important in writing for the local media as it is to a scientist writing a paper or an author penning a work of fiction. The poor man’s next of kin are not like software or kitchen cabinets!

For the benefit of any passing media studies graduates pretending to be journalists, you would have been told by any half-decent sub-editor that relatives and the next of kin are either notified or informed of their loved one’s untimely demise. Lumping grieving family in with software that needs a bug fix is not only very bad English indeed, but abysmal writing not worthy of being classed as journalism.
For British read English?

14/10/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

Yesterday’s Guardian carried a piece entitled Most of Great Britain’s major rail operators are back in public hands – is it working?.

At this point it would be easy – and flippant – to refer to Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, but your ‘umble scribe wishes to delve further into the substance of the article without invoking said law and saying no.

Given that the map handily provided to illustrate the article manages to miss the line to Oban, one might question the accuracy and utility of the entire piece.

Rail privatisation was a project undertaken with subsequent disastrous results by the Conservative government of John Major. It separated management of the track from the running of rail services of said track. It has resulted in services that no longer serve the travelling public (e.g. no holding a local service if the train from London is running late, especially if they services involved are provided by different operating companies. Ed.).

Ever since the end of the Covid pandemic some renationalisation has been undertaken. As train operating company franchises have expired, the services themselves have been taken back into public ownership, mainly due to concerns over financial woes and poor performance. This process started under the last Conservative government. In Cymru and Scotland, where transport is a devolved matter, Trafnidiaeth Cymru/Transport for Wales and ScotRail were both nationalised by the Welsh and Scottish devolved governments in 2021 and 2022 respectively, since when the latter abolished peak fares on its services in September 2025.

Withing England the pace of renationalisation has accelerated under the present Labour government, with three operators appearing in the public books since May: South Western Railway, C2C and Greater Anglia.

The next stage, according to the Guardian article, is the establishment of a new state-controlled company called Great British Railways, expected next year, which will manage rail infrastructure and services.

The logo for Great British Railways is a real dog’s dinner, consisting principally of the old British Railawy InterCity logo from 1966, combined with that Bloody Butcher’s Apron that some call the Union Jack.

Given that services are already nationalised in Cymru and Scotland, your ‘umble scribe wonders if what is being proposed is actually applicable to those devolved administrations. Although the information the government has released to date states it is applicable to England, Cymru and Scotland, all the announcements made to date all relate to train services provided solely in England.

Your correspondent believes this indicative of the centuries-old English colonial attitude to the island of Great Britain and perhaps a more apposite name for the government’s intentions would be English Railways minus the Great (which frequently happens to be grate. Ed.) with the corresponding logo in the colours of the flag of St George.

If any passing readers can supply more details about the ownership of infrastructure and provision of services in either Scotland or Cymru or how Great British Railways is likely to develop, kindly comment below.
Slow news day in Shropshire

10/10/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines a slow news day as ‘a day with little news to report‘.

Slow news days are typically when a lot of ‘filler‘ material (like food hygiene ratings if your name is the Bristol Post/Live. Ed.) is published to fill the otherwise empty space in a traditional dead tree publication.

However, this tendency and the phrase itself seem to have adapted without any trouble to the digital age and online publishing.

A fine example of this was apparent when your ‘umble scribe visited the Shropshire Star website earlier today and scrolled down the news page as far as the Motors news section.

Click on the image for the full size version.

The observant visitor will notice there is not a tinned, motorised three piece suite in sight in any of today’s stories for petrolheads!

A return visit at 14.00h revealed the pace of news had picked up: one of the pieces shown above was finally replaced by a motoring article.
Mural?

30/09/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

Yesterday’s Bristol Post reports:

A huge new floor mural celebrating Bristol’s ‘past, present and future’ has been unveiled in The Centre as the focus for the area that previously had fountains on it.

This new artwork, produced by the artist Oshii and a team of fellow artists put together by the Bedminster urban art festival organisation UpFest, is absolutely stunning and covers an area more than 700m².

Image courtesy of Our Common Ground

But is it mural? asks the wordsmith who resides inside your ‘umble scribe.

The answer is a definite no in the strictest sense. The Tate, somewhat of an authority in the art world defines a mural as follows:

A mural is a painting applied directly to a wall usually in a public space.

Bristol’s latest public artwork is executed in paint and is in a public space, but it’s on the ground, not a wall or ceiling, so is not strictly a mural in the accepted sense of the word, hence the less than accurate floor mural devised by the Post.

It’s not a mosaic, one of the only forms of decorative artwork applied to a flat horizontal surface as no tiles (also known as tesserae. Ed.) are used in its creation.

Perhaps the term painted pavement would be a better term in view of the existence of the Cosmati Pavement before the grand altar in Westminster Abbey.

Cosmati Pavement in Westminster Abbey.
Image courtesy pf Wikimedia Commons

If readers can come up with a more accurate and apposite term for the Centre’s newest artwork (which makes a refreshing change from statues of the dead white males so beloved of our Victorian forebears. Ed.), please feel free to post suggestions in the comment below.
The BBC and Farage – a complaint

09/09/2025 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

Today The National reported that the Liberal Democrats had written to broadcast regulator Ofcom to complain about the BBC’s excessive coverage (one might even say cheerleading. Ed.) of one Nigel Paul Farage, liar, charlatan, racist, Brexit cheerleader and chief honcho of alleged political party Reform UK.

Max Wilkinson, the Lib Dems’ culture and media spokesperson, has remarked: “The BBC is following Farage around like a lost puppy and the resulting wall-to-wall coverage is giving legitimacy to a man who wants to do to Britain what Trump is doing to America.”, as well as stating that the broadcaster is compromising its reputation.

Furthermore, the party states that it only receives a fraction of the coverage given to Farage and his fan club despite the Lib Dems having eighteen times as many MPs.

The full text of Mr Wilkinson’s letter is as follows:

Dear Melanie Dawes,

I’m writing to you to urge you to review whether the high volume of coverage of Reform UK by the BBC is in line with broadcast guidance.

The BBC is an important part of our national story. Research carried out this May revealed what many of us know instinctively: that the BBC is the most respected broadcaster in the world – ranking first across the globe for trust, reliability and independence. Its mission is to act in the public interest. The corporation is governed by Royal Charter.

By paying such disproportionate attention to Nigel Farage’s latest outfit, Reform UK, the BBC is compromising its reputation. To many licence fee payers, the broadcaster gives the impression that hangs on every word uttered by Nigel Farage, despite his party’s scant representation in Parliament. Most recently, we have seen Reform enact bans on journalism and spread dangerous untruths at its autumn conference, linking Covid vaccination jabs to cancer.

The coverage of my party, the Liberal Democrats, has been disproportionately low. The broadcaster’s online platform, BBC Online, mentions Nigel Farage three times as frequently as it does Ed Davey. In Parliament the Liberal Democrats represent eighteen times as many constituencies as Reform UK.

This discrepancy does real damage to the BBC’s reputation as a fair, independent broadcaster and its ability to abide by its own charter. By giving Reform lift and airtime that is denied to other parties, the BBC assists Reform’s poll rating – an interference in politics that goes against its chartered responsibility.

This country deserves fair, proportional and balanced journalism. Currently the BBC is required by its regulator to deliver this in the regulated period: the election seasons where state broadcasters are required to give proportionate coverage to political parties, based on their parliamentary heft. Our petition sets out proposals for an extension of this regulation, to year-round – a plan that would give the electorate the respect it deserves by consistently providing fair coverage across the political spectrum.

I urge you to consider our proposal.

Yours sincerely

Max Wilkinson MP

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Culture, Media and Sport

The National is not the only media outlet to notice the disproportionate airtime Farage receives. Middle East Eye has also noticed the disparity, particularly with regard to Farage’s appearances on the BBC’s Question Time topical debate programme. It states:

As just one example of this systematic effort to force Farage on the country, Jeremy Corbyn has been on BBC Question Time three times in 42 years as an MP. Left-wing MP Zarah Sultana has never been on it. Farage, who was elected an MP only last year, has appeared 38 times.

Ofcom guidance to broadcasters states they must “not give undue prominence to the views and opinions of particular persons or bodies on matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy in all the programmes included in any service taken as a whole“.
It sounds like Auntie is definitely in breach of Ofcome guidelines. However, the rest of the British media also give Farage a very soft ride and seem reluctant to press him on the feasibility of his party’s policies and his own abhorrent opinions.

Indeed, the harshest criticism of Farage in recent times has come from Democrat Senator Jamie Raskin, when Farage skived off doing the job he’s supposed to be doing in parliament to appear before a US congressional hearing on censorship. Mr Raskin did not pull any punches.

The British media ought to take a leaf out of Senator Raskin’s book.
Sin and the Home Secretary

02/09/2025 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

Sin is generally accepted to be a transgression against divine law. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, shameful, harmful or alienating might be termed “sinful“. Synonyms form sin include offence, crime, violation, sinfulness, felony, trespass, wrongdoing.

All those secular alternatives bring us very swiftly to the doors of the Home Office and its Secretary of State, one Yvette Cooper. The Home Office’s responsibilities include public safety and policing, border security, immigration, passports and civil registration.

And it is border security and immigration that are currently exercising Ms Cooper’s mind.

Ever since the previous Tory government blocked off all conventional ways of applying for political asylum in the Untied Kingdom, the country has been experiencing a so-called migrant crisis, with desperate people risking their lives to cross the Channel in inflatable boats. Once they arrive in Blighty, they become the responsibility of the Home Office which is currently using hotels around the country to house the the massive backlog of applicants for asylum.

However, this arrangement has not found favour with the racists and xenophobes from the right wing of the Conservative Party, the Farage Fan Club and more extreme elements, who have been causing trouble outside hotels and trying to make the country look like a downmarket version of the Nazis’ Nuremberg rallies.

The response of Ms Cooper and the government has been to adopt the clothing of the far right in an attempt to appease the unappeasable. This has included ~~suspending~~ breaching the Human Rights Act provisions in respect of family life, an action some might regard as sinful.

Nevertheless, Ms Cooper is not content with this digression and lack of humanity, as was apparent from The Guardian’s live blog today, as per the following screenshot.

They’re people, not widgets, Ms Cooper!

Yes you did read that correctly.

Warehouses.

This is indicative that Ms Cooper has ceased to regard these desperate people as human beings, since one stores objects in warehouses, not people.

This dehumanisation is dangerous, as was pointed out by the late Terry Pratchett in his Carpe Jugulum Discworld novel.

Below is a dialogue on sin between the witch Granny Weatherwax and the Omnian missionary priest Mightily Oats.

“And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” “It’s a lot more complicated than that—” “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—” “But they starts with thinking about people as things…”

It is not known whether Ms Cooper has ever read Carpe Jugulum, but even if she hasn’t, your ‘umble scribe thinks that treating people as people and not things is the natural way of things.
Auntie’s hardware malfunction

29/08/2025 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Tech

Back on 2nd February 2004 singers Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson issued a statement attempting to explain the 38th Super Bowl half-time show controversy, during which Jackson’s right breast was exposed. In that statement the phrase wardrobe malfunction was coined.

Fast forward to August 2025 and it would appear that the nation’s quasi-state broadcaster has had what can only be described as a hardware malfunction in which the wrong sort of device was exposed.

Earlier today BBC Breakfast had a long segment about the 30th anniversary of the release of Microsoft’s Windows 95 operating system.

As this is TV there were some visual props on hand, as shown in the screenshot below.

Observant readers will have noted that the hardware used is in fact a Macintosh SE, a machine manufactured and sold by Apple between March 1987 and October 1990.

That’s right! It was discontinued five years before Windows 95 was introduced.

Furthermore, the Macintosh SE also ran on Apple’s Classic Mac OS, not MS-DOS and Windows.

In bygone times, the BBC used to brag about the accuracy and trustworthiness of its broadcasting. It still does, but that boasting appears to be on very shaky foundations indeed.

Who else likes the smell of facepalm in the morning? 😉

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