h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why are you making it black and white like that when there's obviously a much better option - a beeb with a better attitude. It's not happening yet but that doesn't make it impossible.

The Beeb was always best in Black and White - and the licence was cheaper, too!

"... and for those of you watching in black and white, the pink ball is the one behind the blue." - or something like that!

Look I know I took it down to a very simplistic level but I feel that it is an important point to make.

We ARE SPOILED by haveing the BBC; not just because of the quality of BBC services (TV, Radio and BBCi) but because have a well funded public service broadcaster has an effect on commercial competitors. Take the Beeb out of the question and you they go "Lowest common denomonator that makes $$$" Whilst there are things about the BBC I do not like (hell I worked for TV licensing for 2 1/2 years) I think people have to realise that it is under very real threat.

From an ideological position I think that under the next Tory government (or perhaps even a Labour one soon) the BBC in its current form might well be abolished. If it is there will be no going back and I for one think we will all be poorer.

P.S If you doubt what I am saying watch TV or listen to radio in the US or in Australia.

Don't do it. Your brain will turn to mush.

When looking for news, American audiences who want more than the normal drivel can fortunately catch the 6:00 EDT 'broadcast' of BBC World News on BBCAmerica or on their local PBS station. Their first impression will be "What's this? There's stuff happening outside the US that isn't directly involved with the US?" The situation in Liberia was only picked up by the 'Networks' here about a week before US troops moved in. "Hey, no oil, no nukes: no big deal." All the local news stations gave more time to our version of Pop Idol than much else. Even the ones that didn't carry the programme!

The Beeb isn't perfect, but it can spoil you.

CZ

Some US PBS shows are pretty , though:

http://www.kcrw.com/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?show_code=ls&tmplt_type=Program

Mine doesn't carry it.

CZ

I dont want to give the impression that think the Beeb is faultless just that it is considerably better than having no Beeb.

I'm with you, FB. Having spent a whole swathe (sp?) of my life BBC-less, now I have it back I want to hang on to it.

Especially this part of it.

I shall be interested to see if the impending change to the editorial setup has any impact on the editorial policy...

H. (aka FB)

None officially I would have thought, although it might go either way...

Either it might be easier to for 'marginal' entries to slip through the net.
or, on the other hand,
With less italics to argue the point the policy might be to 'just say no' and then don't get into discussions about the entry.

Or there'll be a massive increase in requests for voluntary community artists and editors etc...

Yeah maby with the streamlined staff we might smuggle the "Camcorder" into the EG!

We might need to 'unlock a few doors' to get that done

I hate to raise this issue while the Italics are so explicitly off site, (and I am emailing them on the subject), but...

"The Perfect Mistress" - (Original here: A872831) has been retitled: "Coping with being a Mistress" (The edited version is here: A878204).

There are a number of separate issues here.

1) It was retitled after it was launched as an Edited Entry
2) It was retitled *without* the authors' being informed
3) Anyone who reads the entry would realise that the word "coping" is singularly inappropriate

I am not sure which makes me more annoyed, that it should be done without Rainbow, Magnolia and myself being informed, or that the wording of the title changes the tone of the entry so drastically.

Anyway, as I said, I am emailing les italiques, and we shall see.

Hey ho.

Ben

Qu: How many social workers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None - but they will form a committee, a sub-commitee and a working-group to write a leaflet called "Coping with Darkness"

Q: How many Italics does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Illumination issues are confidential and we don't discuss them onsite.

I said I wouldn't be the only one, just the first one...

H.

I seem to remember getting a statement to the effect that a discussion had taken place about EP and that the interpretation taken by the italics needed to be slightly shifted and they agreed.

I fail to see why Bens article has been changed, adultry is not illegal in this country. It seems to me that EP is making moral judgements based on a personal code of ethics and this has no place in hootoo's editoral procedures IMHO.

If they imagine they have moral standards which these articles break then someone should force them to sit through their Carla Lane episode collection.

Cruel and unusual punishment indeed.

This does seem the height of pointlessness.

Even though I don't agree with the revocation of Hoo's article, I can sort of understand why someone might have taken a little exception to it (though in the first instance someone could have had the courtesy to get in touch with him), but *retitling* an edited article seems like the editorial equivalent of Victorian moralists covering up table legs for fear of exciting dangerous passions in the menfolk.

Something like this seems to indicate that there's someone in the organisation (or with power over the organisation) with *way* too much time on their hands. In the current climate, I'm not sure that's such a smart idea.