Documentary delay raises more than eyebrows

If, like me, you take more than a passing interest in the security situation in Beirut, you might have set aside some time this evening. For that’s when BBC World documentary series, “Murder in Beirut”, was due to be screened. It was going to deliver shocking truths regarding Hariri’s assassination.

More than that, though, it was going to tell us what a lot here already know – or think they know: Hizbullah killed the premier. At least it was, if we believe Al-Akhbar’s front page on Monday. The decision to shelve the production, given Lebanon is currently at any time 60 seconds from disaster, has raised eyebrows along with anticipation to see the finished product.

“Murder in Beirut” was officially withheld in order for the World News channel to ensure it complied with their stringent editorial standards; a spokesperson for the BBC told me the film would definitely be shown, just, you know, not yet. But as Sharif Nashashibi of Arab Media Watch pointed out, why did it take producers and BBC executives until six days before broadcast to realise there may have been some discrepancies? One’s thoughts can’t help but drift towards comments made by Hizbullah and their Christian political allies the FPM, in recent days, warning of all-out carnage if Hizbullah is implicated in the 2005 bombing.

The Apprentice: contestant preview

That time of year has arrived, so wondrously coincidental with the coming of spring flowers. The Apprentice is back.

What difference a year makes. This time in 2008, Alan Sugar was still banging on about being worth eleventy billion pounds as he took a helicopter ride around Canary Wharf.

This year, with the world in the grip of the worst recession since the Thirties, the tone is likely to be more sedate. S’rAlan is unlikely to come across as so beligerently loaded. But will the contestants follow suit?

Moaning about the BBC is not a legitimate hobby

People shouldn’t be allowed to criticise the BBC. If they are offended by prank calls, obvious jokes and patronising journalists, they have a choice – don’t pay the license fee.

The BBC is run and moderated not by some grey beards in their ivory tower but by a trust – it has become more diverse, representative and progressive, as we demanded. Now stop it. Change the channel. Watch Five, if you think it’s any better or palatable. Go see a play – although I should warn you that Titus Andronicus is a little racy and has little by way of complaints procedures.

Just because we pay a license fee, it doesn’t mean we should have a say on BBC content. Do you call up Number 10 whenever you disagree with how your income tax is being distributed? (Actually, if you have enough time on your hands to be offended by a television show, you probably do. But you’re not normal.)

The simple problem with a system of complaints employed by the BBC is that very often a) people don’t know what they want and b) what they think they want is not what the vast, sane majority want.

For those delicate little flowers who disagree with Paxman’s interview style, Jeremy Kyle is marginally less coarse. Upset by the cut of Lisa Snowdon’s dress? Then marvel at Simon Cowell’s reassuringly high waistband. Does Clarkson’s profligate use of the word ‘prostitute’ hurt your feelings? Watch the drivel that Bravo spews out with the bald one and the girl who weren’t interesting enough for the consistently stunning Top Gear.

Brian Eno, on (the BBC’s brilliant) Question Time, suggested this week that the BBC World Service is “one of mankind’s greatest achievements”. Anyone who is very occasionally disgruntled by the BBC ought to bear in mind that fact that it is a lot better than the alternatives.

Woss all the fuss about?

For a minute there, you’d be forgiven for forgetting the world is going to hell in a handcart.

Almost all the papers splashed today with the fallout from Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’ poorly judged prank calls to actor Andrew Sachs, alleging that Brand had slept with his granddaughter. Who is hardly a shrinking violet herself.

Brand has fallen on his sword and issued a heartfelt apology for any offence this unfortunate episode may have caused Mr. Sachs. I’m not sure what the other 27,000 callers were offended about. It was a prank, and its biggest error was being neither funny or particularly subtle. But for Brand to feel compelled to resign due to the public outcry is the most lamentable thing of all.

The sheer weight of criticism aimed at the beeb for its part in all this is thanks in part to its anomalous position as a non-governmental state broadcaster. We pay for it, yet we don’t always get a huge say in what it shows. Not that that has stopped the big clunking fist weighing clumsily in:

“BBC audiences accept that, in comedy, performers attempt to push the line of taste. It is clear from the views expressed by the public that this broadcast has caused severe offence and I share that view,” said the Prime Minister, taking time off from saving capitalism.

One can’t help agreeing with Telegraph blogger Bruno Waterfield: “What is worse? That this rubbish goes out on the BBC or that it comes to dominate the political agenda at a time when there are many, many more important issues to get agitated about?”