Broadcasting and language
Posted on
January 15, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As we’re a day behind due to Saturday’s technical catastrophe, and Chapters 12 and 13 of “The Claim Of Scotland” are unhelpfully titled, let’s give you a wee bonus and have a double helping of could-have-been-written-yesterday 46-year-old history.
We’re too busy for Quotes Of The Chapter today. What do you want, blood?
I cant share this to my facebook page Rev
“I cant share this to my facebook page Rev”
You’re the third person to say something similar today. Can someone ask Facebook why? I suspect sabotage, ie BT types reporting Wings as some sort of undesirable site.
5 threads today Rev!
We really are getting into a war footing!
Well done and many thanks.
To my perspective, these chapters are the most important I’ve read so far, really excellent. I’ve lost count of the number of “jokes” I’ve read or heard regarding Scots speakers needing a translator, and it’s been funny exactly once (Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, where even the most eloquent and easily-understandable Scottish accent is accompanied by subtitles, as a joke on the patronising attitudes of TV producers rather than the Scottish people)
I quite liked these bits:
“If Scotland is to be treated as a nation, as was recommended even by the Royal Commission, she ought to have a broadcasting system which is not controlled by London. Otherwise her distinctive ethos is bound in the long run to disappear.” – Broadcasting
“The alleged reasons for ignoring Scottish standards are all the more startling when it is remembered what vast quantities of the most vulgar English speech are imposed daily on the Scots in their own country. No one asks whether this is intelligible to them or not.” – Broadcasting & Language
3. Brainwashing is interesting history but what would the author make of Pacific Quay today or really BetterTogether/BBC Scotland?
No wonder it took so long for a SNP to arrive on the scene,with rules like that for the 1955 general election.Only parties putting forward a hundred candidates at an general election can have a party political broadcast.
i just posted the daily record (the incredible vanishing story) post on facespace and it worked fine
Another gem of a chapter. I tell you it could have been written yesterday, little progress has been made.
I liked the BBC political interference eg: 100 candidates contesting seats to get your party involved in radio debates…Aye right!
msean
Snap!
Oh, this part is just beautiful:
This manifestly just complaint should not be misinterpreted as a desire on the part of Scotsmen to cut themselves off from England and even from the rest of the world. The Scots, like the English, would want to take material from every part of the world (and not least from England); but there is a vast difference between taking what you want and having to put up with whatever you are given.
Every time I hear someone put up the stupid “parochial insular Scotland wanting to cut itself off from the world” I’m just going to quote this.
Imagine if he was around today, his posts would have been legend.
I thought this might be of passing interest.
The BBC Trust rules that the Taxpayers Alliance (popularly known as the Taxdodgers Alliance) is a tory front. Apparently it is “…largely financed by private wealthy donors and is ‘at the heart of Conservative Party policy lobbying’“. Puts me in mind of another campaign group.
Reference –
Trust upholds a complaint about impartiality on 5 live
link to bbc.co.uk
Language changes over time, but with a London-based
media southernisms are becoming more and more prevalent.
Being stubborn, I still ‘go for the messages’;
I don’t ‘do a weekly shop’ (even my ex-wife from
Walsall had never heard the ‘weekly shop’ expression
in the 90s until we moved South. A shop is still a
building where I go to get my messages…
I am also sitting here typing; I am not sat here typing
although the BBC news even says ‘he was sat there’ etc.
Funnily enough when in England my protests were
ignored as being ‘chip on the shoulder’ whereas
it was ok to moan about so-called Americanisms creeping
into speech there. Funny old world.
“Yet there is no other possible means of redress.”
There is now.
I can’t believe this book is as old as I am,yet be as relevant as the day it was first published.A great find.
O/T but was anyone watching Scotland tonight debate there about the Cowdenbeath by-election? In answer to the question “What has the Tory party ever done for Cowdenbeath?” the tory candidate’s reply was a gobsmacking “We closed fewer mines than Harold Wilson did” …
We must get this into print.
Rev, you are making an enormous contribution to the struggle for Scottish independence.
Sleeping only 4 hours per day, for the sake of Scotland.
But do take care of yourself, for the sake of Scotland.
This is truly a David v Goliath struggle and I am confident that David will win.
Seen it,comedy gold.
I really wish I had read that quote you alluded to Taranaich
before I responded to that chippy git from the BBC complaints dept this morning 🙁
heres wot i rote
In you response dated 12/01/14 you stated that MoTD was “incredibly popular around the globe” was exactly the (parochial) response that one would expected the BBC would have avoided,
I can assure you the vast bulk of the population of the (country) of Scotland are not sitting on the edge of their seat waiting to see highlights of Aston Villa v Millwall in spite of your belief.
it is advisable not to conflate the U.K as a country which it clearly is not ,
the condescending attitude displayed in your response does your corporation no credit and you would be better employed studying the statistics of Scottish licence fee payers contributions 300million where as the expenditure of the BBC actually IN Scotland is SUBSTANTIALLY less, as a result Scotland is fed a diet of programming skewed towards the expectations of England which is a totally unacceptable situation and one which should be addressed as a matter of urgency by the BBC as its very existence depends on it responding to the people who pay for its output with care and consideration, and not with a “we know best ” attitude so clearly displayed in your pathetic response.
I do hope I haven’t hurt his feelings 🙂
This book really has been riveting. For example on page 211 he says, in the context of a toothless BBC ” Scottish Broadcasting Council ” that ” Creative enterprises are not to be expected from administrators without full responsibility and real control. It is the Yes – men who are encouraged by the present arrangements, and this must mean the reign of mediocrity. ”
As you say, Rev, this could have been written yesterday.
Completely O/T.
On Wednesdays I present a radio programme on a local station in Midlothian and last night when I arrived to do my show there was an email circular from the GMB telling us how appalling it would be if we vote Yes as we would no longer have the wonderful benefits of Nuclear Power stations in an Indy Scotland.
It was much longer, full of dire warnings about the closures of Hunterston and Torness in a decade, but I’ve stripped out all the verbiage.
Just passing it on.