TV

People actually doin’ stuff works though:

Homeless veterans have built their own houses under a charity scheme run by a special forces veteran.

Six previously homeless veterans have completed a self-build scheme of 19 affordable dwellings in Leominster, Herefordshire, and will be enjoying Christmas in their new homes.

Each veteran has secured a new house for themselves and their families through a partnership between the charity, Alabaré, Hereford Council and Stonewater, a housing association.

The remaining houses will be used by the local authority.

The first keys were handed over on December 17 to Dwain Lugg, a former soldier in the Rifles.

Mr Lugg, 30, who served for five years before leaving the army in 2012, said he lost his home when his marriage broke down.

He told the Telegraph that despite the current restrictions, his first Christmas with his sons Jacob, eight, and Matthew, two, will be “amazing”.

“Until now I’ve had no safe place to take them. No security.

“I’ve gained a home, which is more valuable than anything.

“To me this Christmas is going to be the best Christmas I could imagine.”

The building project has facilitated Mr Lugg’s qualification as a Site Supervisor. Through the charity Alabaré he also has a diploma in Construction Technology and has reskilled in plastering, tiling and painting.

For years I’ve vaguely thought about a TV programme. Easy enough to do as I’ve absolutely no idea at all of the details of either building or programme making. Take veterans like this. Train them up in building skills by actually going building. Presumably by building stuff – conversions for missing limbs, oldieying houses for aged veterans etc – for other veterans. Film it all. Cut to make fun programme.

Pay for the building work with the fees from the TV station.

Glad to see that someone else has actually thought properly about this sort of thing and is managing to get ‘er done.

That age thing about coppers looking young, judges. Rather worrying when a teenage drinking mukka is the old one on Strictly.

Sigh.

It was the other half of the Rubber Bishops I knew better but still….

It’s a normal experience to show up on set for a live show or scripted series and find, as Noel Clarke revealed this week he had, an all-white crew.

This won’t change while we have a government more interested in its invented culture war than in taking the steps needed to improve the industry. This is not a favour we are asking. As the increasing popularity of subscription channels such as Netflix shows, audiences given a choice between the status quo and fresh, diverse stories will vote with their feet.

Dowden could start by setting up a regulator that truly holds the industry to account for diversity and inclusion, something Ofcom – as Olusoga and so many other authoritative broadcasters have pointed out – has failed to do.

Without this kind of drastic action, there is nothing to suggest we won’t be having this exact same conversation again, 20 years from now.

Ghanian-Jewish TV presenter, commenting upon Nigerian-British TV presenter’s success at the peak of the profession, decries the racism inherent in the British TV system.

….post-watershed blackface, that operates under the guise of the comedy sketch show, found its own, horrid golden age in the early 00s. For many marginalised people, it was a truly cursed era of TV that not only mocked blackness, but dabbled in transphobia, fatphobia, misogyny, classism and ableism.

On a job site, looking for peeps to write about reality TV shows:

Sister Wives
My 600-lb Life
Kardashians
Real Housewives (all of them)
Teen Mom: Young & Pregnant
The Voice
Alaskan Bush People
AGT
American Idol
Say Yes to the Dress
Married to Medicine
Southern Charm
Jersey Shore
Siesta Key
Are You The One?
I am Jazz
Unexpected
Little Women
Hot & Heavy
My Big Fat Fabulous Life
Love & Hip Hop (all of them)
Vanderpump Rules
Shahs of Sunset
Flipping Out
The Masked Singer
Little People, Big World
Paranormal shows (Ghost Adventures, Kindred Spirits etc)
Dancing With the Stars
Temptation Island
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
Siesta Key
Growing Up Hip Hop
Marriage Boot Camp

Thassa a lotta cheap TB….

Your Reference CAS-5559392-PLH851

We are contacting you to apologise that we’ve not been able to reply to your complaint within the time period we aim for. We manage this for most complaints but regret it’s not always possible to achieve.

If you wish to refer this delay and the substance of your complaint to the BBC’s regulator Ofcom, you can do so online at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/how-to-report-a-complaint/bbc-tv-channel-radio-station-bbciplayer or by post to: Ofcom, Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA. Please include for Ofcom your latest correspondence from and to the BBC and any BBC case reference numbers which you have been given.

Full details of the BBC’s complaints process can be found by visiting http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/,and full details of Ofcom’s complaints process are available at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/information-for-industry/guidance/procedures.

In the meantime we appreciate your patience and will respond as soon as we can.

Kind regards

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Alice Levine: I lived with a member of the Far Right for a week. Here’s what happened

“You’re condescending, I’m not. I have a healthy, happy marriage and a child. You do not. So don’t lecture me. To be honest with you, you’re slightly obnoxious as a human being. You’re the extremist.”

My heart was pounding as British Far Right activist Jack Sen unleashed this torrent of invective at me, jabbing a forefinger in the air for emphasis. It would have been unpleasant enough to be accosted like this in the street, but here I was standing in his living room, near the end of a week-long stay. I had a lump in my throat and just wanted to cry. The kind of hot tears you try to hold back, because they represent anger not upset. I didn’t want to be there any more.

The sort of British middle class woman who makes TV shows is condescending and obnoxious? Say it ain’t so!

CNN legal analyst Areva Martin accuses David Webb of ‘white privilege’ before learning he’s black

Increased US Oil Production Means Cheap Oil Ain’t So Good No More

Really:

Doctor Who stars have rejected claims that the show has become too PC, with one actor asking whether it is even possible to be ‘too’ correct.

Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole, who play Yaz and Ryan in the show, instead praised the programme in an interview with Radio Times for being an “entertaining reminder” of important issues.

Paul Mayhew-Archer: ‘I had to write Vicar of Dibley jokes to feed my family’

The cruelty of modern life, eh?

He has also worked as a script editor on shows including Mrs Brown’s Boys, Spitting Image and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

Hmm, that last, well, torn between someone did write jokes for it and yes, OK, that’s real oppression.

Here.

That’s the niece not understanding Japanese. A niece perhaps.

The TV manufacturers are spreading the news of the Royal Wedding. With the offer that you can upgrade your TV to whatever today’s new lovely standard big screen is just in time to watch it.

We do have the historical story that people bought TVs to watch QE II’s wedding (or the Coronation?) and that this was one of the kick starts of adoption in the UK.

So a mild thought. How much of the current pushing of the current standards for the current event is going to work and how much of it is some folk memory of that historical tale?

The hero is Nick Griffin, right? Who do they get to play him?

Staff at Basel zoo are carrying out a paternity test after the birth of an orangutan with any one of three potential fathers.

Be a step up from Jeremy Vine’s normal guests.

This is very good though:

Sumatran orangutans are one of the most endangered animal species in the world, comprising only nine existing populations left in the wild, with just three populations numbering 1,000 or more.

Known as “gardeners of the forest”, they have a major role in rain forest seed dispersal and in maintaining the health of the forest ecosystem, a function that is vital for a range of other animals, including tigers, Asian elephants and Sumatran rhinos.

Despite the development of protected areas, more than 50 per cent of orangutans are found in forests under management by timber, palm oil and mining companies.

So, err, they’re perfectly happy in managed as opposed to unmanaged forest then?

In short, here’s what happened. As part of his segment on debt collectors, Oliver formed his own debt-collection company. Through that company, he then bought just under $15 million in medical debt — the debt of about 9,000 people — for $60,000. Once that debt had been bought, Oliver forgave it. Then, in a moment of self-adulation, he showered the stage with dollar bills as a symbol of his good act.

OK, it’s an intern at National Review writing this so details, details.

But if it was a company forgiving that debt than those whose debt was forgiven owe taxes on that debt forgiveness.

If it were a charity or an individual making a charitable act then they don’t. But corporations are assumed, unless otherwise detailed, to be operating for profit. And a for profit organisation forgiving debt is income to the debtor who gains that forgiveness. And taxable income too.

I do hope that Oliver got this the right way around.

Update: Apparently he donated it to a charity that then forgave it. So, settled then.

We don’t know how much he did buy but we do know it wasn’t $15 million.

He bought it on the secondary market. At some discounted rate. Penny on the dollar? Maybe even less.

Good piece of TV and undoubtedly worth it given the publicity, but $15 million it ain’t.

While Colman, fresh from her starring role in the BBC’s big hit The Night Manager, might have been a bit skittish about her role, Channel 4 has taken on more of a risk by staking its 10pm slot on the relatively unknown writer of Flowers, 29-year-old Will Sharpe, an English-Japanese actor, writer and director.

Eager to underscore its reputation for distinctive, risky programming, and miffed by the loss to Netflix of its hit Charlie Brooker series Black Mirror, Channel 4 decided Sharpe was not only a gamble worth taking but that he deserved special treatment. So each episodes will be broadcast at the same time every day over a week, beginning with a double bill on Monday.

Sharpe was born in London but until the age of eight he lived in Tokyo. He was educated at Winchester College, then went to Cambridge, where he read classics and joined the university’s dramatic club, Footlights, subsequently spending a year with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Winchester, Cambridge, Footlights, RSC.

Just come out of nowhere he has, honest.

The BBC is investigating claims about a £10,000 Great British Bake Off betting scandal involving its employees.
Ladbrokes said that workers at the corporation had opened accounts in order to place bets on the winner of the show, which was recorded several weeks ago, according to The Sun.

All those selfless public sector workers at the BBC, who do it for us, not for mere lucre.

Dozens of new gambling accounts were thought to have been created by individuals with links to BBC workers and the Love Productions, the independent production company that makes the programme, it was claimed.
“Whoever is doing this thinks they are being very clever,” a source from Ladbroke told The Sun.
“But they are not that smart as they have been using their own names to open accounts.
“A quick Google and you can see that [some of them work] in television and have close links to the BBC and Great British Bake Off’s production company.”

Hmmm.

The source continued: “Lots of the other accounts appear to be owned by friends and family of culprits.
“They must think we are a bit thick but we know how to sniff out funny business like this.
“Placing everything on one baker again and again immediately set off red flags.”

Yes, quite. The bookies risk losing money over this. so of course they’re going to be a bit active in looking for people gaming the system. Incentives do matter after all…..

The Briefcase, premiering on CBS at 8 p.m. Wednesday, features “American families experiencing financial setbacks,” to use the network’s terminology. The family is given a briefcase with $101,000 in it, and then they’re shown another family who’s “experiencing financial setbacks.” They have to decide how much money to keep and how much to give the other people, or whether they want to keep it all for themselves; neither family knows both families have in fact received a briefcase, and that their counterparts are also deliberating over if and how to share the money. In the two episodes CBS made available for review, the decision weighs incredibly heavily on all participants. One woman is so overcome that she vomits. Everyone talks about health insurance. Several people claim this is the hardest decision they’ve ever made. Many, many tears are shed. And perhaps unsurprisingly, people demonstrate impressive generosity. That’s the point of the show, right? To show how generous people truly are? Surely these people were screened not just for emotive telegenics but also for proclivity toward magnanimity.

Well, no, not really, that’s how human beings work actually. As tha classic economic experiment, the ultimatum game shows.

And this is of course a version of that ultimatum game. A one time, going in both directions, real life version of it. I don’t, of course, know what the splits being offered are. But I would be surprised if anyone offered less that 30% of the cash to the other people.

But perhaps Dave Broome, the originator of the show missed a trick here. Because wouldn’t it be fun to have the other part of that game? Where if there’s a rejection, then no one gets anything? Here, a rejection being offering more than 10% less than the other participants are offering you?

That would be a lovely reveal, wouldn’t it? (Strokes white cat, feeds shark, puffs cigar.)

A woman with no legs who uses a wheelchair was a contestant on the Price is Right, but it doesn’t look like she’ll be using her winnings any time soon.

Danielle Perez, of Los Angeles, won a treadmill on Monday’s episode of the famed game show and she managed to handle the awkward situation with grace and hilarity.

Perez, who lost her legs in an accident in 2004, posted a photo of herself on the show to Twitter with the caption, ‘When you win a treadmill on national TV but you have no feet’.

Both the event itself and her reaction.

Fair play Ms. Perez, fair play there.