Thought for the day

Worldwide resurgence of religion "a harbinger of peace and reconciliation", say experts.

Radical Christians Against Madonna Concert in Moscow



Some 200 people of Orthodox Christian and nationalist forces and Orson Welles gathered at Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow for a demonstration against Madonna’s forthcoming Moscow show. Participants were holding banners and orthodox flags with large crucifixes placed in the center, Interfax said. After the speeches were over, a huge poster with Madonna’s face was triumphantly torn into pieces.

“We declare a new Holy Inquisition that will fight against the sacrilege of crosses, icons, Russian Orthodox symbols, including during Madonna’s show. The singer is an advocate of Kabbalah,” chairman of the Union of Orthodox flag-bearers Leonid Simonovich-Nikshich said.

The main goal of the inquisition will be “to fight against slander, rather than to kill people,” he said.


Radical Orthodox banner, proclaiming "With faith in God - freedom or death"

Experts fired.


[Poll #815799]

Get it off your chest

[Sent to BBC News 24. Really, letters to broadcasters, magazines etc should be written in green crayon, but I've found that only makes a mess of your monitor.]

At last! I've found a use for the “send us your emails” slot. Obviously none of this one will be read out on air, and I’m glad: I watch BBC news (and indeed pay for it) because I want to hear news from trained, halfway competent professionals, not just what struck Ted from Surbiton while he was sprawled on his sofa munching Doritos. If I want to hear unformed lumpen opinions from flatulent numpties I'll pop over to the pub. Please keep the news for people who have a clue what they're talking about.

Which ties in with what I’m actually mailing about—the lack of aforesaid news. “Tony Blair might shortly exit this building.” “We’re bringing you live shots of the podium where we expect the press conference to happen in the next five hours.” “We’ve sent our helicopter up in the hope it’ll find something to film before the fuel runs out.” “While we’re waiting for that delayed press conference to begin, here’s a shot of Steve, our vision mixer.”

For God’s sake put this stuff on another feed, even the actual live coverage of press conferences. That's what the digital multi-channel option is for. Please don’t clog the main channel with filler that doesn't count as information. There’s a million things going on around the world right now, none of which are illuminated by an unwavering shot of an empty podium or Downing Street from above. The countdown to the top of the hour features images of scalding beams of NEWS swooshing into TV Centre from correspondents sequestered all over the globe, which contrasts starkly with what often ends up happening during the day: someone told me (I couldn’t bear to sit through it myself) that one of the world cup press conferences was broadcast live for one and a half hours.

News 24 is far better at delivering news at night, when there are fewer distractions, and fewer people awake to speculate at us. Right now, though, I’m watching incredulously as reporters are sent all over the country to try and reach as many people as possible who don't know the first thing about Tony Blair’s intentions about staying in office. Fruitless speculation and pointless helicopter shots of Number 10 do not constitute news. Unless there are plans to change the channel's name to BBC Generally Arsing About 24, why not get on with telling us about other actual news—not just asides about the other couple of top headlines—and then let us know about Blair as soon as you actually know something? No?

I know, I know, that’s not what Sky News does. But some of us are very glad that you’re not Sky News. The Beeb is a different animal. The London bombings last year illustrated how it works: you’d go on to the Sky site first because they’d be first with any scrap of information they had, even if it turned out to be wildly wrong, and then you’d visit the BBC site, which would be more circumspect at first while it checked and verified, but—and this is the important bit—would then be utterly reliable on actual facts.

If it were down to me—and obviously it’s not, it’s all in the hands of people who can use phrases like “delivering outcomes” in cold blood—I’d urgently recommend focusing on the whole “facts” thing, and knock the speculation, the timewasting and the idiot emails on the head.

(I would also, while we’re at it, grab by the lapels and vigorously shake the person responsible for adding the headline to the “spinning world” graphic. “What the hell were you thinking?” is pretty much what I’d yell. “It’s the most crass, witless, unnecessary and potentially offensive thing a news programme has done since ITV played mournful music over slow-motion footage of 9/11.” The newsreader has just said what the headlines are. There is then no need for the words “GAZA DEATHS”, “MASSIVE FIRE”, “SPACE TOO SHORT FOR HEADLI” or whatever to go jauntily scrolling past. I switched on a month ago to see “LONDON BOMBS” as the main headline. “Oh God, not again,” I thought. But it wasn’t another round of incendiaries; instead, it was news about one of last year’s bombers. The headline isn’t just annoying, then, it can also be misleading. Someone’s clearly very proud of it, though, and I have to accept that no-one’s going to change it just because it’s a bad idea.)

On the plus side, the new text format is good, with the ticker far more legible in black and white and the imbecilic BREAKINGNEWSBREAKINGNEWSBREAKINGNEWS in a slightly narrower, less intrusive font. But please, especially in view of your insistence on the use of the phrase “Breaking News” every three damn minutes (honestly, if Sky News told you to jump off a cliff, etc), don’t just give us reporters telling us hopefully that someone important might turn up shortly, or people talking about what they think might one day happen. You can be so much better than that.

Impenetrable civil service blather saves world

Soviets befuddled by British civil service

A British civil servant who was a master of government jargon scuppered an audacious Cold War plan by the Soviet Union to remove the US’s nuclear deterrent. Confidential documents from the 1970s, declassified yesterday, reveal how Thomas Brimelow was given the top-secret mission of fudging a devious nuclear treaty that Moscow put before president Richard Nixon's US administration.

Details of Sir Thomas's assignment, codenamed Operation Hullabaloo, show how he used his expert redrafting skills to transform the Soviets' treaty. What started as a bold text designed to persuade the US to sign away the right to use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union was reworked into Whitehall jargon.

Moscow's first draft said: “The Soviet Union and the United States undertake the obligation not to use nuclear weapons against each other.” Sir Thomas's redrafted version, which was eventually adopted in the text of the treaty signed by presidents Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in June 1973, says: “They [the US and Soviet Union] will act in such a manner as to prevent the development of situations capable of causing a dangerous exacerbation of their relations, as to avoid military confrontations and as to exclude the outbreak of nuclear war between themselves and between either party and third countries.”

Moscow had sent Washington the draft text in 1972. When the British found out about the proposed treaty, alarm bells began to ring. The fear was that a treaty of this simplicity would remove the US nuclear umbrella over NATO and make it more difficult for Britain to develop its own nuclear weapons.

Henry Kissinger, then the US national security adviser, seemed reluctant to use his own officials and turned instead to the British to draw up Washington’s draft response to Moscow. Sir Thomas, deputy under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, was the man for the job. He effectively became Dr Kissinger's “desk officer”, according to the documents released by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and wrote a draft that removed all the hidden dangers of the original wording.

Dr Kissinger is quoted at a meeting in March 1973 at the British embassy in Washington as saying that he liked Sir Thomas’s draft. “It was longer, more comprehensive, more vague, gave the impression of conveying more but in fact meant a great deal less ... He thought it unlikely the Americans could have achieved anything so good,” a recorded minute said.

Whaaat?

Blondes ‘to die out in 200 years’


The last natural blondes will die out within 200 years, scientists believe. A study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202.

Researchers predict the last truly natural blonde will be born in Finland - the country with the highest proportion of blondes. But they say too few people now carry the gene for blondes to last beyond the next two centuries.

The problem is that blonde hair is caused by a recessive gene. In order for a child to have blonde hair, it must have the gene on both sides of the family in the grandparents' generation.

The researchers also believe that so-called bottle blondes may be to blame for the demise of their natural rivals. They suggest that dyed-blondes are more attractive to men who choose them as partners over true blondes.

Why didn’t someone tell me? This story is four years old! That means I’ve only got 196 years left!

[Memo to me: Next time you idly Google Image search for "blonde", switch the SafeSearch filter on, if only to save time...]