Boobing at the Beeb

Though I did enjoy the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee from the TV, the anti-BBC press certainly had a field day (or field days) with some of the coverage.  Admittedly, apart from the church service of thanksgiving and, a few hours later, the carriage procession on Tuesday, I dipped in and out, not paying too much consistent attention to the other days (I only watched the first half hour of the Jubilee River Pageant, for example, as I was attending a Mongolian hair-cutting ceremony, as friends of wife were engaging in a rites-of-passage event for their three-year old).

I did see the Fearne Cotton interview with Paloma Faith but only the intro, before they got on to discussing the Jubilee sick bags, as I was put off by Cotton asking Faith if she was enjoying the festivities, eliciting the reply “Yeah, I’m really happy as my album went to number two in the charts.”  Yes, I’m sure the Queen would have been thrilled that she could play a bit-part in her own party for the commercial promotion of an evanescent pop star.  This crassness set the tone – a rancid one.  It was as if BBC Three had suddenly colonised the main channel.

I did briefly flick over to ITV but what I saw seemed to be following the same pattern as Auntie so I went back to the service I knew.  Now, Clare Balding, one of the presenters for the Jubilee admits mistakes, that the presentation on all three days misfired.  No-one’s prefect - like inviting American performers to the concert.  Though it's nice to see the recalcitrant colonies kowtowing to their admiration of the descendent of those who once ruled them, as they are not part of the Commonwealth, I don't know how appropriate it is.

Newsnight exposed their Guardian-reading colours, first covering a story of jobless people becoming unpaid volunteers at the Jubilee, two of whom had to sleep under London Bridge (a hardship that Jubilee well-wishers bore without complaint) – a story that the Grauniad has now been accused of sensationalising.  In alliance, with The Guardian, was the Beeb trying to be a stick-in-the-mud for the queen?  Au contraire, as secondly they showed what they promised to be the view from around the world, but turned out to be the most mocking and vituperative of clips, as in ‘think we were bad, look at these’.  What was that phrase about ‘when you’re in a hole…’?