Beeb Beeb

The BBC World Service is not a program to blow its own trumpet, but they did let slip this week that the latest figures show that they have an audience of nigh on 500,000,000 people.

I like the BBC World Service, which is streamed here in Australia by SBS as a digital radio station. I can even get it in my car. It is a good deal less tediously proselytising than the domestic BBC radio stations, or the ABC here in Australia. And it is refreshing to hear opinions on world events from people in Africa, India, and around the world.

I suppose that the BBC, when it loses its right to imprison people for failing to pay the licence fee, will start by cutting the BBC World Service. Not that there is probably that much to cut. I suspect its annual budget is what its stars like Gary Lineker earn in a wet weekend.

But as a matter of soft power, the BBC World Service should not be underestimated. Just as a small portion of public funding broadcasting in Australia does not go to the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation,  which generally apes the BBC), but to SBS (Special Broadcasting Services) which, despite some slippage in recent months, is generally much more independent than the ABC, and much more tuned into what is going on in the world at large rather than the Flopsie Sydney/Melbourne bubble. There may be a case, in the UK, for the government to do something similar: to carve out

Tony Elliott CBE

My cousin Tony, who died a few days ago, was always ahead of me. Five years older than me, he founded Time Out in 1968, 12 years before I founded my law firm – originally Fenwick Elliott & Co -are now Fenwick Elliott LLP. We both had offices in Covent Garden at that stage, and it was a year after I had launched my law firm that he faced an immense challenge. Two thirds of his staff walked out to form a rival publication which was promptly subsidised by the taxpayer, courtesy of the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.  I know that Tony found it immensely unfair that his own and other people’s taxes were being used to try to pull down the magazine that he had created. But Tony, whilst somewhat shy, was immensely resourceful and determined. Eventually, Tony prevailed. His magazine, Time Out, flourished and his taxpayer funded rival collapsed.

It was not long after that that I went through a not dissimilar fire. All four of the partners who I had invited to join my law firm decided that they could take it over, along with the goodwill that I had created, and walked out to create a rival firm. Determined to follow in Tony’s footsteps, I was determined to regrow my firm from the ground up. Eventually, I prevailed, and the rival firm collapsed. Fenwick Elliott LLP is now the largest and most successful specialist construction law practice in Europe.

Challenges continued for both of us. Again, I know that Tony found it extremely irksome that the BBC poached on the travel guide ground that he had nurtured – again with the benefit of taxpayers’ money. But again, he persisted.

Cancer is what gets my favourite cousins, and it was cancer that got Tony in the end.  His obituary is in The Times today, and The Guardian.[1]

I was lucky to have Tony as a cousin.

 

 

 

[1] the Guardian obituary is generous, bearing in mind that it was written by two of the journalists who were part of the 1981 walkout

 

A Picture Tells A Thousand Words

In most recent fields of endeavour, steady – sometimes spectacular – progress has been made by specialists who know what they’re doing. But in a minority of areas, there are blind alleys. Examples include share picking by investment analysts, chiropractice, astrology and climate science. In these areas, the people who are described as experts routinely make predictions which do not come true and prescribe remedies which do not work.

The best way to identify these blind alleys is not to genuflect at their ability to drown out the voices of dissent within their own field or even to dissect the workings of their methods (although the latter is sometimes helpful). A more reliable indicator is to take a “black box” approach: to compare their

Edge Done

Microsoft have updated its browser, Edge. It says, inter alia:

“When you use InPrivate browsing, your browsing data (like cookies, browsing history, and passwords) isn’t saved on your device after you’re done.”

I think they mean:

“When you use InPrivate browsing, your browsing data (like cookies, browsing history, and passwords) are not saved on your device after you have finished.”

It is pity that “updated” so often means “dumbed down”. And anyway, I do not like the idea of

Black Lives Get Richer

Social media has suggested, in the past few days, the donations to the Black Lives Matter Global Network end up going to the Democratic party in the United States. You might or might not think that this is a good thing. Personally, I think the Democratic party and the Republican party are about equally flawed: the Democratic party is riddled with crooks and the Republican party is riddled with bores. Take your choice.

Certainly, the three owners of the Black Lives Matter Global Network  – Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi  – are unlikely to support the Republican party. Be that as it may, it seems overwhelmingly probable that they do not in fact give the donations to the Democratic party.

Depending on your point of view, the truth seems to be either better or worse. In large measure (well, 71%), it seems that they simply keep it, for themselves or for their “consultants”:

A Somewhat Jewish Scandal

I am not in the life insurance business. But if I were, I would not be queueing up to take on the risk of Ghislaine Maxwell’s life.[1]

Before getting into this, bear in mind that many in this saga are Jewish. Ghislaine Maxwell’s lover, Jeffrey Epstein, was Jewish. Her father, Robert Maxwell, was Jewish. Her mother, Elizabeth, was a Holocaust researcher. Her friend Harvey Weinstein is Jewish. Emily Maitlis[2] is Jewish.

And also bear in mind that the Mossad – Israel’s intelligence service – has a truly appalling track record in terms of killing people.  According to