A case for the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. 

The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. 

It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it.
(Douglas Adams: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

I hope Ed Miliband's advisors have a copy of Dr Streetmentioner's book handy, because things are starting to get grammatically complicated.

Yesterday the Tavern deplored the BBC's premature factual reporting of his words in a speech on immigration; 'I'm sure Mr Miliband intends to say these things, and that his autocue is primed and ready, but who can really say that he will?'

Today we are reeling from the unaccustomed shock of being proved right.

Ed Miliband is under fire on immigration after he dropped an admission that Labour’s open door policy had left communities across Britain ‘struggling to cope’.

Despite the BBC's grammatically definite assertion that, among the other points to be made in the speech, he would admit the faults of Labour's immigration policy, the statement was never made.

He had been expected to say: ‘We did too little to tackle the realities of segregation in communities that were struggling to cope.’

Since it was the lack of an appropriate conditional tense that caught our attention in the first place, I doubt the BBC or the spin doctors involved will be able to handle the grammatical implications of this unexpected omission.

So what happened? Did he forget about that bit or, looking round at his distinctly multicultural - sorry, vibrant - audience, did he decide that discretion was the better part of valour? "Look, it's great that you're all here, but it was, you know, a bit of a mistake letting you in".

Naturally the spin doctors are already out in force on this one:

Labour insisted Mr Miliband ‘stands by’ the omitted section of his speech and had simply forgotten to say it.

Though, to be perfectly honest, an admission like that about an aspiring Prime Minister smacks somewhat of damage limitation. 'Oops, sorry!'  is not what you want from a potential leader in any walk of life.

And the BBC? Well, they are just ignoring the whole business and presumably hoping it goes away - either that or a roomful of editors are still busy wrangling over exactly which tense you should use to describe an event you reported as definite before it actually failed to take place.

A load of crystal balls

I think it's fair to say I'm not a morning person - though if the Mail is to be believed (as ever, a very big 'if'), I am certainly not alone.

And, as I try to work up the resolve to face the day, there is one thing that is guaranteed to put me in a bad mood; premature prognostication.

The BBC's lamentable habit of regurgitating political party press releases as news is bad enough, but there is an irritating tendency for this to stray into the world of predicting the future:

Ed Miliband will acknowledge... He will emphasise... But he will also say...
Among his proposals will be...

The piece from the Today programme and the BBC website quoted at OoL by the Quiet Man, who has much to say on the actual content of the speech, is typical of the practice.

I'm sure Mr Miliband intends to say these things, and that his autocue is primed and ready, but who can really say that he will?

Those of a religious persuasion often formally acknowledge this uncertainty; the interjections 'deo volente' or 'insh'Allah' exist because of a long-standing and widespread acknowledgement that no one can say for certain that something will definitely happen.

Whether you attribute it to chance or divine intervention, it seems somehow arrogant to ignore the possibility of illness, say, or a traffic jam or - admittedly a long shot - a meteor strike, as if your certainty guarantees that the described event will take place.

It's a subject that has been aired here before (see Mystic Ed and his Crystal Balls) and, since it springs from the arrogance of the BBC and the political machinations of spin doctors, will doubtless surface again (and again, and again....).

Eight o'clock, and the cheetahs are in the diary room...

'Planet Earth Live; join us for the ultimate global wildlife drama.
Real animals. Real lives. In real time.'

"Welcome back to the Masai Mara, where the heavy rain has not dampened the spirits of Richard Hammond. Stuck in his tent amid the downpour, Hammond is reverting to his usual behaviour, gesticulating and chattering excitedly to camera; he must now use all his entertainment skills if the programme is to survive the next few weeks..."

Oh dear! Auntie has blown a massive chunk of our money on an all-squeaking, all-slaughtering Natural History jamboree and it's not going down at all well.

It was obviously meant to be a triumph of 'My Little Pony' broadcasting - make a list of the things viewers like best and put them all together in an incongruous one-size-pleases-all package - with hot and cold running popular presenters in exotic locations and lots of cute baby animals, some of which get eaten in exciting chase sequences.

The public, however, turned out to be resolutely ungrateful for this largesse; the first episode has brought a volley of complaints, not least about the fact that, despite the grandiose strapline above, the programme featured just 20 minutes of live footage consisting almost entirely of the presenters talking to camera, although a couple of buffalo were glimpsed in blurry night vision at one point.

However, the disgruntled viewers are, according to the BBC, quite literally missing the plot:

A spokesman for the BBC admitted that there was little live animal action but said the presenters were there to comment on the day’s news and stories and to provide analysis.

“A lot of it had been filmed that day on location and the footage was clearly signed as pre-packaged,” said the spokesman. “We consider the series to be a multi-media experience so the Twitter feed and website is key to the live action.”

So get with it, Grandpa - live TV is just so last year! Those hip young things at the BBC know what the viewers want, at least the viewers that matter; constant anthropomorphic soap opera is the order of the day, held together with lashings of cuteness and cheap sentimentality.

Thus it is that Hammond breathlessly describes a lioness as a 'single mum bringing up her son in difficult circumstances', while an elephant - 'Emily' - is 'a first-time mum who is finding things tricky'; all that's missing is Jamie Oliver recommending a list of healthy alternatives to decomposing zebra.

That being so, I suppose it makes perfect sense to choose wildlife programme presenters for their popular appeal rather than any expertise in the subject; perhaps the more intellectually demanding viewers should be grateful they were not invited to vote and say which of the the least talented animals should be fed to the lions.

This is Mother Nature as a pregnant 16-year-old with a Justin Bieber fixation.

Bias at the BBC

No surprise in that, of course, but one doesn't usually expect it to rear its ugly head in the Drama department.

Anyone who, like me, considers 'The Cruel Sea' to be one of the finest pieces of fiction on the subject of WWII, will surely have been appalled at what Radio 4 has seen fit to do to the book in today's Classic Serial.

Not content with shearing it of every vestige of the subtlety and dry wit that permeates Nicholas Monsarrat's prose and replacing the carefully-drawn relationships between characters with crude soap-opera sensationalism, the adaptation has managed to shoe-horn in a startling amount of 'original' material, including some distinctly pointed social comment.

Among the glaring examples, when a sailor finds his wife is pregnant as the result of an affair, the adaptation includes a lengthy and unlikely dialogue in which the wronged seaman discusses with an officer whether the child needs the love of two parents if it is to thrive. This intrusion completely contradicts the rather less emotionally incontinent novel, in which the unhappy man simply answers an unspoken question with terse and pathetic dignity, "The kid'll be mine, sir, and that's all there is to it."

In the book, the sailor goes AWOL so he can stay at home to guard his wife until her lover leaves the country a week later. This attitude obviously doesn't suit the dramatist, who rewrites the story to have the seaman miss his ship's departure - potential desertion with severe penalties attached - in order to to change and feed the baby until he thinks his young wife has learnt to care for it properly.

Worst of all, though, is the piece on oil tankers. Writing from the heart - the heart of an experienced Naval Officer rather than a media luvvie with an axe to grind - Monsarrat's narrative voice comments on the men who crew the flammable ships:

'Aboard Compass Rose, as in every escort that crossed the Atlantic, there had developed an unstinting admiration of the men who sailed in oil-tankers.[...] The stuff they carried - the life-blood of the whole war - was the most treacherous cargo of all; a single torpedo, a single small bomb, even a stray shot from a machine-gun could transform their ship into a torch.[...]

It was these expendable seamen who were the real 'petrol coupons' - the things one could wangle from the garage on the corner; and whenever sailors saw or read of petrol being wasted or stolen, they saw the cost in lives as well, peeping from behind the headlines or the music-hall joke, feeding their anger and disgust.'

In the BBC's version of the same piece, the spivs and Flash Harries of the music-hall jokes have vanished, replaced by more fashionable hate figures for the benefit of today's listeners. The reaction to the waste of petrol, completely rewritten to a new agenda, now runs thus:

'I recall those letters to our more upmarket papers, such as the Times, from readers, almost invariably snug in the Home Counties, vociferously denouncing the Government for their 'socialistic' policy of petrol rationing, demanding their perfect right to drive in their fat, fast cars to whatever race track or pheasant shoot they chose to attend.'

If, as A. A. Milne once said, dramatising another writer's work is leaving your own fingermarks in someone else's bread and butter, the BBC has thrown the plate on the floor and trodden the lot into the carpet with muddy boots.


Update: Turns out I wasn't the only one to spot this and think it deserved a post; the perceptive Paul Marks at Counting Cats has documented and commented on several of the other instances in that episode of what he rightly calls 'socialist propaganda'.

Deep and crisp and even?

Despite the excitable prognostications of the Met Office's finest last night, quite a lot of us didn't wake this morning to a Winter wonderland.

True, there was a bit of soggy-looking snow lying about apologetically in a morning-afterish kind of way, but it's a far cry from that incredible satellite image of the British Isles unbroken white from edge to edge.

However, BBC news had decided the weather would be a major story, so when I tuned in this morning (courtesy of the treadmill at the gym), a shivering reporter was standing on top of the Brecon Beacons to interview a spokesman for Mountain Rescue.

It is a given that any extreme weather event means an interminable series of live reports from regional newsreaders dragged from their warm comfortable desks to the edge of a motorway, a sea-wall or a flood - if it's the latter, they are, of course, contractually obliged to stand ankle-deep in the water.

In this case, editors have had to exercise a certain amount of imagination to make a major news story out of an inch or so of slush and ice; this seemed largely to consist of finding a suitable hilltop - I imagine the rescue services will be less than delighted should they be called out to the aid of the camera crew intent on finding a snowdrift into which they can deposit their hapless reporter.

Two years ago, when a few inches of snow brought the UK to a virtual standstill, I was in Alberta (with downtown Calgary under 5 feet of snow and daytime temperatures of -30C in the Rockies). The valiant attempts by Canadian news teams to politely suppress their mirth as the news of UK airport closures rolled in is a spectacle I shall always cherish.

I'd love to know what they would make of today's reports.

For a reminder of just how spectacular snow can be, there's an astounding collection of Snow Sculptures over at Nourishing Obscurity.

Quote of the day - Ankh-Morpork special edition

The BBC expresses itself with unaccustomed ambiguity...

Exeter takeaway find £17,500 for hygiene offences

A judge fined a Devon restaurant owner £17,500 for food hygiene offences and said only rats and mice were safe to eat there.

And now on BBC 1: The Luvvie Boat

One of the more bizarre elements of the BBC's Election Night coverage prompted Ross at Unenlightened Commentary to remark, "The things you see when you don't have a U-boat to hand," in a post appropriately entitled 'Ship of Fools'.

He was, of course, referring to the £30,000 party hosted by the Corporation at which dozens of celebrities were wined, dined and occasionally asked to pronounce on the state of the nation. Quite why our licence money should be spent ensuring Andrew Neil could call on the political acumen of Joan Collins or Piers Morgan, I'm not entirely sure.

While the presence of rival historians Schama and Starkey is understandable, it's hard to imagine the reasoning behind the invitations to Bruce Forsyth, Ben Kingsley and Kelly Holmes, whatever their respective merits in their own fields. And why did it have to be on a hired boat on the Thames? Last time I looked, the BBC had a state-of-the-art Election Studio with plenty of room for extra guests.

According to a BBC spokesman ‘As part of our election night coverage, we produced live interviews and broadcasts throughout the night from a boat moored outside the London Eye, discussing the election results with views of the House.' (Translation:"we wanted a load of celebs to upstage the competition but they wouldn't play ball unless we gave them free champagne".)

It's the apotheosis of the pointless on-the-spot report - Robert Peston shivering in a deserted Square Mile at 10:15pm or Nick Robinson standing in the rain outside Number 10 while the PM's in Scarborough. Here's the thing - we already know what the Palace of Westminster looks like. We really don't need you to spend £30,000 so you can sit in front of it cosying up to Piers Morgan.

The party did, however, serve to underline just how far we've moved on since the 70's, when election coverage meant a studio full of union bosses, expense account bellies and chins a-quiver, pontificating on the results. Instead, in an enduring legacy of 'Cool Britannia', the BBC sends its presenters out on election night to fawn on perma-tanned, botoxed celebrities - a sign of the times indeed.

Mystic Ed and his Crystal Balls

The BBC’s very own news timewarp - reporting events still in the future – has been discussed before in the Tavern and elsewhere (h/t Blognor Regis) but, oblivious to criticism, they continue to offend, serving as the organ of choice for pre-emptive government leaks.

This morning, with a complete lack of irony, we were treated to a digest of an announcement Ed Balls will make next week. Next week! Not only does the man leak details of his dastardly plans before announcing them to Parliament (h/t Witterings fromWitney); he and his minions are now predicting what will happen three days hence.

The diktat from whatever the spin doctors are calling Balls’ outfit these days – the Department for Children, ASBOS and Junk Food, or something – may well have been drafted, but who’s to say Balls will actually make the speech? After all, he might be late for the meeting, stuck in traffic or suffering from food poisoning*.

The BBC’s confident assertion that Balls will make the announcement in person looks to me like a prediction of future events. Tavern regulars, mindful of the Vagrancy Act (Any person who pretends or professes to tell fortunes ....shall be guilty of an offence. ), wonder about this; after all, we know that the Today presenters have their palms liberally crossed with silver for broadcasting this stuff.

Perhaps, though, we'll forgive them on this occasion: the demise of the literacy and numeracy strategy, 'delivered' by jargonmeisters Capita (I picture it arriving in a series of cumbersome crates), and the resulting liberation of Primary Schools to adapt their teaching to the needs of pupils is a welcome development indeed.

*Please note this is neither a threat nor a suggestion; merely an hypothesis.

John Humphrys' Crystal Balls

Dear Today programme,

This morning you gave details of Prince Charles' audience with the Pope, (a short lads-only chat before allowing the Duchess and retinue in) even though it had not yet taken place. On several recent occasions, you have announced what such-and-such a politician 'will say in a speech later today'.

Since these events have yet to happen, please explain the clairvoyant devices you employ to be so certain that nothing will prevent, alter or postpone them. Granted, you have a copy of the Prince's itinerary, or the politician's press release, but how do you know? The royals might get stuck in traffic, the MP could pull a sickie, an asteroid might impact and end the world as we know it.

Oh, and while we're about it, please try to do something about your habit of spinning out news headlines, as in 'The teenager missing for three weeks following a coach crash during a school trip to the Australian outback which resulted in three deaths has been found....'

'No man is an island'; by the time you get round to telling me whether the child is alive or dead, I've been holding my breath for 30 seconds. Forget this Germanic obsession with placing the verb at the end of the sentence; for goodness' sake, put yourselves in the position of the listener, and give us the crucial information as soon as possible!

Thank you, that feels a lot better.

News 24 - Judgement Day

"We were in uncharted territory, making up history as we went along..."

News 24 is in serious danger of creating the very news it craves. As I write, reporters are bringing live footage of a riot developing out of today's supposedly peaceful protest against the military action in Gaza. There is some dispersal, they say, as those who want to avoid violence leave the scene; now consider the converse for a moment.

Discontented, bored or outraged, anyone who wants to get involved can see at a glance where to go for a piece of action. That such people exist has, alas, been shown again and again throughout history and 24 hour live news coverage gives them the means to identify trouble spots and arrive there within minutes.

In 1973, Larry Niven's novella 'Flash Crowd' featured rioting and looting as the unforseen consequence of teleportation; in the near future, we may see it happening as a result of 24 hour rolling news. If this seems a little far-fetched, consider Robert Peston's reports on the Northern Rock crisis; within minutes of the first report, people who saw the queues on television had rushed out to withdraw their savings in their turn.

A crisis by any other name...

Today is officially Downturn Friday. Those clever chaps at the BBC have put their thinking caps on and decided that using the word 'crisis' might just be damaging public confidence. Shame that their laudable efforts to turn it into a 'downturn' are completely undermined by the hysterical red arrow plunging downwards from their carefully designed logo.

Not since Robert (Stormy Petrel) Peston stood admiring the queues outside Northern Rock has such an iconic manifestation of impending disaster graced our screens. Its visceral appeal to our inner lemming should ensure that the retail sector shuts down faster than a speeding quark.