Pacific Quay Musings?

[compo 7,030]

Get real my fellow fans turn it off forever,  it's unadulterated crap .

[craig 5,199]

52 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

He must have gone to Hull because he couldn’t get the qualifications for Napier or Caley. (Thats the yoonie not the self-styled football club)

Easy tiger... Napier is a fine educational establishment

[Walterbear 557]

29 minutes ago, compo said:

Get real my fellow fans turn it off forever,  it's unadulterated crap .

Rarely listen to sportsound for more than 10 mins without having to turn it off. Last night EBT ‘Tommo’ trying to assert himself (presumably after BBC had trained him to stop bending over to Michael Stewart) and making a total erse of it. Kept on interjecting loudly but with nothing to say. Stewart appeared to be humouring him and the louder ‘Tommo’ shouted the more stupid he appeared. 

 

It amazes me that an organisation which  was loud on exposing tax avoidance openly employs one of the benefits of the EBT scheme using taxpayers money to further feather Thompson’s nest.  Mind you I’m sure there are plenty BBC employees or contributors who have their own tax avoidance schemes which go beyond an ISA. In fact I know they do.

An organisation steeped in hypocrisy and self esteem. 

[Uilleam 5,929]

"An organisation steeped in hypocrisy and self esteem."

 

Self importance, but little self respect, I should add.

[DevilBlue WeeThe 44]

4 hours ago, Walterbear said:

An organisation steeped in hypocrisy and self esteem. 

They certainly have their own perception of self esteem.  Reality as usual betrays their utter lack of self awareness and how misplaced that "self esteem" is.

 

Try telling them that though - they'd probably think it's a compliment.

[26th of foot 6,082]

Yesterday, the winds of change whipped up off the river, and blew through the PQ gang hut.

 

No, not the actual football coverage, the usual AberTic mob congregated at Tynecastle for the Jambos against the Dandy Dons. Big AmDram Dick, Wullie Miller, Liam McLeod, and Chris McLaughlin spent twenty minutes before the game discussing Aberdeen securing second position for the fourth year in a row. A possible Manager of the Year for dearest Derek, should he achieve runners-up status in the league and win the Scottish Cup.  A most comfortable discussion. Rob McLean gave Rangers supporters the team news, a half time bullet point report, and a list of scorers at the end. Neil McCann was not contacted, or decided not to come to the phone post match. Somber times prevail at PQ, Jum Spence is inconsolable.

 

The breeze that did penetrate was Off the Ball. Big Stu' and Tam were off on their holibags, and Chic Young and Pat the Biro Nevin filled in, with Billy Sloan and Erchie MacPherson as guests. The former Heidmaister was on plugging his new tome on Scotland's attendance at World Cup Finals. Billy provided numerous tales of excess amid the music industry. Chic and Pat continually flagged up their daring references to things English and London. They knew their content would upset Big Stu's sensitivities. Surprising, given Big Stu's University time at Hull, and the majority of his working life based south of the border? However, as we know, Big Stu' is obsessed with the accents of Anglo-Scots, it's a Warren Cummings thing.

 

The show was entertaining, tales of Wembley weekends, Ray Wilkins stories, London memories, best goal ever witnessed, ...... etc; all done without the habitual Big Stu' agenda driven obsession. I wonder if MacPherson's appearance was timed for Cosgrove's absence? His last two appearances have seen him relate a story on how BBC Scotland has changed in his fifty plus years of commentating. He told of the BBC Scotland canteen, where everyone would gather to watch Scot's sides involved in Euro fixtures. The unwritten rule was everyone supported the Scot's team, whoever they were playing. This changed when Rangers competed in the UEFA cup final in 2008. He related a tense atmosphere in a most crowded canteen as the game began. When St Petersburg scored, there was an enormous eruption, dozens of folks on tables punching the air, lots of hugging, gesticulations towards the screen, ....... etc. You can imagine, Big Stu' was unhappy and immediately changed the subject. The second occasion saw Big Stu' attempting to stymie  Erchie from telling it again.

 

We have endured every fart and wheeze of Cosgrove for 23 years on this show, a man in his 67th year should be encouraged to utilise his pensioners ticket more.

[Soulsonic5791 408]

I wonder if Archie would be forthcoming if he was pressed for an answer about the reasons behind the change in the once convivial canteen from an organisational perspective of the corporation?

 

It's ok gents, I can answer my own question...

 

*Self-admonishment alert*

 

Don't be so stupid, Archie wouldn't dare bite the hand that feeds would he.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Soulsonic5791

[Soulsonic5791 408]

Here's an article from 23rd October 2005 by Alasdair Reid of the Herald which goes some way to illustrate the dismay felt by many as to how the BBC in Scotland has evolved in last decade or so.

 

ON the day that one man's departure from Scottish football sent shock waves reverberating through the sport, another took his leave in a far quieter and more dignified fashion.

After 40 years behind his BBC microphone, Alastair Alexander yesterday delivered his last radio commentary as he described the action from Ibrox, where Rangers defeated Motherwell 2-0.

At the finish, you might just have caught the slightest crack of emotion in his voice, but for the most part he played the part of the consummate professional, and simply got on with the job.

In recognition of one of the legends in his field, and a master of his art, it would have been fitting if Alexander's employers had marked his departure with a tribute that allowed him to recount some of the experiences he acquired in his four decades of travels and travails on the coat-tails of Scottish football.

After all, what could be more compelling than the reflections of an intelligent and articulate man on an era of sweeping changes to the game, on the highs of Celtic in Lisbon, Rangers in Barcelona and Aberdeen in Gothenburg, and on the lows of Scotland in Argentina in 1978?

It was, you might say, an open goal for Auntie. And, in the best traditions of Scottish football, she responded with a dismal sclaff.

When yesterday's edition of Sportsound was over, BBC Scotland simply did what it always does at 5.30pm on a Saturday, and carried on with Your Call, the phone-in show hosted by Jim Traynor.

Fair enough, it could be argued, given the hoopla that was unfolding over George Burley's departure from Tynecastle. Except, that is, that not much was actually unfolding at that point, for the BBC, like every other media outlet, was playing a waiting game in the build-up to the 6pm statement from Hearts chairman George Foulkes that would, er, clarify the reasons behind Burley's going.

So last night's edition of Your Call was like every other edition since the programme's inception: a deeply depressing sequence of slurred voices and ill-formed opinions that served to illuminate nothing more than the suspicion that the average Scot is still struggling to shake off the shackles of Neanderthal inclinations.

It is a worryingly precise reflection of the standards of our national broadcaster that a combination of intoxication and indignation that would make you a menace on the road or an accident and emergency ward seems just the ticket to get you all the airtime you want on the BBC.

To which, of course, the mandarins of Queen Margaret Drive would probably witter on self-righteously about their responsibility to give the public a say, without revealing broadcasting's dirtiest little secret: that the public is also conveniently cheap.

Such drivel as that programme produces might just be tolerable were it the exception to the norm of BBC Scotland's early-evening output.

Yet it has become all too painfully clear recently that Radio Scotland sees its target market in a sector where tying your own shoelaces is an act of high accomplishment and parts of Little Britain could easily be mistaken for outtakes from a fly on the wall documentary.

As a consequence, Radio Scotland, a station that came into existence around a quarter of a century ago with a worthy, Reithian brief to serve the country as a whole, is now driven by an agenda as narrow as it is inane.

Sure, it still throws up the odd cultural gem, but its weekday prime-time 6pm-7pm slots are now given over completely to football. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday are taken by the crashingly pointless 90 minutes, a programme whose sole virtue is to be shorter than its title suggests, while the Thursday slot is given to the dismally unfunny Off The Ball, that carnival of contrived accents and grunting populism of presenters who are clearly still struggling to master the glottal stop.

Such output might be acceptable from an independent station, but it amounts to a calamitous dumbing-down to those of us who still cherish the idea of the BBC as a public service broadcaster, with all the noble obligations that status ought to entail.

The BBC's most basic duty is to reflect the broad range of public interests, and that duty is all the more pressing in areas that are neglected by commercial rivals. Increasingly, however, the BBC's coverage of any sport other than football sits on a spectrum between tokenism and downright negligence.

Nobody would argue that football should be given anything other than the lion's share of the BBC's output in sport, although many would argue that it deserves a far higher quality of coverage.

At the most lowly level, there is an obligation on the BBC to provide a basic news service encompassing other sports, but it is failing to do even that. Yesterday, for instance, the Borders rugby team won a notable victory in Italy; it merited not a cheep on the Beeb.

Instead, we were assailed by the incoherent opinions of the dregs of the Buckfast generation and their slobbering contributions to a phone-in show.

Alexander got out just in time.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Soulsonic5791

[Walterbear 557]

The atmosphere has changed because the folk at the top don’t like Rangers. Not paranoia but fact. I’m not asking them to support Rangers and be uncritical of our performances but treat the tens of 1000s of Rangers fans who pay their wages with a bit of respect. They have lost there way in understanding what their purpose is and are so mired in privilege and high wages that they think they are better than they are. Their product is shoddy in quality and unashamedly biased. You have to pinch yourself when you remember they are public servants and we pay their wages. 

[Soulsonic5791 408]

14 minutes ago, Walterbear said:

The atmosphere has changed because the folk at the top don’t like Rangers. Not paranoia but fact. I’m not asking them to support Rangers and be uncritical of our performances but treat the tens of 1000s of Rangers fans who pay their wages with a bit of respect. They have lost there way in understanding what their purpose is and are so mired in privilege and high wages that they think they are better than they are. Their product is shoddy in quality and unashamedly biased. You have to pinch yourself when you remember they are public servants and we pay their wages. 

My question was a rhetorical one. But Erchie could no doubt tell us who replaced who, led to this and that etc., etc. 

 

Look at the calibre of Rangers supporting ex-players that they choose to employ. Tells a story. That's before you even get to editorial control and equal opportunities as an employer.