With that in mind please watch the following:

What keeps inflation rising?

And ask yourself whether it did a good job. I think it is misleading and does a poor job of explaining things. One gets the impression that Richard Scott thinks the increased wheat prices are because of Chinese people eating vast quantities of toast.

A lot of intelligence work is carried out by unsung heroes who quietly collate, analyse and disseminate, working in organisations such as the MOD’s Defence Intelligence Staff. During much of the last century the UK’s airspace was routinely intruded upon by Russian aircraft (no doubt we did the same to Russia). So it made a great deal of sense to log UFO reports and contextualise them in order to ascertain if the objects sighted were of defence significance. No matter how barmy. Or not entirely barmy: Many people spotting stealth planes, prior to them being made public (which sometimes takes years, and the prototypes may never be declassified), would, given the cultural collateral of ‘unidentified’ flying objects, view them as little green (or grey) men operating some kind of intergalactic free prostate checking clinic. Likewise a Harrier Jump Jet showing off, at night, viewed from 5km away. Or a missile test. Or atmospheric research that also provides handy surveillance platforms. Taxes at work.

So having a civil servant take reports between more important tasks makes sense. If a pattern emerges of some potentially unknown novel foreign aircraft regularly violating national airspace it is a major concern. The files were not secret, it’s more likely the reason some of the documents weren’t released sooner was a combination of laziness and stinginess. There are interesting bits buried in there, but if I can spot them, despite having the invisible Jolly Green Giant knee me in the back, I’ll be fucked if I’ll point them out. Do not ask me to point them out. I won’t point them out to anyone on principle.

FYI I think alien life exists and possibly super advanced aliens also (I was going to say super intelligent but then it dawned on me that intelligence is a very human concept). It’s just that the distances involved are huge and beings clever enough to travel faster than light (if it’s even possible), or some kind of time-travel (if it’s even possible), will likely have cleverer ways of studying intergalactic flora and fauna. In the event of time travel the computing possibilities are endless.

Three bits get on my tits: One - the lady looks in his direction, as he eats the shit, presumably her shit, but doesn’t react. (This is a little out of order given the probable budget) Two - the 29 O’Clock bit at the end. It’s just cheesy. If it was there to make sure people knew it was a joke, rather than a real MTV show, it’s a bit extraneous. Three - the direction was mental and the location sucked. On a bigger budget it would have been better, because the context of the sketch worked heavily against it, the room was out of place with the target of parody. Most life-style programmes have suburban chic. A suburban home setting would have done the trick.

I find Mr Natterjack’s Back much funnier because it’s much tighter (direction, editing), the setting is appropriate, and the sound track works well. It’s shock humour and has the feel of a short-art house film. I also liked the Daniel and Len sketches - they were totally inappropriate and out of context in the programmes they appeared in (which adds to why I find it funny, some of the people who tuned in may of been shocked) - but they were dark, man. They also could have done with been longer so the characters could have been expanded upon.

The best UK (sort-of) sketch show in the last few years is Snuff Box (watch a whole episode here). The locations are perfect, the soundtrack is perfect, and there are no more series. Presumably to make way for Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. The Snuff Box DVD, soon to be released, will no doubt be worth buying.

Click here to listen to Jon Ronson’s Radio 4 programme with Robbie Williams. It’s kind of a melancholy programme. One of the reasons I think Jon Ronson is so special is he lets subjects speak for themselves, unadorned. and respects his audience enough to let them make up their own minds. I agree with Brandon.

The assumption about an audience, needed to arrive at a conclusion of inaccessibility, is worrying. Accessibility is totally wrong. The most patriarchal thing since Abraham is that broadcasting needs to be accessible. I don’t necessarily think there’s an assumption people are stupid, but suspect there’s an assumption people are not interested in complexity. So, as a result, controversial issues turn into tabloid, bite size chunks, which alarm people irresponsibly, or presentation heavy documentaries, light on detail and low in accuracy. Maybe people being turned off by politics, science, the arts, and current affairs, is, in part, because they associate it with ‘accessible’ broadcasting. People sense that they’re being spoken down-to.

There should be an assumption that the majority of people are not stupid, and that complex subjects should be presented to inform. That is a different assumption from accessibility, because it assumes the viewers are intelligent and capable of learning. That not everything in a documentary needs to be so dumbed down it is accessible to the majority of viewers. People are capable of looking things up that interest them. The BBC used to produce decent fact sheets. As such there is zero replay value in many BBC current affairs programmes, and documentaries, because the information within them is so light very few people would have a problem with remembering their contents. Unless distracted by the special effects, and music track.

The BBC needs to compete to survive and in order to compete, with the other channels, many of whom are now producing documentaries of acceptable quality, the BBC needs to produce documentaries that are better. They desperately need to take a step-backwards. Until the late nineties BBC documentaries were the envy of the world. The BBC is the broadcaster best placed to attract the next David Attenborough(s) and needs to do that right away if it is to survive.

And the BBC could. Because the talent tucked away in places like BBC 4, a channel that receives a tiny fraction of the license fee and speaks for itself. Likewise Radio 4. Accessibility should be regarded as a failed experiment.

It virtually goes without saying that producing reality television, from talent shows to DIY, when everyone is doing it, makes the BBC less distinguishable from the commercial channels. Sacrificing long-term survival for short-term popularity. BBC 3 is, to my mind, schizophrenic, veering between sub-Channel 4 youth television, and, occasionally, decent drama/comedy. Half of what is on BBC 3 is done on commercial channels, and often better. I don’t think there is a dearth of talent - the talent is out there – the BBC needs to aggressively seek it out.

Someone needs a big brush to sweep away accessability and replace it with talent. Talent should reflect the subjects they’re involved in. There should be no more broadcasters covering subjects that leave them so out of their depth they look stupid.

Much of the above applies to the rest of the media but I don’t care about them as much as the BBC. I would like to be able to mock foreign friends about how much better BBC documentaries are than theirs. I felt smug when I could do that.

Click here to lose a little more faith in humanity.

And, was somewhat perplexed that the story didn’t appear to be new, given the widespread coverage it was receiving, and that, furthermore, the finger didn’t appear to be severed in any sense of the word. I think Ben Goldacre is right to draw attention to such risible coverage from people we rely on for news. See also.