I love sport, and I have been watching the World Athletics Championships. This has left me genuinely uncertain. Has BBC sports coverage always been this harshly, stridently British nationalist, and do I just notice it now as my own sensibility has changed? Or has there genuinely been a shift away from any pretence of impartiality?
Apart from analysis focusing almost entirely on the prospects of the British contender in the sport in question, we have witnessed countless field events where numerous throws and jumps of other contestants are not broadcast at all, in favour of shots of the British athlete in the event warming up, zipping their tracksuit or chatting with their coach. Other competitors’ efforts are only of interest in relation to their potential to affect the position of the British athlete, with the exception of a very few major celebrities.
It is not treated as a sporting event so much as a nationalist propaganda event. I find it repulsive to the extent that I found myself being quite pleased that “Team GB” has so far been pathetic, and each athlete the BBC hypes, proceeds immediately to fall on their arse.
I have now discovered that Eurosport, even with the English commentary, is covering the games in a much more sensible manner.
I noticed at Wimbledon what seems to be a related phenomenon. Support for the underdog appears to have disappeared. The crowd were boorish and completely one-eyed in their support for British players and for celebrities. When Gilles Muller defeated Nadal, some wonderful winning rallies by Muller at key moments were met by something short of polite applause. It was embarrassing to watch.
I do not recognise Brexit Britain as the country in which I was born and raised. The UK has become a nasty and mean-spirited place, and the sooner it is broken up the better.
It’s the BBC, their post-Reithian charter seemingly being to breathe hate between nations , whilst not (completely) informing , not (fully) educating but being sure to entertain .
meanwhile as you lot here in the interference agencies never seem to go on holiday, remaining on your fetid war-footing 24h/day, 8d/week, etc here’s another ‘accurate world-view’ article to whinge about or ignore:-
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/al-jazeera-saudi-arabia-israel-policy-terrorism-isis-iran-prince-mohamed-netanyahu-a7885851.html
Im feeling unwell, https://twitter.com/I_Albion_I
Twitter shadow ban. Expected I guess, I ask for it. Someone say something nice.
See, if I could say what I want (I appreciate what I spammed to prisonplanet (Perfect Orwellian title) wasn’t nice, some things aren’t) The many people who ideologically back this system would be crushed….The fact is they deceive themselves and they should face a bit of (however general) Truth about what they are doing.
It’s not the people at the top who matter, it’s all this twisted little ….. who profit from corporate attention entities, they don’t care if the ideology they push has any coherence, Or how it actually relates to material reality.
In one way it’s disheartening when you understand the control. On the other it heartening knowing how much they need, shows just how fragile the grip is. They can let nothing through.
Join the rebel force, just by yourself you have the power to be a real threat to the empire.
all these* twisted
So Ishmael is the moderator and she has gone to bed?
Ishmael, I do like PJ Harvey, but I do not do Twitter, but it seems you look like a bloke. Have they banned you from Twitter for talking to yourself?
The important thing is not to get depressed.
Tony
Although I have been away a lot (it is summer) I have noticed very recently that Craig Murray is again being quoted all over the Internet with regards to the highest levels of current political events
Whilst I may disagree with a lot of Craig Murray’s Political Views (I also disagree with The Pope – yet another Globalist), I have had no reason whatsoever over the last 10 years or so to doubt his integrity with regards to such matters.
I think he is an honest bloke, and I especially like that in someone when I disagree with most of their political views.
Tony
Tony
Both you and Craig are right most of the time, just a different sort of right.
Peter Beswick,
Personally, I think all this stuff about North Korea is a complete load of old bollocks, presented as a Media distraction, to try and hide a complete and utter Embarrassment about The US withdrawing from Syria.
The stuff that Craig is involved in, has already been extremely well documented by Craig Murray.
I have no reason to doubt him, though I’m still not sure about Julian Assange and particularly Ed Snowden. He looks exactly like a UNIX Techie I used to work with except he spoke with a posh Southern English accent – and he was far more technically Brilliant than me. They made him redundant….I pleaded with the management that they make me redundant instead of him.
It may not be the same bloke – but spittin’ image – apart from the American accent (which could easily be acquired. What would you do if you are 28 and got fired?)
And no – it was just a normal British Company – no direct connection to Government nor any of the “Intelligence Services” at GCHQ in Cheltenham.
I’ve never worked for them. I think they are a complete and utter disgrace.
Tony
Apologies if this aint new. and was posted before..I haven’t seen it though
An informative Interview with craig.. Quite long, then Nadira Talks about ‘ Locked In ‘
Fair warning, the music in the intervals is Fkn Torture.
https://archives.kpfa.org/data/20170807-Mon1700.mp3
On another Note, I often wondered why Craig’s second Book was called ‘ The Catholic Orange Men of Togo ‘
What the Fk ..they even send a group to Belfast for the 12 July. Marches. Who even invents these things
looking at the bigger reality they don’t have control. An illusion. They wan’t stability (more than us, being cowards) but we control. Interdependent world. Fear is up to us. They NEED US.
Very few see the illusion some like to imagine, I don’t recommend going there (I have the worst imagination sometimes) stay in the hear & now.
I hope I didn’t depress anyone with previous post, through I think feelings are very important to go through. Depression is a depressed state on mind, not the same as going through sadness, The former (in my experience) relating to thinking to much & not focusing on now, much better place.
We got this. …Those few, very few, who think they know what they are up to are (i feel) flapping about like idiots. An encouraging thought.
Only the most craven humans (there are very few of those) would knowingly take part in a lot of the stuff they do atm, it can’t last.
Just made me think if this, seems to relate. kropotkin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jytf-5St8WU
I used to enjoy listening to Test Match Special but the increasing use of “thrashing” for “won” or “succeeded” has turned me off completel Totally agree that “sport” in UK has lost the meaning of the word! I find this nationalistic and chauvinistic British attitude to sport nauseating. Still they do say that “history repeats itself”. As far back as I know the Byzantines, among other imperial monstrosities, promoted their games as the empire crumbled around them.
I hope the same for this shambles we have to put up with, that has unfortunately caused so much harm around the world but covers it up with sport and throwing shit at every other country at every opportunity – and we know what that is called!
I stopped watching such things on the BBC or ITV as soon as I realised Eurosport does a much better job. This wasn’t really for the jingoism avoidance but more because Eurosport tries hard to actually show the sport. It is possible to follow field events as competitions on Eurosport. The Beeb is liable to cut away and show Jane Smith at home and training and do a lifestyle bit on her and her family and you are forced online to find out how the field events are going.
Same thing happens with the Snooker, instead of actually showing a match they will a lifestyle bit showing snooker players dressed in ‘civvies’ at home and down the local snooker club being one of the boys. They will show edited highlights of the matches to make up for missing them live. Eurosport shows all the matches, live. That and NO John Vercoe makes up for the loss of the fragrant Heather.
Eurosport also covers my favourite sporting spectacle: the Biathlon World Cup series. I root for Norway. As a distance runner I am in awe of cross country ski racing interspersed with accurate target shooting. That they can do it at all impresses me that they can ski hard AND shoot clear, sometimes is nothing short of miraculous.
So that is three cheers for Eurosport. They show lots of cycling and other sports if that is your bag.
Wish the shambles on the BBC pnly concerned sports coversge but it now corrupts news coverage, like repeating US nonsense about duplomacy getting somewhere with North Korea as it will only happen though a negotiated settlement which leaves it with its alleged nuclear weapons and missiles or by all out war.
Tother evening in the womens football final Netherlands v Denmark the commentators spoke only about England who were defeated by the Netherlands 3.0,one of them Balding I think coming away with ” if we could have prevented the Dutch from scoring those 3 goals things would have been different” ffs.
An influential Chinese news outlet has suggested that if North Korea starts a war with the US, it is on its own. If Washington attacks first,it will defend its neighbor.
Beijing has called Washington’s bluff.
End of story.
Trowbridge, your comments are mirrored in the following interesting article from RobG, who used to comment on here.
http://www.spiderbomb.com/blog/?p=4216
Its a sad reflection of the moderation policy of this blog, that RobG, amongst several others no longer contribute here. So far as I am aware, he didn’t even commit the original sin (which apparently another brilliant poster – bevin – was deemed guilty of)
However, it is Craig Murray’s blog and he can ban whoever he likes.
Tony
I had no crux with Bevins or Rob G.s posts, at least they were actively involved, and they were not like English Knights fascist ramblings.
Trowbridge, here’s an alternative summary of what’s going on over the pond.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q-7t9IVhoOk
Thanks JOML for the links and the notices I am sticking to the first one.
The Chinese indication of leaving North Korea on its own if it goes alone settles it, leaving theNorth with what it says it is standing up for.
Miss both those posters, and Craig is quite wrong to have stopped them whatever they did. He puts up wiyj somer ifiots no matter how crazy their posts,
Yes it’s the BBC, they are getting old, it’s not a rule but often the way people go.
They want to keep asserting their significance. You don’t see the change day by day, but unless you work very hard @ not you close up. As they are closing the country up. Real betrayal of the next generation. & what a legacy it’s leaving.
All Communism/socialism is the bad sort, Except the sort they had which they now reject for others. But it keeps them feeling important.
Mean miserable old man and women.
Is it you? Clearly not if you notice it.
It’s not just the BBC….
“Our client has been wrongly implicated in this matter; he categorically denies being the individual concerned and has irrefutable proof that he was in the United States at the time of the incident.”
So why is this headline news in The Daily Telegraph?
The media has gone mad.
“Man arrested over Putney jogger attack is US investment banker at Mayfair equity firm”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/11/man-arrested-putney-jogger-partner-mayfair-equity-firm/
Tony
If he had irrefutable proof he was in the USA on Monday the police would have put out a statement saying it wasn’t him.
And of course now they have. They have accepted his evidence.
The living dead. How about The Margaret Thatcher Conference on Security 2017 put on by the Centre for Policy Studies. Thatcher co-founded the CPS with Sir Keith Joseph and Alfred Sherman.
The conference speakers – paleocons, crooks and Zionists – are listed here.
http://www.cps.org.uk/security2017/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Policy_Studies
Kissinger was one of the speakers at this so called security conference.
His speech – Chaos and Order in a Changing World
https://capx.co/chaos-and-order-in-a-changing-world/
And background – http://ahtribune.com/politics/1835-iran-radical-empire.html
No laughing in the back. He’s 94 now. We must respect our elders. 🙂
Great Blockheads link, Tony. Here’s my bairns’ favourite song of their’s, not that I’m over influencing their musical tastes!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zM_q3k4TwpM
This essentially “English” nationalism is not new. I first became aware of the BBC bias when I lived in Canada. Suddenly I heard and watched sports, and athletic reporting concentrating on achievement not nationality. I used to listen to Radio Switzerland to get unbiased news. Sadly their broadcasts have long since ceased. The BBC is a disgrace.
Yesterday after the women’s 200 m final when a UK young prospect only managed a fourth place, a BBC reporter had the temerity to say that ‘they should be putting their backs into it and maybe then, with a little bit of luck’…..
It shows that most of the sports journalists really have not got a clue what it means as a 19year old to perform in front of thousands, that even without the Russian we could not replicate the regimented Lottery success from the last Olympic games.
What a sad tub thumper it has become.
That was a great fight for the finish between Schippers and Ta Lou. Yet all the commentators wanted to focus on was a British girl who never looked like winning. Epitomised Craig’s point about the BBC during these championships. Farkin embarrassing!
It’s nearly over. Homage to Brendan Foster tonight. Coe to be sanctified later – St Sebastian of Nike. New underwear needed for the BBC reporting team as they have been wetting themselves on the last minute GB medal take. So many platitudes have come out of their studio over the last week, it has been embarrassing. The worst offender has been Michael Johnson, the American athlete.
Their hero worship of Usain Bolt and Mo Farrah has been excruciating and out of all proportion.
The team plus many others not named.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/wacs/commentators
GB finishes equal sixth with Ethiopia.
https://www.iaaf.org/competitions/iaaf-world-championships/iaaf-world-championships-london-2017-5151/medaltable
GB have just come third in the Mens’ 4 x 400m relay. Complete euphoria.
By the sounds of it watching it on Eurosport was the best decision for that alone. if Eurosport is biased it is for all European athletes. It does a good job of interviewing as many as they can. When they cover the Biathlon in the winter the commentators do live translating of interviews in a range of European languages.
Can you believe Piers Morgan coming to The Donald’s support in the North Korean confrontation, asking whose side are you on, as if everyone should want a successful war.
Ooh er Sebastian!
Savaged by Martin Samuel in the Mail today.
Guess where the IAAF is holding the next but one championships following Qatar? At Coe’s favourite stadium – Eugene, Oregon. That is the home of Nike and Phil Knight.
At least Lord Coe’s tainted sport won’t be back any time soon… the World Athletics Championships really were an orgy of self-congratulation
Lord Coe was thanked by the BBC for laying on the greatest games ever
Coe also returned the praise to the broadcaster for their wonderful coverage
Athletics is undermined by drugs, corrupt execs and state-sponsored doping
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-4790410/At-Coe-s-tainted-sport-won-t-time-soon.html
This was on the BBC website. Chapter and verse on the corruption which Craig has written about.
Lord Coe role in Eugene 2021 Worlds decision questioned
By Mark Daly & Calum McKay
BBC Scotland Investigations
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/34908237
24 November 2015
and
Sebastian Coe helped to IAAF presidency by ‘corrupt’ official
By Mark Daly & James Oliver
BBC Scotland Investigations and Panorama
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/36541301
16 June 2016
BBC Scotland justifies its existence here.
I do not believe it! Several more hours of athletics on BBC1 and BBC2 on Sunday are being inflicted on the licence fee payers.
Mo Farah at the Birmingham Grand Prix: BBC TV and online coverage
BBC Sport brings you live coverage as double World Championship medallist Mo Farah competes at the Birmingham Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Briton, who won 10,000m gold and 5,000m silver in London, will race on the track for the penultimate time before switching his focus to road events. A host of medallists from London 2017 will also compete at the prestigious Diamond League meeting.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/34214296