Baa
Remember the glory days when this blog was about people going past the window?
Two sheep just went past the window. And before that a Shetland pony. This vindicates something I said to colleagues earlier. When I arrived this morning I was sure I could smell barnyard animals.
They named the person they thought was responsible for the smell but I reminded them that he left a while back. I suspected C´óÏó´«Ã½, which is just across the corridor from us and is often responsible for strange goings-on. There was a Wendy House in the corridor the other day, and on one occasion a lighthouse. Sure enough there is some straw in the corridor which would explain the animals. In these fiscally stringent times, it's probably cheaper to bring the countryside to the studio, rather than the other way round.
It's hard to describe the frisson of excitement that went round our office at seeing these animals just outside our window. Grown World at One producers shrieked and stood up. Others stood up and shrieked. In any case, for a brief moment during Prime Minister's Questions, none of us was watching Prime Minister's Questions. Hope we didn't miss anything important.
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SB2.5?
What were straw’s comments about Muslim attire?
Ee-i-ee-io.
Were the sheep actually inside the building?
There's 87 sheep outside my window. I've just counted them.
Zzzzz...
C´óÏó´«Ã½ on the radio? Animals? Really?
Let's draw a veil on straw's comments? There were lots of baa's during PM's Question Time (that is PM = prime minister). It raises a question why doesn't PM have a PM Question Time on Wednesdays?
Rumour has it that they are actually there for Cbeebies - you know the channel for the toddlers, which makes it even more worrying that, for a brief moment none of you were watching PMQT !
Shouldn't you have gone out and got interviews with the sheep? What are their views on Straw?
Was the grown up WatO producer non other than Lissa, who had one of the credits this lunchtime?
Eddie,
You didn't miss much at PMQ's. Other than it would seem - Dave (sunshine) Cameron has re-introduced Punch & Judy to the proceedings.
You know what I wish would happen? PMQs should be made more difficult. The PM, Opposition Leader, Lib-Dem Leader, and anyone asking a question should be given a list of words they must include, another list of words they can't use (for TB I'd have words like really, believe, look, etc), and they should have to use the rules of Just A Minute. Every time they break the rules or use/don't use a word, they have to spend 30 seconds juggling raw eggs. Imagine what great TV that would make :p
"Dave" or "David"??
Has he said which (his blog says "David")
Should it be up to 'us' the electorate to decide in these days of choice above everything else??
hmmm... don't worry, there'll be more choice than this at the next election...
won't there?
re SHEEP, STRAPLINES and HTML
Photos of sheep, goat and pony coming soon. The ducks and chickens had gone by the time I got back from lunch. Sorry. Guess I don't have a career as a paparazzi.
The straplines are back. Don't know where they'd gone. I blame a) the borg queue b) my cat c) my husband d) the cleaner.
re HTML page coding (I think Stephen from STROP and Aperitif had asked about this)...Tony the Blog Wizard explains that you are talking about the name of the blog displayed in the very top of the browser window in the blue strip and that you want to know whether that can reflect the entry you are looking at. I am afraid the answer is NO. The current templates can't accommodate your wishes. The original blog team decided it was more important to separate out the top part of the page - the part with Eddies picture in it - and have that as a single file shared across all pages in order to decrease the amount of processing creating pages was taking. Hope that makes sense to you.
I don't actually think that we, the great unwashed, are necessarily best placed to make many of the decisions of state. I know there are zillions of issues that I know next to nothing about and, quite honestly, have neither the time nor inclination to learn about before "deciding" anything about them. I guess this is the point of a representative democracy. However, in this age of mass communication, I do think it would be an interesting exercise to investigate the relationship between choices made by politicians and mass public opinion. I realise that the details of how this could be done are more subtle and complex than I can gather (issues such a representative groups, self-selection, security, etc), but it might be really interesting and illuminating. The sort of thing I have in mind would be to run some sort of technologically facilitated non-binding "referendum" alongside votes in the house of commons. I recognise that if it's non-binding, then it's questionable if anybody would both casting their "vote" - but why not? People vote on telly progs all the time - perhaps some enterprising BB.., sorry, TV company exec could propose a TV programme format that reviewed (summarised, rather than in depth discussion) current questions going before the house and then took a vote. If it were popular enough, it might eventually be the sort of thing that people might take notice of. And even if it wasn't, it could provide some fascinating data for study.
You can tell I was watching Mrs Pritchard last night. Hm, perhaps I should have written this down and sent a registered letter to the Beeb to protect my format...
God bless Mrs Pritchard!
re 12
Lissa with an a, Lovely PM Blog Shepherdess,
"The ducks and chickens had gone by the time I got back from lunch. Sorry.
You mean you ate them all?
Lissa,
Strap lines. They disappeared on 9th and 10th, as I predicted over the weekend. This is most likely because 9/10 September was the weekend, when no strap lines are on. The strap line coding is hard wired to the dates in September.
If no-one does any coding, I preduct strap lines and haikus again this weekend, and no strap lines Monday & Tuesday next week.
Might be easier to have strap lines on all the time, or else have a test in the code, to look at the day, not the date. If "day" not "Sat" or "Sun" then show strapline (Tony should be able to rattle that bit of code off).
Naughty naughty, Oran... Casting Nasturtions about the Lovely Lissa with an a...
You know what, Oran? I think YOU might be the senior figure that EM was talking about yesterday!!
Remember the discussions aout DAB yesterday? Well, I've noticed an even stranger issue. I'm listening to a freeview Radio 4 upstairs as I type it, while a freeview Radio 4 is also on downstairs for when I'm on the laptop for work, and there's an almost 1 second delay between up here and down there! It surely can't take a second for the signal to travel an extra 8 feet...
You know I always feel obscurely disappointed hearing about what you can see out of the window. I imagined, to misquote, the PM studios, and the Today programme studios as "dark, satanic mills" of journalism.
But sheep outside the window... always worth hearing about! Perhaps they're taking the downs back? :)
Fearless,
Are you using two different freeview boxes (I mean different manufacturers or models). It may be the speed of the processor inside that causes the different delays (as compared to good old LW).
Thanks Lissa for the personal reply (12), but I'm afraid I didn't really understand the answer. Actually, it took me three goes to understand the question - I'm no techno-wiz, I'm afraid. I believe it was John H who suugested it but I'm sure he'll forgive you for confusing him with me; I do.
The thing that I - and others - keep having a whinge about is the "recent posts" bearing no relation to the most recent posts, which, I suppose, techincally they don't have to, but I kind of thought that was what it was there for: Otherwise it's just fairly random and, whilst interesting, not a lot of use. Bit like my day today really :)
Well done on WatO, btw.
The straplines are back. Don't know where they'd gone. I blame a) the borg queue b) my cat c) my husband d) the cleaner.
The question, Lissa PM Blog Maestrix, is: how many distinct entities are there in that list?
I'm betting more than one, but less than four...
Dear Mr. Fred at 17,
You will recall that Lord Eric specifically said of The Presence:
"But trust me. HUGE."
So, why would the pie-eater point the finger of suspicion at a slip of a lass like ...
Ah.
I see your point.
I'll see what I can to synchronise your radio signal provided you don't tell anyone. I'm far too busy to be mithered with every little query or niggle.
Prime Minister's Questions and Sheep.
Methinks Geoffrey Howe is lurking somewhere!
John W(19)I am indeed using 2 different boxes, hence the different decode times. Strangely, though the downstairs one is an idTV, with a good quality (i.e. high bandwidtch) aerial attached, and this is 1 second behind the "el cheapo" WinTV box plugged into the PC with an indoor aerial I've had since about 1990!!
When I listen to the radio on my 'puter, sometimes it goes all tinny-sounding. Sometimes it just stops and then picks up again mid-word, thus extending the delay.
?????
Francis 0,
Due to your dial up modem (I suspect) not running fast enough. It may say 56k (as mind does), but the best speed I get is 44k. I have the same problem as you.
Usually I find it worst about 1 minute into any programme, and then unless there is some incident, it's usually OK.
But I use linux, and know the get-around.
No, in fact, broadband, John (ntl, for what it's worth) and a mac with OS X
John W : What's the get-around then?
Frances O - when i listen to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ media player when listening to the show (hours after its aired) it sounds quite tinny and echo-y.
Though it rarely cuts out it seems to stop any other online activity (heaven forbid I should want to open a browser when listening).
However, i haven't tested this so could be just an issue on that day (or two) or "user error"....