The Glass Box for Friday
The Glass Box is the place where you can comment on what you heard on PM, interact with other listeners and get responses from the people who make the programme. This is proving to be a useful tool for us, and we hope, for you.
Just click on the "comment" link. Don't worry either if you didn't catch the whole programme, or were busy doing other things and not giving us your full attention. If there was something that "caught your ear" we want to hear about it.
The Glass Box is named after the booth outside the PM studio where we all discuss the programme at 18.00 every weeknight. We try to be honest and constructive. Sometimes there is criticism, and the criticised get a chance to explain themselves.
The people who make PM will read the comments posted, and will sometimes respond. It IS ROGER SAWYER today - so address all your comments to him. As Eddie says, he's completely hopeless, but means well.
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Sequin, you remembered!!!!
Break a leg,
Fifi ;o)
I'll do my best to be less harsh today, Roger ;o)
Until events like "The Battle of the Boyne" are no longer celebrated, Ulster will continue with its sectarian divide, power-sharing notwithstanding.
The defeat of Montcalm by Wolfe at Quebec city hundreds of years ago is not celebrated in Canada! Perhaps the former colony has matured more than parts of the "mother country" of England/UK?
Re the item on Ian Paisley's visit to the site of the Battle of the Boyne: it would have been better to have a second interview, this time with someone who was NOT a senior member of the Orange Order.
This is a very emotive topic - and place - some further perspective would have been welcome.
Although it's good to have Ian Paisley and Bertie Ahern meet together at Drogheda It would have been nice to have a balance of opinion on the Battle of the Boyne and how the annual Orange parades of banners, flutes, drums, sashes and strange-looking men in bowler hats is viewed both in the Repulic of Ireland and across the water in Britian.
Will the Orangemen cease their demands to parade through nationalist areas of Northern Ireland I wonder? A long way to go yet I think.
Great piece on India, really good in its own right, but especially so in the context of non-stop TB & GB. That's what I love about PM, your ability to go off on a brilliant tangent, which just wouldn't be on the news events list of other programmes, but which is just as relevant to our world.
Re: INDIAN MUTINY
'India's new-found confidence' obviously entitles the Indians to rewrite history. The romantic but inaccurate comments reported in the article, coupled with British Imperial apologists' hand wringing and spin, will just serve to confuse and obscure the real events of history. Will the history of the British Empire always be obscured by nonsense?
the image of gordon brown on his website is SO Obviously a photoshop image....you can see the edges around his head. God...is this what we have to look forward to....photoshop politics!!!
I didn't know til today that it's illegal to sell your own organs... and I'm outraged! If I want to sell a kidney, and someone wants to buy it, why shouldn't we be able to deal? I understand why trafficking in other people's organs is banned, but not the sale of one's own.
I suppose there's a way round it though... doing it for "free", but requiring payment of very large "expenses"...
Terrorist attack imminent in Germany?
But no comments about the "coincidence" that the G8 summit is less than a month away?
Is the threat connected with the summit?
Is the threat just an excuse to clamp down on G8 protestors even more than was done a couple of days ago?
I realise this was last-minute breaking news, but aren't these abvious questions to ask?
Oh no, as the director of PM reaches for the blowers and balloons to celebrate the start of a political story to dine on; my heart sinks.
My heart sinks because of PM and Today's childlike excitement and guaranteed overkill of all issues political. There seems to be an obsession with westminster to the expense of all other stories.
Where am I to find the day's news, in depth? Where am I going to find information that might shape my day? I can not, the flagship programmes are busy fighting campaigns for various politicians and have taken their eye of the ball of real life.
Daily we are driven crazy by arid voices dicussing irrelevent issues on politics that really don't mean a thing.
Naturally I am aware of the importance of Westminster and would never downgrade it's newsworthiness, however, by the same token, I would not promote it above all other issues. It is worth noting there is an extremely high percentage of speculative political reporting.
Someone, somewhere, within the elitist doors of your news rooms, believes imaginary political scenarios are more important for the public than actual news.
This programme is akin to a chip shop with no chips, a pub without beer, a news programme without news.
If you want political gossip do it with your mates around the coffee machine and then , coffee's drained, give us some real news.
Aaaaargh the thought of the next six weeks horrify me.
Imminent terrorist attack? Not any more it isn't! This kind of dramatic announcement repeated by you is no more than politically-motivated nonsense.
You don't HAVE to report it like that you know.
I'm hoping it's nowt but a glitch, but a comment from Alan Hind has arrived in our system, albeit attached to an entry that E Mair made on January 9th...!
(I'm as confused as you are as to as why this happened)
Here's Alan's post:
Listening to the comments by mps etc re blairs legacy is deeply depressing.As an englishman living in Scotland for 25 years the last time I voted for labour was in 97 after a lifetime of voting for this party.The real legacy of blair is 600000 innocent people kileed in Iraq,a total lack of support for the Palestinian people,the health service in chaos,teachers leaving in there droves and the Uk being placed 21st on the list of rich countries by UNICEF for child well being.I could go on.Do not forget that Bown was also the architect for these deeply immoral policies. ALAN HIND
O Lewis, I have just been saying exactly the same thing elsewhere!
Fifi
O. Lewis (6) And so say all of us!!!!! See, it's not just me, Roger! Take heed of what
HelenSparkles says, and please just stick to what you do superbly well - the ''other'' stuff.
Does anyone know of a hiding place where the political noises of the next few weeks cannot be heard? Alternatively, does anyone know how to remove them from every current affairs programme while still receiving the remainder. Otherwise I shall have to leave the country, because I cannot stand weeks of Gordon Brown and his supporters saying what a wonderful man he is and what a great Prime Minister he would be.
I was listening to PM tonight and got rather annoyed I'm afraid. There was great meat made out of the idea that the media would struggle to sustain the Brown story etc for the next 7 weeks.
That annoyed me because in scotland today the Greens and SNP came up with a working agreement regarding rule in scotland. The Lib dems haven't committed yet they could still scupper it all or they could go it alone and have a minority SNP rule.
What about wales? What has happened post election there?
What about the mirriad of other stories going on today? I'll be honest, the bit about the Orange order whilst interesting wasn't the best, purely because I felt there were other pieces (such as covering the other developed assemblies/parliaments as well).
In general, a good show but I think with the Blair / Brown stuff revel in the fact you have a diverse ammount of stuff you won't have to run a 5 minute piece everytime a leadership contender sneezes, instead report other news. heck turn it into a competition - submit your own real news items and you may just be commissioned/we might just get a report to do the story (do you have working networks with local radio reporters?) and do one or two stories a week.
Anyway I'll be off. Thanks for giving me space to put in my thoughts.
Regards ever
John
HelenSparkles, it's lovely to see you back!
Fifi
John Coooper (17) We already have the facility to submit news story ideas.
E-mail them to pm@bbc.co.uk, making the subject ''News Story Ideas'' or something similar.
Gillian - I know we already have the option (I have submitted stories before now, not got anywhere/a reply but have all the same) but think a special feature of this could be made (if that makes sense).
Regards
John
As Tony Blair sails off into the the sunset (towards Iraq I hope), I ask myself what has he done to improve my life. I am a blue collar worker, if that phrase is still pc, on the the average uk wage. The answer is nothing! Or have I missed something. But I always ask the same question whenever a prime minister resigns or when the government changes, and the answer is always the same.
Thank you Fifi, I am off with the lurgy and was cursing the fact that I was languishing around in the week TB resigned. Doomed to listen to nothing else I was mightily cheered by the India piece. I am probably just a woolly minded liberal apologist though Ben;
鈥淚ndia's new-found confidence' obviously entitles the Indians to rewrite history. The romantic but inaccurate comments reported in the article, coupled with British Imperial apologists' hand wringing and spin, will just serve to confuse and obscure the real events of history. Will the history of the British Empire always be obscured by nonsense?鈥
Not sure which nonsense you might be referring to but the apologists are definitely not British Imperialists. I have even brought ire upon myself in this estimable forum for suggesting that the imposition of Northern environmental values upon the Southern world is an imperialistic step too far. We should be ashamed of our colonialist past, but it was a world with different values, and we can also be grateful that we don鈥檛 have to share them today?
Last weekend I saw a picture in one of the Sundays of those who were suited and booted to arrive on our shores to meet 1950鈥檚 Britain. Not only was the welcome mat not rolled out, we abused the Windrush generation, in keeping with our colonial traditions. We should be grateful that there is as much harmony as there is, given our legacy of shame. I cried looking at the hope in their eyes, & it will take a lot to stop me wringing my hands, but I also think that there is hope. Mainly I shall be hoping that attitudes like yours are less influential than mind, because that way it could never happen again.
Wales? (John C, 17). Where? What? I've made similar comments around this blog, but Wales isn't talking independence or forming an assembly/parliament that brings together former deadly enemies. Anyway it's small and hasn't got much clout. So - phooey, then.
Would stll like an answer to my (and similarly pc's) question about the Boyne piece.
First up - hands up about the breaker on the imminent terrorist threat in Germany. I shouldn't have run that and should have stuck instead with what we already had for that slot, which was some 'new' information about the White Mischief scandal in Kenya. A very late decision... not the first I've got wrong. And not the last.
Re Brown and the politics. I'm a tad puzzled by some of the postings... as a lot of the questions we were asking were the very opposite of 'childlike excitement'. Jo Coburn's piece highlighted the problems of a seven week 'contest' when there is really only one contender. I thought the discussion in the second half of the programme was really interesting... the antithesis, if you will, of over enthusiasm. Trevor Kavanagh clearly and wearily thought the whole leadership caravanserai a farce and said so pretty clearly, while Iain Dale shed some light on the political blogosphere and how the whole thing would play out there.
It was certainly a story to cover though. This was the moment that Gordon Brown had been waiting for for ten years 鈥 well, 13 really 鈥 so it was worth marking. He鈥檚 going to be Prime Minister after all, so I think we got it about right.
Re The Boyne. We discussed this at length, with a couple of people in the meeting saying we should have a Catholic/Nationalist on. My view was this. We know - because for many years our news agenda was dominated throughout June and July by the Marching Season - that many people in Catholic/Nationalist/Republican communities have been outraged by Orange Marches, the routes they take and what they perceive is triumphalism. We also know that Protestants/Unionists/Loyalists and the Orange Order considered it their right to parade... and to parade along traditional routes even if they went through Nationalist areas.
It was a genuinely symbolic and historic day and - amid all the sound and fury of the coverage of the marching season in that past, what I cannot remember hearing is a considered and historical account of why the Battle of the Boyne means so much to Protestants/Unionists. That鈥檚 why I decided we didn鈥檛 need to hear from the 鈥榦ther鈥 side.
Sorry for any literals, bad spelling and grammar. I鈥檓 at home and my three-year-old daughter is sitting on my lap, seemingly determined to prevent this being posted.
Have good weekends y鈥檃ll.
Rog.
Perhaps I can come to your support Roger? The thing about the Boyne (which was actually an even bigger deal for England than it was for Ireland), is that it has always symbolised division and emnity. Well this week it symbolised partnership and a new beginning. And that IS a big deal. For Irish folks North and South, history has been a dead weight dragging us back. It's not going to go away, but perhaps this week demonstrates that we can develop a new shared perspective on our common heritage. I thought your piece was spot on - fair play to you. By the way I hope you have better things to do at the weekend than read the blog! Have a good one!
O.Lewis @ 11...
Re: Where am I to find the day's news, in depth? Where am I going to find information that might shape my day?
.....try CNN and Al Jazeera for a different slant on current affairs & news, you will be amazed. Sometimes I wonder if we are all on the same planet!
Roger: re "Sorry for any literals, bad spelling and grammar."
And you're trying to blame your 3 year old daughter? If she's able to type that well for you, I think you should be entering her for Mensa! :o)
Big Sis (27) - it must be all the revising I'm doing at the mo but I read Mensa as M*rmite, what a surreal thought that gave me for a second!
Izzy: Rotten time for all students. Take care of yourself.
I hereby award you a big jar of Marmite!
Thanks Big Sis - just what I need as food is not the most important thing in my life at the mo!
I look forward to frogging in three weeks time without guilt..... roll on June 2nd (for me at least)
DI Wyman, yes CNN certtainly do things in depth. When I was staying with my sister in America, at teh time of the Virginia Tech shootings for THREE DAYS SOLID they talked of nothing else. And that is the literal truth. Obviously the rest of America and the world outside went on hold while CNN played this for all it was worth and then some. You know that thing about 'Never mind the quality, feel teh width'. Well with this it was the same 'never mind the ..quality, feel the depth'. Although they were actually splashing around in some rather murky shallows.
I take Peej's point. To have Bertie Ahern welcoming Ian Paisley to that historic site is hugely symbolic and, for those of us who hope to see peace in the island of Ireland, positive.
But, Roger, I wasn't angling for reaction from someone from the Nationalist community.
Rather a balancing perspective, wider than you would get from a knee-jerk reaction from 'the other side', would be a dispassionate look from someone who wasn't personally enmeshed in the historical, religious and political mire that, inevitably, surrounds 1690 and all it has come to represent.
You may have heard or know that, even just over a century later, the United Irishmen movement, which culminated in the uprising of 1798, was started near Belfast by Protestants.
It is a lot more complicated and sophisticated than we on the other side of the water realise.
You have the chance to shake us out of our prejudices. Maybe you made a small step with the Orange Lodge man. I would say - More! Let us 'Brits' have an appreciation of the past and present of that part of Ireland that wants to be linked to us.
I may have been somewhat delirious yesterday, but the sentiment of my rant stands, off to fetch restorative ginger wine now!
I must admit I thought the PM blog was jornos rambling - until last week.
It is just a rambling website. It very easy to waste time here.
Is it supposed to be funny sorrow I never understand the Radio 4 humour. I prefer the Farming Today format thats the best programme on Radio 4 for me.