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GLASS BOX FOR FRIDAY

Comments

1. At 05:48 PM on 14 Sep 2007, seamus mcneill wrote:

   I felt rather sorry for Hugh Sykes to-night. He obviously found it difficult to report that there had been some improvement in Baghdad. A young man reporting that he had had his mobile stolen at knife point could have been made in any major English city and the explosion he described happened months ago.
   As a resident of Belfast not only did I have to endure the "Troubles" but I had to put up with the media reporting that all Northern Ireland was in flames. I wonder if I am receiving the same unbalanced reporting usually from Baghdad based journalists. Belfast was not the whole of Northern Ireland. Baghdad is not all of Iraq.

2. At 05:57 PM on 14 Sep 2007, seamus mcneill wrote:

   I felt rather sorry for Hugh Sykes to-night. He obviously found it difficult to report that there had been some improvement in Baghdad. A young man reporting that he had had his mobile stolen at knife point could have been made in any major English city and the explosion he described happened months ago.
   As a resident of Belfast not only did I have to endure the "Troubles" but I had to put up with the media reporting that all Northern Ireland was in flames. I wonder if I am receiving the same unbalanced reporting usually from Baghdad based journalists. Belfast was not the whole of Northern Ireland. Baghdad is not all of Iraq.

3. At 05:59 PM on 14 Sep 2007, wrote:

   Hugh ... brilliant value as always. He is so good at making it real.

   Keep it coming!

   Fifi

4. At 06:01 PM on 14 Sep 2007, Chris Ghoti wrote:

   The only way I got to this was by going to "Congo Update" on the front page and going into the "comments" section, then clicking for "next entry". Friday's Glass Box isn't listed, on the front page or in the "recent entries" section. Moderators/blog Princes/Sequin please note that this might explain the lack of comments here, and perhaps sort it out?

5. At 11:29 PM on 14 Sep 2007, iBigSis wrote:

   Ouf! My ears hurt! Sequin, we can hear you - no need to shout! ;o)

   The best pictures on radio - Hugh Sykes reporting from Iraq. Thank you, Hugh.

   A good programme all round, Sequin. Thanks to you, too. I believe you're back with us next Friday? Or will it be YOUR deputy?

6. At 12:47 PM on 16 Sep 2007, imac wrote:

   Oh dear Monday is on its way.

   I see it trailing gloom and despair on a Eastern sky 12 hours away.

   'Cos not withstanding the sacrificial lamb that is Northern Rock we still have a collection of High Street banks that each either doesn't know its own books (unlikely) or thinks all of the other banks are capable of hiding the truth about their own solvency positions.

   With a Governor who says the markets are under pricing risk whilst keeping the BoE interest rate BELOW what the market says it should be, is Black Monday more than a few hours away?

   Listen out for 'Many firms are over - stating their future profitability' around Wednesday (the sniff of Enron back in the air) and expect Black Friday again on....
   ...when those over optimistc firms will find their expectations re - priced - courtesy of the BoE governor.

   (If I buy shares in a firm over optimisitc about its future profits and its share price reflects that over optimism thats me underpricing risk, folks).

   Now, what would Panic and Close have said about all this?

   Why is NR a sacrificial lamb? 'Cos it could have been saved discretely by the Bank weeks ago.
   But when the whole financial system is playing 'Pass the Parcel' and inside the parcel is
   the system's guilt at over - pricing ALL its assets) we need scapegoats.

   The poor in America and an impudent out of line bank. That will do nicely.

7. At 08:38 PM on 16 Sep 2007, Chris Ghoti wrote:

   Being malicious (after a 48-hour gap, yet) I repost something which will now appear twice:

   mac hinny

   What is so new about all this? Anyone who had the social awareness of a cockroach (to quote Colin MacInnes) has known about the banks and what they were doing for years if not decades. Same as the USA, which has been bankrupt by any ordinary definition for *years*. Why wait so long to get into a tizzy?

   I repeat: October 23rd.

8. At 10:02 PM on 27 Sep 2007, Hugh the Hack wrote:

   This is belated reply to Seamus McNeill (1):

   You say I 'obviously found it difficult to report that there had been some improvement in Baghdad'.

   Unfair. In this report, and numerous others, I made it very clear that there have been fewer mass-slaughtering car and truck bombs in the city since the start of the Baghdad Security Plan and the 'surge'.

   And at least twice in this report I was heard sceptically enquiring, "Surely there has been SOME improvement?" or words to that effect.

   And in other reports and interviews I also made the point that perception tends to lag behind reality - the reality that life in parts of the Iraqi capital has improved more than a little for many people.

   But I do think it is my duty not to view the situation in Iraq 'through rose-tinted spectacles', as one of the interviewees in this report described the view presented to Congress by General Petraeus.

   I tend - probably to a fault - to seek out the positive - and on several 'embeds' with the US and British forces, I have reported successful reconstruction work on schools, water-treatment plants, sewage systems and the transformation of the port at Um Qasr.

   But I cannot, and should not, turn a blind eye to the massive negatives (routine daily violence, electricity shortages, lengthy queues at petrol stations, abusive behaviour by US troops and private security guards, and so on) which still blight the lives of the people of Baghdad.