DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

Vince Cable's serious face always looks like he's smelling shit.

Whereas George Osborne's face looks like he's smelling shit

... or poor people (same thing for George)

Ken Livingstone has beaten Oona King to the Labour nomination for London mayor, setting him up for a political rematch in the capital with his old rival Boris Johnson in 2012.

Not in favour of that. Ken's past it.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4IqAMwAGn1w/SCeQW4DTxWI/AAAAAAAACGI/C6jjIBq-Gnc/s400/ken_livingstone_l.jpg

lawl

Marc Loivingstone tbh

had they run out of 'just another female fronted band'?

Ken has a better chance of beating Boris than Oona, whose campaign has been pretty much cringeworthy.

Don't think anyone will beat Boris fwiw.

Prob'ly not. Poor Oona, losing out to Galloway then Livingstone.

Those t-shirts are available at the Fawcett Society website, BTW.

I'd say Ken was a policy feminist but as far as transposing that to his own personal life goes, LOLLLLLLLL.

That Suffolk council thing is something that we're all going to have to get used to in time I suspect.

Lewisham Council seems to be having quite a lot of public consultation and dialogue on how to manage its cuts and where they should and shouldn't fall. Neighbouring Greenwich is just imposing them top-down, I know which one works better for me.

Thing is about outsourcing...

Why should a private enterprise be 'cheaper' than providing and running services 'in-house'?

Because the PrivEnt draws up a 'minimum service' agreement.

Which means, they are at liberty to refuse to collect 'too much' refuse from one house, whereas the council's in-house service are more likely to take it.

Which is blatantly obvious, so I will never understand why the DMail seem to regard it as a sign of 'loonielefties' councils etc...

Anyway why are we not talking about this? Fate of the BBC World Service still undecided, which is worrying.

Radio Times is up for sale too, yes?

Most consultation documents in Camden feel a bit ciphery - 'tell us what you think of our plans, and then after we hear quite sensible arguments as to why the plans are 31 flavours of shite, we'll implement them three months later with no other change save a paragraph of fake-inclusive waffle about how great it was that service users were able to participate in the process.'

"Quango" has become such a weasel word. Was blurrily following this on the radio this morning, and thinking about how you can dismiss whole swathes of important public sector work/employment just by calling it a nasty old quango.

Didn't realise Radio Times was publicly owned? TBF it's the kind of thing that's difficult to make a case for.

Didn't realise Radio Times was still going!

yesyesyes they only hate quangoes until they go to work for one.

My caretaker is local and she has been doing her job well for 15 years, and her manager is also local and has been doing his for 25. The good will and trust they've built up with residents means the old people who live in the block aren't ignored for weeks, and I have no idea how long the dropped and smeared nappy would have lingered in my stairwell last weekend (note: this is a complete one-off) had it been up to some random from Veolia to come deal with it.

i thought it was sold off twenty years ago

Radio Times is owned by BBC Worldwide (commercial arm of the BBC) I thought?

Ah right. TV Times has stopped tho, yeah?

Also laaa la-laaaa la-laaa Look In

feel like in the 80s there was *only* tv times and radio times, and at some point that all changed

could be wrong

wonder what they filled 'em with, in the 2-3-4 channel era

In the 80s there was only TV Times and Radio Times and for a very long while they only carried ITV and BBC listings respectively. Then at some point that was presumably deregulated and we ended up with loads.

As far as I can remember TV Times has never been under public ownership, given it was the ITV mag and all that.

TV Times had a bunch of features about popular shows, interviews and such, fairly extended listings pages, letters etc.

Radio Times kind of the same except not so much popular shows.

wonder what they filled 'em with, in the 2-3-4 channel era

Articles and interviews and features and shit, they were big magazines too

I can remember the deregulation of the listings happening - in the 80s I think. Allowed free weekly papers to start running the weekend listings.

TV Times got eaten up by the likes of TV Quick - cheaper, soapier etc - but in turn the cheap TV listings mags mostly seem to have been eaten up by weekend newspaper freebies and listings in Heat type mags.

Haven't seen a Radio Times in years but having detailed radio listings were wonderful

TV Times ran the odd awesome thing like original E.L. Wisty or Alf Garnett vignettes iirc. Always liked Radio Times better cos of the film listings mostly, read them both at my nan's house on a Saturday.

Occasionally bought RT for the BBC4 listings, but now it's just a keypress on the freeview box.

Having Sky plus not being a big TV watcher has fucked with my need for regular listings nowadays, I usually just see what's on when I'm sat in front of the box.

or a very long while they only carried ITV and BBC listings respectively

lol

think this is an area where im all for deregulation

but in turn the cheap TV listings mags mostly seem to have been eaten up by weekend newspaper freebies and listings in Heat type mags

This is not true, at least two of the cheapo TV mags (TV Choice and What's On TV) still sell shitloads, probably more than Heat.

There was talk recently of the BBC scanning and archiving all old issues of RT so you could see a list of everything that was ever (or at least intended to be) broadcast on the BBC. The press made some noises about it being a waste of money then it went quiet.

xp

Okay fair enough, I am totally out of touch with this stuff now.

If you'd like to start your own listing publication and make a mint, you can pick up all the updated listings which are provided here free of charge as required by law:

http://bds.tv/

However the web site is purposely shit and difficult to use, to make it as hard as possible for anyone to actually do this

Awesome:

http://www.radiotimes.com/content/features/galleries/musiccovers/04/mainImage.jpg

Please to not post reminders that this country didn't used to be wholly shit.

ha, "Ninepence"

Funny, there's the date but no year.

Looks about 1974, judging from Ray's hair.

When the print media apocalypse comes, the only things left will be the Economist and a load of titles that retail to pensioners for 35p.

price cut for the Daily Mail then

1970 I think

oops:

"Play for Today" The Long Distance Piano Player (1970)
With Ray Davies, Lois Daine, Norman Rossington.
Visit IMDb for Photos, ...
View company contact information for The Long Distance Piano Player on IMDbPro. ...
www.imdb.com/title/tt0414239/ - Cached - Similar

But Ray Douglas did appear in "Starmaker" in 1974 - but that was for ITV. Dunno if he made the cover of TV Times tho.

Raymond Douglas Davies that is

Raydug to his friends.

Think the last goal I scored was playing a re-tooled version of anarchist football that we made up for the playscheme in the summer. Classic foot on the ball, lie on the ground, head it over the line manoeuvre.

LOL RONG THREAD