How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [110]
There are many things I need to know that I do not. How to contact someone at Facebook. How to get to Bournemouth when the main road is closed for a worm-removal programme. If the government provided advice on these things, that would be wonderful. But instead it tells me what time my daughter should go to bed at night and what she should have for breakfast. And how she would grow up to be a more rounded human being if only my wife would invite a girlfriend round for the night and slip into something see-through.
Yes, there are fat women in the north who need to be told their kids may not skip school and experiment with crystal meth until they are at least eight. But we already have an organization in place to deal with this sort of thing: it’s called the police. And if the police are unable to help, we have another. It’s called social services. Social workers go in, see the child is off its head on heroin and all covered in sick, and put it in a home. You don’t need a national academy telling them what sort of home it should be because it’s blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain.
This is the problem we face here. I don’t like the idea that lesbians, even the weird, big sort in dungarees, should be excluded from adopting a baby. They grew up with a predilection for members of the same genital group but that doesn’t stop them being good parents. Banning a lesbian from parenting would be as cruel as banning someone because they had an interest in golf, which is what I’d do if I were in charge. Or because they had ginger hair. However, I’m afraid we must think about the children. Having two mums, whether you like it or not, is going to cause a spot of bother in the playground. But that’s just my view and I’m only a parent. What do I know?
Sunday 22 November 2009
I’m so dead – shot by both sides in the website war
As you may know, Rupert Murdoch and his son James are engaged in a bitter dispute with the BBC over all sorts of things. This puts me in a tricky spot. Obviously, Rupert and James Murdoch are my bosses, not just here at the Sunday Times but also at the Sun, for which I write a column on Saturdays. I am therefore inclined to nod vigorously when they suggest the licence fee should be scrapped and all BBC web activities halted forthwith. But I am also employed by the BBC, which means I am inclined to nod vigorously whenever the director-general says the BBC is a fantastic institution and the envy of every nation in the world. This means I’ve been doing an awful lot of vigorous nodding in the past few months.
It’s not just sycophancy either. I really do believe that both sides have a point. If you are paying your licence fee, you should be entitled to view the programmes you funded on whatever platform happens to suit your mood and lifestyle. If you wish to watch the news on your mobile phone and Autumnwatch on your computer, then it is the BBC’s duty to make that possible. But that puts all newspapers, not just this one, in a difficult position. Running a website is ferociously expensive. I see the bills for the Top Gear site and it makes my eyes explode. And, of course, while it is possible to meet some of that cost with advertising, it should be remembered that every penny earned by the website is a penny in lost revenue for the printed newspaper.
The only realistic solution is to make people pay to see the site. But who’s going to do that when the BBC is providing a news service for nothing? We therefore face the real possibility of various newspapers going