British Blunders Corporation

Our satirical writer Edwin Phillips reads a Press Release to the Welsh mainstream media from the BBC after its main evening TV news programme in Wales mistook Brighton Pavilion for a mosque which was reported in the city’s paper The Argus, and staff at the corporation told The Eye they were angry that they had still not moved into the new headquarters more than two years after it was handed over and before the lockdown.  

Their director said the new building showed the corporation was ‘opening up’ but an interview was not granted to our Editor, it did not supply crucial information, and it was not open about the fact that a senior BBC executive conducted an affair with one of his presenters when his officials had commissioned a programme she fronted. 

FROM:  Correction Report And Support Services (CRASS)

TO: All Regional Staff Editorial (ARSE)

TIME:  Whenever

 

We offer you in ARSE, CRASS congratulations.

You have rightly not covered the extremely minor fact that the Editor of Radio Wales (RW) Colin Paterson had an affair with the presenter Lucy Owen after his staff commissioned a programme she fronted, which was first supposedly ‘revealed’ on that irritating website The Eye.

You have also not reported in critical terms that a number of our personnel have understandably joined Plaid Cymru (PC) at a senior level, or that others have been employed at BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW), coming in a reverse direction FROM the Welsh nationalist party.

We in CRASS also congratulate you for the fact that you have failed to publish that we have paid a presenter who has re-tweeted the views of a commentator who endorses burning holiday homes and setting the union flag alight.

Only journalists have unfairly done so on the appalling The Eye.

Absurdly reported in The Eye as ‘contentious’, Rhydian Bowen Phillips is one of our regular presenters on Radio Cymru (RC) but has regrettably re-tweeted comments of ‘Jac Jolly’ about the Welsh language, who has said that he is proud cottages in Wales were burned down and tweeted: “The UJ should be burnt despicable rag that it is” with an emoji of a burning flame after the comment.

We at BBC CW can also give CRASS celebrations for the fact that Mr Phillips presents on RC at Saturday lunch time, and was a guest during the wedding of BBC Wales Today (WT) and RW presenter Lucy Owen (Cohen) to fellow X-ray host Rhodri Owen, in 2004.

It seems he has, too, been reported to the Football Association of Wales (FAW) for using abusive language on social media.

 

Following the mistake of showing Brighton Pavilion as a mosque on WT we did after all offer a CRASS apology, although this was following a number of Twitter users spotting the mistake.

One showed how unreasonable he was by saying: “BBC Wales showing a picture of the Brighton Pavilion and getting it confused for a mosque when talking about Ramadan is kind of f****d?”.

A figure who, we understand, was described on Wikipedia as one of the most important presenters on RW at the beginning, Mike Flynn, said at the time:  “There is no decent Current Affairs output on BBC Wales and now we have this debacle with Wales Today. It all smacks of poor leadership”.

However, firm leadership has in fact been shown by our Director Rhodri Talfan Davies, when he scrapped the popular TV debate series The Hour after just a year, and at a cost to the licence fee-payer, we are told, of about a million pounds, following the excellent decision to close the 53 year-old award-winning Welsh TV Current Affairs programme Week In, Week Out (WIWO).

This leadership is also revealed by the fact the axe fell on WIWO, even though it had won a clutch of awards including at the Royal Television Society, BAFTA Cymru, the Celtic Media ceremony and BT Wales, and had even secured one after it had been formally closed.

The programme had too been used, apparently, as a springboard for Panorama episodes, and one of the journalists’ investigations still features near the top of an internal document of ours, recording the highest viewing figures.

Meanwhile, it was not controversial at all, as The Eye have said, that there has been a wait for BBC CW staff moving into our new £100 million headquarters of two years after it was handed over and before the lockdown was imposed.

We have to get these things right.

It is public knowledge that we received the keys to our new headquarters in April 2018, and the staff were told it would take 18 months to fit out the building, and that unfortunately several months after the date passed, equipment was still in the ‘testing’ phase.

We have also shown how careful we are by not saying when broadcasting will start, even though we are aware this delay is having a severe knock-on effect for other broadcasters in Wales, such as S4C which is due to have a number of desks allocated to workers.

The excitement of senior executives at the new building was clear when following us taking possession of it more than two years ago, in Central Square, Cardiff, Mr Davies proclaimed:  “Central Square is all about opening up… the fantastic location means that we’ll be more accessible.

“As part of the drive to ‘open up’, inclusion is a key part of the design of Central Square throughout.”

The Editor of that dreadful website The Eye, Phil Parry, worked at our present headquarters in Llandaff for 23 years, and regrettably said:  “This is an unbelievable length of time”.

This leadership of Mr Davies is in evidence as well, with the non-release of certain figures about the audience for RW.

One listener was told: “We are not… obliged to supply information…”.

So we offer a CRASS welcome to your ARSE decision not to publish certain details.

These facts are not meant for the public anyway…

 

Phil Parry’s memories of his astonishing 36-year award-winning career in journalism as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now! 

If you need something to keep the children entertained during these uncertain times (in Welsh) try Ffwlbart Ffred about the amusing stories of Ffred and his pet