Meeja!

- no, not a new comedy double-act, but an annoyingly childish phrase coined by the string-driven thing himself, the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston (aka, in our household at least, as Pesto).

The current economic situation has already spawned a host of annoying jargon - 'credit crunch' for instance. Then we had the stupidly named 'toxic assets' for poorly-rated bundles of USA subprime mortgages. But Mr P has to go one better - I have heard him twice now interviewed about these, and calling them 'stinky assets'.

It's all very well inventing terms for financial instruments that are so complex that even hedge fund managers don't really understand them (Collateralised Debt Obligations or CDOs). But to resort to puerile terms more suited to name calling in the playground is surely a step too far, even for the dumbed-down Beeb? What is wrong with 'dodgy assets' - a term that is already in common use and conveys perfectly the lack of trust in these items?

If you have the time in the next few days, I do urge you to listen again to the interview with Jen Hadfield, winner of this year's TS Eliot Prize, on the Today Programme this morning.

She has a beautiful lilting voice (she lives in Shetland), and the poem she reads about a rock pool I found truly inspirational. A little oasis of serenity in a sea of news about war, violence and economic gloom. Every word and phrase polished like a small jewel.

The photo is mine, and given the origin of the poet, I chose a Scottish one taken in Achnahaird - one of the best beaches in the entire universe.

This plopped (and I use the word advisedly) into my junk mailbox today:

From: Financial Services Authority [Europeanservices@fsa.gov.uk]
To: [photos@lois.co.uk]
Subject: United Kingdom Banking Upgrade !

Dear United Kingdom Banking Customers Upgrade

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of your bank account we have issued this warning message.

It has come to our attention that your Bank account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account in this year 2008 and to reduce the instance of fraud on banking websites. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.

Once you have updated your account records your bank account service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your Bank records
Please Click Here [http://210.73.226.8/securityupdate/]

Four you safety we will save ur ip adress

Thank You.

Accounts Management As outlined in our User Agreement, Your Bank will
periodically send you information about site changes and enhancements.

What a prize example of incompetent spam: generic and inaccurate addressee, misplaced punctuation, last year's date, no attempt to hide the fraudulent URL, Random Initial Capitals, and an obvious selection of cut and paste from different sources: note the sudden lapse into misspelt txtspk at the end?

Not to mention the fact that the FSA is not known for randomly emailing people about their bank accounts.

I find it depressing that enough people respond to such messages to make it worthwhile sending them. Are people really that credulous and ill-informed?

Good grief - I'm losing my grip - another complimentary post about the Beeb!

Tonight, Mark Kermode and Bill Forsyth are visiting the location of possibly the best film in the world - Local Hero.

Our VHS tape wore out we watched it so often, and now we have a DVD from Canada, thanks to the wonders of ebay.

So I shall be glued to the set come 22:00 tonight.

Culture show trailer

PS I'm glad it's not that annoyingly matey Geordie lass presenting though...

I know I am usually banging on about how rubbish terrestrial TV is, but I rather enjoyed the last episode of Alan Yentob's Imagine called "Let there be light". As a photographer, I was very interested in other ways artists use light to express themseves. Featured artists include:

• Liliane Lijn - Aerogel sculptures
• United Visual Artists - interactive light and sound installations for public spaces
• Charles Ross - spectra from large prisms and lenses
• Anthony McCall - light sculptures in a dark room 
• James Turrell - amazing lit spaces looking onto the sky and playing on optical illusions
• and of course that old favourite - the fluorescent tube king, Dan Flavin.

I can recommend it - Yentob is an infectiously enthusiastic chap, and some of the art is mesmerising - especially Turrell's I thought. On the BBC iplayer now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fm1vb/Imagine_Let_There_Be_Light/

A jewel adrift in a sea of dross.

I don't know about you, but with all the media stories of financial doom, and now the grotesque hoo-hah over Russell Brand's and Jonathan Ross' imbecilic pranks, it almost feels like the last decadent gasps of a crumbling empire. I just hope the barbarian hordes take their time getting to the gates to sack us all.

Before anyone accuses me of being a humourless git - it's all very well saying that people are often rude and insulting in real life and it's only a TVradio show. For starters, I don't think it is OK to behave like that, even if many people do. And then, boorish behaviour specifically calculated to increase viewer ratings at the expense of an innocent third party is distasteful in the extreme. To carry my analogy further - perhaps the BBC should develop a reality show based on gladiatorial combat, so we can laugh helplessly while unfortunates are hacked to death for our pleasure? OK - that is carrying it to ridiculous extremes, but every slippery slope of tolerance for bad behaviour has a deceptively gentle start.

I have recently written to the TV licensing authority asking to cancel the licence once the digital switchover happens - but honestly, I should be asking for them to do it now and give us 6 months' fee back. I have always rather resented the huge salary that Ross gets from tax payers' money - I find him sleazy, creepy and oleaginous. I've never had the dubious privilege of seeing Brand on the box or hearing him on the radio - for which I assume I should be grateful, since he sounds like another oik I'd rather not know.

I am often lamenting the depths to which the BBC stoops in the name of mass entertainment, but this is really scraping the manky barrel of public poor taste. IMO, both perpetrators of this crass and infantile jape should be sacked without compensation, as should the editor who allowed it to go on air. Am I holding my breath? - no.

Read BBC reportage here. And The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons.

Listening to Today on the radio this morning, I was brought up short. Nicola Stanbridge was interviewing Andy Walter about EMI's "bizarre" world music archives, some dating from the start of the last century.

"Deep the bowels of EMI's music archive in Middlesex are 150 thousand old 78s - gramophone records played at 78 revolutions per minute..."

Although I don't have any 78s myself, I am very familiar with them - and the idea that they have to be explained made me feel very old all of a sudden!

Listen to the clip

From Ceefax, Saturday:

Hole in the Wall Dale Winton hosts, as celebrities try to squeeze themselves through different shaped holes.

First, I checked that it was not the 1st of April, then I shook my head in disbelief. I'm paying the government out of a limited income to fund stuff like this. I fail to see how the BBC can justify such trivia as being of public benefit (or is it a sinister plot to turn our brains to cheese so we stop challenging them when they make stupid decisions? ). I have no objection to such programmes in principle - as long as the people who want to watch them pay a digital, cable or satellite provider for the privilege of doing so. But to pay for it out of taxation is a sad reflection on the cultural expectations of the Beeb for society.

You can, apparently, watch it again.

(I wonder if some of the holes are in the shape of donkeys? That would be very satisfying to a punster like me.)

Doris, Millie and Lucy

I get a weekly newsletter from the local cinema, telling me what films are on. At the bottom, there is this section:

Latest gossip!

• Miley Cyrus Dating Newly Single Cody Linley?
• Mariah Carey Tell-All Book
• Minnie Driver Welcomes a Son
• Michelle Williams Takes a Year Off from Hollywood
• Eva Mendes Hires Life Coach to Deal with Fame

It might as well be written in double Dutch. I don't know who most of these international non-entities are*, and even if I did, I don't care a hoot about their tedious goings-on. It's the same every week.

Perhaps I need to go on a Hello Magazine Appreciation Course so I can take a proper interest in these vital topics And Learn to Write Utterly Fascinating Unnews Headlines Like This?

* I've heard of Mariah and Minnie, but their private lives? Ptui.

I was idly searching for pictures of Beer after my trip earlier today, and came across a magnificently useless but diverting web site. Not only were all the paintings I clicked on unreviewed and unavailable, but the Testimonials page contained this unintentionally funny gem:

"John reminds me of a swan
Across the sky he flies so high
Like one of the greatest birds in the sky.

He's fancy free and ready for tea
He looks around on the ground
For sea worms swimming around.
He sees other birds flying high in the sky
Singing their song as they fly along... "

It goes on - but I won't

Well, it beats watching the *&%$£@* Olympics...