political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Sunday, July 09, 2006
GMTV Discussion on Blogging
This is a ten minute discussion on GMTV with Steve Richards, Alex Hilton aka Recess Monkey and myself on the impact of political blogs.
37 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Well that was very interesting and I would have enjoyed watching it except I had to keep my hand over the lower right hand of the screen to mask that awful little man doing signing, which dominated the entire screen. It would give you a migraine having those bouncing hands waving around out of the corner of your eye for half an hour.
Are there really that many deaf people in Britain who cannot hear even with the aid of a hearing aid that they would discomfit millions to cater to them? I don't believe it.
This PC signing is becoming a serious menace, eg on News 24 and elsewhere. Can't there be a switch to block it? Why do we all have to involuntarily suffer this imposition?
It made me lose concentration on the discussion. Incidentally if the signing was as wildly out of synch as the sound (on my system at least) there must be be a lot of very confused deaf lipreaders out there!
GMTV are forced by Ofcom to have 60 hours of deaf signing per annum. So they choose to do it all on their political programme between 6 an 7am on a Sunday!
Thanks for that, the content of the vid and its insertion in your blog shows how things are still evolving. This really is power to the punters! Why not make a vid or two yourself Ian, more fun than mere podcasts?
I think Iain looks good in his glasses and I loved his tie. The other fellow faded into the background. In fact, I began to get annoyed when he had a turn to speak because he had no presence.
Re that signing, all that waving around going on just out of the corner of your eye cannot be good for epileptics or people, like me, who get migraines which always begin with flashing lights. What a nightmare! It's a horrible distraction. I couldn't concentrate on what was being said until I covered up the lower right of the screen with my hand - not a comfortable position in which to watch an interesting show.
Why is other people's disability being forced on the vast normal majority? There should be a special button for deaf people to click to get the service. If I weren't such a follower of this blog, I would have clicked the video off after about 90 seconds into the discussion.
I admit that Mr Sign was most annoying, but I have found an amusing diversion:
Much in the way that Saturday children's tv once redubbed that French adventure series 'Flashing Blade', I turn off the sound (second time around) and make up a whole new interview based solely on Mr Sign's gestures and facial expressions.
Sad I know, but it can be amusing and it confuses the hell out of my dogs when I fall off my chair laughing.
RM
ps for this to really work well, I recommend a goodly intake of Bushmills's finest beforehand. Or some of the weed from my gardner's special vegetable patch which he thinks I don't know about.
Oh well, let's just exclude disabled people because some people find making programmes accessible annoying. Can't be as annoying as a TV operator excluding you from the majority of their output.
I find it strange that people who read this blog don't regularly tune into the Sunday Programme anyway. "Sign Man" is there every week and a good thing for the deaf he is too.
Anyway, I watched it this morning after recording it and was impressed by the pair of you. Blogging is changing UK politics for the better and those at the forefront of this should be celebrated no matter what their political allegiance.
It was an interesting discussion, I can't wait to see what the editor of my local newspaper thinks about it. Hope you don't mind, I've put the video on my blog because I know he will be one of the first to log in and view it tomorrow. I feel sure that when the Shields Gazette is short of a story or two they draw their inspiration from my blog!
Now and then they even give some credit where it's due. A blog ran by local newspapers, in the fashion of Comment is Free, would be an absolute boon for them and their readers.
Louise, is that how you justify annoying everyone on behalf of the disabled? Just to spread the inconvenience around equally? in effect to impose disability on everyone, to say "we've got problems so why shouldn't you?" Seems like a sad, introverted, counter-productive strategy, and blocks communication.
Can I just say that I was struck by the quality of the interviewer, whom I have never seen before?
Thanks to his calm and fair conversational attitude, the whole experience was interesting and enjoyable. I'm afraid I gave up watching Paxton et alia a long time ago precisely because they behave so differently.
If the signer bothers you just open up another tab and browse around the page or the net whilst the interview plays in the background on the first page.
The technology exists to have the signing as an overlay that could be turned on or off.. but the broadcasters have dragged their feet over implementing it, and the regulator let it slip. It'll probably never happen now, as far as I know..
It amuses me that the "commercial breaks" during the Sunday Programme are usually filled with trailers rather than proper advertisements, as presumably nobody wants to advertise at that time.
And it amuses me even more that the breaks during the ITV2 repeat are usually for toy adverts, as the advertisers presumably assume that all GMTV programming on ITV2 is tacky imported cartoons.
James - I believe you're mistaken. There isn't a different attitude to blogging in the US, so you cannot make that excuse.
The fact is, the British came to the blogging scene only after it had been pioneered by the Americans. Matt Drudge was mentioned. There were several other big names. We most assuredly didn't invent it and didn't move it forward; and if we HAD invented it, British blogs would not have been so undeferential and fearless. The lack of deference is a purely American trait, and thank God for it!
The rest of the world are way, way behind us. We have many daring,literate,funny and first rate blogs, but we weren't first. I think the next ones coming along really well are the Aussies and the Scandinavians.
Re the little man signing his brains out, I cannot get over this impertinence. You are paying a licence fee to have someone else's disability not only thrust down your throat, but distracting your from your own viewing (for which you pay) and possibly causing distress. That constant, rhythmic movement just out of direct vision, when one's eyes are on the main focus of the TV screen and attendant movement, must have caused some people to experience episodes of epilepsy. I get a migraine about twice a year - hardly a major sufferer - but it is this kind of rhythmic flickering that brings it on.
I think this is absolutely outrageous. What's wrong with a Click-On facility added to TVs for truly deaf people?
This is all part of the Socialist programme of diminishing everyone and flattening them all out.
As an ancillary point, I do not, as I said above, believe there are so many completely deaf people in Britain who can't hear even with a strong, modern, specially-fitted hearing aid, to justify that vile government imposition on the healthy. (Not that forcing other people's disabilities on healthy people would ever be ethical.) This is one more step in state control.
Though Alex's comment on blogging becoming addictive ( the 6 hits a day - what shall I write part ) was spot on. Hit counters have made a big difference to how I've viewed my blog recently. They've added a competitive edge (not all that good), but also give immediate feedback (not all bad).
I seem to remember that in the heady early days of digital TV, one of the talking points was that one could broadcast the "sign man" alongside the normal broadcast, and the viewer could configure his TV to show the signer or not, as he chose. That doesn't seem to have happened.
I don't mind that there was sign language during the programme - what got me irate was that GMTV shoves their 60 hours of signing onto an early Sunday morning programme between 6am and 7am.
GMTV should be ashamed of themselves for this dismissive attitude of their deaf viewers.
And some of the posters here really should think a little more carefully before mocking people who sign - you might think its funny - but for many thousands of people up and down the country this is their only means of communication.
Iain, good interview however one point: Matt Drudge was never a blogger and never claimed to be. He merely had a rumour/scandal site like others; except his concentrated on politics. He is no more a blogger than is Metal Sludge.
Is this 'Verity' a real person or some kind of 'sad old gits' self-parody? How can he (surely not a 'she'!) say stuff like:
".. paying a licence fee to have someone else's disability not only thrust down your throat, but . . .possibly causing distress. ....I think this is absolutely outrageous."
Is he 'outraged' by cats eyes...street lights.....cows in fields? Distress? !!!Distress?!!! Has he got a dictionary? Has he ever met anyone in distress? Thrust down his throat??!!! I cannot imagine him ever having anything thrust down his throat, pleasurable or otherwise. Of course, it would make more sense if signing was widespread and available as a 'red button' option. But all that 'epileptic' rubbish - I am surethat if there were special measures for epileptic people, then Verity would moan about that as well. If you cannot watch a TV programme without being distracted by the bottom right hand corner then what kind of sad monkey are you?
The terror of libel is hardly a deterrent for the blogger without assets. That is the key difference to the UK based MSM. I will also be interested to see the first example of a US based ISP being sued for libel in the UK !!!
Street lights and cats' eyes serve the majority. Is that so hard to understand?
I am not persuaded that there are so many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of totally, totally deaf voters that a little distracting bouncing man - not so little; this one was around quarter the size of the real participants in the discussion - is a justified imposition on the millions of licence-fee payers, even in NuLab terms.
I remember reading somewhere and didn't make a note, because one doesn't make a note of everything one reads, that these little flickering figures making motions just out of eye focus have caused epilectic fits in some viewers. The question for Labour is, are there more epilectic voters or more totally, totally (even with the aid of space age technology hearing aids) deaf voters who might vote Labour?
Politics is all about tough decisions, as Tony Blair has said, in his Noddy wisdom, many times.
My point was, and is, that reducing any society to its weakest goes against human nature, yet it is being forced on us by the Socialists. Some of the strong will always help the weak. None of the weak can ever help the strong.
It is unfortunate that a discussion about political blogging has become a rant against disabeld people. Then again scratch the surface of the right and you often find bigots. There are 9 million deaf or hard of hearing people in the UK. A sizeable minority and many of them good white middle class Tory voters.
anonymous - Is English your native language? Comment on the post; not what you picked up from skimming or malcomprehensing it.
Disclosure: I don't care about deaf people one way or another, although on the whole I wish them well. What I will not allow is that their disability be forced on me.
You are claiming that 9m - almost 10% of the British population - is deaf?
I do not believe there are more than around 50,000 MAX totally deaf people - people with no hearing whatsoever even with the assistance of a high tech implanted hearing aid - in Britain. It is Socialist manipulation of society to reduce everyone from a normal, healthy state of hearing to participating in the experienc of being deaf.
There should be a click facility for really deaf people to turn the little bouncy man on.
Thank you for your advice, but I realise this is a political blog, which is why I visit it. Social engineering - as in "multiculturalism", mass immigration and electronic tagging are social engineering issues. They pick away at the independence of the individual and encourage and nurture weakness rather than strength and independence. I find it repellent.
37 comments:
Well that was very interesting and I would have enjoyed watching it except I had to keep my hand over the lower right hand of the screen to mask that awful little man doing signing, which dominated the entire screen. It would give you a migraine having those bouncing hands waving around out of the corner of your eye for half an hour.
Are there really that many deaf people in Britain who cannot hear even with the aid of a hearing aid that they would discomfit millions to cater to them? I don't believe it.
That little man in the corner was a nightmare.
This PC signing is becoming a serious menace, eg on News 24 and elsewhere. Can't there be a switch to block it? Why do we all have to involuntarily suffer this imposition?
It made me lose concentration on the discussion. Incidentally if the signing was as wildly out of synch as the sound (on my system at least) there must be be a lot of very confused deaf lipreaders out there!
GMTV are forced by Ofcom to have 60 hours of deaf signing per annum. So they choose to do it all on their political programme between 6 an 7am on a Sunday!
Thanks for that, the content of the vid and its insertion in your blog shows how things are still evolving.
This really is power to the punters!
Why not make a vid or two yourself Ian, more fun than mere podcasts?
I think Iain looks good in his glasses and I loved his tie. The other fellow faded into the background. In fact, I began to get annoyed when he had a turn to speak because he had no presence.
Re that signing, all that waving around going on just out of the corner of your eye cannot be good for epileptics or people, like me, who get migraines which always begin with flashing lights. What a nightmare! It's a horrible distraction. I couldn't concentrate on what was being said until I covered up the lower right of the screen with my hand - not a comfortable position in which to watch an interesting show.
Why is other people's disability being forced on the vast normal majority? There should be a special button for deaf people to click to get the service. If I weren't such a follower of this blog, I would have clicked the video off after about 90 seconds into the discussion.
I admit that Mr Sign was most annoying, but I have found an amusing diversion:
Much in the way that Saturday children's tv once redubbed that French adventure series 'Flashing Blade', I turn off the sound (second time around) and make up a whole new interview based solely on Mr Sign's gestures and facial expressions.
Sad I know, but it can be amusing and it confuses the hell out of my dogs when I fall off my chair laughing.
RM
ps for this to really work well, I recommend a goodly intake of Bushmills's finest beforehand. Or some of the weed from my gardner's special vegetable patch which he thinks I don't know about.
Oh well, let's just exclude disabled people because some people find making programmes accessible annoying. Can't be as annoying as a TV operator excluding you from the majority of their output.
I find it strange that people who read this blog don't regularly tune into the Sunday Programme anyway. "Sign Man" is there every week and a good thing for the deaf he is too.
Anyway, I watched it this morning after recording it and was impressed by the pair of you. Blogging is changing UK politics for the better and those at the forefront of this should be celebrated no matter what their political allegiance.
Is it just me, or was that other chap doing a David Millipede impersonation?
It was an interesting discussion, I can't wait to see what the editor of my local newspaper thinks about it. Hope you don't mind, I've put the video on my blog because I know he will be one of the first to log in and view it tomorrow. I feel sure that when the Shields Gazette is short of a story or two they draw their inspiration from my blog!
Now and then they even give some credit where it's due. A blog ran by local newspapers, in the fashion of Comment is Free, would be an absolute boon for them and their readers.
I had to turn over to the other side because of the signing and when I switched back I had missed it. Bummer!
Is it really that UK bloggers are 'behind' their US counterparts, Iain, or that there's just a different attitude towards it?
I suspect it's the latter, as I've noticed little differences in what British bloggers blog about and the style they do it in.
Different very definitely doesn't mean 'behind'.
Louise, is that how you justify annoying everyone on behalf of the disabled? Just to spread the inconvenience around equally? in effect to impose disability on everyone, to say "we've got problems so why shouldn't you?" Seems like a sad, introverted, counter-productive strategy, and blocks communication.
Can I just say that I was struck by the quality of the interviewer, whom I have never seen before?
Thanks to his calm and fair conversational attitude, the whole experience was interesting and enjoyable. I'm afraid I gave up watching Paxton et alia a long time ago precisely because they behave so differently.
If the signer bothers you just open up another tab and browse around the page or the net whilst the interview plays in the background on the first page.
Yes, I thought Steve Richards was very good too.
Amusing, interesting and able to use his personality to develop the interview rather than to dominate it.
The technology exists to have the signing as an overlay that could be turned on or off.. but the broadcasters have dragged their feet over implementing it, and the regulator let it slip. It'll probably never happen now, as far as I know..
Sigh .... how sad it is that people have a problem with signing on TV, what little of it there is. Realtime subtitling isn't particually easy.
I've find it much less intrusive than the ridiculous news tickers than most new organisations now add.
Get a life folks and stop wishing others were harder than they are already.
It amuses me that the "commercial breaks" during the Sunday Programme are usually filled with trailers rather than proper advertisements, as presumably nobody wants to advertise at that time.
And it amuses me even more that the breaks during the ITV2 repeat are usually for toy adverts, as the advertisers presumably assume that all GMTV programming on ITV2 is tacky imported cartoons.
Leave the glasses and the tie, but lose a stone or two.
;-)
Sorry about that: if there's one thing I can't stand is listening to someone going on about how good they are. Boring, boring, boring.
James - I believe you're mistaken. There isn't a different attitude to blogging in the US, so you cannot make that excuse.
The fact is, the British came to the blogging scene only after it had been pioneered by the Americans. Matt Drudge was mentioned. There were several other big names. We most assuredly didn't invent it and didn't move it forward; and if we HAD invented it, British blogs would not have been so undeferential and fearless. The lack of deference is a purely American trait, and thank God for it!
The rest of the world are way, way behind us. We have many daring,literate,funny and first rate blogs, but we weren't first. I think the next ones coming along really well are the Aussies and the Scandinavians.
Re the little man signing his brains out, I cannot get over this impertinence. You are paying a licence fee to have someone else's disability not only thrust down your throat, but distracting your from your own viewing (for which you pay) and possibly causing distress. That constant, rhythmic movement just out of direct vision, when one's eyes are on the main focus of the TV screen and attendant movement, must have caused some people to experience episodes of epilepsy. I get a migraine about twice a year - hardly a major sufferer - but it is this kind of rhythmic flickering that brings it on.
I think this is absolutely outrageous. What's wrong with a Click-On facility added to TVs for truly deaf people?
This is all part of the Socialist programme of diminishing everyone and flattening them all out.
As an ancillary point, I do not, as I said above, believe there are so many completely deaf people in Britain who can't hear even with a strong, modern, specially-fitted hearing aid, to justify that vile government imposition on the healthy. (Not that forcing other people's disabilities on healthy people would ever be ethical.) This is one more step in state control.
Super Iain.
The other guy was dreadful, as is LabourHome.
Though Alex's comment on blogging becoming addictive ( the 6 hits a day - what shall I write part ) was spot on. Hit counters have made a big difference to how I've viewed my blog recently. They've added a competitive edge (not all that good), but also give immediate feedback (not all bad).
Enjoyed the clip -thanks-.
I found resizing the window and moving the slider bars around did the trick.
Francis Walsingham - a totally brilliant post.
I seem to remember that in the heady early days of digital TV, one of the talking points was that one could broadcast the "sign man" alongside the normal broadcast, and the viewer could configure his TV to show the signer or not, as he chose. That doesn't seem to have happened.
Is it just me, or was that other chap doing a David Millipede impersonation?
Seconded !
I don't mind that there was sign language during the programme - what got me irate was that GMTV shoves their 60 hours of signing onto an early Sunday morning programme between 6am and 7am.
GMTV should be ashamed of themselves for this dismissive attitude of their deaf viewers.
And some of the posters here really should think a little more carefully before mocking people who sign - you might think its funny - but for many thousands of people up and down the country this is their only means of communication.
Perhaps some compassionate conservatism?
Why should deaf people go without just because a few people get migraines?
Iain, good interview however one point: Matt Drudge was never a blogger and never claimed to be. He merely had a rumour/scandal site like others; except his concentrated on politics. He is no more a blogger than is Metal Sludge.
That Alex Hilton looks like a complete prat doesn't he.
The comments about the cost of the blog/site at the end are hilarious!
Is this 'Verity' a real person or some kind of 'sad old gits' self-parody? How can he (surely not a 'she'!) say stuff like:
".. paying a licence fee to have someone else's disability not only thrust down your throat, but . . .possibly causing distress. ....I think this is absolutely outrageous."
Is he 'outraged' by cats eyes...street lights.....cows in fields? Distress? !!!Distress?!!! Has he got a dictionary? Has he ever met anyone in distress? Thrust down his throat??!!! I cannot imagine him ever having anything thrust down his throat, pleasurable or otherwise. Of course, it would make more sense if signing was widespread and available as a 'red button' option. But all that 'epileptic' rubbish - I am surethat if there were special measures for epileptic people, then Verity would moan about that as well. If you cannot watch a TV programme without being distracted by the bottom right hand corner then what kind of sad monkey are you?
The terror of libel is hardly a deterrent for the blogger without assets. That is the key difference to the UK based MSM. I will also be interested to see the first example of a US based ISP being sued for libel in the UK !!!
Wit manqué Anonymous has issued such a stream of confused abuse that it is difficult to reply.
Street lights and cats' eyes serve the majority. Is that so hard to understand?
I am not persuaded that there are so many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of totally, totally deaf voters that a little distracting bouncing man - not so little; this one was around quarter the size of the real participants in the discussion - is a justified imposition on the millions of licence-fee payers, even in NuLab terms.
I remember reading somewhere and didn't make a note, because one doesn't make a note of everything one reads, that these little flickering figures making motions just out of eye focus have caused epilectic fits in some viewers. The question for Labour is, are there more epilectic voters or more totally, totally (even with the aid of space age technology hearing aids) deaf voters who might vote Labour?
Politics is all about tough decisions, as Tony Blair has said, in his Noddy wisdom, many times.
My point was, and is, that reducing any society to its weakest goes against human nature, yet it is being forced on us by the Socialists. Some of the strong will always help the weak. None of the weak can ever help the strong.
It is unfortunate that a discussion about political blogging has become a rant against disabeld people. Then again scratch the surface of the right and you often find bigots. There are 9 million deaf or hard of hearing people in the UK. A sizeable minority and many of them good white middle class Tory voters.
anonymous - Is English your native language? Comment on the post; not what you picked up from skimming or malcomprehensing it.
Disclosure: I don't care about deaf people one way or another, although on the whole I wish them well. What I will not allow is that their disability be forced on me.
You are claiming that 9m - almost 10% of the British population - is deaf?
I do not believe there are more than around 50,000 MAX totally deaf people - people with no hearing whatsoever even with the assistance of a high tech implanted hearing aid - in Britain. It is Socialist manipulation of society to reduce everyone from a normal, healthy state of hearing to participating in the experienc of being deaf.
There should be a click facility for really deaf people to turn the little bouncy man on.
Thank you for your advice, but I realise this is a political blog, which is why I visit it. Social engineering - as in "multiculturalism", mass immigration and electronic tagging are social engineering issues. They pick away at the independence of the individual and encourage and nurture weakness rather than strength and independence. I find it repellent.
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