There are few sights as heartwarming as seeing the BBC writhing around in orgasmic ecstasty, but that is what we have been able to enjoy today.
We can only feel pleased for the corporation, for no less than 120 Beeboids were shipped to South Africa to cover the Nelson Mandela memorial service for TV, radio and web. And rightly so, because no opportunity to visit far flung corners of the world for a well deserved jaunt on full expenses and with no luxuries spared should ever be passed up. It has been earned. And in return our intrepid and fearless expeditionary force rewarded us with an impossibly large range of news angles to tell us in many, many different ways that Mandela was special.
Not only were our BBC truth seekers able to get moist while listening to a conveyor belt of eulogies to one of their biggest heroes, who transformed the world single handedly without any hint of a stain or blemish on his character, they were also treated to what may be the final curtain call for BBC favourite Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and were privileged to have been in the presence of a Cuban Castro – names which have featured so prominently in impartial and balanced BBC coverage for decades.
But best of all for Team Auntie, they have experienced the thrill of seeing, live and in the flesh, their hero of the modern era, President Barack Obama. The World’s President stood like a giant, holding forth in full effect, working that teleprompter like no one else can, before taking a few selfies with a Danish blonde and an Old Etonian with narcissistic tendencies and a delusion disorder. Truly he is great.
In fact, such was the BBC delerium at seeing Obama it was hard to tell from the news reports whether the most significant event just outside Johannesburg was Madiba’s memorial or Obama’s tribute to his hero. Naturally it was a fine line to tread, but one the Beeboids did with poise and without the slightest hint of sycophancy.
What is especially pleasing is that in recent days the BBC has achieved all this by making liberal use of license fee money and managing to triage the news in order to sift out trivial domestic events, such as the worst storm surge in the last 60 years that has flooded hundreds of families out of their homes and businesses. Make no mistake, this is a triumph.
The BBC identified what was important to them and their worldview, then put their backs into ensuring we all shared in the experience. They did this safe in the knowledge that any small minded person who lacks the education and intellectual depth required be able to respect the BBC way as the right way and who deigns to complain about this, will be brushed off in the usual manner; and that thanks to the entirely proper and not at all hypocritical Freedom of Information exemption enjoyed by the corporation, have done all this safe in the knowledge the editorial decision making process will remain secret and beyond accountability. As it should be, naturally.
Well done Beeb. So pleased for you.
Autonomous Mind 
Thanks for the tirade. Much needed catharsis. One small thing: I formed the view Obiwan did not have his two autocues this time, I got the impression he was reading from print. Sadly it made his oratory neither one thing nor tother. His yeswecannery style usually drives me away in an instant. However, I was held for a while wondering why he was not 100% OTT.
I think the BBC will look back on events of 2013 with more than a little tear. They pretty much got all they wanted out of it. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the Licence Fee payer. More ripped off.
But maybe this marks the beginning of the end. Its their high water mark and its all down hill from now on. More and more people are getting a bit peed off with their sanctimonious righteousness. The BBC and its minions are in for a bit of a fall.
As for the coverage of the anointed one, well, it passed me by. Here’s one sucker they seemed to have missed. Might get on the Christmas repeats though.
Wonderful. The BBC has truly wallowed in this Mandela fest. They have been waiting for years for this great event so it is no wonder they have well and truly gone over the top to mark the passing of what James Harding, director of BBC News described as “the most significant statesman” of the last 100 years.
Well said, they failed, of course, to mention that he advised the IRA not to decommission until they had achieved everything they wanted … Like everyone else, Mandela was far more complex than the usual adulation suggests. Desmond Tutu’s obituary is probably as close as we’ll get to an insight into the real Mandela.
Thanks
The Messiah is dead long live the new Messiah
YUCK!
Brian
If the Danish PM traded under her true married name of Kinnock, the “selfy” story would have been a lot clearer. Here are 3 career politicians, presented with the chance for a photo-opportunity at the funeral of a genuine 20th centure statesman, and they manage to reduce it to level of Neil Kinnock’s “victory rally” in Sheffield in 1992. It seems a lack of self-awareness runs in the family!
As I wrote last week:-
At the news of the death of a 95 year-old man, an event which we shall all, eventually meet; I am happy to acknowledge that he was man enough to encourage reconciliation within South Africa. I do not rejoice at his death, but neither do I mourn him. I tend to look at a man’s achievements; at what he has done; at what he failed to do. In the balance, and we should always; at least those of us who actually think, instead of operating on knee-jerk reflexes only, judge fairly: accept that he was, as others have said before me, a flawed man. No saint, a man who could plot a murder because it was a means to an end, a future; only to see the promise of that same future discarded and vandalized by a bunch of chancers, thieves, charlatans and crooks masquerading under the banner of the political party of which he was the great figurehead.
My thoughts on the lunacies of the BBC’s creep-fest and total adoration of this terrorist-turned-conciliator, well they are unprintable.
I see this as The Age of Perversity. A juvenile Parliament plays games with the lives of an infantilised (schooled) population. Any opportunity for a bit of St Vitus (Diana – Olympic freak-show – even Maggie) is eagerly indulged in. We used to have the odd sage to admonish us, but they have died out.
It’s not my money they’re wasting. Please don’t let them waste yours.
Very good article, fortunately I managed to miss the worst of it. But then there never was a terrorist who was not feted on his death by the BBC.
As to general news, is it not strange that the heavy snowstorms across the USA and other places were never mentioned, not a word. But that’s the BBC for you, miss the important and concentrate on the trivial.
Nice description of our nancy boy politicians though..
.
The fact that the BBC has provided such blanket coverage, to the exclusion of all other news, will have a lot to do with the fact that Mandela’s death was so widely anticipated.
I’ve no doubt that the BBC finalised its minute by minute plans many weeks ago and the various committees responsible have subsequently been too inflexible to recognise that other events might have merited some air-time.
Huge misjudgement on the part of the BBC.
People are interested in Mandela. His death is newsworthy and should be reported. It is an opportunity to review his life.
However, being interested does not mean that people want to be unable to escape Mandela for a week as the BBC launches into a wall-to-wall Mandela-fest. It does not mean that people generally believe that Mandela walked on water or are going to accept such a view uncritically.
The BBC live in their own bubble and have drifted away from their audience.
“Drifting BBC.” There is litle doubt that the BBC mirrors Westminster in game-playing. As governance is incidental to playing politics, it is evident that gravitas in broacasting comes a poor second to edgy innovation. Perhaps the most telling example is Radio 4. Said to have an average listener-age of 55, they play mind-bending trails, deluged in quasi-musack – just what declining hearing craves. All part of the Age of Perversity. Poignantly: we are told that Johnnie Foreigner rates our governance and the BBC highly. Well, we taught him all he knows!
Great stuff, thank you- and they say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit-“they” know nothing.
Just re-read the original post. I failed to register the BBC immunity to FOI.
Earlier I drew a parallel between Westminster and BBC. MPs escape FOI scrutiny, thus I cannot uncover how many Liar Flyers Richard Benyon distributed. He is not man enough to volunteer the info.
120? 12 would have been a surfeit. The Beeb, like other sock-puppet institutions, suffers from the delusion that the public shares its priorities (celebrating inane self-destructive decisions and policies promoted by progressives).
Such a good piece and love the huge tongue in cheek!
Of course the BBC would dribble in ecstasy over its idol and not only the BBC. Oborne in the Telegraph likened the man (can’t bring myself to write his name) to Jesus ! A terrorist has never risen to such heights as this. I suppose it only goes to show that prison works. He went in as a terrorist and came out a changed man – a saint, no less !!
I suspect the BBC will have left a contingent behind on the off-chance that he rises again on the third day.
Artwest, you have summed up the whole show. Meanwhile, today, Mr R Biggs is another ressurrectee-in-waiting. ‘BBC’ – so much one can do with the acronym . . .