Tag: BBC

No News TV

R is away for a few days, and I’m itching to try some changes.

My preferred change is to get rid of the mobile phone. I left it at home for the Corsica vacation last year, and it turned out to be amazing. However, with R away, I need to be reachable, so can’t completely get rid of the phone.

Another thought was to stay off of watching TV (including videos on mobile/laptop). I did that, semi-successfully, for the last quarter of 2017, and quite enjoyed it. However, this is the season of my favourite cycling races, the spring classics, and I really don’t want to miss them. (I just bought a Eurosport player subscription so I can watch the spring classics!)

I could give up social media, but it wouldn’t count as much of a change. I’m not on Facebook. I’ve restricted Twitter to Tweetdeck on desktop, so only use for specific posts/responses, no reading. I do check Instagram a few times a day, but it isn’t a sink hole of links and debates. Strava barely counts as a social media.

So far I’ve only found one thing I can drop. It’s small, but it may help achieve some calm: give up on the 24 hour news cycle1.

  1. I won’t be watching news channels on TV. BBC and CNN are bulk of my non-Eurosport TV diet2.
  2. I won’t check news on mobile. I check techmeme and Google news probably half a dozen times a day, each.
  3. I will stay off (reading updates on) Twitter.
  4. I will continue to read the 2 daily newsletters I subscribe to – Quartz and Economist Espresso.
  5. I will continue to read the weekly issue of The Economist.

I have a feeling tomorrow will be hard, given my addiction to news TV, techmeme and Google news. I also have a feeling that, once I’m over the withdrawal symptoms, this may help me achieve a bit more calm.

  1. The inspiration ↩
  2. I usually switch on the TV to BBC or CNN while eating lunch, and watch it till I finish the post lunch coffee. Ditto for dinner. Unless R has already switched on the PS3, to watch Grey’s anatomy on Amazon prime. ↩

BBC-F1-Sky!

The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, described the deal as “tough but fair” and reassured the BBC’s commercial rivals that it would no longer be used to “blast them out of the water”.

In other words, Msr Hunt apologizing to the masters in Sky and offering them F1 coverage as a peace-making present after the NI-BSB deal got scuppered.

Further, what I don’t get is why keep half the races? If they were sharing the other half with a free to air channel like ITV, I could get the idea but in the current deal, BBC is just acting as a teaser for Sky – we’ll lure them in with half the races free and then you sign them up for the other half!  Heck, instead of paying £33m, BBC should be getting paid by Sky for generating subscriptions. But then that wouldn’t go down too well at the next conservative-NI-Sky dinner party, would it?

I have Sky at home and still hate this deal. I love the presenting team on BBC and will be distraught if that is split up, as seems likely from Martin Brundle’s tweet. Yet another reason for me to say – Screw you Conservatives!

Out.

P.S.: The Hunt quote is from here.

Just realised that even the marked ‘Live’ news…

Just realised that even the marked ‘Live’ news on BBC is sometimes delayed by at least 15 minutes.

Barack Obama’s convoy passed in front of me as I was cycling back from Marylebone some time back and BBC News is showing it on TV right now as Live news.

In other news, cycled to High Wycombe today – only 60kms but about 500m climbing over 2-3 spots. Didn’t have the time or energy to cycle back. Really need to work on my climbing muscles :|