Below the belt?

The BBC News website supplied a strangely ambiguous breadcrumb the other day:
The link led to a report under the headline:
This still doesn't entirely clarify the situation. Someone at the Beeb obviously realized that the headline was not entirely clear. By the next day, it had been changed to:
which is an improvement, though it's still not beyond doubt whose offensive weapon he was using…

For the curious, it turns out that
But why did she wait so long?

BBC programme plugs

In general, I'm a staunch supporter of the BBC (though dubious about Alan Yentob's insistence that entertainers need on-expenses wining and dining to attract them to the corporation). There are always several programmes a year which justify my compulsory contribution to its coffers — most things involving David Attenborough, for example, or the wonderful Yellowstone — and these days it also pays for the watch-online facility.

What does irritate me is its persistent self-advertising. Particularly annoying are the radio trailers for television programmes with lots of intense dialogue and sound effects that are virtually meaningless without the visuals; these are usually for dramas, such as EastEnders, that surely have a high enough audience already.

Today, Radio Two subjected its late afternoon listeners to the same trailer for the loathesome Alan Carr's radio show twice within the space of thirty minutes. Once seemed too much; the second time had me switching on a CD instead.

Thinking "left-of-centre"

Ben Stephenson, head of drama commissioning at the BBC, has apparently caused outrage by his declaration that the Beeb should promote "peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking".

It's not entirely clear how the characteristics Stephenson is encouraging will lead to better programme-making, given that some of the terms imply a lack of flexibility in approach; originality might be more welcome to licence-payer and evader alike.

However, critical responses have focused on the term "left-of-centre", which has been interpreted – apparently without pause to consider the term in context – to mean "Left-of-centre", suggesting a political bias inappropriate to the corporation. (The BBC has rather suggested its own guilt by apparently pointing to Boris Johnson's single appearance in EastEnders as evidence of political neutrality.)

Stephenson insists he was using not using the term politically, but to indicate a slanted approach, as in "left-field", which certainly seems more meaningful than a political connotation in context. To avoid confusion in future, perhaps Stephenson should employ the phrase "off-centre". This might still be interpreted politically, but at least the direction of any potential bias is ambiguous.