After the Olympics, I’m bronzed off with amateur, boorish, biased Team BBC and their idle, gung-ho speculation
Team GB may have done us proud, but The Sun columnist was less than impressed with the Beeb's 'hit and miss' Olympic coverage
A SIMPLE task, undertaken once every four years. I sit in front of the Beeb’s Olympic coverage for an entire day then report back.
Simple, but I gave it up 16 minutes into Saturday’s marathon, when Hazel Irvine flashed up a “projected medals list” featuring the legend: “Tom Daley — Bronze.”
I’d watched enough Olympics by then to know there’d already been far too much of this idle, gung-ho speculation, not to mention far too many spare BBC parts chuntering on, into the night, about the athletes’ “mental strength and blah blah blah”.
I’ve also read enough reviews to know 2016’s critical reception has been defined by a particularly fat-headed outbreak of political-correctness, which turned Helen Skelton into a heroine and made a sexist villain of John Inverdale.
His crime? After many hours broadcasting live, he made a technical error that no one would’ve noticed without Andy Murray’s intervention.
The Twitter bandwagon rolled, of course, despite the fact anyone with ears could tell Inverdale has a voice and knowledge suited to many live sports and Helen Skelton has a voice better suited to a Bungle the Bear costume.
Nothing these days, though, gets in the way of a right-on lynch mob that continues to worship at the altar of the solid but overrated Clare Balding who still leaves you with the sense she thinks some gold medals (women’s hockey) are more equal than others.
Personally, this made me really warm to the agenda-free Gabby Logan and the Beeb’s break-out star Dan Walker, the only anchor charming enough to lead a Rio hen party in a chant of “BBC! BBC! BBC!”
I understand, however, opinions vary here. What seems indisputable, however, is the surprising lack of professionalism which characterised a lot of the BBC’s 2016 coverage.
Boorish Steve Redgrave famously walked out, live on air. Others, like Rebecca Adlington and Annie Emmerson, actually sobbed.
And dozens thought their public-broadcasting role was to act as flag-waver.
The absolute worst of them being diving’s Leon Taylor who could not keep his bias in his budgie-smugglers and had to be dug out of a legal hole last Wednesday, by co-commentator Bob Ballard, when he accused a cameraman of drinking.
Stupidity is one explanation. Another is that Leon understood acting-the-Splash-clown was the only way to stand out in a vast crowd, given the Beeb had decided to cover everything, including those sports, like sailing, which defy live coverage.
The flip-side of Leon, of course, was the brilliant Michael Johnson, who remained sport’s best pundit.
For every “Tom Daley — Bronze” the Olympics also provided you with TV moments to cherish forever.
My own were obvious. Mo Farah, Andy Murray, Usain Bolt and the Carioca Arena which was going absolutely berserk at the Brazil v Argentina basketball, until the BBC, without apology, interrupted Mike Carlson’s wonderful commentary with diving pictures.
That’s the risk with Auntie’s carpet-bombing approach, you see. Loads of technical errors and channel hopping.
It also means you tend to forget the basics, like commissioning a proper highlights slot between 7-8pm.
Or I thought the Beeb had forgotten it, until I realised they were using the ten o’clock news as their highlights show.
This is a very dangerous game to play with news and was done, I think, in the hope that viewers will confuse Britain’s triumph with the BBC’s.
Fall for that one and, minus Steve Redgrave, they’ll bombard us with the same hit-and-miss coverage in 2020.
Indeed, they already seem to have found the ideal new boxing sidekick for John Inverdale. “Anthony Joshua, you know Joe’s opponent pretty well, tell us about him.”
“Well, the guy he’s boxing now, Joe’s opponent. Who is Joe’s opponent now?”
The start of a beautiful friendship.
- Least helpful Olympic dialogue: Andy Jameson and Adrian Moorhouse at the men’s 10km swim. “There are numbers on their backs, if you can tell what those numbers are, please give us a shout, ’cos it’s awfully difficult to see.”
- Most helpful Olympic dialogue: Steve Cram and Brendan Foster at the women’s 800m. “Caster Semenya, every inch counts.” “And Wang’s still in contention.” But she’ll have it tucked out of sight before the IOC inspectors arrive.
RANDOM TV IRRITATIONS
Far too many egomaniac BBC News reporters gurning away in front of the Olympic drama.
No sporting event apparently being complete without more of Eddie Butler’s wind-baggery. Leon Taylor describing a dive as “totally rad”, like he wasn’t a 38-year-old man from Cheltenham.
Anyone who refers to himself as a “cheeky chappie” (t**t), or a “loveable rogue” (Even bigger t**t).
And ITV making the earth-shattering discovery that if there’s one thing worse than Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan, it’s the toothless, molly-coddling, saccharine sweet version of Good Morning Britain without Piers Morgan.
Hurry back from Fat Camp, Chunk. I’m missing the sport.
Giles has temper trouble
FILLING ITV’s 9pm slot viewers have currently got 500 Questions.
And 499 of them will probably be along the lines of: “Who’s the stroppy Mr Tumnus figure in the electric blue disco suit?”
He, my brow-beaten friends, is the show’s host Giles Coren, who won’t just eliminate contestants if they answer three questions in a row incorrectly, he’ll probably b*****k them via email later: “Can’t you hear, can’t you hear that is wrong?”
For Giles is a hot-headed little fella who cannot disguise his temper or overwhelming desperation to be famous and doesn’t wear his learning too lightly either.
Not a good look for a prime-time ITV quiz show host, who should be on exactly the same intellectual level as the contestants and require watering once every 24 hours.
Mind you, I can’t really blame Giles for losing his rag with some of last night’s doughnuts.
One of them thought the first ever figure skater to win Sports Personality of the Year was Rebecca Ferguson, off The X Factor.
Someone else reckoned there was an 18th-Century Russian monarch called “Nicola the Great”.
And a third named three of the teenage stars of 1985 film The Breakfast Club as: “Matt Damon, Billy Crystal and Sir Anthony Hopkins.”
There’ll be another lot on tonight and then every night this week, at 9pm.
But I wouldn’t watch 500 Questions. And I wouldn’t watch 500 more. Just to be the man who watched a thousand . . .
Oh you get the sodding point. CLICK.
TV GOLD
Channel 4’s brilliant Heroes Of Helmand.
The BBC’s Olympic star Dan Walker assuring viewers a bonking Copacabana couple were just “reading a book in a strange pose”.
Emma Willis refusing to disguise her utter contempt for Heavy D (“Colin”) at their Celebrity Big Brother eviction interview.
And Benny, the First Dates Aussie, reacting to Faye telling him: “You should keep challenging yourself.”
“Yeah, I gave up pornography for February.”
He who drinks Australian thinks Australian.
Katie in a real pile of pony
A RED rosette will be slapped firmly on the arse of any viewer who can make it to the end of this next series.
Katie Price’s Pony Club on TLC, where madam is desperately trying to play the snobbery victim while the production crew make an entirely different show about a foul-mouthed, self-absorbed nightmare who lacks even the basic manners to apologise when she arrives three hours late for a hunt dinner.
Neither part works, yet I’d be failing in my very limited duties if I didn’t tell you the entire thing came to a symbolic halt after 43 minutes when Katie’s bus driver reversed into an enormous pile of horses**t.
The rest is just detail.
GREAT TV LIES AND DELUSIONS OF THE MONTH
Celebrity Big Brother, Lewis Bloor: “I’ve got a job, I’ve got a career, I’ve got a five-year plan.”
The Olympics, Clare Balding: “Tom Daley is bigger than diving, he’s bigger than sport.” (18th)
And Celebrity Big Brother, James Whale: “I think Bear could be an amazing asset to this country, if someone just guides him.”
OK, Bear, head up the A112, merge into the North Circular Road, then exit for the fast lane of the M1. And just stand there.
- Olympic filth corner: James Cracknell: “Michelle Pearson, looking over at the buoys, giving it 25 strokes a minute as four scullers all come together.”
Lookalikes
THIS week’s winner is Chelsea manager Antonio Conte and a young Tony Danza (left), of Taxi and Who’s The Boss? fame.
Sent in by PJ. Picture research Alfie Snelling.
SPORTS PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR
WOW. There are so many wonderful and deserving candidates now for BBC1’s Sports Personality of the Year. Max Whitlock, Bradley Wiggins, Laura Trott, Jason Kenny, Jade Jones, Adam Peaty, Nick Skelton, Alistair Brownlee.
But I still think the Tartan block vote will mean victory for Scotland’s ultimate sporting hero of 2016, Joe Hart.
- A FEW minutes into BBC2’s new poverty porn show Britain’s Hardest Workers, host Anita Rani spells out its agenda by answering her own question: “Is low pay just part and parcel of our economy? I’ve come to speak to the TUC’s Frances O’Grady.”
I’m sure there’ll also be a contribution from the CBI soon.
Just not yet, hey . . .
- INCIDENTALLY, who do you think Anita is really referring to here, discussing the new Strictly line-up, on This Morning: “If they’ve got the dancing talent and the public warm to you, that’s it, you’re in.”
A) Anita Rani
B) Herself
C) The woman who partnered Gleb at last year’s Strictly?
GREAT SPORTING INSIGHTS
Leon Taylor: “Espinosa jumps up through the roof, if there was one, which there isn’t.”
Leon Taylor: “Tonia Couch’s heels cause the splash to, er, splash.”
Leon Taylor: “This is their easiest dive, which isn’t easy.”
And just for the sake of variety, Ryan Giggs: “To win the Premier League, it’s a war of nutrition.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray).