The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

started on monday to coincide with the 10 o'clock news hour

Doolan stand ins on WM this week

Bernadette Kearney today, Nick Owen rest of the week, with Doolan back on Friday live from Hong Kong covering the Birmingham Royal Ballet tour. (Jo Tidman from the WM newsroon also joining him then., which meant Mollie didn't have her usual 'posse' with her today, as Jane France was also off today, being replaced by Marverine Cole on news & Anna Winkles(apparantly that is her name!) on the phones/early travel bullys)

I'm off this week, so I'm able to catch some of the daytime schedule too, so Goldie was asking opinions on organ transplants, Paul Merson & the current debacle at Walsall FC, plus is James Blunt a hit or a miss, bearing in mind the Yanks aren't keen on him. (A miss it was by the way!)

The 'fun' item was to do with someone crossing 2 breeds of dogs, a pug & a poodle, to come up with a puggle or summat, so 'make up your own animal mixes'.

Predictably there were several texts combining bulldogs & **** !

Hmm, forgot about the swear filter

Re tomorrow's Doolan show, I wonder if any phone calls / discussions will appear re Anne Diamond & the Fit Club situation, bearing in mind Mr Owen(her former presenting partner, for those who are not aware, or too young to remember TVAM !) is currently presenting that particular slot.

I do hope there won't be any censorship, because Nick's presenting?

Naughty BBC, if they are

poor anne, i think that carole malone ought to be ashamed of herself.

interesting to see mids today using an old ATV today report this evening. whatever next.

TV M, please refresh my memory re the ATV report. The only thing that springs to mind is the Michael Fish stuff !

seven man made wonders of the midlands is on at the moment, the latest in the "seven ... wonders of <insert area>" series.

i wish they would decide on what the region is called! last time the programme was "seven natural wonders of the west midlands ", this one is "seven man made wonders of the midlands " (even though its not shown in the east mids). the man made one was even trailed as "west midlands"

would it not make sense to just stick to "midlands" throughout - seeing as we have "midlands today" and "bbc one midlands" etc

Sorry I'm watching 'Strange Report' on ITV4, so I'm missing this little gem at the mo!

The problem with the expression "West Midlands" is that it has more than one meaning...

There is a Metropolitan County (a.k.a. "conurbation") with that name (capital initial letters), which consists of Birmingham, "the Black Country" and Coventry. But the "West Midlands" COUNTY is just one tiny part of the wider geographic "west midlands" (not capitalised initials) - which stretches as far north as Staffordshire, as far west as the Welsh border, and at least as far south as Worcestershire.

Also, because there is no BBC South Midlands, BBC Birmingham's coverage area stretches further south that it's ITV counterpart (i.e. into Herefordshire and northern parts of Gloucestershire). Those areas are arguably "the western half of the South Midlands"/"the south-west Midlands", rather than the "west midlands".

So, BBC Birmingham's coverage area makes it difficult to know wheter using the word "west" as a prefix is acceptable or not. If/when a BBC South Midlands region is created, and therfore BBC B'ham's area becomes equalised with it's ITV counterpart, there will LESS of a problem, but the "West Midlands" COUNTY issue will still be a complication though.

yes i think we have gone over all this before - which is why i said adopting the more generic "midlands" seems far easier.

i presume these have been commissioned centrally by english regions based in birmingham (so you'd think they'd have noticed the name on the trailer!)

the only reason i can come up with is the fact they are produced by independents, so the difference between the the 2 names can be put down to the fact they were produced by 2 different companies. and i would guess that the promos were produced centrally, rather than by the team who made the programme - hence the difference in the name on the promo.

I see in the clip posted in the main forum, features our famous fat asian cleaner! The aston says "BBC North"

Anyone hear 'Danny Kelly' today on WM ?

The phone calls to the Spanish, using a recording of Tony Butler's voice was brill. (apparantly the Spaniards think the Brummie accent is sexy so Danny got Tony to record some phrases to play over the phone. TVM - any chance you could pull some strings & get some clips uploaded if poss please?)

Me & my mate were killing ourselves laughing at work, especially the last one at 10 to 4, where they played the Butler recording to a Spanish male, who put the phone down !

And when that woman came on with the crossword clue, & Danny tried to turn a joke back on her & failed !

What do people think about this 'Alexandra Road' thing so far ?

I'm undecided so far.

Doolan show today had a Digital Tv phone in as well, & one of the people involved was someone from Local Tv, but didn't catch the name.

(Someone admitted to having an On Digital box who was having trouble with it. I shouted at the radio, 'Buy a new box you cheapskate!' )

Talking of Doolan, he surprised Mollie yesterday morning at half 5, by popping in to say hello, before going to look at his emails.(Remember he's not on air until 10am !) 'I thought you were in Hong Kong ?'

Jane France took part in a triathlon last weekend & came second overall. (She was top woman !)

Nick Piercey (Him from Heart FM) is sitting in for Franksy this week, & he was asking for your worst records.

'Flip Flop Fly', as used by Heart FM's roadshows springs to mind for naffness, IMO !

I've always thought Central West is a bit of a hypocritical name. If its to the west, it isn't central!