BBC News 24 Relaunch

I have no interest at all in your obsessive attention to process over issues. However, I am interested in defending myself against accusations without basis in fact.

Your PM was most entertaining. I apologise for reproducing it here, considering the fact that it's called 'private' for a reason, but I think it was rather cynical to send your explanation of how I allegedly got personal by PM, thus giving me no public opportunity to refute your accusation.

The ways that you stated that I got personal are:

By suggesting that nobody cares about me pedantically deconstructing your comments,
Accusing me of ignoring the whole point about TV screens and
Telling me I haven't said anything you haven't addressed before.

None of these are 'personal' attacks. None of these are in any way damaging to your name.

If, in accusing me of getting personal, you are referring specifically to my characterisation of your activities as 'pedantic deconstruction', then I'm afraid you are again wrong. All of your posts picked apart what I said, and in one of them you even broke it down into smaller chunks and addressed these chunks individually. If you can think of a more accurate word to describe this than 'deconstruction', then please let me know.

Your comments focused above all on the way that my point was presented, and had little if any relevance to the point that was actually being made. A clear focus on the trivial and irrelevant aspects of a point is, by definition, 'pedantic'. The use of the term "pedantic deconstruction" was therefore wholly fair, and clearly - as I have laboriously explained - referred to your comments, and not to your good self. This does therefore not fit with your assessment that I 'got personal'.

You, however, did say to me "don't be so bloody childish" and "don't be so ridiculous". I'm not sure how anyone could refute these as personal attacks on my character. Might I suggest that you remove the biblical rafter from your own eye before pointing out the splinter in mine?

Finally, I'm still not sure what point you've been trying to make all along. I have no objection to people disagreeing with me, nor with proving me wrong, but you've done neither of those things, and as far as I can tell from what you've said, you've not been attempting to. It seems that all you've really been trying to say is that there is not necessarily a link between the screens in the dressing room and those on the new N24 set. As I am not privy to the documents of BBC acquirements and purchases, I sadly have no material evidence that there is a direct link between the two. If you want me to concede that the link between the two is not irrefutable, then fine, I do so gladly. But that wasn't my point. My point was that the screens used in both locations were the same, and irrespective of how - in your opinion - clumsily I presented that, my point was fairly well proven with the image I presented.

However, all in all, I'm sure I speak for the whole forum when I say thanks very much for obsessing over the way I phrased my point - it's added a great deal of useful information and relevant detail to this BBC NEWS 24 discussion. Well done.

Haven't really bothered to read any of this as it looks extremely boring. Because I can't even be bothered to find the picture of mdta in drag...I'll just say belt up.

Good call. If you find the picture of mdta, be sure to send it to me - I'm feeling frisky.

This is the last public post on this matter because I am as tired as the next man. It is irrelevant, pathetic and unncecessary arguing with someone who will not discuss things in an adult manner. It looks like a novel, and nearly is. But it makes fascinating reading to everyone, and shows how I ruthlessly pick through BBC LDN's posts. It's pedanticism at it's best apparently. So the trudgery begins...



You clearly do. Hence the novel you have just posted.



You told me to send you a PM more than once. I agreed, since posting things publically is a waste of space when nobody is interested in this - as you say, of course.



So they have nothing to do with me and everything to do with the type of screen used by BBC News 24 and in dressing rooms? No they do not. I said you had strayed into personal nonsense as opposed to TV Forum nonsense. I did not say you were damaging my name. I said you were being childish and not rising to the sensible and relevant point I made about News 24 screens. You took issue with me disagreeing with you by getting personal and saying nobody cared about me challenging your points. That, to me, demonstrates the fact you ARE being personal - not in the sense of telling me I'm ugly - and ignoring the legitimate points I made. Frankly, I find it pathetic you cannot respond to the point I made without getting tetchy. Are you not used to people disagreeing with you?

(INCIDENTALLY... as an after thought, I did not use any bulletpoints in my PM! I really am not that petty. My friend here as extracted them from a longer, and more entertaining message - in true hack style)



That's my style. I like debating things logically by breaking issues into separate points. I find it easier to put across my point of view if they relate to singular points rather than general, less clear ones. It improves the clarity and, in theory, should alllow you to come back at them logically as well. But instead you chose to ignore that and accuse me of being pedantic. You had the attitude that what I said did not matter because you were completely right. You did not allow for a differing viewpoint. That is what I then took issue with.



Not a word, no. I call it challenging a point. You seem to have taken it as being difficult. I see no reason why - other than the idea you were irritated by me not agreeing with you.



Read the sequence of posts again. You made a point. I took issue with it. You reacted. I came back again. THEN you patronised me. I then explained myself AGAIN, BEFORE challenging your attitude. You then accused me of repeating myself (apparently worthless, YET done by you at the same time). Yet again you have said I have ignored the key point of debate when this is simply not the case.



My initial focus was the gorgeous holoscreen. I have explained myself on that point.



I have explained "personal". By "personal", I mean nothing to do with TV. My first post disagreeing with you was also wholly fair. If you had accepted that my viewpoint was different in the first place, we wouldn't be having a "personal" argument now.



Errrrrr... no.



"Near as certain" sound familiar? That WAS the point you made, that WAS the point I disagreed with, that WAS the point you ignored in favour of telling me to stop being pedantic.



And THAT I did NOT disagree with at ANY time. So why keep bringing that specific bit up?



Another example of patronisation. Read the sequence of posts. I obsess when I am patronised. I made one legitimate point that YOU refised to acknowledge. *SIGH*.




So while I am not allowed to pedantically pick through your posts, you post a novel? Well there's my novel to read. Please now drop the debate, smile and dance or do something completely and utterly different to talking about holoscreens. I thank you.

100% agreed. Apart from the picture bit.

FOUND IT!!!

http://www.philtowers.com/upload/cake.jpg

I take it back. Don't show it to me.

Well I must say - this has all been rather entertaining.

And if that's not a case for Britain's broadcasters to improve the quality of TV programming, I don't know what is.

Well how about a picture of me instead, as I say *LEAVE IT* to someone to my left:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jamesison/DSC00010.JPG

Sorry but it's not a patch on me best mate.

http://www.das-djs.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/GENERAL%20RUBBISH/face2.gif

OMG!!! Sorry I forgot all about Rod! I bow to your superiority and better looks Rod, I love you like I love James Martin.