The Guardian

[Stuart McHugh]

>From: andrew dean <koogydelbbog@...>
>
>> Last night John Peel mentioned a Guardian article in
>> which his programme was accused of being racist (unless I
>> heard wrong).
>it was last saturday's Guide bookletty thing (which may be london
>only), the Tapehead feature which was previewing the Sounds... tv
>series. in it they mentioned the fact that he'd stopped playing rap
>music and was concentrating more on the white stuff. i don't think
>they realised that he doesn't have to play rap anymore as it now has
>it's own shows on radio 1 in the more than capable hands of tim
>westwood (big up!). the same article also dissed him for advertising
>oil companies and such like. anyone? callipos weren't petrochemical
>were they? 8)
I know that Peel has turned down the chance to do someone like BP or Shell
in the past; I don't know what oil companies he'd advertised for but I'd
always imagine he's quite discerning and checks for any dodgy links...
well, I'd like to think so. Don't get the Guardian myself, although for
ages it was the only 'thinking' UK-wide paper and ths the natural choice
for, well, probably Peel listeners, it's always struck me as being very
smug and trendier/leftier-than-thou much of the time. You'd think they had
better targets to concentrate on, corrupt politicians or whatever...
>
>he also mentioned getting slagged off for the same thing in the
>guardian a while back. i can't remember this but i do remember the
>recent julie burchill piece attacking him recently (attacking him
>because he was there basically, because he's old and plays
>unlistenable records. but julie, that's what he does).
Julie Burchill is beyond contempt, not because she slags off the subject of
this list, but because of the way she's gone from alternative punk writer
to cozy establishment media whore. Of course, plenty of people have done
this, but not many are as snide and barbed and generally bent on making
news simply by being outrageous and offensive. IMO.
And Tony Parsons is no better. Ever watched that late-night BBC2 'arts'
programme he's on? You wouldn't know that he's the angry young man and
Brian Sewell's the art critic tosspot, they're indistinguishable.

Is it up to the list admin to keep the discussions on-topic?
>
>surprised to hear peel doing the titanic documentary the other night.
>not sure why though as he seems to voice-over almost every other
>documentary series they do.
I think that he did the first 'Classic' whatever - Cars? and they followed
this up with about half-a-dozen other 6-parters - Classic Bikes, Classic
Heavy Plant Machinery, Classic Tumble Dryers etc. So percentage-wise he's
probably their busiest voice-over er, voice, at least in minutes of
airtime, though watchers of these probably only number Peel-listening
trainspotters who did mechanical engineering or car maintenance night
classes.
The Titanic thing was probably idealogically sound as rather than going
along with a warped James Cameron-esque version of events they were
exposing the people scrabbling to make a fast buck by desecrating the
disaster site.
Hmm, that's enough for now I reckon...

Stuart

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