Here in South Bend ......

If you wander round the forums discussing the TV Licence fee it wont be very long before you find an exchange that goes like this.

Lisa, Basingstoke: The BBC is a disgrace and the licence fee is a complete waste of money. Why should I be made to pay when I only ever watch Sky?

Jack, Indiana: Here in South Bend, Channel 83 shows repeats of Monty Python every Friday evening. The BBC is a marvelous organisation and I would be more than happy to pay a licence fee if we could get more shows from the “beeb”.

There are two points to make about Jacks position. Firstly he claims to be happy to pay for the service but clearly is not actually putting his hand in his pocket. Secondly his admiration of 'the corporation' is based on a programme that was made over 30 years ago.

In the past 'the corporation' was run by gentlemen intent on public service; Alistair Cooke narrated Letter from America and Kenneth Clarke produced Civilisation. Nowadays its greatest achievement, in a mindset which is fixated on ratings, is Jonathon Ross. Need I say more.

The reason I mention all this though, is that I am not sure how a group of american open media enthusiasts would react to learning that their software (see previous post about Miro) is part of a plan to undermine ‘the corporation’. These guys are probably intellectual democrat types who think that Fox News is a spawn of the devil and the “beeb” is just marvelous. I had best just keep quiet about what I am up to.