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Thursday 23 June 2011

Today's show 23/06/11

I'm not sure what to say about yesterday's 2DAY extravaganza, other than to say that I had stopped listening by 09:15 and didn't go back to Radio 2 until 8am this morning. I did monitor the comments on Live Chat, and to me they seemed to be about 30% in favour and 70% against, although the in favour vote increased as the day went on. I wonder if this was because more and more listeners had moved away from Radio 2. I have no doubt the person responsible for 2DAY will have done some in-depth research in to listening figures and patterns, and will now be justifying their continued BBC employment to whoever will listen. Those of us that don't work for the BBC will never know for sure whether 2DAY was an unqualified success, an unmitigated disaster, or just a self-indulgent "look at how good we are" exercise.
 
The old saying rings true: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
One unexpected result of 2DAY was a significant rise in my blog readership, and enough to push it over 3900 page views. See the attached graph. The spike on the 17th June coincided with the revelation of the Panorama "fake film" story ... that you didn't discuss.

The other attachment shows the Search Keywords that people have used and found my blog and it includes three references to Panorama. "jeremy vine biased" is an interesting one, what can they be thinking?
 
Anyway, you're in Iceland today, which is nice for you and your team. There is nothing like a company "jolly" from time to time, is there? Especially when we licence fee payers are funding it. So let's look at the value-for-money we will be treated to today in the five (yes, five) chosen topics::
 
1) FINANCE - Jeremy will visit Reykjavik's financial district - the scene of an extraordinary boom and bust - and grill the country's finance minister on when British councils and charities will get their money back from Iceland's failed banks. He'll look at how Iceland's people are coping with the aftermath of the crash. Jeremy talks to journalist Robert Jackson, Steingrímur Sigfússon; Iceland’s Minister for Finance, Sveinn Valfells' from ‘Advice’ group and Lisa Bjork; Mum of three from Kopavogur : On the advice of Martin Lewis (yes, that Martin Lewis) I invested a significant sum with Kaupthing but fortunately took it out before they got in to trouble. I understand that unemployment is a problem there, so I wonder if any of the women have ever thought about getting a job in a strip club? Oh, hang on...
 
2) STRIP CLUB BAN - Iceland is the most feminist country on the planet, according to the World Economic Forum. And it's just banned strip clubs - is that a good idea? Jeremy talks to Katrín Anna Guðmundsdóttir; Equality Definer and Venetia Thompson; Journalist and former city broker : Is it a good idea? I have no idea. I guess it all depends on how good they were. But then I have never been to an Icelandic strip club, or any other strip club for that matter. Next...

3) WHALING - Iceland argues that its commercial whaling is essential to the economy and it's a sustainable way to manage fish stocks. Jeremy talks to Tomas Heidar, Iceland’s Whaling Commissioner and John Gummer; Former Conservative minister and now Lord Deben : I can see no justification for the killing of whales by any country. It sickens me that this still goes on. Iceland, Norway and Japan should hang their heads in shame. Next...

4) VOLCANO - Jeremy checks out the volcanic activity that caused so many problems for air travellers last year. He talks to Professor Pall Einarsson; Professor of Geophysics at the University of Iceland : Has he fixed it then? No? Oh dear. Next...

5) SCOTLAND AND ICELAND - And Jeremy asks if Scotland should be more like Iceland. He talks to Angus MacNeil, Scottish National Party MP for the Western Isles and Anne McGuire; Labour MP for Stirling : Hmmm... Scotland with active volcanoes and geysers, now that would be something to see. However, I'm not sure what the operators of Glasgow and Edinburgh airports would think about it.
 
Sorry, but nothing here of interest to me today, so I won't be listening. And I can't stand Bjork.
 
I wonder if I can obtain details of the costs of your Icelandic trip under a Freedom of Information request...

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