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Thursday, October 30, 2014


ALL VERY `BBC`..

You`ve got to hand it to the BBC - they have now refined their penchant for absurdity, this time by yet another flagrant abuse of licence payers` cash along with a blatant case of product placement and another example of reporting the blindingly obvious.

But first things first.   Since the clocks went back last weekend, Barney our retriever hasn`t yet adjusted his body clock, so we`re getting up a bit earlier than we have been used to.   One of the consequences is that I get to watch very early Breakfast television on BBC. and the other morning my still slumbering ears were suddenly screeched awake by the stentorian Gracie Fields-esqe Steph (sic) McGovern, who is rumoured to be Breakfast TV`s financial `reporter.`  And this time she was reporting live from Frankfurt of all places in a futile attempt to explain to us early morning viewers why it is that German grocers, Aldi and Lidl, seem to be doing so much better in the UK than the UK`s home grown outlets such as Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons, etc.

So she interviewed a few local Frankfurters and a German `retail analyst` all of whom confirmed what we knew already - it`s all about the price and the quality.   Now just recently I have become something of an aficionado of Aldi`s.  The quality of their `Harvest Moon` brand of cereals is as competitively priced and as good if not better than anyone else`s; the same goes for their oatie biscuits, cashew nuts and all the other essentials of modern day living.  

So I really didn`t need Steph, her camera man, sound man, producer and the rest of the BBC crew spending a fortune on travel and accommodation for a pointless jaunt to Germany to confirm the blindingly obvious.   Although I wondered too whether it was within the spirit of the BBC Charter to allow so much free advertising for these German companies, when they probably don`t need it anyway, such is the impact they are making in the shopping aisles of the UK.  


Steph and her chums could quite easily have stepped out into the grocery stores of Salford and achieved exactly the same result.   But then that wouldn`t have been very `BBC` would it?


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