BBC: bullying has Brucie baring his teeth

Watching Strictly Come Dancing last night, I was reminded of the proverbial London bus: you don't see a knight in shining armour on the BBC for ages, then two come along.

To aficionados of the series, it won't be a surprise to know that Jonathan Ross wannabe Craig Revel Horwood started it all. He's a master of the catty put-down, and perhaps said more about himself than he meant to when he described a performance as "common". The remark's in this "best of" from series 6 that some kind soul has compiled (sorry, Pam!):



Jo Wood - founder of Jo Wood Organics, model and estranged wife of Ronnie Wood of the Faces and Rolling Stones - was having issues with her confidence, and was shown on the pre-dance video hiring a confidence "guru", as her partner, Christchurch-born Brendan Cole had admitted that he didn't "know how to teach confidence". And it wouldn't have done her self-esteem much good to learn, shortly before dance lessons began, that her hard-living spouse had traded her in for a newer model in the form of cocktail waitress Ekaterina Ivanova.


In the fashion of a bully, Horwood has identified a vulnerable streak in Wood and targeted it like a guided missile - his summation of her foxtrot with partner Brendan Cole last week was that the best part was when she was standing still. In fact, Horwood received a lightly-veiled warning from host Bruce Forsyth (left) the same week that he should be careful to wear glasses when judging Joe Calzaghe' dance with Kristina Rihannof. Calzaghe was bullied at school (more targeting?), and his process of toughening himself up undoubtedly contributed to his being the only undefeated boxing champion in Great Britain. He now helps promote the anti-bullying charity beatbullying Wales.

This week, Horwood sneered that Jo was "holding on to her hero" before referring to her as having "skipped like a bush kangaroo", in a reference to the quondam celebrity marsupial. Knowing of Woods' self-esteem problems - information that Horwood had access to from the pre-dance short film - Cole caused consternation by whisking Jo Wood backstage with no further reference to the panel.

Then the second knight took action. In an unprecedented show of anger, Bruce Forsyth - normally a model of genial mild manners - shouted at Horwood, telling him in a prolonged outburst that there was "no need to get personal". Tellingly, once backstage Cole - having been a judge with Horwood on New Zealand's Dancing with the Stars - told the camera that "it's Craig's ignorance and lack of knowledge of the dance that leads him to say things like this".

It will be interesting to see if Horwood is forced to apologise for his remark. I say this because it fits into the general context of misogyny prevalent in the BBC - witness, for instance, newsreader Moira Stuart's retirement, generally thought to have been, in the words of the Telegraph's Nicole Martin, because she had "become fed up with the BBC’s alleged prejudice against older women"; her former colleague Fiona Bruce, who now fronts Antiques Roadshow, has faced accusations which boil down to being female in public - ie that she has sexed-up and dumbed-down the show; and, of course, there are the criminally obscene phone messages left on actor Andrew Sachs' answerphone about his granddaughter Georgina Bailie's relationship with Jonathan Ross, with the Corporation initially in denial that anything out of place had happened in the face of mounting complaints.

In the light of the reaction against Jan Moir's objectionable article on Boyzone Stephen Gateley's death that the Telegraph's blogs editor Damian Thompson records had Marks & Spencers removing their advertising from the Daily Mail website, this may not be the time to focus too much on the personal life of the bisexual former drag queen who described his role in a teenage relationship with a showbusiness "sugar-daddy" as one that he "likened...to being a rent boy", other than to ask that if I were to call him a wicked old queen (he's playing the part of the queen in Snow White in Llandudno this Christmas), would it then be me who was cast as being the bully, because I had arguably cast aspersions on an abrasive member of a minority that the BBC perceives as being in need of protection?

To paraphrase Thompson at the end of his excellent article: I've had enough of Craig Revel Horwood, and I can't wait to turn on the TV and see him eat his words.

And if he doesn't, the TV will have advanced a little more in its journey towards the bin.

the passions of Kiri Te Kanawa

Everybody's got their favourite performances of their favourite stars. Mine's is Dame Kiri as Mary Dee in Paul McCartney's and Carl Davis' 1991 Liverpool Oratorio. Before she walks offstage after a blazing row in the Crises movement, her spoken "I think you should know, you're going to have a baby" could turn Old Faithful to ice.

Having gotten from being an aspiring opera singer in Gisborne, New Zealand, to become the First Lady of Opera by a commitment to education and hard work, she's sung the spectrum of soprano - from Die Zauberflöte (her first stage role) to South Pacific and from Faust to the two voices of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, playing so many lauded rolls that it would take a whole post to list them.

Today the Telegraph's Stephen Adams announced that when the opera-singer plays her beloved part of the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier next April, it will be her last role.

However, what she's doing is just as interesting as what she's done. As well as being the first visiting teacher at Georg Solti's Accademia di Bel Canto (in which she is now a partner), the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation identifies and nurtures operatic talent in New Zealand, and also prepares scholars for larger cities with long-established opera scenes. One of Te Kanawa's first protegées, Ana James, states

NZ is severely lacking in both language and vocal coaching...Many Australasian singers who I studied with in London and NY have already fallen of the radar.

Hving pointed to so-called "popera" stars like Kathryn Jenkins' and Hayley Westenra's reliance on microphones, Dame Kiri has insisted that the opera singers of the future need time to mature away from the demands of the "instant fame" culture of shows such as X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent.
I can see her point: there'll always be a place for somebody like Paul Potts, who finished his shift selling mobile phones then brought the house down on the latter show with his rendition of Nessun Dorma, but Susan Boyle's collapse from
nervous exhaustion after her shock loss on this year's series showed the risks of a process that is not nearly long enough to identify people whom it might harm more than help, whatever the outcome.

Heaven knows I met enough aspiring dancers using stimulants to control their weight as a drugs-worker, but Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation alumna Ana James indicates the same process is happening with opera-singers:

Now, opera companies want to cast slim healthy singers. I think this can only be a good thing as it is unhealthy to be over your ideal weight and not to take exercise in any case. However, at the other end of the spectrum, I know of several anorexic singers, which I am sure was unheard of 20 years ago! This is a very sad situation because it can and does affect the voice, as well as weakens the body and mind. As a soprano I feel huge pressure to stay slim,toned, fit, and look as good as possible at all times. There will always be a slimmer, better soprano out there ready to take a job!!! I work out at the gym, do pilates, yoga at least three times a week (when at home!) and I eat healthily (no carbohydrates after 5pm).

It would be sad to see the old adage that it ain't over till the fat lady sings become it's finished when the skeletal girl drops. I'm sure producers aren't looking for girls who are too hypoglycaemic to speak their own minds...are they?

Speaking one's own mind is something Te Kanawa has shown herself unafraid of doing. In 2003, she created a shockwave when she criticised welfare-dependency within the Māori culture from which she hails and about which she is as passionate as anything she devotes herself to. In a statement which isn't far from the reality on some housing estates I've lived in, she said,

I see too many people living on benefits... it just drives me mad. I've known someone, a Maori, who's been on a benefit for 37 years. Now what sort of pride is that?

Dame Kiri will be bringing three of her Future Stars of Opera to perform with the London Sinfonia on October 16 as part of the Tower (of London) Festival.

After which, the world will remain her oyster.

booze-buses from Aotearoa - an idea for England?

The Cambridge News reports that a blitz on drink-driving is starting up in Cambridgeshire - as Casualty Reduction Officer PC Barrios says, to target the "increase in the number of people going out and drinking".

I think it's a very good idea: there are crackdowns on drink-driving all over the world at Christmas-time, but it's easy to forget this season of barbecues and country pub gardens in bloom.

I'm reminded of a road-safety conference, I attended in London, which was addressed by Superintendent Paula Rose of New Zealand Police, who studied at the Henley Management College and worked with the Thames Valley Police, both in the UK, as part ot the Foreign and Commonwealth Aotearoa Fellowship, of which she was the 2006 recipient (Aotearoa is Māori for New Zealand).

Supt Rose told us about the country's robust system for dealing with drink-drivers (New Zealand, I gather, makes the rural parts of East Anglia look like central London). Over half of the 4.3 million inhabitants have driving licences, which can be applied for at the age of 15. There are about 400 community police stations, with 10,000-plus staff.

It was very interesting to hear her talk intelligently and humourously but robustly about keeping on top of drink-driving on 91,000km (56,500 miles) of roads of varying standards. Ears pricked up at the mention of "booze buses" - mobile laboratories to process drivers who had failed a roadside breath test for alcohol, where a breath sample could be taken in a location where chain of evidence could be attested to, and , should the subject so choose, a blood sample could also be taken. They're staffed by officers who had trained to be part of tactical alcohol teams that would shut down a stretch of road and test every driver using it: up to 20,000 in a night.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary Chief Constable Julie Spence has been robust in demanding Govenment give her the means to recruit more police officers to help combat the effects of an increasing population upon the region, including drink-driving, and has made her points in the highest places more forthrightly than anybody who joined any organisation solely for advancement would dare to.

The results of such measures can be amazing: in 1973, the New Zealand road toll was 800 and should have been 1,500 last year but was actually 350, due in no small part to alert and uncompromising traffic policing, led by Supt. Rose. I hope that over the next year the Treasury listens to the evidence that strategies such as "booze-buses" play a major role in reducing carnage on our roads. Supt Rose quoted a Māori saying that lays out the major priority in policing that I am sure is shared by officers everywhere: he tangata, he tangata, he tangata - "our people, our people, our people".





Related post: drink-driving campaigns - a worked-out example