Would you drink Ben & Jerry's made from breastmilk?

Possibly the most bizarre suggestions in the history of bizarre suggestions after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals suggested Ben & Jerry's use breastmilk to make ice cream.

The animal charity sent a letter to Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc urging it to replace the cow's milk they use (like normal people) in their ice cream products with human breastmilk.

It is not only bizarre it is clearly stupid. Where are you going to get it all from as everyone knows that women don't exactly produce endless lakes of milk. I could be wrong on this, but I don't think they are holding much back.

The whole thing was sparked by a Swiss restaurant owner who said he would begin purchasing breastmilk from nursing mothers and substituting breastmilk for 75% of the cow's milk in the food he serves.

I have no idea why he would do that. He's Swiss maybe that's all you need to know.

PETA's line is that a move to human breastmilk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and benefit human health. It's part of its Milksucks campaign.

What is it hoping for sheds full of women? Who knows, but would anyone drink it?

Tracy Reiman, Peta executive vice president, said: "The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense. Everyone knows that 'the bre-ast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favour by making the switch to breastmilk."

Fortunately while those good people from Ben & Jerry's have a care for the things that count (world peace et cetera) they see the problems with Peta's novel idea:

"We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," said a spokesperson for Ben and Jerry's.

Read PETA's letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield

September 23, 2008
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breastmilk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breastmilk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breastmilk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The bre-ast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to *** milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman

Executive Vice President

Follow me on Twitter

Sarah Silverman wants Jews to gets their butts down to Florida for The Great Schlep

Sarah Silverman, who has already done her bit for Matt Damon, is now doing her bit for Barack Obama in her own inimitable style in this very amusing video. He can only be grateful.

The video is paid for by the Jewish Council for Education and Research, which has launched it as part of its "The Great Schlep" campaign. It hopes it will encourage Jewish grandchildren to visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and hopefully therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favour. We all know what happened in Florida last time around in 2000 so head to Florida kids (you know if you happen to be American and Jewish et cetera otherwise it would be like a holiday).

Don't worry if you don’t have grandparents in Florida. The Great Schelp still has something for the rest:"Not Jewish? No problem! You can still become a schlepper and make change happen in 2008, simply by talking to your relatives about Obama."

Follow me on Twitter

Q the disappointment

Okay, so I haven't seen all of the new issue of Bauer's Q magazine, which has been redesigned this month, but from what I have seen (the cover) I am already disappointed. AC/DC on the front cover? Oh come on. A bloke in a school uniform? That joke wasn't funny first time around or the second, third or fourth.

For a magazine that says it is pursuing a new agenda, a more broadly entertainment based one, with a focus on everything from travel and film to books and gadgets why would you choose to put a band on the front cover who have been around for 35 years?

Funnily enough I can answer that question for you. Q is always a magazine that has been accused of playing it safe. It has previously been the epitome or middle of the road and this revamp does not shift from that Liberal Democrat like philosophy. Call me a crazed radical, but the relaunch issue is the one chance to go somewhere new, no? Maybe not. Maybe all Q readers are like Jason Bateman in Juno? Bona fide suburban rock dads.

Sure it remains market leader, but leader of an ever dwindling band of readers. With 17,000 deciding that they would no longer travel down the Q road according to the last ABCs. I'm guessing they have gone off to read errrr nothing. Instead they make do with weekend supplements, god knows we have enough of those to make us think twice about parting with the best part of a fiver (£3.90).

The revamp takes it down a path similar to IPC Media's Uncut, which also includes film and entertainment coverage alongside music. I like Uncut, I really do, but again this month when I looked at my copy I had to think Dylan again?

Is there nothing else that is new worth featuring on the cover and is there really anything more to say about Bob other than 1) Everyone should own some 2) Blood on the tracks is a great album. Lets move on, which I think the odd editor might need to do so as well before music magazines really do go the way of the dinosaurs.

Follow me on Twitter

We really were 'Lost in Austen'

Congratulations to ITV and the success of 'Lost in Austen' which with 3m plus viewers tuning in has proved a success all round.

The critics have liked it clearly as much as the public as Jane Austen and 'Pride and Prejudice' again proved to be a televisual hit and something of a treat.

Last night's final of the four part series pulled in 3.1m viewers proving the strong appeal of high jinx post-modern playing with some of our favourite literary characters. No less so than last week when we saw Darcy in the lake.

The final episode played out last night and all the loose ends were neatly tied, if not quite as Ms Austen quite had it. Would Austen have approved of Amanda Price, the time travelling interloper? Probably as like Elizabeth Bennett her heart was certainly in the right place and she showed a desire to ensure that everyone else's made it home too.

The Guardian gave it the thumbs: "So, what did we learn? We learned that Hammersmith (not "Hammersmith") used to have sheep in it and was actually quite nice. That love will save the day, or at least most of the afternoon. And, ultimately, that great drama doesn't have to make one iota of sense, or explain anything, or purport to do anything other than entertain to keep us happy as clams and be brilliant. Lost in Austen, then. Did it do it for you too?"

The Times gave it all the stars possible and was quite glowing about last night's finale. "This was wonderfully funny, sad and stirring: the music had me welling up, Amanda's love for Darcy had me welling up; and the seeming impossibility of Jane and Bingley finding happiness almost set me over the edge."

And the Herald is already waiting for the next instalment: "Jemima Rooper's Amanda oozed liberated concern; Elliot Cowan's Darcy was a smouldering thrill. I simply cannot wait to become lost in Austen with Lost In Austen once more, dear reader."

More of the same, I think ITV.

Follow me on Twitter

No one is going to pay for PSB on ITV

Ofcom's proposals published today on public service broadcasting seem largely sensible, but its research claiming that people are willing to pay to see public service TV on a network other than the BBC holds no water. I don't buy it. No one is going to pay anything.

Even in better economic times I would find it hard to believe that people would part with extra cash, on top of the licence fee and the cash they no doubt pay to either BSkyB or Virgin Media, for any TV service.

But Ofcom says quite clearly in its report today that: "Audiences value highly PSB alternatives to complement the BBC." Okay, I can buy that, I am sure they do.

Then Ofcom goes on to say that: "Three quarters of people are willing to pay on average up to £3.50 per month for PSB services on ITV, Channel 4 and five".

While I can believe the first sentence, the second sentence that three quarters of people are willing to pay up to £3.5 or £42 a year to receive PSB on a channel other than the BBC I don't believe in the slightest. Who are these people?

Besides what people tell researchers and what they do with their cash are two different things. Getting that £42 would prove very hard if not impossible.

If Ofcom bases any future policy on insisting there is a place for public service broadcasting outside of the BBC then that would be a mistake.

The Economist, China and eight rules for everyone

Fascinating series of videos to watch from the Economist Groups Fifth China Branding Roundtable in Beijing this week, which has produced a series of eight rules that make essential viewing for anyone thinking about the Chinese market.

The Economist gathered more than 150 marketing executives and Landor Associates and Cohn & Wolfe summarised the outcome of the conference in 8 New Rules for Success in Chinas Changing Branding Environment.

8 New Rules for Success in China - #1

8 New Rules for Success in China - #2

8 New Rules for Success in China - #3

8 New Rules for Success in China - #4

8 New Rules for Success in China - #5

8 New Rules for Success in China - #6

8 New Rules for Success in China - #7

8 New Rules for Success in China - #8

New York Yankees - sport's biggest brand says farewell to cathedral home

Much talk over the last few weeks following Sulaiman al-Fahim buying Manchester City to rival Manchester United of what is the world's biggest sporting brand. Despite all the cash and interest surrounding the Premier League arguably the world's biggest sports brand is not a football club at all, but a baseball club and namely the New York Yankees.

You can hardly walk down a street in London without seeing a headful of teenagers wearing Yankees caps in all manner of colours (rather like Turtle in 'Entourage' who seems to have a full wardrobe of colours). It's sort of compulsory street wear with race and colour being no boundary.

This week, of course, marked a major moment in the club's history as it said good-bye to Yankee Stadium, which is to be demolished after 85-years of loyal service.

The Yankees reach into fashion and youth culture goes far beyond the realms of baseball and outstrips the ability of any other sports club, in football or baseball for that matter. Manchester United might come close (the two signed a marketing partnership a few years ago), but beyond that no one can touch the Yankees.

As part of that sporting brand Yankee Stadium has to be the world's most famous.There are certainly many that are bigger, but none as famous or that have had as much impact on their own sport and beyond. Maybe Fenway Park in Boston (home of the Red Sox) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (home of the Chicago Cubs) come close, but these are names about as familiar as Old Trafford, one of football's most famous statdiums granted, to people who have no interest in baseball.

But even Manchester United don't have something like Yankee Stadium that is variously known as the Cathedral of baseball and the "The House That Ruth Built" after ball legend Babe Ruth for whom the stadium was literally built and he hit the stadium's first home run in 1923.

There last days of Yankee Stadium, as the club literally move across the street to their new home and wave goodbye, even managed to get plenty of coverage on this side of the Atlantic where baseball and softball gets little attention. The Guardian, the Independent and The Times all gave coverage to the Yankees this week in what proved to be a good news bad news week for the team.






The very last game at Yankee stadium showed the team on great form as they beat the Baltimore Orioles and Yankees catcher Jose Molina was able to answer what a dying Babe Ruth told fans in a farewell address: "I'm very proud to have hit the first home run in Yankee Stadium. God knows who'll hit the last one". The answer was Molina. He hit a two run homer  – the stadium's final home run in a night that also saw Johnny Damon hit a three-run homer.

The bad news for club was that it paid for its inconsistency as it failed to make it to the Post Season play-offs (for the first time since 1993) and a chance to make it to the World Series. A big knock for a club that has won the World Series 26 times, still 2009 will mean a new stadium and a new start - and what a start, a $1.3bn (£880m) stadium project with dimensions to match those of the original Yankee Stadium.

Follow me on Twitter

News of the World – an apology (not mine)

Hello is that Kate McCann? News of the World here, well you know that story we published with your full permission? Well turns out that we didn't have it after all, I know how does that happen?

Better ask the New of the World, which has had to apologise to Kate McCann for splashing with extracts from her diary last weekend. Turns out, however, it had no right to do so...but it thought it did.

The diary revealed intimate details over five pages of Kate McCann's dark thoughts and her dreams of lying beside missing Madeleine in the days after the child went missing.

Yesterday, the paper offered its "immediate and sincere apologies".

Well not that sincere as the paper explained that it "published the extracts in the belief held in good faith that we had Kate's permission to do so".

Then an odd thing happened. It suddenly became apparent that the paper's "belief was misplaced, and that, in fact, Kate neither approved of nor knew the extracts were to be published".

Who would have thunk it? Last I heard it is easy to find out if you have permission to publish something: you simply ask.

The paper has published an apology and made a donation, but to try and pull the wool over the public's eyes with this transparent effort is frankly pathetic.

The paper should come clean and admit that it published the diary extracts without permission in the hope that it could cash in on the grief of Kate McCann and sell a bundle of newspapers.

Confirmation of that if you needed it came when sister paper The Sun also published extracts the following day. It isn't as if it’s the first time the paper has had to apologise to  

The newspaper's full statement read: "Last week we published extracts from Kate McCann's diaries and explained in the article that we were doing so to "nail the lies" about Kate created by selective leaking from the diaries by Portuguese police.

"We published the extracts in the belief held in good faith that we had Kate's permission to do so. It is now clear that our belief was misplaced, and that in fact Kate neither approved of nor knew that the extracts were to be published.

"Upon learning of our error we immediately removed the extracts from our website and we today offer Kate our immediate and sincere apologies. We have agreed to make a donation to be used in the search for Madeleine. The News of the World remains wholly supportive of the McCanns and their continuing campaign to find their daughter."

The apology and payment is the second by a newspaper this year after McCann family won a libel case against the Daily Express and Daily Star. The two Express Newspaper titles paid out a lot of money to the Find Madeleine fund.

It would be nice to hope that this doesn't happen again, that the tabloid press can show some restraint, but it's a scorpion by nature and its always going to sting.

A YouTube star called Fred

Have you heard of Fred? Chances are you will soon as he has become a YouTube sensation, racking up 500,000 subscribers to his channel, which is pretty good for "a six-year-old with anger management issues" who already has movie studios knocking on his door.

Fred is the invention of a 15-year-old Nebraskan kid called Lucas Cruikshank who with a video camera and the ability to speed up his voice has proved a massive hit with kids online. Put it this way he's more popular than Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus...but then they are from the squeaky clean end of entertainment.

He basically talks very quickly and in a squeaky voice and pretends to be six. An episode called 'Fred Loses His Meds' has been viewed 9.1m times as he talks very excitedly about acting weird because, you know, he lost his meds. Anyone with kids must know it’s a total nightmare when you misplace their Zoloft, Paxil, Serafem, Retlin (tick as appropriate).



The pull that Fred has attracted has not gone unnoticed among brands who are knocking on the 15-year old's door, (which I'm guessing must be nice in Nebraska). So far wireless messaging device brand Zipit has asked him to promote its product and Fox Walden has signed him up to promote the upcoming children's film 'City of Ember', which is based on Jeanne DuPrau's 2003 book

For Fox viral promotional work like Fred is a perfect way to get to its audience. Jeffrey Godsick, president of marketing at Fox Walden told the WSJ: "It's important that fans aren't hit over the head with [the marketing] in the episode. But this is better than having an ad on the Net, or having him just talk about the movie, because this is organic, and it stays in the tone we know his fans like."

The movie was subtly mentioned in an episode last week where Fred talks about playing with a friend underground, which echoes the book. That has already been viewed 1.9m times. Next week a new episode of 'Fred' will air where he dreams that he is on the set of the film as a guest star. Along the way he will meet crew members and some of the stars including Tim Robbins.

"Before I even come up with the idea for the episodes, I come up with 10 titles and then figure out where each video is going to go," Lucas said, "Doing this thing with the movie was a great way to have Fred think he's really becoming a celebrity."

Well someone is definitely becoming a celebrity and Cruikshank already has his own manager. You can see the appeal. It's very funny school yard stuff and you can imagine that helium shrieking voice going down a storm.

B2B press blunder No 7 - Incisive Media

The B2B press is great at times for cutting corners (not that we do that kind of thing here, of course, ahem), but this week's issue of Incisive Media's recently relaunched Computing & IT Week has a cracking example in its front page lead story.

Under a big picture of a child a headline asks the grave sounding question "Will IT ensure that every child matters?" in a story about the Government's integrated children's system project, which aims to "enhance care for vulnerable children".

As I said it is illustrated by a big picture of a child...oh wait a second it is only a child if you look at it quickly. Should you take a closer look the person in the picture is wearing a wedding ring. There are married kids? And the Government is helping them? Call the Daily Mail.

It is an unfortunate error. You can almost imagine the conversation where Rob from the production desk is sent round the corner from the magazine's Broadwick Street offices with the photographer and his picture taken.

Everyone has done it, but most of the time you can get away with it. There are no doubt many people working in Haymarket  and elsewhere who have previously modelled for their respective magazines...they probably haven't posed as kids though. Lol.

'How to lose friends and alienate people' scores

Getting Toby Young and the time he spent tying to crack the New York world of glossy magazines right could have been tricky, but Simon Pegg manages it perfectly in a film that effortlessly satirizes the journalists and flacks who work in that industry.

If you haven't read the book and want to see the film, then read no more because this post, as they say, contains spoilers. I should maybe have mentioned that yesterday when I blogged about the US presidential election and 'The West Wing' as unbelievably someone complained about my ruining the ending of that (the show finished two years ago for crying out loud).

'How to lose friends and alienate people' is Toby Young's book about his brief spell working in New York for Vanity Fair, after he co-founded culture magazine The Modern Review, and now a film directed by Robert B. Weide of 'Curb your enthusiasm' fame and starring Pegg as Young.

The film does much very well. It places the modern slightly laddish Englishman in New York and among New Yorkers and each comes away disappointed. Pegg's Young is disappointed in what he finds, in those shiny magazine towers, filled he finds with celebrity impressed American journalists, and in turn, New Yorkers are less than impressed with the English journalist's antics - his boozing, uncouthness and lack of style. It doesn't help that he turns up on his first day in a t-shirt emblazoned with the Modern Review's most famous headline "Young dumb and full of come". It's not a hit.

This, of course, isn't really Toby Young. As unlike him it is really difficult to dislike Simon Pegg. From his first moments on screen until his last he isn't playing Young, but Playing Pegg. What we get served up is a variation on the character seen in 'Spaced', 'Shaun of the Dead' and (skipping 'Hot Fuzz') 'Run Fat boy Run'.

Young leaves behind the confusion and pending closure of the Modern Review after a call from Clayton Harding, Jeff Bridges, editor-in-chief of Sharps magazine standing in for Graydon Carter and Vanity Fair.

The sometimes sozzled, and always smoking, Bridges as Harding is a cracking performance of the editor in middle age whose anti establishment days are far behind him. This is where Young enters hired by Harding out of some nostalgia, but his attachment to that past is almost completely overshadowed by his relationship with the PR industry and celebrity.

This offers the chance for a fine performance by Gillian Anderson who plays uber flack Eleanor Johnson. It is Johnson who wields ultimate power controlling the celebrities and making magazine careers out of fluffy PR approved copy.



I watched this film in audience filled with women who work on glossy mags and there was definitely some nervous laughter at some of the targets, which are taken out one by one: the stick thin models, the clothes, the flacks, the copy approval and the life of fakery that passes for celebrity journalism.

Young initially rebels against this life and laughs at his American colleagues who include eventual love interest Alison, an as ever likeable Kirsten Dunst, and mocks his boss Lawrence Maddox, a sleazy Danny Huston.

But while he mocks he still desperately wants in and that's the dilemma. He wants to date skinny models/actresses/whatever, but to do that he has to be on the inside and that means selling his soul.

But after suffering his stories being spiked and threatened with losing his job, it looks like it is all over and it has to be after a drunken performance at a party in the Hamptons when high on booze and drugs Pegg delivers a hilarious performance as he turns into a drunken Ingerland singing Englishman with a memorable shoutout "come on Orlando you used to be English".

From this car crash, somehow he saves himself and from the ashes he rises, swallows his pride (without too much difficulty) and embraces the world of celebrity. The promise here is some kind of moment with the object of his affections: the hot young rising star Sophie Maes, played perfectly by Megan Fox (of 'Transformers' fame) who just happens to be all of the above.

In months Pegg's Young is feted and sought after. He is on the inside track and looks set to claim his prize.

There are a few moments when the film missteps (the fake movie that Maes is the star of being the biggest, it is simply "too" bad), but there are many more entertaining moments to enjoy. In end this it is a romcom, and the courtship between Pegg and Dunst is cute and funny with few road blocks, and thus it ends.

 Follow me on Twitter

The White House race is just a re-run

I know who wins the race for the White House. It's the Democrat, that Matt Santos, you know, the first Hispanic to run for president of the United States who beats this old white guy with health issues?

Okay so that's the plot to the final series of one of the most brilliant television shows of the last decade, also known as 'The West Wing', which is revisited in part by BBC Four tonight.

The programme picks up on the similarities between that dramatised White House presidential race in which the long-shot candidate played by Jimmy Smits came from nowhere to win the Democratic Party nomination.

He takes on the sitting Vice President Bob Russell (or Bingo Bob as we remember him) and the former Vice President John Hoynes to face off against late sixty something Republican Senator Arnold Vinick who is a dead ringer for John McCain.

The similarities are there for all to be seen. Okay Santos was Hispanic and Barack Obama is black, but there are of a similar age and both were/are making break throughs in political life.

In 'The West Wing' race the ending was a fairytale one that saw Santos enter Camelot accompanied by his campaign manager and chief of staff Josh Lyman.

In the show tonight Hollywood historian Dr Ian Scott from the University of Manchester, who was a consultant for BBC Four on 'President Hollywood', describes how former Al Gore speechwriter Elie Attie became a writer and producer on 'The West Wing' and approached Obama aide David Axelrod in 2004, asking about the background and life of his boss.

That apparently set in train a sequence of events which predicted the real-life events as they unfolded two years after the final season of the series had been screened.

"After Attie heard Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston, he was convinced the prospective Senator's tone, style and rhetoric should be the basis of the Matt Santos character. There have always been strong links between Hollywood and Washington conceived through film.

"But at the moment this is even more unusual and pertinent as Senator Obama's campaign is so similar to the campaign of the fictional Matt Santos in the final season of The West Wing. While it is true that Hollywood has often been accused of simplifying debate, they have nevertheless been crucial in opening up wider social and cultural awareness."

The real life script looked to have been running just as the script of 'The West Wing' had with Obama on course for a historic win, but then something else historic happened with the naming of Sarah Palin to the McCain ticket. That has shaken up the race like no one could have guessed.

My guess is that it would not have done so quite as powerfully if Hillary Clinton had been the candidate vice presidential name on the Obama ticket rather than Joe (where have you been for two weeks) Biden. But that boat has definitely sailed.

Talking of which have you seen Tina Fey's sketch as Palin standing alongside fellow comedienne Amy Poehler as Clinton? Brilliant.

Sadly they foolishly cancelled 'The West Wing' so we never got to see what a Smits led TV presidency would have held in store for us. Shame, but then Martin Sheen's Josiah "Jed" Bartlet was always going to be a hard act to follow.

Follow me on Twitter

Do not under any circumstances free the Noel Edmonds one

The TV presenter and general figure of derision that is Noel Edmonds should be behind bars. There are many reasons for this most of which relate to crimes committed during his television career. He should have been there long ago and now there is a real chance he might go as having been paid by the BBC for years he has now decided like the grande fromage he is that he will not pay his licence fee.

I'm sorry, but he makes me really angry he is a grade A Muppet, but so much worse.

Just to think of 'Noel's House Party' makes me nauseous. I can barely type. His snake oil pseudo mystical cosmic gifting crappola is worse. He asks and therefore his blond highlightednesss gets. Grrrgh. Don't even get me started on his Sky One Channel 4 crap 'Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old?' and 'Deal or No Deal' respectively. Trash, trash and more trash.

Noel has decided that having happily taken great piles of cash from the BBC and the licence payer for his services he doesn't have to pay as he doesn't like the fact that he finds the ads "hectoring and threatening".

On that basis he is withholding his £139.50 licence fee. This is, of course, a criminal offence and he could now be stripped of his ceremonial title of Deputy Lieutenant of Devon. See what I mean he is the type of ninkinpoop who covets such a title in the first place. He should definitely lose it.

He says he is prepared to be prosecuted for evading the tax which he owned up to grandly not paying on the Breakfast show on BBC One on Saturday. Great what are we waiting for it seems an open and shut case.

"I worked for the BBC for 30 years. When I was there it promoted the licence fee by saying how wonderful it was. But now Auntie’s put boxing gloves on. I am not going to have the BBC or any other organisation threatening me. I’ve cancelled my TV licence and they haven't found me. Nobody’s coming knocking on my door. There are too many organisations that seem to think it is OK to badger, hector and threaten people."

The BBC ads are not great, maybe the tone is not right, but what is he talking about? He isn't being threatened he is being a pompous arselike thing. There is a difference.

He knows he needs a TV licence as do most people. He doesn't and shouldn't need to be reminded.

I'm not sure you can go to prison, but maybe it is possible to increase the fine for people with extraordinary large egos to far beyond the maximum fine of £1,000. Sadly he also needs to denied oxygen or maybe just the oxygen of publicity. I really can't decide.

Yes, of course I have one and I simply pay be direct debit as should we all as the BBC provides a quite excellent service for very little money. It produces qulality programmes - last night's Tess of the du'bervilles' was a case in point.

Follow me on Twitter

"It's like a really bad Disney movie"

An interview with Matt Damon on Sarah Palin to watch here, it's very funny. He's worried what she thinks about dinosaurs and there's the actuarial tables to think about (boy do they make for worrying reading - don't worry, I think John McCain will be just fine).

Damon is also struck how much the vice presidential republican candidate reminds him of something from a really bad Disney movie (probably called 'Slapshot Mom') where the hockey mom from Alaska becomes president and takes on the Russian president in a show of nerves and like wins...oh wait a second.

"We hate Setanta" on YouTube

Not me, personally, but it's on YouTube and it's what England fans are singing on the terraces about the digital sports channel that scored an almighty own goal with its failure to sell the highlights package to the England v Croatia game. Millions of pounds in marketing undone. Nice work.

Setanta has been accused of holding fans to ransom after it paid a ridiculous amount of money for the rights for England World Cup away match qualifiers.

It paid £5m alone for England's 4-1 win in Croatia and refused to sell the highlights package for anything less than £1m.

Both figure are crazy money and it seems a pretty dumb thing to reject ITV's offer of £500,000, which seems a more than generous sum for the highlights to an England game.

The BBC has been criticised for not offering more than the £200,000 it did, but it was right to do so. Setanta can't expect other broadcasters to shell out because it overpaid.

Now Gordon Brown has waded in and expressed his disappointment that millions of fans were unable to see any of Wednesday's game other than those who picked up on the Irish broadcaster's late announcement that it was to offer its channel free to air so people could see the highlights. But even when it did this it made it as hard as it possibly could by putting them on at 11:30pm. By that time most knew the score and had given up hope. In the end the number who saw the highlights was around 222,000 viewers. Typically on BBC One or ITV you would expect as many as 4m to tune in.

The "We hate Satanta" chant (you have to give it to the terraces, it might not be inspired, but as is so often it is spot on) started after Setanta failed to sign a terrestrial highlights package for England's dull game against Andorra at the weekend. Not only were fans chanting "We hate Setanta", but they were also singing in support of the BBC.

For a broadcaster that wants to sell its sports packages to fans it is an absolutely terrible own goal and damaging to its brand. Just read what one Mark Johnson wrote in our forums: "I hope they go bust. I hope the government passes a law insisting that all national sport is available on a pay-per-view basis, at the very least. I have Sky, and I hate the brand all the more for having it. They have captured my cash, not my loyalty. Mark Johnson, researcher, planner @ www.manwith3heads.com". That's not the kind of publicity that you want. I don't remember Sky Sports ever making it to the terraces in the way that Setanta has done in its short association with top flight international football.

If this happens again Setanta's reputation will sink and it will damage the game as millions are missing out. The BBC and ITV are both said to be interested the highlights for upcoming away games, I hope they doen't over pay.

A source at ITV told the Daily Mail: "Setanta were ill advised, and have misjudged the mood of the nation. You end up just making enemies of the nation when you do this. I think they have been stung and I am sure it will get sorted now but it should not have come to this. The feeling in the industry is that this can't happen again."

The fiasco again highlights the role the FA has played in all of this. The decision should not be in the hands of broadcasters to sign side deals like this. These are national sporting events that belong to the nation (at a reasonable price, fair enough) and I’d quite like to see the goals thanks very much.