It’s getting to the point that not a day goes by without some idiot or other trying to undermine the BBC. Usually, it’s the government or the Tories, who in no way use smacking the BBC as a way of engaging with Daily Mail-reading voters. Rupert Murdoch’s another major critic, which is in no way due to him having a massive stake in one of the BBC’s biggest commercial competitors, Sky.

Yesterday, Policy Exchange got in on the act (Policy Exchange think tank calls for BBC overhaul), with the usual slew of garbage opinions. It slags off Jonathan Ross’s ‘salary’ (ignoring the fact this cash paid for the production of his shows, including dozens of Film 200Xs, hundreds of episodes of his chat-show, and his radio show), says the BBC should cut the money it spends on sport (despite the public outcry when the public broadcaster announces it’s been outbid for a popular event by a locked, subscription-only service) and popular entertainment (despite the BBC one minute being told to justify the licence fee by getting higher ratings, and the next being told it’s being too populist, and should therefore be creating niche stuff).

The report also has a go at the BBC’s audacity in reaching out to 16-to-35-year-olds, noting that cash for such programming should be aimed at US import channels Channel 4 and E4. Never mind that BBC Three’s output includes the likes of Being Human. Never mind the fact people under 35 pay the licence fee and therefore should expect at least some programming aimed at them. Never mind the fact the BBC isn’t beholden to advertisers and can therefore take more risks. Nope—shut it down, says Policy Exchange! Shut it all down!

Sadly, this kind of report seems to be the norm these days. I suspect regardless of whatever government the UK ends up with this year, it’ll start dismantling the BBC. And because too many British people are strangely oblivious to the value of the BBC (not only in terms of what you receive on TV, the radio and the web, but also as a public service), considering it a huge rip-off, it’ll end up a shell of its former self. Sooner or later, British television will largely be a thing of the past, with everyone fed on a steady diet of third-rate US television with ad-breaks every sixteen seconds. But, hey, it’ll be free, right? (Aside from the huge subscription fees that people will happily pay because they choose to, obviously.) Of course, the UK will only realise this when it’s too late, and when Murdock is laughing maniacally while sitting atop his solid-gold throne, in the shape of a Sky logo squashing the BBC into a bloody pulp.

The BBC reports that a cartoon pig will now have to wear a seat-belt in future episodes, due to a stupid person. It doesn’t expicitly say this, but that’s the gist of the article. The sequence of events seems to be:

1. Cartoon pig in fictional cartoon world doesn’t wear fictional cartoon seat-belt.
2. Child ‘refuses’ to wear seat-belt because Peppa Pig doesn’t wear one.
3. Stupid person (a.k.a. a parent) complains, rather than, you know, explaining to their kid that Peppa Pig is a cartoon and that everyone has to wear a seat-belt in the real world.
4. Production company caves, and says they’ll also (at presumably great cost) reanimate all old episodes “to reflect the change”.

Let’s hope the stupid parent’s kid never watches Tom and Jerry, or the parent will presumably petition Time Warner, rather than telling their little tyke that repeatedly attempting to kill the cat is wrong, regardless of whether it happened in a fictional cartoon world.

Designer Tom Muller earlier today linked on Twitter to a hateful Times article where Emily Gosden rips into the costs of graphic design and branding. This time, it’s the ‘NHS 60’ logo that’s under fire—the argument is that adding a couple of digits to the existing logo shouldn’t have cost £12,000. Yet again, an article in the mainstream press undermines the entire graphic design industry, without actually bothering to consider or research why the costs were as they were. God forbid that there’s anything more to design than ‘just doing it’. And, of course, Emily Gosden is presumably being paid about £3 per article for the Times, because as everyone knows, there’s no consideration or research behind writing—you ‘just do it’, right, Emily?

Tory MP Greg Hands also can’t resist having a pop at the designer scum who clearly ripped off tax payers (unlike London-based Hands himself, whose £300,000 of expenses—including £5,524 for ‘London Supplement’—were clearly all absolutely essential); he says: “Surely adding two digits doesn’t need to be outsourced at all. Civil servants can do this themselves. Modern graphic design packages surely allow anyone with an average brain to design something as good as, or better than, what we see in front of us here.”

Oh, really? Well, this blog likes to go the extra mile itself (and for the staggering fee of nothing at all), and so here’s what would have happened had Hands got his way:

The final brand: smart, stylish, and it probably went through 11 billion revisions to get to this stage, hence the £12,000 fee.

What would have happened if you’d armed a civil servant with Photoshop and told them to create the logo. And you wouldn’t have gotten any actual branding advice and alternative versions of the logo for print/web, and so on.

So Rage Against the Machine got the UK Christmas number one, beating the worst X-Factor song to date by a clear 50,000 sales, almost making up for last year’s dire Alexandra Burke Hallelujah cover beating both Leonard Cohen’s original and Jeff Buckley’s version to the top spot.

If we need a battle next year, I nominate Wire’s Mr Suit from Pink Flag. It’s a bit sweary and it has some nice relevant sentiment for Mr Cowell and company:

MR SUIT
I’m tired of being told what to think
I’m tired of being told what to do
I’m tired of f——ing phonies
That’s right, I’m tired of you

No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr Suit

You can take your f——ing money and shove it up your arse
‘Cause you think you understand, well it’s a f——ing farce
I’m tired of f——ing phonies
That’s right, I’m tired of you

No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr Suit

And if you turn and walk out that door
And take your f——ing money, let me tell you what it’s for
I’m tired of f——ing phonies
That’s right, I’m tired of you

No, no, no, no, no, no, Mr Suit

Happy holidays!

Digital Spy reports on Simon Cowell’s unhappiness regarding the fact his monopoly over the British Christmas number-one might end this year, due to a Facebook campaign to install Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name instead.

The Sun claims Cowell moaned that “musical snobs have ganged up against Joe [McElderry]” and: “If you take me out of the equation, you have a teenager with his first single being attacked by a huge hate mob on Facebook.”

The thing is, you don’t have to be a music snob to be sickened by the factory line Cowell’s installed. X Factor is not about music—it’s a marketing exercise. Almost no-one that comes through it has enough longevity to survive in the industry for a year, and that’s in part because Cowell moves right on to the next cash cow. Secondly, if you take Cowell out of the equation, you have a teenager who wouldn’t be in that position anyway. Cowell installed him there. Without Cowell, he’s just another kid who can sing a bit.

And you know what? I don’t feel sorry for Joe in the slightest. He’s a kid who, at worst, will have a number-two single for relatively little effort. He’s not had to spend years of his life playing to a dozen people in crappy pubs all over the UK. He’s not had to battle to get A&Rs to listen to his music. He’s not had to do anything bar appear on a TV show.

Cowell also notes, without irony, that it’s “David versus Goliath,” clearly forgetting that as far as the British music industry goes, he’s the biggest Goliath of them all.