Diary – 3 March 2012

When we switched on the BBC’s 6 o’clock news on 18 February, we had no idea that it was the day of Whitney Houston’s funeral, and even less that the coverage of this sad event would blot out all other news. So we expected the item to come to an end. But it never did. I was spending the weekend with, among others, two teenagers and we were all transfixed by the relentless mawkishness of the proceedings. After about an hour, we switched off and had supper. When we came back, the tributes were still rolling on. But now a large subtitle had appeared at the bottom of the screen. It read: ‘You wait a lifetime for a presence like her’s [sic]’. We decided it was time to ring the BBC’s complaints line. Naturally it took an age to get through. ‘I want to make two complaints,’ I said. ‘One, that I’d like some news when I switch on the news channel; and two, that the BBC should surely know where to place an apostrophe — and where not to.’ When I put the phone down, I got a round of applause from everyone in the room.

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I was arts editor of the Daily Telegraph for four years and in each of those years I commissioned, during what has become known as the ‘Oscar season’, an article which poked fun at the Academy Awards. Why, these articles would ask, do we encourage people who already enjoy so much publicity and make so much money to indulge in this orgy of self-congratulation? Besides, comparisons between different genres of film are pointless; and, what’s more, the wrong films nearly always win. That was almost 25 years ago. Since then, media coverage of the Oscars has become ever more obsessive and the awards culture has mushroomed in all directions: glittering prizes for music, TV programmes, books and journalism have proliferated.