The harsh reality is that revenues are down across the board in broadcast media, especially news channels, because viewer numbers are generally falling - that is the main driver for Sky making the announcement that Sky News was going online only in the coming years. The hollowing out started when we went from having four channels to over 200 in the satellite/cable age and of course now things are even worse as people can simply stream the exact content they want (be it films, documentaries etc) and none of the fluff that goes with it. The mainstream channels simply haven't evolved, so their cost base and operational models are still as they were in the 80's and 90's, with ever tighter margins as a result. The only way they can see out of that is quantity/scale. Channel 4 in particular will always be a contentious one as it is also publicly owned, yet it is advertisement funded - and even profitable, I believe. That simple fact there adds pressure to the licence fee debate as it shows that we can have a publicly owned broadcaster that accepts advertising revenues.
Anyone got a few bob to spare. Money for old rope: Art installation from Turner Prize nominee valued at £1m | LBC
The interview with Professor Turi King, who was involved in the work, was interesting, but it was on Radio 4's Today this morning. However I found this elsewhere Some of the insights are scientifically sound and will contribute to historical debate. For one, the programme finally puts to bed an old rumour that Hitler had Jewish ancestry. Its source is the fact that Hitler’s father Alois was an illegitimate child and the identity of his paternal grandfather was unknown. It was only ever speculation, but the fact that it was repeated by Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov as recently as 2022 shows how persistent such rumours can be. The researchers also found robust evidence – the deletion of a letter from a gene called PROK2 – that Hitler had some form of a well-known but rare genetic disorder known as Kallmann syndrome, which prevents a person from starting or fully completing puberty. This chimes with medical records from Landsberg prison, where Hitler was held after the failed Munich beer hall putsch in 1923, unearthed by German researchers in 2010. In them, an examining doctor certified Hitler with a “right-side cryptorchidism” – not quite the missing ball of the British second world war song, but an undescended right testicle. Up to 10% of people with Kallmann syndrome also have a “micropenis”; more prevalent symptoms are low or fluctuating testosterone levels. But there is a better argument to be made: that these medical conditions can help our understanding of Hitler’s psychology. Did he transform a sense of personal deficit, perhaps influenced by fluctuating testosterone levels, into an ideological cause? Did the Nazi führer have an inability to establish sexual connections that he compensated by marrying himself to the Fatherland? If Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator had stopped here, it may have made a solid programme: sensational but also credible. Instead, the makers also set out to “assess [Hitler’s] genetic propensity for psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions”, by carrying out polygenic risk score (PRS) tests. From the results, they assert that Hitler had “higher-than-likely average likelihood of ADHD”, a “high probability” of some autistic behaviours, a “propensity for antisocial behaviour” and “a high probability of developing schizophrenia”. Turi King did note that none of the DNA results were evidence of Hitler having a particular condition.
I saw an article on that, @NigelJ. I think the smell would put me off installing it in my living room! That and the fact it is a pile of old rope and not, IMVHO, art. Oh, and the price tag, of course. A fool and his money, etc.
Well @NigelJ rope is very expensive, as is anything connected to yachting, which used to be compared to standing in a shower tearing up £10 notes - probably more like £50 notes these days!
Yes. I can't remember exactly what the falling out was over, but Lowe became increasingly extreme in some of his views and was binned.
Only if you hold genocidal views about a very specific group of people... and have suddenly become Gas Safe registered.
Wouldn't know what it means and couldn't spell it I couldn't even pass the test to be one no good at the 3 r's
