Day: April 30, 2009

Houdini has left the building

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That danged mouse managed to escape. Again! Katy and I were talking about releasing her back into the wild because we’re not really interacting with her as a pet and the situation is only going to get more hectic in the coming weeks. So, last night, I took her aquarium down from the shelf where it’s been for the past few days and – after much poking around in the sawdust and some head scratching – we realized that she’d buggered off! She managed to gnaw a hole in the aquarium lid and high-tailed it out of there. She’s probably hiding somewhere in the house. That’s it though. She’ll have to take her chances with the pussycats (big lumps that they are).

But still, you have to give it to the rodent. She did not want to be kept :)

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It’s not broken, don’t fix it.

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Top Gear may be forced to hire new presenters as part of a government push to make the show more gender and ethnically balanced. This week the Equality Bill was introduced into Britain which encourages employers to take “positive action” to widen diversity in the public sector workforce. Top Gear, along with a number of shows funded by the BBC, now fall under the Bill.

There has been pressure on the boys who review their mechanical toys to change, with a leading academic earlier this month saying that the BBC should employ more women to help make shows such as Top Gear “female-friendly”, reports London’s Daily Mail.

Dr Louise Livesey, tutor in sociology and women’s studies at Oxford, accused Top Gear of “entrenched, institutional sexism”. As well as being hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, the car show has a “boys’ club” production team and fewer female than male guests, it was claimed.

But Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman claimed it was “utter drivel” to suggest that the show excluded women, saying: “If the show is allegedly female-unfriendly, why is almost half the audience female? Secondly, if we are to have a female presenter just to represent the sexes, then by that logic Loose Women needs a bloke in the line-up pretty sharpish. I actually believe these sorts of mandates are patronising to women viewers, because they assume that women can’t enjoy a show’s presenters on merit, but can only appreciate a program if spoken to by one of their own sex.”

Top Gear is one of the most successful and popular shows on the Beeb. It’s not broken. The formula works. Leave it the hell alone.

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