Anyone?
He didn’t say anything, but it’s nice to see…
Who’s ben?
what’s the question time?
Question Time is a BBC political panel discussion show
ben is the guy who owns this site…
ah, that would explain why I haven’t heard of it. The BBC we get over here is just the canadian version which doesn’t carry the depth of programming that the english version has.
Alas, no.
It’s available to watch on line:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/q … efault.stm
I get to watch it at work, which is handy, as my wife talks all over it at home 
Hey,
Rather than let this thread continue in a meta-analytical sphere I thought I’d give an account of my Question Time experience.
A couple of weeks before the show I was on the BBC website and saw they were looking for people to be in the audience in Bristol (where I am at university) on 8th December (my birthday!). So I called up a friend and asked her if she’d like to go on so we both applied. Incidentally another friend applied separately and we all got on hoorah.
So we turned up to the pre-warmup studio (basically a shed with heaters) and after being frisked by security guards we were treated to tea and coffee and fruit and biscuits. We were asked to submit two questions which could be used on the program. One of my questions was “It is my birthday today. If you were Chancellor, what percentage of the budget would you allocate for my present?” Sadly it didn’t get asked.
Then the host of the show, David Dimbleby (soon to be Sir, surely?), came in and did a bit of warmup. He told us our role as a participatory audience and made a few wisecracks to get us in the mood.
So then we were walked a short way to the actual studio (a local theatre) and like the eager students that we are, my friends and I managed to get front row seats, less than 5 feet from the panel. Before the show started they wanted to test the equipment so asked for volunteers to sit on a mock panel. Once again, the eager beaver inside me forced my hand into the air and I was asked to go and sit on the panel to be mock grilled by the audience.
Along with other members of the audience, I was asked “If you could say anything on national television what would it be?” So in a moment of madness I said “boobies”. Luckily this got a laugh from the audience. It was a tense moment. The guy in the middle then said he was a poet so he would probably recite a poem. The audience then cajoled him into reciting a poem which he did.
It was probably one of the most surreal things I’ve ever experience. Here was this guy, a tall, well-built, dread-locked black man, clearly influenced by Rastafarian ideology, reciting this poem about how we view people’s skin colour in society. It was passionate and emotional and I and the rest of the audience were completely stunned. He received an unusual but unsurprising amount of applause when he’d finished. So much for my boobies comment.
Then it was time for the real program., which went as expected. A friend of mine asked a question so I managed to sneak in the shot when he asked it. I managed to a get a picture of me in the Question Time chair which I’ll post when I get a chance.
It was a great experience, I even got to shake (sir!) David Dimbleby’s hand. Obviously the politics was very interesting too, the highlight being Piers Morgan who kept calling the Shadow Chancellor ‘Boy George’. Brilliant!
I’d recommend anyone who can go along to one of the shows to do so. It’s a great evening out and a real treat for your birthday!
- ben
Next time I’ll use this 
I am sure that the spirit of GateControlTheory was there with you (just like Obi-Wan.) 
David Dimbleby is a ninja, never mind a knight. When he stirs, one swift cutting remark can reduce politicians to stuttering messes on the floor. (About the only worthy opponent would be that implacable juggernaught, jeremy paxman)
Everyone should watch “question time”, and then “this week” which is on immediately after. Those shows have about ten times the useful politics (as opposed to political manoevering) of anything that occurs in parliament.
good job going on there, and i share your concern that boobies are severely underrepresented on british tv. Personally, i would support any party who’s policy included more (or rather less) coverage of them.
was the poem one of benjamin zephaniah’s btw? aside from being one of the few popular poets concerned with race, he’s also a damn good.
cheers!
Paxman is a clod. His senseless barracking of Galloway following the general elections confirmed that he is a cynic, a valueless prat who seeks only to play oneupmanship games with poor opponents.
I gave up watching This Week when I realised that the black female MP that they had on the sofa next to Portillo was only there because she was black and female, not because she had anything to contribute to public awareness.
If you want to learn about British politics then alternate between episodes of Yes, Minister and the Parliament Channel…
That was unfortunate, but he had been on the air a considerable amount of time by then, and it was the middle of the night, so ill forgive him for snapping at someone he doesnt like (I dont like him either).
Be that as it may, she still has stuff to contribute to public awareness. No reason to hold the BBC’s prejudice against her.
I figured its not just for appearances that they choose not only someone who used to be on the front lines and represents the majority of politicians in his background, but also a minority backbencher. Portillo has the experience of the higher echelons, while Abbott is amongst the fringes and underbelly of politics at work.
lol. what happens on the parliament channel is just politics on show, but ‘yes, minister’ is good.
Paxman is somebody whose cynicism and aggression matches that of Nietzsche in spirit, but he doesn’t have the means to get Tony or Golden truely fried alive on national television. That’s the reason that his interviews often involves red necks, shout outs, and end up in Paxman literally abruptly telling the guy to shut the fuck up and turn his own head bitterly to the camera, starting on some other news. Still, I try to watch the Newsnight whenever Paxman is on, hoping that one day he’d crack it, by overcoming excessive emotional involvment that takes up too many of his brain cells, to the detriment of retohting against those sly ties and smooth glasses. Paxo is running out of time fast, he needs to dive in Niech real quick. I wish him luck.
Dear Oreo,
It wasn’t that he snapped, it was that he kept asking Galloway if he was ‘proud to have ousted one of the few black female MPs in westminster’. This to me, given the platform on which Galloway got elected, seemed a minor issue.
Perhaps I was unclear, I think that she’s a moron. I think she’s just like most MPs, intellectually mediocre, relatively friendly, inoffensive, too dull to be particularly controversial about anything. That’s how you get elected…
He’s a prig, she’s an idiot. I’m not a fan of the quality of debate on that show, I think that it’s essentially boring and simplistic.
The Parliament channel is the best thing on freeview. The House of Lords contains about 35 people (730 members) on the average day and half of them are blatantly asleep. No-one turns up to debates, people only turn up to parliamentary votes if it’s a tight one for the government…
There is a sort of remake of Yes Minister that has been doing the rounds on BBC4 (the channel for nerds) called The Thick of It, which is full of the most gratuitous swearing imaginable but also some very funny plots and excellent acting. It’ll be showing on BBC2 in the New Year and I advise anyone interested in politics to watch it if they can. I think that it’s the best comedy in years…
No, but you know that if they did take to electrocuting cabinet ministers that the BBC would get exclusive coverage, bastards…
He believes in nothing and therefore has even less integrity (though marginally more intelligence) than the politicians he spit roasts…
I await the day when he is strangled live on air by Piers Morgan and Diane Abbot…
Poor Ben. Threads about him only ever last a few posts before going off-topic.
All I want to know is, why the hell wasn’t he and his friend wearing ILP.com t-shirts!!
Because the t-shirt printing company haven’t got back to me with a quote…
As promised…
I’m on the right…