- but don't.

Thought I'd start the ball rolling with:

1. Yesterday morning, in the hotel, I watched the sports program with Gary Lineker presenting. They interviewed six or seven football managers, of the teams they had featured, and they were ALL Scottish.

Is there an intelligible explanation for this?

2. More and more programs are using the utterly pointless fast-forward technique, to suddenly turn everyone into Penguins on heat for a few seconds. And then back to normal speed. Why do they do this?

Is there an intelligible explanation?

3. The media always use the tenseless tense - "Man, 34, dies in clifftop drama"

When does he die? How often? Oh, just the once! Didn't realise.

Is there an intelligible explanation for this?

4. Scottish and N. Irish presenters far outnumber all others on television news programmes.

Is there an intelligible explanation for this?

I am interested in asking these questions because there has to be an explanation. Pure random chance doesn't account for any of these things. I want to know what it is.

If you want to join in, please refer to numbers of questions, and/or add your own in numbered sequence.

3a. Historical programs use present continuous when they really need past tenses... "In 1066 Harold dies in arrow/eyeball interface drama."

It's as if they want to get us thinking of life as a tickertape; tenseless and undifferentiated, so that all we need do is talk about what is on the tape. Here, Harold is being shot with an arrow (gets shot), there, the Twin Towers are being destroyed (collapse) and in the distant future, over here somewhere, BBC viewers' brains turn to jelly.

But WHY?? There MUST be an explanation, and I want it!

HAve you ever read Watchmen?

but at least this provides the rationale we were all earnestly seeking for abandoning the 'ahead of' absurdity. Now:

"Harold dies ahead of Normans' return to France"

becomes:

"Harold dies to the left of Normans' return to France."

So much better!

1. Because Scottish people are tight, and the Chairman of a club doesn't like to see his money squandered. Thus Scottish managers are popular.

Q. What did the Scotsman say when a fly landed in his pint?

When you say "programs" do you mean "programmes"? If so I can't say I've noticed any doing this, so the possible reasons are:

1. You're watching different programmes to me, which probably means some horrible pikey channel. Try watching Newsnight or University Challenge, where this effect will not be used.

2. All you ever watch on telly are 70s soft-core comedies, starring Robin Askwith. Again, the problem may lie with you.

3. Your iPlayer is broken, which would mean this really is a program issue, rather than a programme one. Try upgrading your 28.8k modem.

Hope this helps. If I can insult you further then please let me know.

Enforcer - I think AndrewR has just demonstrated the important difference between intelligible and intelligent.

Although I'm not sure anything in the 70s with Robin Askwith in could, with any integrity, be described as a "comedy".

Ok, so the 'thrill' of the Confessions series may have worn thin, but for me they got a new lease of life in 1997.

Getting drunk and watching one, while repeatedly reminding yourself that Tony Booth was the PM's father-in-law made them an amazingly surreal experience.

Hmmm, maybe that was just me, then.

No, I'm with you.

The actual ex-Prime Minister's wifes Dad. He, like, went to Chequers for Christmas.

Plus, his daughter is a prominent Human Rights lawyer. Oh, the irony.

Regarding:

2. More and more programs are using the utterly pointless fast-forward technique, to suddenly turn everyone into Penguins on heat for a few seconds. And then back to normal speed. Why do they do this?

I never really know whether to use 'programme' or its valid alternate 'program'. Language evolves.

But - the program(me)s I am thinking of are all sorts of documentary type program(me)s. Gardening, house repairs, and that utter piece of garbage I innocently led you into watching a while back - about the Swedish massacre. It's happening everywhere, so anyone who hasn't seen it must have a problem; Andrew, are you a proper television viewer?

Horizon does it too.

I'll play, anyway.

5. How on Earth could reporters STILL think it a good idea to report floods by wearing wellington boots and standing in puddles? How many times must all channels go through this well-worn routine before beginning to feel short of ideas and a little obvious?

Well, they could always stand outside No. 10 for all political stories instead...

Outside Broadcast is a scourge more generally. How does it add to the story of some redundancies or whatever if they are stood outside the now-deserted industrial estate?

And:

6. How does a pair of journalists interviewing one another constitute news?

It's a mere splosh away from snorkels and speech bubbles my man.

On this topic, even C4 news insists on stooping to ludicrous backgrounds whilst for instance reporting price cuts - cue animated guillotines from late 18th century French cartoons...

Or superimposed piggy-banks during the economic correspondent's take on monetary matters.

Motorway footage - guess what: "the drive towards equality/the top/an understanding/work"

If you treat viewers like idiots it might just catch on

Newsnight explaining the invasion of Iraq by means of a giant sandpit was a new low at the time.

Re. 5:

Television is a visual medium, so they have stumbled on the idea that there must be a visual aid on screen for everything. The BBC website has now adopted this principle too. An article about any medical issue has to be illustrated with a conveyor belt full of tablets. Dentistry news must show someone's clamped-open mouth being probed by a dentist.

It is just not possible to run a story without background visual reminders of the subject being discussed. Nature (and the media) abhors a vacuum.

Fortunately, now we're in the age of digital telly, the problem is easily solved. Simply set the tuning knob on your television to "Radio 4" and, bingo, you're guaranteed much higher quality news, with no annoying visuals what-so-ever.

Of course, Radio 4 isn't such a good medium for Confessions of a Window Cleaner, but you can't have everything.

I believe that it is always programme unless you are talking about computers, in which case it is program.

Unless of course you are American in which case the rule book goes out the window....

Interesting. I hadn't even thought that British English used 'program'. Now I find that it used to be the correct spelling.

"The word “program” was predominant in the UK until the 19th century, when the spelling “programme” became more common — largely as a result of influence from French, which has the same word 'programme'."

It is not often that AndrewR gets a chance to correct my spelling (usually it's the other way around), and even rarer for him to spot the opportunity, but on this occasion I will stand corrected.

Yes, but look on the bright side: he did use 'different to' instead of 'different from'...

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a rule being broken there.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/different-from-than-or-to

Mind you, I did catch him writing 'eidt' instead of 'edit'.

It's worse thank just being Scottish, all the Managers in the premier league of the Irn-Bru persuasion are actually Glaswegian!

7. Why do so many drivers do this?

Because they were born in Scotland.

Do I win a prize ?

8. Why are women always ill?

Because they're [cloud9] Easy answer to that one!

On the visual imagery point, what about the woman having her mammogram who is trundled out every time breast cancer is mentioned?

9. Why is someone's occupation relevant to a crime? Even more so, a former occupation. As in " *** a former soldier/policeman was involved in..."

10. why won't the swear filter draw the emoticon when you edit a post where you've use the word ""?

I can kind of answer this.

Journalists are very limited to what they can report whilst a trial of any kind is taking place. For example they may know every minute detail of the person involved, but until come to trial they can only say things like "A former policeman, of Stockbridge Avenue, blah blah..." rather than name the person.

They tread a fine, and well trod line, until the suspect comes to trial, and then another fine line until the tiral is complete.