Chris Whiteside's Blog

The BBC2 analogue signal was switched off two weeks ago in the Whitehaven TV area (including most of Copeland) and a range of digital offerings have gone live - more in some parts of the area than others. All the remaining analogue signals for terrestial TV channels will be turned off two weeks today on 14th November On analogue televisions which have not yet had a set-top box added, Border TV has moved to the channel where BBC2 used to be, and BBC2 has gone. Most people who I have spoken to managed without too much difficulty to configure the set-top box on at least their main TV. When this is done the new digital BBC2 is available, and several new digital channels including BBC News 24 and cBBC have also come online. However, an awful lot of people needed to call the TV engineers out to get their set-top boxes tuned. There have been some problems, ironically especially with the more sophisticated boxes. Some set-top boxes regularly scan for updated signals. Unfortunately some of the ...

A fortnight tomorrow, the remaining analogue channels are switched off in the Whitehaven TV area. If you have lost BBC2 and don't want to lose the rest of your TV service on 14th November, you need to get a set-top box and get it properly set up.

IN a little over two weeks the remaining analogue channels are switched off in the Whitehaven TV area. If you have lost BBC2 and don't want to lose the rest of your TV service on 14th November, don't leave it too late to act!

All remaining terrestial TV analogue signals will be switched off on 14th November, in the Whitehaven TV area. This affects you if you live in Copeland and have lost BBC2: to be precise, if Borders appears in the slot where BBC2 used to be and the slot where Borders used to be produces static. In this case you have two nd a half weeks to get your TVs digital ready if you don't want to lose the rest of your TV service. Don't leave it too late to act!

This morning at St Begh's abbey the gospel and sermon concerned the parable of the pharisee and the taxgatherer at prayer. Tax-collectors in the ancient world had an even worse reputation than they do today, often with reason. The parable has the pharisee praying to God "Lord thank you for making me a good person, not a wicked sinner like this tax-gatherer." Meanwhile the tax-gather beats his breast, does not even dare approach the alter, and prays for mercy on himself as a humble sinner. Our lord concluded by telling his audience that it was the tax-gatherer, who knew that he was a sinner and asked forgiveness, not the proud priest, whose prayer was pleasing to God. There is a similar story, told as a joke but with much the same inner meaning, which inverts this parable: the version I am about to quote is set in a synagogue but it could be told of the senior and junior people in any place of worship. A Pharisee, a senior priest, comes up before the high altar of the syna...

Matthew Paris has compiled a very amusing collection of two pages of unfortunate or contradictory quotes by political leaders, which is printed in today's issue of The Times. Well worth a read if you're into that sort of thing.

On 14th November the remaining terrestial TV analogue channels will be switched off in the Whitehaven TV area. There is still a certain amount of "picking up the pieces" going on from the initial disconnection of the BBC2 analogue bradcast. Meanwhile Sky are doing a roaring trade. More on this tomorrow

On 14th November the remaining terrestial TV analogue channels will be switched off in the Whitehaven TV area. This affects you if you live in Copeland and have lost BBC2. In this case you have less than three weeks to get your TVs digital ready if you don't want to lose the rest of your TV service. Don't leave it too late to act!

Blogger Paul Linford did an amusing post last year on the "Top Ten Political Gaffes", and I am grateful to Iain Dale for drawing my attention to the fact that this week he has done a follow-up piece on the top ten political misjudgements The misjudgements piece can be read at this URL: http://paullinford.blogspot.com/2007/10/top-10-political-misjudgements.html The gaffes piece can be read at this URL: http://paullinford.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-top-10-political-gaffes.html The list of misjudgements covers statements on major issues of policy and decisions such as whether to call an election. The list of gaffes covers slips of the tongue or errors of presentation, such as one government minister who meant to use the word "cuts" and actually came out with a similar but much ruder word. Although Paul Linford says that the misjudgements tended to have serious consequences and the gaffes were generally just embarrassing, I would have said that some of the gaffes also had ...

Less than three weeks now until the remaining analogue channels are switched off in the Whitehaven TV area. If you have lost BBC2 and don't want to lose the rest of your TV service on 14th November, don't leave it too late to act!

By Chris Atkins, Sarah Bee and Fiona Button This accessible and well written polemic assembles a collection of views and stories from right through the political spectrum, which chronicle the ways that many of the freedoms which keep Britain a society worth living in have been eroded. Contributors range from Tony Benn to Ken Clarke, from Clare Short to Boris Johnson, and Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty to Kate Allen of Amnesty International. Often hysterically funny, often infuriating, it lists the rights which have been removed from ordinary citizens, the extra powers which have been granted to the police and ministers, and the ludicrous situations which have resulted. I wouldn't suggest that this book gets everything right or that I agree with every word in it, but it certainly scores more than a few direct hits and is an important contribution to the debate. Since this book, and the film of the same name which contains much of the same material, were published, Gordon Brown has pro...

There is a front page item in today's FT about the proposals to develop new Nuclear plants, with particular reference to concerns within government about staffing issues and linkages to renewable energy. I agree with he view attributed to the energy industry that if we are to get enough low-carbon electricity to meet the country's needs while cutting our carbon footprint, we need both nuclear and renewables. There is an interesting quote from a leaked government document on the subject of the treasury's attitude to nuclear waste. The FT says "The document suggests that the treasury is resisting plans to invite councils to bid for the right to house the waste repository because it fears that only one council - the one that includes Sellafield in Cumbria - will apply. This lack of competition would leave it able to demand extra funding of more than £1 billion." The council concerned is of course Copeland Borough Council, and those who have sat through debates at Cop...

And 21 days to go until completion on 14th November, when the BBC1, Borders, and Channel 4 analogue signals are turned off in the Whitehaven TV area.

And 22 days to go until completion on 14th November, when the BBC1, Borders, and Channel 4 analogue signals are turned off in the Whitehaven TV area. If you live in Copeland and have lost BBC2, you need to get working digital equipment in the next three weeks or you will lost the other TV channels.

Gordon Brown's government is trying to persuade us that they don't need to keep their promise of a referendum on the proposed EU consitution because the reform treaty which they now propose to ratify is quite different. It is interesting to see what the other governments who negotiated the treaty say about this. Jose Zapatero, Prime Minister of Spain: 'We have not let a single substantial point of the constitutional treaty go.' Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark 'All the symbolic elements are gone, and that which really matters is left.' Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany: 'The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact.' Astrid Thors, Europe Minister, Finland: 'There's nothing from the original institutional package that has been changed' Vaclac Klaus, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic: 'Only cosmetic changes have been made and the basic document remains the same' Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ire...

And 23 days to go until completion ... Don't leave it until 14th November, when the BBC1, Borders, and Channel 4 analogue signals are turned off in the Whitehaven TV area, to make sure your TVs are digital ready. Ring 0845 6 50 50 50 to talk to Digital UK if you need advice.

I'm indebted to the Sunday Times for the news that a New Zealand MP was persuaded by a constituent to write to their Ministry of Health asking about the possibility of a ban on the chemical Dihydrogen Monoxide. I suspect the constituent concerned was having a laugh at his MP's expense or trying to win a bet about how daft a suggestion he could persuade a politician to make. The reply from a junior health minister was admirably succinct: "Dihydrogen monoxide is water."

And 24 days to go until completion ... I set up my family's main television with a Digital box on Wednesday: have been trying to sort out the family's other TVs over the weekend. Some of them have been easier to set up than others. Generally the newer the television, and the cheaper the set-top box, the easier it has been. I gather that a lot of the problems have been with the most sophisticated set-top boxes which have somehow picked up programme information for Digital services from the Caldbeck transmitter as well as the Bigrigg one. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they can actually receive transmissions from Caldbeck. A few people in Caldbeck on high hills can receive Caldbeck directly, and the St Bees and Parton transmitters re-broadcast the Caldbeck transmission. Once we have our TVs sorted with the current pattern of service, we will be OK for the next 24 days, but then we will have to re-tune the whole lot after the channels are switched round again when the ...

And 25 days to go until completion ... Most people in the Whitehaven and Copeland TV area seem to have managed to re-tune their Digital boxes and get the new services after the BBC2 analogue signal was switched off on Wednesday. But I am still hearing about problems with one type of set-top box and that a lot of people have had to call an engineer. Ring 0845 6 50 50 50 to talk to Digital UK if you are having problems.

It isn't often that I can say that one of my main reasons for being unhappy with something is that a Labour MP has criticised it, but there is an exception to every rule. The concerns which Gisela Stuart, a Birmingham Labour MP, expressed first about the proposed European Union constitution, and now about the "Reform Treaty" which has effectively brings it back under another name, should be taken seriously by anyone who wants to see a Europe that works. Stuart's concerns carry weight for two reasons. First, she is in no sense a little Englander - in fact she has German ancestry and was an on-message, pro-European Blairite until she broke ranks on this issue. Second, she knows far more than most people about the consitution and how it was written, as she was one of the British representatives on the "Praesidium" which drafted it. The fact that this experience caused someone with impeccable pro-European credentials to break ranks and criticise the constitutio...

I ordered a book for myself via the internet a few days ago, and we were slightly surprised to find that it came today addressed to my wife. I had used a pre-saved address setting which named both of us, and the seller must have assumed as the book was a regency romance novel that it had been ordered for Brigid rather than myself. In this instance the fact that someone jumped to a false conclusion about reading tastes based on a gender stereotype is amusing rather than annoying. But it does illustrate the point that many of us find it far too easy to jump to false conclusions about people based on irrelevant information such as what sex they are without even realising what we are doing.

And 26 days to go until completion ... Plenty of people in the Whitehaven and Copeland TV area managed to re-tune their Digital boxes and get the new services after the BBC2 analogue signal was switched off on Wednesday. However, there seem to be quite a few people who needed help. Given the amount of kerfuffle with BBC2 switching over, it is very important that we use the remaining 26 days before the remaining Analogue TV signals are turned off to get as many people as possible set up with working set-top boxes before 14th November. Ring 0845 6 50 50 50 to talk to Digital UK if you are having problems.

27 days to go until completion ... I am getting reports that a significant number of people have had to contact local TV engineers with tuning problems after the BBC2 analogue signal was switched off yesterday in the Whitehaven TV area. Ring 0845 6 50 50 50 to talk to Digital UK if you are having problems Help the Aged are also running a Digital TV advice servie for elderly people We have another 27 days until all the remaining terrestial TV main channels switch over from analogue to digital. We need to make use of that time to sort everyone out.

For many people in the Whitehaven and Copeland TV area the first phase of the Digital switchover appears to have gone reasonably smoothly, but I am aware that it has not all been plain sailing for everyone. If you need assistance in connection with digital TV switchover, in the first instance you should call Digital UK on 0845 6 50 50 50.

BBC2 Analogue signal now dead ... and 28 days to go until the remaining analogue signals are switched off. Well, after all the anticipation the big switchover has finally begun: the BBC2 analogue signal has been switched off in the Whitehaven TV area (including most of Copeland) and a whole range of digital offerings have gone live. All the remaining analogue signals for terrestial TV channels will go in four weeks on 14th November I have just taken a few minutes to see if everything works. As expected, on those of our Televisions which have not yet had a set-top box added, Border TV had moved and BBC2 was not working. Took me a few minutes to reconfigure the set-top box on our main TV. When I had done so the new digital BBC2 was available, and several new digital channels including BBC News 24 and cBBC have also come online. I then took a new digital television out of the box and plugged it in: the new set promptly found a range of digital services including all the BBC channels. Have...

And 29 days until the switchover completes. The beginning of the end for analogue terrestial TV broadcasting in Britain will commence in a few hour's time in the Whitehaven TV area. In the early hours of 17th October the BBC2 analogue signal will be switched off. The Border TV signal will move to the current BBC2 frequency. A new Digital signal for BBC2 will begin. Four weeks later, on November 14th, the remaining analogue TV signals will be switched off and replaced by Digital broadcasts. The Whitehaven TV area covers most of Copeland, except for those who get their signal from the Bleach Green transmitter at Parton, the St Bees transmitter, from Caldbeck, or those south of Muncaster who get their signal from various other transmitters. Those viewers will not go digital until 2008. After each analogue service is switched off, viewers will only be able to receive that channel using either a digital-ready TV or a set-top-box.

If this story from the News and Star today had come out on 1st April I would have been certain it had to be a joke ... "A GIANT rubber duck became stuck under a bridge at the Greymoorhill interchange near Carlisle at lunchtime today. The duck was being carried on a transporter truck. Police were called to the incident on the southbound carriageway at 12.40pm and traffic was running smoothly again by 1.30pm." You couldn't make it up, could you?

And 30 days to completion ... The BBC2 analogue signal will be turned off in the Whitehaven TV area in two days' time on 17th October. The remaining analogue signals will be turned off on 14th November. If you watch a terrestial TV signal broadcast from the Bigrigg transmitter south of Whitehaven, including the Gosforth and Wasdale transmitters which re-broadcast its signal, you will be affected by this and need to ensure that you have a digital ready TV or a digital set-top box.

And 31 Days until Digital Switchover is completed. Just three days until the analogue BBC2 signal from the Bigrigg transmitter south of Whitehaven, and on those transmitters which re-broadcast it's signal, is turned off. Borders will transfer to that channel and a BBC2 digital broadcast will commence. And one month from today the analogue BBC1, Borders, and Channel 4 signals will also be switched off.

During an inter-faith gathering, someone rushed in and shouted "The building's on fire!" The Methodists gathered in a corner to pray. The Baptists cried "Where is the water?" The Quakers quietly praised God for the blessings which fire brings. The Lutherans posted a notice on the door declaring that fire was evil. The Roman Catholics passed roud a collection plate to cover the cost of the damage. The Jews painted symbols on the doors, hoping the fire would passover. The Congregatinalists shouted "Every man for himself!" The Christian Scientists agreed amongst themselves that there was no fire. The Anglicans formed a procession and walked out. The Muslims agreed to accept the fire as the will of Allah. The Presbyterians appointed a chairperson who was to appoint a committee to look into the matter and make a written report The URC members were such a mixed lot that they couldn't agree on what to do. And the church secretaries got together, put the f...