Storm in a BBC teacup

I was trying to avoid writing about the tedious "Sachsgate" saga that has been dominating the British media for the past few weeks. So why now? Well, for a few different reasons, but mostly because the NY Times has just done a piece on it, therefore saving me a lot of the work of explaining the whole sorry tale to American readers.

But, just in case you can't be bothered reading that in-depth article, here's the 10-second version: two well-known comedians did a radio show during which they left a few rather puerile messages on an aging actor's answerphone. Two listeners complained. Then a rabidly rightwing tabloid which happens to hate the BBC picked up on the "shocking story" and published a lurid account of the incident, creating a self-perpetuating media shitstorm.

Politicians get involved, people lose their jobs, angry villagers wave pitchforks.

The comparison in the NYT article with Janet Jackson's Superbowl titflash is an apt one. As well as highlighting a certain underlying prudishness on both sides of the Atlantic, both incidents are also excellent examples of the irritating power of a moronic moral minority. These self-appointed guardians of taste claim to protect us from depravity while taking a curious pleasure in revealing and lingering over every salacious detail.

I particularly enjoyed Charlie Brooker's recent account of the snowballing idiocy, which he describes as a "pitiful gitstorm". He also makes a sensible-sounding suggestion about creating anti-complaint hotlines for situations like this one, whereby reasonable people could phone in and cancel out complaints from hysterical halfwits.

If only it were that easy. Here in California we already have a similar idea in place. It's called the proposition system, and unfortunately sometimes there are just too many bigots and cretins to go round.

The only thing to fear is failure

Despite nearly every poll showing that Barack Obama is going be elected the 44th president of the United States in just a few days' time, no one I know is taking anything for granted yet. Even here in the Democrat stronghold of San Francisco, where I've only seen only one lonely McCain-Palin bumper sticker in months of looking, my liberal friends are more nervous than confident. After two disputed election losses, the blue half of the country isn't daring to believe that the dark days are over just yet. Instead, the atmosphere is a curious mixture of fear and hope.

And it's easy to understand why people here are scared when you read articles like this one. It quotes a Republican couple from Florida who think Obama may be a Muslim because: "He says he’s not, but we have no way of knowing." They follow this bizarre example of circular logic by suggesting that Obama's middle name was given in tribute to Saddam Hussein (it would be a surprise if this were true, considering Obama was born in 1961, a full 18 years before his middle-namesake come to power in Iraq). These people, and many more just like them, will be bringing the full force of their intellects to bear in voting booths around the country this coming Tuesday.

But the one thing that everyone seems to be agreed on is that, no matter what the end result, this election will come to be seen as a historic moment for this country, for good or ill. I'm not so sure. I feel as if things won't be quite as bad as some fear should Obama lose, and perhaps more importantly considering the likely result neither will things be as wonderful should he win. After all, I remember the euphoria surrounding Tony Blair's election landslide in 1997, and look what happened after that.

And this is what scares me. If, as he should, Obama wins, and the Democrats maintain control of both houses (with a far more effective majority in the Senate), then expectations are going to be sky-high. But the reality remains that we are in the early stages of a global economic crisis that is going to get much worse before it gets better, which means rising unemployment and falling incomes for some time to come. And the US remains embroiled in two messy wars, neither with any real end in sight. No matter what Obama's stated intentions, extricating America's forces from Iraq isn't going to be easy, nor is it likely to be pretty. And even with the increased military resources at his disposal that would follow any successful pullout from Iraq, bringing meaningful peace or stability to Afghanistan will be as difficult as ever.

In these circumstances, it seems right that people should feel cautious right now. I just hope we all remember to keep our expectations in check after Tuesday, too.

NBC is ruining my Olympics

Normally I love watching big sporting events on TV, but my first experience of an Olympic Games as seen from an American perspective has been a total washout.

It's not the bias towards Team USA in the coverage and commentary, as that's completely forgivable. The latent jingoism of almost every nation's broadcasters comes to the fore during the Olympics, and Britain was certainly no exception: it has just been a matter of replacing rowing and plucky defeats with more beach volleyball and high-fives.

No, it's the fact that NBC, the network which owns the rights to screen the games in the US, has decided to show virtually nothing live. Instead broadcasts are delayed until prime time, regardless of when they originally took place. This means almost a full day's cold storage for much of the footage.

And not just that, but the few events which have happened at the right time of day in China to be broadcast simultaneously here are only shown live on the East Coast. Prime time starts three hours later on the West Coast, and so does the same, supposedly "live" NBC coverage. Of course, this doesn't stop the channel from leaving the word "live" in the top corner of the screen, as if they - and we - aren't aware that these goods are frozen, not fresh.

But in this world of instant online news coverage, I am aware of it; indeed, with an event the size of the Olympics, it has been pretty much impossible to avoid the fact. I can't go online to check my email without being bombarded with news and results from the games.

So I knew about most of Michael Phelps' gold medal wins before I saw them on television. I knew that China's biggest track and field star, 110-metre hurdler Liu Xiang, had failed in his quest for gold long before I saw him limp out of his first race. I knew that Usain Bolt had destroyed the opposition in the 100m final before I ever got a chance to see him start his celebrations well before he reached the finish line.

And now I also know that finding out the results of sporting events ahead of time makes them a lot less exciting to watch.

But there's always NBC's internet coverage, right? Wrong. Despite the fact that the channel's Olympics website features tons of awesome, high-quality streaming video (which could be shown at any time of day or night without interrupting their schedules), most of that is also delayed, presumably so that it doesn't interfere with those precious prime time ratings.

It's hard not to see this as arrogance. This is an event that is much bigger than any one TV channel, so broadcasters should bend to fit in with the Olympics, not the other way round. But, thankfully, it seems that not everyone who works in the US television industry is so dumb. Sports network ESPN is bidding for the 2014 and 2016 winter and summer games, and promises to show more of them live no matter the time of day or night.

Talking about NBC's Olympic performance, ESPN's executive VP John Skipper told the New York Times: "Our DNA is different than theirs. We serve sports fans. It's hard in our culture to fathom tape-delaying in the same way they have ... We did Euro 2008 in the afternoon. We've done the World Cup in the middle of the morning. We have different audiences."

How many Comcast people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

The answer is quite a lot, and forgive me if you've heard the joke before. Change the company name and nearly everyone has a few tales to tell of unbelievable corporate fuckwittery. You know the story: all I wanted them to do was blah blah blah, but any number of phone calls and missed appointments and emails and incompetent employees and automated call centres and Kafkaesque/surreal/stupid situations later, all I've got is this half-way amusing anecdote and a stomach ulcer.

My most recent epic saga started on 13 August, when I called Comcast to set up an internet connection and TV service for the house my wife and I were moving into in San Francisco. Sure, they said, no problem. Of course, I should have realised then that they were trouble. The woman I spoke to admitted that the only way I could find out which channels I was going to get with my selected package would be when they connected me. But back then I found the idea of this mystery TV service amusing.

But unfortunately a problem arose when our first cable guy arrived: since the last time the house had been connected up, the service on our street had switched from overhead wires to underground. Someone else would have to come out to run a new cable from the street to our house, the bloke explained.

In the three weeks since that visit, despite numerous phone calls, many visits and yadda yadda yadda, skip to the end... we're still differently cabled. Someone was supposed to come today to do the final hook up but, lo and behold, nobody appeared. And when we called to find out what the problem was, what's that? Oh yes, of course: they had no record of any appointment.

What is frustrating about all this - and it is very frustrating - is that we have little or no real choice over which company we use. There is only one cable company, and Comcast is it. Even if we decided to opt for DSL for our internet, which is much more important for us than the telly, not only would we have to get a slower connection, we'd also have to pay for a phone line we don't need or want and, more than likely, have to go through more of this same crap with someone else to get connected.

Neither do we have any recourse - and there isn't even anyone to take our anger out on. Every technician who has turned up has been perfectly competent, it's just that the problems they've encountered weren't their's to fix. And every one of the many, many people we have talked to on the phone have been perfectly pleasant, but are all wrestling with an octopus of a system too complicated for anyone to understand let alone make work as soon as the slightest glitch comes along.

So, what to do? Well, for one, be thankful that there are still people out there who haven't worked out what an open wireless network is (I wish I could warn whomever it is I'm exploiting right now from the one corner of the living room where I can get good enough reception, but a network name like "netgear" doesn't give too many clues away). Two, realise that I can't do without the internet anymore, and it would really help if I could back up my connection in some way - like the way you have fire insurance or spare batteries for other essentials. And three, know that the revolution can't come soon enough.

I keep thinking of the renegade heating engineer played by Robert De Niro in the film Brazil. Maybe while I wait for my US work permit to come through, I could start doing some underground cable hook-ups. One thing's for sure - I couldn't be any worse at it than Comcast are.