The great BBC

BBC shakeup – reasons to be cheerful

On the train or in similar circumstances, I've always got headphones on and a book. The reason? There's loads of music and writing out there that I've yet to read or listen to, and I need to tap into that and shut out the rubbish. The music and writing can be genius. The chatter? Does anyone need to listen to two old ladies discussing “Strictly” or “X-Brit-jungle-brother”? I need to lock it out.

It is the sort of rubbish that Radio 5 (BBC) gave me within five minutes of tuning in this morning. All I heard was “bushtucker...in the jungle”. I switched immediately.

I avoid this sort of rubbish, I avoid listening to people talking about this sort of rubbish. I don't want a so-called BBC news radio station giving me exactly what I work hard to avoid at seven in the morning.

Switch.

Radio Four on the longwave button.

A couple of minutes (at most) before the news item mentioned some celeb in some jungle.

Hit the CD button. Bye bye BBC. Please let the latest scandal help sort things out.

Aim. Hinterland CD. Glorious.

Starbucks, Google, Amazon – are you one of our mates? No? Right – come here then

This lot are being called in for questioning. By MPs. About tax evasion. They've done nothing illegal, just used the loopholes provided by the law. Who makes the rules of law? That'd be the MPs.

If I were the sacrificial staff member strapped to the sackbarrow and wheeled in front of the great and the good in full Hannibal Lecter fancy dress, my response, before flipping them the bird, sticking on my headphones and resuming reading Gravity's Rainbow on the Kindle (Amazon device, tax paid to Luxemburg or somewhere) would be lot like their own every time they do something thoroughly dodgy but just about within the law:

“First: we've not broken the law. Second: you can change the law but it suits your mates not to. You think this is all well and good when it applies to your mates, but not when it applies to us. Third: you're a load of over-privileged under-regulated weirdos and if you want a punch-up bring it on. Forth: So long. In the meantime I'm going to resume my music and book.

Then there's the odious Ed Balls with the oversized head chipping in about tax avoidance thing before hitting the high-profile political targets. Ed. I realise that you are the worst sort of moron to ever walk the earth, but we're truly into 'really?' territory here. These are loopholes you lot had twenty years to close, had they not benefitted your mates or yourselves. You can't drip on about them now. Too late. You and your buddies had the chance to do something about the problem and chose to do nothing. You can't criticise a subsequent failure to do so after years of not bothering.

Remember, this horror-film zombie oversize-headed horror is the man who suggested spreading the problem kids around all schools, in order to bring them all into a single, mediocre, morass, and the education minister who based standards on the minimum required to keep young adults off the dole and out of jail. Those were our educational aims under Balls.

Ultimately, they're all the same, all there for themselves and their mates.