ABC – that’s the Australian version of the BBC, and ‘wanker’ translates into Brit English as ‘tosser’.
I was watching Breakfast News this morning, all about Egypt.
- I will forgive the ABC for claiming it’s a ‘live’ program. Here in Queensland we watch on an hour’s delay because of the time zone difference with NSW, where the program originates. Fair enough.
- I will even forgive the ABC for claiming that “the pictures you are watching are ‘live’ from an Al Jazeera feed”, when actually they were playing a short recorded clip of about one minute’s duration, repeated on an endless loop. Journalistic licence.
The studio presenters were talking directly to “our man in Cairo” – a bloke called Mark Willacy – who was out on the streets describing the scene following Mubarak’s latest speech. He said, “… where I am standing now there is a senior military officer attempting to explain something to a large crowd who are surrounding him, asking questions. Of course, I can’t tell you what he’s saying because as you’d expect, I don’t speak much Arabic …”
The correspondent doesn’t speak the language of the country he’s been sent to at taxpayers’ expense? So what the hell is he doing there? In the old days, the whole point of a “foreign correspondent” was that he spoke the language, wherever he was sent, better than the natives and could ferret out all the interesting bits of news that the local authorities probably wouldn’t tell him. But here we have some guy living the good life on expenses, paid for out of my pocket, and he doesn’t speak the language. Or even think that he ought to be able to.
This wanker (tosser) should be brought home immediately and set to work clearing up the cyclone and flood devastation in Queensland, living in a tent in the bush. The ABC needs a shake-up!
Boadicea's Chariot 
Oh for goodness sake, this sounds even worse than my beloved BBC.
PS. We here in the UK, even in the leafy shires, Bearsy, are quite familiar with both terms so no translation necessary. 🙂
A recent article I linked, Araminta, caused alarm and offence to several Charioteers because it used that word in its title, before JM kindly provided a dialect translation. We have some very sensitive souls here. 😕
Superannuated ‘public service’ wanker (him, Bearsy, not you)!
Nighty night.
OZ
Oh, well, in this instance, Bearsy, I’m happy to say that unless such terms are directed at me, I am not in the slightest bit sensitive.
I do have the occasional sense of humour failure though, purportedly. 😉
Alas, the BBC suffers from the same shortcomings and has done so for some time. Having read some of John Simpson’s books (one of the BBC’s top overseas correspondents) he is really quite comfortable having a full entourage of translators, body guards, security advisors and ‘fixers’ as well as camera crew, sound engineer, satellite engineer, producer and coffee cup carrier. All at tax payers expense. Grrr.
But, he is quite good at what he does! And the BBC is the best news organisation in the world…or so they keep telling us!
(I should declare I do love the BBC really – when I lived abroad I really missed it!) 🙂
Bearsy, agree.
😀
Araminta
That made me roar this morning, spilt MrsOMG’s tea as I took it upstairs to the west wing.
The last three correspondents I had any respect for in terms of knowing the country from which they reported, were Alastair Cooke (Letters from America – I have the DVD Collection of all his broadcast Letters from America, and still listen to them occasionally), and Mark Tully, the BBC’s India correspondent, who like me, was born in India, but has spent almost his entire life on the sub-continent, having worked there for the BBC for thirty years, before resigning, after an argument with John Birt, the then Director General. He accused Birt of “running the corporation by fear” and “turning the BBC into a secretive monolith with poor ratings and a demoralised staff”. He speaks a number of the languages of the sub-continent absolutely fluently, and has been honoured with the award of the Padma Shri by the Indian government, and was knighted by the Queen. You can hear him occasionally on both Radio Four and the BBC World Service. On the female side, Kate Adie, whom I have met, is as tough as they come, and provides sound coverage, generally from trouble spots you wouldn’t want to be sharing with her!
CWJ
Nothing I would wish to disagree with there and I would like to add Richard Dimbleby to your list, the consumate broadcaster.
Bearsy:
Appropriately, the rhyming slang for “wanker” in the UK is “Merchant Banker”! I wish I knew what it means, though 🙂
Going back a way, the act of doing the well known town in China was to have a J Arthur, that’s why Rank refused to distribute the film ‘The Bofors Gun’ as one of the lines was, ‘He’s nipped out for a J Arthur,’ J Arthur Rank being the boss of Rank Studios, the film makers and distributors at the time.
Other derivations are: One off the wrist, Five finger shuffle and Hand Shandy. There are many others but I don’t want all the glory, do I?
Considering this ABC guy actually admitted he didn’t speak Arabic, he sounds to be lacking in common sense as well. Would you really trust him to clear up the mess left by the floods and the cyclone? Could he handle a broom?
Darn good question, Sheona!
I thought it very amusing, OMG. It was the first thing I noticed on The Telegraph this morning too.