Mark's rantblog

My response to an email requesting money for 'Movember', from someone I haven't seen or spoken to in years

Feel free to use it.

Hi [person], hope you are well.

Thanks for getting in touch out of the blue to ask for money, this is my favourite way for people to contact me :)

I regret to inform you that I won't be donating to the prostate cancer charity. My reasons for this are manifold, but the main ones would have to be that I consider other causes more worthy than cancer charities (cancer treatments are worth big bucks to pharmaceutical companies, so research is already very well funded); prostate cancer, amongst cancers, is relatively benign (excuse the pun), killing relatively fewer people and at a later age than, for example, breast cancer; I prefer to choose to support charities based on other factors before considering well-organised PR exercises like Movember, as great an idea as it is.

Instead can I urge you to consider keeping the moustache? It looks great. Makes you look trustworthy.

Seriously though, I'm starting to feel guilty so I'll make a donation to MacMillan instead, they support carers and families instead of drug companies. Sorry you won't get any credit but I'm sure that's not why you're doing this :)

All the best,

Mark

My letter to the BBC Trust on the closure of 6 Music and Asian Network radio stations

I write to you having just read that the BBC is planning to close the
radio stations 6 Music and Asian Network. I am deeply, gravely
concerned at this decision and I cannot see any sense in it
whatsoever.

The predominant reasoning given for these closures seems to be to
allow the commercial sector "more room for manoeuvre", but I am not
aware of a single national station that comes close to offering the
same services as these two. Radio 1 and 2 on the other hand, are
virtually indistinguishable from many of the commercial stations.

Arguments about the size of the audiences are moot as well because
they are digital-only stations. The audience is clearly limited by the
uptake of digital radio sets, something that in future will only grow,
especially considering the upcoming analogue switch-off. According to
the BBC's own website, "In digital-only services, BBC 6 Music's [Q4
2009] audience grew to 695,000 listeners". Considering the small (but
growing) digital audience, and the relatively small marketing presence
of the station when compared with Radio 1, for example, this number is
far from trivial, beating those of 1Xtra which is apparently being
spared.

I would be surprised, given all the publicity that has ensued in the
wake of rumours of these cuts, if this figure has not grown
considerably in 2010.

At any rate, surely the raison d'être of the BBC, public service,
decrees that the BBC should serve precisely the kind of niche interest
groups catered to by 6 Music and Asian Network.

Speaking from a personal standpoint, I am one of the many people who
purchased a DAB radio in order to access 6 Music, and I have found my
investment repaid many times over by a station that represents my
interests like no other that I have heard before. Indeed if commercial
considerations are paramount, it is worth bearing in mind that I have
paid not only for a DAB radio, but also for recordings and live events
that I have discovered only by listening to 6 Music. It contributes
significantly to a burgeoning British music culture, the diversity of
which we have never seen before, and I think Phill Jupitus put it best
when he said that "Cutting 6 Music is an act of cultural vandalism".

I urge you to reject this decision and to safeguard one of the great
beacons of British culture.

Yours faithfully,

Mark Turner

My letter to AMs on Elin Jones' planned extermination of badgers

This would be a costly and pointless exercise, and an unnecessarily cruel one.

Defra's own study by the "Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB"
(which can be found online here:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/isg/index.htm)
concluded in 2007, after nine years of research, that "badger culling
cannot meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in
Britain", and that it in fact "increased, rather than reduced" the
incidence of the disease in cattle.

I believe that Elin Jones has been influenced by the Farmers' Union of
Wales who, contrary to the UK government's advice, believe that badger
culling is effective and that "any talk about farming practices being
a significant factor are unfounded". I find it difficult to believe
that farming practices have no significant effects whatsoever, and
this leads me to conclude that the FUW are merely lobbying for the
greater public to inefficiently spend a lot of money so that their
constituents save a little, with no concern for the weight of evidence
to the contrary.

In addition, the Welsh Assembly's press release on this matter
(http://wales.gov.uk/news/latest/100113bovinetb/?lang=en), dated 13
January 2010, states that "culling will be carried out alongside
strict cattle control measures". This raises serious questions about
the validity of any findings from this trial, as it will be impossible
to tell whether any reduction would be due to the cull or the stricter
cattle control measures. If the intention is indeed to find out
whether badger culling is effective (in spite of existing, recent
evidence that it is not), it should be done in isolation and compared
against a control sample. It is a source of great frustration that
public money is being spent on a trial that has no regard for basic
scientific methods.

I urge you to do all you can to ensure this cull does not take place,
and please forward my message to Elin Jones and anyone else concerned
with the matter.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Turner

Looks like it's my lucky day!

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