We haven't been able to take payment
You must update your payment details via My Account or by clicking update payment details to keep your subscription.
Update payment details
Act now to keep your subscription
We've tried to contact you several times as we haven't been able to take payment. You must update your payment details via My Account or by clicking update payment details to keep your subscription.
Update payment details
Your subscription is due to terminate
We've tried to contact you several times as we haven't been able to take payment. You must update your payment details via My Account, otherwise your subscription will terminate.
Update payment details

Accessibility Links

Skip to content
The Times & The Sunday Times
The Times & The Sunday Times
  • Subscribe
Subscribe

Whose BBC is it anyway?

The Times
The Times

Sir, While I am moved by the lament of Radio 4 listeners for the loss of their jolly dawn wake-up call, I have to wonder what it is they are lamenting. Do they know what What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor? is all about? It is all about the condition of “bosun’s droop”. Its colloquial equivalent, coined by the working women of Portsmouth, is “a drunken sailor”. This refers not to the tar himself, only to the part of the tar most affected by a night of heavy drinking; with which, as the song says, nothing can be done on the morning after. Unless, that is, a bit of TLC is administered by the woman; whereupon the cure is greeted with the cry: “Hey, ho, and up she rises, hey, ho, and up she rises, hey, ho, and up she rises, early in the morning!” It may be (of course you would have to ask a Pavlovian to be certain) that just hearing the song has a similar effect. If so, it is easier to understand why some Radio 4 listeners are going to miss it so much.

DR ANNE COREN

London EC1

Advertisement

Sir, Lesley Hovington (letter, Jan 26) has the temerity to suggest that the theme tune to The Archers is irritating and the BBC should get rid of it. They wouldn’t dare. The furore resulting from the threatened dropping of the UK Theme is nothing to that which would be unleashed should the BBC think about dropping Barwick Green.

Besides, I know of no more efficient way to clear the room of children when I settle down to my weekly dose of “reality radio”.

TRICIA STEVENSON

Tullibody, Clackmannanshire

Advertisement

Sir, Michael Grade writes (The However-you-want-it Show, Jan 26) that for the BBC to concentrate on “tried and tested crowd-pleasers” is not the road that the licence-fee payers want the BBC to take. Who, exactly, does he think makes up the crowd?

ANDY BOWLES

London N19

Advertisement

Sir, The theme tune for Blue Peter has been going for 48 years. Surely it is time to replace it with something more pacy and less middle-class. Moreover, the title of the piece is Barnacle Bill which is laden with offensive stereotypes of male persons with shipping skills.

CHARLES NICOL

Buckden, Cambs