It's not all good news!

[Mrs H.]

Following HP's sterling work in The Times comes this announcement about Radio 4 on the BOF website;

A number of members have written in to complain about the way Orienteering was portrayed in a discussion about the “right to roam� during Monday's Today Programme. During a discussion on access to the newly opened moorland and heathland, Orienteering was mentioned in the same sentence and context as “illegal camping�. We are now in touch with the programme makers regarding this and will keep you up to date with the response.

A case of "MADO, BADO and dangerous to know OH!"
Might improve our street cred a bit (I wonder if illegal campers also wear brightly coloured pajamas!)

[Domhnull Mor]

Yeh, see what you mean. I thought it would be the wifie from the Ramblers who would bring it up but it was the interviewer... You can still listen to it at the following address:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/liste ... nday.shtml

click on the title at 0747.

[mharky]

They can't say that, that's slander. Sue the b*st*rds

[Kitch]

I thought "camping" had been legal for many years now, though clearly the Anglican Church has issues.

[ryeland of doom]

Disgusting.....

Well done BOF for bringing it up...

[awk]

Disgusting.....

Well done BOF for bringing it up...

Some of us were emailing the programme itself within seconds of the report!

[Guest]

could someone just transcribe the offending sentence for us technophobes

[Domhnull Mor]

A short transcription of the main bit. A bit more is said which may change the context a bit (but not much).

Interviewer, Bob Walker, talking to a lady from the Ramblers Association gushing about the new open access land.

Bob: “Well, of course, it’s brilliant for you [the open access] but not all landowners are happy about it. There are concerns, they say, about trespass, people not knowing the boundaries, because they can’t go everywhere they want. They’re concerned about people already starting to camp on open access land, which they certainly shouldn’t be doing, and having organised activities like orienteering�

Interviewee: says a bit about no problems having been reported so far then “……events like orienteering (that’s excluded from access land), camping absolutely – you need to get the permission of the landowner…..�

[graeme]

What was remarkable about this was that on Monday,after the law had been in place for about 8 hours, the BBC claimed to have found landowner who themselves had already found people " starting to camp on open access land, which they certainly shouldn’t be doing, and having organised activities like orienteering ".

So, who was it out organising unpermitted orienteering event between midnight and 8a.m. on Monday morning, and getting caught by a landowner who then phoned the BBC before breakfast?

Self evidently, nobody. It is deeply depressing that the BBC Today programme obviously just made it up and the Rambling lady let them get away with it.

Maybe Alastair Campbell had a point...

Graeme

[Guest]

Graeme said

What was remarkable about this was that on Monday,after the law had been in place for about 8 hours, the BBC claimed to have found landowner who themselves had already found people " starting to camp on open access land, which they certainly shouldn’t be doing, and having organised activities like orienteering.

Hasn't the law been in place for many months?

I thought that what happened on Monday was that the definitive maps for the final two areas were published, so that it now applies to the whole of England (& Wales?). Those for the rest of England have been published for some time, so someone could have broken the rules...

[swat]

Yes, guest is right. The Open Access rights have been introduced area by area since September 2004. So round here, people could have organised illegal orienteering events for some some (if they'd wanted to).

[SimonThomas]

The abysmal standard of journalism is one of the reasons I refuse to support the BBC by buying a licence fee.

On a wider point - by my interpretation it is now perfectly legal for 200 people to go walking in (for example) unsuitable clothes or without map etc, and incurring the risks therein and yet organised events with first aiders on hand and electronic checking systems are now even harder to get permission for. Marvellous eh?

[Kitch]

Hey.

I just thought - do you need a licence fee to watch stuff you download from the web ?

[chrisecurtis]

No TV licence needed for web TV - only if you have in your property a TV which is capable of receiving broadcasts "off-air" (from an aerial, dish or cable TV service). The TV is licenced, not the watching of it.

[Ed]

not yet.

in Germany all computers with an internet connection are going to count as TVs at the end of 2006 and will therefore need a TV licence paying for them. Even if the internet connection is a 9600 baud modem (for the non-techies, that's pretty much the opposite of broadband). Madness.