On Jun 6, 3:17*pm, "David D S" wrote:
Bruce wrote:
[...]
Yes, that was one of the brighter bits of some generally atrocious
coverage by assorted air-head, has-been and terminally boring
presenters, at least one of whom appeared drunk.

And when there is still at least one Dimbleby alive. *:-(

From my perspective in China, we had a remarkably in-depth and
interesting lengthy program about the queen's reign, including how
it all came about (going back to Edward VIII), then sections on all
PMs and events that have happened in her reign. This happened
the day before the Thames event. Unfortunately, our TV had some
problem the next day, and I went o my brother-in-law's apartment
where I was able to see the jubilee pageant as transmitted by CNN
International TV.

If you think the BBC's coverage was as banal and amateurish as it
could get, then you would have been astonished at the CNN coverage,
because it was truly appalling, where there were mistakes in identifying
members of the royal family, meandering discussions about how Philip
had to behave and whether he was being oppressed as a subordinate to
the queen, lack of knowledge of the name of HMS Belfast, etc etc. The
camera work was uninspiring (though I now know it was a common feed
from the BBC), and all in all, it made a rather lack-lustre event even
more
tedious. I left and came home shortly after the Spirit of Chartwell had
rotated in the middle of the river to berth.

The organisers of the pageant seemed to have thought that just having a
lot of boats and ships travel in convoy down the Thames would be
sufficient,
but it seemed to hardly be a special event at all at times. I would
have at least
expected all craft to be highly decorated according to some
pre-arranged plan
(may be a procession, in order of lengths of reign, of images and
tableaux of
all the UK and its main predecessor's monarchs would have been one
place to
begin), and images and tableaux of various events in Elizabeth's reign.
But what
we seemed to have was a few special boats and ships, done up sparsely,
and then
just a mass of ships that could have been all rushing out to catch the
tide, for
all we knew.

It was not organised well, not enough special decorations had been used
on the
boats, and the whole thing was dismal. Of course, the rain made it
worse, but
even accounting for that, it was dismal.

Thank you for sharing. I am sorry to hear that the event came accross
so badly in the PRC. I am surprised you were able to watch a program
giving such detail about HM's reign. Was this broadcast by a PRC
broadcastor, or was it international (CNN/MSNBC/Fox)?

It would have been appropriate if more was made of the fact that HM is
Head of State of several countries. I know the boats, in the
Flotilla, carried flags from all over the Commonwealth. However, the
emphasis on the UK was way heavier than any other of HM's realms.

e27002 wrote:

[...]
Thank you for sharing. I am sorry to hear that the event came accross
so badly in the PRC. I am surprised you were able to watch a program
giving such detail about HM's reign. Was this broadcast by a PRC
broadcastor, or was it international (CNN/MSNBC/Fox)?

It was a Hong Kong broadcaster (Phoenix TV) that is widely available
without any restrictions in mainland China. It is just like the very
many
other regional stations that broadcast across the whole of China (e.g,
a number of Beijing TV stations, Hunan TV, Shandong TV, a number of
Shanghai TV stations, Shaanxi TV, Shanxi TV, Inner Mongolia TV, etc etc)
I don't know if it was becaquse they know me, but a number of my
colleagues mentioned that they had watched it with interest, and I
didn't
tell them about it beforehand (because there's no easy way for me to
find out the broadcast schedules without an in-depth knowledge of
reading Chinese characters, which I am not too expert at yet.)

Last year, one of the national TV stations (CCTV) broadcast the whole of
the wedding of Kate and Andrew with, again, quite reasonable and
surprisingly insightful commentary (in Chinese but with interviews from
Westerners with translations into Chinese given), down to explaining the
marriage service, its religious basis, and identifying the prominent
people
attending, so this event was not as surprising as you may think. (I
must admit
the wedding broadcast was surprising to me.)

It would have been appropriate if more was made of the fact that HM is
Head of State of several countries. I know the boats, in the
Flotilla, carried flags from all over the Commonwealth. However, the
emphasis on the UK was way heavier than any other of HM's realms.

Agreed. That would have been another opportunity to have more
decoration,
tableaux, and "done up" boats in the flotilla illustrating the
different countries
that she is the Head of State of. At least adding these suggestions or
ones in
a similar vein would have marked the large procession of boats and
ships as
being much more special than it appeared.

--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
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valid for at least 2 weeks from 2012/6/6 23:30:59

On 06/06/2012 16:43, David D S wrote:

Last year, one of the national TV stations (CCTV) broadcast the whole of
the wedding of Kate and Andrew with, again, quite reasonable and
surprisingly insightful commentary...
(I must admit the wedding broadcast was surprising to me.)

I expect it would be surprising to all of us, but especially to
Prince William.

--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk

Graham Nye wrote:

On 06/06/2012 16:43, David D S wrote:

Last year, one of the national TV stations (CCTV) broadcast the
whole of the wedding of Kate and Andrew with, again, quite
reasonable and surprisingly insightful commentary...
(I must admit the wedding broadcast was surprising to me.)

I expect it would be surprising to all of us, but especially to
Prince William.

And me when I read what I wrote.... 8-)

--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
valid for at least 2 weeks from 2012/6/7 17:07:04