I heard En(ema)damol filmed this event and it's going to be screened as: 'Britain's Next Top Nathan Barley' - I'm so excited I could wipe my arse with Hello!...and I'm so glad that my £120-odd quid license fee is being spent so productively!

"For the record, the Vulture Central Christmas party, sponsored by ..., APPLE, ..."

So Mr Jobs crew is finally talking to you again?!

"the raspberry-flavoured children's favourite" - until the end of my days I will be unable to think of jelly without also thinking of the late Rod Hull. And now I have a whole new mental image to contend with. Thank you, Lee & Herring, and the actor Kevin Eldon, and the BBC, and The Register, for messing with my mind.

good to see our money is well spent.

Ok, I'm just a grunt on the ground; a desktop support tech. From where I stand, Work is something you do to get paid so you can go and drink beer. The more I work and the better I work, the better chance I'll have of getting paid more, which results in more beer passing my tonsils. Is pretty straight forward process to me.

WTF do strange jelly robot baby games have to do with work? What's with the last 20 years of 'team building' bull crap and consultants that seem to be little more than high paid dominatrix mistresses (aaugh, Lucy Lu...) masquerading as business process gurus?

Are top brass lives so boring that they need something more than beer, the tv, and a roll once a week with the misses? They seem to be a bunch of sick freaks and it's no wonder the west is in a downward spiral of stupidity and fascism. Meh. When can I emigrate to Mars?

How appropriate to see the fiddling while the Beeb burns. Thinking of being burned, why not look at the waste of money on 'technology' - unreliable, morale-busting and capable of wrecking programmes at Pacific Quay, Glasgow. This, they tell us with a straight face, is the future of broadcasting. Thank goodness for radio from abroad.

The alien? Surely they're the only ones capable of changing location, workflow, equipment and software as well as cutting jobs all at the same time and expecting it to work.

Nothing surprises me about the lunatic asylum known as the BBC... except that it is allowed to persist. To Brown and his cronies: give us CHOICE, give us TV without the outdated, incestuous, money wasting and downright embarrassing BBC and the extortion racket known as the "licence fee"!!!

It explains the corny mush on the box at the moment. Just in time for me to reconsider buying a license.

I rather think not.

But I probably will. (No moral fibre.)

Let's not forget that the media hate the BBC for good reason; if they can mutually kick such a massive competitor then they'll grab the chance with both hands. When push comes to shove would you trust the Beeb or would you side with Murdoch, Desmond or the Rothermeres? You'd still take the Beeb's view as fairly close to impartial, informed and trustworthy, the likes of the Dirty Digger, the Porn Baron or the Hitler lovers know that and will do anything to make you think differently.

The beeb's website remains the best place on the wires. Along with the Reg of course.

Paris because she's also misunderstood.

Is only allowed to be spent on programming, so in fact it will be your taxes that are being used to pay for this lot.

Your licence money is being spent on such quality programming as Can Fat Teens Hunt? and Russell T Davies' Celebrity Dr Who Special.

.. a BBC reporter I met in the street today was bemoaning the latest round of redundancies and Broadband TV News (http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/today/?p=3019) is reporting "BBC considers reducing DTT picture quality".

Actually, since BH is shaped rather like a jelly mould, perhaps we should just fill it with the stuff and literally preseve the BBC in aspic.

No, not "aaah".

Can someone explain to me what dek is on about?

If you want to talk about choice, how about having the choice to watch advert free telly? Or maybe the choice to listen to non-commercially driven radio, or download a website that informs and educates as well as entertains. Which funnily enough www.itv.com fails on all three counts.

Too many people like to make strident and rather pathetic accusations at the Beeb, whilst conveniently forgetting the value it brings to the citizen. Perfect it ain't but it's better than ITV. Or Sky. Primeval anyone? Thought not.

You're drunk and you can't dance. Go to bed Nobby.

"Work is something you do to get paid so you can go and drink beer."

Unless you work at The Register, in which case work is somewhere you go to get paid *and* drink beer.

Ah yes, banks of Windows boxes used as video editors and the like, all accessible via RDC - Only problem is no-one disabled the shut down option.....

Yet another support call to Siemens barely onsite support and more cash funneled into a 'strategic partner'

To think they used to get upset when I said "Thats another grannies license fee in the pocket' at the end of a shift.

"...the raspberry-flavoured children's favourite..."

You have raspberry-flavoured children in the UK??

I love the way that the Beeb-bashers think that we somehow don't pay for all the other media outlets. This kind of morale-building routine happens in many large organisations but no one gives it a mention despite the fact that we pay for it every time we buy their products.

"You have raspberry-flavoured children in the UK??"

Sure do - we're multicultural here now, haven't you heard?

...having to buy a LICENSE to watch (crap) TV in Britain.

At least the TV here is free, total crap as well, but free.*

*Fee hidden in income tax payment

.... for a Xmas party. 30 quid per head? That is pretty reasonable I reckon for a Xmas party - or does everyone think that just 'cos they work in the BBC they don't deserve a party?

@MahatmaCoat

Yes, this sort of thing does go on in large corporates, but we are not legally required to buy their products, whereas we ARE forced to pay the licence fee!

I would like to join in with those who are Beeb bashing.

I pay a license fee for what exactly? 90% of a programming schedule which I have no interest in, I hardly watch the BBC.

There is some good content (their wildlife programmes, Mock the Week, Top Gear), but quite frankly I would rather put up with commercials than pay the license fee.

Now I am told that not only do I have to pay a license fee for a channel I do not watch (oh, and spare me the talk of radio stations I do not listen to, and uber BBC channels I do not watch, this is tacked on content, most of it guff. The only contribution BBC2 has made is to air the wildlife programmes, Top Gear, Mock the Week and Red Dwarf back when it was new).

At least with the other channels I do not have to pay a license fee, and when the commercials are on I just go and do something else like make a cup of tea.

The BBC should go commercial - and stop embarrassing our country by acting like our government does by wasting vast sums of money on inefficient and pointless initiatives (not to mention highly over priced contracts which get broken or fail to deliver by a deadline and never stop) which force us to wonder if they or those close to them own shares in the companies they hand our tax money to.

This concludes my Beeb bashing.

For our friends from across the pond, yes we do have rasberry flavoured children, also in a range of other fruit flavours. They are called Jelly Babies.

£30 a head for a party, sounds OK to me, it's Christmas ffs.

You are not forced to buy a TV licence, I have a TV, only watch DVD's with it so don't buy a licence (yes, I'm in the UK).

If you got your lardy arse off the sofa and watched a real footy match instead of compaining that you pay a TV licence just to watch sky sports perhaps, you'd shed a couple of pounds and instead of arguing over who has the controls and the fact that the kids are watching big brother again you'd spend a little more time making sweet love with your cute but neglected missus (so I wouldn't have to nip round during lunch times and do it for you, hmmm... better post this anonymously).

Whatever!

I for one am completely delighted with the BBC.

That could be because I've experienced the televisual delights our foreign cousins enjoy.

To wit: more ads, more "re-runs", lower budget programming and less impartiality (that's right LESS)

If there was no license fee then you'd still pay for TV. In fact, you're paying for it right now - you just don't realise it - the costs are hidden in other charges which you accept without question.

Companies who put adverts on television pay to give that advert air time. The money comes from an overcharge which they have added to every single sale of their products. Effectively, you could say that we pay for non-BBC broadcasting each time we go to the shops. This applies even to those people who DON'T have a TV or a radio!

So, even if there was no license fee, every one of us would still be paying for TV. Even those without TVs. How is that fair?

When a TV show is sponsored by a fizzy drink then a percentage of money taken from sales in that fizzy drink goes to the program makers. Every person who buys that fizzy drink is funding the program - even those who love the drink but hate the program in question.

Personally I think the BBC does a very good job with a very limited budget. They are after all reknowned world-wide as a quality broadcaster.

"That could be because I've experienced the televisual delights our foreign cousins enjoy."

Our other British channels all put on the same quality guff and it gets paid for by commercials.

"If there was no license fee then you'd still pay for TV...The money comes from an overcharge which they have added to every single sale of their products"

That's nice, they're charging me to watch their advertisements? Then I accept, obviously they have to charge for staff wages, electricity, water, gas, council tax, building leases, transport, mot's, petrol, etc etc. Of course they will try to claw some money back.

Thing is, I pay for their goods if - IF - I choose to buy their goods. Not all the goods I buy are advertised on TV. I do not buy all the goods I see advertised on TV.

So how can that argument work in totality?

It was a good point - but it does not change the fact that if you have a TV and do not watch the BBC you still have to pay a TV licence.

Oh - and by the way, the TV licence site says that one of the excuses they get for people not paying their TV licence is 'I don't watch programmes on my TV, I don't receive a signal, I just watch DVD's'.

"They are after all reknowned world-wide as a quality broadcaster."

I wonder about this - reknowned by who? How do you know they are well reknowned? Are they still reknowned by those people after their recent antics?

There is no defence for the licence fee in my view - the BBC are largely a decent broadcaster compared to some of the rubbish they have abroad but that does not mean I should have to pay a licence to watch my TV just because the BBC has *no other means of funding* (which is guff).

That management is about simple things, like good organisation, informed decision making, administration, not about bollocks management-text-book crap, then we might start to see some decent management.

Maybe.

Maybe not: Brits never were hot at it. They always had trouble making the transition from being the boss because you inherited the place to being the boss because you're good at your job.

@Chris Williams - I'd like to know who is flogging £10k a day strange robot jelly baby games, as it sounds the best way of making money short of printing it yourself, and of taking the mickey at the same time.

@BBC fanboys - can you trust any organisation which indulges its senior people in strange robot jelly baby games on any day that is not Red Nose Day?

Why would the other medi want the BBC to run advertising, would the price they can charge go up after this? .

As for the argument we pay for advertising when we buy the product, the bbc running ads would reduce the cost of the prodcut and the shelf price.

We have a digital TV system with the same quality as the 1980's , a Digital Radio system worse than FM and executives drunk in jelly baths.

They spend over £2.5 Billion per annum and yet have commisioned fewer independent films every year since 2000. Failling to meet their own targets as they are raised and falling behind previous targets at the same time.

Seeing as they have a golden pension scheme where the licence fee will prop up any shortfalls through market conditions up to and over 8% (using your licence fee) and currently over £6.8Bn? sloshing around for 18,000? employees.

But in the end the £2.5Bn in cash per year means nobody can take on this Gorilla, any political party would burn through their war chest before the BBC had got round to noticing the fly attacking them for the couple of minutes they could afford.

I completely agree. I live in Belgium and state TV here is a pale shadow of the BBC and in fact they generally look up to it with muted awe (and occasionally buy its programmes, which instantly become the best they have to offer). The drek generally shown here is so bad I gave up on TV completely 15 years ago and haven't looked back since. Commercial TV is much, MUCH worse.

The local equivalent of the TV licence was abolished some time ago and programming quality has declined sharply. The state broadcaster doesn't actually advertise, they have "sponsored programming" instead. Otherwise, they ape the lowest-common-denominator shite shown on the commerical channels, all of which try to outdo each other in strident inanity. Dutch TV is the same. The rest of the Continent is just as bad. It'll be interesting to watch and see what happens to the BBC's quality if/when the TV licence is scrapped, I really have no idea what would happen. But I won't have the blighted idiot box in my house as long as I live here, it's a complete waste of time and money.

The sad reality is, the Beeb really is the best of the lot!

None of this excuses pervy £10K-a-day team building courses, mind you.