David Marsh is the editor of the Guardian Style Guide, the rules of grammar and good writing expected of all journalists writing for that newspaper. Under the heading “Railspeak should be terminated” he writes that train and station announcements offer a barrage of drivel in a language all of their own. It’s a good read, generating lots of lively comments, and many further examples of hideous corporate-speak.
If you are interested to know more about Style Guides, you can find the Guardian guide here. The Economist guide is online here, and the BBC News Styleguide is published here.
Juggling, relaxing, and football in Clissold Park
The Guardian today reprints a piece from its archive, dated 6th June 1960. It records the official opening that week of the giant BBC TV Centre: “BBC’s pride in vast new ‘factory’ of tv”. The BBC’s own archive piece is here.
In 1967 I paid a visit to this enormous centre as a young theatre student, and was overawed by the scale, activity and complexity, but as my career at that time was to be in the theatre I saw it all as an interested outsider.
Memories of that student visit came back to me thirty years later when I started working for the BBC and by the late 1990’s my office was in Television Centre. So it is sad to report that this week the BBC has announced its intention to sell the entire site, now considered surplus to its requirements. The Guardian reports “After 50 years in the spotlight, BBC Television Centre is put up for sale”
If you want to know more, or considering making an offer, see this
