” You’re a civil engineer?” [awkward silence]……”anyway over to the shotput”

FTFY

I’d guess Fon-yeen-yee

I like Claire Balding, I think she’s an excellent presenter and I actually thought she did a good job of the rugby league when she did that

I actually thought she did a good job of the rugby league when she did that

As a player?

She’s got to make it accessible to everyone watching; not just the people who are as literate and knowledgeable about cycling as you are. She does that very well.

Her enthusiasm seems quite genuine to me and helps me from flagging during the in between bits of a marathon watching session.
Horses for courses.

Thumbs up for Balding – hard job, well done. Can’t wait for the deep, dry tones of MJ when the athletics starts – Shamon!

Could be worse. We could have Adrian Chiles

. which is surely to at least make a passable attempt at pronouncing the surnames of foreign sportspeople (Fognini is NOT pronounced FOG-nee-nee Clare…) you know, since you’re paid £500,000 a year to commentate on international sporting events…

well we’ve had two attempts at it so far and I’m still none the wiser!
And….sorry if I’m a bit thick, but WHAT IS a Roller?

Clare does annoy me at times but she does a decent job, all things considered. It took her a long time to get the public back onside after ripping on that jockey with the unfortunate teeth. 😆

Hazel and her desperate yearning for a ‘gold-rush’ really does my swede in though. My enjoyment of the games doesn’t hinge entirely on Team GB’s medal haul.

I met Clare when I was riding down a footpath off Froggatt Edge in the Peak. She was delightful, she was concerned about how muddy my backside was though.

My mum then met her at a horsey thing and I now have a signed copy of her book saying something like “hope your arse is ok, lots of love from Clare”.

“you know, since you’re paid £500,000 a year to commentate on international sporting events…”

She’s not (Ignoring the fact her company is paid that not her) she is paid to present the show not commentate – the two are totally different jobs and skill sets. The whole point is she has to cover ALL the sports, its not possible to know how to pronounce all 11,000 olympian’s names correctly.

Her job is really to fill the time between sport. Assuming that “jo public” knows as much about cycling as I do about diving or fencing then I’d say the presenters do a reasonable job of dumbing it down to the sort of things people want to know to watch the sport once every four years.

Would rather the BBC saved 500k and had a few younger, more knowledgeable sports professionals presenting their sports.
they got themselves in a lot of bother with age discrimination, probably best you find a better argument for replacing her – then tell me how by replacing one person (costing a reported £500k) with more than one you save £500k – or do you think these new, young, expert professionals will do it for nothing and fly themselves and sleep on the streets.

Absolute waste of space. Go do one, horse face woman.
You see what you wrote before just became meaningless when you critiqued her on her appearance. You could of course just turn the telly off or watch a different channel (or wait 15 minutes and it will hop channel again – now that is something worth getting wound up about).

I suspect, to people “like her”* The Jam is (er, are)(no, were!) rock music. Not far off really, like.I’d guess to most of the viewers they might as well be!

Unfortunately my appreciation of one of the BBC presenter’s professionalism is clouded by memories of her impressive performance in a wet t-shirt event at Uni.

Appreciate that this is very poor, infantile and sexist. Guilty as charged…. 😳

or wait 15 minutes and it will hop channel again – now that is something worth getting wound up about

God yes that *IS* really annoying me!

So how should one pronounce Fognini if not fog nee nee?

Fon-yeen-ee 8)

But I guess I’m being a bit unfair to Ms Balding, being able to pronounce every one of several hundred thousand (typing as Poly posted 😉 ) foreign surnames correctly is a bit of a big ask, especially if you don’t have a childhood of watching Serie A football to guide you 8)

I like her. She was the special guest at a charity rowing event I was at and she was brilliant and she really got stuck in: cheering everyone on, stopping to chat, take photos etc.

As a presenter, I like her enthusiasm, which largely makes up for the fact she doesn’t know every single little thing about thousands of athletes and hundreds of sports, which is no shame in itself.

Football commentaotor said during the Euros that the names were anglicised because that’s how the viewers would read the name that pops up on the screen, saying the name correctly would confuse your average knuckle dragger.

She annoyed me by riding a too big for her touring bike & walking up climbs in that programme she did

She was a bit rude last night when she asked that Scottish rugby guy a question then started to play with her tablet while he answered. Couldn’t they have got a cyclist on? To his credit he did seem to know a bit about cycling. In the kingdom of the blind and all that.

You could of course just turn the telly off or watch a different channel

Thanks for reminding of that, poly. I’m not actually that bothered but rereading my posts, they are a bit pointed. Tone and the written word thing! And the horse face thing, when read straight, yep I agree, totally unnecessary. I’ll try harder in future.

Last night to Hoy, “The bikes have no brakes!! How do they stop themselves running in to each other?”

To be fair I was sat watching it with my non-cycling nerd wife and she didn’t realise they had no brakes either and when I said not, she also asked how do they slow down.

The polarized opinion that only someone with in-depth knowledge of a sport should be allowed to commentate on it clearly isn’t shared.

If you’re trying to commentate & fill to everyone watching and make the assumption they all understand everything about it, would be a huge mistake.

Steve, yep, I agree. That wasn’t my point – which I obviously haven’t made very well! Nevermind, I’ll show myself out…..

I like her. She was the special guest at a charity rowing event I was at and she was brilliant and she really got stuck in: cheering everyone on, stopping to chat, take photos etc.

As a presenter, I like her enthusiasm, which largely makes up for the fact she doesn’t know every single little thing about thousands of athletes and hundreds of sports, which is no shame in itself.

I am sure she is great I am just sick of seeing so much of her!

Clare Balding was really awful the first few times i saw her doing horse riding stuff, she seemed to get slightly better after a few years of experience. I assume she probably got the job due to family connections, still i dont know why these broadcasting co-operations pay big wages to these not particularly talented presenters when there are a many talented people who would be eager to do the job for far less money.

God yes that *IS* really annoying me!
[/quote]

I went as far as sending in a complaint last night after it hopped to BBC2 for half an hour while the news was on before hopping back again. Unsurprisingly the crucial points in some events are coming just at the point they channel hop.

Of course I got a generic reply largely ignoring my point (the only mention it seems to get is that it’s something people have complained about – no explanation of why they’re doing it):

We’re getting a range of feedback from our audience, some of whom are unhappy about specific aspects of our coverage; including various changes to the schedule, switching play between BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, Red Button and online.

Our colleagues in BBC Sport have been busy providing extensive coverage of the Olympic Games, and to ensure value for money for all our Licence Fee payers we’re not able to reply personally to each email we receive or to every point that’s been made. That said, the issues you’ve raised are fed back to our team in Rio. They take a keen interest in what our audience are saying and use a lot of the feedback to shape future programmes.

Speaking in general terms, deciding on where to place events in the schedules during the Games is a bit of a minefield, especially as it’s often difficult to predict where the interest lies with our audience, especially amongst the Team GB events. This means we need a degree of flexibility in order to give our sports fans as much coverage as we can provide.

Our schedule listings are published a couple of weeks in advance, and sometimes we have to react if there’s increased interest in a particular competitor, or as with previous Olympics, whether there is unexpected medal successes in events we have scheduled on one of the Red Button or online streams. In situations like this, we have to make a tough call whether or not to move the event. We do realise that these decisions aren’t going to please all of our audience.

Our on-air team try to signpost any changes when they can but we acknowledge this isn’t always useful especially to our audience who have set their devices to record coverage of particular events. In those cases, we can only suggest that those viewers go to the BBC iPlayer to catch up: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/categories/sport/highlights

She’s the anchor, they’re not expected to have in-depth knowledge about individual events- any interviews or commentary done by the MC is always detail-light and entry level, and that works because anyone getting their information from the MC doesn’t know anything about the sport either. Then you get into the event and you get the experts. So a lot of this criticism just seems unfair. I like her, she’s interested and uncynical and fills the space, that’s basically the job imo.

The wheels come off a bit when she has to get more into it, her interview judgement’s pretty wonky IMO- I remember her telling some poor swimmer dude “You must feel like you’ve let everyone down” when he’d won a bronze or silver. You could actually see his heart break.

Is the gymnastics commentator the bloke from the One Show – Matt something I think???

Quick Google Matt Baker

Where are all these talented people queuing up to do the job? Not many people can anchor a live show, on their own without having someone asking questions of them. Experts are great, but very few can host a show, they respond to questions offer insights. A keen pundit does not make a good presenter – two very different things.

She does not need an in-depth knowledge of all sport in the olympics, she is the anchor – a time filler, links from one thing to the next etc.

If her job is to make people who generally get a bit wheezy when shuffling from the sofa to the TV as they’ve lost the remote in a stomach fold, show a level of interest and make them understand something. Then she does that for the audience.

Last time I remember a channel going cheap on an anchor for a major high profile international event, it went really really well:

Oh and I am not a fan of Ms Balding, but think the demographic the olympics are aimed at there are few people that could anchor it

Yep it is!!! Apparently did Gymnastics at school so now is the BBC expert!!! (and has been for a while).

You’d think people on here would be more of a fan – that’s exactly what I could imagine most STW forum users saying

I don’t mind her, but 500k for what she does makes me feel a little bit sick.

Most of the presenters and not just CB bug me, I get the feeling that the excitement they convey isn’t coming from the sport, it’s coming from them being on a well paid and fully expensed jolly……

CB doesn’t bug me at all – he does a very good job of conveying his expert knowledge

I always think of the Now Show line:

“We asked our audience to tell us the most annoying things about getting old, and why.
‘What’s the most annoying thing about getting old? Balding.
Why? Because she’s bloody everywhere’ ”

She was a bit rude last night when she asked that Scottish rugby guy a question then started to play with her tablet while he answered. Couldn’t they have got a cyclist on? To his credit he did seem to know a bit about cycling. In the kingdom of the blind and all that.

Not sure if you are being serious there because I’m a bit knackered… but the Scottish Rugby Guy was Chris Hoy.

Like I said, I may have just ruined your gag. Apologies if that is the case.

I chuckled last night when she said “it’s only the time for the first 3 riders that count but it’s nice if they all finish together”

Typical Wiggins, just can’t be nice to his teamies.

CB doesn’t bug me at all – he does a very good job of conveying his expert knowledge

We’re talking about Baldwin not Boardman.

Baldwin

?

I think she does a great job both as anchor for the Olympics and presenter of other programmes. She also deserves kudos for the courage and dignity she showed when she took on the uber k**b AA Gill when he called her a ‘dyke on a bike’. But yes, she deffo didn’t ride the Packet Well section of the road from Hebden Bridge to Haworth in her ‘Britain by Bike’ series.

” You’re a civil engineer?” [awkward silence]

That takes me back to the student union bar.

Anyway back on topic, does anyone recall “How do you play cricket Will?” from Secret Policeman’s Ball?

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HbXYWBFNXKcC&pg=PT104&lpg=PT104&dq=%22how+do+you+play+cricket+will%22&source=bl&ots=9JJox9PbRe&sig=Pwg9OTw-v9vfTEjQv-kOxEhM4SY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwji-5XHi7zOAhXEAsAKHbaGD2MQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22how%20do%20you%20play%20cricket%20will%22&f=false