In Memorium: Whitney Houston 1963-2012

Four songs to post here as my tribute to Whitney Houston.

First, her contribution to the growing list of olympic anthems, from 1988, One Moment In Time.



Onto my top 3 choices, and at Number 3, from The Bodyguard, The Queen Of The Night.



At Number 2, a song with a very different feeling about it, compared to most of her other work, from 1993, It's Not Right, But It's Okay.



But my Number 1 choice, in all honesty, was never gonna be a hard one. It is the song she is best known for. Originally the song was a minor hit in the early 1980s for Dolly Parton. It was reorchestrated and given a new vibe for Whitney Houston. From The Bodyguard, her big worldwide number one hit, I Will Always Love You.



Rest In Peace, Whitney.

Thoughts on the weekend's news

Shocked to hear of the death of Whitney Houston, she was only 48, and seemed to have gotten over the darkest time in her life. I will be posting some of her music here on Viewpoint, as a tribute later.

Other thoughts...

Felt Luis Suarez behaved like a petulant child on Saturday at the Liverpool v Manchester United football match. FA should charge him with bringing the game into disrepute after all the petulance he showed, all the way through the match, despite his goal. Apologies the day after do not make much difference when the world was watching your petulance on display.

David Cameron and Andrew Lansley are digging themselves into a pit at the moment. Neither want to conceed that the NHS reforms they've put forward are the wrong way forward. Torbay had the right idea, putting social care and health care together under one trust. The right ideas were already out there, if they could have been bothered to look. Andrew Lansley should resign.

8 more arrests this weekend in the scandal between journalists and Metropolitan Police officers. 5 of those arrested, were journalists from the Sun. Murdoch, rather too quickly for my liking, came out to announce that he was committed to continuing to publish The Sun. Give it 3 months. I think we may be seeing a different kind of tabloid from Murdoch coming out soon. One that won't be so obvioously biased, presenting itself as straight news with opinion limited to the opinion columns. In fact, the bias will be more subtle, but it'll still be there. Then the Sun will close.

Interesting that 4 current employees from the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is now 83% owned by the state, have been arrested in a tax fraud investigation. HMRC say that the arrests concern the individuals financial affairs and are not related to their work at the bank, but surely, they cannot handle their own financial affairs without resorting to fraud, does that mean we can trust that they won't employ fraudulent methods in their work for RBS? I don't think so.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, says that Christianity is facing a gradual marginalisation. There are hundreds of religions out there, some very real like Shinto and Buddhism, and some that only really exists in the minds of the believers, such as the Jedi religion. To claim that any one faith should be dominant over all others, is a very dangerous statement to make. Tolerance of all faiths, should be the watchword here.

Overseas, Mitt Romney pulled off a very impressive but unexpected double. He won the Maine Caucuses, which Ron Paul had been expected to win. He also won the straw poll at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, where it had been expected that Rick Santorum would do well. Conservative Republicans may not be fully behind Romney, as they seem to have the opinion that only a Conservative is truly electable, instead of totally unelectable, but if they don't get behind Romney, they don't stand a chance. Why do you think that Democrats have been pushing for Santorum or Gingrich to become the nominee? Neither one has a hope against Obama, it would be an easy victory for Barack Obama. Mitt Romney, with the right VP candidate, probably Ron Paul, would be a much tougher challenge.

Showcase 2? No Showcase here.

When it comes to Television, there are certain inalienable facts that are clear to everyone.

1. It is not a cheap medium to produce. Even the cheapest shows cost upwards of £10,000 per episode to make and some primetime shows are upwards of £100,000 per episode. Thus any programme made will often get repeated airings on as many channels as they reasonably can, even if it's for no other reason than to justify the expense.

2. The medium is driven by ratings. If a show is not doing well, then it tends to get canned or at best, moved into the Friday Night death slots, or out of primetime. Even shows that go out overnight need to perform with the available audience, what little of it there might be.

With that said, let me say this.

As I write this post now, Showcase 2 on Sky Digital channel 203, is showing for about the 60th time since it first aired as a live event on New Year's Day, the 2012 London New Year's Day Parade.

Yes, this was a live event, airing on the Information TV network of channels, on New Year's Day. During the first week of the year, it got heavily repeated. Not a great move but understandable. They wanted this event to be seen by as many people as possible. But since then, it has aired every day, at least once per day, usually on Showcase 2 at 1am. Previously, they had been showing The Landscape Channel.

We are now into February, and they are still showing this New Year's Day Parade, everyday on Showcase 2 at 1am-4am, and it is scheduled for at least the next 7 days.

I have just one thing to say to Information TV, owners of Showcase TV and Showcase 2.

Stop Showing It.

It was a time-sensitive event when you first showed it. Now it's stale and out of date. Get it off your channels. Put something a little less uninteresting on, like The Landscape Channel.

In fact, why don't you guys work with The Landscape Channel to have them broadcast 24/7/365 on Sky and Freesat. I'd prefer 24 hours a day of natural landscapes and instrumental music, over a lot of the crap we currently have, and I'm sure others would feel the same way too.