{"id":17,"date":"2007-02-27T21:14:55","date_gmt":"2007-02-27T21:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/27\/whistle-stop\/"},"modified":"2015-03-08T13:09:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-08T13:09:33","slug":"whistle-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"Whistle stop at the Palace of Westminster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Houses of Parliament seen from atop the London Eye<\/p><\/div>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

I can’t recall the last time someone holding a semi-automatic rifle smiled at me and said, “How’s it going?” It happened this morning at the Palace of Westminster, where I was covering my first parliamentary committee hearing for some time.<\/p>\n

It was a reminder of how calmly efficient the security forces are at the House of Commons. Polite too, allowing me my Swiss army pocketknife but confiscating an Acme Thunderer whistle from my bag.<\/p>\n

\"Acme<\/a>Carving initials in one of the old wooden benches is evidently no crime, but a blast from a ref’s whistle while a member of parliament is pontificating probably means a march to the Tower.<\/p>\n

U.K. indie producers trade body PACT was at the culture ministry select committee hearing to talk about public service broadcasting, especially children’s programming.<\/p>\n

Among other things, PACT revealed results of a YouGov poll that said parents in Great Britain place a high value on originally produced children\u2019s programming and like to watch their favorite children\u2019s programs with their own children.<\/p>\n

Other key findings of the survey include the following:
\n66% of parents believe original children\u2019s programming provides families with shared cultural experiences;
\n70% believe original U.K. children\u2019s programs contribute to the UK\u2019s cultural identity;
\n73% agree that original U.K. produced children\u2019s programs encourage children to read and play imaginatively;
\n73% agreed that original U.K. children\u2019s programming is even more important in the age of multi-channel television;
\nJust 21% agree that programs from countries like Japan and the U.S. are just as high quality and family friendly as children\u2019s programs produced in the U.K.<\/p>\n

PACT wants the government to set up a \u00a323 million production fund for children’s programming. There’s more on the PACT<\/a> Web site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett I can’t recall the last time someone holding a semi-automatic rifle smiled at me and said, “How’s it going?” It happened this morning at the Palace of Westminster, where I was covering my first parliamentary committee hearing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[2427,2425,2426],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","category-television","tag-acme-thunderer","tag-house-of-commons","tag-pact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4558,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/4558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}