Shropshire Star

Mark Andrews: Ray of sunshine at the BBC, crowd trouble at the derby, and why 5G isn't worth turning Britain into the set of Blake's 7

I have a sneaking suspicion that BBC manager Dawn Queva is not entirely happy with the world at the moment.

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It seems not even Greta Thunberg is exempt from Dawn's ire

She thinks the Holocaust was a hoax, obviously. And considers Jewish people to be "subcontinental melanin recessive caucasians of the Synagogue of Satan", among other things, which are probably best left out of a family paper.

Her distaste for 'bigoted' and 'genocidal' Britain is not that original, really. But what is surprising is her very un-BBC like attitude towards Britain's friends in mainland Europe, describing white Europeans as “melanin-recessive parasites”. What, even Greta Thunberg?

Indeed, Dawn reckons all white people are 'barbaric bloodthirsty rapacious murderous genocidal thieving parasitical deviant breed'.

And by the sound of it, she's not that fond of commas, either.

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It must be pretty exhausting for her, carrying all that hatred around, and makes you wonder where she finds the energy to hold down the day job as senior co-ordinator at BBC3. No wonder nobody watches it.

But the oddest thing of all is that one of her previous employers was Disney. Not exactly Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty, is she?

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Who would have thought it? The kick-off for this week's FA Cup derby between Albion and Wolves was brought forward to 11.45am, in the hope that fans would not have time to get drunk before the match.

So, naturally, the pubs responded by opening at 6am, and we all know what happened after that. Great work all round.

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Residents packed a public meeting. One guy threatened to smash up a pole with a digger. It seems people in Kingswinford, near Dudley, are none-too-happy about an internet company's plans to install masts in their road.

It was a similar story in Shrewsbury last year, when residents were told they were getting a 66ft 5G mast, whether they liked it or not. It seems the tech giants are running rings around our hopelessly outdated planning rules, and people are powerless to do anything.

Even worse are those hideous 5G boxes that have started appearing on every street corner. Do you ever remember being asked for your opinion on this?

I've been trying for years to get a clear answer to why we need 5G internet. The best anybody has come up with is that it might one day come in handy for connecting driverless cars and the 'internet of things', whatever that means. And, of course, the auction for the 5G licences raises a lot of money for the Treasury.

Not enough, I would suggest, though, to justify turning suburban Britain into the set of Blake's 7.

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Maybe we need all these ugly cabinets to cope with the explosion of all these TikTok 'influencers', sharing their ingenious 'hacks' on how to save money.

According to a national newspaper, one lady called Laura Jordan has been hailed as a 'genius' for her clever hack to turn a three-bedroom home into a four-bedroom. She took a large bedroom and, er, built a partition wall down the middle. Makes you wonder why nobody thought of it before.