The BBC tried to take the author George Orwell off air because his voice was “unattractive”, according to archive documents released by the corporation.

London Telegraph >> Originally Published 04 June 2009

Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, was employed by the BBC to work in its Eastern Service during the Second World War to supervise cultural broadcasts to India countering Nazi German propaganda.However during one transmission, a senior executive was struck by the “unsuitability” and “unattractiveness” of Orwell’s voice.

J. B. Clark, controller of overseas services, wrote in a memo on January 19, 1943, that the author should be kept away from the microphone.

“I found the talk itself interesting, and I am not critical of its content, but I was struck by the basic unsuitability of Orwell’s voice.”

“I realise, of course, that his name is of some value in quite important Indian circles, but his voice struck me as both unattractive and really unsuited to the microphone to such an extent that (a) it would not attract any listeners who were outside the circle of Orwell’s admirers, and (b) would make the talks themselves vulnerable at the hands of people who would have reason to see Orwell denied the microphone, or of those who felt critical of the BBC for being so ignorant of the essential needs of the microphone and of the audience as to put on so wholly unsuitable a voice.”

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Wall Street Journal – Originally Published 03rd June 2009

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a rare public rebuke of central banks, suggested the European Central Bank and its counterparts in the U.S. and Britain have gone too far in fighting the financial crisis and may be laying the groundwork for another financial blowup.

“I view with great skepticism the powers of the Fed, for example, and also how, within Europe, the Bank of England has carved out its own small line,” Ms. Merkel said in a speech in Berlin. “We must return together to an independent central-bank policy and to a policy of reason, otherwise we will be in exactly the same situation in 10 years’ time.” (Read excerpts of the speech.)

Ms. Merkel also said the ECB “bowed somewhat to international pressure” when it said last month it plans to buy €60 billion ($85 billion) in corporate bonds — a move that is modest in comparison to asset-buying by its counterparts, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. Details are to be unveiled by the ECB’s president, Jean-Claude Trichet, Thursday.

The public criticism is unusual — and not only because German politicians rarely talk harshly about central banks in public. When politicians around the world do criticize their central banks, they almost always gripe that they are too tightfisted.

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