Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • A17

Comment Wednesd 26 March 2014 17 A Mrs Merton question hung over the presentation at the expensively carpeted HQ yesterday. What was it that first attracted Tony Hall to a re-engagement with the arts in the run-up to a challenging licence-fee negotiation? MPs are taking up the dubious cause of licence-fee refuseniks. The waves of technological change lap at ankles. But Lord Hall is a suave modern proponent of quality broadcasting. He patently enjoys the arts and is more at home praising, say, Gemma sensual performance in The Duchess of Malfi than his technocratic predecessor.

A brace of Braggs and Yentobs reassured us that in kingdom we would all have to the best events. In true W1A style, the audience wore indiscreetly coded wrist-bands, which ensured that some seats were more front-row than others. It would be churlish of me, who battles for the arts to be taken seriously (and who presents a clutch of artsy programmes on networks), to object to emphasising the BBC as a cultural hub. The organisation has squandered some of that legacy in recent years, downgrading culture internally. When that happens, the money and talent drain elsewhere.

A prolific independent producer noted that his generation competed to work with the titans of cultural Here are my worries. The new Hall- ite emphasis puts cultural coverage firmly at the disposal of the big beasts who make or curate. step forward Nicholas Hytner, Vicky Featherstone, Nicholas serota and their ilk. They are being cleverly bound into the web of charter renewal and given more access to the BBC with their wares. strikingly missing from this vision is the role of critics, interpreters and interrogators views that challenge as well as reflect the culture.

Programmes such as The review show are squeezed out rather than re-invented. We should celebrate the arts, but not only on the terms of insiders, just as we scrutinise politicians or economists. Yet as more money flows to television arts, markedly less is kept back for radio, the most discursive medium, which is facing another spending squeeze and is sorely lacking vocal champions. I might also risk a BBC beheading by raising a squeak of plus change. are the tutted a drama critic, as images of all those authoritative chaps on TV rolled forth.

Now and then, we glimpsed a female historian (where would we be for serious women on the box without them?) or female boss of a regional arts outfit. But for the truly big, ambitious stuff, there was no lack of big, ambitious (and frankly older) chaps. I suspect this falls low on the list of Hall concerns. But it is part of an outlook that finds innovation harder than repetition. He has reminded us that the BBC needs to keep its affinity with national culture.

Well and good. It also needs to keep adding to it. The BBC leave arts to the big beasts Lord Hall is more at home praising Gemma Arterton in The Duchess of Malfi than his technocratic predecessor broadcasting. It would be a stretch to describe this as the case now. Ideas such as remaking Civilisation for the new century and new stage of knowledge are encouraging.

so is an attempt to make contemporary arts more enticing, even if installation artist Cornelia Parker had a Grant shapps moment when explaining how nice it was to have her work brought to and still, the intention is right, the commitment impressive. Candy Crush is the crystal meth of the commute A NY morning, any evening, you can count them on the Underground. There are at least four in my Piccadilly line compartment as I write this on my BlackBerry. The guy next to me is cradling his samsung to hide his shame, but you can tell what doing. playing Candy Crush saga the crystal meth of the commute.

If you fallen into its garish maw, Candy Crush saga is a smartphone game in which you move coloured sweets around a screen. I vowed never to touch it after an existential crisis brought on by Angry Birds star Wars. Nevertheless, it has already claimed half a billion souls. Yesterday, its London developer, King Digital Entertainment, raised £4.2 billion on the New York stock Exchange. some see this as a triumph for the British tech industry.

not so sure. Global music industry revenues are worth £9 billion. That means that the Eroica symphony, the rite of spring, Kind of Blue, the collected works of One Direction all music ever is only worth a bit more than some pixellated jellybeans. Thanks, internet. still, not just the decline of civilisa tion that worries me, nor the (related) effect on Tube manners (Candy Crushers are rarely very chivalrous).

Moreover, you could argue that if it for smartphones, it would be sudoku or crosswords or scrimshaw. In russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva emerged from the Paris and wrote a despairing verse about people wasting their lives reading newspapers: is it that rots our sons In their prime of years? Mixers of blood Writers of What is new is the precision with which the Heisenbergs of the gaming industry target our dopamine receptors. King Digital designers boast that they have found a for producing Candy Crush sagas into infinity. believe we have a repeatable and scalable game development process that is unparalleled in our says a brochure for investors. One academic speaks of the sophisticated that it taps into response When corporations find such wily ways of parting us from our money such as cigarettes or gambling machines there is outcry.

But surely worse to prey on the more precious resource of time? Then again, perhaps Candy Crush is a symptom of the information age. We have access to all the music and literature we could ever want for very cheap. We are hyperaware of how short life really is. But in order to escape from such a supercharged world, we need an equally supercharged release, even if we know rotting us in the prime of our years. For what am I doing with my commute instead of playing Candy Crush saga? Working.

More fool me. Twitter: Auntie looks too much in the mirror W1A, the follow up to the Olympics satire Twenty Twelve, sees Hugh hapless Ian Fletcher installed as the of at the BBC. Already, you know going to be one of those British satires that reinforces rather than undermines the establishment. supposed to make us roll our eyes and then conclude: well miss it, Weirdly, however, it had the opposite effect on me and always considered myself an ardent BBC supporter. Far more annoying than those silly shows with names like Tastiest Village or the layers of middle management is the nauseating self-obsession.

Every other item on BBC News appears to be about BBC News; BBC presenters interview other BBC presenters on light entertainment programmes. Now there are BBC executives commissioning BBC comedies about BBC executives commissioning BBC comedies. Nothing is more dull than someone office politics. Sound and fury in Formula 1 a pretty good rule in life that when Bernie Ecclestone complains about something, it should be encouraged as much as possible. Right now, the Formula 1 supremo is furious about the new greener V6 engines which have made the cars go quiet.

He was when he watched the Australian Grand Prix and failed to hear the drivers go vroom. Now, he is orchestrating a campaign to override such environmental concerns, claiming it is the only way the fans will stay and the sponsors will pay. I suspect self-serving nonsense. However, perhaps a compromise could be reached along the lines of the silent disco? Each spectator should wear a set of headphones, so they can set their own volume. The rest of us could then dial down Ecclestone permanently.

A real lesson about English OUTrAGE! A failing school in Leeds has had to resort to teaching English as a foreign language. Around three- quarters of its pupils were born abroad but my guess is that the quarter of English native speakers will gain just as much from the lessons. I learned far more about English grammar by studying russian and French than I ever did in English. Likewise, it was only when I tried to teach English in st Petersburg that I learned that there are 17 verbal tenses in English: including the tricksy present perfect and the devilish future-in-the-past. My English is far better as a result.

This could be a useful test case for the Department for Education. Muted appeal: the Australian Grand Prix was too quiet for Bernie Ecclestone At £9 billion global revenue, all music ever recorded is only worth a bit more than some pixellated jellybeans Richard Godwin Anne McElvoy.