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Injured Journalists
Because I stay up far too late all too often, over the past few weeks, I’ve caught a few editions of ABC television’s World News Tonight when it’s shown on BBC News 24 at 1.30am every morning. It’s very easy to hear the words “World News” in the show’s title, and then see that the…
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21st Century Newspaper Features
There are a couple of things I’ve noticed that seem to have become obligatory in all newspapers these days which annoy me to lesser or greater extents. 1) Just about every newspaper album review these days ends with a “Download” suggestion. I know we live in a download culture, and to a lesser or greater…
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AOL Discuss
Has anyone else seen those AOL cinema ads voiced by John Hurt? They’re promoting their “discuss” section of their website. There’s an “bad thing” and a “good thing” one (the transcript of which I can’t find). Having been through all the Big Brother aspects of a net connected world, the “good thing” ad tells us,…
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75% Cut In Oil Imports By 2025
It’s suddenly struck me how Bush might be thinking that US can cut its oil imports so significantly by 2025. If Iran becomes the 51st state, then its oil won’t count as imported. Simple. Of course, by 2025 we’ll be so short of oil, that imports will be cut by the shear expediency of the…
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Walk The Line
Prior to a couple of days ago, what I knew about Johnny Cash could have been written on a very small postage stamp. I knew a couple of his more famous lines, and also knew about his some of his latter sounds when he recorded songs by such artists as Depeche Mode and even Nine…
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Classical MP3s Again
I just thought I’d post here, the comments I left over at On An Overgrown Path in relation to free mp3 downloads of classical music: My question is this? What proportion of the UK population (and I’ll limit this to the UK for simplicity’s sake), currently purchase classical music CDs? Unfortunately, the BPI, who’d probably…
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The Mind Washing of a Big Brother World
Sadly, I’m talking about the TV programme, Big Brother – in particular, Celebrity Big Brother. Now I know that this is futile exercise, and no matter how much I say or write isn’t going to make a single iota’s difference, but sometimes the coverage that this programme gets infuriate’s me. In a weekly email, Newsnight’s…
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Horizon Tackles Intelligent Design
This week’s Horizon squarely took on creationism “Intelligent Design”, and in many respects it’s a shame. A shame that a science programme had to give up an episode to explode the myth of something that’s propogated by fundamental Christians. The programme didn’t shirk its responsibility to the subject, and the programme took a familiar structure:…
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Free Mozart podcasts
Record companies may have scared off the BBC from doing more classical downloads following their Beethoven symphonies last year, but the idea seems to have taken hold in Scandinavia where both Swedish and Danish state radio services are offering free Mozart downloads to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth. Swedish Radio is offering a…
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Order Online, Buy In-Store
The other week, HMV Group’s chief executive is leaving the company after a disappointing Christmas, citing the growth of the internet etc. as reasons for HMV’s poor Christmas period. There is no way that an outlet like HMV can really compete with the interenet when they have all those leases to pay for in areas…
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Spectrum
As Ofcom hurries to switch off analogue TV and get us all over to digital, the question is, what’s going to happen to all that free spectrum? This week’s Broadcast magazine reports that the BBC is trying to interest the other terrestrial analogue broadcasters into joining it to persuade the government that they should hand…
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Brokeback Mountain
I’ve got a lot of time for Ang Lee, although I’ll fully admit that I’ve still yet to see The Hulk, but I’m reasonably sure that I’m not missing an awful lot. Brokeback Mountain is a great return from someone who hasn’t made a proper film since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Based on a short…
Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Yellowface/All The Lovers In The Night
Yellowface by R F Kuang I first came across R F Kuang with last year’s very enjoyable Babel, an alternate history of the British Empire told in a world where magic exists and is controlled by an elite group of individuals. Yellowface is very different, but no less enjoyable. It’s a book about books, and…
Hadrian’s Wall
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