Interestingly the circulation of the Scotsman was 46, 976 between July and December last year. That's less than 1 in 100 Scots who are buying the paper. They manage to get their readership figures up to 177,000, meaning around 1 in 30 Scots actually read The Scotsman, making it largely irrelevant. (Note to self, cancel subscription)
The Scotsman is no longer worthy of being called a newspaper. It seems to have degenerated into somethingfar less useful. The case of Steven Purcell, the Glasgow council leader, one of the most important jobs in Scottish public life has been covered in far from thorough terms. Take today's rather limp 500 words about decisions he made not being reviewed by the Glasgow council (and why not?). Steven Purcell got 500 words of coverage in the paper today while a story about Baden Powell's 1930's possible links to the Hitler Youth movement got over 800 words.
Muriel Gray knows a thing or two about the telly so it's very revealing what she has written in the Herald on Sunday about Alan Sugar's appointment as 'business tsar' – whatever the hell that is. No one in their right mind can honestly believe that Sugar can do anything for British business; he is after all just a TV presenter. However, what his appointment is ultimately all about is the mindlessness of Brown and his henchman Lord Mandy.
Most damning of all in Ms Gray's piece is this. "Nothing wrong with any of that. It's a terrific show. Sugar does what he's told by the producers, appears to follow a script as he often stumbles over the words, and is probably, if other reality shows are the benchmark, told by the production team which contestant to fire each week."
Read the whole thing and weep for what a nonsense this government has become. Maybe instead of elections we should have Simon Cowell and half a dozen other celebrity judges should help select our politicians. Pick our Politicians or The Ballot Box on the box? We'd probably get more people voting and would they be any less competent or qualified?
Is it true that, like politicians and governments, we get the news we deserve? Well I’d like someone to explain what we have done to get the hysterical news coverage over swine-flu. Today we get headlines like ‘Tamiflu: What you MUST know as swine flu threatens to strike,’ in the Mail on Sunday. While the Sunday Telegraph gives us – Flu pandemic could be as severe as 1968. The Sunday Times wades in with – ‘New swine flu alert despite doubts over dangers’. It’s the second item on the BBC’s home page.
Contrast the New York Times. I get their daily email news digest and there’s a small piece way down their headlines in the New York section. Similarly the LA Times, which is a great deal closer to Mexico, has barely a mention. Overall it’s a much lower level of reporting and a lot less hysterical. I’d tell you what is in the French and Dutch and German papers but I can’t read the language, but I bet it’s less there too There’s no doubt that something is sadly wrong with our type of media coverage of all these global scares and doom laden scenarios.
However, consider this. In America there are 160 confirmed cases of the virus and in Britain 15. There are thousands of times more visitors to Mexico from the USA than there are from Britain; added to which there are millions of Mexicans visit the US every year. So how come we have so many cases compared to the USA?
I don’t doubt that the two things are unconnected but it does seem that in our 24-hour news obsessed country that we just love a disaster.
We have totally lost the plot over swine flu. This from Iain Dale
"And I gather the couple who got it on their honeymoon have just been signed up by Max Clifford. Jesus wept. Doesn't that just about sum up our society?"
Watching the various news programmes tonight I found myself shouting at the TV given the absurdity of the way in which things were reported. Best, or is that worst, was ITV Borders news who had a GP on who made a mockery of credible medical assessment. I just seemed so pleased with himself for being on the telly!
Guido Fawkes posted this blog entry on the Telegraph's blog this afternoon. It was still there at almost 3.30 p.m. Maybe the Telegraph has Easter Sunday off. Thought I'd post it for when the Telegraph get around to removng it.
Telegraph Has Behaved Terribly Over Smeargate
Sunday, April 12, 2009, 01:38 PM GMT [General]
There are a lot of bitter, jealous journalists at the Telegraph and you have behaved shamefully over the McBride story. You even tipped off Downing Street in advance as to exactly what I was up to. It reflects on you a lot more than it does on me.
You revealed sources, broke a confidence, breached a signed non-disclosure agreement and behaved like patsy's for McBride.
You still failed to spoil the story. Your political team is about as weak as it gets, that is why you sucked up to Downing Street.
The Telegraph was once run by gentlemen for gentlemen. This would never have happened under Deedes or Charles Moore.
Do your worst.
In the Scotsman this morning they run this headline.
Safety measures leave road travel as dangerous today as in medieval times
The article goes on to say. Road travel remains as hazardous now as it was 500 years ago, according to new research. Despite centuries of safety advances – including better road surfaces, safety barriers and airbags – travelling is still one of the riskiest areas of human activity, the study found.
It’s utter rubbish! Why do our newspapers and the rest of the media seem totally relaxed about reporting such tosh? The fact is that in 1930 there were only 2.3 million motor vehicles in Great Britain, but more than 7,000 people were killed in road accidents. By 1971 road accidents had killed 8,302. Come 2005 and the numbers killed on Britain’s roads had dropped to 3,201. This highlights how in every way, almost every day the news get away with this kind of stuff. Everything is worse, more, increasing, dangerous, catastrophic etc etc. It’s all about the news’ desire to compete with one another as the harbingers of doom and gloom.
The story wass 'driven', as many are by research. Elizabeth Towner, from the University of the West of England, who led the study, said, Across five centuries, "one continuity is the hazardous nature of travel".
It's probably our money that paid for the research. This story will probably get picked up by other sections of the media in the next couple of days and we'll be urged to 'stay in doors and seek cover" if we want to avoid being killed on Britain's roads.
A few weeks back I was contacted by the New York Times about a post of mine from last year that featured a photograph by Bill Wyman of Marc & Vava Chagall. They needed some help over a mystery photograph. Read the full story HERE - it's fascinating. It also demonstrates just how brilliant the web can be.
It's amazing isn't it? BBC bosses have had some huge bonus payments in recent months and today we hear that the BBC is being slapped with a fine of £400,000 by OfCom because of the serious lapses in editorial policy that have taken place. According to Ofcom "The BBC deceived its audience by faking winners of competitions and deliberately conducting competitions unfairly." Now the grossly overpaid Mark Thompson, the BBC Controller justified the bonus payments by saying that senior executives had had their payments cut by up to 40% because of the scandal. Now call me simple, call me anything you like, but why did they get any bonus at all? Surely they get paid a salary for doing the job, a bonus is for doing things way above and beyond what the basic salary is paid for. Let's not forget that these people are paid huge salaries in the first place. Of course Mr. Thompson defends them by saying they could earn vastly more in the private sector. Well I suppose that some people might earn more in the private sector but would all of these people earn that kind of money elsewhere? It's all part of the syndrome that pays some presenters obscene salaries, which confuses these BBC executives into thinking that they live in the real world....they don't.
Something is very wrong with an organization that constantly cuts costs at the sharp end - in programme making - only to continue to reward the out of touch top management with more money. I would love to have a chat with these people who are in charge of one our most precious national assets, who seem to live in a world that has little to do with the real one. The BBC is a great British institution, one that is great because of the rank and file employees, not the people sat at the top that are out of touch and out of control.
First rate bloggers like Guido or Iain Dale complain, and rightfully so, about the newspapers, radio and TV ripping off their original material for their own stories. A couple of years ago a radio programme took some things that I had written and used it - unashamedly - without any credit. I was not angry, just saddened. As I trawl around reading blogs I'm increasingly aware of people picking up on other people's stories and presenting them in a slight rearranged form as their own. Now there's nothing to stop people doing this, but I just knock the plagiarisers off my list of blogs to look at. Maybe that's why newspaper circulation continues to drift ever downwards.
There is no composer, pop or classical, that I revere more than Ralph Vaughan Williams. His, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, is probably my favourite piece of music . I saw it performed in Texas by the Houston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Alexander Gibson in 1985 and it moved me to tears. All RVW's symphonies are brilliant, but his Sea Symphony (No.1) and A London Symphony (No.2) are my most played. Next year is the 50th anniversary of this quintessentially English composer's death. To celebrate it Channel 5 are showing a two and a half hour film at midday on New Year's Day. The film, made by the brilliant Tony Palmer, is, you might think, an unusual thing to find on the fifth channel, surely BBC2 or BBC 4 would be the natural place for such a programme.
Apparently Tony Palmer offered the programme to the BBC but they rejected it with this letter.
Dear Mr Palmer, Thank you for your enquiry about the composer Mr V Williams. Having looked at our own activity via the lens of find, play & share, we came to the conclusion that a film about Mr Williams would not be appropriate at this time. This is essentially because we are... reconstructing the architecture of bbc.co.uk, and to do that, we need to maximise the routes to content. 'We must establish the tools that allow shared behaviours, and so harness the power of the audience and our network to make our content more findable. We have decided to take a radically new approach... and therefore free resources for projects of real ambition... So, given that this is the new vision for Vision, you will understand why a film about Mr V Williams such as you have proposed does not fit our remit. But good luck with the project, and do let me know if Mr V Williams has an important premiere in the future as this findability might allow us to reconsider.'
The BBC claim to have no knowledge of the letter having been sent and say they are planning their own programme about Vaughan Williams. There is a great article in the Observer today with more on the story of why the BBC seems to have an alterative cultural agenda to the rest of the country. It appears in the same week that the BBC we hear are BBC are making a new version of the Nativity, with Joseph and Mary as asylum seekers turned away by Britain - read more in the Spectator. You really couldn't make it up.
Everybody Must Get Stoned is an interesting new blog to check out. It's from legendary former Rolling Stones Manager Andrew Loog Oldham. Andrew also co-founded the Immediate label and recorded, amongst others, the Small Faces, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Rod Stewart, Chris Farlowe, the Nice, P.P. Arnold, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Humble Pie. The current blog story relates to the vagaries of the British press and is in Andrew's inimitable style, which those of you who have read his great books - Stoned and 2Stoned - will be familiar with. For me Andrew's writing in his books captures the spirit of 60s London better than anyone else; they're also very funny.
It's ironic that the two helicopters, from rival news channels, that collided in the US while covering a police car chase is bigger news than the car chase; it’s a prime example of what our news coverage has come to. Apparently there were five helicopters covering the chase. In the coverage I've so far read no one has detailed why the police was chasing the man - chances are it was for some offence that was not that grave. No matter what it was are we that interested in watching cars being driven at high speed? Apparently we are as in Los Angeles; a service exists whereby viewers, in return for a monthly subscription, are paged every time a pursuit is being shown.
Once we started to believe that news is entertainment all hope is lost of getting the type of coverage we want rather than we need. It's no different here in the UK as news programmes have competed to bring us shots of reporters standing in the deepest waters talking to people who have lost the most, suffered at the hands of the flood in the worst way. There's no question that those who have suffered as a result of the floods must have had a horrendous time. Even if your home were not flooded, to be without water for such a protracted period would be frustrating and very difficult. However, the actual number of people that were flooded, compared to the population, is very small yet the news just pile on the agony and make the rest of us feel like we are all living on the edge of the end of the world.
I watched the One Show on BBC 1 this week, which followed the news, that spent most of the show covering the floods. The presenters of the show are not the best and their reporters look and sound like they've just come out of the local collage of knowledge's media studies course. There use of language to describe situations was so inept that it was laughable. Their interview techniques consisted of asking questions to try to elicit answers that they wanted. One lady who basically kept saying it was just something you had to get on with frustrated the reporter greatly as he was more interested in getting her to say she was worried about looters - which clearly she was not.
It's yet more evidence that the news have an agenda to paint a country of darkness and despair when we are largely the opposite as a nation. However, how much longer it will be before we fall foul of their constant brainwashing I'm not sure. There was a study done recently that said people were more optimistic and happy in the early 1950s than they are now. The news media and particularly the TV have an awful lot to answer for.
That's the headline in today's Scotsman. It's not as you might first think a man admitting he attacked a Pizza. In fact, according to the paper, "William Allen, 38, of Crieff, was ordered to go to domestic violence classes after he admitted attacking his partner with a pizza. Perth Sheriff Court heard he threw the food at Catheriona Quinn during a row at their home on 14 April."
I tell you, it all happens in Scotland.
I know it's that time of year when things are becoming a bit on the slow side on the political news front so thank God we have celebrity news aplenty. Over an action packed weekend we had the tennis, we had T in the Park, we had the Live Earth concert, and there was the British anti-climax at Silverstone. One of the guests at the race was Natasha Beddingfield (she's a singer btw). According to the Sun this morning - in a world wide exclusive (their words not mine) - something amazing happened.
"It's hardly the fussiest of demands but NATASHA BEDINGFIELD proved she was a cool customer at the British Grand Prix - by sending a waitress to fetch her an ice-cream cone. Spies tell me that while the VIP hospitality tent only had posh sorbet, Nat decided she'd rather have two scoops leaving one poor sole (sic) to trudge to another tent and bring back the dessert. Still, friendly Nat was more than happy to pose for pictures with fans and waiting staff in return."
It certainly wins the award for the most pathetic celeb story of not just the year, but the century to date. Imagine a waitress having to walk to 'another tent to bring back the ice cream'. I'm in shock, not at the story but at the depths to which we have sunk.
There's no doubt in my mind that the BBC, yes all of it, every last amoeba of its entirety, has gone completely bloody bonkers. There's a programme on TV as I write called 'Saving Planet Earth', nothing wrong in that I hear you say, and you'd be correct. However, who do they get to present it? Alan bleeding Titchmarsh and Graham Norton. What are they thinking of? It has to be down to the fact that they've given both these twerps a contract (I think in the case of the Irish Liberace it's worth millions) and they've got to find work for them.
They lack credibility, any natural empathy with the audience and in the case of the former garden makeover expert an inability to speak without adopting a silly voice and a compulsion to try and turn trite into a presentational style all his own.
OK, rant over.
This Wednesday there's a documentary on BBC TV about Cherie Blair by Fiona Bruce. Not let me declare myself here. I have little respect for Mrs Blair (not sure you’re in the minority there – Ed) and as newsreaders go Fiona Bruce has always seemed more about pouting than news. In today's Sunday Times there's an article about Cherie by Ms Bruce and it's a great trail for the programme if you are in to sycophancy - "she’s clearly got a brain the size of a planet."
"It’s hard to think of a woman who’s been more written about, except possibly Heather Mills McCartney. And everyone has an opinion about her." - Princess Diana maybe? Paris Hilton? Karen what's her name from that daft pop group?
"Until now, Cherie herself has said almost nothing" What? Has FB been on the same planet? There was all those bloody speeches for charity, that TV programme with Carole Caplin and then there were the tears over the flat buying fiasco - her 'my little lad' moment.
Perhaps most amazing of all is the revelation that "she’s very dedicated to her family as well. Leo used to have assemblies on Thursday mornings and Cherie told me how the prime minister had his cabinet meetings moved for a while so he could go to them, too." He's the bloody PM for God Sake, not stacking shelves in ASDA - come to think of it they probably wouldn't let him have the time off. If it weren't so serious you'd think it was from a spoof TV show. "Sorry George, could we delay the attack on Iraq as I've got Leo's assembly to go to?"
"All around her say Cherie will cope fine with civilian life" Of course she will. There's the money, the houses, the fame, the list goes on and on. I'm sorry but I just don't buy Ms Bruce's take on the "bird in the gilded cage."
The Queen's birthday honours list has some very strange ones this year. It adds weight to the argument that these awards are being devalued, particularly when compared with some of the ordinary people who get them.
Joe Corre the founder of risque lingerie label Agent Provocateur and his partner Serena Rees have been made MBEs. Hairdresser to the stars Nicky Clarke becomes an OBE as does the singer Joe Cocker. Perhaps most bizarre of all is Salman Rushdie getting a knighthood.
Of all the singers and rock and pop artists why Joe Cocker? For a start he’s lived in America for decades and just because he played the Queen’s Jubilee concert it hardly seems enough
In yesterday's Guardian there was an article under the headline - Sgt Pepper must die! It went on to say "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? It's meant to be a classic album, but all you can hear is a load of boring tripe ... we've all felt that way. And so have the musicians we asked to nominate the supposedly great records they'd gladly never hear again." The article then went on to dish such albums as Nirvana, Nevermind, The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds, The Beatles, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abba, Arrival and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.
The artists doing the dishing are mostly from newer bands. One of the put down sis by Tjinder Singh of Cornershop, who says about Dark Side of The Moon, "This album is a sort of lab experiment, put together by scarf-wearing university types. There's a certain irony in a song like Money that takes pot-shots at greedy corporations, when this album made so much money. There's also irony in these super-wealthy elite prog musicians positing themselves against The Man, having a go at the machine."
Why do newspapers & magazines feel a need to do this? Is it because they've done all the greatest albums, best singles, best songs that never made No.1, most underrated album etc etc. Are we in for a spate of worst ofs from here on in? It's got the potential to be so boring.
With so much good stuff to talk and write about why not eliminate the negative?
I've just been watching BBC News 24, while eating my breakfast, and two things just happened that show the absurdity of 24-hour rolling news. The business of having to put so much on our screens must create pressures, not least when it comes to the rolling info and headers that appear at the bottom of the screen. The presenter was interviewing Anne Weyman, one of the vice-chairs of the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV. Instead of using the group’s proper name they had her name with Sexual Health Advisory Group written underneath it. That's SHAG for short!
All morning there's been news that Portuguese police are searching some ground 9 miles from where Madeleine McCann disappeared. Straight out of that piece on SHAG the newsreader said. "We have breaking news from Portugal." Mrs. H. and I both looked at each other assuming that they were going to say they had found something – but no. "Portuguese Police have said that four police dogs have been sent from Lisbon to aid the searchers." More like breaking hot air than news.
