Category: Link Page 10 of 54

You Nearly Didn’t Hear About This

On 13/10/2009

It seems that, contrary to years of process and legal precedent, The Guardian newspaper was – until a couple of hours ago – blocked from reporting on Parliamentary proceedings.

Just to add to the rather cloak-and-dagger nature of things, the paper was also been told not to say what they’ve been prevented from talking about. I seem to recall the Spycatcher affair took a similar turn, with the media at one stage not allowed to mention the name of the author of the banned book… and we all know how well that turned out.

Fortunately, early this afternoon – just in time, one might say – the lawyers responsible for the injunction (perennial Private Eye favourites Carter-Ruck) dropped the claim, leaving the paper free to report the item in question, which I’ll reprint here, mainly because I can:

Labour MP Paul Farrelly intends to “ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.”

So, Carter-Ruck had issued an injunction to prevent a paper reporting a question about an injunction? Crikey, that kind of activity certainly strays close to the zone known as self-parody.

Facetiousness aside, this was a strange legal move, and one which – temporarily – went against freedom of speech issues which had been in place for centuries (and had been, in legal terms, recently* ruled upon by Lord Denning) stating that whatever’s said in Parliament can be reported without it potentially being seen as contempt of court. The opposite of Las Vegas, one might say.

Anyway, I thought this was worthy of drawing to your attention as a freedom of the press issue; I hold no brief for The Guardian, and approach their work with much the same narrowed-eye cynicism as I do most of the newspapers, but I think it’s getting to a pretty sorry state of affairs when a law firm can take out (and, in the first instance at least, obtain) a gagging order to prevent the centuries-established reporting of a parliamentary question, especially one about a gagging order.

*By which, of course, I mean over 20 years ago.

Simon, You Can Have This Format Idea For A Fiver. Oh, All Right, A Quid.

By John

On 12/10/2009

In Fish In A Barrel, Link, Music, TV, Uncategorized

I see that Saturday’s edition of singing talent show The X-Factor featured a guest appearance by Robbie Williams. And previous episodes have featured appearances by Mariah Carey and Beyonce, with the inevitable ratings-grabbing results.

And a notion occurred to me. One which, I think, might have what the folks in the idea biz call ‘legs’.

Here it is: instead of going through the hassle of hosting regional singing heats, hiring limos and hotel rooms for judges, hiring venues and risking getting into legal trouble by utilising telephone voting for the final rounds, and then the fuss of recording the first album by the winner and promoting it… instead of all that, why not just get established singers to come onto a TV show?

You could make sure that the format works by only selecting popular singers (or even groups), and maybe link their appearance on the show to their relative popularity in some way; maybe using some quantifiable sales thing like how many CDs or downloads they’d sold that week? You could even structure the show with a crescendo aspect, so the most popular singer or band that week plays at the end – saving the biggest star until last, as it were.

Obviously, there are a couple of less positive aspects to this – there’d be less need to use Craig Armstrong’s Film Works 1995-2005 CD for all of the linky bits*, and you’d probably have to make the show a bit shorter (maybe 30 minutes instead of 90 minutes) – but I reckon that you could probably get a pretty good audience with a show like this.

Offhand, I’m not wedded to any ideas of what we’d call such a show, but you want it to be snappy and appealing that sums it up in a few words – maybe something like Hottest Of The Hits? I’m not sure, I’m just spitballing here.

Anyway, if you have an ‘in’ with any TV production people, feel free to float this idea, and see what they think. I know it sounds simple, but often those ideas have the broadest appeal.

*This is a downside as I think Mr Armstrong is a very talented composer, and I want him to be receive the royalties for his work being used. Because week after week after week after week, his music is used.

In Which I Demonstrate, Once Again, My Pretentious Ways

By John

On 10/10/2009

In BBC, Link, London, Music, Personal, Uncategorized

Last night I went with my Dad to see a performance of some classical music at the Barbican here in London.

It was a good mixed bill – a bit of Strauss for me, a bit of Mahler for Dad, and some stuff by a chap called Martinu which neither of us were familiar with. And as you can see from the picture here, we got pretty good seats for our £8.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun – particularly the final bit of Strauss, which often sounds like the soundtrack to a cartoon – and lo and behold, the BBC have made it available to listen to via the iPlayer, and you can do so here.

Another very self-indulgent post from me, I fear, but on the other hand this’ll provide evidence to both my wife and my mother that Dad and I really were at the concert as promised, and not at a lap-dancing club.

Though Dad did joke about going on to one afterwards. At least, I think he was joking…

Free Copy Of The Bookseller

By John

On 09/10/2009

In Books, Freebies, Link, Uncategorized

Well, kind of.

In the light of the current post service strikes, publishing industry magazine The Bookseller has decided to go all high-tech to get round the non-delivery problem, and so has made the latest issue (cover-dated today) available online.

You can read it on your screen, or download it as a PDF, by clicking here.

So, don’t go sayin I never gives you nuffink never not ever, awright?

I do apologise, I think living in London’s East End is starting to get to me.

I’m assuming they don’t make it available this way every week, mind. And as we all know, when I make an assumption, I make an ass of you and umption… hmm, that’s not right, is it?

“Does It Come In Black?”

By John

On 08/10/2009

In Books, Link, Personal, Pictures, Uncategorized

So, Amazon have announced that their Kindle device will be available in an international form from 19 October. Which intrigues me.

I’m currently looking into the possibility of an e-reader for some hefty reference items I have in PDF, and the Kindle seems quite appealing, as it takes PDFs and allows you to annotate items (including, unless you can inform me otherwise PDFs), so that sounds about right. And the price is lower than the Sony ones I’d been mulling over and the like.

However, whilst carrying round something small and light is obviously more appealing than lugging round a big printed document, or reading a PDF off a screen (I often feel as if I spend about 90% of my waking hours in front of a screen of some sort or other), I’m slightly wary of getting dead-ended into a bit of tech that doesn’t last for a good number of years; I still think MiniDiscs are a terrific format, and they were super-useful when I was producing a hospital radio show every week, but now I can only use the MiniDisc recorder for a handful of purposes, and so it languishes in a drawer next to my AAC-format Sony music player.

So I’m not keen to go spending a three-digit sum on something which may prove to be something of a technological dead-end, and I have other reservations – there’s a whole DRM hoo-hah about books which you can buy for it, and Amazon recently had to undergo the irony of removing copies of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from users’ Kindles. Then again, given the name of the device, it’s probably fortunate that it wasn’t Fahrenheit 451.

I guess I’ll wait until the devices actually start arriving in the UK before I throw my hat (a hat full of money) into the ring, and see if there are positive reviews; I like the idea of wirelessly buying books and magazines, sure, but I don’t want to end up with a bit of kit that’s duff sooner rather than later.

And besides, to answer my own question, no, it’s not available in black. Tch.

If any of you good folks have strong opinions about this subject (and to short-cut the usual comment, no I see it as supplementary to my bookshelf, not replacing it), or experience of using a reading doohickey of this type, please share in the Comments, eh? As is so often the case, I’m just learning my way around the topic, and informed input is always welcome.

“Feed Me! Feed Me All Night Long!” (Song From Little Photoshop Of Horrors)

By John

On 07/10/2009

In Fish In A Barrel, Link, Uncategorized, Unintelligent Design

This makes me laugh, so I thought I’d share.

The story so far: Ralph Lauren put out an ad which is insanely over-photoshopped (either that, or they’re employing models who haven’t eaten in weeks), and people on the internet rightly took the michael… so Lauren issued a legalese notice, claiming that the use of their very silly image constituted copyright infringement.

So, of course the website removed the image, and apologised. Ah, all right, ya got me – they’re doing nothing of the sort, and more power to them.

And yes, you can see the image in question via that link. I’m not including it here because I want to encourage you to follow the link, and enjoy their sarcastic tone.

Besides, the picture in question really freaks me out. I don’t want it on my blog.

If You Only Read One Thing On The Internet Today… Well, You’ve Wasted That Allowance Reading This. What Were You Thinking?

By John

On 06/10/2009

In Link, Uncategorized, Writing

Yes, many other people on t’interweb have linked to it already, but there’s a reason for that: it’s very honest and sensible and true and many, many other positive adjectives.

Michelle Lipton writes about the path of the freelance writer, and I recommend you read what she has to say.

That’s it; anything else I might say will – and I have simply no idea why – look facile and shallow in comparison.

Virgin’s First Time

By John

On 05/10/2009

In Link, London, Marathon 2007, Pictures, Running, Uncategorized

And welcome to all of you who’ve come here via a search engine; prepare for disappointment.

I know a lot of the regular audience for the blog are involved in writing, though I don’t know how many of you, like me, run; anyway, this is one of those occasional posts about running.

The London Marathon has, for a number of years, been officially known as the Flora London Marathon (though it was rarely spoken of as such), because of the sponsorship provided by a leading spreadable product. Prior to that, if memory serves, it was sponsored by Mars, the ever-popular chocolate bar. Nothing, it seems, symbolises health and a stern training regime so much as sponsorship from a foodstuff containing a proportion of fat.

That used to be the case, anyway. As you can see from the logo, and may have inferred from the Google-baiting title of this post, the 2010 London Marathon is being sponsored by Virgin – a firm whose interests are strangely scattered, from credit cards to cola. No, I don’t quite understand it either.

Anyway, if you’ve applied for a place in the ballot for the 2010 Marathon, the decisions are apparently in the post. However, since the UK postal service is currently being affected by strikes (many people have inevitably noted that it’s hard to tell the difference), the mailout of the YES and NO notifications has been a bit delayed. But Virgin will apparently be e-mailing people this afternoon to let them know.

If you don’t get a place in the ballot (which is the scheme whereby enter a lottery-style system to see if you get a place, and then pay for it), there’ll of course be a vast number of charity places available; those of you with unnervingly long memories may remember that I ran in the 2007 London Marathon for just such a charity.

For reasons which kind of escape me in the cold (well, currently more like grey) light of day, I’ve entered the ballot for the 2010 Marathon, and so I should be receiving an e-mail today to let me know if I’ve got a place. If I haven’t – and I think the odds are pretty slim – then I have, for the sake of my own sanity, vowed not to see about a charity place; in all honesty, the hassle of trying to make sure I reached the target for sponsorship was more of a burden than the physical act of training for, and running, the marathon. So I won’t be doing that again.

No, definitely not. Uh-uh, nosiree. Not doing that again.

Oh no, I’m “protesting too much”, aren’t I? Uh oh…

EDITED at 3.58pm to say: Just had the e-mail to say I didn’t get in through the ballot. And that, as I say, means I won’t be pursuing any other means of getting a place. That’s what I said, and as we all know, what I say goes. Granted, it usually ‘goes’ by the by within minutes, but let’s try for some kind of certainty for once…

The 24 Hour Book Challenge

By John

On 04/10/2009

In Books, Link, London, Uncategorized, Writing

Just wrapping up in sunny South London is the 24 Hour Book Challenge.

It started yesterday, and a group of writers have been working on a book based around a group of city centre allotments – having started the writing at 10am yesterday and finished it at 10am this morning, a group of volunteers is currently knocking it into printworthy shape and it’ll be on sale as of tomorrow. Follow the above link for more details of what sounds to me like a rather interesting challenge.

On the subject of novels written in a brief time – and unlike the above, you can get involved – it’s just under a month until the start of 2009’s National Novel Writing Month. I don’t think I’m eligible to take part as I’ve already started my book, but are any of you good people intending to have a go?

To Punish My Sanctimony, There’s Probably A Typo Somewhere In This Post…

By John

On 02/10/2009

In Fish In A Barrel, Link, Uncategorized

Remember, if you’re going to protest about something – hell, if you’re going to say anything at all – you’ll make your point far more effectively if people don’t need to spend time decoding what you’re driving at.

Proof can be found, in appalling abundance, here.