Category: Uncategorized Page 21 of 122

Is There A Psychological Condition Which Involves One Seeing Things As Similar All The Time?

If so, I think we can cheerfully label me a sufferer.

Though it does generate material, howsoever questionable.

From A Poster On London Transport Urging People To Be Pro, As Opposed To Anti, Social

I wasn’t too taken with his information films for the Inland Revenue, but I hadn’t realised that Adam Hart Davis was such a social miscreant.

Still, good to see he’s working on his issues.

They Also Serve Who Only Sit And Type

What’s that you say? Hmm?

Oh, you say your week won’t be complete unless you can see a picture of Brian and Stewie from Family Guy drawn into a field, and viewed from above?

Luckily for you, your wish is my command.

And if you’ll forgive me, I have to go and polish the coal scuttle.*

*Not a euphemism, you filthy beast.

Rather Like That Irish Singer Shane MacGowan (Born 1957 In Kent)

For reasons I really don’t need to get into, I’m currently working on a 60-minute biopic of singer Chris de Burgh.

I don’t know about you, but I kind of thought I knew everything there was to know about him; the early years, The Lady In Red, the affair with the nanny, the angry letter to the Irish Times, and all that, but I’m finding that the more I read about him, the more of an enigma the man turns out to be.

Take, for example, the opening line of the Wikipedia page for Chris:

“Chris de Burgh (born Christopher John Davison on 15 October 1948) is an Argentinian-born Irish singer-songwriter…”

I’m starting to think I may need more than 60 minutes. I tell you, the man’s a mystery… wrapped in a thriller.

Curled up inside a romance.

Thanks, Tom. And Now, Here’s Damien With The Weather. Damien?

…oh.

You Nearly Didn’t Hear About This

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.

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.

From Their Sublime To My Ridiculous

Something I didn’t mention in my write-up about the classical music concert on Friday night was that, as the performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs came to an end, I became completely convinced that, were I to nick the conductor’s sheet music as an avid fan might steal a band’s set list, it would look something like this:


I know: I’m an idiot. I don’t deserve culture, do I?

In Which I Demonstrate, Once Again, My Pretentious Ways

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

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?

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