Calm down, newspapers do it all the time

Were it the Guardian that had fatally jumped the gun on the Amanda Knox verdict, would it still have provoked the howls of outrage that the Daily Mail doing so did? Even though they did, their gun-jumping was seemingly only a short entry in their minute by minute report. Sky also got it wrong, shortly running a breaking news strap on Knox being found guilty, and the Sun was equally misinformed.

While other media organisations mis-steps were mentioned only in passing, the Daily Mail's was discussed, analysed and picked apart. Apart from Fleet Street Fox - who pointed out that the practice of preparing two different stories for either way decisions is not only widespread, but commonly accepted - the blogosphere went mad over a story that was up for depending on who you listen to, just 90 seconds, or slightly longer than that.

However long it was up, it was enough time for Political Scrapbook to pick up a cached copy of the page, and it really does make interesting reading. There is only really one the Mail needed to take out to cover themselves with this story and that is the four paragraphs of simply made up quotes and reaction. That's the part that if taken out would have just made it a huge cock up, rather than the far more serious journalistic crime of making it up.

"As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.


A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.


Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'.


Both Knox and Sollecito who have always denied any involvement in the brutal murder - said they would take the case to the third and final level of appeal at the Supreme Court in Rome where it will probably be heard late next year"


If you take those four paragraphs out, and the rest is fine, and even the prosecutor quote was apparently agreed in advance by the Daily Mail, if that's true that makes the vast majority of the story fine. Even the fourth paragraph is a reasonable assumption to make, that if Knox had been found guilty again she would have taken the appeal up a level. In the end the Mail has been crucified for some silly background details, made up by a journalist under pressure. It's hardly the crime of the century, and considering some of the other huge distortions it peddles, it seems like an honest mistake from an overworked hack.

Day 8 - A song that you know all the words to

One of my favourite songs ever, the sweetest saddest romantic song. Fountains of Wayne rarely do abstract lyrics, but for straight up narrative songs, and the catchiest hooks, they're almost unbeatable.

This is a live version, and it's worth watching, just for the emotion he puts into singing it, almost even better than the studio version.



Oh, and for HIMYM fans, there's Barney's doppelgänger!

Day 7 - A song that reminds you of a certain event

There could be quite a few of these as I am in the habit of associating songs with different events in my life, and there have been so many that fall into this category. In the end I'm picking one that reminds me of the most heartbreaking game of football I've ever seen, it was played at half time, the album it's on (Employment) was played in the car before and afterwards (two and a half times afterwards), so I'm pretty sure I heard this song at least four time times that day.

Charlton 2 - 1 Leyton Orient... fuck you Jay Bothroyd, celebrating like you'd just won the cup!

Leicestershire v Essex - Grace Road - Day 2

Firstly, an apology for neglecting this blog. I'm not sure who I'm apologising too as it's obvious that pretty much nobody is reading my blog, although if you are, thanks for coming along, and I'll try to blog a little more in the coming weeks and months.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Leicestershire to watch the County Championship match against Essex, and I'm pleased to say a resounding victory for an improving Essex team.

True, Leicestershire are marooned to the bottom of Division 2, and have only won only once this season, but with the bat at least they had danger men. One such danger for Essex was man mountain opener Will Jefferson, who can take apart county attacks on his day, and up until he reached 50 in Leicestershire's first innings that was exactly what he was doing.

Then for the first time in the match bar a single exploratory over immediately before lunch, enter Tom Craddock, Essex's young leg-spinner. Straight away he set about reducing the scoring rate, which was threatening to take the game away from Essex, as well as looking likely to take wickets with a combination of spin, flight and guile.

In the end Craddock was not the one to take the wicket of Jefferson, as he fell to the ever dependable David Masters who after a poor opening spell from the Pavillion End, returned with some accurate and probing bowling from the Bennett end before eventually getting a length ball to jag away from Jefferson, catch the edge of his bat and end up in the hands of Matt Walker at second slip.

Walker was one of the few Essex batsman - alongside Ryan ten Doeschate - not to make a significant score in either innings, in a return to form for the Essex top order. I can't comment to much on Essex's batting as most of that happened on Days 1 and 3 when I wasn't there, but I caught a reasonable portion of James Foster's magnificent rearguard effort as he marshalled No.10 Craddock to a respectable score. Craddock made only 11 in 99 minutes at the crease, but he defended stoically when Foster gave him the strike, and was quick between the wickets for countless last ball singles that kept him at the non-strikers end.

After Jefferson's rapid start, and a partnership of 109 with opening partner Boyce, Leicestershire wickets started to fall regularly, with Craddock the man to get the first one, when the left handed Boyce cut a straight one into the hands of Owais Shah at point, before Jefferson departed to Masters. Craddock then took control, bowling with flight, guile and spin to root out danger man James Taylor to an excellent catch at short leg by Billy Godleman, then trapping captain McDonald LBW with a ball that kept a little low.

Greg Smith was the next to fall, clean bowled by Maurice Chambers, who apart from that one wicket was otherwise pretty inconsistent and not particularly threatening. Craddock continued to bowl excellently, taking another wicket, that of Wayne White, LBW, before David Masters got Jigar Naik caught at slip by Owais Shah with the last ball of the day.

Shot of the Day
Honourable mentions go to a magnificent six over long on by Foster, and a superb (and unexpected) flick through the leg side by Craddock, but Will Jefferson's back foot drive down the ground has to be the winner. 6'10" Jefferson stood up tall and punched the ball into the ground, it looked like a normal defensive shot until the fielders realised how well he had timed it, by which point it had ran away for four well deserved runs.

Ball of the Day
This is basically a competition between five or six balls by Tom Craddock, it could have been the excellent top-spinner with which he snared James Taylor or his second LBW which beat the batsman beautifully in the flight, but in the end I'm going to give it to the leg break that was so good that it pitched outside leg, beat the batsman's defensive push, the stumps, the keeper and ran away for four byes...

I know it's early but..

... I'm going to stop counting albums. I'm just too lazy to write up a blog-post every time I listen to a new album.

Album 20 - Pulp - Different Class

Jarvis Cocker is a very funny man and a very witty man too, and he showcases this in Pulp's breakthrough album Different Class. Of course I'd already heard 'Common People' and 'Disco 2000' before, but the album has a lot more than that. Like the openener 'Mis-Shapes' which is so grandly theatrical it's close to being over the top, but doesn't quite get there.

Jarvis turns most of his wit on this album to sex, from 'Pencil Skirt' where he whispers "I really love it when you tell me to stop. Oh, it's turning me on" to the gleeful malevolence on 'I-Spy' where he sings about sleeping with sleeping with a married woman either as a form of class war or as some kind of revenge, you can never tell which.

But he also sings about class on 'Common People' which articulated the perverse practice of slumming it with the most insightful line: "And the stupid things that you do. Because you think that poor is cool."

Day 6 - A song that reminds you of somewhere

My form classroom in Year 13, singing along with Sufyan (despite the fact neither of us could get anywhere near the high notes)

Just a complete classic.

Day 5 - A song that reminds you of someone

Now this song could also work for an event, but it's a very specific person (as all people tend to be) that it reminds me of. Said person is a huge Smiths fan and in my mind this may well be the best Smiths song. That and the fact that the song was playing in a shop in Camden whilst I was with this person, it just got stuck in my head for days on end - thanks to her.



"If a double decker bus, crashes over us, to die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die"

Day 4 - A song that makes you sad

Sorry, this should have been yesterday, so we shall just pretend it was. I'd put myself in a bad place for this one because the obvious choice is one of the many Elliottt Smith songs that make me sad, but since I've already put two songs of his I'm going to have to change it and go for something different.



This song is playing in one of the saddest scenes ever in one of my favourite shows ever, Scrubs. It's the scene when Dr. Cox realises that his best friend - who seems to have been following him around for the whole episode - has actually died and wasn't really there. This song plays as we see the funeral, it's just heartbreaking.

Day 3 - A song that makes you happy

There are many songs that make me happy, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to go for another Elliott Smith song. Most of his albums and songs are downbeat, some sighingly so, like 'Between The Bars' but some just heartbreakingly so like 'Miss Misery.' Some of his songs are angry, chiefly the ball of rage that is the song 'Roman Candle,' some are self loathing like 'Rose Parade.'

There is only one song in his entire catalogue that is really properly happy, and that's the glorious closer to possibly the best album ever made (Either/Or) that starts and ends with the line:

'I'm in love, with the world, through the eyes, of a girl, who's still around the morning after'



The song isn't a relentless ball of light and optimism, but it has hope, something that a lot of Elliott Smith songs don't.

Day 2 - Your least favourite song

Right, from the heights of brilliance, to the depths of shite.  I had trouble with this at first because I don't often listen to songs I dislike, but after a quick think I realised there was only one real candidate.



Where do I start? 492 million views, yet there are thousands and thousands of struggling artists around, most of them thousands of times better than this pap. I don't violently hate the whole 'Bieber' phenomenon, I just find it so puzzling. Are there really that many idiots in the world?

Album 19 - The Cure - The Head on the Door

After just listening to Pornography I really find it practically impossible to imagine that this is the same band at play here. The album starts with the hook filled 'In Between Days,' an upbeat jangly guitar driven song, and one that is about as different to Pornography as an elephant is to a butterfly.

The rest of the album does display a bit more of what has come before, 'Kyoto Song' is less textured than anything off the album from which now on will be nameless, but 'The Blood' is just tense enough to remind you who this album is by, skipping by on a vaguely flamenco sounding guitar and Robert Smith's echoey voice. There is just something brilliant about this album at times, from the panpipes on 'Six Different Ways' to 'Close To Me' which is another masterpiece, similar to to the first track, and there are enough other quality tracks on this album to make it just a seriously good piece of music.

Album 18 - The Cure - Pornography

If you were to just use one word to describe this album it would be: dense. It's a pity though that despite the dense collection of musical textures that swim throughout the album, it peaks on its very first track 'One Hundred Years.' There the textures all work and Robert Smith's voice is more understated than the rest of the album, where at times such as on 'The Hanging Garden' the lyrics start to become just a little bit annoying.

Still, Pornography is an interesting album, and the penultimate track 'Cold' is one of the most ominous songs I've ever heard, and is a close second with the first track for the best on the album. Although, having written this review before I heard the titular closer, I feel rather stupid, as 'Pornography' the song is just the darkest I've ever heard, and perhaps one of the most brilliant.

Album 17 - The Fall - Live at the Witch Trials (Fall 1)

The reason why it says Fall 1 in brackets is that for some reason or another, concurrent to my listening to a lot of albums (Hopefully by the end of the year 365) I am also for some reason going to listen to all The Fall's studio albums.

So that means I start with 1979's Live at the Witch Trials, a surprisingly tuneful album which shows its punk influences but also a sort of gothic feel to the off kilter, strangely out of key parts. Mark E Smith's lyrics are damn near incomprehensible a lot of the time, and the album does have a very amateur feel about it. The album always feels like it's on the verge of falling out of control and into a rowdy mess of rubbish, but never quite getting there, which makes it fascinating to listen to.

'Two Steps Back' is one of the few tracks on the album which drags at all, most of the rest either being shorter than 3 minutes, or feeling the like they were. Still, an album like this has to end with a nearly 8 minute bit of strangeness that leaves me feeling intrigued and looking forward to having a listen to what comes next. Still, I couldn't listen to it all the time.

Album 16 - R.E.M - Collapse Into Now

Right, so it's a new R.E.M album, and just when I was just about to listen to some more old R.E.M albums. Disappointingly this album never quite grabbed me, 'Discoverer' was a pretty good start to the album but after that 'All The Best' is pretty anonymous and 'UBerlin' just annoys me due to its uncanny resemblance to 'Drive,' the opening track of Automatic for the People.

Still, there are good tracks on this album, like 'Oh My Heart' and 'Mine Smell Like Honey,' but the overall impression I get from this album is that of a sequel to Automatic for the People, but unfortunately, the sequel is rarely better than the original.

Day 1 - Your favourite song

Right, so I'm doing the 30 Day Song Challenge and it's time for me to choose a favourite song. I wasn't sure whether this was supposed to be my favourite song at the moment or of all time. If it was the former, it wouldn't mean much because songs flit in and out of my life, one minute I'm loving one like it was the best thing in the world, then I'm not listening to it for months on end.

So that's why I went for the second option, my favourite song of all time...



I really don't know what I can say about this song. There were many other great candidates for my favourite song of all time, many of them also by Elliott, but this just has it.

Not many songs can pack such an emotional punch, be so poetic, sad, and sighingly graceful, yet still be so quiet and almost barely there. It is one of the few songs that can really make me cry.

Album 15 - Those Dancing Days - Daydreams and Nightmares

I loved their first album, the energy about that effort was just overwhelming, melodies bounced into your ears and back and forth through your mind. It was music that you couldn't help wanting to dance to and to sing along to.

Alas their second effort seems to have lost that a bit, the first three tracks are missing something, the bounce has gone. They're trying to go into a slightly different direction on this album and it isn't working, the production is too glossy and the hooks aren't working.

There are positive things though, 'Dream About Me' is similar to the rest of the album but the hook is much better and the song, while not being of the same quality as their earlier work, it's still decent. 'Help Me Close My Eyes' however suffers fromm the same ailment as the rest of the album, detachment. Even as Linnea Jönsson sings "I want to hide where trees are falling down" it just seems empty.

The album does pick up a bit with 'Can't Find Entrance' which sound less detached than previous, and reaches its high point with the jittery 'Fuckarias' which is the only song on the album that in any way matches up to their earlier work. The rest of the album seems to fade out from there, ending with the final song 'One Day Forever' a closer that would have worked better had it been preceded by some better songs.

Album 14 - Zoey Van Goey - Propeller Versus Wings

I know it's only March, but Zoey Van Goey are my find of the year. Their first album was a delightful mix of indie pop melodies and wry, insightful lyrics and the beginning of their second album sees them carrying on in the same way with 'Mountain On Fire' a beautiful lolling ambient masterpiece.

Their second track though is a bit of a change with its more angular rhythms, it's still pretty, but it has a bit more of an edge. The rest of the first half of the album is a self concious attempt to go against type, to prove that they are more than just a pretty little indie pop band. There's a lilting folk number, but with horns (My Aviator) which is deceptively short. This is then followed up with another song that shows of the amazingly expressive voice of Kim Moore with little more than a piano and drums (Escape Maps).

You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate is a rare aberration from Zoey, because despite being just as played musically as the rest of the album the addition of a male vocalist just seems wrong for the album - and besides, his voice isn't that good. Little Islands is a return to form though, and the rest of the album continues along the same lines, evolution not revolution from a band that that I hope just keeps putting out excellent music.

Album 13 - Radiohead - The King of Limbs

It's very easy for Radiohead to begin becoming a parody of themselves, and the King Of Limbs does seem to be in that vein. I've listened to the album at least three or four times and although Radiohead albums often do need multiple listens to become the masterpieces they are - I never liked OK Computer at all to begin with, but slowly began to like in until I realised its mastery - it just doesn't seem like it has anything to reveal.

Along with Kid A, I would say it is their most electronic influenced album to date, but the major difference I see between this and Kid A is that their previous attempt at electronic music seemed so natural - as did the more electronic influenced parts of In Rainbows - yet here is seems forced and the tunes just don't back up the experimentation.

I expect I will grow to like it more with more listens, but for now it's a negative review I'm afraid... but expect some edits...

Culture, Alienation, Boredom and Despair

So, now I've changed this blog's name as well, maybe it's a symptom of my restlessness, of maybe I was just listening to Little Baby Nothing and though that was my favourite line in any song ever.

I think it all refers to something in here:

Culture: All the music and film reviews.
Alienation: ... I'll have to think about this one
Boredom: What most of my blogging comes from.
Despair: At the Daily Mail mostly.

Album 12 - Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

It's so damn repetitive, the banjos, the quiet building up to loud, the singer's awful voice. 'Sigh No More' is a stock example of all of this, and it just starts to grate so quickly. 'The Cave' does have a decent melody and does the quiet to loud trick better, but the lyrics are as earnest and just so fucking glib. I mean, does "And I'll find strength in pain, And I will change my ways, I'll know my name as it's called again" count as original lyrics. When I listen to music I'd actually like to occasionally hear lyrics I couldn't have written.

Parts of the album just about get away with the fact that they have decent melodies. But the fact that it's all so damn overblown and earnest just annoys me too much. Again, 'Roll Away Your Stone' isn't particularly offensive... until he starts singing and the banjos chime in.  It continues, I've still only got through 5 tracks and even though they haven't all been awful, I can't help but hating this awful album.

'Thistle & Weeds' is the only song in the album that manages that atmosphere that it needs to make it's cries of 'I will hold on' not seem hollow. Yet that is followed up by the utterly anonymous 'Awake My Soul' then the laughable 'Dust Bowl Dance' which is the stupidest song I've ever heard on a record purporting to be folk. 

Album 11 - Deep Purple - Shades of Deep Purple

So much of this album is so interesting, because although it never quite fits together like it should, there are some amazing melodies that weave in and out of  the dense fog that the band creates.

The most well known song on the album is probably 'Hush' which is probably the most radio/chart friendly song on the album, but some of the longer songs on the albums are the most rewarding.

One of those albums which you just know will improve on a second listen.

Album 10 - Zoey Van Goey - The Cage Was Unlocked All Along

An indie pop masterpiece, songs full of wonderful melodies and harmonies. The first couple of songs are the best, a run culminating in 'We All Hid In The Basements' which does crescendo like few other songs, rising to a peak before slowly falling away, almost before you noticed.

Lyrically the band are like a slightly more literal Neutral Milk Hotel, and musically there are some similarities as well. But what for me elevates it above 'In An Aeroplane Over The Sea' is the voice of the lead singer who and the harmonies between her and the other vocalist.

Album 9 - James Blake - James Blake

A strange mix of traditional singer songwriter stuff, and very big hints of dubstep. The songs 'Limit To My Love' and 'Give Me My Mouth' are almost completely singer songwritery, but the rest of the album starts to feel like Frank Sinatra put through a blender.

Blake plays around with his voice so much, with reverb, delay, what seems like multi-tracking and various other kinds of distortion so most of the time the listener has no idea really what's going on. He even manages to throw in a bit of gospel sounding vocals on the last track.

There aren't that many true inventors of new genres around, and it seems Blake might be in that rare club, the inventor of dub-pop.

The very definition of irony

I don't know why this deserves a full blog-post, it probably shouldn't but I'm bored and there's nothing better to blog about. So, a comment from some website's article about Fox news not knowing where Egypt is. During the inevitable right left debate that follows 'Max' included in his comment the least self-aware thing I've ever seen said seriously...

"Liberals resort to name calling and insults rather than doing their homework to figure out their ideas are fucking retarded."

Wow, just wow.

As an aside it seems that the picture involved originally came from the Huffington Post back in July 2009 and was used in a recent Political Scrapbook post about Glenn Beck as the punchline about the Fox news team's 'embarrassingly poor grasp of foreign affairs.' Political Scrapbook didn't say that the picture was a new one, but obviously 'Some Ecards' seemed to think that it was new, basically a lot of fuss over nothing. 

Album 8 - Jay Reatard - Blood Visions

As the name suggests, this is hyper-active, on a knife edge, no songs over four minutes punk. The album, even though it is 15 tracks long is under 30 minutes long which is quite an achievement.

Because of this, over half of the songs on the album are under two minutes, and subsequently over before you have a chance to be bored by them.

Of these little sketches of songs, 'Greed, Money, Useless Children' stands out for the sheer simplicity and pointlessness of the 54 seconds, and 'My Family' squeezes a 3 minute pop song into 1 and a half, with a bit of extra attitude as well.

Only on maybe 'Oh It's Such A Shame' does Reatard slow down a little, from blistering to just quick, but then he picks up again on the barely over a minute 'Not A Substitute' which is over barely before I finished this sentence.

But the stand out song on the record is the stop start juggernaut 'I See You Standing There' which is simply everything a sub two minute punk song can hope to be, witty, tuneful below the layers of fuzz and so, so, so catchy. 

We're not obsessed or anything... ANARCHISTS!!!!!

The Sun this morning has stirred itself up into a self-righteous froth about the ANARCHISTS who are planning to try to disrupt the royal marriage later this year.

Not at one point in their article did they try to sensibly and calmly explain that these ANARCHISTS are a fringe group with not a hope in hell of causing major disruption, especially now the police are aware of them. No, why would they do that when it's much more fun to shout ANARCHISTS!!!!! very loudly at their readers and hope that they scare or anger them.

The best bit is when they get a ex police officer to have his say and he calmly explains.

"But due to the huge numbers of officers who will be on the streets, it is probably the worst event you could try to disrupt.


If they interfere with the royal cortege, the police and Army will swamp them.


A list of well-known anarchists has been drawn up.


The movements of men like Chris Knight will be closely followed and they may be arrested in advance."

Ok, fair enough, that's a fairly balanced view, apart from the insinuation, that the Sun has ran with all the way through their article, that anarchism is specifically about violence, but then, let's not quibble.

"The biggest threat comes from a suicide bomber or lone gunman in the crowd"

PANIC!!!

Album 7 - Bright Eyes - The Peoples Key

It starts strangely, just a guy talking about aliens and reptiles, a bit like the beginning of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, but a lot weirder.

Then it develops into the first proper song, which develops slowly, but has a hypnotic hook that just draws you in, slowly, a little bit at a time. According to a Rolling Stone interview his guiding philosophy for this album was 'less is more,' and on the first track it really shows.

As I'm listening to this as a whole on NPR music, I don't really know when tracks begin and end, but what seems like the second track has Conor's trademark. The album settles down into some more electronically influenced tracks.

Approximated Sunlight, the fourth track on the album is a stripped down affair, just Conor's voice, some drums and sparse instrumentation, that builds up through the track. Haile Selassie is another track that you just think is made for multiple listens, a hook that jumps out at you, but the idea of more underneath.

I kinda lost focus after that, but it all continued to sound good, and it could well be the career defining work it's been made out to be.

Album 6 - Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Just a few comments on this album.

1) The title track is just amazingly catchy

2) The album manages to slip seamlessly from a light folk type warble to a huge overblown track, complete with horn section and so a voice that sings like it's running out of time.

3) It's just plain weird

4) I really quite like it.

I'm sorry that I couldn't arrange these thoughts into an actual paragraph, but I really couldn't be bothered.

Rewinding about twelve months...

... I am reminded of my hopelessness in any kind of predictions.


1) The Conservative party will win a small majority at the general election and tear themselves apart over Europe. WRONG.

I was maybe a little over pessimistic but, it actually was quite an achievement for Labour to get through the election without a Conservative majority. The Tories haven't torn themselves apart over Europe, that was a little over optimistic,

2) After losing the general election, Labour will elect David Milliband as their new leader. WRONG.

Although I was close on this one, just got the wrong Milliband

3) My football team Leyton Orient will get relegated from League 1. WRONG.

We managed to stay up thanks to the great run we had under Geraint 'Big Fat George' Williams at the beginning of the year and the salvage job by Russell Slade at the end of it. Since then, Orient have only progressed, scoring goals and playing entertaining football and looking very unlikely to be relegated this time round.

4) England will get to the semi-finals of the World Cup and lose to Germany. WRONG

A little over optimistic again... but only a couple of rounds wrong.

5) Peter Mandleson will be parachuted into a safe Labour seat at the General Election. WRONG.

I'm not even sure what I was thinking with this one.

6) Jan Moir will leave the Mail after another huge twitterstorrm against another poisonous article. WRONG.

But it will happen eventually.

7) The Lib Dems will get a new leader at some point during the year. WRONG

Despite being now almost universally hated, Nick Clegg remains captain of the sinking ship.

8) I will get 50 comments on my two blogs combined. WRONG.

My readership remains pathetically small, I managed 13 overall with only 1 on this blog and 12 on Allsorts/Leftish Tendency.

9) England will draw the Ashes series in Australia 1-1. WRONG.

It wasn't anywhere near that close, Cook conquered Australia, Anderson threw off the disappointment of his previous Ashes tour, and the whole team comprehensibly outplayed the awful Australian team. 3-1. 

10) Lewis Hamilton will win the Formula 1 world championship by less than 5 points from Jenson Button. WRONG.

While both were in contention most of way through, Red Bull were just too good.

0/10... FAIL.  

Trying to bury a story? Ask the Sun

It was plainly obvious that Andy Coulson's resignation was the Tories trying the oldest of political tricks, trying to bury bad news. I also thought it would be obvious that this was never going to work, but as things stand The Guardian and Independent are the only papers leading with it and it isn't even in the top 10 most read news stories at the BBC website.

I of course expected it to be buried by the Murdoch empire, but since most of it is now behind a pay-wall, all I can really ascertain is how it's been covered by the Sun. I'm going to compare this to the main article on the matter in a paper that I don't have an awful amount of respect for: the Daily Mail.

First, the length of the stories, the Mail has a very creditable 2,202 word story including the full statement, boxes with the context of the story, an opinion piece, and for once I am very impressed, the story is well written and pretty fair to all parties concerned.

The only problem I really have with it is this paragraph which may well be a simple mistake:

"In fact, Mr Coulson is a much less abrasive and generally more straightforward character, and has shown little appetite for bullying journalists and threatening media organisations in the manner of the divisive Mr Campbell. Nevertheless, his appointment owed much to the New Labour spin doctor having gone before."


Little appetite for bullying journalists? Maybe not since he's been with the Tories, but as NOTW editor he was proved to have bullied sports journalist Matt Driscoll out of a job. This is however a minor quibble compared to the rest of the story, which is surprisingly top notch.

The Sun however predictably has tried to bury the story, realising that the paper would lose any credibility it ever had if it refused to cover the story at all. Its coverage however hasn't covered itself in any glory at all, a paltry 273 word whitewash.

There is not a single note of the fact that it seems highly likely Coulson knew about the hacking - indeed if he didn't he deserves to be remembered as perhaps the worst newspaper editor off all time, one who didn't even know what was happening in his own newsroom. The fact that in the second paragraph it is described as an 'eavesdropping scandal' seems to sum up the Sun's attempt to make it seem a minor story and simply the matter of a whispering campaign designed to oust someone who in Cameron's words "been punished twice for the same offence."

It's simply a complete lack of context, shown by the lack of length in the story, that is the problem. There is no mention of the fact that another reporter has since been implicated, the fact that many reporters have implicated Coulson himself and all the police are lacking are a silver bullet, one that they could probably find had they had looked a bit more thoroughly first time round, rather than trying to preserve their 'special relationship' with News International.

Sky News are almost as bad, the only news story on their first page about the scandal is one saying that other newspapers may be involved, a classic case of diverting attention, i.e 'We may have done it but everyone else has done it as well.'

Without giving any money to News International, it's impossible to show The Time's angle on the story but this  blog-post just shows that the same thing has happened at the more elite end of the News Corp news spectrum.

Album 5 - The Duckworth-Lewis Method - The Duckworth-Lewis Method

A themed album about cricket you say? One that includes a song about Shane Warne's 'Ball of the Century' to Mike Gatting? And a song with the line 'The Test Match Special will set you free?

I'm in. The music wasn't anything particularly spectacular, but it was the lyrics, especially those to the stand out song 'Jiggery Pokery' about the Warne/Gatting ball that made this a worthwhile listen.

Behind that 'The Age Of Revolution',' Meeting Mr Miandad' and 'The End Of The Over' were the other stand out songs.

Richard Littlejohn: even worse than I remember

I generally avoid the Daily Mail as much as possible, especially Richard Littlejohn's column. Today was the first time for a very long time I actually read one, and I really wish that I hadn't. I was drawn in by the headline: "Titter ye not, it's an Inconvenient Sooth." When I say I was drawn in, what I actually mean was that I noticed a piss-poor climate change pun and forced myself to read the idiocy that follows.

After a long time not reading one of Littlejohn's column I had began to find that I was feeling a lot happier, my laptop screen was strangely intact and I even began to start to tolerate the Daily Mail. Well, I reasoned to myself, I haven't read anything particularly objectionable there recently. I even began to wonder whether Littlejohn was that bad, my hazy recollection was that he was generally wrong, but I began to forget the rage that the merest sight of his fat sneering face above one of his outpourings of sub-par comedy 'polemicism' brought me to.

Then I read this latest offering... no sooner had I got through the first paragraph...

"According to the historian Edward Gibbon, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was brought about largely by the ­decadence and arrogance of the ruling elite. Now a new theory has been put forward by modern scientists. They blame, wait for it, ­climate change."


... and the rage had returned. The first few lines are fine, but you soon see the set up for his brilliant last line... wait for it, the crazy boffins think that climate change could have done it. Oh, the wit is legendary, the comic timing, the set up then the 'you couldn't make it up' moment. Dick Littlejohn sits at his desk, happily cracking one off because he thinks he's come up with another comic gem.

I read the rest of the shit, but I'm sorry, I'm not re-reading all and making witty remarks about it, I'll just pick out a few select quotes such as...

"I have been sent here from ­Pompeii with my master, Silvius Berlusconus, who is attending a Symposium on climatus changus — what we used to call in Rome ‘the weather’."


Conclusion: All Latin words are English words with the suffix 'us' added. Letus meus addus, Littljohnus cockus. Comprendere?

Anyway, we had to get out of ­Pompeii sharpish, owing to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which covered the city in volcanic ash and grounded every ox-cart from here to Icelandus. Typical, isn’t it? One ­volcano and the whole of the Roman Empire comes to a standstill.

Littlejohn gets topical, comparing one volcano to... another volcano. Genius.

The Senate had just been to see a new play at the Colosseum, An Inconvenient Sooth, by Senator Al Gorus, which ended with a polar bear being sacrificed on a block of ice.


Normally they sacrifice a few vestal virgins, but my master Silvius Berlusconus said he had a better use for them. No, listen. ­Titter ye not!


Oh, just fuck it, I just punched the screen.

Film Review: Starship Troopers

I think the thing that sums up this film is the fact that when one of the soldiers removed his helmet and got blasted in the head by mistake in a training exercise... I laughed.

This was a stupid film, you could mistake it for a satire on stupid war films, but perhaps that was accidental. What seemed definitely accidental was the fact that it was so funny, people getting blown up in cartoonish ways, the unquestioning approach to authority in the society, the characters, it was just all so funny.

I lost attention during the endless action sequences, but I got the general gist, bugs versus humans and in the end they capture the bug's brain.

This film really could have been a scathing satire of war and a proper spoof of over the top, militaristic war films, but unfortunately it was just an over the top, militaristic war film that gave a few accidental laughs.

Album 4 - Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem

There are just so many great tunes on this album. I'd struggle to pick a favourite from the album but "Someone Great" just beats out "Sound of Silver" "New York I Love You..." and "All My Friends"

The critics always seem to be talking about bands melding together indie and dance/electronica, but nobody really does it better than James Murphy and his myriad of influences and sounds that somehow form into a coherent, toe-tappingly good album.  

Album 3 - David Bowie - Aladdin Sane

The album after the excellent Ziggy Stardust, and Bowie is too much of a shape-shifter to stick to quite the same formula. So Aladdin Sane has some of the same superbly written tracks, but adds some bizarre jazzy piano flourishes, particularly on the title track, which could otherwise have been a classic.

Bowie is never anything but theatrical, particularly on the album's masterpiece "Time," which forgoes most of the bizarreness of some of the previous tracks but keeps the strangely off kilter atmosphere of most of the album.

Album 2 - Radiohead - In Rainbows

A very different album to the two other Radiohead albums (OK Computer and Kid A) that I've listened to. It's just as good as both of them but not as bleak as the former and not as electronic music influenced as the latter.

The first track "15 Step" is one of the most interesting Radiohead tracks I've heard, with its glitchy beats but also clear and distinct sound.

There are points where the album becomes a very clean affair, less dissonant than either of their previous masterpieces, and it shows an interesting new direction whilst still building on the brilliance of their previous work.

Album 1 - Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

So this year it's albums, and coming home from Norwich in the car yesterday I got to listen to the first three new albums of the year.

I started with Houses of the Holy, an album which had a few decent songs on it, but was mostly ruined by the annoying singing voice of Robert Plant. Some people really love Led Zeppelin, and I can see why, because the record could be seen as pretty good, but it really wasn't for me.

2011 TV - the good, the bad and what could go either way

The Good:
The 10 o'clock Show
Something with the quality of presenters/comedic talent that this has really can't fail, David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker are two of my favourite funny columnists/tv personalities; Jimmy Carr is actually quite funny despite occasionally being very annoying; and Lauren Laverne is my favourite radio presenter.

Put all of this into the irreverent current affairs show format and you have ample chance for rants, sarcasm and generally funniness.


Masterchef
"COOKING DOESN'T GET TOUGHER THAN THIS"

I love food, I love the whole feel of the show with the people desperately cooking at lightning pace, the look on Greg's face when he loves a dessert, some of the culinary catastrophes, the cooking in tents for the army, followed by cooking in Michelin starred restaurants and for Michelin starred chefs.

Episodes
I'm going to start with a disclaimer: I love Friends, and Black Books, and I think I liked something that Stephen Mangan was in once.

There isn't that much good comedy on TV at the moment, the good tends to be really good i.e. Peep Show and The IT Crowd, but the bad is terrible... I'm looking at you Miranda.

So when you put three people who have a pretty good track record along with the creator of Friends writing it, everything looks pretty promising

Doctor Who
As usual, the spring will bring with it a new series of Doctor Who. When David Tennant left the show I was deeply sceptical that anyone else could reach the brilliant standard of his doctor, but Matt Smith may actually have topped his efforts.

The great thing about Smith's doctor, is that it has the same crazy energy of Tennant's, but also a youthful innocence and glee, yet conversely a darker side is evident when it has to be.

The Christmas special (some dodgy time travel problems aside) was very promising, and the series - if Steven Moffat resists the temptation to turn to the Daleks and Cybermen too often and instead comes up with some new monsters/villains with some kind of moral ambiguity about them - looks set to be even better.

The Bad:
The Fattest Man in Britain
More C4 look at the fat person and laugh claptrap which was on last night - I didn't watch.

What could either way
Skins
Some shows start well and tail downwards, Skins started well, got even better in the second series, tailed downhill quite a bit in the third series, and fell off a cliff at the beginning of the fourth series.

The show went from being consistently interesting, dramatic, funny and containing some real emotion to a dried up husk of a thing with one or two good characters and episodes a series.

I still harbour some hopes for the new series, and I'll watch the first episode, but whether I go any further than that is quite doubtful.

The bottom ten - some of the few bad ones

100 - Johnny Mnemonic
The absolute worst film I've watched, in 1 hour and 38 minutes nothing good happened, the plot was garbage and the effects were just attempting to salvage that. The critics agree, with a 14% rating on RT (Rotten Tomatoes) that this film is just bad bad bad.

If I'm to borrow Roger Ebert's famous rant about the film North..

"I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."

99 - Napoleon Dynamite
I didn't hate this one as much, I was just bewildered by it. I'm still waiting for something to happen, the film chugged by with lame dialogue, annoying characters and no semblance of any kind of direction.

Amazingly this has a 71% 'fresh' rating on RT, maybe I just don't get it.


98 - Paranoid Park

The main thing I take from this film is annoyance, from the fact that but for Guus Van Sant this film could have been pretty good. The direction of it ruined the film, from the shaky cameras, and lack of any kind of pace at all just giving it an annoying murky feel, not atmospheric like Blade Runner, just murky and pointless.

This one is 76% fresh on RT and for the life of me I do not know why.


97 - The Royal Tenenbaums
 At the time I said there was nothing I really disliked about this film, I just didn't get into it. I would like to now change that verdict to that I hated the characters so much it spoiled the film.

Several really good actors including Bill Murray, Ben Stiller and Gene Hackman were given such awful characters that the film was doomed from the start.

But yet again the critics disagree with me, giving it an 80% fresh rating.

96 - A Scanner Darkly 
The sort of half real and half animation of this film gave it a spacey feel, that combined with my tiredness whilst watching it made it almost completely impossible to follow, and it's annoying stoner feel just made it what seemed a really bad film at the time.

To be completely honest it was painful to sit through  but its RT rating of 68% means that it may be my tiredness that puts it down the bottom rather than the film itself.

95 - Little Miss Sunshine  
I just disliked the idea of the film and it struck me as one of those films that is too quirky for its own good, and most of the characters very much annoyed me.

The worst thing about it was the central premise, a beauty pageant for very young girls, just creeped me out and really saddened me.

Another film liked by the critics with an astonishing RT rating of 91%

94 - Sherlock Holmes
It's always difficult doing a new film or TV series about one of the most recognisable characters in the world, but this one was just pointless, with way too much action, too little plot and no sense of balance of the two.

Again the critics liked it (70%) but I really didn't.

93 - Heaven Can Wait
At the time I said this wan't a bad film, but since then I've watched a lot better. I'm not automatically biased against old films - I loved Casablanca - but old films with a pretty glib storyline and none of the action of modern films to make up for it don't really interest me.

The critics disagree again, giving it 89%... maybe I am biased against old films after all

92 - Smart People
Just not enough happened, the film floated through with some pointless storylines and poor acting (including a rare poor performance by Ellen Page)

One of those films that called itself a comedy drama but had little comedy or actual drama, and for once the critics agree, giving it a 50% 'rotten' rating.

91 - Saw VI
So, I technically watched it, but I don't remember it very much at all.

The critics disliked it, giving it a 40% rotten rating and I assume I would have hated it if I watched it properly, rather than drunk with people interrupting.

100 Films

I said I'd watch 100 films, but at many points in the year it looked doubtful.

Now there are two things on the schedule for this blog:

1) More categorising and reviewing of my 100 films, including a top 10 and overall rankings from 1-100
2) Listening to 100 new albums in 2011.