Newspaper: Let's slag people off for trying to be helpful

So Courtney Love read a plea asking for people to help find that missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane, and she does so, in her own best way. Cue slagging from people, as well as national newspapers, like the Guardian, who in a very Daily-Mail'ish post, not only mocked her for trying to help, but also her intelligence. Because she ain't no expert, innit (as if the writer was).

She was just trying to help, which is more than I can say for the mass media (who aren't experts as well) who has done nothing but speculate, and more importantly, impend the investigation, whilst taking advantage of a tragic event to generate clicks and advertising revenue.

If this isn't an example of gross sexism I do not know what is.

Monkey business

This is a monkey

Football isn't something I write about, but this isn't about football. This is more of an observation on how our media reacts to none worthy news. Recently England's football manager made a joke or rallying cry using monkeys in space (because NASA sends monkeys to space) or something. I don't know. All I know is the word monkey was used and media people are furious about this 'gaffe' which isn't really a gaffe.

Remember, these are the same media people who likes to poke fun at said manager's speech impediment. (classy)

What I am certain of however is monkey is the description of a primate who mainly lives in trees eating bananas. You know, that animal thing who looks a bit like us, only a bit more furry and has a tail. Yeah, we kinda evolved from them.

So what do you think of when someone says monkey? Well I think of a monkey, the animal. You see, I grew up in a town where monkeys would frequently raid our mango tree.

3D sucks. Also, racists!

I also think of the monkey king, Sun Wukong, a Chinese folklore god-thing who also happens to be cheeky monkey who likes to beat the crap out of anything (according to a comic I read). This monkey general also happens to be the main inspiration to Son Goku, the character from Dragon Ball who has a tail and grows into a monkey beast during full moon, also known as the greatest comic book hero of all eternity. Take that Superman.

You know what I do not associate monkeys with? Black people. So whenever I tell a story involving monkeys (which I hardly ever do), I never meant to offend people, and 99% of the time people aren't offended. Because people I know are sensible folks who would never associate monkeys with people of certain races.

But you know who associates black people with monkeys? Journalists and 'anti racism' organisations who writes about racism whenever monkeys are mentioned. Like this guy.

The vilification of Ye Shiwen by the British media

I don't normally write about sports, but this has been irritating me since yesterday that I just had to put it down in writing. It's about the shocking treatment laid against 16 year old Chinese swimming sensation Ye Shiwen by the British media. Ye broke her personal best record at 400m medley event, winning gold as a result. She did it in such a way that American and British media started to raise an eyebrow or two - not quite the same reaction they gave to Michael Phelps when he first caught the eyes of mainstream sports journos, age 15.

Instead of congratulating her and recognising her talents, without thinking, insinuations started to appear in the media (both on air and in print) which appears to infer that Ye was doping, starting with BBC's Clare Balding and then sour grape of the year John Leonard, as if that was the only explanation to her incredible performance. Questions were asked and fingers were pointed at China's past doping offenses. Never mind that some British and American athletes has an illustrious history of getting caught doping as well, or that the rule of innocent before proven guilty should be adhered.

She's a female and she's Chinese, so she definitely must be guilty of something. How dare she swim faster than an American male! Not that she did, she just happened to be faster on the last leg than one man - of which four other men were quicker than her - something the British media failed to point out in their desire to cherry pick evidence against her. UK papers can't wait to queue up articles about how China 'manufacturer' their athletes. The whole thing reeks of rancid and the British media's treatment towards Ye is tantamount to bullying, almost on a xenophobic level.

This morning the chief of British Olympic Association has come out to defend Ye Shiwen, confirming that she has been tested and that she is clean. And yet nearly an hour after the news broke, the BBC has a massive picture of Ye Shiwen next to another equally massive headline "We will catch Games cheat", implying that sooner or later Ye would be caught cheating - this after confirmation that tests has cleared Ye!

As a BBC TV license payer, I expected their journalistic level to be slightly above tabloid-grade but alas during events like the Olympics, it is near impossible to get unbiased coverage. Nationalistic feelings always rise during world events like this and it is almost the single reason why my (already average) enthusiasm for the Olympics drops as the games progress. Now, instead of celebrating what a great athlete she is, the media is still attempting to undermine her win with more jingoism nonsense.

Ruta Meilutyte, age 15, who Clare Balding describes as her favourite none-British story of the games, improved her personal best by 4% in the past year and nobody called her a cheat - and rightly so. Rebecca Adlington herself swam the final 50m of a freestyle race clocking in 28.91 seconds, faster than Ryan Lochte did at this Olympics, and again nobody called her a cheat, again rightly so.

Michael Phelps and Michael Johnson broke records and were considered super humans. Not once did we doubt them and there were no reason to as long as they pass their drug tests. Ye passed hers, countless of times. We recognise athletes like Phelps and Johnson for their brilliance and talent, and we should do the same for Ye Shiwen.

Ye sounds like an incredible talented swimmer and I wish her all the best. If there is a single Olympic event I would like to attend it would be the 200m medley event where I can cheer her on amongst the droning British media (sadly this won't happen as the chances of getting a ticket is fuck-all - thanks for nothing Seb Coe). I hope she breaks more records and wins more gold medals at this and future Olympics.

Details from Nokia Summer Media Summit

Yesterday I attended a media summit hosted by Nokia at The Trafalgar in London. As you know, Nokia is currently undergoing one of its biggest challenge in the mobile industry. They have recently lost the title of world largest mobile phone vendor to Samsung, and has even seen their market cap fallen below that of HTC. Many arm chair analysts has already written off the beleaguered Finnish company.

Nokia's issues aren't confined to analysts, but more importantly with customers, the media and retailers, and also internal staff. So how is Nokia attempting to win the hearts and minds of potential customers? They outlined a few commitments. On the media front, Nokia UK will be moving to a new HQ in London so that they will be 'closer to us', as they so aptly put it. They have trained most of their staff for the Lumia to gauge their advocacy.

News of the World is dead

News of the World is no more. This Sunday's issue will be its last.

Rather than sacking Rebekah Wade/Brooks, News International and Rupert Murdoch has instead decided to sack thousands of staff. News of the World will morph into a Sunday version of the Sun (an equally nasty paper with equally gutter journalism integrity). This is merely a cost cutting exercise, which decision was made last week before the whole phone hacking scandal broke. A PR exercise to deflect from the phone hacking scandal and to increase Murdoch's chance of owning BSkyB? You bet it is.

In any case the battle isn't over yet. The next step will be to shut down News International, stop BSkyB takeover, get their senior staffs (Rebekah Brooks - being the editor at the time when the phone hacking occurred, James Murdoch - being her boss) prosecuted, as well as overhauling the Press Complaints Commission (who has been incompetent during the whole saga) and flush out the corrupt Metropolitan Police and politicians who has taken bribes from News International detectives, journalists and executives.

Oh and Tesco, you just fucked up big time. I will never shop at any of your stores again.

Too long for twitter

Alex von Tunzelmann of The Guardian a bit annoyed that an Indian film maker is making a film about Hitler, lumpung the whole country together and declaring them as displaying a 'shocking ignorance of history'.

Uhm, how about the British and Hollywood media losing their ignorance about the rest of the world for once? From as long as I can remember the media and their tag along Hollywood friends have preferred to gloss over the forgetten victims of the second World War, or indeed any war.

Gumtreepeople project

Seems that I've allowed myself to commit to another project, this time with Gumtree. Gumtree People is a project that aims to highlight what people think is best of their local community. Kinda like what I am actually doing outside of this blog, but for free! Haha... (but I am in this for the top prize!)

I've been living in St. Albans for a good six months now and pretty much have a good understanding of this market town. It is a brilliant place to live in and I am not saying that because we bought a place here. Rather because St. Albans is such a brilliant place is precisely why we chose to move here.

So over the next one week (actually probably just this weekend) you'll be seeing me walking up and down the streets of St. Albans, armed with a 'disposable' digital camera (ok, D90 - let's hope that Hertfordshire Constabulary isn't as crazy as their Kent counterpart), book and pencil whilst taking pictures and lord knows what else. Should be fun, I hope.

Volcano

I love how this Iceland volcano is causing hysteria in the mainstream media and havoc at airports all over Europe. More of this and more airlines will start going bust and Iceland will get its revenge on Europe and Britain. Loving it!

US Christian terrorists charged

Or so the headline should have read, if the terrorists were Muslims that is. But apparently only Muslims can be called terrorists, where as Christians terrorists, like this so-called Hutaree and the Irish Republicans, are militias or at worst, dissidents.

Read

Some not so hush hush Nokia event in London

Well, I have been invited to participate in a 'secret' Nokia event. The event itself isn't a secret, but I am hardly the person to cruise for mobile device news these days, preferring not to be bombarded by information overload (this is from a person who is a keen twitterer). So it caught me by surprise when Katie of WomWorld contacted me a couple of days ago.

In my e-mail exchange with Katie, I initially guessed that this may have something to do with a new N-series, but with the N900 and N97 Mini already announced I highly doubt Nokia would announce the successor to the N97 just yet. The annual Symbian show kicks off the week after so this is nothing to do with this either. I did tell Katie that I strongly suspect that it has something to do with Ovi Maps, due to the location of the event (on an empty plot of land next to City Hall). She confirmed nothing but later I found this page here via another blog which all but confirms the event (the date says it all).

So a slight disappointment that it would not be an announcement for mythical N98 with Symbian^2 or perhaps the successor to the brilliant E90, but I am still curious to see well integrated social media services is with Ovi Maps, and how well it works in real life especially from a pedestrian point of view (I do not drive). I have already ditched TomTom (of whose products I have used since the old CityMaps for Pocket PC days) due to the lack of development in favour of Nokia Maps, but I have not tried the latest Ovi Maps due to compatibility issues with my E51.

IAAF and the mainstream media

The media circus behind the gossips of Caster Semenya is just plain spiteful. I can't imagine any sports writers (writers whom you can never take seriously anyway but that isn't the point) would stoop so low and allowed to get away with it by their editors. The IAAF on the other hand has simply been too slow to react to the initial whispers created and aided by the media. The BBC even flew someone to her village to interrogate her family and friends. It is just fucking disturbing behaviour, though hardly surprising. The British media has proven itself numerous of times to be spineless when it comes to chasing news.

I can only imagine that these people do not have children of their own. Or maybe they do but have yet to suffer the same kind of innuendo that they unleashed on Semenya.

thelondonpaper may be axed - good riddance

Brilliant. You can't imagine how happy I am to finally witness the (pending) closure of thelondonpaper, a useless peddler of crap celebrity stories in competition with Metro and The London Lite (two other papers that needs to go - but I am sure I'll toast their demise another day). You can imagine it being a relief to having one less freeshite being shoved into your face by mindless robots. Then there's the environment benefits of having 500k less newspapers automatically removed from London's circulation.

Still, shallow London residents and tourists interested in celebrity gossips (Winehouse, Doherty, Peach etc.), you will have at least the next 30 days to learn how to read the news on, oh I don't know, the fucking web. Those wondering what to do on your daily commute - just get a book, an e-book reader (which you can download news onto), a PSP, a DS Lite, a music player etc.

Video of police assaulting Ian Tomlinson

The Guardian has published a video of police assaulting Ian Tomlinson, the man who died in last week's G20 demonstration, allegedly due to a heart attack. He was an innocent bystander who was walking home from work and was not participating in the protest.

The video clearly shows how the masked thugs, sorry, police has deliberately targeted and assaulted him, first with a baton and then pushing him over to the ground. This despite Mr. Tomlinson walking away from the police, unarmed and defenseless. A scene by scene analysis is available here.

Sadly I doubt anything will come out of this and the IPCC will whitewash this like they do with others. Anybody who thinks otherwise is just kidding themselves. Remember Jean Charles de Menezes? Why do you think the authorities are doing their best to ban public photography?

Russell Brand telephone prank more important than economy, natural disaster, election, murder etc.

ASA saves teenage girls from Cactuar

Oasis's Cactus Kid commercial has been ordered off the air by the Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA, fearing that underage girls around the country will attempt to fornicate in Homebase's gardening section or with a Sabotender soft toy, agrees with the viewers alleging that the ad promoted teenage sex and pregnancy, A further 16 complaints were filed that the ad promoted an unhealthy diet.

Now I've never seen an ad that promotes good dietary, not even those by Jamie Oliver, so I don't know how Oasis can get the stick where as KFC, McDonalds, Tesco, Asda, Carlsberg etc. are allowed to continue peddling their equally less than ideal products to us.

The mind boggles that people (ASA) are being paid to make stuff up.

via The Guardian

Julie Moult is an idiot

Julie Moult is an idiot. Julie Moult used to write for the Scum where she came up with such stories like the classic invading Nazi raccoons and an anti-Muslim diatribe that turned out to be totally false. Julie Moult currently writes for the Daily Hate.

More here (really I can't be arsed to even copy and paste the whole challenge here)...

Via The Register

Original image by Darhawk

Oh ITV...

The main part of the awards show, which was produced for ITV by independent production company Michael Hurll Television, went out live on ITV1, but the broadcaster cut away from the event at 10.30pm to broadcast its news bulletin.

However, the awards carried on and were recorded to be broadcast "as live" once the news had finished.

While the news was being broadcast, Ant and Dec were presented with the people's choice award for their Saturday Night Takeaway show, even though viewers had not been told this and were continuing to be allowed to vote.

Remind me again why I don't watch ITV? And of stupid viewers voting via telephone... Personally I believe ITV got off very lightly considering the amount scammed, and the fine isn't big enough to deter other broadcasters or indeed ITV themselves. Like one commentator on The Guardian pointed out, steal from a shop and you are expected a hefty fine and a spell in Her Majesty's Prison Service. Why should a large cooperation be treated any different?

via Guardian

J. K. Rowling

... please please please stop acting like a neurotic idiot. Seriously, go to Portugal and find Madeleine McCann instead of trying to court sympathy here like the raving lunatic you are trying to portray yourself as. Your books are fine, but to think that by breaking down in court because you may lose sales is absurd. May I suggest a visit to the library or book store, where you will find countless of fair use books on other books and other third party derivatives of other books. If other authors (who are probably not as successful as you are) don't bitch about it (in fact most authors would be delighted if the same attention is given to them), I can't see why you should. Or is being richer than the Queen not enough?

I don't deny it. I enjoy Harry Potter books, but I classify them in the same section as Da Vince Code. They are entertaining, but as far as literary skills goes - are pretty damn poor. It's not like Harry Potter was an original concept anyway. The next time I read Harry Potter again, I will try to imagine it was written by a well behaved, respected and likeable literacy genius. Like Terry Pratchett, but that would be too insulting to Mr. Pratchett. Hell, I think I am going to celebrate this blog article by re-reading The Colour of Magic. Who's with me?

Two things

Two things that annoyed me. Yesterday's British Summer Time meant that my morning routine was almost disrupted. Why not change it on a fucking Saturday morning giving us an extra day to acclimatised? Another, the new BBC News site, which now looks more like a generic Web 2.0 blog. Seriously it is looking very bland and meh.

Shannon media sensationalism

Three days ago a high profile missing girl was found alive. Whoopie yeah!

Today they are still banging on about it. Get it off the fucking air! Leave the police alone to do their fucking job. There are plenty of still missing kids lurking in the background waiting for a similar coverage.