February 27th, 2009 § § permalink
Good grief. The Sun is on the shortlist for the Press Gazette British Press awards.
So, what awards are they up for? First off there’s Gordon Smart for Showbiz Reporter of the Year. Yes, apprently he’s a really good reporter. It must be true, it’s in the Sun!
Also shortlisted is another showbiz reporter of the Suns’, Richard White. Who?
Next is Tom Newton-Dunn, the Defence editor, who is on the list for Best Specialist Journalist. Again, the words ‘Could do better‘ spring to mind.
Best website and Dickie Pelham for best photographer are next. No comment one way or another on those two.
Our monumental Baby P petition has also been included in the Campaign of the Year shortlist.
I suppose it is worthy of an award, although rather than Campaign of the Year I would’ve thought the Baby P campaign would have sat better in the Best Use of a Lynch Mob catagory.
For the Cudlipp Award, there are two nominees. The Millies and Panoramic Posters. The Millies has failed to impress who they were honouring, namely the ordinary guys and girls in the army and the Panoramic Posters, well I haven’t a clue what that is as the only mention of it with a search on Google is in this page detailing the awards shortlist.
The final two awards are for Scoop of the Year. The first is “Ashley Cheats on Cheyl”, which is really worthy of an award, the private life of a footballer, cheating on his popstar wife. Great.
The second is of a bit better quality, and probably the only one that should be on the list is “Starberks”, about how the Coffee company keep a time running all day wasting a huge amount of water.
The standard of journalism must be pretty low if this is the standard on the shortlist [unfortunatley, I can’t see who else is on it as I am on my work computer and the Press Gazette site does work on it for some reason. I’m not at home later either, to update. Oh well.]
February 27th, 2009 § § permalink
The LibDems have launched a bill, The Freedom Bill, to repeal a load of laws that have steadily eroded our freedoms and civil liberties.
At the moment they have twenty thing to look at…
Our first draft of the Freedom Bill contains twenty measures to restore the fundamental rights that have been stripped away in recent years. We would:
- Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
- Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
- Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
- Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
- Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
- Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
- Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
- Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the
- Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.
- Stop criminalising trespass.
- Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
- Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.
- Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
- Prevent bailiffs from using force.
- Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
- Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
- Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
- Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
- Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
- Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
- Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.
It looks good to me so I’ve added my name to the petition.
Via
February 25th, 2009 § § permalink
A big number two at number two, beaten by a man who was a number two and had two (cont. p. 94)…
background 1, 2.
February 23rd, 2009 § § permalink
You remember I decided to join Tim in spreading some lurve on Youtube?
Well, it’s been 6 days (sooner than I expected to be honest) and we have a result with Patrick Holford…
I think I might have to wait a tad bit longer for Iain Dale…
Update:
Lets see how long this one takes then, eh…?
Tanya Byron
February 18th, 2009 § § permalink
It’s been around for ages, putting a price per quantity on the little price tags on the shelf in supermarkets. It helps people compare items and it is A Good Thing.
Now, look at the the two pictures here…
I know it’s not advanced mathematics, you know, multiplying 67 x 10, but what is the thinking behind it? What’s wrong with putting them both in per/kg or per/100g? It’s not like the items are even different brands.
Some git has actually thought about it and decided to make life that little more awkward for some people. I know it sounds like a coincidence but today, I actually had some one ask me how many grams there are in a kilogram. It was an elderly chap, and probably still struggling with decimalisation, but it could’ve just as easily been someone with learning difficulties.
Why? What’s the point? Why make life more difficult than it need be?
February 17th, 2009 § § permalink
Tim has found out that it is possible to Googlebomb Youtube…
I found out about this after I linked to this ‘Ninja Cat Fail’ video in this post, using that nice Mr Draper’s name in the linked description. The next day, I was looking for a clip of the man, recognised the 2nd-to-top result (screengrab), and realised immediately that I alone had artificially/externally provided the only ‘relevance’ to this query.
Tim wants Google to fix it and thinks the best way to do that is to make a big thing of it till Google realise what’s happening.
I’m just think it’s funny and am curious to know how little influence I have in the results.
So I am going to link to …
… and count the years roll by before I’m on the first page of results.
February 17th, 2009 § § permalink
The Daily Dish…
Yesterday, Hugo Chavez abolished term limits in Venezuela paving the way for life-long rule.
What the fuck is it with these fucking people? Why the fuck does everyone keep calling him afucking dictator?
Chavez has been elected and re-elected and had his decisions comfirmed with fuck loads of referenda (or whatever the plural is), so why is changing the law to allow him to stand for re-election a third time a ‘power grab’?
It is no different to our system. Theoretically, if she hadn’t gone batshit mental we could’ve still have had Maggie Thatcher as Prime Minister.
When he loses an election and still becomes President, like Monkey-boy Bush, then you can call him a power-grabbing dictator.
Via
February 10th, 2009 § § permalink
Beau Bo D’or spotted the London Evening Standard setting their stall out on the Israeli elections, and then deciding to tone it down a bit.
They may have changed the headline from…
Israelis go to polls to choose between three warmongers.
to…
Israelis go to the polls in tight election race.
but the webmaster at the Standard forgot one little detail (click to enlargen)…
February 7th, 2009 § § permalink
February 6th, 2009 § § permalink
See that? That’s the very definition of beauty, that is.
The Mail readers must be creaming their pants at the sight of it.
Not one, not two but three stories about the BBC offending people.
Three! It doesn’t get much better than that, eh?
