Further Tales from Daily Mail Island 2

After writing the below post, I possibly have a new favourite.

Women have no place in the army. They should stick to sowing and cooking and stuff.
- dunitburger, Coventry UK, 22/11/2009 9:06

Further Tales from Daily Mail Island

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you a new national pastime, one that will delight you for a few hours at least.

Visit the Daily Mail website, and select a news story at random. At the bottom, will be a selection of reader comments. Ok, nothing new there. Then select 'worst rated'. This shows up the comments that have been flagged as being offensive and in poor taste. They also appear to be unmoderated.

Then have a look at 'best rated'.

Although, the best one I saw was sitting unfiltered at the top of a story about ten female soldiers being returned from Afghanistan because they had become pregnant.

Here it is:

It takes two to tango. However when you put both sexes together in battle conditions a bit of comfort after the fight is understandable. Women should NOT be on the front line, or on board ships
- Margaret, Suffolk, 22/11/2009 16:33

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229961/Ten-pregnant-Servicewomen-sent-home-Afghanistan-war.html#ixzz0XdQ1HTMw

Thank you, Margaret in Suffolk. Women shouldn't be allowed on ships. This is the voice of the people.

Good night, Great Britain.

Unlucky!

Here's a shot of the Carphone Warehouse shop in the Rotunda in Birmingham. There is a large display of one of the new shiny phones. The new shiny phone display has broken. Woops.

Picture Special Edition

Afternoon, folks.

Busy afternoon of sport, and holding a show together and not touching Justin's face on air. After completing my mega radio hero post the other day, I forgot to add on my photo experience with Chris Evans:

Ta-daa!

Things You Find When Ill (1)

I was hovering around the internet, looking for tasty bits of distracting rubbish, when I came across this CNN story - linked here.

The gist is that there is a trend for souped up golf carts. Alright, I can see the logic in that - if you could afford the Ferrari of the Fairway, you'd choose that, over the G-Wizz of the Greens. (I like that line a lot. Read it again, please. Mmmm.)

The section that really caught my attention, was this one:

The most recent purchase was by pop star Cheryl Cole, who bought husband and Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole a "Mini-Hummer" buggy as a gift, spending $8,000 customizing the cart with gold-plated hub caps, Swarovski crystals and a trunk for his golf clubs.

Footballers often play golf, but I had previously assumed it wouldn't be one of Ashley's hobbies. I searched Google for references to Ashley Cole ever playing golf, and got nothing. Nowt.

So, is this the most ludicrous golf related purchase ever? Please get in touch if you have either one of the below;

1. More ludicrous wastes of money stories
2. Pictures of Ashley Cole playing 18 hole golf
3. Ideas for the most over-pimped 'thing' ever

Thank you.

Heroes (Ed. 3)

Triple bill hero recognition time, twinned with a confession.

I am in love with radio. It's all I ever wanted to do since I was bitten by the bug as a toddler. Radio Two as a boy, several songs can take me right back. Sadly, they are too cheesy to repeat here.

The first time I can recall ever hearing 'in the dark' radio was possibly Radio One in the mid to late eighties. The presenter had been to New York and claimed to have been in a room with radios tuned to every station in the city. There was one tune that some stations were playing at the same time, and this seemed to be by a 'Rapping Reverend' of some sort. I was transfixed at the noises of life coming out of my clock radio, and I was transported to my under ten idea of what New York would be like.

If you have any ideas about this Rapping Reverend, or, you heard the same broadcast, please get in touch.

One night in 1990 I stayed up late - possibly due to the excitement of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. On Beacon, was a voice - a Liverpudlian voice, who took calls and let the listeners speak, and he listened. This man is Ian Perry, responsible for me wanting to become a talk radio DJ. I even got my name read out on his show later that year.

It sounded so natural and real, that I was disappointed to hear later on other exponents deliberately rile their callers into arguments in order to create "great radio". Ian Perry created a community of callers, regular themes, topical debate, and edgy topics at times. Characters, The Head of Cock Ups, how to fill for four hours at a time, I learned a lot.

As secondary school got tougher, the all night listening sessions tended to drop away.

On Sunday afternoon, at about the same time, Dad drove back from the pub (yes, I know) and I heard Chris Evans questioning Claire Rayner, at that time infamous for commercials for "ladies' stationery" that featured wings. Every question had the answer 'wings'. Simple but effective. Fun and funny.

This Evans fellow then exploded onto televison, but quickly returned to Radio with Virgin and the Big Red Mug Show - I still have the final one on tape. (First volume of the excellent autobiography for further reading.) To cut the next ten years out, he then became the biggest thing *ever*, thought he was invincible and then, in once sense or another, lost everything. (Would recommend the unpublished second volume of the autobiography for this bit.)

Then someone had the bright idea of asking him to host a radio-a-thon, linking together every commercial radio station in the country in support of the Indian Ocean tsunami appeal. Everyone who listened enjoyed the professionalism and enthusiasm again. Radio Two gave him a job. He's now taking over the biggest job in daily broadcasting, the Radio Two Breakfast Show.

Legend.

Final broadcasting hero? It's a bizzare split, and I have to split it. Not warranting a full hero status each, for reasons that will hopefully become apparent.

John Peel and Danny Baker (at the same time). John Peel is an inspiration because he loved the music. The music was real and he encouraged it. He was there when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald (true!). He was a wilfully grumpy, aincient, teenager. Nothing gave him more pleasure than discovering new music and sharing it with people. I only heard very few of his shows, and learned more about him following his unfortunate early death.

Danny Baker is spontaneous, witty, and knows how to work an audience. Only been a fan since listening to the Euro 2008 606's last summer, where his total opposition to actually talking about the real events on the pitch was legendary. Now gifted a great slot on Radio Five Live Saturday mornings, still accompanied by the blossoming Issy Clarke. Great to listen to as I prepare to get to my own Sports show on Saturdays!

So there you have it.

Radio Heroes:

1) Ian Perry

2) Chris Evans

3) John Peel and Danny Baker at the same time

Dudley, October 9th 2009

Welcome to Dudley, an improbable stones' throw away from where I used to wait for the bus each day as I went to college.

There used to be a pub by the bus station, called the Joe Darby. (My Dad insists it is known as the Josie D'Arby, which would have made it one of very few pubs in the entire country named after the Welsh actress.)

Anyhow, around the turn of the century the pub needed a reinvigoration. It seemed to be standard to make everything look like New York, lending weight to arguments for a new name. So a neon sign was ordered, hoisted into place...and a couple of years later, the pub lays dormant.

Sadly, it looks as if a bit of the neon sign has fallen off, too.

Welcome to He Metro Bap, Dudley.

Ill.

Evening, crew.

Sitting in bed, laptop on the go, Florence and The Machine doing You Got The Love flying out the stereo. Just read Caitlin Moran's column.

Oh, and spectacularly ill. Flu'd up the eyeballs with, well, flu combined with shivers and sweats, occasional outbursts of Cricketers' Disease and a chest that feels heavier than all of Belgium standing on me.

This has given me a few moments to run through some other odds and sods I wanted to put up here a while back but got sidetracked by the rest of my life intervening.

Excuse me (achoooo!). There.

Right - stand by for pictures. And words.

Return from the wilderness

Hello!

Been a while, hasn't it? Been a touch on the busy side. For five months.

Anyhow, here are some things I wrote a while ago and would like to put here for posterity:

Thursday, 18th August 2005

Yesterday, the idea for an ironic rock band appeared, called PRALKA. Suggested ideas for record titles include;

• RIFFUS MAXIMUS
• ORTHODOXOS

Why am I interested in reading Bridget Jones' Diary? Why did I watch a documentary on the making of cheese on Tuesday night? These questions and more later.

--

Wednesday, 17th August 2005

Okay, it's ten past eight on a sunny Wednesday morning. I'm traveling backwards into Birmingham on the Lichfield train. I'm listening to Pulp's Different Class, which is a great album. I've been thinking for a couple of years that it could be re-arranged to make Pulp, the musical. The story of one man's struggle against mundanity in the halcyon days of the mid nineties. The programme will have "n.b. please do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the music". Spaghetti. Packed train, with people all reading their Metros. No-one talking. So Pulp finishes, and I find Emerge by Fischerspooner. Livens me up. Rolling into Duddeston. Interesting place. Fancy walking walking round the disused tracks now the trains have long gone. Huge weeds and sleepers.

List #1

= It Makes Me Feel Fantastic

That's what a man said on the news about sniffing polyester.

1. I'd like my hair back
2. I'd like to be about 12 stone
3. I'd prefer to be 20
4. Less scared of impending children
5. Better social skills

That's it for now. It's been good talking. A selection from Fantastic Plastic Machine for the walk to work.

Czésć.

---

Ends

iTunes vs. George Handel vs. T-Mobile

Hello,

It's been a while! Needless to say, the pace of modern living doesn't stretch to keeping various instant news and moods sites up to date.

Yes, this afternoon I decided to educate myself and bought Flight of the Conchords album. Lovely!

Then after that I listened to the Fighting Talk podcast, which features the "Hallelujah!" section from Handel's Messiah. So for a few quid, I bought the LSO performance. It has now been downloading for some four hours. Arses.

Four hours? For two CDs? This must be some kind of perverse joke.

Thanks to iTunes (relatively blameless), George Handel (entirely blameless), and T-Mobile (who annoy me more as each day passes).

The Information

Ah well - I've been so busy researching I haven't had time to write up what will surely be the blog entry of the year, "The 50 Best Garden Centres".

Maybe tomorrow?

From Private Eye:

Surely, one of my teams if there is a Fantasy Football League next season, this quote from Page 8 of a recent Private Eye:

"Quangoland magnificos"

Chat

Hello.

Judging by my last few posts, it looks like I have been spending a lot of time queueing in newsagents. This is true.

It is also how I discovered the tag line for Chat magazine:

Life! Death! Prizes!

Ugh.

Click here to see for yourself.

More News

I was wondering the other day, just at why whenever the temperature creeps above "Brrrr!" and the sun comes out from behind the rain clouds for more than seven minutes, scantily clad women appear to frolic in the surf in genteel Bournemouth. Why do photographers always have such good luck at finding members of the public who are dressed accordingly? And how do they always use the pictures as a quick guide to show just how warm it is? Why Bournemouth?

As soon as the thought took hold, I realised; women in bikinis sell papers, they are possibly models anyway, and the photographers are probably in the save van from London as the models. And pictures say more than a thousand words. Well, it covers as much space, anyway.

That thought resolved, I turned to that day's offering from The Sun. Bearing in mind the UK is in its coldest weather period for 18 years, the paper was full of snow and floods. And, on page 12, naked in the snow, save for wellingtons, Joceline Brooke-Hamilton and Sam Brooks, who refused to dress warm at a naturists' gathering in Bournemouth, Dorset.

The picture caption is "Girls...in Bournemouth". Is journalism that easy?

Bournemouth. Again.

Twitter

Just a gentle nudge towards the increasingly exciting Twitter feed, twitter.com/andy_day.

Oh, The Horror!

Last night, I wanted to write about the trend of the current culture of outrage about anything mildly offensive. The reason was this newspaper headline:

Link to the web version here.

The story here is some students made some spoof advertisments in a student newspaper for commemorative 'Royal Doulton' style crockery. The subjects were well known murderers of the UK, and the theme was, apparently, "[celebrating] the plucky mischievous Brits who did gratuitous violence best".

The artwork and sentiment is good, highlighting the pithy nature of these advertisments in Sunday magazines, whilst cleverly transposing the tired images of Princess Diana or the Queen Mother with those of the The Wests or Peter Sutcliffe.

At the moment, more comedy theory than comedy gold. This is the thing that Viz (see links) have been doing, and doing it better, for as long as I can remember.

This is where the Birmingham Mail comes in.

Badged as an exclusive (how could simply reporting something that has already been printed in another publication possibly be an exclusive?), the story is the front page headline - "Fury at students' sick ad", with the sub headline of "China commemorates UK's violent child killers". More on that section later.

Using information garnered from the story itself, I can reduce this headline to virtually the word "Students'".

Within 61 words of the main text, the "ad" is revealled to be a spoof.

"Fury" seems to relate solely to the quotes from the un-named spokeswoman from the 'Support After Murder and Manslaughter' support group. She says, "It is incredibly offensive to bereaved families bereaved families and glorifies violence and killing". She ends with, "I will certainly be complaining to the university."

From this, I can confidently say that the spokeswoman was tipped off with information from the Birmingham Mail, and had no knowledge of this until contacted by them - the future tense of the complaint action is my clue here.

Support After Murder and Manslaughter are based in Finsbury Square, London, and more information on them can be obtained by clicking here.

The response from the university can hardly be called "fury". An un-named spokesman for the University of Birmingham will be censuring the un-endorsed newspaper by telling them to stop using their logo and to not distribute their magazine on campus. Damn! That's fury alright!

"Sick" is entirely subjective. Some people who have been affected by murder or manslaughter could find this offensive, but I feel that they are not responsible for raising this important issue to the attention of the Birmingham Mail - otherwise they would have been quoted. Or, at least referred to in some way.

The peice ends with "[editor of the magazine] Mr Bacon refused to apologise and said: "It is deeply regrettable that people waste their money on this kind of sentimental tat advertised in Sunday newspapers, which our 'advert' was clearly lampooning."

So, pretty much a non story.

So offensive were the images and their potential to "glorif[y] violence and killing", the responsible and considerate journalists print the pictures in colour over two pages.

Following on from recent high profile, agenda setting outrage news stories (i.e. Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand, Carol Thatcher), it appears that the Birmingham Mail has finally found something truly shocking and will not stop until it has hounded the protagonists into a Mail-engineered forced apology. 

The editorial piece on page 52 seems to confirm my view; "...the mock advertisments...are crude, silly and just plain wrong. [...] Those behind this muddle-headed escapade should grow up, get real and apologise immediately".

Erm, apologise to whom, exactly?

Friday the 13th saw the expected follow up piece, headlined by "Legal action by University of Birmingham over student newspaper". The legal action in question is referring to the unauthorised use of the university crest. (Link here.)

This misplaced crusade for justice I am sure will be quietly dropped as soon as some real news arrives. Like snow.

As someone who has taken risks with humour ever since taunting the school bully for comic effect, this is concerning to me. Misunderstandings often ending up causing the most offence, and, perversely, I am more offended by the Mail's cavalier approach to bargain bucket journalism than the original spoof commercials. Misunderstandings often arise by people who mean well, but take things too far.

Hopefully, the Chinese Embassy in London won't misunderstand my email, underlining the fact that the Birmingham newspaper with the circulation of 176,395 (Source: ABC) printed these very words on their front page: "China commemorates UK's violent child killers".

But sadly, my piece was delayed by some urgent Solitaire or something like that.

Today's Independent features a (much better than mine) article on outrage and tolerance, by Johann Hari. Last week, he printed an article on the same theme, questioning the thinking behind the UN's decision to take religion out of 'free speech' during discussions. For example, if there is a discussion about unsavoury practices of a hypothetical 'particularly religious nation', this can be struck down as it is an apparent 'attack on my religion'.

Anyhow, this open thought peice was reprinted in Calcutta, which caused rioting and call for not only the local publisher but Hari himself for arrest. (The editor and publisher were subsequently arrested.)

Please read this article, if you can find it online.

The most important thing for me in that article is this, "Putting up with offence is part of being a free adult".

Here endeth the sermon for today.

Snow...

Yes, the week the nation came to a halt. I couldn't resist taking a few snaps...

Here is St. Phillips Cathedral bathed in snow. Surrounded by bemused commuters.

A chilly statue of James Watt. More photos to follow soon. 

Cut and Paste job:

I looked at the BBC News website (as I do most days!) and saw this headline:

Snow-crazed stoat 'goes berserk'

I know that the snow has driven people crazy, but stoats too? Click the link above to see for yourself.

Stand by for some more photography from the week Britain ground to a halt / enjoyed some real winter * delete as applicable.

Things you don't read in newspapers:

Teenager Marcus Revell was stabbed to death yesterday in broad daylight, leaving the people he was standing at the bus stop with horrified. Revell, 17, was assaulted by a group of seven hooded assailants, who "attacked him like animals with knives".

Friends of Marcus were quick to post their personal recollections of him to social networking sites.

• "You were an ignorant arsehole who always were threatening my children", wrote AngryDad1971. 
  
• "Another dealer off the streets! Yes!", recalled OffMyStreet2.
• "Where will I gets my crack from now, geez? LOL", wrote TheAddamsFamily
• "How will your three angels survive without you?", typed a tearful eMmA924EvA, referring to Marcus' three daughters from three separate relationships.

Local Police Media Relations Officer Clive Raymond read from a statement at the crime scene. "For two long, Revell's reign of terror on these community streets remained unchecked by the people of this town, the Police, and Social Services. Many sleepless nights went past with the sound of Revell's gang cynically smashing up cars, property and shop fronts. The sheer weight of drugs he brazenly sold in front of my Police Station, knowing his rights as a nine year old, that he could not be searched, was astonishing. Only when he tried to rip off some Somali gangsters did he ironically, finally realize the true meaning of the word 'terror', as they cut open his chest and started to sever his internal organs with delight".

A Police investigation continues.

Letters to The Sun

Today, I saw possibly the most astounding correspondence that has been published in a national newspaper, which I will re-type here verbatim (hence the quotation section).

I am diagnosed by the NHS as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia as a result of believing extra-terrestrials are in telepathic contact with me. Yet I read that an NHS hospital is using an exorcist in order to get rid of a ghost. Where is the consistency?

Robert Greatorex, Newcastle upon Tyne

It was the "Where is the consistency" line that made me nearly fall off my chair.