Archive
We get the media we deserve
We’ve all heard plenty over the last few days about the Daily Mail‘s crass, crude and clumsy attack on Ed Milipede’s father. Anyone who’s been watching telly has seen plenty of it too, as one Mail exec after another has been rolled out to take a kicking on news and current affairs programme . . . apart from Paul Dacre, the editor, himself, that is, although his absence did not spare him from being slaughtered by Alastair Campbell on Newsnight.
But for those who think that the Mail is the only rotten, stinking, vicious, suppurating organ on our newsstands, take a look at this nasty insidious little story.
Is this news? No way in 100 years, but it is grotesquely slanted reporting.
We know all about John Bercow’s background, but nothing at all about that of his accuser. I’d like to know a little more about the background and agenda of someone who picks up her old man off a plane from Texas then pops off in the Range Rover with him and her two sons to Gauchos for lunch. I’d like to know a lot more about the ‘newspaper reporter’ who ‘happened to be passing by’, and saw the alleged incident.
But I don’t need to know any more about the standards of the profession which I joined when I was 19 years old. They weren’t exemplary then, as I discovered, but today they seem to be completely down the crapper.
Jaws
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24372134
The stricter the controls the better. What’s the difference between a payday lender and a loan shark? Not a lot that I can see.
‘Nuff said
Further to ‘Please explain’;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/01/ny-daily-news-shutdown-house-of-turds_n_4021642.html
Danger, Kenny at work
“Corroboration in our legal system is a barrier to obtaining justice for the victims of crime committed in private or where no-one else was there.”
Q. Who said that?
A. Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary.
Sometimes I worry about Kenny. No, that’s wrong: often, I worry about Kenny. Corroboration in our legal system is also a barrier against wrongful conviction of the innocent on the word of one person, who may be malicious, may have misinterpreted what he or she saw, or may be just plain wrong. It is one of the cornerstones of a system that is admired around the world, but our man Kenny wants to sweep it away. His thinking is that this dangerous step will increase the number of convictions for rape and sexual assault cases. That may be so, but will it always be the guilty who are convicted? And what will be the effect when it is applied to other crimes?
The proposal is a charter for miscarriages of justice across the board.
Okay, I’m non-PC
This will make me unpopular in some quarters, but I don’t care. Yesterday afternoon, I happened to catch the end of Final Score on BBC, where I saw Robbie Fowler make an on-air apology for something he’d said earlier. At the time I had no idea what that was.
Mr Fowler is a recently retired footballer, employed as a football analyst. It seems that in commenting, spontaneously, on an incident between two players in the Spurs-Chelsea game, he described them as ‘acting like a pair of girls’ in their confrontation. For that, he was made to humble himself by the producer of the live, unscripted show; although he was clearly unhappy about it. By this decision, the story was given legs, and it has run into Sunday. If said producer had restricted himself (or was it herself?) to a quiet word with Robbie after they had gone off air, his allegedly offensive comments would not have been rebroadcast across the nation this morning.
I had a similar experience with BBC, when I said something on air that the man in the production box felt might offend; the presenter was forced to apologise for my remark. If I had been asked to do that myself I would have invited the man in the box to piss up a rope or something similar, but poor old Simon Mayo had no choice, such is the BBC’s fear that any spontaneity falling outside its strict guidelines might offend the public at large. (He told me after the event that there is actually a form that must be completed when such an incident takes place.) The same thing happened then as happened to Robbie Fowler this morning. The media picked it up and I was subject to online abuse and threats from the sort of racist moron who seems to have free access to the Daily Mail‘s online edition.
For the record, when I saw Mr Torres drag his fingernails across Mr Vertonghen’s face, my thought at the time that he was acting like a Jessie, and if I’d been in Robbie’s chair I’d have said just that. I guess this means that football commentators and live match analysts are now forbidden to use the term ‘hand-bags’.
To complete what might seem like a silly Sunday, but is actually pretty serious, I read also this morning that my fellow Motherwell supporter, Tam Cowan, has been suspended from his BBC show over his Daily Record column in which he dared to describe a women’s football international as ‘turgid’ and ‘guff’. Tam is a comic; irony and sarcasm are his stock in trade, and so his language can be florid. The Record made this clear in a PS to his column, in which they posted his personal email at the paper, and asked for complaints to be directed there. Sure, the editor knew that people might be offended, but he knew also than many more people, including the few who watched that international football match on BBC Alba, in a virtually empty Fir Park, would agree with the basis of the comments that lay under the wisecracks. Tam Cowan has worked for BBC for years, they know what he is and they’ve been happy with the audience figures that his popularity generates. Yet yesterday they dumped on him without a second thought.
The BBC, our national public broadcaster, presents itself a a bastion of free speech. It is nothing of the sort; it has become its enemy, and that needs to change.
New born
I am happy to announce that my latest project has been completed and a draft has arrived at Headline Tower. It’s something of a departure for me, and will remain under wraps for a while, at least until we have a publication schedule.
Waste of time
A couple of weeks ago I had an email from SAGA, also known around our house as ‘Sex And Games for the Aged’.
Since I turned 50 I’ve been bombarded with cold-call mail from that organisation. I used them briefly for home insurance, but binned them when the first renewal premium showed a whopping increase on the rate that had won my business.
The most recent pitch promised me the best travel insurance on the planet, with pre-existing conditions taken into account. Eileen and I have a couple of those, but they’re all historic, so I filled in an on-line form. It took them two seconds to reject my application. Given the market they target, a large chunk of that population must have medical issues on their CV, so why are they in the market at all? Beats me.
Guilty!
I have just spent three of my precious remaining hours watching an ITV series called The Guilty.
I never do book reviews and I am loth to rubbish anyone’s creative work, but I feel I must express a degree of impatience, having been lulled into wasting all that time. A third of the way through episode one, I reckoned I knew who the perp was and what had happened; it was that obvious. I was almost right, save for a ridiculous twist involving a character who was introduced belatedly to provide it. Also I am still trying to figure out what the lead detective’s private life had to do with the story. Okay,she may have empathised with the victim’s mother, but so what? As a friend of mine once memorably, and cryptically said, ‘What did that have to do with the cars going up the Mound?’
Quote of the day
“She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years.”
J. B. Priestley
Invaders
So East Lothian is not the only rural community to be plagued by the cycling Nazis.
A couple of months ago I contacted the brand spanking new Police Scotland, through its website message facility and asked for a statement of policy in respect of roads being blocked by organised gangs of men on bikes, dressed in condoms. I am still waiting for a reply. Looks like we’re on our own.
How many?
Further to ‘Here I go again’, the answer was around a dozen. However some may have been American, in which case they might take home with them my thanks to Dr Bose, for his excellent headphones.
Not sought after
Sometimes, methinks, we should be left with our memories, and our 1960s vinyl albums.
Here I go again
Bound for Girona via Newcastle this afternoon. I wonder how many school age kids will be on the plane this time.
Contemptible
Mystery
A disturbing story. I will watch this with interest and wait to see how long it is before some enterprising soul writes the novel. It won’t be me, out of respect for the family.
Meantime, Kenneth is right. The Crown Office cannot let this go without further investigation. If Ayrshire had a more locally accountable police force, it might help.
Mano en mano
For those of you who think that independence movements are just people blowing off steam . . .
Yesterday was the annual National Day of Catalunya; by coincidence it falls on 9/11. This year it took on extra significance because of an organised public demonstration in support of a binding referendum on Catalan independence, not simply the consultative poll that has been proposed, and ignored by Madrid. The idea was that people should link hands all along the road that runs from the French border to the territory’s southern limit. They made it work: an estimated 1.8 million people of all ages and stages turned out in one of the most impressive and peaceful displays of national spirit that I have ever seen.
There’s no way that we in Scotland could link hands from the Shetlands (making allowances to the water!) to Gretna Green, but I hope that Blair Jenkins and his team are looking at the precedent that’s been set.
Bloody Stirling
Heading for the airport in three hours, en route for Stirling tomorrow and the second Bloody Scotland, our very own annual crime festival. I’m on in the opening event, a thorn between the two roses that are Lin Anderson and Alex Gray. The kick-off time is 5pm in the Albert Halls. On Saturday, at 2pm, I’m in a second event with Jason Webster, a very bright guy with Spanish connections that are far stronger than mine.
Events like Bloody Scotland aren’t made by the authors they attract, but by the people who turn up to hear them, question them, throw fruit at them . . . okay, skip the last part. If you can get to Stirling this weekend, but haven’t bought your ticket yet, please do. We’re nothing without you.
I’m free
Sorry I’ve been off piste for a few days. I’ve been working rather hard to finish the first draft of something that will not see the light of day until late 2014. I’m there now, but it’ll be a formidable edit.
New music while I work
Thanks, Dom, for introducing me to Nuria Graham, a half-Irish half-Catalan lass, with a big guitar and a big voice. First Tracks, her demo album will be available for sale soon on her website,
http://www.nuriagraham.com/en#!index
More than a Katie Melua clone; much more.
Quintin Jardine's blog 