News Journalism
by John Walker on Sep.12, 2006, under Rants
Television news disgusts me. With the exception of a very occasional unmuzzling of Newsnight, or the enormously rare moments where Channel 4 News defies its ITV News roots and finds its balls, the UK has nothing but worthless parroting of speeches and press releases instead of news. There was a time when an “investigative journalist” was a part of news reporting, where demonstrable untruths were revealed with evidence, and facts were scrutinised before being reported. There was once the opportunity for comment, now replaced by a wantonly ignorant desperation to present a woeful misunderstanding of avoiding bias. Everything goes unchallenged, blindly repeated to the camera, because to question is to be biased, to enquire is to be partisan. Television news is the worthless funnelling of that day’s bullshit, presented in an easy to digest half-hour mouthful, unquestioning, unaccountable, and utterly undemanding.
But at least we can sneer at the Americans, eh? At least there’s Fox News to reassure us that at least we’re not as bad as them. Don’t kid yourself. Sky News is one rung away from its American sister station, ITV News is a pitiful laughing-stock with only months to live (the ghost of ITN unheard), and BBC News so more dangerous for its veneer of respectability, while almost entirely without merit.
And the sneering is even less valid, because there’s one news journalist left, and he’s in America. In fact, in the most peculiar twist, he’s on the wretched MSNBC. Keith Olbermann’s news programme, Countdown W/ Keith Olbermann, reports the reality of the day’s news, with a crew of investigative reporters given room to say what they saw and heard themselves, rather than repeat the released statements presented to them. And Olbermann, with his own set of biases and agenda, is given space to comment. Because that’s how it’s meant to be done.
Perhaps after watching the clips below, the easiest (laziest) response is to announce he is merely an anti-Bush equivalent of Fox News. I can only appeal that you seek out as many clips of Countdown (yes, how amusing that it has the same name as the Channel 4 quiz, well done) as you are able, and witness the same vehemence and passion put into revealing the lies and deceptions of the Left as well.
Yes, this is John going on about someone/thing no one else has ever heard of or cared about. But be sure that on this occasion at least, my passion is valid.
Olbermann, as I’ve said before, signs off saying, “Good night, and good luck” (and occasionally, “Keep your knees loose, America”), and I want to quote this moment specifically:
“Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”
And so good night, and good luck.”
Facts
by John Walker on Sep.09, 2006, under The Rest
Here are three facts that Jim Rossignol, Richard Cobbett and John Walker know:
Louis the 14th was the longest reigning monarch of France, outliving all his children and all but one of his grandchildren.
Mother Shipton’s Cave is the only officially recognised tribute to a suspected witch.
There are 300 Pret a Manger stores in the world, 150 of which are in London.
Thank you.
by John Walker on Sep.04, 2006, under The Rest
It’s been eight years, but it’s time for a change of email address. 100+ spams a day is more than my little mind can take, and so
johnw (a) cream.org is dead.
Long live
botherer {([a])} gmail.com
johnw will be routing to the gmail account anyways, but now’s the time to update. RIGHT NOW.
Woke Up New
by John Walker on Aug.31, 2006, under The Rest
Having something so infantile as a favourite band rather surprises me. But I’m aware there’s no hesitation in my mind when faced with the challenge of only being able to pick one artist to listen to. It’s The Mountain Goats. It helps that Darnielle’s written over 45 billion albums, each very wonderful.
The new one, Get Lonely, which I can’t possibly have heard, is the gentle tone distilled to purity. I should imagine.
There’s a single, Woke Up New, which is as painful and honest as any post-break-up song could be, while exquisitely beautiful. And there’s a video, directed by ‘Brick’ director, Rian Johnson. All involved have requested that the high-res video be redistributed at will, by whatever means. (“Made available by the director. Please feel free to re-post, distribute, torrent, etc.”) My choice was to upload it to Google video, which has of course reduced it down to the same poor quality as the low res version already on YouTube, but nevermind, I post it here anyway.
Why I Will Be A Better Uncle Than Bert
by John Walker on Aug.30, 2006, under The Rest
Review: Pathologic
by John Walker on Aug.30, 2006, under The Rest
Pathologic offers a dying city. It’s Oblivion with cancer. A pustule encrusted town where events carry on regardless of your presence, slowly wasting away despite you. This is a fascinating game. And a very broken one. And as such, I’m in something of a pickle.
This was a very tough review to write. If you can blag a copy, have a look at Pathologic. Especially if you’re a developer.
Delightfully Strange: A Love Letter to the DS
by John Walker on Aug.29, 2006, under The Rest
The conversation went like this:
John: You know how we’re always going on about how extremely lovely the DS is? How it does weird and wonderful better than anything else?
Tom: Yeah, we should probably stop repeating that.
John: Ah. Oh. [Quickly changes his pitch] Well I was thinking we should have a feature on EG to sort of, er, put an end to it – a definitive guide to what makes the statement so true.
Tom: Oh, go on then.
So here it is. This is the article intended to stop us banging on about how much we love the DS itself, rather than the game we’re supposed to be reviewing. It’s the piece to celebrate one of the best things to happen to obscure videogaming in years. It’s not Nintendo-sponsored puff. It might sound sycophantic, but that’s the cynical earwax that prevents your hearing happiness. It’s a guide to the little handheld that could, defying the naysayers’ predictions of defeat at the hands of the PSP, standing up to the bullying cries of, “Hey, specky two-screens!” We’re getting touchy-feely about the touchy-feely. This is a love letter to the peculiar.
I’ve long wanted to express this. It’s a piece with which I’m fairly pleased.
Blankety Blank – The Lost Episode
by John Walker on Aug.28, 2006, under The Rest
One of the best comedy sketches of all time, and you’ve never heard of it.
EDIT: Oh for God’s sake, Google, like YouTube, refuses to host this sketch. Nevermind the millions of hours of every television programme ever they seem to have no problems with, this obscure, utterly unavailable sketch, made for a charity using money exclusively paid by the public license fee is apparently unacceptable. So you can download it from here until the BBC announce to me personally their logic for attempting to keep it for themselves.
It’s a Blankety Blank sketch, shown during Comic Relief 2003, and stars anyone currently useful in UK comedy (only missing Mitchell & Webb).
Peter Serafinowicz is a perfect Terry Wogan, such that you forget it’s not Terry Wogan after a while. Then the panel of ‘celebrities’ are made up of the amazing Nick Frost as Willie Rushton, Matt Lucas as Su Pollard, David Walliams as Ruth Madoc, Martin Freeman as Johnny Rotten, Simon Pegg as Freddie Starr and super-pretty Sarah Alexander as Lovely Liza Goddard (and her perfect typography). Oh, and Paul Putner as a chauffer.
Then the contestants are Kevin Eldon and someone I can’t identify.
What makes it so remarkable is the darkness. It’s often silly, and plays on too obvious look-it’s-dated gags like mentioning Betamax, but throughout there’s a constant seam of malevolence that keeps it peculiarly uncomfortable. I suspect the silliness and token spoofery is the Trojan horse by which the distinctly un-Comic Relief moments slip through. This is never better than Su Pollard’s wretched agreement with Wogan’s anti-Communist speech.
It’s a sketch that manages to be very funny, while cruelly condemning the very most awful aspects of British television. Pegg’s Starr captures the awful man’s worthlessness, and Lucas and Walliams tap into why Hi-De-Hi actors deserved the loathing they received. Serafinowicz beautifully demonstrates the cowardly nature of Wogan types when faced with anything off-script, and I love how Rotten’s stereotypical cynacism is in fact the only honest perspective.
Eczemallent.
TINY BABY!
by John Walker on Aug.27, 2006, under Photos
Babies are born far too fragile. They shouldn’t arrive until aged 2, and wearing a suit of armour.
So I’m now an uncle. My sister, after nine months of moaning, had her belly ripped asunder and a small parasitic growth removed. William Thomas Lake is a very cute parasitic growth indeed.
Which amusingly makes my parents magicked into grandparents, and thus 20 years older than this morning.
Here’s my newly ancient mother holding my nephew:
Only positive comments (apart from those Kieron thinks are positive) are allowed, or my dad, who reads this and is bigger than you, will get you.
My Week
by John Walker on Aug.25, 2006, under The Rest
I’m not dead. But I was in Paris, in a 1940s brothel (Cafe Carmen, formerly Bizet’s house), surrounding by Nazi soldiers, watching a can-can show before the Americans liberated us. You know, the usual.