Racist Terms
Posted: Sun 11 January, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Offensive Repetition, Weirdness 9 Comments »Of all the things that annoy me about the story of Prince Harry using a racially insulting term (no less than three years ago) is that the media then seems to use it as an excuse for repeating and publicising the same term ad infinitum.
The BBC story linked to above uses it, and the ITV News story I saw a few minutes ago on it used the same term no less than three times within the story.
So how does the media explain how they can get away with it when they’re reporting how offensive it is for someone else to use the term?
Badly Written
Posted: Mon 29 December, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Geeky, News, Weirdness 1 Comment »I guess someone at the BBC is trying to see what they can get past people on a slow week.
In this story about new British stamps for 2009, there’s the following paragraph…
Later sets will feature mythical creatures such as mermaids, post boxes, eminent Britons, Royal Naval uniforms and the fire service.
Hmmm, eminent Britons are mythical creatures?
Chilling a Beach
Posted: Wed 24 December, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »And just when you thought things couldn’t get any sillier – along comes this.
A plan to cool down the sand on the beach at a luxury hotel in Dubai.
“We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on,” said Soheil Abedian, founder and president of Palazzo Versace.
“This is the kind of luxury that top people want.”
Meanwhile, back in the real world…
Bizarre
Posted: Tue 9 December, 2008 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »I defy you to read this story without shaking your head and thinking “What the fuck was he doing/thinking?”
One of the more truly bizarre stories of the year – and not helped by the fact that his actions resulted in the deaths of two people…
Misconceptions
Posted: Fri 5 December, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Weirdness 3 Comments »In the last couple of weeks, two common misconceptions have been thrust into my brain. They both drive me potty, but I’m also interested in finding out from whence they came.
First is a spelling one – for some fuckforsaken reason, some people seem to think that Edinburgh is actually spelled Endinburgh . No idea why. But it comes up with a fair number of results in Google. (That’s changed since last time this one came up – at that point there were a lot of students in “Endinburgh University” as well, which is pretty scary)
Second is a really common one – people thinking that the USA consists of fifty-two states. I’d love to know where this one emanates from, as the US has had 50 states since 1959, and none have been added in the intervening 49 years…
Oh, for fuck’s sake
Posted: Fri 28 November, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Weirdness 1 Comment »Following on from the bollock-waving idiocy of the Brand/Ross farce last month, programmes on the BBC will be using less swearing next year.
I hope this doesn’t herald a return to the days of the “Muddy Funster” over-dubs of the eighties/nineties. (I did a quick Google search on this, but can’t find a decent date for when it happened)
Mind you, the story itself does seem to be in place just so they can write lots of sweary words…
Moving in Mysterious Ways
Posted: Thu 13 November, 2008 Filed under: Weirdness Leave a comment »Now this has to be one of the more bizarre stories for any given week/month/year.
Basically, as the story’s headline says, “Woman killed by husband’s coffin”.
You just couldn’t make it up.