Yesterday I went home and took part in the BBC TV quiz that tests the English of the nation. Since I have freeview (the poor man’s Sky) I thought I’d get a bit of interactive action going. Imagine my horror then, when my score was tallied and it only came to a miserable 35/70!!! Yes, the computer can’t be wrong. 7/11 for comprehension (I didn’t mind that; I’m slow at the best of times), 6/14 for spelling, 7/14 for language, 9/19 for grammar and 6/15 for words. I knew there was some thing fishy in the state of Denmark. So I sat through the boring news and waited for the blow-by-blow, tedious answer session, where I found out, to my joy, that I had actually got 58/70!! I’d throw that damn digibox and its recalcitrant remote away if I weren’t so attached to it. The best score across the nation was 68/70, a computer consultant (yippee!!). Male, obviously 😛 And the two he got wrong were collective nouns. Apparently it’s a mischief of mice, a crash of hippopotami, and an ostentation of peacocks. Being an animal lover (no, don’t be silly, not literally), I was particularly gutted for getting those wrong. I also got one question on Shakespeare wrong, and I put that down to o’erconfidence (note how I made that sound like Shakespeare. I still got it!!) 😛

I’ve been too kind on some of you lazy lot recently, so now I’m not going to place your weblogs under my links alphabetically anymore. No, I’m going to rank you! This gives me the ultimate and absolute power and you the pathetic human need to please the one who judges you harshly (i.e. “Please love me parent/teacher/elder sibling, why dont you love me?”). The best weblogs are measured along four criteria: those that interest me, talk about me, and comment on my weblog, as well as those that update regularly. So you know what to do now, get on with it. This being me, bribes, of course, are accepted. I will also be impressed by indiscreet attempts at discrediting other competitors; after all, in my books sabotage is a perfectly valid method of gaining competitive advantage. This is all in the name of some healthy nastiness, nature red in tooth and claw.

Oh, almost forgot to tell you. Last night on BBC Radio 2 (yes, I own one of those) I heard a girl called Kate Rusby sing a song called ‘Moon Shadow’. Jeez it were good! It gave me goose fat all over my arms (or was that the kebab dripping???)

Yes, Sony’s Aibo dog can now blog. He takes pictures of his fondest moments of the day, and posts them. I’m hanging up my boots, slinging away my mouse and retiring. It’s sure to be better than mine.

hell for leather, bat out of hell, burning rubber, smoking guns, spitting gravel. desperate times, desperate measures, you pay the piper, you call the tune. rome wasn’t built in a day, a stitch in time, make hay while the sun shines. idle hands, devil’s workshop, devil in me, death on my right. wind in my hair, sun in my eyes, the call of the wild, the open road beckons, zen and the motorcycle, man and machine. Going for the big one, the glory days, a prize to treasure, a treasure to prize!

A bit of free association about my dissertation. 6 days to go!

Go to Boudica of Suburbia, riotously funny writing. This gal’s got style.

When I’m at home, I sometimes make little notes on my flip-pad to remind me to blog about when I come to uni and get on t’Net. Now I’ve got my pad open, so let’s see what’s there.
Starting off with yesterday’s telly (that’s practically all I do at home, watch telly and feed the cat)
ITV had a programme about the shots that shook the world, I think they named it “50 shots that shook the world in the last 50 years” (ITV is celebrating 50 years of news reporting), and quite aptly so in my humble judgement. This was of course a telephone vote so the good British Public could have their say (and the good channel ITV could make some money in their doing so).
So, top ten moments were, (amidst fanfare)
10 The toppling of the Berlin Wall
9 Liverpool FC’s comeback against AC Milan in the Champion’s League final
8 The massacre at Tian-an-men Square
7 The Ethiopian famine ’84-’85
6 Princess Diana’s wrecked car
5 England winning the World Cup in ’66
4 JFK’s assassination
3 The tsunami that struck South East Asia
2 The Apollo landing on the moon
and..
1 The plane flying into the Twin Towers

Now, call me what you will, but there are certain patterns I see emerging. I remember a book I had last year at uni, called Theories of the Info Society. In this reader, one guy (I think it’s Habermas) mentions the power of the Western media (here we go again) and how ‘world news’ isn’t really that, and most news reports put non-Western countries in a bad light by only reporting the events of disaster and Western Aid efforts. I see 3 non-Western events listed here, and Blimey! the words ‘massacre’, ‘famine’ & ‘tsunami’ are all I see.

Oh, and of course they had a mini-documentary of New Yorkers, and how they saved each others’ lives, and one guy said “Fear is now part of our life”. Surely you knew fear before 911, when crossing Central Park even in broad daylight, mate!

Of course, this wouldn’t be a British vote if there weren’t not one, but two football events in the top ten events that shook the WORLD these 50 years gone. Err.. I thought the Champions League finals were played every year.

Talking of footie, I had this quote down in my flip-pad. The commentator is speaking of the striker Yakubu latching on to a long fast pass and then scoring – “He killed it with his first touch, buried it with his second!” Ah, it’s an art!

But SURELY THERE WERE MORE NOTE-WORTHY GOINGS-ON IN THE FIELDS OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE AND SPACE TRAVEL!!!!

And does anybody know what happened to the world’s first test-tube baby??? What does she do, where is she, etc.? She ought to be around my age now. (This is where my ‘friends’ get the opening for wisecracks about my age)

I watched an engrossing program on BBC four (I think it was) about the use of existing and emerging media channels by terrorists both home-grown and democratically elected. A plausible attempt at impartial reporting was made by the Beeb reporter, although obviously the Beeb itself never came in for any criticism. There was loads of stuff to think about. I remember one hardy reporter saying “It’s hard for people to understand what happens in a news room when we hear of a train crash. We say -that’s exciting, how many died. Not usual reactions one would expect in polite society”(not verbatim). And was this very program itself simply producing another program under the guise of ‘attempting to understand terrorism’ because it’s stuff that people will watch in today’s environment? I think not, but I also think that somewhere a studio executive is going “A terrorist program? Sure, they’re selling like hotcakes at the mo’! ”
A lot was made of the TV station Al-Jazeera who are accused often of being the main conduit for terrorsit messages to reach the majority of the Arab population, to whom it represents the main source of reliable information bar none. Why don’t people take a leaf out of India’s book, who have been fighting a propaganda war against the militant separatist group LTTE Tamil Tigers for a long time. In the state of Karnataka where I lived, there was a proto-Osama (called Prabhakaran I think)a self-styled smuggler and terrorist who staged similar press conferences with journalists. He had immense popular support with the people, which saved his hide from being caught many a time. The tactics were so like-for-like, that I was amazed when this wasn’t mentioned last night. But I’m sure there’s nothing unique about any case, except for the scale of Osama’s reach (he thanks Bush for creating him, both literally and in the media’s eyes, I’m sure). Oh, and of course the fact that they can now use the Internet, which can’t be banned.
As an aside, a reporter also said he sat through many focus groups who proved that the public loves to watch violent scenes, so the news will show them.