Tag: daily mail

Goodbye internet

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Another Daily Mail exclusive (remember this?).

December 5th 2000:

Yep. The problem with writing bullshit is that when the bullshit that you’ve written turns out to be bullshit, people can go back and read it, and see just how wrong you were.

And lets face it, this one was spectacularly incorrect.

Using the… er… internet, I discovered that James Chapman now heads up a PR Agency (motto: “Build. Protect. Repair.”) in Westminster (of course he does), alongside James Henderson, who used to be CEO of Bell Pottinger until 2017.

As you will read:

Until September 2017, James was the CEO of Bell Pottinger, where he developed the agency into an integrated multi discipline communications business offering financial, corporate, litigation, crisis, regulatory, political, brand, digital, and personal reputation advice.

In 2016, Bell Pottinger had revenues of £35 million, 8 offices globally and over 250 employees.

And in September 2017, Bell Pottinger went bankrupt.
This after years of dodgy dealings, aiding state capture activities and stoking racial hatred in South Africa.

Surprisingly, his fawning blurb seems to have omitted this last bit. Weird.

Vacuous

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A busy day today, including (but not limited to) waking up with no electricity (and therefore no coffee), lying on a sunlounger three times and being jumped on by a beagle (also three times), taking the boy to the doctor for a Dodgeball injury, a nice family curry, a school event and a guy coming around to look at our windows.

It’s all too much.

So let me show you this from the internet. It’s from, I hasten to add, a site that I never visit: I saw this shared elsewhere. I only know one person that frequents this site, and the more I see stuff like this:

…the more I wonder why. You know who you are. We’ve discussed this. Save yourself now.

Perhaps we need an intervention.

How utterly mundane. Is this how low we have stooped as a society, that this crap passes as somehow newsworthy or entertaining? Man does thing. Or rather, in this case, Man does thing while also doing other thing. Even if both those things are very dull, I suppose that makes it ever so slightly more exciting. But for me, this just shows how completely vacuous internet culture, celebrity culture and (more especially) internet celebrity culture has become.

I’d even rather listen to Putin’s unsavoury sabre rattling.

“President threatens nuclear attacks while losing conflict”

No, actually on second thoughts, that is much worse. Never mind.

Isle of Man gets UNESCO status

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Yes, the entire Isle of Man. All of it.

Unesco, the United Nations’ cultural body, has designated the entire island a protected biosphere nature reserve thanks to its stunning beauty, wildlife and sea creatures.

The self-governing British Crown dependency was one of 20 new sites added to the world biosphere reserve network, joining 11 other locations in the UK as ‘special places for people and nature’.

Crappy puff piece from a crappy newspaper, but probably worth a visit just for the photos.

327DD3E000000578-3506064-image-a-130_1458741484192

Much like Cape Town, it’s not hard to take amazing photos of the Isle of Man, simply because it’s an amazing place. If you want to avoid the Daily Mail (and who wouldn’t with comments like this?):

The UN wants the whole world. Looks like they’ve started with the whole Isle of Man.

then you could just do an google image search.

Mooi.

Oh, Simple Thing…

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…where have you gone?

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to Keane’s Hopes And Fears, but it will always remind me of my… our… honeymoon. I bought an iPod (my first; still got it) about the time of the wedding, but given the hectic business around those matrimonial times, I only managed to load one album onto it before we left. Hopes And Fears was that album: rather apt for a *cough* young couple heading off into the trials and tribulations of married life together.

Thus, this is the first track I ever played on an iPod:

So, while Tom and his chums may be taxiing to their secret streamside woodland hideout, while you may be staring at your computer screen, I am currently (mentally, at least) lying on a beach on an island just off the coast of Mozambique.

Where exactly? Somewhere only I know. Lol.

Meanwhile, in tenuous link central, you may have recently heard the cover version of this song for the John Lewis Christmas ad. That was done by Lily Allen and she – according to the Daily Mail – has brought her “svelte figure” in a “lime green floral halterneck bikini top” to the “breathtaking scenery” of South Africa’s “stunning wine lands.”

She even posted a picture of herself with a big steak and a pair of braai tongs!

The weird thing is, it’s a really SA-positive article, despite being in the Daily Mail, with loads of nice words and lovely pictures.

I know, I’m confused too.

Fill It In

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Much excitement on Social Media over the weekend as #Underdog, the canine found alive at the bottom of Kimberley’s ‘Big Hole’  (the town in the Northern Cape, not the chick on Sea Point Main Road), which was kept alive for several days by tourists throwing it scraps of food, was rescued.
Viva ER24, Viva!

The Big Hole is the largest man-made (hand dug, no machinery involved) hole in the world. It’s more than 50 storeys deep.
Cape Town’s shiny new Portside building would comfortably disappear into it, with height to spare.
It took 50,000 men 42 years to excavate. 22 million tonnes of earth was removed.

It’s Big.

Anyway, news of the heart-warming rescue has spread to the UK and to the Daily Mail, who did a lovely piece on it.

And it was there that we find this comment:

kbh

WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!??!?????!??!?!!!??!?!?

And then there was John’s reply:

kbh2

Stereotypical Irish suggestion, typical Yorkshire humour. Excellent.

Now I’m off to wash my hands, having had to link to “that newspaper”.