I wouldn't mind if it was Nobel. Day Three

I'm going to make a slight change to this. Now that the BBC entertainment news pages are almost now exclusively devoted to reporting / hyping Awards ceremonies I've decided only to mention those which merit mentions on the BBC's general news pages. Why? Simple. I think I've made my point.

I wouldn't mind if it was Nobel. Day Two

Another thought struck me about this. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in saying awards ceremonies get three hits at coverage. Some get four. So where does this extra one come from? Announcing the make-up of the jury which decides the results. Such and such made chair of Awards Ceremony jury. So and so on Awards Ceremony jury. The stories write themselves.  

I wouldn't mind if it was Nobel....

And just to prove the point. Today's other winner. Of an Award. For photography, 

The question arises though. Broadly speaking both these awards cover the same thing. So which one is better? Perhaps there should be some sort of play off? Or, in true Gadget Show / Top Gear style, a series of increasingly outlandish, and decreasingly funny challenges to decide which one is "actually" the best*. 

*Now there's an idea for a TV show. And it makes more sense than a robotic hare chasing people around a TV studio. Or at least, it makes as much sense as that does.  

I wouldn't mind if it was Nobel....

And today's winner is....

Just to explain. I can't be the only one to have noticed the explosion in awards ceremonies. It seems a day now doesn't pass without someone winning something. Now I'm not going to dispute the validity of the winners winning, I mean who am I to judge? Rather I'm more interested in the fact that there are so many bloody awards to pick from now. It would be entirely possible for the BBC news site to feature surveys which prove what they were designed to prove, the latest threat to your health, how much something cost the economy and a feature on some awards ceremony. Which, if cutely managed, gets three hits - the announcement of the shortlist, the pre-announcement of the "special" winners and then the actual winners themselves. I'm not one to say it, but there is now a self perpetuating awards industry. I think the only logical way to recognise the sterling work they do is by having an award they can compete for. Then we'd finally know which one is the most worthy*. 

*Of course what confuses things is that the remit of many of these awards is defined so narrowly that there's barely enough of a choice to make a shortlist. For example one for "Best Blog Called Angry Since 1967". Not that I'd stoop to that.... 

One social media thing down, a few more to go.

I was going to write something about twitter, in the style of a twitter post. But then I realised, mimicking the 140 character limit means I
   

Today's figure pulled out of the "cost to the economy hat" is

Up to* £280 Billion per year. Or is it up to £55 Billion? Who knows?

*I love the caveat "up to". I've mentioned before the nonsense-ese this phrase encapsulates when Head And Shoulders used "up to 100%" to claim how good their shampoo was at removing dandruff.. This little term is like some fantastically powerful algebraic function which can be used to generate any end figure you like without ever having to demonstrate how you actually reached it. But it doesn't stop there. I can claim. quite accurately, the grade I achieved in may French "O" Level was "up to an A". Which, when you think about it, sounds a hell of a lot better than a "U"?

It's SPEND, SPENDS, SPENT.

Am I the only person to have noticed how the words "spend", "spends" and "spent" have become, in media parlance at least, euphemisms for wasting money? You know the sort of thing. Local council "spends" an amount on something. The inference? The money is being squandered. You can be damn sure if you see the word "spend" or a derivative of it, especially IN CAPITALS then the people writing the article don't approve of the expenditure. 

Revenge of The Odds And Sods II

Bit of housekeeping.

I see HMV has acquired the epithets "troubled" and "embattled". The word "failed" can't be too far away.   

As I mentioned yesterday I've been thinking of rebranding the site in an effort to make it more in line with the current clamour for "digital activism". To this end I'd redrafted my profile description, adding the word "aspiring". Suddenly I was transformed from a bile drenched cynic to an "edgy social commentator and aspiring Journalist". I love the magical power of words to create whichever fictional identity you want. "Lost" becomes "misplaced", "found" becomes "revealed" and "pie in the sky, fantasy you've no hope of ever achieving" becomes "aspiring". Then I decided against it. People* wouldn't realise I was taking the piss.

*I'd like to say a big HELLO to Dreamworks SKG** by the way. They were on here a couple of days ago. No doubt they were so inspired by what they read that a movie version of this site has already been greenlit. I'm looking forward to Angry Since 1967 3D. Can you get Jennifer Connelly to play the love interest please?

**Of course by Dreamworks SKG I mean someone from a domain purporting to be Dreamworks SKG, which as anyone familiar with how the internet works will know this is something to be treated with scepticism. If it was them though I suspect they were on checking to see if I had any dodgy links to download hooky versions of their movies rather than seeking inspiration.***

***It's a bit of a meander this one. God knows why. I'll put it down to too many fine German ales last night.    

Angry Since 1967 likes this.

I'd been thinking about rebranding myself as a "Digital Activist". But then I realised that there's more to activism (the whole "active" root of the word "activist" for starters) than responding to a hashtag on Twitter. If Twitter had existed during the French Revolution "#StormTheBastille" would have 400,000 followers, a You Tube channel, an app for your iphone (Angry Peasants?) and lots of likes on Facebook. 

And France would be a monarchy to this day.

The 200th*

So 200 posts then. Who would have thought it possible? Certainly not me. I reckoned I'd be bored with this blogging thing after about a month, so that I'm still posting here 4 1/2 years later is quite an achievement (obviously I use the term "achievement" in its "winning a music award presented by a magazine" or "an endeavour badge for failing to swim 10 metres" sense). Of course that I'm howling about the same things I was way back in the summer of 2006 says something as well. What that might be isn't immediately clear though. No doubt the profundity of this fact will present itself at some indeterminate moment in the future. In the meantime? Well there seems little point in worrying about it.

*Seasoned AS1967 readers will probably realise something more substantial is brewing. Although "stewing" is probably be a more accurate description. At the moment, I'm trying to make something currently unreadable into something more palatable, much as you would if you had a big bottle of Bile flavoured Quosh which has to be diluted with 5 parts water before it can be safely consumed..