If In Doubt

post a polemic...

I note that that there are now many urgent IT jobs in Belfast for native Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, German and Hebrew speakers. Now far be it for me to suggest that this "urgency" is inversely related to the numbers of said speakers in Belfast, but it is somewhat bewildering to consider the rationale behind locating these jobs in a place on the remote outskirts of western Europe which has a negligible history of immigration, much less a culture of multiple non-indigenous languages. You'd almost think some one was at their work "Another job creation grant? Er you'll need proof of actual employment? No? In that case I don't mind if I do" 

Recently I've become even more questioning of the point of "the news". Now it is not for me to judge which are the important news stories, even though I'm just about to do that - albeit in a roundabout way. So rather I'd ask why does it matter if (for example) a politician, in a country you don't live in, says something which will have no impact on you? But it's not just politicians, it's everything. I've come to the conclusion that most of what passes for news is just simple voyeurism. Like the old days of the travelling show with its bearded woman, much of what we see is little more than an excuse to gape. Whether this is in wonder, fear, incredulity or outrage makes no odds. A consequence of this are the attempts to make these stories, no matter how irrelevant they may be, strike a cord with the viewer. Or rather make the viewer believe these have a direct bearing on their lives. Now I'm not suggesting that such things don't happen, but I find it more difficult to square the implicit sense that they always do. Much of the vocabulary used in the news is more akin with the notion of chaos theory. A butterfly flaps its wings and, half a world away, it rains. Therefore a bus strike in London results in me not being able to get to work this morning in Belfast, whereas a bus strike in Belfast simply means I just can't get to work in Belfast. 

As for all those cropped disembodied fat torsos which have been photographed in such away so that individuals can't be recognised, or the blurred shots of school kids used to illustrate news stories (surprisingly never about Cropped Disembodied Fat Torsos UNCOVERED! or "School Kids In BLURRED video SHOCKER!) have become the visual short hand for shallow news coverage. Add the "inappropriate pop-up graphic superimposed over something" which they use (my favourite at the moment is the BBC's "The Sun" logo stuck over the top of the "New Scotland Yard" sign - gem!) and all I can think is that I'm being patronised by lazy simpletons who presume we need to be spooned information in a predigested mush, in much the same way one would feed an eviscerated toddler.