Weekend links.
As you probably don't know, a glorious publication which has brightened all our lives reached a significant milestone recently. Enough about Viz though, the Sun has also been celebrating its 40th birthday. In recognition of 40 years of tits, lies and propaganda Tim has put together a rather special video which is well worth your perusal. Claude also has a post with a short history of the paper's brilliance.
Elsewhere things are rather slow. Craig Murray has the latest in an increasingly bitter war of words with the Quilliam Foundation's lawyers, Paul Linford, reflecting on the Sun's misreading of the public mood over Jacqui Janes argues that sympathy is not the same as trust, Unity informs us about "EmoTrance", not the fusion of emo and trance music, in case you were wondering, voltairespriest has a fascinating post on how Nick Griffin seems to think that the English Defence League is part of a "Zionist false flag" operation, Hopi Sen attacks the idiocy which is the view that the poor are betrayed by voting Labour, and finally Third Estate has an informative piece on the ratcheting up of tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In the papers, or at least on their sites, Christina Patterson seems to be invoking the Sex Pistols song Holidays in the Sun over the plea from the Iraqi tourism minister for visitors to return, Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes an accurate in places and not quite there in others piece on the tragedy of Gordon Brown, while Peter Oborne thinks Brown has perversely just had his best week in a year. Marina Hyde notes that the partnership between Murdoch and the current incumbent or soon to be can only end in tears, Howard Jacobson says the best way to deal with Nick Griffin is to put him on Strictly Come Dancing, Andrew Grice suggests Whitehall is already gearing up for a change of government, and Esther Addley considers whether the X Factor is killing pop. Not just pop, but "mainstream" music as a whole, I'd suggest.
As for worst tabloid article, we have a choice of two. First up is the Daily Mail with a fairly standard scare piece over the explicitness of music lyrics. This from a newspaper which has directly below the article a quite lovely report on Alexandra Burke's "never-ending legs", and how she certainly knows how to "please a crowd". Tabloid Watch points out that a search for cleavage on the Mail's site returns 987 results, even more than the equivalent on the Sun's. The winner though in my eyes is a staggering hatchet job on Professor David Nutt in the Sun, which rather than attacking the man himself instead goes for his children via their social networking profiles. They reproduce a photo of his son Steve with a roll-up in his mouth, claiming it shows him "apparently smoking dope". I'm no expert, but it looks suspiciously to me like an ordinary roll-up rather than one containing a substance more exotic than tobacco. Not content with that, his daughter is the next target, her crime having uploaded a photograph with herself with friends carrying a bottle of spirits. Lastly, eldest son Johnny is raked over the coals for having photographs on his profile of himself naked in the snow in Sweden. No hypocrisy there whatsoever, then.
Elsewhere things are rather slow. Craig Murray has the latest in an increasingly bitter war of words with the Quilliam Foundation's lawyers, Paul Linford, reflecting on the Sun's misreading of the public mood over Jacqui Janes argues that sympathy is not the same as trust, Unity informs us about "EmoTrance", not the fusion of emo and trance music, in case you were wondering, voltairespriest has a fascinating post on how Nick Griffin seems to think that the English Defence League is part of a "Zionist false flag" operation, Hopi Sen attacks the idiocy which is the view that the poor are betrayed by voting Labour, and finally Third Estate has an informative piece on the ratcheting up of tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In the papers, or at least on their sites, Christina Patterson seems to be invoking the Sex Pistols song Holidays in the Sun over the plea from the Iraqi tourism minister for visitors to return, Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes an accurate in places and not quite there in others piece on the tragedy of Gordon Brown, while Peter Oborne thinks Brown has perversely just had his best week in a year. Marina Hyde notes that the partnership between Murdoch and the current incumbent or soon to be can only end in tears, Howard Jacobson says the best way to deal with Nick Griffin is to put him on Strictly Come Dancing, Andrew Grice suggests Whitehall is already gearing up for a change of government, and Esther Addley considers whether the X Factor is killing pop. Not just pop, but "mainstream" music as a whole, I'd suggest.
As for worst tabloid article, we have a choice of two. First up is the Daily Mail with a fairly standard scare piece over the explicitness of music lyrics. This from a newspaper which has directly below the article a quite lovely report on Alexandra Burke's "never-ending legs", and how she certainly knows how to "please a crowd". Tabloid Watch points out that a search for cleavage on the Mail's site returns 987 results, even more than the equivalent on the Sun's. The winner though in my eyes is a staggering hatchet job on Professor David Nutt in the Sun, which rather than attacking the man himself instead goes for his children via their social networking profiles. They reproduce a photo of his son Steve with a roll-up in his mouth, claiming it shows him "apparently smoking dope". I'm no expert, but it looks suspiciously to me like an ordinary roll-up rather than one containing a substance more exotic than tobacco. Not content with that, his daughter is the next target, her crime having uploaded a photograph with herself with friends carrying a bottle of spirits. Lastly, eldest son Johnny is raked over the coals for having photographs on his profile of himself naked in the snow in Sweden. No hypocrisy there whatsoever, then.
Labels: weekend, weekend links, weekend round-up
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The Sun is 40 years old? Is that why it was first published in 1964?
Oh, that's right! 1969 was when a certain Rupert Murdoch took over the paper!
Why am I reminded of this:
Oceania is at peace with Eurasia.
Oceania has never been at war with Eurasia.
Oceania is at war with Eastasia.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia
?
Posted by
Oriel boy |
Sunday, November 15, 2009 3:52:00 AM
Christ, I didn't even notice that. Rather low, especially for those who worked on it before Murdoch took it over.
Posted by
septicisle |
Sunday, November 15, 2009 1:31:00 PM
"In one anarchic tirade, Nutt - who is believed to be a student in London - demands: "Bring down the govornment, they don't speak for us.""
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but have the Sun mistaken a Radiohead lyric for a call to revolution?
Posted by
freedomfromchoice |
Sunday, November 15, 2009 1:37:00 PM