Everybody knows that the Daily Mail loves nothing more than to print anti-BBC stories. But really, this latest attempt breaks new ground, even for the Mail.

The story is that the presenter of the BBC’s flagship news bulletin, Huw Edwards, was wearing a poppy which fell off just before the programme went to air. So in the first report, he picked it up and reattached it. Fascinating stuff.

In the world of the Daily Mail, though:

When BBC Ten O’Clock news presenter Huw Edwards took to the news-room floor during Monday night’s bulletin – viewers were immediately alerted to the fact that he has forgotten something – his poppy. Viewers were doubly confused when the poppy suddenly appeared on Edwards jacket after the broadcaster cut away to an interview with its top political correspondent Nick Robinson some way into the show.

Terribly confusing for all concerned, I’m sure. But far from jumping to the obvious conclusion, Daily Mail readers

could have been forgiven for thinking that the PC brigade were at it again

Somehow, the Mail then draws a connection between a poppy falling off someone’s jacket, and the fact that the Beeb have decided that ‘distracting’ religious symbols might not be the best idea on a newsreader – or, in the world of the Daily Mail, banned Fiona Bruce from wearing a cross. Which, incidentally, was blatantly untrue.

How on Earth does something this stupid make the pages of a national newspaper? It’s astonishing, even from the Daily Mail.

But my favourite bit of the article is this:

The poppy incident marked an eventual [sic] night for the Welsh news-reader after it was revealed that a contagious eye infection almost caused him to miss his broadcast.

Eventual?

An interesting piece of comment from The First Post, today. They point out that two men appeared at Burnley Magistrates’ Court last week, charged with holding “the largest amount of cheimical explosives of this type ever found in this country”. One of the accused was a BNP council candidate, and the other was a local dentist. The dentist was also in possession of a rocket launcher and a nuclear biological protection suit, and the two were accused of “some kind of masterplan”, as yet unknown.

But what is striking about their court appearance (they were remanded until October 23) is the failure of any mainstream newspaper or media outlet to report it at all.

It is not difficult to imagine what the response might have been had two Muslims been involved. There would have been banner headlines, police statements celebrating the prevention of another apocalyptic plot, suggestions of a wider conspiracy with nebulous ‘linkages’ to al-Qaeda. There would have been a collective shudder at another averted outrage, experts holding forth on the dangers of dirty bombs and homemade WMD. There would have been warnings of the ongoing threat to our ‘values’. Above all, there would have been fear, all of it magnified by a credulous media, fed by inside information from nameless intelligence sources.

Instead there was total silence. In a week dominated by Muslim ‘stories’ in which veiled women and an unpleasant taxi driver constituted evidence of the alien, dangerous subculture in our midst, two white men accused of having explosives, a nuclear protection suit and a ‘masterplan’ fell outside the frame of the ‘war on terror’ and therefore did not get mentioned beyond local papers.

It’s quite a difficult argument to counter, given that the only mainstream national media I could find the story in was the Sunday Times – in the ‘News in Brief’ column.

It is quitely burning away in the blogosphere – generally with the same kind of spin The First Post (and, to be fair, I) has given it. We’re talking posts like When it’s a white terrorist, no one notices…, White people are terrorists too!!!!!!, The Wrong Colour Bomb – and this post from The Void, who seems even more cynical than me.

The original article that sparked all this speculation – from the esteemed Burnley Citizen – contains this intriguing line, which may help to explain away some of the lack of media interest:

However Superintendent Neil Smith moved to reassure residents and stressed: “It is not a bomb making factory” and added that it was not related to terrorism.

How does he know? And what exactly was Robert Cottage doing with a huge amount of explosives, a rocket launcher, and a protective suit? And, ultimately, would the same line have been trundled out if Mr Cottage’s skin had been a different colour?

Did Fireman Sam really need sexing up?

The original and best:

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/oldsam.flv” /]

The new, bad version:

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/newsam.flv” /]

What was wrong with the old one? And why is the new one so bad?

Was the person singing it really as drugged up as it sounds?

Is the fact that Sam is no longer ‘there on time’ a commentary on the gradual decline in public services and regular fire service strikes?

Why hasn’t the Daily Mail been complained about this?

Why does life have so many questions and so few answers?

There’s been much speculation over the last few days concerning Charles Kennedy’s drinking past, mainly fueled by the pending release of Greg Hurst’s new book. Essentially, though, it doesn’t seem to say an awful lot more than most people already presumed.

I say past drinking problem – but just exactly how “past” is it? I know that any recovering alcoholic would say they are never really ‘cured’ of alcoholism, but there’s certainly been a general idea that Charles has given up the alcohol after being in an alcohol detox Arizona center for several months, and is doing his best to adjust to life without it: An admirable ideal. Indeed, back in January, when admitting his problem for the first time at an extraordinary press conference, Charles said:

As a matter of fact I’ve not had a drink for the past two months and I don’t intend to in the future.

But Guido now appears to be suggesting that Mr Kennedy may not be living up to the high standard he’s set himself:

Sharper readers of the dead-tree-press will realise that headlines like “Kennedy ‘must recover’ before return” and “Sir Menzies Campbell made clear that he would be welcome but only once he is ‘fully recovered’ ” don’t make sense if he is now sober …

To be fair, when asked on television recently when it was he last had a drink Kennedy avoided answering the question. Guido knows that he has been the worse for wear as recently as June.

I like Mr Kennedy. I don’t think he’s the solution to all the world’s problems, but he was a different kind of politician to those who usually gravitate to the position of leader, and that was probably healthy for democracy. I would really hate for him to be politically damaged further by appearing to be deceiving the public a second time. I don’t think he’s done that yet, but I really think he needs to watch his step, and handle things very carefully and delicately.

Honesty may well be the best policy second time around.

You may have been wondering if your tax money is well spent. You’ll be reassured to know that vast amounts of it (goodness knows how much) have gone in to producing videos like this.

Particular favourite parts for me were the house which was “trashed” by knocking over a single wooden chair, and the fact that headteachers can “manage loo roll” online. That’s a real boon.

On top of this, the wonderful people at the Home Office have launched ads promoting their “Think U Know” website. Yes, that’s radio ads. Reading out the address thinkuknow.co.uk. They’ve now been withdrawn, after it took someone to complain that thinkuknow.co.uk sound exactly like thinkyouknow.co.uk, which is a different website altogether.

Yes, it took a listener to tell the ASA that Think U Know and Think You Know sound the same on radio. Nobody from John Reid to the person doing the recording managed to notice. The ad’s now in the bin.

This government promised to cut waste. Something tells me it’s failing.

Update: As if you weren’t already convinced that the video was a waste of time, I can’t even show it any more!  It’s been withdrawn on the basis that it breached Government copyright. Despite being posted by the Government. Well done.

Ahh, Dixons. That famed electrical store which, three months ago, stopped existing as an actual entity, and turned entirely virtual with a woman poking at non-existing buttons on a non-existing screen and asking a non-existent customer “When do you want it? … That’s not a problem” (at least according to the ads). This was, of course, as parent company Currys ate up the Dixons brand and spat it out.

Dixons. What a marvellous shop it is. And ethically aware, too. It does lots of recycling – not least of press releases.

You may have seen in today’s newspapers and news programmes that Dixons is to stop selling analogue radios, them being so old-hat. This news has had a mixed reaction on the web: Some are cynical, some think it’s a step towards the future, some a sign of the times. But it’s undeniably getting wide coverage. It must be nice for an electrical chain to get so much free advertising of it’s modernity, but I can’t be the only one for whom this story rouses a profound sense of deja vu.

It smells remarkably like a reheated story from last year, when Dixons decided to stop selling 35mm cameras, them being so old-fashioned and uncool. That, again, was seen as a big sea-change in consumer electronics, and generated much free advertising for the chain. But again, there was something not quite fresh about the story.

That might be because the year before, Dixons decided to stop selling video recorders, them being so old-school and obsolete. This generated much free advertising for the chain, and every talking-head worth their appearance-fee told us that this marked a huge shift the consumer electricals market. But some complained that this story might not have been quite as modern as they’d hoped.

Crazy suggestion, but that might just be due to the fact that a whole four months before, Dixons had decided to take a stand and stop selling Manhunt, a computer game which the parents of a murdered schoolboy blamed for his death. “Ooh, look at our corporate responsibility for the modern age” cooed Dixons, to the sound of many press photographs outside their stores. Rumours that they later regretted this when stocks of the game completely sold out in the rest of the country due to massively increased demand thanks to the oxygen of publicity the case provided remain unconfirmed.

By now it must be struggling to think of things to stop selling. It apparently has personal CD players and “boom boxes” on its “endangered list”, but if it’s going to continue at this rate, there’ll be no non-existent buttons left for the virtual Dixons woman to poke at.

The last case I cited is, admittedly, a little different, but it’s hard to deny that Dixons have put out almost exactly the same story for three years running now, simply replacing one piece of technology for another. And yet it still generates acres of media coverage and free advertising. This either means that newspapers don’t realise what Dixons are up to, or simply don’t care about serving three-year-old reheated reports to their readers – after all, it fills another page in the lazy summer months.

Perhaps it’s irony – after all, this latest story is published right alongside the twenty-four-year-old reheated trash about A-Level results, for which the quote in this post (still on my wall) is probably still the best response published in a national newspaper. To anyone getting results today: I hope they’re what you wanted; if not then it might seem tough today, but you have your whole life ahead of you and you can still go on to do many wonderful things. A-Levels are no pre-requisite for greatness.

Earlier this month, Trinity Mirror announced a 13% fall in profits, and hence a wholesale review of its operations. Reaction to this news largely assumed it was the regional papers which were at most risk – but is it? Rumours I’m hearing are suggesting otherwise.

With a 14% year-on-year circulation decrease – the biggest in the Sunday newspaper market – The People is looking on shaky ground. Quite why this is a case when last week’s front page had the earth-shattering exclusive BB PETE PORN SHOOT SHAME (“The Big Brother star who won the hearts of millions with his shy charm is today exposed as a sex-mad gender-bender.”) is unclear to me. However, I’m hearing that The People is likely to be closed before long, as the decline in the Sunday newspaper market as a whole makes resuscitation of the newspaper an unlikely prospect. Although, of course, it’s not entirely unlikely that Trinity Mirror will ditch all its other titles as well, and get out of the newspaper business.

Matt Wells also alludes to the closure of The People in his latest missive about the decline of the tabloid over at Comment is Free. Oh, and we should all have a good laugh at the Daily Star for trying to teach it’s readers Greek in a week (maybe they should start with English), the Daily Mail for withdrawing its You supplement from the newstands after finally realising that there’s nothing in it which anyone would ever want to pay for, and The Sun for printing a front-page story congratulating itself on the previous day’s exclusive – which printing an apology for the very same exclusive on page six.

I do hope that’s cheered you up – unless, of course, you work at The People.

I’m all for silver surfing, and with the positive impact it appears to have had on the life of this 78-year-old widower over his YouTubing career, perhaps it’s something we should be positively encouraging.

For the uninitiated, here’s his first Vlog:

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/silveryoutube.flv” /]

Good for him. And before someone makes the obvious joke, no, he’s not my alter ego.

Animated banners online annoy me. I can just about cope with one on a page, but when bombarded with several like at once, as you are on many previously very user-friendly sites (Digital Spy being a case in point), I tend to get somewhat het up.

Imagine, then, my amusement at discovering this gem of an animating banner at the top of one page on a website which shall remain nameless:

—
Edit: Unfortunately, legal eagles at The National Lottery have insisted that I remove the image that previously appeared here. The image contained a picture of a clearly broken banner, cyclicing between text saying “This null it’s an…” and “estimated jackpot of £0 million”. I’m sorry that I’ve had to spoil your fun! (01/09/2006)
—

The banner animated between those four images, though each image was considerably larger than as reproduced above.

It’s certainly an original marketing strategy, but I’m not sure advertising the most likely payout will be terribly successful. Slight improvement over those awful Billy Connelly lottery ads from a couple of years back, though.

I’m delighted to see Guardian Unlimited leading the way once again with a brand new feature launched this week: G24. Essentially, this presents a multi-page almost magazine-formatted downloadable PDF digest of the very latest news on the website, so that one can print it off and read the very latest news at one’s leisure.

The G24 (a play on the names of ‘G2’ and ‘G3’ sections of the paper) currently comes in five editions: Top Stories, World, Media, Business, and Sport, each updated every fifteen minutes and containing no more than 10 A4 pages.

The launch is covered in more detail in the Editor’s Week column of today’s Grauniad:

This week Guardian Unlimited launched a new print edition – but unlike any newspaper you’ll have come across before. For a start, its distinguishing features appear to owe more to the world of online news than traditional print. It is updated every few minutes, is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is free, and it can be found around the world.

The big difference is that we’re now asking you to, in essence, supply the printing press.

Is this the future of the newspaper? I don’t know. But it’s definitely a service I’ll be using (indeed, it’s one I’d probably be willing to pay for, as I already do for an ad-free Guardian site), and I will be amazed if this isn’t imitated within weeks by competitors.

I think this is a really good idea.