I know these “give me money” things go around all the time so apologies in advance – but here goes…
I’m running 5 marathons in 5 days this September, 131 miles from Brussels to Amsterdam. It’s going to be torturous, arduous and painful-ous but at the same time, probably the greatest achievement of my life so far. I’m running with three friends and we’re aiming to do something amazing while also raising money for our nominated charity, Mary’s Meals. They provide daily meals to chronically hungry children in their local school, and in doing so, children who would otherwise often go without a meal are well fed, encouraged to attend school, and through education gain a better life for themselves.
Our £7,000 target will hopefully lead to more photos like this
We are firm believers in the notion of sustainable giving – that those in need don’t want to rely on handouts for the rest of their lives, but want the tools allow them to improve their lives themselves. A good education is surely the most fundamental of these tools. £7,000 will build a kitchen in a school in Malawi or Liberia through Mary’s Meals’ Sponsor a School scheme. Through this project, all those donating will know which school their money has gone to, and will be able to see photos of the what the money has funded. The last thing we want is for our donations to go into a black hole – 80% of all donations are spent on charity “admin” costs, or so we have read – so having this specific project as our target means that we know where our money is going, which is something I feel very strongly about.
Anyway, here are various web links to our various… things.
If you can afford to donate then it would be massively appreciated, but anything is appreciated really – a retweet, a Facebook update, forwarding this on to your friends; anything.
As an added cry for help, we’re also looking for corporate sponsorships – i.e., getting companies to provide us with some of our resources so that we don’t have to pay for them ourselves. Sadly the runs don’t mean we just have to show up, run loads, then come home. We need things like flights, accommodation, a hire car, drinks, kit, shoes, nutritional supplements, a portable ice bath… you name it. So if you have any contacts who work for companies who might be prepared to chuck any of these things (or anything else you can think of) our way in exchange for some free advertising via our website and various other PR portals, then I’d be really grateful.
Anyway, I’m going to stop rambling now and leave you with pictures of my training schedule (in miles) and our route, in order to try to inspire the sympathy vote. Thanks for reading!
As the old saying goes, charity begins at home. It’s very true, especially in my case – where charity is your cash and home is my JustGiving page.
In my previous entry I mentioned that I’m going to be running marathons and stuff in memory of my nan and to support Alzheimer’s charities. Well, I’ve settled on Alzheimer Scotland as my nominated charity and it’s time to start begging for some cash.
My last entry mentioned giving me some money via PayPal but that hasn’t done anything so I thought I’d set up a JustGiving page instead. At the time of writing I’m approximately 0% of the way to my £500 total so please give generously and help me hit my target. Below is a clever Flash widget to give constant updates on my progress – so if you see this page and the widget says I’m below 100%, you are morally obliged to donate immediately. Court order.
So thanks for donating, thanks for reading, and if you’re still not convinced to give me some money, just have a look at the picture below, then click on “Donate”. You know you’ve got to.
February is here already; it seems like January disappeared in a blur of singing and drinking. However after the January hangover came the sobering news that my Nan passed away on February 3rd after an extended hospital stay. She was 87 years old, which is an exceptional knock by all accounts. I don’t want to turn this into a depressing entry about the nature of life and death but I would like to quickly mention the things I remember about my Nan.
We hadn’t seen each other for quite a while; what with me living in Scotland these days I don’t get a chance to head down south very often, though that is just an excuse. It’s an unfortunate symptom of our family that many of us aren’t particularly close, and don’t talk to each other much – if it weren’t for Facebook I don’t think I would have contact with any of my cousins, which would be a desperate shame because they’re all such wonderful people. I’m rambling a bit here; the point is, I hadn’t seen Nan for at least 18 months mostly because since becoming an adult, we drifted apart in terms of contacting one another. So all my memories of her are from my childhood – though I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
I remember Nan’s house had a doorway from living room to kitchen, but no door – she always had those plastic streamer things hanging down from the frame. They used to keep me amused for hours when I was in my pre-teen years… misspent youth or what. I remember her dog, Cindy, who was apparently not a Great Dane according to my cousin Kate (thanks cuz!) but, either way, was much bigger than me. Like all kids, I used to want to ride Cindy and made several attempts to do so – usually being castigated by my mum, quite rightly, at every attempt. Cindy was a lovely old girl and I was sad when I heard she had passed away; I couldn’t imagine Nan without her.
I remember Nan always used to have doilies everywhere, even in places that didn’t require doilies. Then again, I suppose doilies don’t stick to the rules. They play their own game. I remember that she had a Pink Panther lamp that I was desperate to see in action, but always sat on a shelf out of my reach so I couldn’t even accidentally break it.
I remember she used to cook us roast dinners every now and then, but it was always her cakes that got me. Nan was never short of a cake. Whenever we went around to visit, it was the first thing she would do after we opened the door – would you like a piece of cake, Michael? Nan always, always used to make fruit cakes laced with raisins and sultanas – sometimes I’d suggest they were more sultana than cake. As as kid, if you’re given a free choice of cake, you’d never choose fruit cake. It seemed far too healthy and that’s-what-they-want-you-to-eat for me. I’d always eat Nan’s cake though, regardless, because I wanted her to think I liked it even when I wasn’t sure. Doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a pretty big sacrifice for a kid to make.
Ivy May Paul, 1922-2010, with my Uncle Chris. Sweet dreams Nan.
I’m planning on running a series of 10k, half and full marathons for Alzheimer’s charities this spring – Nan suffered with dementia at the end, and Alzheimer’s disease is something that’s sorely under-funded in the UK at the moment. Plus I’m going to the gym a lot more these days and trying to get myself into a nice shapely shape so everything falls together quite nicely. Details of my runs (so far!) are:
What’s being billed by expert commentators as the greatest holiday of all time is taking place in two days’ time as the wonderful scarlet-clad bimbos of Virgin Atlantic will whisk me away to sunny California where the sun is shining, the beer is flowing and the love is free – particularly if you hang around the back streets of San Francisco late at night.
Artist's impression
For those of you that care, my lovely German fraü (umlaut optional) and I will be travelling first to LA, then Hollywood, Palm Springs, San Francisco, San José, Las Vegas, San Diego and probably other places as well. I know that Vegas isn’t in California so really I should be talking about our America trip but this is my blog so screw you.
You will have to permit me, dear reader, to be a bit sad now in admitting that the thing I’m really looking forward to is going to see David Beckham’sLA Galaxy playing at the Home Depot Center against San José. It’s going to be a holiday filled with life-changing experiences (see Backstreet Boys, above) but getting to see Becks play while we’re out there is going to be a real treat for me. Say what you want about the man and his silly voice, but he’s the ultimate professional and a complete role-model of mine. I’d rather meet him than that tosspiece Mickey Mouse any day.
Swoon. Oh, uh, I mean... handshake.
My awesome uncle Chris and his awesome wife Mia live in Palm Springs and I’m really looking forward to seeing / meeting them; think I last saw Chris about 12 years ago and Mia, who I suppose is technically my aunt… step aunt? I don’t know. But we’ve never met anyway so that should be fun. To be honest it’s going to be fun for me regardless because she’s a vegan, so I will enjoy endlessly mocking her diet safe in the knowledge that she doesn’t have the bone density to fight back.
Splish-splash
Our base for the trip will be the beautiful Ocotillo Lodge in Palm Springs, which used to be home to the Rat Pack in the 1950s. It’s now been refurbished with a gym and other modern amenities, and has a massive cork-shaped pool (that’s CORK-shaped, not what you were thinking) – apparently the largest one in Palm Springs.
That's the second biggest cork-shaped pool I've ever seen!
So I suppose we’ll be spending some time there, having a run in the gym and a dip in the pool, lounging around in the sun reading books and listening to music, you know… the hard life. And if that gets too strenuous we can just pop down the road to the Hot Springs and have some spa treatments. I’m sure all that eating and sleeping is going to knot me up real fancy like!
You know what’s going to really annoy you? We get to stay here for nothing and we probably won’t even be there very much because we’re going travelling around the state. Yes, we’re going to probably spend six or seven days in this paradise but shun it for the rest of the time. That’s right. Fill me with your hate.
Preppy Prep
The packing has started in earnest; I’ve chosen a comically oversized bag that’s twice the size it actually needs to be so that I can bring stuff back. Hotels still give away free towels, right? Well even if they don’t, I fully intend to use my mighty Pound Sterling and his sidekick, HSBC Foreign Exchange Boy, to smash the crap out of the puny American Dollar with some purchases that would make even the most ardent capitalist blush.
Feel that Washington? That's Elizabeth II dominating your face.
From my last trip stateside I remember them not knowing how to price or even name football boots which made for some very economically friendly purchases. Sadly for me, my hero David will have completely fucked me over in that respect; having now made “soccer” an acceptable sport in the land of spray-on cheese they probably know what the equipment is worth, the bastard. I might ask him for a pair of boots and a ball at the game, us Brits have got to stick together. He’ll understand. But yeah, if you know me and have any requests for things I can bring you back, leave me a comment on this post. I like comments.
I don’t want to write too much, otherwise this post will just become a very boring itinerary of our journey. Suffice to say I have lots of lovely recommendations from friends and colleagues to go along with the stuff we’ve already got booked, so we should have an awesome time. I’ll try to keep this bad boy updated wherever possible but, for now, goodbye Scotland, work and freezing temperatures. Hello sun, beaches and wonderful, wonderful excesses.
It’s been an interesting old weekend for me so I thought I’d share it with you, Internet. I am rather fond of you and I feel you don’t have enough pointless blogs floating about on you as it is. I’ve also chosen what you will later discover is a brilliantly deep and multi-layered title because I’m a motherfuckin’ lyrical wordsmith motherfuckin’ genius.
Is it because breaded has something to do with genius... which swims?
Firstly, and most importantly, this weekend marked the return of the Lothian Lions from a two-year wilderness that was brought about as a result of my broken bones and co-founder Ollie’s selfish year abroad in super-gay Paris. For the uninitiated, the Lions are a football team formed by Ollie and myself in 2006 who played in the Edinburgh Uni league (no I’m not a student, but it’s cool apparently) and shot to instant fame around the city by acquiring team sponsorship from Big Daddy O’s, a local and fantastically-named strip club on Lothian Road in the city centre. We actually attracted players based on this sponsorship agreement and it turned out to be a great bit of PR for us. We played ok, won a few, lost a few, but most importantly Nick – our team’s resident “lad” – managed to get lucky with a few of the strippers at one time or another which we all agreed was the objective of the team from day one. Nick, your legend will live forever.
Like this but with stripper instead of dog. Oh wait, no. It's the same.
Then I broke my ankle in a tackle (yes, I broke my own ankle, well done there) which, as the team’s star player, was a blow and I think the rest of the lads didn’t really fancy it after that. Well, that and most of the fixtures were cancelled because of waterlogged pitches but I like to think the team would have been too upset to play in my absence anyway. So then Ollie went off to France and I couldn’t be bothered to run the team on my own so it kinda disappeared… until yesterday, where we had our first pre-season friendly ahead of the 2009/10 Edinburgh Uni league season. Very exciting. It was even exciting after the first five or six goals had gone in, and I’m still excited today although the other team apparently got into double-figures. Keeping score is for geeks. The important thing is we’re back, and once our players actually know each other’s names and get used to playing on a pitch that’s bigger than someone’s living room I think we’ll be ok. It’s a plan anyway…
On-Lions
More lions in the news today, though to a lesser extent of course, are the Three Lions of the England football team who have a world cup qualifier against Ukraine this coming Saturday. The news surrounding this game is that it will be shown exclusively online – no terrestrial TV, no satellite TV, no pubs. Just on the internet, on your computer, in your bedroom, alongside your porn and your CV. Weird thought isn’t it? It’s going to be streaming live on the site www.ukrainevengland.com and will cost you “at least £4.99″ to view. The “at least” part bothers me; just set a fucking price you bellends. Anyway.
I’m a huge fan and exponent of things being on the internet. I love the internet. There are also other factors at work here, such as the fact that the game was originally going to be screened by the now-defunct wanker-operated Setanta Sports. This means that there was a massive amount of money paid for the rights to the game, although Setanta never actually had that money, but it has been promised to and most likely spent by the Ukraine FA or whoever it was that received it. So that money has to be recouped somewhere and therefore charging people to watch the game, while lame, I can understand. Also from an England fan’s point of view, the game is a dead rubber. We’ve already qualified top of this group so we don’t need to win or even draw the game, it doesn’t matter to us. So it seems like a good opportunity to experiment with having the first-ever match solely streaming online for a game that no-one will really be that pissed off about if they miss.
Apart from this kid. He is ALWAYS pissed off.
The problem with this plan is that football isn’t really a sport that lone geeks, such as myself, will want to watch sitting on their own in front of their computers in their bedrooms. It’s something that people watch together, at the pub with a pint or round the house of your mate with the biggest telly. Generally monitors are between 15 and, in minor cases, 22 inches, and usually situated in places that don’t really support loads of your mates gathering together to drink beer and eat pizza. I also object to having to pay £4.99 for a game just because the cretins at Setanta went bust for spending millions of pounds that they didn’t actually have buying rights to matches; I didn’t have a Setanta subscription before and would have still seen this game for free at the pub, so why should I now have to pay? There are lots of problems with this proposal and I think there’s going to be unrest about it. As I say, I’m a great fan of having things streaming on the internet and wouldn’t mind paying for it if it was a guaranteed stream that wasn’t going to die halfway through, but I don’t want it to be my only option. I want to choose to not go to the pub with my friends and instead stay at home, in my room, watching the football on my computer in my pants so that I can stalk people on Facebook and look up midget wrestling (among other things) at half-time.
3 feet, 2 inches of pure destruction
So it’s a nice plan, people who run www.ukrainevengland.com, but I think your best laid plan… might… you know.
Mouse Trap
We had a mouse in our room on Saturday night and the little bastard kept me awake until 3am. It then managed to climb up actually onto our bed when we finally got to sleep and have a little poo. It’s possibly the most disgusting animal-related thing that’s happened to me since the goat incident that we don’t talk about any more, and I’m not particularly happy about it. For posterity, it didn’t actually go anywhere near us – it was behind our pillows that were slightly off the wall where they usually are, but still… not ideal.
I have now set up a cunning network of traps (read: one trap) in an attempt to capture said mouse and his disgusting feces-based rampage. I actually don’t really have a problem with mice; fundamentally they aren’t rats or cockroaches, which is a massive bonus. They’re still disgusting but in a big old run-down flat like ours you’re always going to get them here and there. Before last night I hadn’t seen one for months – I guess it’s because it’s getting pretty cold in the UK now and the poor little blighter just wanted to cuddle up to us and have a nice warm snooze. No, no, stop humanising it. It’s fucking horrible.
Fuck you Mickey you disgusting bed-fouling prick
So anyway, I’ve got a plan to stop this happening again; an intricate and cunning plan which has lots of clever and tiny details to it but basically revolves around getting an exterminator to come in and poison the little wankers. It won’t work though, they breed faster than 15-year-old chavs in Croxteth so there’s no getting rid of them. Ah well. At least I saw my amazing title through to the end. Motherfuckin’ gay fish yo.
It’s all fake. The matches are rigged. The acting is terrible. They’re just pretending to be hurt.
These are just some of the criticisms levelled at professional wrestling and the people who dare to mention being fans. It’s almost a taboo subject in some places; I’ve been verbally abused in the past for enjoying wrestling as if I’m some kind of drooling imbecile who really believes the big men are hurting each other, for cheering on one competitor over another despite the matches being fixed or for daring to stay up until 4am to watch the big pay-per-views a few times a year rather than simply going to bed like everyone else. I’m not saying there aren’t people out there covered in drool and repeatedly walking into the same bit of wall who really do believe that everything they’re seeing is “real”, but then again, how do you actually define “real”?
I bet that fire isn't even hot.
It’s easy to see why so many people in the world don’t like wrestling; or rather, I should say, who don’t like the idea of wrestling, because inevitably none of them have ever actually watched it or tried to enjoy it. They find it very difficult to grasp the concept of these men (and women, but let’s focus on the men for the sake of argument) dedicating their lives to sculpting their bodies to the point where Adonis would get a complex and learning intricate and complicated sets of fighting manoeuvres that are specifically designed not to cause any serious harm to the other guy but look like they are. Of course, the wrestlers themselves get paid pretty well; some of them earn millions of dollars a year doing what they do, so it’s easy to see where their motivation comes from. I don’t mean to say that they’re all in it for the money, but it must certainly be a perk.
However, I’m not here to discuss that. No, the reason for this post is to finally dispel the two wrestling myths that are: 1. Everything you see isn’t real, and therefore 2. Everyone who regularly watches it has got something wrong with them.
There’s no question that the wrestlers in a pro-wrestling ring aren’t trying to hurt or injure one another – they’re trying to help each other to make the moves look as devastating and painful as possible without actually causing too much harm. I use the words “too much” quite deliberately because, however you look at it, there’s no way for them to do some of the things they do without hurting themselves, even if – by wrestler standards – they’re not hurt too badly. A wrestling ring generally has one gigantic spring underneath it in the middle to both stop it from collapsing and to absorb some of the impact. This leads some people to think it’s like a trampoline, but naturally this isn’t the case. The tension of the spring is set so that it absorbs maximum impact without the wrestlers visibly bouncing around whenever they hit the mat; otherwise, a wrestling match would be akin to two grown men in their underpants gaying it up on a bouncy castle.
You be Spiderman. Now shoot your sticky goo in my face!
No, I can testify that a wrestling mat is hard. I had a friend at uni who was a pro-wrestler and I once did a spot of ring announcing for an event in Reading – I watched them set up and I spent a lot of time in the ring, and I can tell you, I wouldn’t want to be knocked over onto it, let alone picked up and forcibly driven into it back-first. One current WWE wrestler recently said that the impacts of a wrestling match are equivalent to being in a series of 20mph car crashes. Not necessarily serious by themselves, but if you’re doing that for hours at a time five days a week you’re eventually going to need to make a sheepish call to your insurance company.
However, despite probably being in the sort of pain that you or I would take a few minutes to recover from with, perhaps, a nice sit down, a cup of tea and a quick check on Google to assess the chances of fused vertebrae, wrestlers have to get right up and take the next hit. And the next, and the next, and so on, leaving them very little recovery time between each move they take or perform. So, in reality, a lot of the time wrestlers aren’t pretending to be hurt: they arehurt, but they’re pretending not to be. This is something that seems to totally escape most wrestling naysayers. There have been guys who have suffered broken bones, muscles and tendons completely torn away and even the humiliation of their pants slipping down halfway through a match but unfortunately for them, as we all know, this is a show. And the show must go on. It didn’t look very compelling at the time, but when Stone Cold Steve Austin had his neck broken halfway through a match and still finished it, I realised all this for myself.
Now obviously he was booked to win the match, hence the ridiculous-looking finish. But I think it kinda supports my argument in the most potentially paralysing way. The overarching point I’m trying to make is that, yes, the match outcomes are pre-determined. We all know this. We also know that the guys in the ring are trying to strike a balance between making their moves look dangerous while not totally incapacitating each other and, in fact, trying to protect one another at all times. However, to call this fake is just not fair – it’s incredibly skillful, and some of the wrestlers, both male and female, are among the best athletes I’ve ever seen. The people taking part are legitimately hurt quite a lot of the time and sometimes get hurt very seriously – they’re putting themselves in danger by getting in the ring, it’s not a picnic regardless of how much they try to avoid hurting each other. And, more to the point, it’s compelling; if you’re prepared to tune in long enough to appreciate some of the remarkable feats of strength, agility and balls that take place on a typical show (metal folding chairs and kendo sticks to the face fucking hurt, I don’t care what anyone says), it’s rippingly good fun to watch.
Oooh, stop it, it tickles!
And so we come on to the people who sit down and enjoy wrestling. Let’s assume that you’re on board with what I’ve said above, but now you’re asking about the often-absurd storylines, plot twists and characters that have more holes than a slice of swiss cheese that’s turned a shotgun on itself. Surely these are indefensible? Well, no. There’s a girl I used to work with who would scoff at me for being excited about the Royal Rumble but then spend the next half an hour talking about Eastenders as if it was really happening. For me, there’s very little difference in terms of what you’re doing when you sit down in front of these shows – you’re suspending disbelief, you’re investing yourself in the entertainment and you’re allowing yourself to be lost in another world for an hour or so. It’s escapism at its finest, and if you choose to read about things going on behind the scenes and then relate that back to what you’re seeing on the television, a whole new world of real-life interest opens itself up to you. Wrestling storylines are no different to or more ridiculous than soap opera storylines – they’re appropriate for the world that the scriptwriters create. If the doors of the Queen Vic burst open and Phil Mitchell strode in through a dry-ice cloud wearing a one-piece leotard to the tune of “Eye Of The Tiger”, people would be confused. And so it is the same with wrestling; the things that happen are appropriate to their surroundings and moreover, the people watching it come to expect a level of ridiculousness and are happy to just go with it. It’s fun. You should try it some time!
So my first proper blog is mostly to test out the limits of WordPress and to try to figure out all these little features and widgets and niggles and trinkets. However, seeing as I’m here, I might as well also use it to go on a bloody great rant about “Digital Britain” and its various spin-off issues, and how the people frequently speaking about it in the press are out-of-touch with the realities of the situation. I like to call them “berks”. It’s an under-used insult and one that I feel is nicely appropriate.
Not to be confused with this Berk, who I'm actually rather fond of.
Ostensibly the irritation that has prompted this post has been caused by an article on the BBC website today; a website and organisation that I’ve got a lot of time for, in all honesty. The BBC gets a lot of crap from a lot of commentators but when it comes to leading from the front, at least in a web 2.0 sense, they do a pretty bloody good job. BBC iPlayer is a tremendous addition to an already impressive website, and something that I appreciate being made readily available to me as a license-fee payer despite not having a TV aerial that works. I like being able to watch Top Gear at 11pm, on my computer, while simultaneously playing Football Manager and chatting to friends on Skype and MSN. It’s 2009; men can multi-task now, as long as it doesn’t require us to take our faces away from just the one screen.
However, some berks have today said that the corporation should start to charge for catch-up programming on iPlayer á la iTunes. Now, I realise that hundreds of post-Y2K products having a lower-case ‘i’ in front of them so that they sound more 21st Century is getting slightly confusing and that we also live in a world where making money is most people’s ultimate aim. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t trying to make as much money as possible at every opportunity possible while exerting the least effort possible, and these people are exactly the same. However, they seem to have not only missed the point entirely, but also I would suggest have totally made up some “research” to support their views.
Here is one berk...
Lorraine Heggessey, CEO of Talkback Thames (the illustrious company that brought us such “entertainment” gems as WAGs Boutique and Dale’s Supermarket Sweep) and Steve Hewlett, a man whose views I generally agree with despite him being associated with The Guardian but who has got it all wrong this time, both think that the rich, undertaxed general populous of Britain should be made to pay for catch-up online programming like that found on iPlayer.
The fundamental problem with this is that it’s not a viable way for them to make money – and let’s get this straight, they’re not thinking about the BBC’s revenues when they suggest that iPlayer should charge for shows. Heggessey in particular knows full well that her company can’t start trying to charge for catch-up programmes online if the BBC don’t set the precedent. Not that I can believe anyone would pay to see a repeat of Minder.
However along with some gems from Hewlett* comes some startling research from Fremantle Media, who are by complete coincidence the company that own Hennessey’s Talkback Thames. The research apparently concludes, and I quote,
“Research carried out by Fremantle suggests that people would be willing to pay up to £2 for certain shows.”
...and here's another
I’d be very keen to find out exactly who was asked and what questions were put to them for Fremantle to come up with this conclusion, because I reckon I could do a straw poll that would blow their research out of the water. My single question would be,
How much would you be prepared to pay to watch BBC TV shows online using iPlayer, bearing in mind that they are currently available online and on BBC television for absolutely nothing?
I’m pretty confident that everyone within a one hundred mile radius would come up with the same answer. The question isn’t what do you think a show is worth, rather, how much are you prepared to pay for them when your license fee means you’ve already paid to watch them on your television? It’s absurd. Some will argue that having catch-up TV still costs more than not, which I appreciate. However the BBC rakes in a good £3.4bn each year from license fees, so I think they can probably just about scrape the barrel. And, to be fair to the corporation, they have said in that same article that they have no plans to start charging for iPlayer content. Quite right too.
ITV aren’t complaining because they stick ads into their catch-up and live online streams, and for me this is the way for companies like Talkback Thames to make their money. By forcing people to start paying for programmes that they are currently getting for free they’re only going to succeed in alienating their online audiences in the pursuit of bottom-line – and this is the absolutely fundamental problem with all the people who are making these ridiculous suggestions about how to police or charge people when they’re using the internet. You can’t just cut people off for downloading things illegally because it’s not that simple, and you can’t just start making people pay for services that they’re currently getting for nothing because the very nature of the web means that there’s almost always some other means of acquiring the material you want. Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it has so many opportunities for creative people to make money – depressingly, it appears that the people in the media industries that we have revered as being the height of creativity for so long are just as lazy and stupid as the rest of us.
Ooh! Ooh! I've thought an ideas!
The other thing of course is that there’s no sign that catch-up shows being made available online for free is damaging anyone’s revenues; all that’s happening is that some people who don’t think they’ve quite got enough money already have spotted an opportunity to try to squeeze a bit more out of the resources they have available. What they don’t seem to realise is that they’re not ripping off Generation X or the baby boomers any more: they’re dealing with Generation Y here, and we know far more about all this than they do.
*Gems from Hewlett include: “At iTunes prices, I would pay” and “The BBC never thought it was appropriate to give away DVDs, so why should catch-up be free?” Well, perhaps because DVDs cost money to manufacture, burn, package and distribute you cretin?
Hello internet. I thought I should introduce myself properly… I’ve spent so much time looking at you over the years but have never plucked up the courage to really say anything. So this is it, I hope I get it right…
Will you go down on me? Oh, no, I mean go out with me! Shit.
Well that’s that fucked already. It’s only uphill from here.
Hello internet. I thought I should introduce myself properly… I’ve spent so much time looking at you over the years but have never plucked up the courage to really say anything. So this is it, I hope I get it right…
Will you go down on me? Oh, no, I mean go out with me! Shit.
Well that’s that fucked already. It’s only uphill from here.
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