Today's BBC News - 14th November 2017

Hello.

It's been a while since I've done this, or indeed anything on this particular blog (check out the Team Snow blog for more fun), but I thought I'd play the "what's popular on the BBC news website" game.

1. Trump Jr posts 'whopping' replies to Wikileaks

I can only assume this is a story about how Donald Trump's son spends a lot of time updating Wikileaks pages, possibly to refute claims that his father is a psychopath/sex offender/idiot. The BBC's "most read" are often dominated by American politics, or stories which are really vaguely related to American politics, which I can only assume is because the British political scene is so depressing. I guess we're all a little bit concerned that whatever the Donald is doing today might eventually be taught as a key "trigger point" in future school textbooks about World War 3, or the War of the Fragile Ego as it will undoubtedly be known.

Anyway, I've now read the story and still don't really know what the relevance of it all is. Wikileaks contacted Donald Trump Jr (which is both an egocentric and lazy way of naming your child) who replied three times. There is the suggestion that persons in Trump's election campaign were using Wikileaks to leak sensitive material, possibly about the Clinton campaign. This has all been brought about by The Atlantic magazine. As far as I can tell the overall article is explaining something of a minor footnote in the bigger story of unethical campaigning and Russia getting "all up" in America's junk. If you can tell me why this is particularly interesting to the readership of the BBC, please do.



2. N Korea defector 'was shot five times'

Firstly, why shortern "North?" Secondly, what does it matter how many times he was shot. This is one of those intentionally obtuse headlines designed to pique the reader's interest by diguising the fact that the story, although fairly interesting to some people, is not that exciting. A better headline would be "North Korean defector shot whilst crossing DMZ to South Korea." That's pretty much the whole story. A soldier decided that he wanted to go to South Korea by crossing the exceptionally dangerous demilitarised zone between the two countries. He was then shot at by lots of other North Korean soldiers. He is now unconscious but still alive. I think my favourite element of the story is that, although five bullets have been removed, he is still suspected to contain a couple more. Where does the "was shot five times" quote come from? Of course a soldier trying to run across no-man's land to join a sworn enemy is going to be shot. I'm not sure how bothered I am by finding out every time someone tries to get from N Korea to S Korea, I imagine it happens a lot. I am excited about renaming all the countries of the World "Korea" but just giving them a different alphabetical, numerical or non-alphanumeric prefix though.



3. Iran quake survivors plead for help

There was a news article about hundreds of people dying and thousands being injured on the Iran/Iraq border. Then there was this emotive headline about survivors pleading for help. It's not a fun story (I'm not sure why there are no fun stories any more) and the idea of people "pleading" makes you wonder who is pleading, why they have to plead, who is withholding/blocking aid, etc.

I've read the whole piece and whilst there are quotes from people who have been rendered homeless by the disaster, are suffering severe cold whilst living in makeshift camps, and who "need everything," I'm not entirely sure who is pleading. One woman makes it clear that "the authorities should speed up their help" but there's no explicit mention of pleading. Rightly, many people want help and are asking for help, but pleading's a weird word to use. The whole thing describes some of the awful conditions people are facing, whilst explaining that aid is coming, but not quickly enough for the conditions. I think it's a bit unkind to the survivors to portray them as begging for help though, although I'm sure they would be justified. Whether the writer is justified in using the "pleading" headline without there being any further mention of pleading... not sure.


4. May accuses Putin of election meddling

Call me a left-wing cynic but I would bet actual money on a more appropriate headline being "May tries to deflect attention away from failing Brexit negotiations/government." I would be massively surprised if Theresa's come out with a statement suggesting that Putin, or Russia, or aliens, have compromised the recent British General Election or referendum on British EU membership. Let's have a look-see...

What she's done is bring up the various things Russia have been doing to agitate "the West" including "medding in [unspecified] elections." It's a Brexit negotiation tactic! Give us a good deal Europe, we'll help you fend off those pesky Russkies. You can't trust them can you? But I tell you what you can trust, a Conservative-run Britain. They wouldn't endanger the relationship between European countries or take a course of action which is to the detriment of everyone, just to maintain power in their own country.

Good old-fashioned Cold War politics; if you're doing a rubbish job running your own country, point at the Russians, make it "us and them" and blame them for anything which might otherwise be your own damn fault. Good work Theresa.


5. Sumo wrestling rocked by 'bottle assault'

Say what you like about the ancient sport/art form that is sumo wrestling, but WWE never has a story in the top ten of the BBC's most read. The big question is whether one big fat Japanese (common misconception, the best ones are Mongolian) man hit another heavy Asian chap with a bottle during an actual sumo contest? The answer is no. The story reveals that we know very little about what exactly happened, but what we do know is everyone involved is feeling a bit ashamed by the whole situation. We do know one man hit another man with a bottle. The "assault" was nothing as simple as buying another person a bottle of Fosters. You all know not to bring a knife to a gun fight, now you can add the mantra "do not bring a bottle to a sumo fight." The news actually provides the perfect opportunity to learn more about the time-honoured wrestling through various links and videos. 


6. FDA approves trackable pill

We were all hoping that American authorities had approved some sort of edible tracking device, so that future movie chases could have the suspect tracked from inside. Once again, this is an American story so, for all I remember, the FDA could be the Federal Defence Agency or the Fantastic Dancing Amigos, making it more likely to be about espionage and implicit human rights violations by US agencies. However the FDA are in charge of food and drugs (well done them) so the story is about pharmaceuticals. You can take a pill and an externally-worn patch connected to a nearby smartphone may (or, apparently, may not) know you have taken it. Can't see any problems with that proposed system...


7. 9 to 5? Make it 8 till 4, actually...

I'm just going to copy the first three paragraphs so you can understand exactly how dull this story is.

"Two thirds of British workers would prefer to start and end their working day earlier than the traditional 9am to 5pm, a new survey has found.

YouGov said starting at 8am and finishing at 4pm was the most popular option, chosen by 25% of respondents.

Another 13% said they would prefer to work 8.30am to 4.30pm, while 10% favoured 7am to 3pm."

Arrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh! Seriously? That's what people read. People prefer to work different times from 9am to 5pm. Really? Who cares? Also, who doesn't know that people don't work hours based on Dolly Parton songs? The only thing I find "interesting" about this article is the word "till." Surely that's not right. I might word 8 'til 4, perhaps (if employed in retail) on a till, but "till" cannot be short for until. That's the headline.

I've written an article for the BBC. The headline is "The Prince of Wales doesn't find dogs sexy, does he?" It's got a royal angle, a sex angle and everyone loves (not like that) dogs. Maximum hits. The article itself is just "I asked the Prince of Wales if he thought dogs were sexy. He said no."


8. 'A World Cup without Italy is like a pizza without cheese'

Three things I want to know:
A. Who said this? Who are we quoting here? It's has to be Pele or above to be worthwhile.
B. Did they consider comparing Italy's absence to spaghetti bolognaise without parmesan cheese?
C. Are they saying that the World Cup is now just garlic bread?

The answer to arguably all of the above is that the "reporter" is quoting one Italy fan who posted exactly that phrase on Twitter. The whole article is just a recap of some social media reaction to Italy failing to qualify for the World Cup. The "Italy fan" was suspiciously writing in English and did, at no stage, suggest they were a fan. They just posted that one line. The "journalist" then made that into a thin article using the tweet as a headline. That's news! I hope the twitter-person is getting paid the article fee.

"So you're a journalist?"
"Yeah"
"How do you get your stories?"
"I wait for the news to happen, then I see what people think about the news once it has happened by following the #hashtags"
"What? What famous people think, or people involved in the news?"
"Err, sometimes. Mainly just the public."
"Oh. OK. Bye."


9.  Jimmy Fallon's emotional tribute to his mother

Now I had the feeling that he was some sort of host. He is. His mother died. He took a week off. He then came back and made an emotional tribute to her. Bless him. This is vaguely "entertainment news" but mixed with grief. Now sure who reads this type of article. All the best to him, but still don't understand the interest. Unless Jimmy Fallon or his mother are much more well-known than I realise.


10. UK doctor 'punches shark' in surfing scare

He's not a professional, just a doctor. If he worked at Superdrug, would the deadline have read "UK shop worker...?" Probably not. Anyway, I guess people just read this to see the video (ironically, as "Most Watched" is a separate list on the BBC). They will be partially disappointed, as the chap wasn't even wearing an action camera (GoPro-type thing, although literally hundreds of cheaper and equally good alternatives are available). However, it does give everyone an excuse to watch a video of when a professional surfer bopped a shark on the nose. I'm not saying the "doctor" just saw a fish and freaked out, or even that he made the whole thing up (being a doctor included, he actually works in Superdrug), but the only evidence I'm seeing is some very superficial wounds and standing in front of a surfboard. As our Donald would say, fake news. Nah, it's probably true. Just not very interesting.


Now I remember why I don't do this. Long. 
 

Today's BBC News - 21st Jan: Trump

Ok, after the last one was far too long, here is a shorter (hopefully) reading of the top ten news results on the BBC today. Fortunately it's a bit more straightforward than last time.

1. Trump takes first steps as president

For anyone else, this would seem quite a straightforward task. However, like the idiot who almost walks straight into you on a busy pavement because they're staring at their phone, who knows what international crisis he may unwittingly stumble into, are whose genitals he may grab at to try and stay upright.

Actually the article was a general run-down of the inauguration, with a picture of Trump signing something (not with a closed sharpie pen) and fat Trump supporters looking stupid. Essentially, Obama's gone despite everyone loving him and a moron is now in charge.

2. At least 16 die in Italy school bus crash

This story is never going to be funny. Italy's having a bit of a rough time at the moment, what with all the avalanches, earthquakes and whatnot. Now buses are crashing. No-one's replaced their facebook profile pictures with an Italy flag yet, but maybe that's because they're having lots of small disasters, rather than a big one (like America/the UK).

3. Compare 2009 inauguration with 2017

No. That's just depressing. Everyone was happy in 2009, we were fairly prosperous and stable. Obama came into power with a message of hope. It was lovely. Now, this.

Essentially, in 2009, there were more crowds, everyone was smiling, and no-one was setting limos on fire.

4. Gambia's Jammeh says he will step down

Which is what he said in the first place, before he decided not to. I don't know about you, but I don't trust Jammeh.

Apparently, he has very graciously said that "not a drop of blood will be shed" in the transition of power to the ex-Argos employee who won the general election. How awfully civilised of him. Also, other African states and the UN were lining up to forcefully depose him. So, Jammeh's getting out. He's also leaving the country. Nothing suspicious about that. I hope the new leader of The Gambia (which I've learnt has retained the definite article because the name is based on the river that runs the length of it and because a British diplomat asked them to so no-one would confuse it with Zambia) brings some of his Argos experience into running the country: I can't think of anything specific, but big free catalogues and buying at one desk before waiting at another. You should be able to make that premise funny yourself...

5. Trump @POTUS used Obama crowd image

I'm hoping the President's twitter account literally used a photo of a crowd of Barack Obamas for some reason. If everyone at the inauguration had been issued with free Obama facemasks, that would have been a worthwhile enterprise. That or a picture of a crowd, taken by President Obama himself, possibly of a crowd of porpoises (which is the collective noun).

It's not. The account simply used a stock photo of loads of people looking happy rather than quite a few people looking stupid.

6. Austria 'foils terror attack' in Vienna

What are the parentheses about here? Either they foiled a terror attack or they didn't, surely. By introducing that element of uncertainty, it makes the story potentially more interesting, or at least more intriguing. Did the Austrians accidentally stop a terror attack, in a bungling Pink Panther sort of way? Maybe they foiled something, but are not currently sure whether it was terror-related or just a "normal" attack. Perhaps they discovered a suspicious device and then covered it in reams of tin foil.

Right, the Austrian police have arrested a man who apparently has links to Jihadist organisations, thus terror has been avoided. It's a bit tenuous. He wasn't arrested wearing a bomb-vest, or bomb-jacket, or bomb-culottes, or whatever. I'm pretty sure there's a strong right-wing party/following in Austria, so they'll love this sort of thing. And there's not enough right-wing nonesense going on at the moment. Come back to me when you can reasonably take the parentheses away from the headline.

7. Brexiteers in warning to German business

We are going to leave Europe regardless of how much damage it does to your, and our, economy. We think that Britain can take an isolationist stance like America and get away with it, because we have no concept of our actual size or influence as a country. We will stop buying German goods (like literally all the decent cars) so that's going to cripple your economy, especially when you can buy any components or raw materials from Britain at a much reduced rate, lowering production costs when the pound is worth half of what it was, and we don't really export anything anyway so... wait a minute. Ha, ha, here's one: your country won't be able to handle the influx of business, banking organisations and skilled migrants who are forced to leave the UK because of its impoverished place in the international community. You already have a higher population, GDP, happiness index and number of politicians who make themselves clear and don't renege of previous promises, so how will you handle the increased commerce/well-being/reputation? Now we're leaving Europe America are going to come directly to you, without bothering to pay lip-service to the UK, so you have to deal with Trump and all their trade. With us out of Europe, you'll have more power and influence amongst the EU states, improving trade for all your businesses, how are you going to fulfill those orders, eh?

I presume these are most of the warnings. That and "Britain is now ruled by idiots, wouldn't you like to move to another neighbourhood?"

In fact, the piece is about the various Leave campaign leaders sabre-rattling and talking utter incomprehensible shite. Which isn't really news. It's only a short while before someone suggests declaring war as a negotiation tactic. Note to self: push for war, conscript Leave voters, put them in landing craft, send landing craft far far away, make amends with Europe, get on with our hitherto privileged lives.

8. Fury as Polanski picked for film panel

He is a convicted nonce after all. Is it the childrens' film awards? Is he presenting the award for young actor of the year? The problem is, despite Roman getting a seriously reduced sentence (and, essentially, "away with it") he is still employed as a film director. I'm pretty sure this will be a straightforward story that he has been picked as a judge on a standard film panel and some people don't like it. Now I'm not saying that the difference between Roman Polanski and Donald Trump is simply one of conviction, but Trump has said/done some pretty horrible things and has just been made President of the USA, Polanski has been asked to watch some films and rate them out of ten. Where does my fury lie?

I was wrong, Roman fled before being sentenced. Well done the American bail system. I like that the persons in charge of the French film awards have called him an "insatiable aesthete" because, to the lay-person, that might mean paedo-at-large. It's definitely a bad decision to make him the head of a film panel, 'cause you're never going to get good headlines from that course of action, plus he should probably go to prison. I'm going for disappointment rather than fury. I'm running out of fury, got to conserve a bit for the next round of shit.

9. Four pulled alive from avalanche hotel

That'll be Italy again. I thought hotels would be able to stand up to avalanches, but I was wrong. Good that they've found some survivors.

In reality, the four that have been "pulled out" can be added to another five, making the total nine. It wouldn't have been hard to say "four more pulled..." Anyway, Italy's having a bad time, but is popular in the news.

10. How conservatives rated Trump speech

Was it by booing every time he said "Islam?" Did they all go on twitter to say how it was bigly good? Were all conservatives given a form with two tick-boxes, one that said "Good" and one that said "Bad," which they had to complete themselves (without help from their carers) before handing them to the head of the panel, Roman Polanski, who added them up? Was it by giving it a dollar-value? Did they compare it to other speeches they liked which maintained the status quo of the wealthied classes having lots of money and the poor staying poor? Let the Americans only buy American goods, then everyone will have a job, but goods will be more expensive, but American businesses will have a captive market and more money. Yeah, let's do that. Also, fuck the rest of the world.

Like so much news nowadays, this article is a recap of what prominent persons thought of Trump's speech which he may or may not have written himself. Can Trump write? We've established that he's almost learned to speak, so possibly. When's he going to get Hillary arrested anyway?

To Conclude

Not much going on really. Trump's president and we're all going to die. Why wasn't there an article on "The End is Nigh" or something cheerful like that?
 

Today's BBC News - 18th January

Ah, the news. I remember when you'd get a newspaper from a young shouting street urchin with a flat cap and read it on the omnibus home. Then everything changed and the whole country rescheduled dinner time from 6pm (or whenever the Master of the house returned from subjugating the weak) until after the six o'clock news. Nowadays we've gone all "post-truth" and so news is created, and disseminated, by everyone both constantly and ineffectively.

I have, for a very long time, got most of my news from the BBC website as it seems fairly reliable and impartial. However, even that needs to contend with other news outlets in this digital age. Apparently, a huge percentage of people now get most of their news from social media, and I can undertstand that. Friends (or friends of friends) are constantly filtering what's going on in the world by "liking" and "sharing" ensuring stories you may be interested in (at least in a peer-reviewed kind of way) arrive on your facebook page. Depending on which "friends" you follow, this can be very important or complete shite. You may read it or just the headline, before liking it and moving on.

Anyway, whether we click on a news article or not seems to be predominantly influenced by the headline, the lead photo and how strong-willed/discerning we are about what sort of thing we read. There are any number of opportunities to read about a dog who found his way home from Bermuda, or a near-miss as a helicopter falls out of the sky narrowly missing a pushchair, or what some celebrity said about another celebrity and their recent attempts to lose weight by harvesting stem-cells from mice, or whatever.

Today I have got the list of ten most popular news stories on the BBC website and tried to figure out what they are and if they're interesting or important. It's my general feeling that the BBC, like everyone else, has to use intentionally obscure, ambiguous or mildly sensationalist headlines to garner interest from the increasingly short-attentioned public. Now, being in France, I think I get a more "world news" version of the top ten, but that is probably a good thing.

Here we go.

1. Crisis-hit Gambia extends leader's term

My understanding is the current (rather dictatory) Prime Minister/President of the Gambia (is it still "the" Gambia, or is that painfully outdated) who lost the last election reneged upon his promise to go quietly (probably realising that he'd get chased up on all kinds of financial irregularities/human rights abuses/etc) and decided it'd be better for everyone (i.e. him) if he ignored the popular vote and stayed in power. Other African nations have expressed their displeasure at this sort of behaviour and threatened to impose sanctions, or even military intervention, if he continues to cling to his current office.

Somehow, Gambia must have extended the term of his presidency. But for how long? And when it says Gambia, is it just the president guy himself extending his own term after the election?

A quick read reveals that Parliament has extended his term for 90 days. No-one knows what's going on, there could potentially be two rival presidents (!!) and, importantly for all the Euro-centric readers, Thomas Cook is sending loads of British and Dutch folks home from their holidays early.

Genuine news story. Pretty straightforward headline. Nice. Glad everyone's interested in it too. Next!

2. Obama to free Chelsea Manning

This one requires some prior knowledge. Chelsea Manning is a former military person of some sort who leaked a load of information on what the US Army/Airforce/Navy were up to and some of their biggest bloopers (killing civilians springs to mind). She's also a former man. As part of Obama's last-minute attempts to clear his desk before a complete two-hat wearing primate takes over the country, he's up to all sorts of high jinx. Releasing, or pardoning, this former army chap/woman is one of them.

Actually reading the piece shows that the sentence is being commuted (or reduced, but without regaining the right to vote etc) by quite a bit and she'll be out in May. Obama's not going to break Chelsea out of the prison she's in, although that's make a good script for an "odd couple" buddy movie.

Again, fairly accurate, although you need to know/care who Chelsea Manning is. Americans might click-through hoping/thinking it is the wife/daughter/alter-ego of Peyton Manning (who I'd line up for the part in the above film, due to their celebrity appeal - I'd also have at least one scene where throwing something far and accurately would be a key action).

3. Sex accuser sues Trump for defamation

I'm not sure what a sex accuser is, but the headline has the word Trump in it, so it's already going to be popular. Apparently a "sex accuser" is someone who has (probably rightly) accused someone else (in this case a well-know misogynist) of sexual assault. That seems like a pretty weird way to descibe the possible victim of sexual assault. But there were plenty of "accusations" of the Donald in the build-up to the US election, but the American public are quite happy to accept those as locker-room talk and youthful exuberance rather than sexual assault/rape, so good luck with this one now he's days away from grasping ultimate power in his tiny hands.

4. Babies remember birth language

Scientists have proven that babies who were born "into" one spoken language are later better at speaking that language if taught it. This is apparently interesting. The moral of the story seems to be "talk to your children when they are very young," presumably contrary to the traditional school of thought which advocates keeping them in silence, possibly in a small box, until they are ten years old. What's not made explicit is that talking to children, perhaps making "goo goo ga ga" noises will make them much better at talking gibberish if they are taught it at a later stage.

5. Venomous animals not Australia's deadliest

It's horses. Horses kill more people that all the venomous things put together. However, the way I see it, you should be wary of horses anyway. They're big, powerful and relatively unpredictable. What horses don't do is crawl into your tent when you are asleep, slide into your boot when you are taking a shower, or get into your house and hide under the toilet seat. Horses, and their deadly effects, are more easy to avoid than all the other "less deadly" poisonous things. Similarly, people don't try to ride Black Widow spiders at speed next to lots of other black widow spiders, or treat an Eastern Brown Snake like it's a lovable pet. Are horses more deadly, or are people more stupid when it comes to horses? How many people die from being bitten by horses?

This story makes me think of the transport statistics. Apparently air travel is one of the safest types of transportation because there are only 0.5 deaths per billion miles. However, you're more likely to be travelling much further on a 'plane than a bus (which is also 0.5 deaths per billion miles) so per trip airplanes have got to be more dangerous. Also, if you are involved in a bus crash, you have to be much more likely to survive than if you are involved in a 'plane crash. These stats may be completely wrong, as I've just grabbed them off google, but you may, or may not, get my point.

Why do people click on this sort of news? What are they thinking it's going to be. The potential answers are all domestic animals, humans (dun dun dunnnnn) or Godzilla. When you find out it's horses, you don't think "well that's interesting" unless you own horses, or they are your friends.

6. Johnson: No Brexit punishment beatings

This headline has "Brexit" in it, so automatically of interest to the majority of the population of the UK; either because they are outraged at the whole situation, or because they voted "leave" and are still celebrating "winning" the election like there was some sort of prize that wasn't directly equivalent to shit.

Brexit punishment beatings? For who? If it's pro-Brexiteers, or even just Nigel Farage, I'm well up for that. However it's Johnson saying it (presumably Boris, not "The Rock" who I imagine has much more sense and persuasiveness when it comes to beatings) so perhaps punishment beatings for other EU countries? Or maybe for the UK from other EU countries? Or maybe just good old-fashioned beatings for migrants/foreigners/jews? Johnson's saying there aren't going to be any beatings, but I've never trusted him.

Wow, I've now read the article. Boris tells the EU not to beat up Britain "in the manner of some World War II movie." Seriously, Britain should never have been allowed to win anything. If we succeed in anything, like a World Cup, a war (despite being financially crippled as a result) or having an exploitative, but profitable Empire over a hundred years ago, we spend the next millenia celebrating the fact whilst becoming complacent, smug and borderline evil. That's right Boris, we won the war, or at least our ancestors did, and we'd all be better off if we could put massive reparations on Germany (who are now doing quite well for themselves) like we did at the end of The Great War. What could possibly go wrong in that scenario?

Maybe, when all semblance of greatness is finally removed from Britain by its current isolationist tendancies, there'll be beatings for Johnson, May, Cameron, Farage and Gove (why not, at least he'd be in the public eye). But not for the moment apparently.

7. Man wins 'wheelchair v buggy' bus case

Firstly, if the contest is between "wheelchair" and "buggy" how did a man, or mankind as a whole (although I suspect that would be Man capitalised), win overall? It's like the Ashes being won by a squirrel, or the Olympic Mens' 100 metres sprint being won by a small rock.

Still, I have to assume that some dude has taken a bus company, or TFL, or someone to court to say that his wheelchair should get priority over pushchairs. Otherwise, he's campaigned to have his buggy recognised as equal to a wheelchair on a "first-come first-served" basis. My last guess is that he's got some sort of motorised buggy and thinks that should have the same standing as an old-school wheelchair. Let's see...

Well there you go. The "man" has a wheelchair and was, rightly in my opinion, disappointed that a woman with a buggy would not move so he could get on the bus. Sounds like bus drivers will have to compel other bus users to get the fuck out of the way for wheelchair users. Like, surely all pushchairs fold up nowadays? And you may have loaded it up with shopping or children or whatever but you can't expect to take up a disabled space with all your extra stuff. People in wheelchairs would probably rather not take a load of chair onto the bus as well, but they don't have a choice.

Now we just need the Supreme Court to rule on people who insist on wearing their backpacks on crowded public transport rather than putting it between their legs, or putting their handbags on an empty seat...

8. Trump and the nuclear codes

This is like the title of a "Spot the dog" or Famous Five book. One day Donald Trump was looking for his nuclear codes, he could not remember where he had put them. The Chief of Staff had told him they were very important, but he was so busy sending abusive tweets to his detractors than he had put them down and now couldn't find them anywhere....

Anyway, it's a piece on how the nuclear codes work and how likely the President-elect is to press the metaphorical button, killing us all. I now know that there is an aide who carries a satchel, and in that satchel is a briefcase (now that's double bagging), and in that briefcase is a "biscuit" with codes on it. Seriously, it's a kids book. So Trump went to his aide (which is a special word for a helper) and on his aide's back was a big backpack. In the backpack was a satchel. In the stachel was a briefcase. In the briefcase was a holdall. In the holdall was a handbag. In the handbag was a man-bag. In the man-bag was a bumbag. In the bumbag was a Lidl 50p freezer bag with sealable handle. In the Lidl freezer bag was a sandwich bag. In the sandwich bag was a purse. In the purse was a Victorian card-holder. In the card-holder was a note saying "Donald Trump's got the nuclear codes, we are all going to die."

9. Mark Zuckerberg dismisses VR allegations

Much to my shame, I now use Facebook. That does not, however, make me the slightest bit interested in what Mark Zuckerberg is doing, regardless of whether Facebook has a deep interest in analysing what everyone's doing/reading/clicking for marketing purposes. The headline would suggest that VR, which may be Virtual Reality, is accusing him of doing something or that he is accused of doing things with VR. Is he having sex with virtual sheep? Does he dream of having sex with virtual sheep? Otherwise VR refers obliquely to a person, but I can't think of anyone with those initials. Either way, Mark Z is dismissing those allegations. He's not even denying them, just dismissing them. This story is at number nine. Someone has said something about Virtual Reality and Marky Mark Z-Berg has just gone "nah." Seriously, he better be having sex with virtual sheep, or goats, or whatever...

Well, it's quite a complex one. M to the Z has been in court defending a company bought by him/Facebook against allegations that some of the inherent technology was stolen from elsewhere. We've learnt that the company, Oculus (which is Virtual Reality-based), is costing Facebook more than previously thought, so shareholders will be shocked and stuff. Also, it seems the deal to buy said company was a bit rushed, so there may not have been due diligence and it may have previously been owned by a right-wing nut, or not. It's a business story about a sketchy takeover. I can only assume it's in the top ten because there are a lot of facebook shareholders reading it. Or that everyone cares what Mark Zuckerberg is doing. Do people actually add him as a friend on Facebook, because if so that is weird. It's like the CEO of Samsung automatically putting his phone number on your new phone. This news is not particularly important to me.

10. Egypt adds ex-footballer to terror list

Seriously, even reading this title I don't care. Are people clicking on it because they're hoping the ex-footballer is Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne, because that's the only one I can think it might be. I suppose Phil Neville is a possible terror suspect, but only because his "cover" of being a football pundit is so clearly a ruse. Since when has the world been interested in Egypt's terror list? Who else is on it? Will the full list be shown on the page (1. Ali Baba, 2. Al Capone, 3. Alan Rickman (RIP), etc...)? This is how interested in football the world is. I can't wait to be disappointed by this one.

Mohamed Abutrika. That's right, the Egyptian establishment considers the Muslim Brotherhood "a terrorist organisation" and our Mohamed is thought to have financially supported the group. He is facing a travel ban and seizure of his assets. Don't get me wrong, there is probably important stuff going on with Egypt, the Brotherhood and the legality of labelling people as potential terrorists, but whether Mr Abutrika is specifically being treated illegally.... I'm surprised so many people care.

I did enjoy learning that the aforementioned footballer was known as "The Magician," as well as "The Saint" and "The Prince of Hearts." I wonder if he was related to Princess Diana in any way. Lots of definite articles there though, which shows he was highly regarded until he allegedly fell in with the wrong apparently terroristy crowd... With none of his many nicknames being "The Terrorist" I'm inclined to think he's alright. Yeah, footballers are mercenary and responsible for 90% of sexual assaults in the UK, but they're not terrorists are they?

To Conclude

Really not sure why I bothered with all that. But I've written it now. I can't unwrite it. Well, I can, I just press delete, but it's taken a good amount of time so I'll click publish instead. I'm tempted to think it was a better idea than I've proved it to be. 

And that's the waaaaaaaaay the news goes.

News

I like news. Particularly I like to know what's going on in the world and why. Unfortunately, we are living in a time where, when something big happens, the first thing we know is what some vaguely famous person has tweeted about it. Even previously solid journalistic institutions need to rely on immediate social media responses to keep up with the "instant news" environment. I remember where I was when Nelson Mandela was freed and when the twin towers were destroyed; in front of the television, because that was the obvious option. Nowadays, people are as likely to be apprised of massive news events whilst sat on the train or in the toilet, and the coverage they receive will likely contain any number of sad-face emojis.

News comes at us from various online directions, but even websites like that of the BBC now use either sensationalist or obscure headlines to garner readership. With so many pop-up links to... and here I digress because I thought I'd search for some of those sidebar-clickbait-type nonesense stories to finish that sentence with so I went onto the Daily Mail website. There, although providing plenty of examples of the aforementioned trashy news ("Rita Ora goes completely topless," something about Carol Vorderman and suicide, The Grand Tour trio literally wait for fog to pass, etc) I found that the main page headline was, wait for it: "EXCLUSIVE: That's rich! Policeman 'disgusted' by 18-year-old daughter's plan to sell her virginity for £850,000 to 'save her home' as family is NOT struggling or about to be evicted." Amazing! That is literally a newspaper's headline. Hooray for the independent media! It's not like there's anything important going on in the world at the moment. Clearly what we should all be concentrating on is whether someone we've never heard of becomes an escort (on at least one occasion) to try and make a shitload of cash from someone rich and gullible.

What I'd really like is for journalism to inform and educate. It was my general understanding that the media in an enlightened society acted as an important checking system to those in power. However, in this post-truth political landscape, the media goes hand-in-hand with the espousing of unverifiable bullshit that massively influences public opinion and often distracts them from really important things. Essentally the power of the media is often used against the interests of the people, which is probably acceptable because no-one buys newspapers any more. It'll be great when the BBC has its funding taken away, due to new austerity measures the Tories will introduce to deal with the series of economic crises that will continue to take them by surprise whilst the UK gets pulled out of Europe, because they will then need to find some other way of funding the news (like selling their ethical virginity to the highest bidder), or just rely on what Kanye West has tweeted like everyone else.

Seriously though. With so much news going on, and an unnecessary amount of opinion, comment, argument and counter-argument about every point, I would just like to be given some facts about genuinely important stuff as and when it happens (not necessarily straight away, but soon enough to be relevant).

I'm going to try and write some news articles. Technicalities aside, I'm not a journalist so will have to do what everyone else does and get my info from other sources. Perhaps that will just make me as bad as everyone else. If so, I'll probably stop. Who knows if there's really anything going on out there anyway. Feel free to ignore this.

Welcome, Bienvenue and Willkommen

It is fully my intention to reboot this blog to be some sort of receptacle for news, features and things of general interest. In a world filled with division, conflict, uncertainty and general stupidity, I feel I should write some stuff down. However, it may be a terrible idea. Or I may be doing exactly what other people are doing on social media. Who knows? This is by no means a mission statement. In fact it's just a piece to help me reconfigure my existing blog to have a more approachable structure. I'm hoping that anything I write subsequent to this will actually have some truth, meaning, or points of interest...