Sunday, January 28, 2007

Hey, it's Sunday. Bring out Cross of Ross

I didn't know Terry Wogan had a column, too.

As an issue he raises is one I am tracking, I decided on a punt:

"I do believe the DVLA only knows the precise location of any car owned, insured and parked in the driveways of those who can be fined without much effort, having possibly simply forgotten and not been given a fair opportunity to do so.

Those requiring a bit of effort or a certain amount of cojones to tackle seem to be mysteriously less attractive to track down.
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Meanwhile, rewarding bad behaviour is obviously on the up and up. Following Ms. Goody's invitation to tour India, I have pondered expressing a certain amount of ignorance and insensitivity about my wife's homeland in the hope of scoring a subsidised family trip to visit the in-laws.
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A lot of blogs have thrown up a high proportion of 'serves 'em right' retorts to TV companies' shell games. If the criteria are clear then OK. But I have still to hear an adequate official explanation from the authorities (who, I thought, are in charge of licensing these companies and those telecoms operators who act as their collecting agents) as to why practices that would in any other arena be called fraud (from at best omitting certain key facts to the conduct of a show to outright misleading the public) are subject to less stringent rules and policing."

S'funny, 'cos its true





Link
'im again. I no longer feel the need to excuse myself as it is obvious that he has access to my working day.

Verbosity Complex

Another from Bad Science: Science and Fiction

"There is no doubt that basic sensible dietary and lifestyle advice is sound. You should exercise more, eat more fibre, and more fresh fruit and vegetables."

Bang on. But it wouldn't fill too many column inches, and would soon cease to be newsworthy in the repetition. Much better to keep finding something new, make it very complex, and preferably stir up a controversy that will only result eventually in the product being remembered enough to sustain the marketing.

Works for all concerned, especially those with whole new careers being the media interface du jour for lazy other media seeking a quick way to fill some space or time as well.

Shame it only reached the audience of the New Statesman who, I would hazard, have already suspected as much. Bet there's still a few ‘out of sell-by date’ bottles of vits to counter ague and ill-humours lurking in the back of the cabinet, though."

It can just as well apply to the environment as well. Excuse me, I have to fly to Bali for a conference on the contribution of Polar Bear toots to Global Warming.