Medium* comment: TULISA CROWNED WORLD'S SEXIEST WOMAN (according to AOL®)

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2 May

As I am sure that the authors of this item well know (i.e. it is tongue in cheek, but in such a way as to appear 'dumb'), this caption to the headline is an absolute non-sequitur:


Singer proves that sex tape scandal hasn't hit her popularity


No, and nor, with any relevant electorate, would circulation - and even rating - of the said tape**! (I wonder if it has an entry on IMDb...)

End-note

* As opposed to media.

** According to AOL® (again) on 4 May, Amanda Holden told Alan Carr that she watched it.


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Stars hoping to do well in the 26.2m race include Nell McAndrew (according to AOL®)

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22 April

Not engaging my anyway tired brain, I puzzled over whether a 26.2m race was the metric equivalent of the 100 yds*, until I spotted the word Snickers®, I mean Marathon, in the main headline***.

In any case, do I mistake, or has Nell changed a bit since last seen?




End-notes

* Fortunately, it would be over before it began, so no scope for celebruty** blisters or sprained ankles.

** Sic: one view is that they all Brutes and Beasts, seeking to charm us - with their emperors' and empresses' new clothes - into believing that they are Beauties.

*** Or do I mean headlie****?

**** Or even headlice?


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Blind singer wows on The Voice (according to AOL®)

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22 April

But why should a blind singer not wow on that programme, since the show's claim to exist is that the judges vote without reference to sight of the singers (pun unintended)? (Not that one could necessarily see blindness, except when it is emblazoned in a caption, any more than hepatitis B or leukaemia.)

You could say that the name of the ensemble The Blind Boys of Alabama was chosen to be catchy (I don't know who chose it), or to draw attention to blindness in the deliberate way that I now criticize.

However, the question is: Who draws attention?


Down's Syndrome girl in a floral print frock and black boots wows on The Voice...


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BBC accused of faking report of James May battling learner drivers (according to AOL®)

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15 March



Those in the know will be able to tell you what is really faked, as evidenced by the above photograph.

It's not that the traffic* wasn't real, but that James May has finally employed a double**.

For, as those who know him can testify, it is actually The Agent himself, allegedly at the wheel of that seeming vehicle!


End-notes

* I understand that some would feel drawn to write 'the traffic situation'...

** Likewise, some would say 'a body double'.


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Keep your Bolly heart on - she's a heroine! (According to AOL®)

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Dramatic departure for Emmerdale star

Holly Barton will soon suffer an overdose of heroin on screen


Since I knew nothing about Emmerdale - other than the obvious Linda Lusardi connection - it took good old Wikipedia® to put me right that the person pictured is not the said Barton, but the person (with a challenging surname) who plays her:

Holly Barton is a fictional character from the British soap opera Emmerdale, played by Sophie Powles. She made her first on-screen appearance on 17 July 2009


What I'm wondering is of a manifold nature:

* Whether AOL®'s 'people' had any idea who this Barton about whom they wrote was

* In any case, why they chose to use a photo of Sophie P. standing in front of the logo of a duscredited and defunct newspaper

* Unrelatedly, why the item just days ago that reported Lorraine Kelly falling off her horse appeared weeks after a small mention in i newspaper around a week before the end of February*


End-notes

* I have checked, and it was in the edition on Thursday 23 February. So much for 'breaking news' (pun probably intended)!

The full item, under the heading Lorraine Kelly hurt falling from horse (which pretty much is the story), read:

TV presenter Lorraine Kelly said she got a "real fright"** after falling from a horse, which then stamped on her leg. The 52-year-old lost a lot of blood and was rushed to hospital for surgery after the accident on Tuesday [i.e. 21 February]. Ms Kelly tweeted that the horse had made a deep wound that would take several weeks to heal properly [sc. around the time, then, that AOL® reported it as if it were, at least, recent].

** Why this isn't "a real fright" is beyond me (or, although it may be i's house-style, with single quotation-marks).


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Might I ask what our Sunday trading legislation is for? (2)

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18 March

Just, for the sheer helluvit, I had planned to revisit this topic (when I started this posting as what Wikipedia® calls 'a stub'), but it happens to have become topical, with plans 'to relax' the legislation for the time of The Olympic Games.

Already The Opposition is questioning whether this is an initial move to do away with some provisions of the Sunday Trading Act 1994 permanently, which might be calculated to put the idea into the relevant noddle, not least when AOL® flashed a hint, last night, that the National Minimum Wage will be under attack in The Budget.

And, of course, we know how businesses suffered impossibly when the minimum wage was brought in - it's just that they chose to do so in a reaction delayed by many years - and that businesses, like banking, are good for the country as a whole, not just for those who receive large rewards for being part of the sector of financial services.


As for the 1994 Act, what would it mean to relax its effect temporarily? Not having any protection from sanctions, such as victimization or dismissal, if one refuses to work on a Sunday? A different regime for opting in or out of Sunday working?

Or is Mr Osborne going to look at that window of six hours for Sunday opening instead - or as well? So the shop can be open from 9.00 till 6.00, maybe, and if you don't want to work those hours, then

Nice XYZ Plc is offering you nine hours' work on Sunday - take it or lose it, as they want the hours worked, and you will be short on your usual working hours, because they are restructuring the shifts, if you refuse them, and these are part of your allotted hours, not additional ones.

And not that they would roster the rest of your hours at unsocial hours either...


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Is Kelly Brook really engaged? (asks AOL®)

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17 February

No doubt a sage question - does she just think that she's engaged, when she's not*? Probably the poor woman is wondering over** the legitimacy of her engagement as I write!

(Whereas Kelly B. Rook has no qualms - she's never going to leave 'The Rookery' and take up with some other nook, because she's not the marrying kind.)

Meanwhile, is Cameron (only just) beginning to wonder whether he is actually Prime Minister, or whether - as in that masterpiece of paranoid schizophrenia turned into a comedy, The Truman Show (1998) - everyone's just been humouring him?


PS If our Kelly turns out not to be engaged, I seem to remember that she is really a Parsons - she could always go back to her natal name and aim to marry a Mr Nicholas (Paul Nicholas?), or, if she could put her surname first, a Mr Green (or a Mr Nose - or Egg).


End-notes

* And what would - either party not being eligible to marry apart - constitute such an erroneous belief? Maybe false memory that the offer of marriage and the acceptance took place...

** Well, I might have meant 'worrying over' or 'wondering about', but who cares? - it's a portmanteau day, after all!


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Crowds outside Houston's hotel (according to AOL®) (1)

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13 February

So why does Whitney Houston become known by her surname when she's dead? I don't mean it irreverently, but I am inescapably reminded of the Apollo missions:

Do you read me, Houston?


And what makes for 'crowds', distinct from a 'crowd', in this case? Does it just sound better, does it fit the space where 'Huge crowd' might not (actually, there is room)?

And these people - are they being mournful or macabre, wanting to be the first to book into the room where she was found dead? (And I'm sure that there were those who did the same with Sid Vicious - or who want to stay in Hemingway's suite at the Danieli.)

Perhaps they are respectful, perhaps they will endow a fund so that the room can be permanently be set up as a shrine and reverentially visited by bona fide fans...

In any case, who can forget the singer looking so in need of being rescued in Costner's arms*?


End-notes

* By the looks of it, Kevin has had a pretty hard time of it: poor lad had the misfortune to cohabit with Elle MacPherson for a while, and his fraternity, of all things, was Delta Chi! Still, at least his wife designs handbags, for which I'm sure that we're all grateful, and he apparently took her for a ride in a canoe after their wedding ceremony - no doubt inspiration for a whole range of bags...


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