August 2008 Archives

I am no longer sure of my existence.

I'm not saying that in a Descartes "I think therefore I am" kind of way. Admittedly I spend a lot of time sitting around in a chair wondering if television is real or just some kind of horrible nightmare inflicted upon me by demons, but if you start thinking down those lines you're only going to end up pouring yoghurt into your electricity sockets in an attempt to stop the unicorns spying on you from their parallel universe.

No, it's not reality that is causing me existential issues, but the world wide web.

As you may imagine I spend a great part of my day online, probably more than I spend doing anything else and I have realised that not only is there such a thing as an online community, but a whole online subculture which has seeped into other aspects of life. For instance do you know who the Numa Numa guy is? Have you seen The Website is Down? Do you think we really should leave Britney alone?

The internet really has become its own nation, with its own language (lolz!), residents (how many more Facebook friends do you have than friends you actually see even once a year?) and culture (no noobz). This can become a bit weird when you meet someone for the first time and find that you're both fans of Weebl and Bob, leading most people listening in on your conversation to assume you're in some kind of bizarre pastry version of the masons.

The problem is the internet is so unbelievably vast (they say it's beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend the size of the universe, I reckon that's child's play compared to trying to visualise all the z-list actors listed on IMDB). So where do you start? As you may notice on the right of this entry is a handy list of links labelled 'we read' (the royal we obviously) chosen from my personal favourites, and I thought it was about time I explained my choices.

XKCD - This one is really for all the geeks out there, with jokes on subjects ranging from programming to velociraptors. If you don't get the first one don't give up, there are lots of funny strips in the archive and if you hover your mouse over each one you get an extra little punchline.

Snopes - The internet is full of myths and downright lies (think about it - even Wikipedia is edited by people like that strange neighbour you have who feeds Bovril to his cat, how much actual knowledge do you think he's got underneath that inside-out cardigan?). Snopes is a reliable way to find out if Janice from the office's husband's friend's cousin's cleaner really did eat live sushi and grow an octopus in their stomach or if she's a liar who used all the communal milk on her Coco Pops.

Uncyclopedia - For my money the best example of the internet creating something joyous by communal contribution. From parody to simple surrealism, this site pokes fun at nearly any topic you can think of. If you ever watched He-Man as a child I highly recommend the Skeletor entry.

Mojo magazine online - Pretty much the last music magazine which seems to be about music rather than a vanity project for its reporters. Excellent online features perfectly complement the hard copy.

The Idler online - As you may have guessed by now I'm a man who enjoys simple pleasures, and they don't get much more simple than idling. The originators of Crap Towns and ardent promoters of ukulele playing, I can't recommend these chaps enough.

The Framley Examiner - "Let's party" demands clockwork rapscallion. There's not much more to say about this near-perfect parody of local newspapers (of course the Harrow Observer is of much higher quality...).

So there it is, you won't learn much, you'll probably waste a lot of time you meant to spend doing something productive and no one will know what you're talking about if you try to explain it to them. But that's the internet for you, and if you have to exist somewhere it might as well be here.

I literally could not be more annoyed.

Or could I?

I'm sat at my desk, pondering the many misuses of the English language which I encounter every day and silently fuming. So I am pretty annoyed, but what if someone shoved a jar of wasps over my head, beat it with a wooden spoon and made me interview Noel Edmonds using only the question "So why are you so successful?" That would definitely increase my levels of irritation, proving my opening statement to be a falsehood and showing up one of the greatest everyday language misuses which grate against my very soul.

As journalists we are supposed to be smiths of words and, as I referred to in an earlier blog post, accuracy is everything. This is not limited solely to spelling and punctuation but to meaning, which holds an even more important role in conveying stories.

Unfortunately this respect for the official definition of words in the great English lexicon does not seem to be shared by all who indulge in the parlance of our times. A good example of this was spotted by one of our young hacks, David, while watching an 800m Olympic swimming race on television. Apparently as the aquatic foreswimmer gained a healthy lead the commentator was heard to say: "She is literally miles out in front." Really? In the 800m?

So there it is, a common everyday misuse which, if I had been born into my rightful place in society as one of your classic lightning-bolt hurling deities, would see half the population getting a ruddy good smiting. But why stop there? Here are some other common language abuses which would have me reaching for the electrodes:

Pacifically - e.g. "I was pacifically told by the doctor I have an IQ of 45." Hear this world: PACIFICALLY IS NOT A WORD. Specifically, yes, pacifically, no. I won't even accept it to mean 'in the style of an ocean.'

Decimate - e.g. "New York's twin towers were decimated by the September 11 attacks." If they had been then 99 of their 110 floors would still be standing and there would probably be one less terrible Oliver Stone film in the world. This is because decimated means to destroy one tenth of, not completely obliterate as it is so often used to convey.

Innit - e.g. "I went to Lidl to get some gingerbread for me nan innit?" Where do you even start with this one? Okay, firstly it's isn't it, two words, three syllables. But secondly, and most importantly of all, you can't turn a phrase into a question just by adding 'innit' to the end, however much your mates, who have all skipped English class to go smoke crack behind the Humvee shed, agree with you.

Boxercise - e.g. "I can't finish this Pina Colada or I will be too drunk for my boxercise class." Boxing is a word. Exercise is a word. Boxing exercise could conceivably be the name of a fitness class. Boxercise is not a word, it's not even a real thing, it's callanetics while wearing big red gloves so you look like an epileptic clown as far as I can tell.

Right, that's enough vitriol for me for the day, I'm literally going to fly as I have to get to my boxercise class, pacifically at the gym which was built after the cinema was decimated by a fire innit?

Let's take a moment here and be silly.

In fact why just a moment? Why not a minute? Or an hour? A week? To hell with it - it's time to go the whole hog and have a silly season.

This is clearly the path of thought which great media minds of yore stumbled along as they enjoyed a convivial pint in a Fleet Street boozer on a lazy early Summer day. It was probably the start of the same drinking session which led to a national newspaper thinking it was a jolly lark to put ubbs on page 3, but that's another story.

We are deeply embedded in the silly season at the moment, with schools on holiday and Gordon browning himself on a beach (geddit?) we have to look to more unusual sources of news.

It seems that the bizarre is coming to us however, as we have had a spate of bizarre animals bothering the people of Brent. This week started with a lady calling in saying there was a large African parrot in her garden refusing to come down from its tree (the parrot that is, not the lady, I think she was calling from her house, though it could have been a treehouse, you should never assume).

After our reporter Tom Lawrence had discussed the finer points of parrot etiquette (apparently it's impolite to call them Polly on first meeting) the lady revealed she did not wish to have her name in print and the story crumbled around our ears. You would be amazed how often this happens, but if you think about it if we wrote stories with anonymous people in them we could make up any old nonsense (for a good example of this see those columns in more low-brow papers which begin with things like: "Which boy band star has a second nose growing out of his armpit?,,,").

Having been left distinctly dejected by the loss of our squawking story spirits were only raised by the appearance of a reptilian member of the menagerie which is clearly loose on Brent's streets. As he prepared to head off to work on Monday morning Aqeel Bashir was confronted by a rather nasty looking serpent slithering around his hallway.

In my books this is the time to run far far away, all the way to Australia if you can manage it (where apparently they don't have any snakes), and write your house of as an unfortunate loss. However Aqeel and his mum chose the other option and chased their viperous visitor into a bucket before calling for help.

This obviously makes a cracking story, but it does make me wonder what we're going to have discovered next. A lion in the loo? A walrus in the washing machine? Maybe a bonobo in the bedroom (okay, I'll stop now). Whatever the next P T Barnhamesque offering I await it with anticipation and long may the silliness continue.

As an interesting footnote, as our erstwhile Mr Lawrence concluded his interview with Aqeel he happened to mention that his was not the only tropical animal to turn up in the borough this week only to be met with the reply: "Oh really? My mate lost a parrot the other day..."