Hello! Well done, you have made it into the future. It is the time of year when we pick ourselves up, look around at the post-Christmas, post-NYE mess and say “fuck it, I can do better than this”. And you can! Ignore the naysayers who say that we do this every year and are doomed to fail. They are wrong and they smell. 2013 is shiny and new and unspoiled. And one of the ways to ensure success is accountability. And that is what we are here for! Join us and tell us your resolutions, so we can encourage you on your way to be becoming less of a dick a better person. Continue reading
ctrlaltdelight
If you were to run your eyes over the lists of best-selling singles and most downloaded songs of the past few years, it would be hard to find many songs that directly mention the late-2000s recession, despite the massive impact it has had on much of the public. This is hardly surprising; political songs rarely chart highly, love is always going to be a more popular song theme than unemployment and one of music’s greatest assets is its capacity for escapism which is much needed by many at the moment.
You could say that there are subtle nods towards the situation, such as the appearance of slightly dystopian or politically charged videos from some of the most popular artists around, less songs dismissive of the poor compared to ten or fifteen years ago, less conspicuous consumerism and lower budget videos, but a lot of these trends can be explained by other influences. Lower budget videos are a direct result of the internet and how we watch videos now (I’ll let “Michael Destiny” explain this one). Continue reading
Well if you live in Cleveland, Detroit or Chicago you are, according to a new study from University of Colorado. The researchers looked at airborne bacteria found in these three cities and found a significant proportion of microorganisms from dog crap, a ratio which rises during winter.
Says the New Scientist: Continue reading
The often violent, often surreal, sometimes incestuous world of the Bible contains a lot of horrible and annoying people. Here are my top five: Continue reading
The UN announced today that due to the massive news surplus in the first seven months of 2011, no more events will be permitted, anywhere in the world, for the rest of the year.
A spokesperson from the UN said today that the General Assembly have voted to ban all newsworthy happenings for the rest of the year; “After the horror of the Japanese tsunami, the roller-coaster ride of the Arab Spring and the global recession and debt crises, we were already emotionally shattered. Now after the shocking events in Norway and the spectre of famine hanging over the Horn of Africa we give up. 2011 is full; there will be no further events until 2012”.
This move was welcomed by journalists all over the globe; Continue reading
(Editor’s Note: Since ThereWillComeSoftRains did this excellent update on all the goings-on of Murdochageddon, I’m making this your open thread for all things News Corp.-related. Uncle Rupert is scheduled to appear before Parliament this morning. The fun begins at 1 p.m. GMT on BBC Parliament. ~Bots)
Week two of the News Corp. fiasco continues
Have you resigned yet? No? Well you just aren’t keeping up with the latest fashion trends coming out of London. So many people have now resigned in the phone hacking scandal, UK unemployment has been pushed up to 95%. Nobody is left to run the country; we’ve had to become an absolute monarchy again. Until next week when the Queen is caught hacking Kate Middleton’s phone trying to find messages from her hairdresser revealing the secret of her shiny locks and she quits as well. The only thing left for us now is to give the whole country back to the druids, which is why I have built a large wicker man in my front garden (well that is what I am going to tell the police should they ask).
So it’s been two weeks since the NOTW scandal broke and for some it has dominated the news since then, which to the ADHD-suffering UK media makes it the greatest epic since the Iliad, starting, as sagas are wont to do in medias res, years after the initial accusations. But it has proven to be the Marmite of news; Continue reading
There aren’t many institutions in British public life that have gone untouched by scandal in the past few years. Continue reading