Apathy Sketchpad

Even though you’d think I’d learn, I’m instead constantly shocked at the astonishingly ridiculous shit that the tabloid press continue to attempt to justify. The image on the right is the front cover of last Sunday’s Scottish Sunday Express. The story, if you can find it amongst the loud offers and advertisments jostling for space, is a very simple and monumentally ill-judged story about the survivors of the Dunblane school shooting 13 years ago. At the time, the children were five years old, and therefore granted certain protections. Now that they’re 18, the Express has apparently decided they’re Fair Game.

This is all well and good except that none of them has done anything remotely wrong. They’re 18 and they’re acting like any other 18 year olds. They, or at least some of them, are drinking and fighting and having sex and then posting about it on social networking sites. That all sounds pretty reasonable to me, and it’s actually good to see that the shooting hasn’t totally wrecked their abilities to live normal lives. But the Express seems to think that that’s somehow Not On. No, these people are Dunblane Survivors, and that means they have to spend their every waking second Honouring The Memory Of Their Fallen Classmates. If they do anything else, like have fun or something, they’re Shaming Their Fallen Classmates.

DUNBLANE survivors have “shamed” the memory of their dead peers with foul-mouthed boasts about sex, brawls and drink-fuelled antics as they reach adulthood. A number of the youngsters, now 18, have posted shocking blogs and photographs of themselves on the Internet, 13 years after being sheltered from public view in the aftermath of the atrocity. … In the days and months that followed the survivors, then aged just five and six, were the subject of overwhelming worldwide sympathy. But now the Sunday Express can reveal how, on their web-based social networking sites, some of them have boasted about alcoholic binges and fights.

Well, no. Obviously nobody at the Express really expects anything else. That would be ridiculous. They just wanted a scandal that nobody else had, and the easiest way to make sure your scandal is exclusive is to engineer it. Nobody else could happen upon a scoop that didn’t exist. If that’s not possible, something that superficially resembles a scandal (such as a sandal) will do. So presumably the journalist, if that’s what you want to call her, Paula Murray, waited until some people who survived a horrific shooting turned 18, looked them up on Facebook, and printed quotes. And pictures. She must have known in advance that some of the survivors were going to be loutish — that’s true of any group of teenagers — so she had this massive ready-made ’scandal’ she could unleash as soon as the last of the surviving children turned 18.

Then you just need a quote from someone who lost a grand-daughter…

“It is insulting. They were damn lucky to come out of it and they should be making the most of it. Maybe that’s what they think they are doing, but it is in bad taste. We go to the cemetery every Sunday and we nearly always meet some people who are visitors, and they come and have a wee look. I think that is lovely and I always say to them that it is nice they remember. So the behaviour of these children is a real contrast to all those caring people. It’s shameful.”

…she would consider confronting the survivors involved. She added: “Can it really be genuinely these same young people? I think it is totally out of order to put something like that on the Internet. It is a bit nasty really.”

…because nothing adds credibility to your story like the emotional reactions of people whose loved ones have been killed. I object pretty strongly to everything she’s said there, but I’m not going to blame her for it. Sixteen pupils died. They presumably had thirty-two parents and sixty-four grandparents. It must be pretty easy to find one of those 96 people that you can whip up into an emotionally charged state and then get a nasty quote out of. That’s why their opinions shouldn’t be in newspapers. It’s also why Murray got a quote from MSP Elizabeth Smith and pasted it into the article as if it was relevant. In an email posted as a comment on the Enemies of Reason blog, Smith says

My comments were not made in the context of Dunblane. The journalist did not ask me anything about Dunblane nor did I comment on it or on any individual involved. It would be quite wrong for me to do so. I have made comments recently to several newspapers about the issues related to young people using internet sites and the inappropriate use of that material. … What the Sunday Express chooses to print as the context is a matter for the relevant editor.

The other comments on that post are also well worth reading (as is the post itself).

The Express have since deleted the story from their website, which could be taken to mean that since receiving all those complaints they’ve realised how contemptible the article was, except… what really angers me about this whole thing is how pre-meditated it all is. Bad journalism as a result of ignorance or incompetence is one thing. Laziness is a bit worse but still basically forgivable, but this could only happen if people set out to do bad journalism. This isn’t something Murray happened on and misinterpreted; this is something she has engineered. She went sniffing around the personal lives of innocent people looking for something she could frame as a scandal. It makes me wonder how long she sat on it waiting for that magical birthday that transformed the last of these people from Innocent Child Victims to Celebrities.

It is perhaps the single worst piece of journalism I’ve ever read.

According to Chortle,

Peter Kay is to release a follow-up to his bestselling memoirs The Sound Of Laughter this autumn.

What?

His existing book, which I have not read, is 368 pages long in paperback and was released on the 2nd of October 2006. The new one will be out in time for Christmas. That means that the book can detail, at most, 1179 days (assuming the books take an equal amount of time between writing and release). On average, there will be about 3.23 days per page (or, 31% of a page per day). That’s only slightly less than my work diary and I can never fill that. This book is going to read like a Twitter feed, especially when you bear in mind how much of that time must have been spent writing the damn book.

I’m sorry, but has enough genuinely interesting stuff happened to him in the last two years to fill that much book? I submit that it hasn’t. In fact, I confidently predict that Peter Kay’s second book is going to be basically all the same material as his first book, but with a couple of words changed here and there to make it sound like a whole new work.

I’d like to share some lyrics from a song, which I think really evoke some pretty deep feelings:

Should we act on a blame?
Or should we chase the moments away?
Should we live? Should we give?
Remember forever the guns and the feathers in time.

Because the line between wrong and right,
Is the width of a thread from a spider’s web.
The piano keys are black and white,
But they sound like a million colours in your mind.

Specifically, they evoke the feeling of not knowing what the hell Katie Melua is banging on about. It all sounds like nice, sentimental metaphor until you actually listen to the words and realise that it’s just bullshit carefully sculpted into the shape of emotion, like it was written by a very talented poet who didn’t have anything he particularly wanted to say. And it’s every single one of her songs. And it’s frustrating, because I basically quite like her music, but every time I hear it… look, here, from the same abum:

If this was a quiz on a TV show
And the prize was a guy who would love me so
Whatever they ask, the answer I know:
Hey, my reply, boy,
Is gimme a shy boy.

Is it wrong that it bothers me that that is not how quiz shows work? You can’t win the prize simply by asking for it every time someone asks you a question (with the exception of Deal or No Deal). To be honest, though, the bigger problem with Shy Boy is that it’s a whole song about how she likes shy boys but, being shy, they never ask her out. What year is this? Make the first move! That’s okay now. But don’t select someone on the basis of their shyness and then whine that they’re shy. That’s not reasonable. Well, unless… I’m kind of assuming that Katie Melua is not herself incredibly shy. I realise this is a generalisation purely on the basis that her job is singing to large groups of people.

My favourite ever Katie Melua lyric is at the end of Nine Million Bicycles:

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing.
That’s a fact.
It’s a thing we can’t deny,
Like the fact that I will love you till I die.
And there are nine million bicycles in Beijing.
And you know that I will love you till I die.

I love the random piece of trivia dropped into the middle of what ought to be a fairly emotional sentence. I can’t dislike the song, purely because at some point someone must have turned on the radio and heard that song for the first time but only caught the last four or five lines, and they’d just have got love and bicycles with no context. I think that could blow someone’s brain.

Also, I feel like Nine Million Bicycles would be a great song to do at a karaoke night, but with entirely spurious verses that you make up to fit the structure. You just need a ten- or eleven-syllable piece of trivia. It’s easy.

The tomato is technically a fruit. 
That’s a fact.
It’s a truth we can’t deny 
Like the fact that I will love you till I die. 

We’re fourteen billion light years from the edge, 
In real life.
I know the metre’s not as nice,
But don’t change facts to suit your rhythmic device.

I have seventy-seven Facebook friends
Including family,
and it makes me feel quite small 
That you’re the one I love the most of all

Alright, one of those was just pedantry. But that just shows how little thought was put into the original lyrics.

Bonus Katie Melua Jokes That Don’t Work Because She Is The Punchline And Not The Setup:

1. Destiny’s Child’s Survivor is a song about how Beyonce showed her ex that she could be successful without him by forging a glittering career as a bicycle saleswoman in Beijing.
2. I wish people would stop criticising the British Olympic team for mostly getting medals in cycling events at the 2008 games. Do you have any idea how many bicycles there are in Beijing?

• 0.01s: I’ve knocked that pint glass.
• 0.1s: Oh, shit, it’s falling. Maybe I can catch it if I thrust my arm in this direction…
• 1s: No, that’s just caused it to shatter all over the pots and pans instead of the floor. That’s much worse.
• 10s: Actually, if it had landed on the comparatively soft lino floor, it might not have broken. Shit. Right. Anyway. That’s enough standing around staring at broken glass. Time to clean up.
• 1m 40s: Although usually untidy, I appear to be a neat freak when shards of glass are involved.
• 16m 40s: Oh, God, it’s everywhere. I’m going to be eating bits of glass for ages. I wonder how I am supposed to get bits of broken glass off a non-stick pan. I hope this isn’t the kind of glass that has the same refractive index as water.
• 2h 46m 40s: Tell room-mate we’ve lost another pint glass. Why can’t they make pint glasses out of the same stuff as car windscreens? They break at the slightest provocation; why can’t they be shatterproof?
• 1d 3h 46m 40s: Hasn’t happened yet. If still alive at this point, I will assume all is well forever.
• 1w 4d 13h 46m 40s: I will have forgotten the whole thing.

Here is a puzzle I have invented. Solve it.

Clues

1. Something odd — dessert begins before a drink. (4)
2. Charged particles — Si? (4)
3. Hitchhiker confused after 4 suggested (6)
4. Heard jolly greeting (2)
5. Heard a relative bet (4)
6. Swindled by headless chad (3)
7. Loathe jumbled articles (4)
8. One bit, say, where a drill might be kept (2,1,4)
9. Cotton’s starting deteriorating on the spindle (4)
10. Endless money for me! (3)
11. After end of bombs, Mandy’s innards found in bunker (4)
12. Warm, with expanded belly. Good times. (4)
13. Walking trees in advent setting (4)
14. Part of the mind has nothing in it (5)
15. Infidel to heartlessly attempt robbery (7)
16. Fuss after a party (3)
17. Polish singer in function (5)
18. Constant singer (1)
19. Mixed side on a plate (7)

I think by now more people than have ever met me know what I think of news items that exist because PR companies generate ‘data’ to manipulate journalists into advertising their clients, and here is another one. This one is a survey, which is perhaps not as bad as the formula ones, since they did at least have to do something to generate this data and it does at least tell us something (albeit not something of any use).

It’s not very objective or rigorous, obviously, but I can’t help but like it anyway. How could you not when it leads to such brilliant headlines as “Children say happiness is important”? This from the Metro, which runs a snide little column called “No S**t, Sherlock” (their asterisks), where they poke fun at scientific studies that produce results that they consider obvious. Hm.

Mostly though, it’s an excuse to have a few gentle laughs at the naïvité of children. I can’t find the full breakdown for this year’s survey, but from the summaries in newspapers and the results from 2005-2007, it’s safe to say an equally valid headline would be “Children stupid, survey finds”.

The best bit is question 3: “if you were king or queen of the world, what rules would you make?”. It turns out that children in Luton are far-right-wing lunatics. And they say that you get more conservative with age. My favourite one was the seventh most popular answer in 2005, which was “everlasting pets”. I’d like to think that once people grow up they stop thinking that the government can just ban cancer or something, but clearly they don’t.

Deborah Campbell, 25, of nearby Hunterdon County, N.J., said she phoned in her order last week to the Greenwich ShopRite. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son’s name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.

Maybe that’s because you named him ‘Adolf Hitler’.

Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because “no one else in the world would have that name.”

Except Hitler.

Campbell said he was raised not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically. But he said he would try to raise his children differently. ”Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That’s fine, I don’t really care,” he said. “That’s his choice.”

…Although it’s unlikely, because you named him ‘Adolf Hitler’.

Apparently, after the Guardian published a spoof diary of Elton John, he sued them but lost the case because:

The transparently false attribution is irony… The attribution is literally false but no reasonable reader could be misled by it.

…

a reasonable reader would expect so serious an allegation to be made without humour, and explicitly

I think this is why the Daily Express still exists: nobody can touch. No reasonable reader could be misled by it because they wouldn’t be reading it in the first place.

Click image for hi-res version, if for whatever reason you want one.

And yes, it says ‘Christmas’. I may be a secularist but I am not a killjoy.

1. People who think that if they pretend to rub their face while making offensive gestures that only the people they want to see will realise what is happening.
2. People who assume that that is what I’m doing when in fact I’m just rubbing my face. How do they think that started?