It’s More Complicated Than That…
I don’t have enough time to write a full post today — I’m off down to That London to see the Beach Boys tonight, and I’ll have a review of that show up tomorrow.
But it’s been an interesting few days for me, watching how newspapers report things, how social media reacts to that report, and comparing it to what is actually happening, because several things where I *actually pay attention, so I know what is going on* have happened. This has happened a *lot* recently with political stuff, but there’s been a cluster of bad reporting recently…
Item 1 — Lib Dem conference was not, despite all the reports, full of people wanting Clegg’s head. Clegg’s safe for the forseeable future — see Jennie’s post for why. The politics reporters are just stirring.
Item 2 — Jimmy Fallon is *not* replacing Davy Jones in the Monkees. No-one suggested he should. Mike Nesmith said, as a joke in a Facebook status, that he might join them on stage to sing the song Daydream Believer. This one hasn’t been as widely reported as the other two, but is still out there.
Item 3 — Mike Love has *not* sacked the other Beach Boys. He doesn’t have the legal right to do that. See Andrew Doe’s summary on this message board thread for the truth.
This week, the Guardian suggested that there should be a broadband tax to pay for newspaper journalism, because some newspapers (i.e. The Guardian) are losing money since they switched to a “give everything away for free” business plan. Now, I don’t want to tell them their jobs, but maybe more people would pay for newspapers if they had any trust at all in what they reported?
Conversely, if you read something that would sound unbelievable, but it’s from a source you normally trust — check it out anyway before getting outraged.
Linkblogging for 25/09/12
Sorry for the relative lack of updates for the last week — my wife’s been away at conference (and before that for work), which means I’m more distracted than normal. I’m also working on two writing projects I can’t talk about yet, which are taking up some of my brain power. I’ll have a Who post up tomorrow or Thursday, and a review of the Beach Boys gig I’m going to on Friday up either Saturday or Sunday — and hopefully a review of the Ray Davies gig I’m going to on Monday up soon after that — but I’ve spent the last little while distracted by social media, and will probably take a while longer to get back up to my normal writing speed.
Meanwhile, here are some links:
With the Beach Boys visiting the UK, Radio 2 has had a Beach Boys week. For the next few days, you can listen to an hour-long concert, the long documentary series the Beach Boys Story, and a new documentary presented by Harry Shearer, all here.
Zoe O’Connell and Tin Tower on evil MP Tom “Dickhead” Harris getting someone evicted.
And in the wake of the Guardian calling for a broadband tax to keep newspapers afloat, Heresy Corner looks at alternative ways of paying for news.
Linkblogging For 22/09/12
I have lots of important things to do at the moment, like fixing the formatting on the Kinks ebook so it can be published, writing my novel, and writing music for a project I’m doing with plok. However, I’ve decided instead to spend the weekend watching old William Hartnell Doctor Who stories. So have some links while I do that:
Leonard Pierce on Romney and bosses
Stuart Douglas on his rewatch of all the Hartnell stories
Pat Mills on the creation of Judge Dredd
A geological timescale for creationists
And Mike Taylor tells how he came to buy the DVD of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. Worth reading, and not just for the line “there is a common thread of insight and wit that leads through [C.S.] Lewis, [Andrew] Rilstone, Hickey and [James] Ward to Lee”.
A thing what I did
A little streaming music show I put together, because I’ve got insomnia. If the embed doesn’t work, tough — I’m tired enough to sleep now.
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