I've had one of those weeks where you rush around non-stop every day and yet don't seem to get anything done. Anyway, every day I've had something I've been itching to stick up on my blog but have resisted the urge so I actually get on with something more constructive.
I thought I'd get em all out in a Friday post. You're reading it.
What the fuck is Steve Bell's daily “If…” cartoon about on the back of The Guardian's G2? Steve Bell is one of my favourite all-time cartoonists. He's sharp, satirical, occasionally vicious and very original. But can this be the same person who does the daily G2 column?
I have held off for weeks, expecting perhaps to *get it*. But I don't. At all. In fact I now look at them in quiet despair. They either don't make sense, or they're not funny, or they're incoherent. After looking at dozens of them I have come to two conclusions:
1. Steve Bell insisted on the cartoon as part of a deal to continue doing the big cartoons in order to provide him with a steady income – and has grown sick of doing it but doesn't want to hand it over to someone else for some reason.
2. Mr Bell should stick with one-image cartoons. He's much better at 'em.
I want to link to some but I can't find em on The Guardian website. I'll scan some at a later date, and you can be equally baffled. I've done a subsequent post with some examples in.
[Thanks to eAi posting below, I've found a link to one. But the links die after a week so I'll scan some in. Here's a good example of what I mean from 16 March (the Berlusconi theme has run all week without being any funnier)]
Speaking of The Guardian, it has finally launched its “Comment is Free” super-blog. Based on the idea of informed comment and blog culture justifying its own site (not a bad idea as an experiment), and following in the footsteps of The Huffington Post, this is The Guardian's big new thing.
Is it any good? I don't know. I've not felt I've had to time to delve in. Too much stuff there. Too much *opinion*. And I'm told a lot of links are broken. It's something worth looking at. I'll come back to it another time.
Crap journalism. There was a series of news articles earlier this week about the bold, daring, innovative, controversial etc etc etc ads that were about to come out warning young men about sexual consent and the risk of being charged for rape if you don't get it.
I've got various views about this, the main connection in which is that this ad campaign is a pretty stupid way of going about it.
But my beef is that in all these initial stories, none of them actually said what the ads were or what was in them. Why? Because no one had seen them yet. Somewhat begging the question: then why are you writing a fucking news story about it?
I've just done a story for The Times on this ongoing Pipex thing. I've spoken to the chairman but he told me, quite fairly, I needed to speak to the CEO and he'd call me back. He hasn't. I also called the CFO, spoke to him and he told me he'd call back as well. He hasn't. Just what the hell is going on there?
My mate Kevin Murphy has entered the world of blogging with a drunken ramble about VeriSign and the dotcom contract shambles. It's good. Read it.
I'm trying, as suggested on this blog, Thingamyblog to deal with my Sexdotcom site/blog issue. The problem now is that I need a Blogger template for it to fit in with my site. And I can't be arsed to have to learn the code for bloody Blogger templates to do it.
Will someone please do a WYSIWYG template maker for chrissake?!
But I did find a great site in the process – Rent A Coder.com. Basically you stick up what the job is you want done and coder check it out over the Net and pitch. You then choose your coder and away you go. What a brilliant idea.
Mind you, I've had 28 people looking at mine so far, and no one has gone for it yet.
There was some other stuff but I've forgotten and I'm starving hungry. Oh yes, the IGF's dates have finally been announced. I did a Reg article about it.
Will have to book my flight at some point.