somewhere in Nigella Lawson's straining brassiere

A review of Vampire Diaries (ITV2), based on a response originally posted to a friend's enquiry about said show's merits.

Apparently, vampires and related occult creations are full of the sexy.  We can determine this from the utter truck loads of it on the silver screen, your local Waterstone's and ancillary channels of terrestrial broadcasters' television listings.  The reasons for this are hard to pin down, but it is fair to assume it conditioning for the imminent arrival of Beelzebub.  Vote for that, Middle America.

So, on to Vampire Diaries.  From the little I was forced to watch the other day after I misplaced the remote during Celebrity Juice, and frantically threw around furniture to discover its location before my mind decided to labotomise itself in order to avoid further damage, I can conclude that it is a mixture of True Blood and The OC.  You probably may swap mentions of The OC with mentions of Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls or Hollyoaks - in short, we're talking most of E4's scheduling. For those not in the know about these inexplicably popular televisual experiences, I'll help by introducing an abridged description of each:

• True Blood is based on a popular series of novels and well acted, well written and for the most part entertaining - just ignore all the hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo stuff and you'll get along with it fine, I did and I hate this kind of rubbish normally.

• The OC [Gilmore Girls, Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill..] is an American teen drama set in a warped reality bubble surrounding a script writer's internal frustration that he is horrifically ugly, unpopular and still lives with his mum; I say all this by assumption: I have never had the misfortune to accidentally watch the actual show, just trailers for it when I have had no V+ gold banked while watching something else on Channel 4.

So the ingredients are there for a deliciously well prepared, wholesome dumpling perfectly spiced by sexually liberated naked nymphettes living somewhere in Nigella Lawson's straining brassiere. Unfortunately, some snotty YTS kid made the stew it floats in; consisting of foetid road kill chunks, a ladle full of Sweet and Low sweetners, pooh flakes derived from a recent toilet visit and a dash of jizz produced when looking at the aforementioned sexually liberated naked nymphettes preparing dumplings.

Basically, you will find eye candy to perve over (but not enough nudity to really titilate), there's plenty of pointless camera spaffery to prove they're making an arty, edgy, teen-centric drama and a soundtrack of a whiney, nauseating middle of the road din. I didn't watch it long, but enough to ascertain that it probably has plot lines that are smugly surprising, omnipresent cliff hangers (OMG will they, won't they?!?!?) and the regular nonsensical twist.  All this and if anything appears impossible they have the comfort blanket that while The OC is based in a bubble of hyper-reality floating in a normal reality world, Vampire Diaries is that same bubble of hyper-reality surrounded by an atmosphere of complete bollocks.

{Originally posted to my facespace notes}

missing a fridge is a bit weird

A discussion of sentimentality

A strange thing happened today; I learned of the demise of a piece of equipment and it made me sad.  Me, a born cynic who doesn't really sign-up to the realms of sentimental attachment to inanimate objects.

Until it happened, I outwardly displayed I thought it wrong, while secretly jealous of those who did.  I suppose if you think of the secretly held shame of a Tory politician feels when reading the coroner's report into an erotic asphyxiation death, you're near the mark of my feelings this morning.  My aloof logical side told me I want to show nothing, but deep down I knew I was conflicted and wanted to mourn the loss of a Philips filter coffee machine.  I suppose I need to explain to myself and therefore others why such an attachment to a small electrical item exists.

It was nearly seven years ago, at a tender age of 21 that I stepped up the stairs to my first real job - at the offices of Cinemas-online.co.uk.  With bright eyes and a satchel-full of naivety I was introduced by Andrew and Colin onto the programming team by drinking black, strong, caffeine-rich filtered goodness that beforehand I wouldn't have touched.  However, mug after mug guzzled kept me sharp in order to get code finished before deadline.  I remember the regular trips to the supermarket buying the raw materials for such a high level of consumption; indeed I'm still benefiting from those Nectar points now, after finding my card in an old box.  There was the time someone purchased French-blend by mistake - the nasty horrible stuff made us go dry for a day, until productivity dropped to a point where we decided to nip out to buy some real stuff.

That little little device was a wonderful thing.  Perhaps I am too quick to dismiss sentimentality, or perhaps my sentimentality is more worthy than that of others.  I mean missing a fridge is a bit weird, as is an old pen.  However, for some reason that Philips Comfort Plus filter machine caught me this morning.

{Originally posted to my facespace notes}

flip-mental and go happy-stabbing

 A post regarding British media

I've just been asked the following question by someone via my FaceSpace Feed:

who here thinks the BBC is biased?

My reply would almost certainly be split two ways: the emotional response, and that of the cynical response.

My emotional reponse is that my BBC can't be wrong.  I own it and I don't ask for bias and that's why I love it so.  It's a poor reason, it's a raw reason and I'll leave my love of the BBC to one side so that we can look at bias as a concept.

The cynical response is that anyone or anything purported to be unbiased is essentially wrong; nothing with a logical grasp on reality can be wholly unbiased, imagining an unbiased world would see Hitler being "just some guy, you know?".  We need bias, it helps us direct our thoughts and compare viewpoints.  Something that I've learned in my first year studying history is that no-one can be assumed unbiased: every person has a specific enlightened interest or some dark involvement to drive them to write what they do.  Perhaps they're a German, perhaps they're Hispanic, perhaps they're male, perhaps they bloody love the colour blue.  We're humans and we all carry a multitude of seemingly miniscule baggage.  We use bias to judge things; judging isn't bad, it is in our nature to protect ourselves by considering an action. Based on prior learning we judge whether that isolated suburban alleyway is filled with danger as we walk home at 3am, or the guy on the train platform dressed in a tracksuit and baseball cap acting all edgy is about to flip-mental and go happy-stabbing everyone.  Of course, this is all very well when we're basing it on our own judgement, but when someone else is the witness we rely on their judgement to tell us how it was.

This is the centre of the horrible side of bias: when it is allowed to replace fact.  The Daily Mail is pretty much the master at this; they play on deep-rooted biases in middle-England's psyche about various things; be it the travelling community, alternative sexualaties, religions or climate change.  All of these biases rely on a lack of knowledge of the true unhindered facts - and being a newspaper, they're expected by the readership to tell them in tasty easy to chew word-pellets what the fuck is going on in the world.  They therefore exploit the lack of true knowledge of the subject in question and rely on the wording to instill worry in the least, or fear mixed with anger if the topic is considered controversial by the Mail.  It is worth noting the Mail's support of fascism in the early part of last century here.   If media like those of News International support a political party, they have a lot of influence; in the UK that's Sky News on TV, The Sun, The News of The World, The Times and now through part-ownership, ITV.  So Mr. Murdoch has a massive opportunity with the UK population and replace fact with his beliefs, opinions and bias.

Arguably, statistics are cold, clear and concise - they aren't flouncy words with double-meanings or ambiguity to carry us along - but the interpretation of those numbers can lead to bias. As soon as figures are described, two things to look for: the figures claimed and the organisation publishing them.  If the public support for something is 51%, we might see reports of "Most People Support X" however, clearly, there's only a marginal difference in opinion.  Yes it's true, most people do support X, but it is at best misleading.  That's bias right there.  It happens all the time and it's one reason I love reading the small print on the bottom of product advertising that features statistics for this reason.  It's another tool in the box for reporting bias, than fact if used incorrectly.  Moreover, if a research company has been employed, who employed them?

So, this in mind, is the BBC biased?  On the whole, I feel it isn't.  It is certainly an organisation constantly accused of it by other media outlets, as they want a finger in the BBC's pie.  They dislike that the BBC is government funded; they say it is unfair, monopolistic and hurts their trade.  However, which media company wouldn't want to be in the BBC's shoes and not having to worry about subscribers?  The BBC covers all walks of life on its news output and I've watched the BBC's reporting of the major stories at 1pm today, reporting what is happening, not giving opinion or casting any judgement.

I'd suggest that one reason the BBC gives some an impression of bias is that it covers, or gives airtime to alternative positions or minority interest stories.  Like offering a smörgåsbord of news and programming, I suppose, and if you don't think something is terribly worthy of airtime, you may consider it being biased towards it.  The BBC doesn't promote anything, so due to other broadcasters, you may feel that the BBC is promoting the stories it broadcasts.  Failing these reasons, I fear the only reason you'd see the BBC as biased is that you disagree with facts.

Reporting the truth isn't biased.

{Originally posted to my facespace notes}