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Some days you just have to love it when the following come together. 1. A wonderful non-story that all local journalists will have filed at some point or another that gets posted up on a local newspaper website. 2. A comments facility. 3. People with a sense of humour. The result: 75 comments on a story on the Westmorland Gazette about a chair being set on fire. This may, quite possibly, be one of the bestest things I’ve found on the internet this week
Pride and Prejudice. But with zombies.
If it’s successful, it could open up a whole series. There are very few classic novels I can think of that wouldn’t be improved by zombies. (HT: Matthew) PS If you’ve not guessed, I’m insanely busy at the moment with a few work projects. Sadly no zombies involved. Normal death-of-media-and-Twitter postings should be resumed next week at some point.
Otherwise known as the lazy blog post of cultural stuff I’ve quite liked in 2008, namely film, TV and music. Film-wise, 2008′s film of the year should, by rights, be The Dark Knight, which was fantastic in every way. But an understated Pinteresque [1] comedy that starred both Colin Farrell and racist dwarves was also equally as good and, as such, I can’t pick between them. In Bruges should have probably been discarded the moment you mentioned Colin Farrell’s name in conjunction with comedy and existentialism. But then it’s just possible writer/director Martin McDonagh saw Farrell’s performance in the sadly underrated and little-seen Intermission and decided he’d be perfect for the restless, foul-mouthed, hyperactive naive first-time hitman Ray. And the film world, it can safely be said, is all the better for this casting decision. In Bruges’ joy lay in the characters and the script, while the plot took a back seat. Watching Farrell and Brendan Gleeson’s mismatched hitmen lay low and bicker in the boring but culturally rich city of Bruges while waiting for orders from their psycopathic boss (Ralph Fiennes) was one of the cinematic highlights of the year. It’s also not often you manage to get a film that has a very soft, sweet centre but such a hilariously profane script that manages to offend pretty much every minority and country, often in just one sentence. On the flipside was Christopher Nolan’s brooding, intense masterpiece. Had this been a cop film, it would be a shoe-in for Oscars. As it is, it may still get one. If Heath Ledger picks up posthumous awards then there’ll always be a suspicion that, well, the academy voted for him because he’s dead. But that takes nothing away from his performance as the Joker, which is thoroughly deserving of every accolade anybody wants to throw at him. While Christian Bale’s Batman takes a back seat, almost out of necessity, Ledger’s Joker steals the show completely to the point you’ll completely forget Jack Nicholson ever hammed it up under the facepaint. Such a majestic graphic novel adaptation has been a long time coming (the first Hellboy probably got closest in the action stakes, with Ghost World leading the way elsewhere) and, with the Dark Knight, Nolan’s raised the bar so high that most other superhero films might as well give up now. Or at least wait a few years. Certainly it puts a lot of pressure on the forthcoming Watchmen film, as if there wasn’t enough already. On the small screen, sports aside, there’s been one show that has stood head and shoulders above the rest. Britain may be a bit behind on getting Dexter, but it’s been worth the wait. Michael C. Hall is perfect as the police blood splatter expert cum serial killer, while the scripts are gripping, tight and very playful indeed. It takes a lot to make you root for a serial killer, even one who only offs bad guys, but Dexter pitches the show exactly right – somewhere between extreme black comedy and taught police thriller. Season 2 has already been on FX but comes to terrestrial (ITV1) in the New Year. I’m halfway through it on DVD and it’s every bit as good as the first. Finally, music wise, the album that’s rarely been off my iPod since I brought it: TV On The Radio’s Dear Science. A mixture of funk, downbeat, noodling experimental electronica and, finally after several albums that promised but never delivered, some tight, killer tunes. A masterpiece from start to finish. Here’s a quick clip of the band performing The Golden Age on Later… [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7ZjpdH4XZM&hl=en&fs=1] [1] I’m not using this word just to show off I know about his stuff now that he’s dead (although I’ve studied a lot of Pinter in the past). Rather that the film really did remind me a lot of the Dumb Waiter.
Last night non-league Blyth Spartans defeated Bournemouth 1-0 with an 89th minute winner from their 18-year-old substitute to set up a tie with Premier League side Blackburn Rovers. It’s that kind of drama-you-couldn’t-make-up that makes me love the FA Cup (even if Exeter got knocked out to Curzon Ashton). It’s the chance for, cliched as it is, the postmen, the electricians, and the plumbers, the semi-professionals, to get their moment of glory. And Blyth have pedigree, having reached the 5th round of the FA Cup back in 1978, and coming close to become the only non-league team to ever make it to the quarter-finals. You can read my Soccerlens piece on it here. Also, Droyslden and Chesterfield are doing their best to revive the spirit of endless replays (them from the days before penalty shoot outs). Having seen their original match abandoned due to fog, the teams then drew two-all in a bizarre game that saw Chesterfield allow their non-league opponents to equalise after Jack Lester scored a controversial goal. Then, last night, the floodlights failed at Droylsden [1] with the Spireites leading 2-0, so another replay is required. Add Histon knocking out Leeds in the last round, and Barrow facing Middlesborough in the third round, and it’s clear just why the FA Cup is one of the greatest competitions in the world. My favourite cup final is the 1990 three-all draw between Manchester United and Crystal Palace. Not because I have any great love for either of these teams, but because it was a pulsating affair that had you on the edge of your seats. United went on to win the replay 1-0, with a rare goal from defender Lee Martin. And no matter what people may have thought about last season’s cup final, it was great to see Portsmouth and Cardiff battle it out rather than any of the usual suspects. It’s why I can’t wait for January 3rd. [1] There’s a lot of this kind of thing around at this time I year. I was at Dagenham on Saturday when the floodlights failed at half time. Frustrating, yes, as it was a good game of football. But given that Exeter were losing 1-0, it was absolutely freezing cold, there was driving rain, and the away end is uncovered, you’ll understand why I wasn’t horrendously upset to have to leave early.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGqX-tkDXEk] For a bunch of aging comedians, the Monty Python crew have always been a bit ahead of many of their younger contemporaries when it comes to the internet. Now they’ve gone where many other TV shows would fear to go – uploading their content for free onto YouTube. As the Guardian reports, they’ve used the site’s Video ID system to identify their material that’s been uploaded (without their permission), replacing it with better quality footage on their own YouTube channel and attaching adverts to the clips urging watchers to buy their DVDs. That immediately appears to have paid off:
As a fan, it’s a great idea – high quality clips for free, while there’s no better way to get you in the frame of mind to buy some classic Python. The quality of the clips is definitely a key hook – why trawl through poor-quality stuff when you’ve got the official stuff in all its glory? Would this approach work for other shows? Well, the Python team are in a pretty privileged position as they’ve got an established brand and a very large fanbase – not to mention (I’d imagine) hundreds of people searching for clips on YouTube every day. Whether it’d work for a smaller show trying to make a name for itself or a lengthy drama is an interesting one – but it certainly couldn’t hurt to try. YouTube is a massive player in online video, so it makes sense to try and utilise it – and if the content’s officially sanctioned, it does give the show’s owner some degree of control. And, as the Python team have already shown, it can have a positive effect on sales. It’s all part of the more social experience that viewers come to expect online today, and shows that YouTube is hear to stay and should be considered in any promotional strategy. Quite how you then drive traffic from there to your own website, and then ensure you make money from it, is another question entirely. But if you’re not engaging in some way with these sites, there’s always a risk of becoming a dead parrot.
Some ideas are so simple you wonder why nobody’s thought of them before. Google’s flu trends is one of these. Some bods at Google noticed that by cross referencing searching for flu symptoms they could predict outbreaks by monitoring search patterns:
Google Trends is a very useful and powerful tool and this shows how the company can work beyond just mere search. Their Flu Trends is one of those little snippets that makes you excited about the web all over again – and shows that it’s more than just a bunch of geeks sitting around talking about social media (guilty as charged). With this kind of data, there’s no end to what else they could achieve, not least for our health.
If you’re categorising Twitter users by their professions, chances are PR and journalism would come out quite high in the list (probably after social media or technology people). Chances are, though, that quite a few useful would-be contacts on both sides don’t even know that a useful PR or journalist is lurking on the microblogging site. A bit like the hopeless romantic’s belief that there’s a perfect partner out there for everybody, just not as sickly. But one of the great things about social media is that solutions can quickly be created and then expanded on, and Stephen Davies of the excellent PRBlogger.com blog has done just that by putting together a list of UK journalists on Twitter. It’s simple, effective and very useful indeed and he should, in the next couple of days, be producing a similar list but for UK PR People. Hopefully both will soon be expanded into a wiki. Twitter’s a great tool for enhancing communication, especially because it’s so instantaneous. Send a quick Twitter message to me, and chances are I’ll get back to you reasonably quickly – and it certainly won’t get lost in the email inbox. Plus, there’s a good chance that the journalist/PR will be Tweeting on what they’re currently working on or looking to work on, making it easier to target more effectively. And if somebody becomes a pain, just unfollow and block them. Simple. If you’re a UK journalist or PR bod and on Twitter, do read as Steve’s lists could be invaluable. UPDATE: And, as Steve promised, here’s his (ever growing) list of UK PR people on Twitter. Hopefully he’ll follow through with his idea to expand these lists into a wiki, as it’d be interesting to know who handles what account for PR people, and which area the journalist works in, especially freelancers. Although, on second thoughts, if you’re a PR person pitching to these journalists you should probably have done your research on them in the first place… |
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