The Weekly Hat – Number Twenty-Three
Weekly Hat time! It wasn’t too difficult to write this week, happily. Stuff must have been easy. Plus I’ve had the whole week off, so I’ve been fairly calm and work has come easy.
Just for the record, in case a big news story breaks and I appear to have ignored it, this is being written on Saturday morning, as I’m back in Essex for this evening and most of Sunday. Hopefully the auto-post will serve me as well as it did on my holiday. Oh, and if you want more writings by me, I have a new blog thing which is called Feeding The Black Dog. Just one more quick plug for anyone who doesn’t read the Behatted newsposts.
But the Weekly Hat will continue, because I like it. This week…
- The Friendly Prime Minister: The PM tries to show his human face, just in time for the election.
- Atrocity Live: Has Twitter changed the reporting of horrible things? Starting with Fort Hood, a brief exploration.
- Media And Stuff: New Spooks! New Robbie Williams! New Weezer! (Well, some of the new Weezer…)
- Behatted Photo Of The Week: The future King Of The World gets double-Behatted.
The Friendly Prime Minister
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed an increasing amount of ‘puff’ pieces regarding Gordon Brown, the chap who is Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. You know the sort of thing. Gordon has a chat with a reporter and tells us about something friendly and relatable, rather all the tedious politics stuff he usually talks about.
He may even smile, as he lets us know about his preferences in the world of X-Factor or biscuits. When a raft of vaguely similar pieces leap into the national press, one has to suspect that this may not be a coincidence, but rather, there might be some PR Skullduggery at work.
To be more precise, the PR Skullduggers might have noticed that there is an election coming in the next few months and currently their candidate is losing a Clash Of The Personalities with David Cameron. You can’t really blame them for launching into a charm offensive, to be honest. I’d be worried too if I were in that situation.
As mentioned before, I do feel somewhat sorry for Gordon Brown. He tried to be a serious man for serious times, only to find that people were pretty much sick of his party and didn’t care. Unless he’d turned out to be an Obama-style zeitgeist cult, he was doomed from the start. Because the Conservatives seem to be playing the “serious party for serious times” just as much, only they’re probably going to win.
Much like the US was sick of the Republicans after eight glorious years of Bush, we appear to be rejecting the Labour Party more or less out of hand due to the ridiculously lengthy period of Blair. It’s rather unfortunate that we’re going from the left-wing party to the right-wing one, instead of the other way round as the Americans did. (Simply because that would be my personal preference.)
However, American parties still broadly resemble the wing they’re meant to endorse, whereas the two big UK parties occupy opposite sides of the centre. Hence why when a more polarised party breaks from the pack, they can pick up a fair few votes from people who are pissed off with the outright dullness of Labour and the Tories.
So, as the country slips away from him merrily, will humanising Mr Brown be the saving of him?I can’t imagine it will be enough, but some major Labour victory or painful Tory defeat could still help. Besides, I imagine that as the election draws closer, we’ll get similar pieces about the X-Factor preferences of David Cameron.
(And, to get my own X-Factor thoughts out while I’m here, I am 100% behind the twins to win, because hopefully it will go a short way towards exposing X-Factor as a popularity contest with no musical merit and speed it towards going the way of Big Brother.)
Meanwhile, Tony Blair is apparently close to becoming President Of Europe. I don’t really have a great deal against the man, but even I find that unsettling. Can’t he just retire? Is world domination really that appealing?
Atrocity Live
It’s been a while since someone last went nuts in the US and shot up their school. (Actually, wasn’t the last one in Germany?) But this week, a soldier in a Texas army base obliged. Thirteen people died in what was unquestionably a massive tragedy.
Of course, the military nature of the violence does put paid to the usual kvetching about gun control. It’s easy to get on our horses about how a teenager got hold of a weapon, but since the shooter was a soldier on this occasion, we can probably take a guess.
Anyway, this is a pretty glib blog, so let’s cut the part where I make questionable jokes about an atrocity and get to something more on my level. Shortly after the shooting had ceased, it was pointed out on Twitter by journalist Paul Carr that there appeared to be someone tweeting from inside Fort Hood.
I would link to the offending account, but it has since been deleted. If the person doing the tweeting worked there, I imagine there has been some army-style discipline imparted. This slightly interested me, as surely Twitter brings a new perspective to these kind of catastrophes. If Twitter had been widespread when 9/11 happened, it would have been one of the most horrifying and saddening things possible. Like reading a hundred simultaneous suicide notes.
The Twitter account in question wasn’t QUITE that bad, but did seem to declare that the carnage continued long after everyone else said it had stopped. Also, a picture from “inside the military hospital” and a lovely description of someone being shot in the balls. If it had been fictional, there would have been some fairly easy comedy there.
Sadly, it wasn’t. We’re getting increasing amounts of citizen journalism as Twitter rises and rises, and it’s a valuable source of information sometimes. On the other hand, random screechers on Twitter aren’t governed by the rules that do exist to stop incitement of hysteria. I guess it only really comes into its own when offering a unique perspective on something that hasn’t already been extremely widely reported.
Media and stuff
- This week, the biggest media story ever surely has to be the return of Spooks, the BBC’s ridiculously long running spy drama, for the beginning of its eighth series. The show has yo-yoed in quality over the years, but the last couple of years have been pretty good, so I was optimistic for a good return. And so far, so decent. The cliffhanger from last year was resolved, in a typically contrary manner, and all the characters are still functioning. It’s especially nice to see Richard Armitage and the excellent Hermione Norris both keeping on as the leads. And there’s a returning character from a while back too.
Yes, it’s all very serious-yet-silly, but if you like that sort of thing, this is fun. There isn’t much in the way of adult-aimed action-escapism in the UK, so I think this is worth clinging on to. Hopefully it’ll be another good, polished year. And, it being Spooks, surely at least one character will meet a messy end. - Meanwhile, Robbie Williams releases a new album, cleverly called ‘Reality Killed The Video Star’. They’re streaming it for free on Spotify, so I can do a nice review which will be published on the day before release, thus giving the illusion of proper journalism. After a couple of not-so-successful albums, Master Williams goes pop once more with some songs that veer towards the territory of some of his old hits, with a touch less bombast and more introspection in places. He’s still far too fond of self-referential lyrics and the lyrics still often stop slightly short of making sense, but it has good pop moments. Current single ‘Bodies’ is a bit of a highlight, but it’s mostly catchy, occasionally stupid. There’s not that much which screams ‘Instant Pop Hit’, I admit, which may harm him in the market he’s going for, but it’s a fun listen nonetheless.
- Now, pissing any newly-earned journalistic credibility up the wall, I also listened to the first half of the new Weezer album, ‘Raditude’. I would have gone through the entire thing, but that wasn’t available for free Spotify users. I’m pleased to report it was pretty good. Certainly a lot better than most reviews would have you believe. No, it isn’t mature or angsty music, but it’s fun, catchy and gives me a lift to listen to. Or at least, the first half is. A review of the remainder may follow in a later week.
- Quick note to say that I watched a whole Never Mind The Buzzcocks for the first time in a while, and it was good fun. Here is the one I saw. Check it.
Behatted Photo Of The Week
To be honest, luck wasn’t with me when trying to find someone to Behat this week. I briefly tried Gordon Brown, only to remember I did him in the very first Weekly Hat, then tried a couple of Spooks actors only to fail to locate any good pictures I could use. But, eventually I settled on Tony Blair (human), with Len (hat). I imagine this is much the same process by which he might become European President.
Tiny Weeny Print: This photo taken from WorldEconomicForum on Flickr. Both it and the above governed by this Creative Commons Licence.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:22 am
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