Spot the dog's balls
The Daily Mirror is to be bring back the "Spot the Ball" competition, popular with readers in the years leading up to 2000. But then the competition was dropped.
The variation on this theme that I enjoyed used to the 'Spot the Sheepdog' as featured in The Westmoreland Gazette.

Does the love of language move with the times?
Prof David Crystal of the University of Wales, Bangor tells us in today's Daily Telegraph that the use of language on the internet is a threat to traditional spelling.

The good professor claims that within a few decades the accepted way of spelling words will disappear to be replaced by shortened and, in some cases, more phonetic versions. "Tomorrow" will become "2moro"; "thanks" will be abbreviated to "thx"; and even "OK" looks set to be shortened to just "K".

But is this such a bad thing? Language is a living thing. It evolves over time. And while traditionalists will reject to the new spellings, they should consider how words we use today have also evolved. We speak of "phone" when we mean "telephone"; we use "among" instead of "amongst"; and in just a decade or two "facimile" has morphed into "fax". These are just three examples of words that have changed over the past few years.

Go back and read an 18th or 19th century novel and you will find even more "extinct" words. So while Prof Crystal has a valid point, one can't help feeling he is a bit like King Canute sitting on the seashore vainly hoping to turn back the tide.

Baby please don't go...or even come: Van Morrison's make-believe child
Van Morrison became a father again at 64…but then hours later he didn’t. Someone had hacked into Morrison’s website and posted an untrue announcement of the birth of a child to Morrison and someone said to be his manager, Gigi Lee. The child was reported as being named George Ivan Morrison III. The untrue story was carried by many media outlets - including the BBC.

The truth was, according to Morrison, that no such child had been born and that he had never heard of Gigi Lee.

What this all goes to show that even the BBC sometimes falls short of responsible journalistic practice. All stories should be verified before being reported. The source of the story is important as it goes to the credibility of the story. It is understandable then that the website http://www.vanmorrison.com should be taken as a reputable source for news of the Irish singer.

But as hacking and forging have become more sophisticated, the checking of news stories must become more thorough.

Apart from misleading the reader, viewer or listener, there is also the matter of defamation. Both Van Morrison and his wife Michelle (nee Rocca) probably have a case for libel. He because the story implies he was unfaithful to his wife; she because it implies her marriage may be over.

It seems that because the source of this story was Morrison’s website, it was believed. The thought the site have been hacked didn’t seem to occur to anyone.

Not checking stories is far too commonplace in today’s journalism. I recall I once wrote a story for a newsletter aimed at about 1,000 tenants of an apartment complex in London stating that Prince William and girlfriend Kate Middleton were moving in.

My April Fool’s joke – for that is what it was – appeared in newspapers and websites all over the world within days and can still be found on the internet today.

Get it right: verify everything.

My arse or ours
Listening to RTE Radio over the past ten days, I grew increasingly annoyed at the lack of pronunciation house style.

The letter that seems to divide Irish broadcasters is "R". Some pronounce it to sound like "or" and others like "are". Surely, a national broadcaster such as RTE has a standard style for pronunciation. It doesn't matter which version they use but if they had any attention to detail they would choose one and impose it on all who broadcast on its airwaves.

But then sub-editing, house style and proof-reading are not qualities Irish journalists put that much store by. It seems that committing their own opinions to print is more important than the news and proper presentation.

The Irish Times, once regarded by many as the finest newspaper in Europe, showed great sloppiness when it ran a promotion for its Christmas TV and radio guide by stating that it would be available in 24 December. The promo was to alert readers not to miss the supplement in the paper published on that date. What day did I read this inside the paper? Er, 24 December. Oops!

A day without newspapers
Boxing Day. St Stephen's Day. The day after Christmas. Call it what you will. I call it the day we get newspapers back after missing them for a day. Hurrah!

Spare £135 for a cuppa tea, mate

Paul McCartney once made me a cup of tea. He didn't get a minion to make it. He made it himself. In his studio in East Sussex, he boiled the kettle, dropped in the tea-bag and offered me milk and sugar. He also offered me a humous butty.

At first I was overawed but then I thought: "And well he might, after the all the money I've spent over the years on his music."

Last week, I did it again. No, not have a cuppa with Macca. I spent more money on his music. I shelled out a few pence short of £135 on the box set of the Beatles' remastered CDs.



The thing is this is the fourth time I've bought the Beatles' canon. When a teenager I couldn't afford to buy the LPs (as they then were) new so I would pay for second-hand copies from schoolfriends and others.

When I started work, I could afford to replace the well-worn second-hand copies with a brand new set of the same vinyl LPs.

In 1987, there was another chance to buy the same catalogue all over again when the Fab Four released all their UK albums on CD. (It wasn't long after this purchase that Paul made me my cup of tea.)

Now I've bought the whole lot again. Digitally remastered (as the 1987 re-issues were) the music sounds great as you'd expect. The 2009 remasters are better than those of 22 ears ago. The technology has moved on.

There is nothing new on these CDs. There are a few things that you hear better and the whole collection has more body and a more rounded sound. Some instruments come more to the forefront as the quality is improved. Listen carefully to all the CDs and you'll hear stuff that was always there but hardly audible because of the technology of the day. Great stuff.

Now what about another cup of tea, Sir Paul.

Magazines and their cover versions

Magazines and their cover versions

Well, September is upon us. I've spent most of the summer looking at magazines and talking to people in the industry. Not much of a holiday, I hear you cry. That's the height of it, I'm afraid.

I am currently engaged in writing a book variously entitled "Magazines" (see link to Amazon on the right-hand side of this blog) or Magazines - A Guide to Critical Practice. (There is a price in pounds sterling as well.) I'm not happy about either name but until I've finished writing the book, I don't suppose there is much point in making a fuss about it.

In my researches I have been looking at a wide variety of covers. But imagine my surprise when I discovered two women's magazines had virtually the same cover. Okay, I am being ironic when I mention "my surprise". But when both magazines come from the same publisher and have very similiar names, you can't help but take notice.

Have a look at these two covers from Woman and Woman's Own



It's like one of those 'Spot the Difference' quizzes in Weekend magazine. Ah, there's a name to remember.