So here I am just having come home from work expecting to spend a long night working on my pressing assignment when I am sidetracked conveniently by this news of Jacko dying…
…I mean WTF! Jacko does not just DIE! He’s a staple of existence…he’s just there and always has been and we always expect he always will.

I find amusement in the way the the likes of the BBC report these things, with endless loops of footage just watching NOTHING happen.
Then, as the news broke and is confirmed, they have already managed to mash together a short obituary film documenting his life in 5 mins, before getting (the equally weird) friend Uri Geller to just say some stuff.

When I see something like this, such unexpected events, I alarm bells of conspiracy abound! I’m just waiting to see what the internet commuity have to say about the possibility of this being a blatent conspiracy. It adds up…he’s ALWAYS in the spotlight for some ridiculous claim or another (which never essentially actually effects anyone else) and this exit for Jacko is ideal and would probably solve his PR problems; although if he was going to fake his own death, perhaps he should have done it at the peak of his career in the early 90s, in his prime – but as ever, in sensationalised circumstances which is in fact quite ordinary. It just seems odd that only now has he booked many many tour dates for London…did he ever really have the intention of completing that tour?

He will probably join the ranks of Elvis Presley and Tupac in their immortality. Yes, they’re dead, but they stay alive in part because some will always regard their death as a conspiracy. The same will soon happen with Michael Jackson once bloggers start speculating.

Such a legendary artist woudn’t ‘just die’ like this without a huge following of conspiracy theorists….I think I may be one of them. It’s just you don’t expect someone so extraordinary to die in such an ordinary way.

I purchased a frozen pizza recetly…for £1! A San Marco margherita which, upon cooking, noticed that one of the ingredients caught my attention. The front of the box said “Analogue Cheese” – even pizzas don’t have proper cheese on nowadays! Before I commited to actually eating this mystery substance, I had to find out what this stuff was. It seems that it’s a kind of artificial cheese made from vegetable fat and milk ‘by-product’ which apparently has functional advantages over the genuine article as well as some types of analogue being suitable for vegans and vegetarians. No doubt it’s cheaper too, suggesting why it was only a quid.
It wasn’t too nice as a result! It seems that Sainsbury’s and Asda are selling these too, en masse on the isle ends, and now I know why it’s for such a low price. EU food labelling requirements do actually dictate that “cheese analogue” be clearly stated, which means it’s my fault I guess.
It’s the first time I’ve come across such fake cheese and it’s the last time I buy a cheap pizza from an unknown brand. When you buy a pizza, check the ingredients to make sure it’s actually got cheese on it.

Digital cheese anyone?

Is it just me, but should Sir Alan take a look at himself before having a pop at others’ shortcomings (granted it makes for good telly and they’re all incompetent tits who need shouting at anyway!) — certainly as far as his grammatical ability is concerned anyway.
What I’m talking about — as Sam Wollaston also lampooned in last week’s Guardian — is Sir Alan’s apparent lack of command of the English Language. In the intro segment of each show we hear Sir Alan say “Second prize…don’t exist” which is blatent poor grammar from our favourite multi-millionaire; mixing up singular and plural. But it doesn’t stop there with this grammatical misdemeanour — in episode two he incorrectly refers to a CV as a Résumé, but then arduously mispronounces it with the stress on the sum syllable — rèSUMè. If you insist on using the American term, at least say it correctly!
Further embracement comes in episode 3 when he gives the teams a challenge to design fitness equipment, whereupon he instructs “the most amount of orders, wins”. Surely that’s not right, Sir Alan — ‘amount’ is a quantified given; it cannot be ‘most amount’. I think what he meant was ‘most orders’ or ‘largest amount’ at a push.
Considering Sir Alan ‘don’t talk’ much talking during the show, he commits a grammatical faux pas every time he opens his mouth.
Later on in the boardroom segment, when he is reprimanding the teams, he yet again instructs them to go away and discuss ‘amongst yourself’. Now, I can understand that he may have been trying to refer to the group as a single entity, but I hardly feel that appropriate given the context. FAIL.
My gripes with the show extend to the way in which it’s narrated. In episode 3, the teams are creating the POS (point of sale) material for their products, during which the narrator refers to them as ‘marketing posters’. That is so factually and technically incorrect it’s visible from space — that’s a pretty detailed poster they must have! You see, this is just another example of the average TV-viewing public considering ‘Promotion’ to be the same as ‘Marketing’. The more informed among us know this couldn’t be further from the truth, and that the posters in question were simply single items of Promotion, only a fraction of overall efforts; I’m not doing a Masters degree in posters…or promotion for that matter.
In Sir Alan’s own words “Expressing yourself amongst people is part of business”, so why can’t he get it right? As we know he left school at 16, but you’d have thought in order to become as successful as he is, he’d need to have developed competent grasp of authoritative discourse and the English Language.

Gimme a job Al’ me’ ol’ mate.

I’m always up for an argument with regard to defending the BBC – possibly the greatest public service of the 20th centrury. I was invited to join an anti-TV Licence group on Facebook by someone who is clearly miguided and thinks everyone should be as hysterical as them. I was recently annoyed with the iPlayer’s content in a recent post, but that’s just tough love for the BBC.
I decided to educate the other group members of their idiocy:

“You people really seem to be very misguided and hysterical. You’ve clearly been reading mornic news publications.
Your premise appears to be that if you don’t use the BBC, why should you pay? That’s ridiculous, considering that there are upwards of 400,000 members of this group – and not one of them uses the BBC? Rubbish!

I bet all of them rely (even enjoy?) the services of the BBC on a daily basis; I know I do and I think the TV License is one of the last remaining bargains ever!

Just think of all the content the BBC deliver, essentially for a very low price! All the radio stations covering all possible topics and music genres, new product development and innovation (iPlayer), their huge information repository that is their web site, the TV stations (with some gems such as David Attenborough, Top Gear, iconic comedy shows, News 24 etc), podcasts and lots more I’ve left out.
You’re all just being hysterical like the rest of the Daily Mail-reading middle England.
Appreciate what the BBC has done for broadcasting and the media reputation of this country and for your life!
The BBC are even shortly going to be pioneering High Def on-demand streaming with the iPlayer – and I bet most of the 400,000 members will be looking at that, while still moaning about the low price charged for it.
Get it into perspective!!”

Needless to say my posting was met with passionate opposition from them with stories of the BBC’s bullish, draconican fee collection methods, but it was worth a shout to show them the voice of reason.